Far Horizon (15 page)

The introductions continued. Kylie was an Australian nurse enjoying London and working at Guy's. Linda, the redhead, worked in a pub in Nottingham, and wanted to see the world and be a dancer.

Sam, an American studying at Cambridge, tried to compensate for his intellect and geeky study choice of physics with high-street hip clothes – baggy shorts with a drop waist that showed off his boxers, a Mambo shirt and a necklace made of steel ballbearings. He also used the word ‘dude' way too much for Mike's liking, but he had organised the washing-up
party after dinner and had pitched in to do his share of the post-dinner chores.

Melanie, or ‘Mel' as she preferred, was the child of Jamaican immigrants from London's East End. To an antipodean like Mike, the cockney accent didn't gel with the smooth ebony skin and the corn-row hairdo. She had a nice smile and no airs and graces. Mel had also been a good helper during the cooking.

Next there were the lads. George the Geordie from Newcastle in the north of England, a ginger-haired lorry driver, and his rotund, pasty-faced sidekick Terry, who was from London originally, but worked as a plumber in the same town as his friend. There was a growing pile of empty Castle beer cans at their feet.

George and Terry, as Mike could have predicted, were inclined to loaf, and Linda had been keener to share a beer with the two boys than take part in the cooking chores earlier in the evening. Sam, however, had ensured that the two Englishmen helped out with drying, and Linda had felt obliged to help Mike stack the plates and cutlery back in the storage boxes as a result.

Nigel, the Kiwi, told the group he worked for the tax office back home. Mike wondered if he had any friends at all. Nigel had sat on a stool and read his book until the food was served up.

Apart from Sarah and one of the other women, Jane, none of them was older than twenty-two. Biologically speaking, Mike realised he was old enough to be the father of most of them. For the next few weeks, he mused, he would be their guardian, tour guide, drinking buddy, bodyguard and chauffeur.

The circle of introductions was nearly complete, save for the two women sitting to Mike's left. Both were good looking, with strawberry blonde hair, pale eyes, high cheekbones and wide, sensual mouths. They could have passed for sisters, he thought, except for the tiny wrinkles that showed around Jane's eyes when she smiled.

‘Hi, I'm Jane, from Bristol. I'm an estate agent,' she said, with a saleswoman's smile and a rolling West Country accent. ‘My age is my business, but Julie and I are both really excited about this trip, even though we're a little bit nervous about lions and tigers. Hopefully Mike will get us through in one piece,' she finished with a laugh.

‘Give over, Mum. Don't be daft. There's no tigers in Africa,' said the younger Muir. ‘I'm Julie. And, yes, she is my mum. I'm eighteen so you can work out for yourself how old she is. I'm studying journalism at college,' she said, directing the last remark towards Sarah Thatcher, who didn't seem to acknowledge her presence.

Jane wore a loose black singlet top printed with gold elephant motifs that looked like it had come from Thailand or some other Asian holiday spot, and a short stone-coloured skirt that showed off her toned, crossed legs. Julie sported a pink tank top and grey cargo shorts.

Julie turned back to Mike and said, ‘I've got to do a travel story as part of my assessment this year, so maybe
I
could write something on the trip as well, if that's OK with you, Mike.'

‘Fine by me,' he said.

The introductions were over and conversations started between small knots of people around the fire as embryonic friendships were formed. Sarah was the first to head for her tent. Mike had assigned her to share Linda's tent.

‘Why can't I have a tent of my own? The truck's not full, so I'm sure you have spares,' she said as she left.

‘You could, but you'd have to set it up and pull it down by yourself each day,' he replied.

‘Well, that's fine by me,' she said stubbornly.

‘Hang on, it's not fine by me!' Linda chimed in. ‘I'm not putting up my own bloody tent every day. You can muck in and help like the rest of us. Just don't snore.'

Sarah strode off to the little tent in silence.

Mike had organised the ten travellers in five two-person tents and he, as usual, would sleep on a fold-out mattress on the floor in the back of Nelson. He liked to be in the truck at night, to make sure it and the valuables and backpacks locked in the rear storage locker were not left unattended.

