Bluebolt One (27 page)

“Oh, damn you . . .
for God’s sake, hurry. . . .”

He shook his body, tore himself out of a near-stupor, ran over to her. Tearing at the ropes holding the girl, he watched the ugly, creeping death as the ants swarmed closer. They were within a couple of yards now.

But—they came no closer than that.

They came, seemed frustrated, and pressed away again, climbing over their companions who were urging them on from the rear. The wriggling mass surged this way and that, fighting, fratricidal.

As Shaw freed the girl’s limp body and took her in his arms, felt the terrible thudding of her heart, the ants formed a complete ring around them. He looked down at the silent, intent throng in something like wonderment. He felt the emanation of something unutterably evil, something which seemed the more evil because of the absolute silence. . . he could almost see in his fancy the millions of intent, watchful eyes, eyes which saw him and Gillian Ross either as food for ravening stomachs or simply as enemies to be blindly destroyed.

But—there they stayed, in that irregular ring, and all at once he realized why.

It was the petrol.

On their saturated little island they were safe.

For the time being, anyhow. It would be just a question of time; a question of whether the ants would wait patiently until the last traces of the petrol had evaporated from the earth—or whether they would move on to more readily accessible conquests.

And in the meantime they watched him and they waited; they didn’t appear to be in any hurry. From across the compound, from one of the huts, there came a sudden, high scream, the scream of death. That must be some helpless old man or woman who had been overlooked.

Some of the ants, at least, were having luck.

Gillian realized that Shaw was in pain and something had to be done about the ant-stings. She told him to sit down, and she dealt with them as best she could, sucking out the poison. While she was doing this her mind was occupied; afterwards her terror came back and she whispered, as though afraid to draw attention to herself in case those waiting millions should hear, “My God, how long does this go on?”

He had his arms about her. He said, “Try not to think about it. We’re safe so long as the petrol lasts, it seems, and the rains’ll be here again soon. That’ll drive them away. I suppose they must have been on the march when the rains first started, found some dry spot, and came out again during the lull.” He disengaged himself from her gently, and walked across to the cans of petrol, taking care where he was treading. Taking up the cans one by one, he emptied them on to the earth. The petrol flowed towards the ants, swilled into the close-packed ranks, and they scurried back, those who could, across each other’s bodies. Handfuls of them floated on the spirit, struggled unavailingly, and died.

The rest held steady, watchful, waiting.

Shaw breathed hard, the fumes of the petrol filling his lungs. He heard Gillian coughing a little. He looked up anxiously at the sky, at the black clouds piling. The rains were not far off; the ants, of course, would have been on the march ahead of them, their primeval instincts warning them of the cloudburst to come. Already, he fancied, they were restive, the ranks swaying this way and that.

He went back to the girl, put his arms about her again. He said gently, “Look at the sky, Gillian. It’ll be all right very soon now.”

She looked at the sky, then back at him. She asked, “You’re sure of that? You’re not just being reassuring?”

“No, I promise you that. The rains’ll come any time now. I haven’t lost my weather eye entirely!” He grinned down at her. “You’ll be all right. Just trust me from now on. I know I haven’t been much use to you so far—but it won’t be like that again, Gillian.”

She was a little more composed now. She said, “Oh, I trust you all right.”

“Even after London? Tell me, Gillian: was it very bad, with Wiley?”

“It wasn’t—nice.” She caught her breath. “But I’m still in one piece, thanks to you. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it—I mean, as far as I’m concerned. I know you’ve still got your job to do.” Her eyes searched his face and she added, “I—I’d rather not talk about what. . . what they did to me.”

“I understand that,” he said quietly. “But there’s things I’ve got to ask you, Gillian. I’m sorry. So much depends on us now. I dare say you know what Wiley’s planning to do— to blow up a slice of Africa?”

“Yes, he told me. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Bluebolt.”

He said, “You weren’t supposed to! Look, did you find out anything all that time that’ll help me now? Anything you overheard, say? I know he’s got a fifth column inside—but did you get to hear anything else?”

