Dark Heart (20 page)

‘No contact?' Caleb asked quietly.

‘No, Captain. I've tried every channel. There's no radio signal anywhere nearby.' That would be the radio officer.

‘OK,' decided Caleb. ‘Contact base, report that shots were fired near to us – perhaps at us. No damage or casualties to report. But maybe they should be aware downriver. Sanda, anything?'

‘The light beyond the island seems to have gone out. I guess there was some kind of vessel there and that's most likely where the shots came from. But she seems to have gone now. Do you want to pursue, Captain?'

‘No. It's not really an option,' said Caleb. ‘Navigator, where do you estimate the nearest big break in the island chain on our port side is?'

‘Seven klicks ahead.'

‘Five minutes at full speed. Twenty-five given the current situation. No. We'll carry on with the mission. But we'll keep a careful watch. And put the searchlight on again.'

‘Man the gun, just in case?' asked the lieutenant.

‘No, Sanda. Nor the machine guns. Let's keep everyone inside where it's nice and safe. For the time being, at least. Now, who's on galley duty? Let's get back to routine as soon as possible. You have the con, Sanda. And I want to know the instant we get free of this garbage blocking our way. I want a fast run up to Citematadi if humanly possible.'

‘Yes, Captain.'

Robin didn't recognize the man who served dinner, but she decided that when the opportunity arose she would get his recipe for fish pepper soup and Jollof rice. The fish pepper soup wasn't a soup and it wasn't made with fish. It was a thick stew of huge delta prawns and a range of peppers – sweet and hot – and tomatoes. It was heavenly and it complemented the rice and mixed vegetables perfectly. She would have gone for seconds – but the seconds were gone before she finished her huge first serving. ‘You'll have to be quicker than that Captain Mariner,' said Caleb in English, his deep voice rumbling with amusement. ‘Seaman Erelu's
obe eja tutu
is famous throughout the fleet. Don't despair, though, there's Rocky Road for dessert.'

Robin and Bonnie dragged the meal out a little and Caleb's crew indulged them, for there were no entertainment facilities aboard. They were politely refused permission to help with the washing-up, but they were permitted back up on deck as the boat's evening routine proceeded in unhurried efficiency. Once cleared, the table was elevated and bunks folded down. The heads were tiny, but big enough to allow more than mere functionality – there would have been room to change into night-things had either woman wanted to. But they were both still too excited, and so they wandered around, above-decks and below, trying not to get in the way.

The next excitement came when the Shaldag finally broke free of the hyacinth-clogged channel between the islands and the southern shore. As soon as he was clear, Caleb pushed the throttles forward and his command sat up on the water again as her speed climbed. But from what Robin remembered of the notes on the map he had shown them at the briefing, they were badly behind schedule now. It came as no surprise, therefore, when they sped past the lights of Malebo township which glittered briefly on the far, northern, bank just before midnight.

Neither Robin nor Bonnie had any intention of sleeping, even though bunks had been prepared for them below with courtesy and care. The adventure had been quite exciting enough before the ingredients of unexplained gunfire, water-hyacinth clots and long fast runs up black, benighted river were added to the mix. And, to make the temptation of deck over bunk quite irresistible, there was a low, full moon dead ahead, magnified by some trick of the heavy, humid atmosphere, rising like a fat pendulous silver sun, while the stars lay scattered overhead like huge pearls across the black velvet of the lightless interstellar sky. The amazing moon lit their way so brightly that Caleb ordered the searchlight off again and let his command cut like a shadow through the shimmering majesty of the night.

Where the atmosphere at sunset had seemed threatening, almost horrific, thought Robin dreamily, now it was the opposite. The curve of the river with its overhanging forest-buttressed bank, the occasional tall palm tree soaring high against the Milky Way, was something out of every jungle romance ever written or filmed. And the figures standing so close together at the helm seemed almost to be outlined in a pearly luminescence. The air on the broader reach was cooler. It carried out to the speeding vessel the odours of the jungle so close at hand. Sometimes the rich stench of rotting detritus left high after the recent floods. Sometimes the clear crisp smell of fresh green vegetation, reminding Robin irresistibly of fresh cut grass. But the jungle was secondary; overgrowing what had in many places been civilized into gardens before the wildness reclaimed it. So once in a while – and more often as they approached Citematadi in the small hours – there were scents familiar from Robin's own garden: bougainvillea, buddleia, magnolia, myrtle and, ‘Is that night-flowering jasmine I can smell?' asked Bonnie.

