S
ebastian lay on his side beside the smoky little fire with his cloak draped over him. Outside he heard the night sounds of the swamp, the faint splash of a fish or a crocodile in the channel, the clink and boom of the tree frogs, the singing of insects, and the lap and sigh of wavelets on the mud bank below the hut.
The hut was one of twenty crude open-sided shelters that housed the native labour force. The earth floor was thickly strewn with sleeping bodies. The sound of their breathing was a restless murmur, broken by the cough and stir of dreamers.
Despite his fatigue, Sebastian was not sleeping, he could not relax from the state of tension in which he had been held all that day. He thought of the little travelling-clock ticking away in its nest of high explosive, measuring out the minutes and the hours, and then his mind side-stepped and went to Rosa. The muscles of his arms tightened with longing. Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow I will see her and we will go away from this stinking river. Up into the sweet air of the highlands. Again his mind jumped. Seven o'clock, seven o'clock tomorrow morning and it will be over. He remembered Lieutenant Kyller's voice as he stood in the doorway of the magazine with the gold watch in his hand. â ⦠The time is five minutes past seven â¦' he had said. So that Sebastian knew to within a few minutes when the time fuse would explode.
He must stop the porters going aboard
Blücher
in the morning. He had impressed on old Walaka that they must refuse to turn out for the next day's shift. They must â¦
âManali! Manali!' his name was whispered close by in the gloom, and Sebastian lifted himself on one elbow. In the flickering light from the fire there was a shadowy figure,
crawling on hands and knees across the earthen floor, and searching the faces of the sleeping men.
âManali, where are your
âWho is it?' Sebastian answered softly, and the man jumped up and scurried to where he lay.
âIt is I, Mohammed.'
âMohammed?' Sebastian was startled. âWhy are you here? You should be with Fini at the camp on the Abati.'
âFini is dead.' Mohammed's whisper was low with sorrow, so low that Sebastian thought he had misunderstood.
âWhat? What did you say?'
âFini is dead. The Allemand came with the ropes. They hung him in the fever trees beside the Abati, and when he was dead they left him for the birds.'
âWhat talk is this?' Sebastian demanded.
âIt is true,' mourned Mohammed. âI saw it, and when the Allemand had gone, I cut the rope and brought him down. I wrapped him in my own blanket and buried him in an ant-bear hole.'
âDead? Flynn dead? It isn't true!'
âIt is true, Manali.' In the red glow of the camp-fire Mohammed's face was old and raddled and gaunt. He licked his lips. âThere is more, Manali. There is more to tell.'
But Sebastian was not listening. He was trying to force his mind to accept the reality of Flynn's death, but it balked. It would not accept the picture of Flynn swinging at the rope's end, Flynn with the rope burns at his throat and his face swollen and empurpled, Flynn wrapped in a dirty blanket and crammed into an ant-bear hole. Flynn dead? No! Flynn was too big, too vital â they could not kill Flynn.
âManali, hear me.'
Sebastian shook his head, bemused, denying it. It could not be true.
âManali, the Allemand, they have taken Little Long Hair. They have bound her with ropes and taken her.'
Sebastian winced, and jerked away as though he had been struck open-handed across the face.
âNo!' He tried to close his mind against the words.
âThey caught her this morning early as she went to Fini. They took her down-river in the small boat, and she is now on the great ship of the Allemand.'
âBlücher?
Rosa is aboard the
Blücher?'
âYes. She is there.'
âNo. Oh, God, no!'
In five hours
Blücher
would blow up. In five hours Rosa would die. Sebastian swung his head and looked out into the night, he looked through the open side of the hut, down the channel to where
Blücher
lay at her moorings half a mile away. There was a dim glow of light across the water from the hooded lanterns on
Blücher
's main deck. But her form was indistinguishable against the dark mass of the mangroves. Between her and the island, the channel was a smooth expanse of velvety blackness on which the reflections of the stars were scattered sequins of light.
âI must go to her,' said Sebastian. âI cannot let her die there alone.' His voice gathered strength and resolve. âI cannot let her die. I'll tell the Germans where to find the charge â I'll tell them â¦' Then he faltered. âI can't. No, I can't. I'd be a traitor then, but, but â¦'
He threw aside his cloak.
âMohammed, how did you come here? Did you bring the canoe? Where is it?'
Mohammed shook his head. âNo. I swam. My cousin brought me close to the island in the canoe, but he has gone away. We could not leave the canoe here, lest the Askari find it. They would have seen the canoe.'
âThere isn't a boat on the island â nothing,' muttered Sebastian. The Germans were careful to guard against desertion. Each night the labour force was marooned on the island â and the Askari patrolled the mud banks.
âMohammed, hear me now.' Sebastian reached across and laid his hand on the old man's shoulder. âYou are my friend. I thank you that you have come to tell me these things.'
âYou are going to Little Long Hair?'
âYes.'
âGo in peace, Manali.'
âTake my place here, Mohammed. When the guards count tomorrow morning, you will stand for me.' Sebastian tightened his grip on the bony shoulder. âStay in peace, Mohammed.'
His blackened body blending into the darkness, Sebastian crouched beneath the spread branches of a clump of pampa scrub, and the Askari guard almost brushed against him as he passed. The Askari slouched along with his rifle slung so that the barrel stood up behind his shoulder. The constant patrolling had beaten a path around the circumference of the island, the guard followed it mechanically. Half asleep on his feet, completely unaware of Sebastian's presence. He stumbled in the darkness and swore sleepily, and moved on.
