Storms Over Africa (37 page)

Penny asked no questions. During the war she had often heard low voices behind closed doors when her father was home. She knew if she asked questions she would not necessarily be told the truth. If her father and Greg believed Joseph to be dangerous, then the man she had loved and trusted must be dangerous and that was all she needed to know.

‘Can you give us the names of any of his close friends?' he asked.

She nodded and gave him the names of a dozen people she had met through Joseph. ‘Does that help?'

Greg shook his head. ‘Not really, we know about all of them. They're all straight. He must have kept his political contacts away from you.'

‘Is this what it was like during the war?' Steve asked suddenly.

‘What do you mean?' Greg heard her anger.

‘All this cloak-and-dagger stuff. It's bloody pathetic. Why can't you all learn to live with each other?'

Greg looked up at her, understanding her confusion. ‘Steve, you're an Australian. I wonder if you really know how lucky that makes you. You might have racial resentment in some areas, land rights issues, different cultures causing difficulties, but you have never been in danger of a full-scale war in your country. There has never been so much hatred that people want to kill each other. Australia is stable. I hope to God it remains that way. It'd be nice to know at least one country in this world is capable of maintaining the status quo.'

‘Yeah,' Steve agreed, her voice catching as her misery rose over Richard. ‘And I guess that's where I belong.'

He stood up and put his arm around her
shoulders. ‘Don't be in too much of a hurry to leave. Give him time. You are very right for each other.'

‘You know what happened?'

‘Bit hard not to know. Voices carry.'

‘Oh, Greg, what am I going to do?' She sat down and put her face in her hands.

‘Go back to Pentland. Pack your things. Find somewhere to live in Harare. Give him time.'

She looked up at him and smiled weakly. ‘You're a good man, Greg,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

He left the tent but Steve stayed with Penny. The two girls spoke sporadically, trying to help each other, attempting to pull their lives back together sufficiently to gather the strength to pack up and make the long trip back to Pentland Park. Finally, Steve said, ‘There's no point in our leaving here today. Let's get an early night and go first thing in the morning.'

Penny agreed. ‘Stay here tonight.' She pointed to the bunk bed which had been occupied by Joseph.

Steve said she would.

They heard Richard shouting for Samson to hurry. Five minutes later the truck roared into life and left the camp.

Penny and Steve went outside. It had grown dark but Philamon had lit the fire and the tilly lamps and had supper underway. Richard's
tent was gone and the supplies tent had been emptied of most of its food. The camp had a deserted air. Gone was the warm camaraderie of the previous evening. David sat staring morosely at the fire. ‘What a bloody mess,' he said to no-one in particular.

‘You got that right, little brother,' Penny's voice was suddenly brittle. She was caught in a burst of hyperactivity, peculiar to people whose system was used to a sustained period of time on a stimulant. ‘A knocked-up drug addict for a sister, a prospective stepmother you've slept with, an almost brother-in-law who's a terr. What more could we ask for?'

‘Shut up, you bloody fool.'

Penny reached for a bottle of scotch on the table. ‘Anyone care for a drink?' she asked wildly, unscrewing the top and taking three large swigs.

‘I don't think you should drink that stuff,' Steve said crossly. ‘With all the other things in your system I'm sure booze is a bad idea.'

But Penny was on some kind of a suicide mission of her own. ‘Don't be so boring. Anyway, it's my system not yours.' She gulped down some more of the scotch.

Steve reached over and snatched the bottle. ‘I've heard about this happening when someone has been on cocaine. Getting drunk may make you feel better for a time but believe me, it's not the answer to your problems.'

The alcohol had gone straight to Penny's head. ‘Give that back!' She reached over to grab the bottle but lost her balance and fell across the table.

‘Give her the bloody bottle, for Christ's sake.' David rose. ‘If she wants to kill herself with that muck let her get on with it.'

Penny was crying again, unable or unwilling to rise from where she was stretched across the table. ‘I don't want to be pregnant,' she sobbed. ‘I hate him. I just want to die.' Suddenly she stood up, turned and ran into the trees surrounding the camp. ‘Come and take me,' she screamed. ‘You want something to eat, here I am.' She was completely hysterical.