The breeze also seemed to carry sounds out of the vast near-silence that stretched out beyond the grumble of the engines. The whispering of the wavelets beneath the sharp bows and square back in the wake, the rustling of the millions upon millions of leaves. The occasional creaking of more substantial branches. Strange, formless sounds that made Robin think of wild animals – panthers and crocodiles – again, and also brought Ngoboi and his whirling acolytes to mind once more. But then, quite suddenly, very much more precisely placed, just round the wide right-hand bend dead ahead, there was a muted thunder that was more than fanciful imagination. ‘What's that noise?' asked Robin.

Right at the same instant as Bonnie asked, ‘Is that woodsmoke I can smell?'

Caleb stirred himself. ‘That's the cataract caused by the collapsed bridge at Citematadi,' he said to Robin. ‘Citematadi is just round that bend ahead – you see how the bank is higher and squarer coming up to the curve? That must be the embankment. And, yes,' he answered Bonnie, ‘I smell burning too. I think we'd better have the light on.'

A
nastasia brought
Nellie
round a bend to face due west – and sailed straight into the blinding impact of a blood-red sunset. ‘I can't see!' she shouted, throttling back. ‘Esan, is there anything up ahead? It's as though someone just punched me in the face! I feel like my eyes are full of blood!'

Thank God, she thought, that she had placed Esan up in the very point of the bows where he could keep watch for hazards that might be invisible to her. Tree trunks floating waterlogged just beneath the surface, unsuspected mudbanks, dead bodies and so forth. And, most particularly as they came downstream, mats of floating water hyacinth that could all too easily pile up against the blunt cutwater and slow the vessel from dead slow to stop. Or, worse, get tangled round the propeller and cripple her altogether.

‘There's something in the middle of the river,' sang back Esan. ‘It's big. An island I think. Go right.'

‘There's a string of islands down near the river mouth, I remember,' Anastasia called as she shook her head and tried to clear her streaming eyes. ‘When we're past them we're almost out of the river – then it's not that far to the jetty at the new dock facilities they put in place of the old shanty town.'

‘How long will it take us to get past them? Come further right. Straighten up on that. Good.'

‘Six, maybe eight hours. It depends on tide and current. And whether we get caught up in that filthy water hyacinth stuff. God, I'd like to get my hands on whoever brought it on to the river.' Anastasia slitted her eyes as they began to clear of tears and looked doggedly ahead. The channel which had been so wide and welcoming was closed in now by the tousle-headed islands in midstream and by the flats and shallows that spread out from them, causing the water hyacinth to clot the already narrowed waterway. Even with her flat bottom and almost negligible draft,
Nellie
had to stay in the deepest available channel. But that was by no means easy to settle on. Certainly she couldn't just put the wheel hard over to starboard and hug the north shore. The trees and bushes overhanging the northern bank stretched out into treacherous mangroves once again – but saltwater ones this time, as the river became tidal and prone to flooding-back with saltwater from the bay. The old captain, Christophe, had warned her that this was the most difficult part of the river. He had rarely let her con
Nellie
through here. And never unless he was standing at her shoulder as anxious as a parent taking their child for their first driving practice in the family saloon. He had had some tide tables, too, now she came to think of it. If Ado or Esan could find them, maybe she could work out how to use them to
Nellie
's advantage.

‘Ado, could you look for a book of tide tables?' she asked. ‘Start in the drawers in here. It'll be quite a small book with columns of figures showing dates and times . . .' She stopped, almost ready to curse herself. There were probably charts and everything up in these drawers. Why hadn't she thought to search through them earlier? But then she gave a shrug.
Nellie
and she had made it this far. Nothing they were likely to find aboard could have helped them do any better. Thanks to Esan, they were even well supplied with guns.

