Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 32

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pan and lined her up with the causeway of branches. The men joined

three coils of the thick manila line and carried it out to the stranded

vehicle, unrolling it behind them as they went, until at last the two

cars were joined by that fragile thread.

Gareth climbed in and took the wheel of Priscilla while Jake and

Gregorius, armed with two of the thickest branches, stood ready to

lever the wheels.

"You any good at praying, Gary? "Jake shouted.

"Not my strong suit, old son."

"Well, stiffen the old upper lip then. "Jake mimicked him, and then

let out a bellow at Vicky who acknowledged with a wave before her

golden head disappeared into the driver's hatch of Miss Wobbly. The

engine beat accelerated and the line came up taut as Miss Wobbly rolled

forward up the incline above the pan.

"Keep the wheels straight," shouted Jake, and he and Gregorius threw

their weight on the branches, giving just that ounce of leverage

sufficient to transfer part of the vehicle's weight on to the

corduroyed pathway.

Slowly, ponderously, the cumbersome vehicle rolled back across the pan,

until she reached the hard ground and the four of them shouted with

relief and triumph.

Jake retrieved two celebratory bottles of Tusker beer from his secret

hoard, but the liquid was so warm that half of it exploded in a fizzing

gush from the mouth of each bottle as it was opened, and there was only

a mouthful for each of them.

"Can we reach the lower Awash by nightfall?" Jake demanded, and

Gregorius looked up and judged the angle of the sun before replying.

"If we don't waste any more time," he said.

Still on a compass heading, and giving the salt-white pans a wide

berth, the column ground on steadily into the west.

In the mid afternoon they reached the sand desert, with its towering

whale-backed dunes throwing lovely lyrical shadows in the hollows

between. The colour of the sand varied from dark purple to the softest

pinks and talcum white, and was so fine and soft that the wind blew

long smoke-like plumes from the crest of each dune.

Under Gregorius's direction they turned northwards, and within half an

hour they had found the long narrow ridge of ironstone that bisected

the sand desert and formed a narrow causeway through the shifting

dunes. They crept following its winding course slowly across this

rocky bridge, for twelve miles, while the dunes rose on each side of

them.

Vicky thought that this was much like the passage of the Red Sea by the

fleeing Israelites. Even the dunes seemed like frozen waves that might

at each moment come crashing down to swamp them and she despaired that

she could ever adequately describe the wild and disordered beauty of

this multicoloured sea of sand.

They emerged at last and with startling suddenness into the dry flat

grasslands of the Ethiopian lowlands. The desert proper was at last

behind them and although this was a harsh and and savannah,

there was, at least, the occasional thorn tree and an almost unbroken

carpet of se red grass the grass was so amongst the low thorny scrub.

Altho fine and dry that all colour had been bleached from it by the

sun, it shone silver and stiff as though coated with hoar frost.

Most cheering of all was the distant but discernible blue outline of

the far mountains. Now they hovered at the edge of their awareness,

a far beacon calling them onward.

Over the short crisp grass, the four vehicles roared forward joyously,

bumping through an occasional ant-bear hole and flattening the clumps

of low them that stood in their way as they plunged ahead.

In the last glimmering of the day, just when Jake had decided to halt

the day's march, the flat land ahead of them opened miraculously and

they looked down into the steep boulder-strewn gorge of the Awash

River fifty feet below them. They climbed out of the parked vehicles

and gathered stiffly in a small group on the lip of the ravine, "There

is Ethiopia, two hundred yards away. It's two years since last I stood

upon the soil of my own country," said Gregorius, his big dark eyes

catching the last of the light.

He stopped himself and explained. "The river rises in the high country

near Addis Ababa and comes down one of the gorges into the lowland. A

short distance downstream from here it ends in a shallow swamp. There

its waters sink away into the desert sand and disappear.

Here we are standing on French territory still, ahead of us is

Ethiopia, there far to the north is Italian Eritrea."

"How far is it to the Wells of Chaldi?"Gareth interrupted.

That for him was the end of the rainbow and the pot of gold.

Gregorius shrugged. "Another forty miles, perhaps."

"How do we get across this lot?" Jake muttered, staring down into the

dim depths of the ravine where the shallow pools still glowed dull

silver.

"Upstream there is an old camel route to J ibuti," Gregorius told him.

"We might have to dig out the banks a little, but I think we'll be able

to cross."

"I hope you are right," Gareth told him. "It's a long way home, if we

have to go back." The view of water that she had glimpsed in the

depths of the ravine haunted Vicky Camberwell during the night. She

dreamed of foaming mountain streams and spilling waterfalls, of

moss-covered boulders, swaying green ferns about a deep cold pool, and

she awoke, restless and tired, with sweat plastering her hair to her

neck and forehead. There was just the first promise of dawn in the

sky.

She thought that she was the only one awake and she crept into the

vehicle and fetched her towel and toilet bag, but as she jumped down to

the ground she heard the clink of spanner on steel and she saw Jake

stooped over the engine compartment of his car.

She tried to sneak away before he saw her, but he straightened

suddenly.

"Where are you going?" he demanded. "As if I didn't know. Listen,

Vicky, I don't like you wandering around out of camp on your own."

"Jake Barton, I feel so filthy I can smell myself. Nothing and nobody

is going to stop me getting down to the river." Jake hesitated. "I'd

better come down with you."

"This isn't the Folies Berg&e, my dear," she laughed, and he had

learned enough not to argue with this lady. He watched her hurry to

the lip of the ravine and disappear down the steep slope with vague

misgivings, for which he could find no real substance.

The earth and loose stone rolled easily underfoot, and Vicky restrained

her impatience and picked her way carefully towards the water, until

she reached a narrow game trail that tipped down at a more comfortable

angle, and she followed it with relief. Her footsteps, falling

silently on to the soft earth, followed faithfully the string of round

five- toed pad marks, larger than a saucer, which had been plugged

deeply by the heavy weight of the animal that had made them. Vicky did

not look down, however, and if she had, it was doubtful if she would

have recognized what she was seeing. The faintly reflected light of

the pools drew her like a beacon.

When she reached the bottom of the ravine, she found that the river was

so shrunken that it was no longer flowing.

The pools were shallow, stagnant and still warm from the previous day's

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