Part 24 (2/2)

No one would look for hirave in the wastes of the Namib desert

The creith hihtened or threatened Nothing

Johnny opened the Land-Rover's locker and found the knife He went to the raft and stabbed the blade through the thick material at a dozen places The air hissed from the holes, and the raft collapsed slowly

Johnny bundled it into the back of the Land-Rover He would bury it in the desert; there must be no evidence that Benedict had coed the four-wheel drive, and followed the spoor to the foot of the dunes

He picked his way through the valleys and across the knife-backed ridges of sand

As he descended the last slope of the dunes he felt the oppressive silence and immensity of the land enfold hi influence of the cold Benguela current did not reach

The heat was appalling Johnny felt the sweat prickling fro instantly in the lethal desiccating air

He swung the Land-Rover parallel to the line of the dunes and crawled along at walking speed, hanging over the side of the vehicle and searching the ground The bright specks of mica in the sand bounced the heat of the sun into his face

He cut the spoor again where it caht at the far line ofinto the blue haze as the heat built up towards noon

Johnny's progress was a series of rushes where the spoor ran true, broken by halts and painstaking casts on the rocky ridges and areas of broken ground Twice he left the Landrover to work the spoor through difficult terrain, but across one of the flat white salt pans he covered fourlike the beads of a checklace, cut clearly through the glistening crust of salt

Beyond the pan they ran into a uarded by the tall ullies he found Hansie, the little old coloured crewman from Wild Goose His skull had been battered in with the blood-caked rock that lay beside him

The blood had dried slick and shi+ny, and Hansie stared with dry eyeballs at the merciless sky His expression was of edy ritten in the sandy botto, confused prints the two uess that Hansie had wanted to turn back for the coast He must have known that the road lay beyond the mountains, a hundred miles away He wanted to abandon the atteument ended when he turned his back on Benedict, and returned on his old tracks

There was a depression in the sand from which Benedict had picked up the rock and followed hi down at that pathetic crushed head, Johnny realized for the first ti a er ademented animal

”I will kill him,” Johnny promised the old white woolly head at his feet There was no need for subterfuge now

If he caught up with Benedict and did it, no court in the world would question but that it was self-defence Benedict had placed himself beyond the laws of man

Johnny took the deflated rubber raft and spread it over Hansie

He anchored the edges of the rubber sheet with rocks

He drove on into the dancing, shi+ walls of heat with a new mood on him; murderous, elated expectation

He knew that at this ery of the

He wanted payment in full from Benedict van der Byl in his own coin Life for life, and blood for blood

A mile farther on he found the water container It had been flung aside violently, skidding across the sand with the force of its rejection; the water had poured fro a dried hollow in the thirsty earth

Johnny stared at it in disbelief Not even a

Johnny went across to where the five-gallon brass drum lay on its side He picked it up and shook it, there was the sloshy sound of a pint or so of liquid in it

”God!” he whispered, awed and feeling a twinge of pity despite hi now” He lifted the container to his lips and sucked a ust, and he spat violently, dropping the can and wiping at his lips with the back of his hand

”Sea water!” he mumbled He hurried to the Land-Rover and washed out his mouth with sater

How the contaht have lain for years in Wild Goose without its stores being checked or renewed

From that point onwards Benedict must have known he was doo footsteps He had started running, with panic driving him

Five hundred yards further on he had fallen heavily into the bed of a dry ravine, and lain for a while before dragging himself up the bank

Now he had lost direction The spoor began a long curve to the northwards, running again It came round full circle, and where it crossed itself, Benedict had sat down The marks of his buttocks were unmistakable He must have controlled his panic here because once more the spoor struck out with determination towards the mountains

However, within half aoff course again, drifting southwards

Once more he had fallen, but here he had lost a shoe

Johnny picked it up and read the printed gold lettering on the inner sole ”BALLY OF SWITZERLAND, SPECIALLY MADE FOR HARRODS That's out boy Benedict, all right

Forty-guinea black kid,” he rimly, and cli now It would be soon, very soon

Farther on Benedict had wandered down into the bed of an ancient watercourse, and turned to follow it His right foot was lacerated by the razor flints in the river bed, and at each pace he had left a little dab of brown cru like a drunkard

Johnny zigzagged the Land-Rover through the boulders that dotted the watercourse gu epene , and spicocksobridges of black rock hedged it in on either hand

The air in the watercourse was a heavy blanket of heat It seared the throat, and dried the mucus in Johnny's nostrils brick hard A s of the heavy air, that provided no relief but see oppression of the air

Scattered along the river bed were bushes of stunted scrub

Grotesque little plants, crippled and ht of years

From one of the bushes ahead of the Land-Rover a ically Johnny screwed up his eyes, uncertain if it was reality or a e of the heat and the tortured air

Suddenly the bird resolved itself into the jacket of a dark blue suit It hung in the thorny branches, the breeze stirring the folds of expensive cloth

”In his coat He put it in his coat pocket” With eyes only for the jacket, recklessly he pressed down the accelerator and the Land-Rover surged forward Johnny did not see the knee-high boulder of ironstone in his path

He hit it at twenty miles an hour, and the Land-Rover stopped dead with the squeal of tearing -wheel, the is

He was still doubled up with the pain of it, wheezing for breath, as he hobbled to the jacket and snatched it out of the bush

He felt the heavy drag of the weighted pocket