David sighed. ‘I'll get her,' he said to Steve, ‘before a bloody lion takes her up on it.'

‘Go easy on her, David. She's been through a lot.'

‘Yeah, and it's all of her own making,' David retorted, striding away to where Penny had fallen to her knees and was sobbing into her hands.

Philamon came over to the table where Steve stood, still holding the bottle of scotch. ‘Madam, here is a stew,' he said uneasily, placing a stewpot on the table. ‘I will say good night. I will pack up in the morning.' He bowed and moved stiffly away, his disapproval of the sudden turn of events evident by the tightness of his mouth. Philamon had
always been in awe of, and confused by, the white man but he had never witnessed such a display of emotional bad manners as he had seen in camp this evening. It was obvious to him that they all disliked each other. Clearly the madam Penny was distressed and just as clearly the master David was angry. It all seemed to have something to do with the Australian woman who, while he liked her, was not family and therefore he tended to blame her for the collapse of what had promised to be a fine hunt.

Steve watched David help Penny to her tent. He emerged five minutes later and went past her to his own, saying, ‘I'm not hungry.' She found she was not hungry either but the bottle of scotch, which was half-full, continued to tempt her way into the night until it was empty. Then, staggering a little, she took herself off to sleep in the camp bed next to Penny. She knew she would have a hangover in the morning and would suffer all the way back to Pentland but she thought, ‘What the hell! I couldn't feel any worse than I do now anyway.'

As she drifted off into uneasy sleep, a lone jackal howled its mournful moon-song. It seemed to Steve to be a very appropriate ending to a perfectly horrible day.

Joseph Tshuma had several hours headstart on the truck. However, after the initial adrenalin of packing up and giving chase faded, they realised that speed was not only unnecessary, it was foolhardy. They needed to follow the man, not catch him. Greg's suggestion, once they had picked up Tshuma's spoor, was that he and Samson would track the man on foot, with Richard hanging well back in the truck.

They had no idea if Tshuma would expect them to follow him. As far as the black man was concerned, he was simply being chased by an irate father. He would be alert, but he had no reason to suspect that Richard and Greg knew about UZIP. Of this, Greg was reasonably certain. Both men felt sure that, while Tshuma would take care not to be followed, he would not at first be alarmed if he spotted them. He would have probably heard the truck roaring around in the night. He would have expected that—he knew Richard's temper
well. They had to take care tomorrow. If he realised he was being persistently tracked he might start to wonder why, and then he would try every trick he knew to lose them. Greg was banking on the man's bush experience to be that which he picked up during the war. That way, tracking him would be a matter of thinking one step ahead of him, a familiar task and one he was confident of being able to do. If Tshuma deviated from this method, Samson, one of the best trackers around, would be used to track the man, using the same skills he employed for tracking animals.

They expected Tshuma was armed and knew he would not hesitate to kill if he saw them, particularly if he thought that their chasing him had gone beyond that of a father's revenge. They were going to need all their experience, and a great deal of caution, to stay on the man's trail yet remain undetected. They had covered perhaps three kilometres when Greg said, ‘This is madness. Let's stop before we run over the bastard.'

Richard agreed. Back in camp his anger over his daughter and the shocking revelation that Steve had slept with David had caused him to want to get away, as far away as he could. But now he was thinking clearly again, putting his anger and sorrow aside, burying it out of reach until he had time to face it properly. He realised the importance of clearing his mind of
everything other than the task of tracking Tshuma. He had done it before, put his worry over Kathy away to be dealt with later in order to be efficient in the field. He could do it again.

While Samson and Greg scouted around to see if they could pick up Joseph Tshuma's tracks, Richard set up a temporary camp, erecting two tents and lighting a tiny fire to heat their food. He found it all came back to him easily. By the time the others returned he had a large stew, peas and baked beans bubbling in a pot over a fire which barely smoked or sparked. ‘Any sign?'

Greg nodded towards Samson. ‘Where was he during the war? He picked up Tshuma's tracks immediately. He says the bastard passed through this area an hour ago.' He took a plate of steaming food from Richard and sat down.