But Ado's search revealed nothing. The whole of
Nellie
seemed to have been cleaned out – to such an extent, Anastasia at last decided, that the flip-flops and T-shirt she was wearing must have belonged to the new crew and not the old one.

While Ado searched and Esan stayed as watchkeeper in the bow, the sun set straight ahead, seeming to quench itself in the watery vista like a hot coal in a bucket. And night came. It was as sudden as that. Anastasia was struck by the speed of it yet again. Particularly as it robbed her of vital vision just when she needed it most. ‘Stay where you are, Esan' she called.

‘But I can see nothing . . .'

‘We'll fix that. Ado, can you climb up and switch the searchlight on. Then you can go on to the bow with Esan and help him keep watch.'

Ado scurried up aloft and the light came on in a flash. Then Anastasia was edified by the sight of the two teenagers sitting side by side, trying to keep their eyes peeled and their hands off each other. Young love, she thought. Isn't it just wonderful? She rolled her eyes in amused despair, suddenly feeling very old indeed.

And just on that very thought, she saw the brightness behind the island trees. The kids probably didn't see it because they were looking in the water dead ahead. It was a pale brightness, flickering because of the way the vegetation in front of it was moving. It might have seemed ethereal, almost ghostly to some. But not to Anastasia. She knew what it was at once. There was another boat on the river, somewhere just beyond the island. Probably heading upstream, judging by the light. But
another boat
. With a radio, no doubt – a way to get the news about the Army of Christ the Infant out even sooner than the people at Malebo could – if their fears about their cellphone and Internet access were true.

‘Esan,' she called. ‘There's a boat, over there, just beyond the island. See if you can attract their attention.'

‘HOI!' bellowed Esan willingly enough.

‘It's “Ahoy!”' Anastasia advised from the pinnacle of the nautical wisdom Captain Christophe had given her. ‘“Ahoy the boat!”'

‘AHOY THE BOAT!' bellowed Esan like a bull being led to the slaughter.

But there was no reply.

‘Keep trying. They're still coming closer, I think. Ado, come here and see if you can swing the searchlight round. Maybe we can signal with that.'

But as Esan bellowed and Ado scurried up on to the wheelhouse roof, the trees on the island separating the two boats thickened and grew taller. The light from the southern channel came and went increasingly fitfully. The beam that Ado swung to port simply seemed to reflect back off wall after wall of foliage.

‘This simply isn't getting through!' shouted Esan at last, and he vanished back into the aft section behind the wheelhouse.

She had no idea what he was doing until the AK gave its familiar ear-splitting rattle seemingly just behind her head. The reflective leaves flashed yellow and red back along with the steady white of the searchlight as he emptied a full clip into the air. ‘Esan!' Anastasia shouted. ‘Stop! They'll think we're shooting at them!'

‘Fine!' Esan shouted back. ‘So maybe they'll come looking for us! Then we'll make contact after all!'

But nothing happened. The light beyond the islands went out. Ado killed their own light and the three of them strained to see any sign of pursuit. But there was nothing. After five minutes, Anastasia's nerve broke. ‘Ado, switch the searchlight back on and point it straight ahead. Then I want the pair of you back in the bow keeping watch.'

The incident did not quite have no effect or aftermath. It galvanized Anastasia into pushing the throttle forward and taking the next section of the river a good deal faster than she would otherwise have done. And she got Ado and Esan to take turns to stand up on the wheelhouse roof for five minutes every half hour or so, swinging the bright beam left and right. So she clearly saw one of the last landmarks on the northern shore – the burned-out ruin of a casino with the mouldering wreckage of an old sternwheeler paddle boat beached in front of it. This was the point at which the single-track road from Malebo turned itself into a multi-lane highway, she remembered. It was also, more famously, the point from which General Julius Chaka had launched the last stage of his attack on Granville Harbour. A popular uprising led by T80 main battle tanks that had toppled his opponent Liye Banda and established Celine's father as president. Was there any way at all that she could get to President Chaka with news about the invasion of his country and the wounding of his daughter?