Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗
From the corner of his eye Tungata saw the guards at the edge of the parade ground start towards where they stood alone in the centre. Their five minutes together was up.
"When you are safe, they will allow us to speak on the radio. To let me know that all is well, you will repeat to me, "Your beautiful bird has flown high and swiftly".
Repeat it."
"Oh my lord, "she choked.
"Repeat id" She obeyed, and then flung herself into his arms. She I j clung to him, and he to her.
"Will I ever see you again?"
"No,"he told her. "You must forget me."
"Never!" she cried. "Not if I live to be an old woman never, my lord." The guards dragged them apart. A Land-Rover drove out onto the parade ground. They hustled Sarah into it.
The last he saw of her was her face in the rear window, looking back at him her beautiful beloved face.
n the third day, they came to fetch Tungata from his cell and take him up to Peter Fungabera's command post on the central kopie.
"The woman is ready to speak to you. You will converse only in English. Your conversation will be recorded." Peter indicated the transistor tape deck beside the radio apparatus. "If you do attempt to slip in any Sindebele message, it will be translated later."
id
"The code we have arranged is in Sindebele, Tungata told him. "She will have to repeat it."
"Very well. That is acceptable, but nothing else." He looked Tungata over critically. "I am delighted to see you looking so well again, Comrade, a little good food and rest have worked wonders." Tungata wore faded suntans, but they were freshly laundered and pressed. He was still gaunt and wasted, but his skin had lost the dusty grey look and his eyes were clear and bright. The swelling of the adder bite on his cheek had abated, and the scab covering it looked dry and healthy.
Peter Fungabera nodded to the guard captain and he passed the radio microphone to Tungata and pressed the record" button on the tape deck.
"This is Tungata Zebiwe."
"My lord, this is Sarah." Her voice was scratchy and distorted by static, but he would have known it anywhere.
The ache of longing filled his chest.
"Are you safe?"
"I am in Francistowti. The Red Cross are caring for me."
"Do you have a message?" She replied in Sindebele. "Your beautiful bird has flown high and swiftly." Then she added, "I have met others here.
Do not despair." That is good I want' you to-" Peter Fungabera reached across and took the microphone from his hand. "Excuse me, Comrade, but I am paying for the call." He held the microphone to his lips and depressed the transmit button. "Transmission ends," he said, and broke the connection.
He tossed the microphone casually to the guard captain.
"Have the tape translated by one of the Matabele trusties and bring me a copy immediately." Then he turned back to Tungata.
Your little holiday is over, Comrade, now you and I have work to do. Shall we go?" aw long would he be able to draw out the search for Lobengula's grave, Tungata wondered. Fo, every hour he could gain would have value -another hour of life, another hour of hope.
"It is almost twenty years since my grandfather took me to visit the site. My memory is unclean"
"Your memory is as brilliant as that sun up there," Peter told him. "You are renowned for your ability to remember places and faces and names, Comrade, you forget that I have heard you speak in the Assembly, without notes.
Besides which, you will have a helicopter to ferry you directly to the site."
"That will not work. The first time I went was on foot. I must go back the same way. I would not recognize the landmarks from the air." So they went back along the dirt roads that Tungata and old Gideon had bussed over so many years before, and the Tungata genuinely could not find the starting place fall of rocks in the old river course and the kopje shaped like an elephant's head. They spent three days searching, with Peter Fungabera becoming more and more short tempered and disbelieving, before they stopped at the tiny village and trading-store that was the last reference point that Tungata could remember.
"Haul The old road. Yes, the bridge was washed away many years ago. It was never used again. Now the new road goes so and so-" They found the overgrown track at last and four hours later reached the dry river-bed. The old bridge had cot lapsed into a heap of shattered concrete already overgrown with lianas, but the rock wall upstream was exactly as Tungata had remembered it and he experienced a pang of nostalgia. Suddenly old Gideon seemed very close to him, so much so that he glanced around and made a small sign with his right hand to appease the ancestral spirits and whispered, "Forgive me, Babo, that I am going to betray the oath." Strangely the presence that he sensed was benign and fondly indulgent, as Old Gideon had always been. "The lies this way." They left the Land-Rover at the broken path bridge and continued on foot.
Tungata. led with two armed troopers at his back. He set an easy pace, that chafed Peter Fungabera who followed behind the guards. As they went, Tungata could allow his imagination to wander freely. He seemed to be part of the exodus of the Matabele people of almost a hundred years before, an embodiment of Gandang, his great-great-grandfather, faithful and loyal to the end. He felt again the despair of a defeated people and the terror of the hard riding white pursuit that might appear at any instant from the forest behind them, with their chattering three, legged machine-guns. He seemed to hear the lament of the women and the small children, the lowing of herds as they faltered and fell in this hard and bitter country.
