The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 144
- Предыдущая
- 144/183
- Следующая
They were in contact for three hours, in contact with Oite battle-hardened troops, and Tungata kept his little band in hand and they counterattacked and laid AP mines behind them and held at every natural strongpoint, until it was dark. Then Tungata broke off the contact and pulled his men out. By that time there were only eight of them left and three of these were wounded.
Seven days later, in the morning before the dew dried, Tungata opened a passage through the cordon sanitaire, probing with a bayonet until he found, the key to the pattern, and he took his men across the drifts. There were only five of them left. None of the wounded had been able to stand the pace, and Tungata had personally finished them with the commissar's Tokarev pistol to save them being interrogated by the pursuers.
In the town of Livingstone, on the north bank of the Zambezi opposite the Victoria Falls, Tungata reported to ZIPRA headquarters, and the commissar was astonished.
"But you were all killed. The Rhodesians claimed on the television.-" A driver in a black Mercedes with the party flag fluttering on the bonnet took Tungata up to the Zambian capital of Lusaka, and there in a safe house on a quiet street he was ushered into a sparsely furnished room where a man sat alone at a cheap pine desk.
"Babo!" Tungata recognized him immediately. "Nkosi nkulu! Great Chief)" The man laughed, a throaty bellow of sound. "You may call me that when we are alone, but at other times you must call me Comrade Inkunzi." Inkunzi was the Sindebele word for a bull. It suited the man admirably. He was huge, with a chest like a beer-keg and a belly like a sack of grain. His hair was thick and white, all the things that the Matabele venerate, physical size and strength and the hair of age and wisdom.
"I have watched you with interest, Comrade Tungata. Indeed, it was I that sent to fetch you." "I am honoured, Babo." "You have richly repaid my faith." The big man settled lower in his chair and linked his fingers over the bulk of his stomach. He was silent for a while, studying Tungata's face, then abruptly he asked, "what is the revolution?" The reply, so often repeated, came instantly to Tungata's lips.
"The revolution is power to the people." Comrade Inkunzi's delighted bull-bellow crashed out again.
"The people are mindless cattle," he laughed. "They would not know what to do with power if anyone was fool enough to let them have it! No, no! It is time you learned the true answer." He paused, and he was no longer smiling. "The truth is that the revolution is power to the chosen few. The truth is that I am the head of those few, and that you, Commissar Comrade Tungata, are now one of them." Craig Ballantyne parked the Land-Rover and switched off the engine. He twisted the rear-view mirror on its goose-neck and used it to adjust the angle of his peaked uniform cap. Then he looked around at the elegant new building that housed the museum. It stood in the middle of the botanical gardens, surrounded by tall palms and green lawns and bright beds of geraniums and sweet-peas.
Craig realized that he was putting off the moment and clenched his jaw determinedly. He left the Land-Rover in the car park and climbed the front steps of the museum.
"Good morning, Sergeant. "The girl at the enquiries desk recognized the three stripes on the sleeve of his khaki and navy blue police uniform. Craig still felt vaguely ashamed of his rapid promotion.
"Don't be damned silly, boy," Bawu had growled when he protested at the family influence. "It's a technical appointment, Sergeant Armourer." " Craig gave the girl his boyish grin, and her expression warmed instantly. "I'm looking for Miss Carpenter." "I'm sorry. I don't know her." The girl looked unhappy at having to disappoint him.
"But she works here, "Craig protested. "Janine Carpenter." "Oh, she brightened. "You mean Doctor Carpenter. Is she expecting you?"
"Oh, I'm sure she knows I'm coming, "Craig assured her. "She is in Room 2." Up the stairs, turn left, through the door that says "Staff Only", and it's the third door on the right. Craig pushed the door open at the invitation of "Enter!" that greeted his knock. It was a long narrow room with skylights and fluorescent tubes overhead and the walls lined as high as the ceiling with shallow drawers, each with a pair of bright brass handles.
Janine stood at the bench table which ran down the centre of the room. She was dressed in blue jeans and a brightly checked lumberjack's woollen shirt.
"I didn't know you wore glasses," Craig said. They gave her an air of owlish erudition, and she whipped them off her face and hid them behind her back.
"Well!"she greeted him. "What do you want?" "Look," he said, "I just had to find out what an entomologist does. I had this bizarre picture of you wrestling with tsetse flies and beating locusts to death with a club." He closed the door quietly behind him and kept talking as he sidled up to the table beside her. "I say, that looks interesting!"
She was like an affronted cat, back arched and every hair upon it erect, but slowly she relaxed.
"Slides," she explained reluctantly. "I am setting up microscopic slides." And then with fresh irritation in her voice, "You know, you show the typical prejudice of the ignorant and uninformed layman. As soon as anyone mentions insects, you immediately think of pests like locusts and disease-carriers like tsetse flies." "Is that wrong?" "Hexapoda is the largest class of the largest animal phylum, Arthropoda. It has literally hundreds of thousands of members, most of which are beneficial to man, and the pests are in the vast minority."
He wanted to take her up on the "vast minority" as a contradiction in terms, but his good sense for once prevailed. Instead he said, "I never thought of that. How do you mean beneficial to man?" "They pollinate plants, they scavenge and control pests, and they serve as food-" She was away, and after a few minutes, Craig's interest was no longer feigned. Like any dedicated specialist, she was fascinating while talking in her chosen field. Once she realized that he was a receptive and sympathetic audience, she became even more articulate.
- Предыдущая
- 144/183
- Следующая
