War Cry. Wilbur Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ through to let them know you’re coming,’ Doc Thompson had said. ‘Birchinall, you look after Mrs Courtney along the way. Courtney, you’d better pray that fancy car of yours is as powerful as you always tell us it is. And may God be with you, for you’ll need all the luck He can give.’

      It was barely midday by the time they had set off. Eva’s first fit had passed, though others could be expected. Her face had lost its normal golden tan and was a ghostly, greyish white. Yet she seemed to be at peace, as if she were just sleeping as she was taken on a stretcher to the car and then laid on her side along the back seat. Leon had relented a little and let Saffron see her mother and whisper, ‘I love you,’ in her ear, but he had resisted his daughter’s increasingly frantic pleas to be allowed to come with them to the hospital and she had been taken away, kicking and screaming, to be driven back to Lusima in the truck with Manyoro, Loikot and the staff.

      The first section of the drive was relatively straightforward as the road ran southeast along the valley floor. The rain was far too much for the Rolls’s windscreen wipers to cope with, but Leon knew the route so well that he only needed a few visual clues, no matter how blurred by water, to tell him where he was, and there was almost no other traffic on the road to worry about. He was even able, in a desperate attempt to talk about something, anything other than Eva’s plight, to tell Birchinall, ‘This storm has come at just the right time for your Mr de Lancey.’

      ‘How do you mean?’

      ‘Well, I doubt he’s stripped down to his birthday suit and run round the polo field in this weather. Even if he did there’d be no one still left to watch him.’

      ‘I’m glad your chap won,’ Birchinall said. ‘Pluckiest thing I ever saw, taking on the three of us like that. It would have been rotten if van Doorn had come on and beaten him at the last. Can’t say I liked the cut of that Boer’s jib, truth be told. Charmless bunch, aren’t they?’

      ‘True enough. But they’d probably say that charm’s a luxury they can’t afford. And to do the man justice, he’s not like ninety-nine per cent of the other white men and women who were at the race today. He’s not a settler, or a colonist. He’s a proper African.’

      ‘So are you, from what I hear … If you don’t mind me saying so.’

      ‘Absolutely not, I take it as a compliment, which was how this ridiculous bet ever happened in the first place. Christ, I wish I’d never set de Lancey that wager. We’d have spent the day at home, no excitement. Eva would have been right as rain. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to her. Never!’

      ‘Don’t say that, Mr Courtney. Your wife has eclampsia. It could have struck her at any time, in any surroundings. As it was, it happened at a place that was a lot closer to Nairobi than your estate is, with two doctors immediately at hand. If anything, your wager has improved her chances, not lessened them.’

      The road was starting to rise upwards now, passing through groves of spiky-leaved sisal and candelabra euphorbia, whose succulent stems branched out and up from a central tree trunk like a myriad green candles. As they went higher, more and more of the valley and the hills that rose from it were displayed before them.

      ‘Astonishing, isn’t it?’ Birchinall said. ‘Looks like something from the dawn of time. Just the power of it all.’

      Leon knew just what the doctor meant, for the sun had entirely disappeared and the only illumination came from lightning bolts that could be seen flashing across the sky, striking one mountain ridge after another with their searing blasts of pure white light – the mountains just a darker shade of black against the deep purples and charcoal greys of the sky. It truly seemed as though the bolts were being hurled down from the heavens by unseen gods, as though the vast power they contained held the spark of life itself, as well as the destructive force of death.

      And then the road swung upwards again, curled this way and that and suddenly they were on the side of the escarpment, on a road that seemed barely wider than the car itself and, just at the point when the surface became most treacherous, so it was almost completely exposed to the full force of the wind and rain. Leon had ordered the most powerful headlights possible for his car, but the beams barely penetrated the watery, murky gloom. He could see a small patch of road surface directly in front of the bonnet, but beyond that there was nothing but darkness, and it was quite impossible to tell whether the blackness was simply that of the track itself, just waiting for the light to strike it, or the empty space beyond the precipice, waiting to hurl them to their destruction.

      Leon longed to put his foot down on the accelerator, for every extra minute spent on the journey lessened Eva’s chances of surviving it. From time to time he would hear her groan or whimper and it struck him that these moments came not when she emitted sound, but when the chaos outside the car had temporarily abated enough for him to catch the audible evidence of her suffering. But as they crawled up and up, the road became steadily more treacherous.

      The gushing water was dislodging rocks that hammered against the wheels and the underside of the chassis, and digging out potholes where just hours before the surface had been relatively smooth. Where the gravel had been washed away the earth below was dissolving into a muddy slurry as slippery as ice. More than once Leon felt the car sliding across the road, towards the side of the track, and he had to wrestle with the wheel to control the skid and keep them moving forwards.

      Is this it? he asked himself. Is this the disaster that Lusima Mama foretold? But how can it be? She said I would live. She made it sound like a curse. If Eva and I could go together that would almost be a blessing.

      And then he caught himself. No! Whatever happens, I have to live. There must be one of us, at the very least, to look after poor Saffy. But, oh God, please let there be two. Please, I beg you, let my darling Eva survive.

      Do you believe in God?’ Saffron asked Manyoro, as they drove back to Lusima through the same storm, but on much friendlier roads.

      ‘Of course. I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,’ replied Manyoro, whose formal education had all been provided by missionaries.

      ‘I’ve already prayed to them. I prayed and prayed to make Mummy better. Do you have another God, a Masai one I can pray to as well?’

      ‘Yes, we have a God we call Ngai. He created all the cattle in the world and gave them all to the Masai. When we drink the blood and milk of our cattle, it is as if we are drinking the blood of Ngai, too.’

      ‘Christians believe they drink Jesus’s blood, don’t they?’

      ‘Yes, and that is why I believe in your God. I think he is really Ngai!’

      Manyoro burst out laughing at the cunning of his theology. Then he told Saffron, ‘Ngai has a wife called Olapa. She is the goddess of the moon. You can pray to them if you like.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Also we believe that every person on earth has a guardian spirit who has been sent to watch over us and keep us safe. So when you pray, ask that your mother’s guardian spirit is kept strong and wide-awake so that it can protect her now.’

      So Saffron prayed to God and Jesus and Ngai and Olapa. She prayed for Mummy and for her guardian spirit. She promised God that she would be good all the time, and never do anything naughty ever again, if only Mummy could get better.

      Then she told Manyoro all about her prayers and when she had finished listing them all she asked, ‘Do you think that will make any difference?’

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