Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 78

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If necessary, I can do my own research.

Since he had learned about her secret phone call to Tug Harrison, Daniel's misgivings about her had increased.  Now he didn't trust her at all, and he didn't even like her as much as he had only as recently as the previous day.

it was new moon, but the stars were clear and bright.  Their reflections on the rue e waters.  Kelly Kinnear sat in the bows of the small dhow. The rigging creaked to the gentle push of the night breeze as they tacked across the lake.

The stars were magnificent.  She turned her face up to them and whispered the lyrical names of the constellations as she recognized each of them.  The stars were one of the few things she missed in the forest, for they were for ever hidden by the high unbroken canopy of the tree-tops.  She savoured them now, for soon she would be without them.

The helmsman was singing a soft repetitive refrain, an invocation to the spirits of the lake depths, the djinni who controlled the fickle winds that pushed the dhow across the dark waters.

Kelly's mood was changeable as the breeze, dropping and shifting and then rising again.  She was elated at the prospect of going once more into the forest, and the reunion with dear friends she loved so well.

She was fearful of the journey and the dangers that still lay ahead before she could reach the safety of the tall trees.  She was anxious that the political changes since the coup dWat would have destroyed and damaged much in her absence.  She was saddened by the memory of damage already done, destruction already wrought upon the forest in the few short years since she had first entered their hushed cathedral depths.

At the same time, she was gladdened by the promises of support she had received and the interest she had been able to stir up during her visit to England and Europe, but disappointed that the support had been mainly moral and vocal rather than financial or constructive.  She mustered all her enthusiasm and determination and forced herself to look ahead optimistically.

We'll win through.  We must win through.

Then suddenly and irrelevantly she thought of Daniel Armstrong, and she felt angry and unhappy again.  Somehow his treachery was all the more heinous by reason of the blind faith and trust that she had placed in him before she had actually met him.

She had prejudged him from what she had seen on the television screen and read in a few newspaper and magazine articles about him.  From these she had formed a highly favourable opinion, not simply because he was handsome and articulate and his screen presence impressive, but because of the apparent depth of his understanding and his compassion for this poor wrecked continent which she had made her own.

She had written to him twice, addressing her letters to the television studio.  Those letters could never have reached him or, if they did, they must have been overlooked in the huge volume of mail she was sure was addressed to him.  In any event she had received no reply.

Then when the unexpected opportunity had presented itself in Nairobi, Daniel Armstrong had, at first meeting, borne out all the high hopes she had placed in him.  He was warm and compassionate and approachable.

She had been aware of the instant rapport between them.  They were people from the same world, with similar interests and concerns and, more than that, she knew that an essential spark had been struck between them.

The attraction had been mutual; they had both recognized it.

There had been a meeting and a docking of their minds as well as an undeniable physical attraction.

Kelly did not consider herself to be a sensual person.  The only lovers she had ever taken were men whose intellects she admired.  The first had been one of her professors at medical school, a fine man twenty-five years her senior.  They were still friends.  Two others were fellow students, and the fourth the man she eventually married.

Paul had been a medical doctor like herself.  The two of them had qualified in the same year and had come out to Africa as a team.  He had died from the bite of one of the deadly forest mambas within the first six months and at every opportunity she still visited his grave at the foot of a gigantic silk-cotton tree on the banks of the Ubomo River deep in the forest.

Four lovers in all her thirty-two years.  No, she was not a sensual person, but she had been intensely aware of the strong pull that Daniel Armstrong had exerted upon her, and she Had experienced no great urge to resist it.  He was the kind of man for her.

Then suddenly it was all a lie and a delusion, and he was just like the rest of them.  A hired gun, she thought angrily, for BOSS and that monster Hawison.  She tried to use her anger to shield herself against the sense of loss she felt at the destruction of an ideal.  She had believed in Daniel -Armstrong.  She had given him her trust and he had betrayed it.

Put him out of your mind, she determined.  Don't think about him again.

He's not worth it.  But she was honest enough to realise that it was not going to be that easy.

From the stern the helmsman of the dhow called softly to her in Swahili and she roused herself and looked forward.  The shoreline was half a mile ahead, the low line of beach surf creaming softly in the starlight.

Ubomo.  She was coming home.  Her mood soared.

Suddenly there was a cry from the helm and she spun about.

The two crew men, naked except for their loin-cloths, ran forward.

In haste they seized the main sheet and brought the boom of the sail crashing down upon the deck.  The lateen sail billowed and folded and they sprang upon it and furled it swiftly.  Within seconds the stubby mast was bare and the dhow was wallowing low on the dark waters.  What is it) Kelly called softly in Swahili, and the helmsman answered quietly, Patrol boat.  She heard it then, the throb of the diesel engine above the wind and her nerves sprang tight.  The crew of the dhow were all Uhati tribesmen, loyal to old President Omeru.  They were risking their lives, just as she was, by defying the curfew and crossing the lake in darkness.

They crouched on the open deck and stared out into the darkness, listening to the beat of the engine swelling louder.  The gunboat was the gift of an Arab oil sheikh to the new regime, a fast forty-foot assault craft with twin cannon in armoured turrets fore and aft.  It had seen thirty years' service in the Red Sea.  It spent most of its time tied-up in the port of Kahali, with engines broken down, awaiting spare parts.

However, they had picked a bad night for the crossing; the gunboat was for once seaworthy and dangerous.

Kelly saw the flash of foam at the bows of the oncoming patrol boat.

It was heading up from the south.  Instinctively she crouched lower, trying to shield herself behind the bulwark as she considered her position.  On its present course the patrol boat must surely spot them.

If Kelly were found on board the dhow, the crew would be shot without trial, one of those public executions on the beach of Kahali which were part of Ephrem Taffari's new style of government.  Of course she would be shot alongside them, but that did not concern Kelly at that moment.

These were good men who had risked their lives for her.  She had to do all in her power to protect them.

If she were not found on board, and there were no other contraband, the crew might have a chance of talking thereselves out of trouble.

They would almost certainly be beaten and fined, and the dhow might be confiscated, but they might escape execution.

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