A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 177

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China suggested.

"Assist, yes, although I could achieve the same result with my own forces."

"Perhaps, but a joint operation would be quicker and more certain," China told him. "We share the fighting and the spoils.

With my hen shaw and reinforcements from the north it would take a week or less to drive the Frelimo forces out of the forests."

Tippoo Tip pretended to consider the proposition, then nodded and said delicately, "Of course, I could reward you for your help, with a modest percentage of the value of the timber we capture."

""Modest" is not a word I greatly favor." China sighed. "I prefer the good socialist word "equal," let us say an equal share?"

Tippoo Tip looked pained and threw up his hands in protest.

"Be reasonable, my brother." For an hour longer they haggled and argued, slowly drawing closer to striking a bargain over the private distribution of a nation's wealth and the fate of tens of thousands of wretched individuals in the labor battalions.

"My scouts tell me that the people in the logging camps are near the end of their usefulness," Tippoo Tip remarked at one point.

"Frelimo has fed them on such rations that nearly all of them are sick and starving. They are dying by hundreds each day, and they are cutting half the timber that they were two months ago. Frelimo has run out of replacements for the logging gangs, and the whole business is running down. There is not much to be gained by waiting any longer. We should attack immediately, before the beginning of the rains."

China looked at his digital wristwatch, a badge of rank as significant as the star on his epaulettes. The Hind would be returning to pick him up within half an hour; he must conclude the negotiations and strike the bargain. Within minutes they had agreed on the last details of the combined operation. Then China mentioned casually, "There is one other matter." His tone alerted Tippoo Tip to the importance of the next request. He leaned forward on the stool and placed his hands, as broad and powerful as the paws of a grizzly bear, on his knees. "I am chasing a small party of white fugitives. It seems that they are attempting to reach the South African border." Briefly China sketched out a description of Sean's party and ended, "I want you to alert all your forces between here and the Limpopo to be on the lookout for them."

"A white man and a white woman, a young white woman. It sounds interesting, my brother," Tippoo Tip said thoughtfully.

"The man is the most important. The woman is an American and may have some value as a hostage, but otherwise she means little."

"To me a woman always has value," Tippoo Tip contradicted him. "Especially if she is white and young. I like a change of flesh occasionally. Let us make another bargain, my brother, once again equal shares. If I help you to capture these runaway whites, you P may have the man, but I will keep the woman. Is it agreed?"

China thought for a moment, then nodded. "Very well, you may have her, but I want the man alive and uninjured."

"That is exactly how I want the woman," Tippoo Tip chuckled.

"So again we are in accord." He stretched out his right hand, and China took it. Both of them knew as they stared into each other's eyes that the gesture was meaningless, that their agreement would be honored only as long as it favored both of them, and that it could be broken without warning by either of them as circumstances altered.

"Now tell me about this young white woman," Tippoo Tip invited. "Where was she last seen, and what are you doing to catch her?"

China returned immediately to the map spread between them, and Tippoo Tip took note of the new animation in his expression and the eagerness in his voice as he explained how Sean and his party had avoided the trap he had set on the border and how the Shangane deserters had reported their position and their intention of heading southward.

"We know their last definite position was here." China touched a spot just north of the railway line. "But that was three days ago.

They could be anywhere along here." He spread his hand and drew it down across the map. "One of the party is badly wounded, so they have probably not reached this far south. I have patrols, almost three hundred men quartering the ground south of the railway looking for their spoor, but I want you to lay a net, like this, in front of them. How many men can you spare?"

Tippoo Tip shrugged. "I have already placed three companies here along the Rio Save, keeping watch on the logging in the forests. There are five more companies spread across here, further north. If these whites are trying to reach the Limpopo border, they will have to pass right through my fines and the Frelimo, guards in the forest. I will radio my company commanders to be fully alert for them."

General China's tone was sharp and authoritative. "They must cover every trail, every river crossing. They must stake out a stop line with no gaps in it, and my sweep line coming down from the north will drive them onto it. But warn your section commanders that the white man is a soldier and a good one. He commanded the Ballantyne Scouts at the end of the war."

"Courtney," Tippoo Tip broke in. "I remember him well." He chuckled. "Of course; it was Courtney who led the raid on your base. No small wonder that you want him so badly. You and Colonel Courtney go back many years. You have a long memory, my brother."

"Yes." China nodded and touched the lobe of his deaf ear.

"Many years and a long memory, but then revenge is a dish that tastes best if it is eaten cold."

They both looked up as the sound of the Hind's turbos whistled in from the north of the village. China checked his wristwatch. The pilot was precisely on time for the pickup, and China felt his confidence in the young Portuguese reinforced. He stood up from the stool.

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