Bluebolt One (26 page)

He looked round as Wiley strode across from the headman’s verandah. Wiley was certainly a maniac with an all-embracing power-lust. He asked in a cracking voice, “How is this going to benefit you, Wiley? What good will it do—to make a martyr of the girl?”

Wiley shrugged. “Indirectly, a lot of good! She will be no martyr. . . but her death will have a most impressing effect on the African mind. It will be a symbol—the liquidation of the white man and the white woman, the partners in white procreation, you see.” He laughed insultingly, then clapped his hands again and gave an order. The guards pulled at Shaw’s arms and led him towards another thick post set in the ground close to the girl’s. Grouped around it were several large cans of petrol.

Wiley said, “I have arranged a method of communication with the naval station, which I admit is mere eye-wash, as you would say.” He paused, looking hard at Shaw, and put a hand on his shoulder. “You, my dear Commander, will be the torch, the human torch that will tell Julian Hartog to make his transmission, at the moment when Bluebolt is in the right position in the sky. Strictly speaking, this will be entirely unnecessary, for it will in fact be Hartog who will signal me on the small radio which I have in the truck—so that I shall know when to light the petrol!” He grinned. “You may call it a charade if you like... but it is a very important one because, again, it will work wonders on the African mind. Soon after I have made you bum, do you see, the missile will leave the satellite—and this, it seems to me, will appear a very obvious link and as such a sure sign to my people, a sign of my own power.” He laughed again, then added, “After that, the girl will die.”

As the guards took hold of him to tie him to the post, Shaw felt once more that curious emanation of fear. It was very real, and it was rising round him, evidenced by the darting eyes, the quick, nervy movements, the short, sharp breathing, and the fumbling fingers.

Shaw believed that he might yet be able to exploit it. He had been in many a tough spot before now and he never quite gave up hope. He didn’t give up hope this time.

Shaw thought, If only the rains would start again! They
must
come soon, and once they did the whole of this place would be drenched.

That, perhaps, could be what they were afraid of—and yet, there wouldn’t be anything particularly to
fear
in the return of the rains. It might make it impossible to light the human torch, and that would give a chance, but it would hardly negate the whole operation. . . or would it, if the torch-signal failed and by the same token make Hartog pause, and wonder, and lose his nerve?

Meanwhile Wiley seemed to be keyed-up and nervy himself now, looking up at the sky. Shaw heard him muttering to himself about the dawn . . . the lightening sky, possibly, would bring the radio signal from Hartog, the signal for Wiley to put the match to the human torch and perhaps he too was anxious about the rains, though at the moment the dark sky seemed clear enough of cloud.

A loop of rope had been put over the bonds on Shaw’s wrists and the end of it had been dropped over the top of the post. After this a wooden platform with a hole in its centre had been fitted over the head of the post and on this platform some cans of petrol had been placed. Once they were securely in position Wiley had approached with a thin steel rod, sharply pointed at one end. Placing this rod against each can in turn, he tapped with a heavy piece of stone until the point just penetrated. From each of the cans a needle-thin but steady jet came out, flooding over the platform, soaking into its wood, and then dripping down over the edge as the platform itself became saturated.

Shaw could feel the petrol falling on his head and shoulders now. Slight but steady, soaking into his thin clothing, saturating the post, dripping down his legs into the earth around him. Soon there was quite a steady trickle down his neck and the air filled with the fumes, the suffocating stench of the spirit which was now starting to run down towards the girl as well. It only needed a spark, just a stray spark from the blazing, fires, and he would become a brand, the human torch which Wiley wanted. As the petrol soaked into him, Shaw forced his mind away from his own predicament and looked across towards Gillian. Vainly she heaved against the ropes that held her to the heavy post, her abdomen rising and falling as she moved her hips.

All the while the chanting was kept up, the dancers gyrated feverishly in the red glow, the hellish glow from the ring of fires. But minutes later Shaw noticed that the glow was lessening, dimming down. It appeared that the fires were not being replenished; dawn, therefore, must soon be coming over the eastern hills.

