Two hours later, when Nicholas and Royan were back at the chess board in the main cabin, Janrfie called them on the PA, "Okay, folks. No need to panic. We are going to lose some altitude now. Come up front and watch the show."
Strapped into fold-down seats in the back of the flight deck, they were treated to a superb exhibition of low flying by Fred. The descent was so rapid that Royan felt they were about to fall out of the sky, and that she had left her stomach back there somewhere at thirty thousand feet. Fred levelled Big Dolly out only feet above the desert floor, so low that it was like riding in a high-speed bus rather than flying. Fred lifted her delicately over each undulation of the tawny, sun'scorched terrain, skimming the black rock ridges and standing on a wingtip to swerve around the occasional wind-blasted hill.
"Nile crossing in seven and a half minutes." jannie punched, the stopwatch fixed to the control wheel in front of him. "And unless my navigation has gone all to hell there should be an island shaped like a shark directly under us as we cross."
As the needle of the stopwatch came up to the mark, the broad, glittering expanse of the river flashed beneath them. Royan caught a brief glimpse of a green island with a few thatched huts on the tip, and a dozen dugout canoes lying on the narrow beach.
"Well, the old man hasn't lost his touch yet," Fred remarked. "Still good for a few thousand miles before we trade him in."
"Not so much of the old man stuff, you little squirt. I have some tricks up my sleeve that I haven't even used yet."
"Ask Mara." Fred grinned affectionately at his father as he banked on to a new southwesterly heading, and with his wingtip so close to the ground that he scattered a herd of camels feeding in the sparse thorn scrub. They lumbered away across the plain, each trailing a wisp of white dust like a wedding train.
"Another three hours' flying time to the rendezvous." Jannie looked up from the map. "Spot on! We should land forty minutes before sunset. Couldn't be better,'
"I' better go back and change into my hiking gear, then." Royan went back into the main cabin, pulled her bag from under the bunk and disappeared into the lavatory. When' she emerged twenty minutes later she wore khaki culottes and a cotton top.
"These boots were made for walking." She stamped them on the deck.
"That's fine." Nicholas watched her from the bunk.
"But how about that knee?"
t vopuiuj ProcesV
"It will get me there," she said, defensively.
"You mean I am to be deprived of the pleasure of back acking you again?" The Ethiopian mountains came up so subtly on the eastern horizon that Royan was not aware of them until Nicholas pointed out to her the faint blue outline against the brighter blue of the African sky.
"Almost there." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Let's go up to the flight deck."
Looking forward through the windshield there was no landmark ahead of them - just the vast brown savannah, speckled with the black dots of acacia trees.
"Ten minutes to go," Jannie intoned. "Anyone see anything?" There was no reply, and they all stared ahead.
"Five minutes."
"Over there!" Nicholas pointed over his shoulder.
4 "That's the course of the Blue Nile." A denser grove of thorn trees formed a dark line far ahead. "And there is the smokestack of the derelict sugar'mill on the river bank.
Mek Nimmur says that the airstrip is about three miles from the mill."
"Well, if it is, it's not shown, on the chart," Jannie grumbled. "One minute before we are on the coordinates."
The minute ticked off slowly on the stopwatch.
"Still nothing-' Fred broke off as a red flare shot up from the earth directly ahead and flashed past Big Dolly's JI nose. Everyone in the cockpit smiled and relaxed with relief.
"Right on the nose." Nicholas patted Jannie's shoulder in congratulations.
"Couldn't have done better myself."
Fred climbed a few hundred feet and came round in a one-eighty turn. Now there were two signa I fires burning out there on the plain - one with black smoke,, the other sending a column of white straight up into the still evening sky. It was only when they were a kilometer out that they were able to make out the faint outline of the overgrown and long'disused landing strip. Roseires airstrip had been built twenty years before by a company that tried to grow sugar cane under irrigation from the Blue Nile. But Africa had won again and the company had passed into oblivion, leaving this feeble scrape mark on the plain as its epitaph.
Mek Nimmur had chosen this remote and deserted place for the
rendezvous.
