Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗
Tungata made the only open acknowledgement of this when, in plain sight of the other three, he took four 7.62 bullets for the Tokarev pistol, wrapped them in a scrap of goat-skin, and wedged them in a crack in the limestone wall beside the pool. The -two girls watched him with sickly fascination, and though Craig made a show of checking his breathing equipment, they all understood. This was the final assurance against torture and slow mutilation, one bullet for each of them.
"Okay!" Craig's voice was overloud for the silence of the gallery.
"I'm going to see h*w efficiently this contraption is going to drown me." Tungata lifted the set and Craig knelt and slipped his head through the yoke of the life-jacket. Sally' Anne and Sarah settled the bottle and canisters on his back, and then strapped them in place with strips of canvas cut from the seat covers. Craig checked the knots. If the set ever failed, he must be able to jettison it in a hurry.
At last he hopped into the pool, shuddered at the cold as he fitted the mask over his mouth and nose, secured the strap behind his head and half-filled his chest bag with oxygen. He gave the three on the bank a thumbsup sign, and lowered himself below the surface.
As he had anticipated, buoyancy was his first problem.
The pull of the bag on his chest rolled him onto his back likea dead fish, and with the thrust of his one leg, he was unable to right himself. He paddled back to the slab, and began the irksome business of experimenting with rock weights to adjust his attitude in the water.
In the end he found that the only way to do it was to hold an excessively heavy stone and let it draw him down headfirst. However, as soon as he released the stone, he was borne irresistibly upwards.
"At least the joints are watertight," he told them when he surfaced again. "And I'm getting oxygen. There is a lot of water leaking in around the edges of the mask, but I can purge that in the usual way." He demonstrated the trick of holding the mask at the top and forcing the accumulated water out of the bottom with a sharp exhalation of breath.
"When are you going to go for the wall?"
"I guess I'm as ready now as I'll ever be," Craig admitted reluctantly.
"V* ou must understand that I wish to be as a father to you," Peter Fungabera smiled gently. "I look upon you as my children."
"I
can understand this Shana chattering as little as I can the barking of baboons from the hilltops Vusamanzi replied courteously, and Peter Fungabera made a gesture of irritation as he turned to his sergeant.
"Where is that translator?"
"He will be here very soon, mambo." Tapping his swagger-stick against his thigh, Peter Fungabera walked slowly down the ragged rank of villagers that his troopers had gathered in from their hoeing on the maize fields and had flushed from the huts.
Apart from the old man, they were all women and children. Some of the women were as ancient as the witch-doctor, with white woolly pates and wizened dugs hanging to their waists, others were still capable of child-bearing with fat infants strapped to their backs, or standing naked at their knees; snot had dried white around the toddlers" nostrils and flies crawled unnoticed on their lips and at the corners of their eyes, and they stared up at Peter as he passed with fathomless eyes. There were still younger women with firm full breasts and glossy skin, pre-pubescent girls and uncircumcised boys. Peter Fungabera smiled kindly at them, but they stared back at him without expression.
"My Matabele puppies, we will hear you yap a little before this day is done," he promised softly, and turned at the end of the line. He walked back slowly to where the Russian waited in the shade of one of the huts.
"You will get nothing qut of the old one." Bukharin took the ebony cigarette-holder from between his teeth and coughed softly, covering his mouth with his hand. "He is dried up, beyond pain, beyond suffering. Look at his eyes.
Fanatic."
"I agree, these sangoma are capable of self-hypnosis, he will be impervious to pairWPeter Fungabera shot back the cuff of his battle-sino and glanced impatiently at his watch. "Where is that translator?" It was another hour before the Matabele trusty from the rehabilitation centre was hustled up the path from the valley. He fell on his knees before Peter Fungabera, blubbering and holding up his manacled hands.
"Get up!" Then, to the sergeant, "Remove his manacles.
Bring the old man here." Vusamanzi was led into the centre of the village square.
"Tell him I am his father," Fungabera ordered.
"Mambo, he replies that his father was a man, not a hyena."
"Tell him that although I cherish him and all his people, I am displeased with him."
"Mambo, he replies that if he has made Your Honour unhappy, then he is well content."
"Tell him he has tied to my men."
"Mambo, he hopes for the opportunity to do so again."
"Tell him that I know he is protecting and feeding four enemies of the state."
"Mambo, he suggests that Your Honour is demented.
There are no hidden enemies of the state."
"Very well. Now address all these people. Repeat that I wish to know where the traitors are hidden. Tell them that if they lead me to them, then nobody in the village will come to any harm." The translator stood before the silent rank of women and children, and made a long and passionate plea, but when he ended, they stared back at him stolidly. One of the infants began to scream petulantly, and its mother swung it under her arm and pressed her swollen nipple into its tiny mouth. There was silence again.