Most of the group were still recovering from their flights, so the first-night party wound up around ten.

‘Don't forget, everyone,' Mike said as they folded their stools and headed for their tents, ‘you've got to take your anti-malarial medication, either daily or weekly, depending on the brand you're using. Keep your tents zipped tight as well.'

‘Yes, Mum,' a male voice chimed in from somewhere in the shadows.

M
ike crouched by the remains of the previous night's fire and felt the residual warmth of its embers grow as he blew steadily into the white coals. The end of a half-charred stick finally glowed red and he used it to light his morning cigarette. It was a good time of the day, chilly and half dark, with the top of the new sun just peeking above the ridge to the east.

He heard a click and a mechanical whirr behind him, then a woman's voice said, ‘Did you learn that from a movie?
Crocodile Dundee
, maybe?'

He turned and saw Sarah Thatcher, her blonde hair tousled by sleep, an expensive camera hanging from a broad strap around her neck. She wore a blue Polartec fleece, to ward off the morning's chill.

‘I left my lighter in the truck,' he said. ‘Shouldn't you ask before you point that thing at someone?'

‘I get better pictures this way. You're not going to order me to stop doing my job are you,
Major
Williams?' she asked.

‘How did you know I used to be in the army?' he asked, surprised that she knew of his background. He deliberately gave away as little as possible when he introduced himself to the travellers. In particular, he never dwelt on his military background.

‘I dig. It's my job. In fact, all it took was a call to your boss in Johannesburg. He was fulsome in his praise. Described you as something of a hero. Said you'd tangled with some elephant poachers in Mozambique.'

‘Rian's prone to exaggeration,' he replied. He made a mental note to punch his friend and employer next time he saw him.

‘There was also a small story in one of the South African newspapers, the
Citizen
, last year. I found it on the net. What can you tell me about your time in Mozambique?'

‘Nothing,' he said.

‘Top secret?'

‘Personal.' Mike took the cigarette from his mouth and blew hard on the stick he had used to light it until he got a flame. He lit the big gas cooker ring sitting on the ground. Then he placed a large kettle of water on the blue flames and stood, staring at the rising sun rather than the reporter behind him.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, and she seemed to mean it. ‘Your friend told me about your girlfriend and . . .'

‘Jesus Christ. What else did he tell you? Criminal convictions? Bloody shoe size?'

‘Look, I'm sorry,' she said again. ‘It's just that if I give you, the tour leader, a little colour, if you've got an interesting background, it can make my story better and a lot more favourable to your company.'

‘So my past is “colour”. Is this blackmail now?' he asked.

‘Maybe I just want to know a bit more about the man in whose hands I'm placing my life for the next few weeks. These overland trips can be quite dangerous, from what I've heard,' she said.

‘You'd be in more danger driving to work on the M25 than you will be on this trip. I'll tell you about overlanding, the itinerary, the wildlife we see, African culture, but that's it. Got it?'

‘Not yet.'

‘Are you married?' he asked her.

She looked startled by the question, but quickly composed herself. ‘What's that got to do with anything?'

‘How old were you when you first had sex?'

‘I beg your pardon!'

‘What's your bra cup size. About a C, I'd say. Am I right?'

She took a step towards him, hands on her hips, her face reddening. ‘How dare you!' she hissed.

Mike held up his hands, palms out, in submission. ‘Sorry. I really am. But how do you like batting off a few personal questions at five in the morning? Look, we've got off to a rough start,' he said, pausing to drag on his cigarette. The nicotine was calming him now. ‘I'll do whatever it takes to give you a good story, but please, leave my personal life out of it. That's all I'm asking.'

He thought she wanted to smile. The corners of her mouth started to curl up ever so slightly, but she forced them back into a frown.

‘I take your point. But I do expect full cooperation from you. This story can make or break your outfit and I'm sure your boss wouldn't be very happy if you cocked it up for him.'

He shook his head and stubbed out the butt of his smoke with his white-water rafter's sandal. ‘You don't give up, do you?'

‘Never.' She smiled and he had to force himself to turn away.