"No sign of a reception committee," Jannie grunted.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Continue your approach," Nicholas told him. "There should be another flare - ah, there it is!" The ball of fire shot up from a clump of thorn trees at the far end -of the runway, and for the first time they were able to make out human figures in the bleak landscape. They had stayed hidden until the very last moment.
"That's Mek, all right! Go ahead and land."
As Big Dolly finished her roll-out and the end of the rough and pitted runway came up ahead, a figure in camouflage fatigues popped up ahead of them. With a pair of paddles it signalled them to taxi into the space between two of the tallest thorn trees.
Jannie cut the engines and grinned at them over his shoulder. "Well, boys and girls, looks like we pulled off another lucky one!'
Then from the height of Big Dolly's-cockpit there was no mistaking the commanding figure of Mek Nimmur as he emerged from the cover of the clump of acacia trees. Only now did they realize that the trees had been shrouded with camouflage netting; this was why they had not been able to spot any sign of human presence from the air. As soon as the loading ramp was lowered, Mek Nimmur came striding up it.
"Nicholas! They embraced and, after Mek had kissed him noisily on each cheek, he held Nicholas at arm's was proce Wolrlc, length and studied his face, delighted to see him again. "So I was right! You are up to your old tricks. Not simply a dikdik shoot, was it?"
"How can I lie to an old friend?"Nicholas shrugged. Hell' "It always came easy to you," Mek laughed, "but I am lad we are going to have some fun together. Life has been very boring recently."
"I bet!'Nicholas punched his shoulder affectionately.
A slim, graceful figure followed Mek up the ramp. In the olive-green fatigues Nicholas hardly recognized Tessay until she spoke. She wore canvas para boots and a cloth cap that made her look like a boy.
"Nicholas! Royan! Welcome back!" Tessay cried. The two women embraced as enthusiastically as the men had done.
"Come on, you Ous!" Jannie protested. "This isn't Woodstock. I have to get back to Malta tonight. I want to take off before dark." Swiftly Mek took charge of the offloading. His men swarmed aboard and manhandled the pallets forward on the rollers, while Sapper started up his beloved front-end loader and used it to run the cargo down the ramp and stack it in the acacia grove under the camouflage netting.
With so many hands to help it went swiftly, and Big Dolly's hold was emptied just as the sun settled wearily on to the horizon, and the short African twilight bled all colour from the landscape.
Jannie and Nicholas had one last hurried discussion in the cockpit while Fred completed his flight checks. They went over the plans and radio procedures one last time.
Four days from today," Jannie agreed, as they shook hands briefly.
"Let the man go, Nicholas," Mek bellowed from below.
"We must get across the border before dawn."
They watched Big Dolly taxi down to the end of the strip and swing around. The engine beat crescendoed as she came tearing back in a long rolling shroud of dust and lifted off over their heads. Jannie waggled his wings in farewell and, without navigation lights showing, the great aircraft blended like a black bat into the darkening sky and disappeared almost immediately.
"Come here." Nicholas led Royan to a seat under the acacia. "I don't want that knee to play up again." He pushed her culottes halfway up. her thigh and strapped the knee wit han elastic bandage, trying not to make his pleasure in this task too apparent. He was pleased to see that the bruising had almost faded and there was no longer any swelling.
He palpated it gently. Her skin was velvety and the flesh beneath it firm and warm to the touch. He looked up, and from the expression on her face realized that she was enjoying this intimacy as much'as he was. As he caught her eye she flushed slightly, and quickly smoothed down her culottes.
She jumped up and said, "Tessay and I have a lot of catching up to do,'
and hurried across to join her.
I am leaving a full combat platoon to guard your stores here," Mek explained to Nicholas as Tessay led Royan away. "We will travel in a very small party as far as the border. I don't expect any trouble. There is very little enemy activity this sector at the moment. Lots of fighting in the south, but we are quiet here. That is why I chose this rendezvous."
"How far to the Ethiopian border?"Nicholas wanted to know.
"Five hours' march," Mek told him. "We will slip through one of our pipelines after the moon has set. The rest of my men are waiting in the entrance to the Abbay gorge. We should rendezvous with them before dawn tomorrow."