Very soon he began to notice something else. Wiley kept speaking to the old headman, the both men seemed decidedly ill at ease as that eastern sky began to lighten and a greenish, rose-shot band of light appeared over the Naka range to pierce the night’s blackness. This unease was spreading to the dancers too, Shaw was certain of that, the fear manifesting itself more and more clearly; their minds appeared not wholly on what they were doing. Soon there were a few flecks of cloud and then, above the other hills to the west, the gathering line of black, the storm clouds which must surely herald the return of the rains.

Wiley strode up and down, his face anxious, still conferring now and again with the headman sitting on the platform outside his hut. The villagers kept up their strange rites, but the life had gone right out of them now. They were jaded, weary, as if the mainspring of their intention had broken at last, the zest vanishing with the sickness left behind by the heady fumes of the native beer, constant beer which had poured out of them in sweat throughout the long, feverish hours of celebration to leave behind the dreg-deposits of poison. By this time Shaw was drenched in the petrol, yet he guessed that the cans above his head must still be at least three-quarters full. Owing to the extreme humidity, evaporation had been slow and he was standing now in a widening pool of the stuff. His face was white and strained, his lips stiff in an effort to retain his retching as he looked over at Wiley.

He wondered what was on Wiley’s mind. The man seemed to have forgotten about Shaw and the girl. Perhaps Bluebolt wasn’t in position yet. . . but then surely Hartog would have been able to give a precise timing?

And then, only a few seconds later, something happened at last.

A man came running fast along the jungle path into the clearing, bursting into the middle of the weary dancers. Panting, gasping, this man ran up to the headman, his eyes rolling in terror. He shouted rapidly, hoarsely, as he went; Shaw, watching, saw the old headman turn a greyish colour and speak to Wiley, and then to the guards flanking him. Two men dragged him to his feet, and he stood there swaying and pointing towards the east, calling out in a thin, scared piping voice as the sounds of revelry died completely away.

Shaw looked in the direction in which the old man was pointing, and soon he saw something which at first he didn’t understand. It was one of the most heart-contracting, terrifying sights of his life. Before his eyes the vegetation was disappearing, vanishing frond by frond and leaf by leaf as a heaving, undulating, red-brown mass rolled and tore and bit, eating its way through the jungle.

And then suddenly, horribly, he understood.

The return of the rains was late. But the ants, the dreaded driver ants of which Anne Hartog had spoken, were not. And they were running ahead of the storm.

Men threw down their weapons, and fled, screaming, fighting, giving way to blind panic at the scourge sent by the gods. Some made for the huts, going to the assistance of the aged and the sick. This was why there had been that prescient undercurrent of fear. The driver ants, the
anomma
, were brutes, one of the terrible phenomena of Africa. Advancing in their thousand-million-strong armies, they could lay bare and clean most of the area through which they passed. Animals, even human beings if left alone and slowed by infirmity or wounds, could be brought down by the agonizing stings and then eaten, millions upon millions of climbing, swarming, scurrying, probing obscene mouths, tiny mouths ripping the living flesh from the bone to leave the skeleton ultimately bare and hygienic. Death would come with frightful pain and revolting, unbelievable horror.

Shaw could only hope the girl hadn’t his knowledge of what was going to happen, didn’t know that when the villagers returned they would find the place bare, and the skeletons of Shaw and the girl hanging on the stakes.

The elders came out, carried on men’s backs or in rough litters.

Apart from those elders it was a case of every man for himself, and the jungle path was the bottleneck. At the entrance men fought with clubs and fists, battering their way through, the weakest to the wall. Many fell, helpless prey to the oncoming hordes, their bloody wounds now a sure attraction for the wicked, tearing mouths of the ant-army. Very suddenly a great wailing cry swept back to the clearing, and the mob seemed to sway and break. A screaming figure, a woman, leapt clear above the others, her body arched in pain and terror. Her hands and arms were flailing, beating, tearing at pointed breasts, and then she fell back. The remainder, or as many as could make it, surged ahead, trampling the broken, bleeding body into the ground. Sobbing cries rang through the heavy air. One of the tall guards turned away from the path, dragging a leg broken by the clubs, shrieking to his gods; his body heaved and jerked, and he seemed not to know where he was going. Then he too fell, moaning and sobbing.