She shook her head. “No. You see, I—was kept locked up—most of the time. Sam Wiley just told me the bare fact of what he was going to do, and that’s all. They didn’t come near me much, except when they wanted... a bit of fun. They talked in their own language, anyhow. Sam Wiley seemed to be the only one who spoke English. I just don’t know anything.” She hesitated, then gave a long, shuddering sigh. “What are we going to do now?”

“First thing is to get away from here! And we’ll have to do it on foot, too . . . we’ve got to make it to the base before Hartog goes into action. I believe it isn’t far from here—”

He broke off, looked down anxiously at the girl as she gave a small, dry sob. He said, “Try not to think about things. It’s all my worry now.”

She was beginning to cry again. On a deep exhalation of breath she said, “God. . . all those eyes! Watching us. Just watching us.”

The ants, as the long minutes dragged past, seemed to know that something was in the air. The ranks were growing more and more restless. It was as though they were debating whether or not to turn and run before the gathering storm. Lanes opened through the mass, thin little lines of scouts and messengers hurried along to the rear, came back again. In better circumstances it would have been fascinating to watch.

And then, a little before the first crackle of lightning slashed across the lowering sky, in a zigzag of threatening yellow light, the waiting, watching millions began to press backward, thinning out fast to the rear in orderly but useless retreat. Greed had made them leave it a little too long. Once again the surrounding earth began to move, to undulate, as the reddish-brown colouring flowed away like a flood. Seconds later the roar of thunder crashed out to the west, a rolling din accompanied by more lightning, and then another crash as thunder broke almost overhead. There was a gathering whistle of wind, and then Shaw felt the first heavy drops of the tropic downpour to come. With the thunder the oppressive, breathless heat seemed to ease and the air at once grew several degrees cooler, almost striking chill.

And then the rains made up for lost time.

Within seconds the visibility was down to a matter of feet. Shaw, in his all-too-brief years at sea, had been in the cold Atlantic storms, and he had seen the African rains over Freetown, sheeting down and lashing at the waters of the bay to send them into a million holes like a gigantic sponge. Recently he had seen the start of the wet season here in Nogolia itself. But in all his experience he had never seen anything to equal this. It was a vertical, solid curtain of water, slashing water which was bringing up the very earth in liquid mud so that the whole surface of the clearing appeared to lift bodily as the rain bounced. In those first few minutes the whole village was inches deep, as though the heavens had kept back their deluge until this day, while the rushing water sought its outlet through the cleared track to the road. That water was filled with the bodies of the ants, caught as they scurried away, and it washed them over the huddled corpses at the entrance to the track, the corpses which they had begun to lay bare to the bone before they were interrupted. The rain ripped into Shaw and Gillian Ross, held shivering in his arms.

Shaw said, “All clear now. We’ll get into one of the huts for a while—just till the worst is over. We wouldn’t make much headway in this, but it’ll ease soon and if my information’s right,” he added, remembering what Stephen Geisler had told him about the time element in target-selection, “we may have up to twelve hours left. They’ll have to wait for Bluebolt to be in the right position again.”

He bent and picked the girl up, held her waist-high as he waded through the rushing floodwater, making for the nearest of the huts. He carried her through the open door, heard the pounding on the roof, wondered how long the mud walls could stand up to this. The floor of the hut was awash with scummy water, and his feet stirred up soft mud already. He waded across to a raised platform probably used by the former inhabitants for sleeping, and laid the girl gently down on it. His quick eye noted the unexpected cleanliness of the hut, the complete absence of anything edible or of any kind of refuse. There was a curious feeling of utter sterility . . . the ants had been through here, of course, had left nothing behind them at all.

He said, “Look, Gillian, we can’t do better than to get some rest while we can—be all the fitter when the rains let up. Then we’ll see what’s the best thing to do.”

She looked up at him and tried to smile. But her face was stiff with anxiety, cold, and hopelessness again now, and the smile didn’t come off very well. Shaw turned away and hunted round, found a rug which some one must have brought in from Jinda or Manalati, and he wrapped this round her body. Then, to give her all the warmth he could, he lay down beside her and put his arms tightly round her. He was in the grip of a terrible and consuming impatience. God alone knew what was happening now at the control-station. Even though he might have that twelve hours in hand, he didn’t know how far Zambi really was from the station—Wiley’s “not far” didn’t necessarily mean much and he’d doubtless been thinking in terms of transport anyway. Shaw wondered if he was right to hold on here, wondered if he should get out and press on as fast as possible through that solid water, but he knew inside himself that they could never get far at present, that they would undoubtedly get fatally bogged down, and that they needed to fortify their strength.

