Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur - Страница 70

"Darling, don't be too happy about it," Craig cautioned her. "Remember this is Africa, not America or Britain.

This land has a different temper. Words have a different meaning here words like "apprehend" and "hunt down"."

"Craig, I know that your sympathy is always with the Matabele, but this time surely-"

"All right," he held up one hand in agreement, "I admit it. The Matabele are special, my family has always lived with them, we've beaten and exploited them, we've fought them and slaughtered them and been slaughtered by them in return. Yet, also, we have cherished and honoured them and come to know them and, yes, to love them. I don't know the Mashona. They are secretive and cold, clever and tricky. I can't speak their language, and I don't trust them. That's why I choose to live in Matabeleland."

"You are saying the Matebele are saints that they are incapable of committing an atrocity like this?" She was getting irritable with him now, her tone sharpening, and he was quick to placate her.

"Good God, no! They are as cruel as any other tribe in Africa, and a hell of a lot more warlike than most. In the old days when they raided a foreign tribe, they used to toss the infants in the air and catch them on the points of their assegais, and throw the 4d women in the watch-fires and laugh to see them buip. Cruelty has a different value in Africa. If you live here you have to understand that from the beginning." He paused and smiled. "Once I was discussing political philosophy with a Matabele, an ex guerrilla and I explained the concept of democracy. His reply was, "That might work in your country, but it doesn't work here. It doesn't work here." Don't you see? That's the crux. Africa makes and keeps her own rules, and I lay you a million dollars to a pinch of elephant dung that we're going to see a few pretty things in the weeks ahead that you wouldn't see in Pennsylvania or Dorset! When Mugabe says "destroy", he doesn't mean "take into custody and process under the laws of evidence". He's an African and he means precisely that destroy!" That was on the Wednesday, and when Friday came round it was market day at King's Lynn, the day to go into Bulawayo for shopping and socializing. Craig and Sally Anne left early on that Friday morning. The new five-ton truck followed them, filled with Matabele from the ranch, taking advantage of the free ride into town for the day.

They were dressed in their best, and singing with excitement.

Craig and Sally-Anne came up against the road-block just before they reached the crossroads at Thabas Indunas.

The traffic was backed up for a hundred yards, and Craig could see that most of the vehicles were being turned back.

"Hold on!" he told Sally-Anne, left her in the Land Rover and jogged up to the head of the line of parked vehicles.

The road-block was not a casual temporary affair. There w re avy machine-guns in sandbagged emplacements on both sides of the highway, and light machine-guns set back in depth beyond it to cover a breakthrough by a speeding vehicle.

The actual barricade was of drums filled with concrete and spiked metal plates to puncture pneumatic tyres, and the guards were from the Third Brigade in their distinctive burgundy berets and silver cap-badges. Their striped camo ullage battle-jackets gave them the tigerish air of jungle cats.

"What is happening, Sergeant? "Craig asked one of them.

"The road is closed, mambo," the man told him politely.

"Only military permit-holders allowed to pass."

"I have to get into town."

AOINE

"Not today," the man shook his head. "Bulawayo is not a good place to be today." As if to confirm this, there was a faint popping sound from the direction of the town. It sounded like green twigs in a fire, and the hair on Craig's forearms lifted instinctively. He knew that sound so well, and it brought nightmarish memories from the war days crowding back. It was the sound of distant automatic rifle-fire.

"Go back home, mambo," said the sergeant in a kindly tone. "This is not your indaba any more." Suddenly Craig was very anxious to get the truckload of his people safely back to King's Lynn.

He ran back to the Land-Rover, and swung it out of the line of parked vehicles in a hard 180-degree turn.

"What is it, Craig?"

"I think it has started," he told her grimly, and thrust the accelerator flat to the floorboards.

They met the King's Lynn truck barrelling merrily along towards them, the women singing and clapping, their dresses fluttering brightly in the wind. Craig flagged them down, and jumped up onto the running, board Shadrach, in the cast-off grey suit that Craig had given him, was sitting up in his place of honour beside the driver.

"Turn around," Craig ordered. "Go back to Kingi Lingi.

There is big trouble. Nobody must leave Kingi Lingi until it is over."

"Is it the Mashona. sol dit rs "Yes," Craig told h rif "The Third Brigade."

"Jackals and sons of dung-eating jackals," said Shadrach, and spat out of the open window.

o say that thousands of innocent persons have been killed by the state security forces is a nonsense-" The Zimbabwean minister of justice looked likea successful stockbroker in his dark suit and white shirt. He smiled blandly out of the television screen, his face shining with a light sheen of sweat from the brute arc lamps which only enhanced the coaly blackness of his skin. "One or two civilians have been killed in the crossfire between the security forces and the outlaw Matebele dissidents but thousands! Ha, ha, ha!" he chuckled jovially. "If thousands have been killed, then I wish somebody would show me the bodies I know nothing about them."