Meanwhile Shaw heard the sound of an engine, saw the truck start forward with Wiley at the wheel behind tight-shut windows, lashing out at stray ants which had come ahead of their fellows into the clearing itself and had entered the vehicle before he could seal it. So Wiley was getting out. The truck accelerated fast, smashing into the crowd still fighting to get through the narrow path leading up to the Jinda-Manalati road. There was a crunch of bone, terrible cries from those who yet lived, and then the truck was gone, flat out along the track, dragging behind it the bleeding bodies of a few Africans who had managed to get a grip as Wiley drove headlong through the middle of the tribe.

Shaw had broken out into a cold, drenching sweat of pure fear now. The fleeing Africans, he thought, must have run smack into an advance guard; the main force would be close behind, coming on in a broad wave, a great wide fighting front that would take in the whole area.

Desperately he had pulled and strained at the ropes on his wrists. He saw Gillian watching him now, her lips moving, the sparkle of tears on her pale cheeks. He tried to give her a grin of encouragement, but his lips just wouldn’t obey. God. . . but these ropes were tight and strong, too strong . . . it was, indeed, the post itself which was beginning to give just a very little now, loosening in the petrol-soaked earth. It moved a little in its hole, and the cans on the platform above his head rocked gently.

He thrust his feet out, pushed back hard with his body-weight on the heavy post.

It moved backward a little way, but not far enough.

Shaw looked all round, seeking something, anything that might help him to get free. Some six feet away he noticed a spear thrown down by one of the fleeing villagers. It was well out of reach, he couldn’t even touch it with his feet and hope to manoeuvre it into position so that his bound hands might get a hold of it. He just had to shake loose that pole. Sweat poured off him, mingling with the petrol, streaming down face and neck, and he went on straining at the post, wrenching backward and forward, backward and forward, gradually widening the hole. The post tilted, and the cans of petrol slid off the platform, flew past his head. One split open on a large stone and a gush of spirit flooded out. The post was decidedly loose now, and he knew that if only he could get his hands round it he could lift it clear; but he was quite unable to get a decent grip.

He put all his strength, all his guts into the job of forcing it over. He leaned back again with every ounce of weight on it, thrusting out savagely with his feet, grunting with the effort, his breath coming short and sharp, chest rising and falling painfully, pushing, pushing. . . and then at last he felt it begin to go, to move away through the softened earth. Suddenly a spurt of that earth flew up and he felt the end of the post hit against his legs. He crashed over backward. The platform at the top hit the ground hard and broke into two sections, falling away. Shaken and jolted, knowing he hadn’t an instant in which to get his breath back yet, Shaw dragged himself along the ground, brought the loop of the rope up the pole until it slipped over the top and he was free.

Free to move, to run, but his hands were still tied behind his back. And he had to free the girl, who was slumped against her post now, shaking like a leaf. He ran over to the abandoned spear which he had spotted, lay down beside it, gripped it, forced it between his wrists, rasped the binding rope across the razor-edge. The flesh tore, he felt the blood running warmly, felt too a horrible pricking sensation in his calves, the jab and thrust of red-hot needles.

Agony. . . .

The ants.

He looked round. Millions of them were swarming closer. . . the main attack had reached the village.

Desperately he shook his legs, and a cloud of the brutes fell away from his trousers. He rolled over and over, dragging the spear with him. Savagely, not caring about the pain, he sawed away. A moment later he was free, and he scrambled up, kicking at the ground, tormented by the burning bites of the ants.

Some half-dozen yards away, the main body of
anomma
was rolling towards him like a tide, the ground, the very earth itself and everything in sight, was moving. It was heaving and undulating before his eyes. Everything had changed colour, was that same curious reddish-brown, a living carpet rolling inexorably across the deserted compound, a wide front of the tiny brutes, all-consuming, a moving, living death scurrying towards him and Gillian, falling over each other, unstemmable. Dimly he was aware of a detached column striking from the right flank and circling inward, and then he heard the girl’s demented scream: