Far Horizon (26 page)

S
arah and Mike had exchanged the bare minimum of words since she had caught him with Julie in the shower room on the previous evening. He had tried to explain that nothing had gone on, but she had ignored him.

‘Look, I don't care what did or didn't go on between you two, no matter how sordid or innocent it was, OK?' she had protested.

On the rest of the long, boring drive through Zambia to the border crossing at Siavonga, across the dam wall from Kariba, Sarah had alternately slept, or pretended to sleep, and stared out the window. Mike had divided his attention between her and the road. She was wearing olive green pedal pushers and a red tank top. Her small feet rested on the dashboard with the soles pressed against the windscreen in that peculiar position that only a woman can attain and enjoy. Her calves were smooth and firm. He was annoyed with her that she wasn't talking to him, and with himself for being unable to strike up a conversation.

The temperature and the humidity had climbed steadily as they dropped into the hot, sticky Zambezi valley. It was after two by the time they cleared Zambian customs and immigration and coasted down the hill and on to the top of the massive concrete dam that divided the two countries.

‘Awesome,' Kylie said, peering down over the man-made precipice to the Zambezi River far below. On the other side of the wall the waters of Lake Kariba shimmered in the afternoon heat.

‘Later on this evening, we'll go for a game drive,' Mike said through the window connecting the driver's compartment to the main cab at the back.

‘Where to?' Linda asked.

‘Just around the town. Kariba is teeming with wildlife.'

‘How come?'

‘When they built this monstrosity, in the mid 1960s, the flooding displaced a lot of wildlife and a lot of people as well. Many of the people, and all of the wildlife, couldn't understand just how fast and how high the waters of the Zambezi would rise once they were blocked. The government authorities rescued the villagers who were left stranded by the flood, and hundreds of volunteers came here to rescue the thousands of animals and reptiles that were left clinging to trees and hilltops. The campaign to save the wildlife was known as Operation Noah. Kariba town never grew big enough to completely displace the wildlife that had always lived on the shores of the river, and now the animals just mingle with the people around the lake shore.'

‘What sort of animals?' Linda wanted to know.

‘Hippos wander up from the lake into gardens in the evening and leopards snatch family pets. I've seen lions on the main road between Kariba and the main north-south highway. There are hyenas scrounging in the municipal rubbish dump every night, and plenty of zebra and antelope species in the hills and valleys along the lake shore.'

The tour group's main reason for visiting Kariba, however, was to indulge in one of the lake's best-known pastimes: houseboating. Kariba houseboats are more like mansion-boats. Huge multi-storeyed aluminium-sided floating gin palaces. Ostensibly a houseboat and its tender vessels are meant to be good platforms for game viewing or fishing, but in Kariba a houseboat holiday was as much about drinking and partying as it was about getting close to nature.

Mike was looking forward to getting out onto the lake. After long, hot, sometimes tense days on the road this was to be his two days of pure R and R. With a skipper to drive the boat and a crew to cook, it was the closest thing Mike ever got to time off during an overland trip. There was also the chance that he would once more cross paths with Hess and Orlov. They were leaving on the houseboat the morning after they arrived at Kariba, but their first night in town would be spent, as usual, under canvas.

After breezing through the laid-back Zimbabwean border formalities, Mike drove uphill from the dam and took a right turn down towards Andorra Harbour.

‘Welcome to Kariba, the Zimbabwean Riviera,' Mike said to the crew.

‘Looks more like a ghetto to me,' said Nigel, unimpressed.

‘Kariba's a frontier town. It's got a Wild-West feel about it, a hangover from the days when the only Europeans who lived in the Zambezi valley were crocodile hunters and the roughnecks who came to build the dam,' Mike explained. ‘It's also the closest thing that Zimbabwe has to a seaside. Boating and drinking are the main pastimes here. There are marinas, hotels, camp grounds, even a casino at Caribbea Bay.'

‘Hey! Buffalo,' said Sam as he scrambled in his pack for his camera.

The entrance to the camping ground Mike had stopped outside was blocked by four scarred, mean-looking black buffalo bulls. ‘Buffalo are known in Africa as “black death”. That's the name big-game hunters gave them because of their tendency to charge when wounded or startled,' Mike said. ‘Stay in the truck.'