Sebastian crossed the path on his hands and knees, then stretched out on his belly into a reptilian slither as he reached the mud bank. Had he tried to walk across it, the glutinous mud would have sucked so loudly around his feet that every guard within a hundred yards would have heard him.
The mud coated his chest and belly and legs with its coldly loathsome, clinging oiliness, and the reek of it filled his nostrils so he gagged. Then he was into the water. The water was blood warm, he felt the tug of the current and the bottom dropped away beneath him. He swam on his side, careful that neither legs nor arms should break the surface. His head alone showed, like the head of a swimming otter, and he felt the mud washing off his body.
He swam across the current, guided by the distant glimmer of
Blücher'
s deck lights. He swam slowly, husbanding his strength, for he knew he would need all of it later.
His mind was filled with layers of awareness. The lowest layer was a lurking undirected terror of the dark water in which he swam, his dangling legs were vulnerable to the scaly predators which infested the Rufiji river. The current must be carrying his scent down to them. Soon they would come hunting up to find him. But he kept up the easy stroke of arms and legs. It was a chance, one chance of the many he was taking and he tried to ignore it and grapple with the practical problems of his attempt. When he reached
Blücher,
how was he to get aboard her? Her sides were fifty feet high, and the catwalks were the only means of access. These were both heavily guarded. It was a problem without solution, and yet he harried it.
Over this was a thick layer of hopeless sorrow. Sorrow for Flynn.
But the uppermost layer was thickest, strongest. Rosa, Rosa and Rosa.
He found with surprise that he was saying it aloud.
âRosa!' with each forward thrust of his body through the water.
âRosa!' each time he drew breath.
âRosa!' as his legs kicked out and pushed him towards the
Blücher.
He did not know what he would do if he reached her. Perhaps there was some half-formed idea of escaping with her, of fighting his way out of
Blücher
with his woman. Getting her away before that moment when the ship would vanish in a holocaust of flame. He did not know, but he swam on quietly.
Then he was under
Blücher'
s side. The towering mass of steel blotted out the starry night sky, and he stopped swimming and hung in the warm water looking up at her.
There were small sounds. The hum of machinery within her, the faint clang of metal struck against metal, the low guttural murmur of voices at her gangway, the thump of a rifle butt against the wooden deck, the soft wash of water around the hull â and then a closer, clearer sound, a regular creak and tap, creak and tap.
He swam in towards the hull, searching for the source of this new sound. It came from near the bows, creak and tap. The creak of rope, and the tap of wood against the steel hull. He saw it then, just above his head. He almost cried out with joy.
The cradles! The platforms still suspended above the water on which the welders and the painters had worked.
He reached up and gripped the wooden edge and drew himself on to the platform. He rested a few seconds and then began to climb the rope. Hand over hand, gripping the rope between the insides of his bare feet, he went up.
His head came level with the deck and he hung there, searching carefully. Fifty yards away he saw two seamen at the gangway. Neither was looking his way.
At intervals the hooded lanterns threw puddles of yellow light upon the deck, but there were concealing shadows beyond them. It was dark around the base of the forward gun-turrets, and there were piles of material, abandoned welding equipment, heaps of rope and canvas in the shadows which would hide him when he had crossed the deck.
Once more he checked the two guards at the gangway, their backs were turned to him.
Sebastian filled his lungs and steeled himself to act. Then with one fluid movement he drew himself up and rolled over the side. He landed lightly on his feet and darted across the exposed deck into the shadows. He ducked down behind a pile of canvas and rope netting, and struggled to control
his breathing. He could feel his legs trembling violently under him, so he sat down on the planking and huddled against the protecting pile of canvas. River water trickled from his shaven pate over his forehead and into his eyes. He wiped it away.
âNow what?' He was aboard
Blücher
, but what should he do next?
Where would they hold Rosa? Was there some sort of guard-room for prisoners? Would they put her in one of the officer's cabins? The sick-bay?
He knew roughly where the sick-bay was located. While he was working in the magazine he had heard the one German guard say, âHe has gone down the companion-way to the sick-bay.'
It must be somewhere just below the forward magazine â oh, God! If they had her there she would be almost at the centre of the explosion.
He came up on his knees, and peered over the pile of canvas. It was lighter now. Through the screen of camouflage netting, he could see the night sky had paled a little in the east. Dawn was not far off. The night had passed so swiftly, morning was on its way and there were but a few scant hours before the hands of the travelling-clock completed their journey, and made the electrical connection that would seal the
Blücher'
s fate, and the fate of all those aboard her.
He must move. He rose slowly and then froze. The guards at the gangway had come to attention. They stood stiffly with their rifles at the slope, and into the light stepped a tall, white-clad figure.
There was no mistaking him. It was the officer that Sebastian had last seen in the forward magazine. Kyller, they had called him, Lieutenant Kyller.
Kyller acknowledged the salutes of the two guards, and he spoke with them a while. Their voices were low and
indistinct. Kyller saluted again, and then left them. He came down the deck towards the bows; he walked briskly, and his face below the peak of his cap was in darkness.
Sebastian crouched down again, only his eyes lifted above the piled canvas. He watched the officer and he was afraid.
Kyller stopped in mid-stride. He half stooped to look at the deck at his feet, and then in the same movement, straightened with his right hand dropping to the holstered pistol on his belt.
âGuard!' he bellowed. âHere! At the double!'