"And from there to the monastery?"
"Another two days' march," Mek replied. "We will be there just in time to receive the drop from your fat friend in the fat plane." He turned away and gave his last orders to the platoon commander who would remain at Roseires to guard the stores. Then he assembled the party of six men who would form their escort across the border. Mek divided up the loads between them. The most important single item was the radio, a modern military lightweight model which Nicholas carried himself.
"Those bags of yours are too difficult to carry. You will have to repack them," Mek told Nicholas and Royan. So they emptied their bags and stuffed the contents into the two canvas haversacks that Mek had ready for them. Two of his men slung the haversacks over their shoulders and disappeared into the darkness.
"He is not taking thatV Mek stared aghast at the bulky legs of the theodolite that Sapper had retrieved from one of the pallets. Sapper spoke no Arabic, so Nicholas had to translate.
"Sapper says that it is a delicate instrument. He cannot allow it to be dropped from the aircraft. He says that if it is damaged he will not be able to do the work he was hired for."
"Who is going to carry it?" Mek demanded. "My men will mutiny if I try to make them do it."
"Tell the cantankerous bugger that I will carry it myself." Sapper drew himself up with dignity. "I wouldn't let one of his great clumsy oafs lay a finger on it." He picked up the bundle, placed it over his shoulder and stalked away with "a stiff back.
Mek let the advance guard have a five-minute start, and then he nodded.
"We can go now."
Thirty minutes after Big Dolly had taken off, they left the airfield and set out across the dark and silent plain, headed into the east. Mek set a hard pace. He and Nicholas seemed to have the eyes of a pair of cats, Royan thought, as she followed close behind them. They could see in the darkness, and only a whispered warning from one of them prevented her falling into a hole or tripping over a pile of rocks in the darkness. When she did stumble, Nicholas seemed always to be there, reaching back to steady her with a strong, firm grip.
They marched in complete and disciplined silence. It was only every hour, when they rested for five minutes, that Nicholas and Mek sat close together, and from the few quiet words she picked up Royan realized that Nicholas was explaining to him the full reasons for their return to the Abbay gorge. She heard Nicholas repeat the names "Mamose' and "Taita'
often, and Mek's deep voice questioning him at length. Then they would be up again and moving forward in the night.
After a while she lost all sense of the distance they had travelled. Only the hourly rest periods orientated her to the passage of time. Fatigue crept over her slowly, until it required an effort to lift her foot for each pace. Despite her boast, her knee was beginning to ache. Now and then she felt Nicholas touch her arm, guiding her over the rough places. At other times they would stop abruptly at some whispered warning from up front. Then they would stand quietly waiting in the darkness, nerves tensed, until at another whisper they would move on again at the same pressing pace. Once she smelt the cool muddy effluvium of the river on the dry warm night air, and she knew that they must be very close to the Nile. Without a word being spoken she sensed the nervous tension in the men ahead of her, and was aware of the alertness in the way they carried themselves and their weapons.
"Crossing the border now," Nicholas breathed close to her face, and the tension was infectious. She forgot her tiredness, and heard her pulse beating in her own ears.
This time they did not stop for the usual rest break, but continued for another hour until slowly she felt the mood of the men changing. Someone laughed softly, and there was a tightness in their pace as they swung on towards the luminescence in the eastern sky. Abruptly the moon thrust its crescent horns above the dark silhouette of faroff mountain ranges.
"All clear. We are through," Nicholas told her in his normal voice.
"Welcome back to Ethiopia. How are you feeling?"
"I' okay."
"I am tired too." He grinned at her in the moonlight.
"Pretty soon we will camp and rest. Not much further." He was lying, of course-the march went on and on until she wanted to weep. And then suddenly she heard the sound of the river again, the soft rushing flow of the Nile in the dawn. Up ahead she heard Mek talking to the men who were waiting for them, and then Nicholas guided her off the path and made her sit while he knelt in front of her and unlaced her boots.
"You did well. I am proud of you," he told her, as he stripped off her socks and examined her feet for blisters.
Then he unbandaged the knee. It was slightly swollen, and he massaged it with a skilled and tender touch.