After a few blasts of the horn the old males eventually ambled down the road towards a sign pointing to the Kariba Yacht Club.

Mike smiled and waved at the security guard as they drove in, past a sign welcoming them to the MOTH campsite.

‘What's a MOTH?' Terry asked.

‘Large flying insect, I expect,' said George.

‘It's an acronym,' Mike said. ‘It stands for “Men of the Tin Hat Society”. The “tin hats” was the nickname for Rhodesia's old soldiers, veterans of the First and Second world wars. The campsite and chalets were set up as a fundraising venture by the society.'

The campsite was well laid out, with electricity
boxes and garden furniture to make life a little more comfy for campers. They were right on the edge of the lake, although thick vegetation on the other side of the camp fence obscured any view of the water. A deep drainage ditch bisected the camping ground and ran into a small inlet of stagnant lake water.

Huge acacias shaded them from the afternoon sun as the group set up camp, but Mike was still sweating freely in the moisture-laden air by the time they finished. He needed a swim and a beer.

‘OK,' he said to the crew, who clustered around him in the middle of the circle of green dome tents, ‘we leave for the houseboat at ten tomorrow morning. Before that, I'll do a quick run up to the supermarket for any last-minute munchies or necessities that people need. Make sure you put your mozzie repellent on, the bugs are bad here. Also, if you do walk outside the camp, beware of animals.' As if in confirmation a hippo honked from not far away. Everyone laughed – some a little nervously.

‘I'm heading for the yacht club. They do a mean steak there and excellent fish and chips. Otherwise, you know where the gas cooker is,' Mike said.

About half of the crew, including Sarah, followed him out through the gates to the right and up a small hill towards the yacht club. The remainder, including Jane Muir, stayed around the camping ground, writing postcards or snoozing in their tents. A few opted for a walk. Nigel was playing solitaire at a picnic table and drinking a Coke.

The yacht club was an asbestos sheet and tin building which Mike thought must have looked
slightly less tacky when it was built during the 1960s. ‘What it lacks in style it makes up for in location,' he said as they walked through the car park at the rear of the clubhouse.

The long single-storey building was perched on a steep rise overlooking Lake Kariba and the far-off, purple-hued mountain range of Matusadona National Park. An elevated walkway jutted out from the bar to the bridge, a covered patio from where sailing races and sunsets alike could be appreciated. There was an air horn on the bridge, which Mike guessed was sounded to start and stop the races.

Mike bought the first round after paying a nominal day membership fee and distributed lagers, lemonades and Cokes. He smiled at Sarah when he handed her a gin and tonic but she didn't smile back. As he waited for his change he glanced at the memorabilia behind the bar. Rhodesian army beer steins sat comfortably below a portrait of the whites' one-time enemy who now ruled the country. A brass ship's bell was screwed to the wall.

Sam walked into the bar, puffing from the exertion of the short walk in the afternoon heat. He was wearing his floppy bush hat and Mike knew there would be trouble when the thin, darkly tanned man who was sitting at the bar reached out for the cord on the bell's ringer.

‘Decided to catch up with you guys after all –' Sam started, but he was cut short by the loud clanging of the bell. ‘Hey, what was that? Beer time?'

‘Certainly is, and it's your round, my boy!' said the man, with a glint of joy in his blue eyes.

‘What do you mean?' Sam asked indignantly.

‘Hat, hat, hat, my boy. Against club rules, don't you know? No hats inside!' he said with mock anger. He was thin but muscled, and had the look of a man who had spent his life on the water or in the bush, or both. He wore khaki shorts and a two-tone green and beige bush shirt. On his feet were ankle-length suede boots with no socks. By the amount of grey in his ginger hair Mike judged the man to be in his fifties, although his skin was deeply lined from years in the sun. His tan was mottled with darker spots that Mike guessed might one day turn to skin cancer.

‘No, I didn't know,' Sam said, quickly removing his hat.

‘Well, you do now. Ignorance of the law is no excuse,' the man said.

‘Don't sweat it,' Mike chimed in. ‘Will you allow me to cover his debt?' He was the only other customer in the bar, so it was going to be a cheap round anyway.