Mike left Sarah, and roused the others from their tents and pointed them towards the tea and coffee. The plan was to go for an early-morning game drive and then have a big, greasy cooked brunch when they got back. If he could get them moving in time, they could be out of the gate of Pretoriuskop Camp by five-thirty, when the gates first opened, and back by about eleven.

‘Bit early, isn't it?' asked a bleary-eyed Mel.

‘Ah, so that's what a sunrise looks like,' said Terry, the Englishman, who looked even bulkier than usual with a sweatshirt and fleece stretched over his stomach. ‘That'll do me for the next fifty years, thanks. Can I go back to bed now?'

They rolled out the gate ten minutes behind schedule.

‘The idea of an early start is to get out of the rest camp first so we can catch a sighting of the predators – the big cats – when they're still on the move in the early hours. We might see a leopard slinking across the road or a pride of lions returning from a night's hunting. The animals in Kruger are used to the sight and sound of cars, but even the most patient will push off once
they're cornered by eight or nine vehicles full of tourists,' Mike explained as they drove.

Most of the group had come to Africa to experience the continent's unique wildlife, so the game drives were an important part of his job. Luck was a big factor in game viewing, but he had also found that good eyesight and a little local knowledge of where animals hid and what they did at different times of the day increased the odds of spotting something interesting.

The art of leading a successful game drive, Rian had taught him, was to lower the viewers' expectations and to keep them interested in the bush around them, even when there was apparently nothing to see. A good guide needed to know about birds – there are about five hundred species in southern Africa – trees and other plants and their uses, and insects, as well as the better-known larger mammals.

‘If you take a twig from that tree over there, and rub it on a rock, you get a bristly, fibrous end which you can use as a toothbrush. If you burn the wood of that tree, the leadwood,' he said, pointing to a big specimen on the other side of the road, ‘you can use the fine ash as tooth powder. There are hundreds of other plants with special uses, like the sickle bush, whose leaves ease the pain of toothache when you chew them.'

‘Fascinating,' said Kylie, the nurse. ‘I'd like to learn more about the medicinal uses of different plants.'

‘Where are the lions? It's been nearly an hour already,' Nigel complained.

Mike scanned the long dry grass for the flick of an
ear or the twitch of a tail. His eyes roved from right to left, an old army trick which he found made it easier to spot movement. Because westerners read from left to right they automatically tend to scan their surroundings in the same direction. Looking from right to left takes more effort and forces the watcher to slow down, to concentrate more. He made himself peer through the dry vegetation and long grass, rather than simply stare at the bush. He scanned the leafy branches of the larger trees in the hope of catching a camouflaged leopard lying up there.

Old Nelson was well laid out for game viewing. Rian had fitted a large box-like cab on the stripped-down chassis of the ex-military Bedford. He had furnished the cabin with all the comforts he could find and afford. The travellers sat on old airline seats, which Rian had picked up at a South African Airways auction. The seats reclined and still had the little tray tables in their backs. He had the seats re-upholstered in a green, water-resistant rip-stop canvas, which was better suited to the dust and rain that inevitably found its way into the cab. The cab had a flat tin roof, which was also covered in canvas to cut down the sun's heat, and big open windows on the side. The windows could be closed with roll-down flaps of soft clear plastic, which gave some protection from the rain. On the inside front wall of the cab was a painted map of Africa, showing the various routes the expeditions took. Much of the remaining space on the walls was covered with stickers from various destinations and faded, peeling paper labels from beer bottles from the length and breadth of the continent. There
were a couple of bookshelves stacked with dog-eared paperback novels, battered Lonely Planet guides and field guides to the birds and mammals of Africa. A car radio-cassette player was fitted to the front bulkhead, and speakers were mounted in the front and back of the passenger cab.

The truck was not full on this trip – there were seats for another three passengers – so there was room for the group to spread out in the cab. There was no discussion or vote about it, but Mike noticed no one had invited Sarah to sit next to them. She sat quietly at the far end of the driver's cab from him, staring out through her window, occasionally snapping a photograph or two.