Richard grinned at Greg. ‘Samson had a moral dilemma. Remember Velapi?'

‘Funny. I was thinking about him this afternoon.'

‘Yeah, well he was Samson's half-brother and he was fighting with us as you know.'

‘So?'

‘Samson's other half-brother was with ZANU,' Richard named Robert Mugabe's party. ‘His wife's brother-in-law was with ZANLA. His own father was a conscientious
objector and . . .' he paused dramatically, winking at Samson, ‘and . . .' he went on finally, ‘Poppie, his number one wife, got the other two wives on side and they all threatened him with no sex if he took sides.'

‘Jesus!' Greg was only half amused. ‘It was a helluva war wasn't it?'

Samson ignored them both. He knew the real reason he had not fought for independence was because he saw no reason for it. Life under the Smith regime was good to him. He had work, a roof over his head, a few cattle, a field of mealie, several wives and a boss who was fair and just and for whom he held a deep respect. Why unbalance the status quo? He had also drawn the line at fighting with the whites as well. So he stayed and looked after Pentland Park throughout the entire war.

‘I do not think this man will be too hard to find.' He held out his hand for his plate of food.

Richard passed him a plate. ‘Why not?'

‘He is soft. He is not at ease in the bush.'

‘Don't underestimate him,' Greg advised. ‘He might be soft but he survived the war and he's prepared for another one. He's also cunning as hell.'

Samson chuckled. ‘Does not a wounded leopard leave a trail of blood for all to follow to his thicket? Does not a wounded buffalo find deep cover with all the other buffalo,
making him easy to find? Does not a wounded elephant sing a song of death for all to hear?'

‘He's not wounded,' Richard said. ‘Yet.'

‘Yes he is, Gudo. He is limping.'

Richard did not insult Samson by asking how he knew. Samson's ability as a tracker was uncanny. ‘This is not an animal, my friend.' His head boy had yet to realise the full implications of Joseph Tshuma's fleeing. ‘This man will not do what we expect him to. At all costs, he will try to stop us finding him because the men he is seeking are bad men who want to put this country back into war.'

‘Eeeiii!' Samson shook his head. ‘What for this man want to do this thing?'

Richard knew he was entitled to an explanation but he also knew that the man did not have a political bone in his body. He kept his answer simple. ‘Joseph Tshuma and his friends want the whites out of Zimbabwe. They are determined to do this if it means killing every last white man, woman and child.'

‘Eeeiii!' Samson said again. ‘Then this man is a fool. He will be easy to find.'

Richard and Greg exchanged grins. Samson's simplistic beliefs were, in part, one of the reasons they both loved Zimbabwe. Gentle and honest, with an irrepressible sense of humour and a childlike belief that the white man would provide, deeply tribal and
committed to farming techniques which went back to his great-great-grandfather's day, Samson was the embodiment of yesterday's Africa. The Africa which crept into the blood and thumped in the heart and lay, warm and solid, in the gut. Samson and his Africa were that for which both men had fought to keep and, as long as there was a fair sprinkling of Samsons in the new Zimbabwe, they could accept the changes and keep their love for their adopted country alive.

‘You will not take any chances, old one,' Richard said in Shona. ‘You are as my father but you will do as I say.' To this astonishing mixture of African deference and white
baas
authority, Samson merely said, ‘The little frog who hops too far will one day overshoot the lily pad,' leaving Richard uncertain whether he had been reprimanded, whether Samson was agreeing with him, or whether Samson had been referring to Joseph Tshuma.

A sudden crackle in the bushes some thirty metres away had Richard and Greg grabbing for their rifles but they relaxed when they saw the dark bulky shape of a rhinoceros. The animal, curious at what he could hear so well and smell so acutely, but which his terrible eyesight did not allow him to identify, had come to observe them, standing a safe distance away, sniffing and twitching his ears. They expected him to stay there. But the rhinoceros,
typical of all wild things, was not doing what he was supposed to do. Suddenly he was snorting and chuffing and his great head bobbed up and down.