The older man scratched his chin thoughtfully and paused for a moment before conceding. ‘Highly irregular, you understand. I'll accept your kind offer, but just this once. Also, if the boy were to oblige me with a small tot in the next round we might consider this delicate matter closed. Fair enough?'

‘Fair enough. Sam, can you take the rest of these drinks outside for me, please? What'll it be, Mr . . . ?'

‘Gerald O'Flynn, but call me Flynn, everybody else does. Whisky, straight, plus a Castle chaser, if you please.' They shook hands and Mike introduced himself.

Mike ordered the drinks and asked Flynn what he did for a living.

‘This, that and everything in between. Hunter, safari guide, heartbreaker and soldier of fortune,' he said with a smile. ‘I came up here to Kariba during the war – our little war – and never left. That would have been around '67, or '68.'

The broken blood vessels in Flynn's nose told Mike a fair amount of the man's time in Kariba had probably been spent right where he was, on a bar stool in the yacht club.

‘So what are you doing now? Breaking hearts?'

Flynn laughed and said, ‘Maybe this evening. No, I've got a little job in a day or so. On standby, as it were. Couple of chaps coming up from down south who want to go for a walk in the bush.'

Down south, Mike knew, referred to South Africa.

‘Where are you taking them?' Mike asked, savouring the first draught of cold liquid from the frosted beer glass. The yacht club was clearly as much about drinking as it was about sailing.

‘Across the water, to the Matusadona. I'm qualified to lead walking trips in the park.'

The untamed thick bush of Matusadona National Park rose up from the lake shore to the steep rocky cliffs of a low mountain range. The day was clear and the range was visible as a long, thin purplish smear on the far horizon. One of the girls shrieked as she jumped into the water of the club's green-tinged swimming pool, which was set into a grassy terrace below where Flynn and Mike sat in the bar.

‘A few attractive girlies in your push, eh?' Flynn said with a lascivious wink.

‘One or two,' Mike said, looking down at Sarah, who had removed her tank top to expose a simple but sexy black bikini.

‘Am I right in thinking you're the shepherd of this flock, Mike?'

‘For my sins. We're off an overland truck, an old Bedford. I'm the driver, tour guide and father confessor.'

Flynn laughed. ‘You'd have to be paying me money to ride through Africa in the back of one of those things. Come to think of it, even when someone did pay me money to ride around in an army Bedford I still didn't like it. Particularly when we hit that landmine in '72!'

A phone rang behind the bar and the barman, who had been polishing glasses with a tea towel, answered it. ‘For you, Mr O'Flynn,' he said. Neither the barman nor Flynn looked surprised. Mike imagined the guide took calls in the bar quite often.

‘Karl, good to hear from you, my boy.' Flynn spoke loudly. ‘Speak up, I can hardly hear you. You're on a what? A satellite phone? Bloody useless new technology, give me the drums any day, eh.'

Mike's ears pricked up at the mention of the caller's first name and he listened closely, straining to hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

‘OK. So you're arriving when, now? What, tomorrow? That doesn't leave me a lot of time to get the boat ready, but we'll make a plan here and get everything organised for you. Just the three of you, still? Good.'

Flynn waved at the bar tender and pantomimed writing. The barman handed him a pen and Flynn
turned over a cardboard beer coaster. Mike craned his head to see what the man was writing. He coughed as the beer suddenly slid down his throat the wrong way, and held up a hand to his mouth. Fortunately, Flynn was too busy winding up the conversation to notice the other man's surprise at the words he had just written.

On the beer mat, in a bad but unmistakable hand, were the words: ‘Hess, 10am Friday'.

Flynn handed the receiver back to the barman. ‘Bloody German,' he said with annoyance. ‘That's my weekend stuffed.'

Mike tried to sound nonchalant. ‘You've got German tourists coming?'

‘No. He's a Namibian, actually. But those Krauts are all the same, eh? Let me buy you a drink.'

‘No, please, this one's on me. The last was just my friend's penalty.' Mike ordered two more beers and another whisky from the barman.

‘Cheers,' Flynn said. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes, Karl Hess. I know him from way back. He served up here with the SAS – the Rhodesian Special Air Service – in the last couple of years of the war. Pretty boy, you know, but he was no softie, and that's for sure.'