Part 10 (1/2)
”You think I didn't know that, old son?” Gareth grinned back at hiht when huht was utterly silent except for the gentle sound of one of the nized the sound fro, and wondered which of theirl's decision, she thought, iht of your life in a saw mill
It was not that which had woken her, however Perhaps it was the cold The tee of the desert, and she drew her blankets tighter over her shoulder and settled to sleep ,again when the sound ca position
It was a long-drawn rolling, rattling sound, quite unlike anything she had ever heard before The sound rose to a pitch which clawed her nerves, and then ended in a series of deep gut-shaking grunts It was so fierce anda sound that she felt the slow ice of terror spreading through her body She wanted to shout to the others, to wake them, but she was afraid to draw attention to herself and she sat frozen and wide-eyed in the next silence waiting for it to happen again
”It's all right, Miss Camberwell” Vicky started at the quiet voice ”It'sto worry about” And she looked round to see the young Ethiopian, still wrapped in his blankets watching her
”My God, Greg what on earth is it?”
”A lion, Miss Caoriusexplained, obviously surprised that she did not recognize such a co?” She had not expected it to sound anything like that
”My people say that even a brave htened three times by a lion and the first time is when he hears it roar”
”I believe it,”
she whispered ”I truly do” And she picked up her blankets and went to where Jake and Gareth slept on, undisturbed She lay down carefully between them, and felt a little easier that the lion had noider choice, but still she did not sleep, Count Aldo Belli had retired to his tent with the sincerest and fir he would press forward to the Wells of Chaldi The General's pleas had touched hi would check him now, he decided, as he composed hi hours to find that the Chianti he had drunk at dinner was now exerting internal pressure
Where a lesser ht have slipped without ceremony froreater style
He lay back on his pillows and let out a single loud bellow, and iht, and within minutes Gino had arrived with a bull's-eye lantern, hastily dressed in a caown, and tousle-haired and owl-eyed with sleep He was followed by the Count's personal valet and his galloper, all in the same state of freshly awoken bewilderment
The Count stated his physical needs, and the dedicated group gathered around his bed solicitously Gino helped hiown of quilted blue Chinese silk, eons, and then knelt to place a calf-skin slipper on each of the Count's feet, while his aide hastened to kick the Count's personal guard awake and fall theed frohted, filed down to the latrine which had been dug exclusively for the Count's personal use Gino entered first and checked the sands Only when he eed and declared it safe did the Count enter His escort stood to attention and listened respectfully to the copious outpouring taking place within until they were interrupted by the sky shaking earth-rattling, heart-stopping roar of a male lion
The Count shot fro white in the lantern light
”Sweet and merciful Mother of God!” he cried ”What in the name of Peter and all the saints is that?” nobody could answer him, in fact nobody showed any interest in the question whatever, and the Count had to move swiftly to catch up with his armed escort which had already started back towards the bivouac in a sprightly fashi+on
Once within the security of his own brightly lit tent, and surrounded by his hastily assembled staff, the Count's pulse rate returned to norested that the native Eritrean guides be sent for and questioned on the terrible night sounds that had plunged the entire battalion into consternation
”Lion?” said the Count, and then again, ”Lion!” Instantly the forht evaporated, for by this ti in the east, and the Count's breast swelled with the fierce instincts of the huntsman
”It appears,on the antelope carcasses that you left lying out on the desert,” the interpreter explained ”The smell of blood has attracted them”
aGi no snapped the Count ”Fetch the Mannlicher and have the driver bring the Rolls-Royce to i Castelani ”The battalion, by your own orders, is to march at dawn”
”I Counternificent trophy skin spread before his Louis XIV desk in the library of his castle He would have it prepared ide open jaws, flashi+ng white fangs and fierce yellow glass eyes The picture of open jaws and fangs suddenly re brush with the beisa oryx ”Major,” he ordered, ”I want twenty men to accompany me, a truck to transport them, full battle order, and one hundred rounds of ammunition each” The Count was not about to take any more silly chances
The lion was a fully e, and, like er than the forest lions He stood well over three feet high at the shoulder, and he weighed in excess of four hundred pounds The late sun enhanced the sleek reddish ochre of his skin and transforold Thethe broad flattened head, reaching far back beyond the shoulder, and hanging so low under his chest and belly as almost to sweep the earth