They were utterly exhausted—physically, emotionally, and mentally.

They slept for close on a couple of hours, a heavy, drugged sleep, like twin logs on that hard, primitive bed. Then Shaw, conscious even through that deep sleep of a change, a lessening, in the thunder of the rain on the roof, woke up. He had to fight through layers of semiconsciousness, through a near-coma of weariness; and then, after a couple of minutes, he forced his body to a sitting position, slid off into the slimy mud left behind by the decreasing water, glanced at the sleeping girl, and then slopped across to the door and looked out.

They could get on the move now.

By English standards the rain was very heavy still, but it had lost its bite and its flood-potential. The compound was relatively clear. They must get away now and push on while they could, before the big rains came back, as they would on and off now for the next six months.

He went back and shook Gillian.

He said urgently, “Wake up . . . time to be moving.”

She gave a slight movement of her body and then a small cry, a muffled sound from the depths of a nightmare. Shaw felt a stab of pity, but he tightened his grip on her shoulder.

“Come along. We’ve got to get cracking now.”

She opened her eyes, rolled over, looked up at him. She flinched away, and there was no recognition in her face, only fear. He realized then, if he hadn’t before, just what she must have gone through all the time she was in Wiley’s hands. After a while she seemed to focus, and then she relaxed and drew the scanty coverings over her breasts. She said, “All right. But—where?”

“Follow the track out of the village till we hit the road, the one we came along yesterday in the truck. If we head east from there we’re bound to make Manalati sooner or later, if not the naval station itself. Once I get to Manalati I can get things moving. We may even have a bit of luck and get a lift, if there’s anyone on the roads.” He looked down at her anxiously. “Feel fit for a long trek if we don’t?”

“I—I think so.” She sat up, holding the covering to her throat. “I’ll just have to be, won’t I?”

Searching through the other huts, they found not only Shaw’s Webley still in its holster but also the remainder of the girl’s own clothing, though there was no sign of Shaw’s identity card. Gillian’s clothes were wet through and muddy but that didn’t matter; in any case, she would have been soaked within minutes once she went outside. When she was dressed they started off through the rain and entered the path leading up to the road. It was a morass, a sea of oozy, clinging mud into which their feet sank deep, and they had to go past the remnants of the men who had fallen before the ants. Soggily, slowly, painfully they pushed along the jungle trail, water soaking into them from every dripping branch, every leaf and frond that the ants, interrupted by the rains, had left intact. In here, in this lush green tunnel which had been only just wide enough to let the truck pass and which was crisscrossed with small branches which flipped stingingly at exposed flesh, it was hot, fetid, greenhouse-like, with a humidity which Shaw had never met before. They ran with sweat as they struggled along. Every now and then they were forced to rest aching, mud-heavy legs and arms and backs, and during these rests they picked away from each other the foul, clinging bodies of leeches who had hidden themselves from the ants in the stagnant pools, leeches that were now bloating with their blood.

It took them almost an hour of hard going before they hit the road and turned to the right, eastward for Manalati and—Shaw hoped—the general direction of the control-station. They would have to head right along the south side of the valley and then across the Naka Hills in order to reach Manalati. It could mean hours of walking, slogging along—if ever they made it at all. And by that time it could so easily be much too late.

There was only one hope left and Shaw had to face it: transport. Perhaps, as he’d said to Gillian, they might get a lift; but Anne Hartog had said the roads were used as little as possible during the rains and were often impassable anyhow. A little later on he saw why, when the rains came down again with increased violence, biting into their bodies, beating up off the muddy road, cold and chill and utterly desolate. The road was three feet under in places, the water lying in the dips and hollows, and the surface was loose and crumbly and at times thick with that clinging mud into which their stumbling feet penetrated almost to knee height.