Mike was quite comfortable up front, but he knew the passengers in the back would be feeling the cold, with the wind rushing in through the big open windows as they cruised eastwards into the rising sun, up the main tar road from Pretoriuskop.

‘There, on the left. Zebra. About five or six of them,' he called back into the main cab.

‘Where?' asked Mel. ‘I can't see anything.'

‘He's making it up,' George said.

‘OK, I see them now,' said Sam. ‘Your eyesight must be very good.'

‘It's just what you're used to. You'll find it'll take you a couple of days to differentiate shapes and movement in the bush,' Mike said. ‘All your senses come alive in Africa. Not just your sight, but your hearing gets better the longer you spend out here. Soon you'll be smelling elephants a mile off.'

They headed for Skukuza, the main camp in the
park, which would be their first rest stop that morning. Mike thought briefly of Skukuza the elephant, the grand old man of the Kruger park who had been destroyed, along with so much of Mike's life, just a year before. He remembered the vultures and the stench of the elephant's rotting flesh, and the ragged holes where his mighty tusks had been. Mike was sure there was a picture of him in the elephant museum at Letaba Camp, further north in the park, and he wanted to stop by if the chance arose. He had avoided the museum on previous trips, but now felt he was ready to pay his last respects to the animal's memory and close the book on another little piece of that terrible time. Later that year, he told himself, he would visit Portugal. In December, when the summer rainy season is in full flight in southern Africa, there were no tours booked and Rian expected his drivers to take leave.

The weather would be cold in Portugal, but he wouldn't be looking for the sun or a beach holiday. He would find Isabella's grave, maybe even look for her parents. He knew that he had to make his peace with her ghost once and for all, or she would never leave his dreams. There was another way to put her memory to rest, but he could not see how that could ever happen. Flowers on a grave were one thing, but every now and then he still fantasised about what he would say to the man who killed her, just before he sent him to hell.

‘Do you think you'll ever go home?' Sarah asked.

‘Sorry?' Mike had been lost in his thoughts.

‘Will you ever leave Africa, and go home? Off the record, if you like.'

‘Off the record?' Mike had paid enough attention to media training from army public relations officers over the years to know that phrase meant absolutely nothing. ‘I don't know where home is.'

‘Australia. Big, empty country, lots of beer and kangaroos.'

‘You know about my background. People sometimes say the army's a home, but it's not. It's just a job. A job that feeds you and clothes you, but it's not a home. I've lived all over Australia, all over a lot of the world. Here's as good a place as any.'

‘Wherever I lay my hat? That sort of thing?' she asked.

‘Wherever I park my truck. Yeah. I don't know. Sometimes I think I'd like to buy a place over here, if I could get the money together. Maybe a small game farm. Do you want some more info on the company, or on our itinerary in Zimbabwe and Zambia?' he added, trying to change the subject.

‘No. Are you running away from something?'

He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the road ahead. The last thing he wanted was to lose his cool and run into an impala. ‘Look, I lost a girlfriend, a mate and a job in Africa. I've seen famine, I've seen massacres, I've seen little kids dissected by landmines here, but I'm still in Africa. Wouldn't you say I'm a textbook case of confronting one's fears rather than running from them?'

Sarah's cheeks reddened. ‘Sorry. Put that way, I see your point.'

‘Forget it. But let's just keep this about the trip, OK?'

Mike turned the truck to the right, following a sign to the Transport Dam. The small earthen-walled dam was a watering point for the horse-drawn transport wagons that used to take people and goods from South Africa across to Mozambique in the old days.

‘This is a pretty spot,' he said to Sarah as they trundled along the corrugated dirt side road. ‘It's got water all year round and good birdlife.'

When they arrived at the dam, a couple of kilometres down the road, an African fish eagle, with its distinctive snowy-white head atop a dark body, was keeping watch on the water's surface. The bird whined a mournful melodic call. A moment later it was joined by another. Mike pointed them out to the crew in the back of the truck, who dutifully raised an assortment of binoculars and cameras, large and small.

‘Fish eagles mate for life,' he said as he stared at the beautiful big birds through his binoculars.