He walked stiffly, head held very low and swinging heavily fro carunt at each exhalation, and occasionally he stopped and swung his head to snap irritably at the buzzing blue cloud of flies that swarmed about the wound in his flank Then he would lick at the small dark hole fro pink tongue curled out and, rough as shagreen, rasped against the supple hide The constant licking had away the hair around the wound, giving it a pale worn shaven appearance
The 93 Marun to turn away to run It had angled in fro with a force of nine tons that had bowled the lion down, rolling him in a cloud of pale dust The copper-jacketed bullet was tipped with soft expanding lead, and itthe bowels and tearing four large abdoh to the kidneys to bruise both of them severely, so nohen the lion stopped, arched his back and crouched to pass a spattering of bloodstained urine, he groaned like the roll of drums at an execution Then, finally, the bullet had struck the arch of the pelvic girdle and lodged there against the bone
After the first massive shock of impact, the lion had rolled to his feet and flattened into a dead streaking run, jinking away below the level of the coarse scrub Although a dozenspurts of dust around hirit into his eyes, not another touched him
There had been seven lions in the pride Another older, heavier, darker- females, one with her lithe-wasted body thickened with the heavy bearing of young in her womb, and three immature animals still dappled with their cub spots and boisterous as kittens
The youngerroll of rifle fire, and now as heblood sloshi+ng back and forth across his belly cavity at each step There was a heavy lethargy slowing hisagony that consumed his whole body, and the lower pools of the Awash River were a dozenwas heavily bogged down on her belly with all four wheels helpless in the porridge of pale salt mire below the crust of the pan
Jake stripped to the waist and swung the long two handed axe relentlessly, while the others gathered the piles of thorny scrub heat the pricks and scratches, carried them out across the snowy surface of the pan
Jake worked with a self punishi+ng fury, angry with his lack of attention which had bogged the car and was going to cost them a day at the least It was no valid excuse that exhaustion and heat had clouded his judgenized the treacherous sorius had warned him specifically of this hazard He worked with the axe from an hour before sunrise until the heat had climbed with the sun and a small mountain of cut branches stood beside the car
Then Gareth helped him build a firine corovel in the dust to get the big screw jack set up on the base and they slowly lifted the front of the car, turning the handle between them
As the front wheels rose an inch at a tiorius packed the wiry scrub branches under them It was slow and laborious hich had to be repeated at the rear of the car
it was past noon before Priscilla the Pig stood forlornly balanced on four piles of compacted branches but her belly was clear of the surface ”What do we do now?” Gareth asked ”Drive her back?”
”One spin of the wheels will kick that trash out and she'll bog down again,” Jake grunted, and wiped his sweat glistening chest on the bundled shi+rt in his hand He looked at Gareth and felt a flare of irritation that after five hours” work in the sun, after grovelling on his belly in the dust, and heaving on the jack handle, the man had barely raised a/ sweat, his clothes were unmarked and final provocation his hair was still neatly co under Jake's direction, they cut and laid a corduroy of branches back to the hard ground at the edge of the pan This would distribute the weight of the vehicle and prevent it breaking through the crust again
Then Vicky e of the pan and lined her up with the causeway of branches The men joined three coils of the thick manila line and carried it out to the stranded vehicle, unrolling it behind them as they went, until at last the two cars were joined by that fragile thread
Gareth cliorius, armed with two of the thickest branches, stood ready to lever the wheels
”You any good at praying, Gary? ”Jake shouted
”Notsuit, old son”
”Well, stiffen the old upper lip then ”Jake mied with a wave before her golden head disappeared into the driver's hatch of Miss Wobbly The engine beat accelerated and the line came up taut as Miss Wobbly rolled forward up the incline above the pan
”Keep the wheels straight,” shouted Jake, and he and Gregorius threw their weight on the branches, giving just that ounce of leverage sufficient to transfer part of the vehicle's weight on to the corduroyed pathway
Slowly, ponderously, the cumbersome vehicle rolled back across the pan, until she reached the hard ground and the four of them shouted with relief and triumph
Jake retrieved two celebratory bottles of Tusker beer from his secret hoard, but the liquid was so warush from the mouth of each bottle as it was opened, and there was only a mouthful for each of thehtfall?” Jake dele of the sun before replying
”If we don't waste any iving the salt-white pans a wide berth, the coluround on steadily into the west