Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 79

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She reached for her backpack that lay in the bows.  Quickly she undid the straps that held the inflatable mattress strapped to the underside of the pack.  She unrolled the nylon-covered mattress and frantically blew into the valve, filling her lungs and then exhaling long and hard, all the time watching the dark shape of the patrol boat loom out of the night.

it was coming up fast.  There was no time to inflate the mattress fully. It was still soft and floppy as she closed the valve.

She stood up and slung the pack on her back and called back to the helmsman, Thank you, my friend.  Peace be with you, and may Allah preserve you.  The lake people were nearly all Muslim.  And with you be peace, he called back.  She could hear the relief and gratitude in his tone.  He knew she was doing this for him and his crew.

Kelly sat on the bulwark and swung her legs overboard.  She clutched the semi-inflated mattress to her chest and drew a deep breath before she dropped into the lake.  The water closed over her head.  It was surprisingly cold and the heavy pack on her back carried her deep before the buoyancy of the mattress asserted itself and lifted her back to the surface.

She broke through, gasping and with water streaming into her eyes.

it took her a few minutes to master the trim of the bobbing mattress, but at last she lay half across it, her legs dangling, the strap of the backpack hooked over her arm.  It held her head clear, but she was low down in the water.  The waves dashed into her face and threatened to overturn her precarious craft.

She looked for the dhow and was surprised to see how far she had drifted from it.  As she watched, the boom was hoisted and the sail filled.  The ungainly little boat turned to run free before the breeze, trying to get clear of the forbidden coast before the patrol boat spotted her.

Good luck, she whispered, and a wave broke into her face.

She choked and coughed, and when she looked again both the dhow and the patrol boat had disappeared into the night.

She kicked out gently, careful not to upset her balance, conserving her strength for the long night ahead.  She knew that some monstrous crocodiles inhabited the lake; she had seen a photograph of one that measured eighteen feet from the tip of its hideous snout to the end of its thick crested tail.  She put the picture out of her mind and kept kicking, lining herself up by the stars, swimming towards where Orion stood on his head upon the western horizon.

A few minutes later she glimpsed a flash of light far upwind.

It may have been the searchlight of the patrol boat as it picked up the shape of the dhow.  She forced herself not to look back.

She didn't want to know the worst, for there was nothing more she could do to save the men who had helped her.

She kept swimming, kicking to a steady rhythm.  After an hour she wondered if she had moved at all.  The backpack was like a drogue anchor hanging below the half-inflated mattress.

However, she dared not jettison it.  Without the basic equipment it contained, she was doomed.

She kept on swimming.  Another hour and she was almost exhausted.

She was forced to rest.  One calf was cramping badly.  The breeze had dropped and in the silence she heard a soft regular rumbling, like an old man snoring in his sleep.  It took her a moment to place the sound.

The beach surf, she whispered, and kicked out again with renewed strength.

She felt the water lift and surge under her as it met the shelving bottom.  She swam on, torturously slowly, dragging herself and the sodden pack through the water.

Now She saw the ivory-nut palms above the beach silhouetted against the stars.  She held her breath and reached down with both feet.  Again the water closed over her head, but with her toes she felt the sandy bottom, six feet below the surface, and found enough strength for one last effort.

Minutes later she could stand.  The surf knocked her sprawling, but she dragged herself up again and staggered up the narrow beach to find shelter in a patch of papyrus reeds.  Her watch was a waterproof Rolex, a wedding gift from Paul.  The time was a few minutes after four.  It would be light soon.  She must get in before a Hita patrol picked her up, but she was too cold and stiff and exhausted to move just yet.

While she rested she forced herself to open the pack with numb fingers and to empty out the water that almost doubled its weight.  She wrung out her few spare items of clothing and wiped down the other equipment as best she could.  While she worked she chewed a high-energy sugar bar and almost immediately felt better.

She repacked the bag, slung it, and started back northwards, keeping parallel to the lake, but well back from the soft beach sand which would record her footprints for a Hita patrol to follow.

Every few hundred yards there were the gardens and thatched buildings of the small sharnbas.  Dogs barked and she was forced to detour round the huts to avoid detection.  She hoped that she was heading in the right direction.  She reasoned that the captain of the dhow would have come in upwind of his destination to give himself leeway in which to make his landfall so she must keep northwards.

She had been going for almost an hour, but reckoned that she had covered only a couple of miles when, with a surge of relief, she saw ahead of her the pale round dome of the little mosque shining like a bald man's head in the first pearly radiance of the dawn.

She broke into a weary trot, weighed down by the pack and her fatigue.

She smelt woodsmoke, and saw the faint glow of the fire under the dark tamarind tree, just where it should have been.  Closer, she made out the figures of two men squatting close beside the fire.

Patrick!  she called hoarsely, and one of the figures jumped up and ran towards her.  Patrick, she repeated, and stumbled and would have fallen if he had not caught her.  Kelly!  Allah be praised.  We had given you up.  The patrol boat.  . she gasped.  Yes.  We heard firing and saw the light.  We thought they Had caught you.

Patrick Omeru was one of old President Omeru's nephews.

So far he had escaped the purges by Taffari's soldiers.  He was one of the first friends that Kelly had made after her arrival in Ubomo.

He lifted the pack from her shoulders, and she groaned with relief.

The wet straps had abraded her delicate skin.  Kill the fire, Patrick called to his brother, and he kicked sand over the coals.  Between them they led Kelly to where the truck was parked in a grove of mango trees behind the derelict mosque.  They helped her into the back and spread a tarpaulin over her as she lay on the dirty floorboards.  The truck stank of dried fish.

Even though the truck jolted and crashed through the potholes, she was at last warm, and soon she slept.  It was a trick she had learned in the forest, to be able to sleep in any circumstances of discomfort.

The sudden cessation of engine noise and movement woke her again.

She did not know how long she had slept, but it was light now and a glance at her watch showed her it was after nine in the morning.  She lay quietly under her tarpaulin and listened to the sound of men's voices close alongside the truck.

She knew better than to disclose her presence.

Minutes later, Patrick pulled back the tarpaulin and smiled at her.

Where are we, Patrick?  Kahali, in the old town.  A safe place.  The truck was parked in the small yard of one of the old Arab houses.  The building was dilapidated, the yard filthy with chicken droppings and rubbish.

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