Wingstead said, ‘Who’s the lady?’
‘She’s a medical doctor. She was widowed in the raid on Kodowa, and right now she’s asleep in my car. I’m going to have a word with Doctor Kat and I’ll take her along. As a matter of fact, Dan knows her quite well…’
I tailed off. Behind us, standing quietly, Dan Atheridge looked pasty grey over his tan. During our briefing from the Lat-Am men Atheridge had been listening and their news touched him more closely than any of us. His wife was waiting for him, somewhere beyond Kanja. He was cut off from his home.
‘Dan—’
‘It’s OK. Susie’s going to be perfectly safe, I know. You’re quite right though, you can’t get the patients across the gorge. But I know a way over, a few miles downstream. Perhaps you’ll lend me an escort, Captain, and take me there?’ He spoke in a flat, controlled voice.
‘Don’t worry, Dan. We’ll get you across,’ I said, hoping like hell I could keep my word. ‘Come on, you guys, let’s get you outside that beer and hear the rest of it.’ We got back into my car and turned back towards the rig, Kemp following with the two newcomers. As we drove past the stream of refugees the little huddled groups were preparing for the long drowsy wait. The bush telegraph was way ahead of modern communication.
Dr Margretta Marriot and I stood looking up at the rig. It was an extraordinary sight, covered here and there with windblown thatching, piled with sheet-covered bodies lying on lumpy reed bedding, draped with miscellaneous bits of cloth, towels and pillowcases hung from anything handy to give shade. Figures clambered about the rig carrying bandaging and other necessities. Sister Mary had been forbidden to travel on the rig because of her own precarious health and was standing at the base of the huge wheels shouting instructions to her nurses. Several of our men were helping by supporting those of the wounded who could move about, taking them to and from the makeshift latrines. The chuck wagon was in action as Bishop and young Bing prepared a canned meal for us and our visitors.
During the day Sister Ursula had arrived. She saw me and waved, then lit up on catching sight of Dr Marriot.
‘Doctor Gretta! What are you doing here?’
Mick McGrath was at her side instantly to give her a hand down. She knew at once that all was not well, and gently led the doctor away to the far side of the rig.
McGrath said, ‘Why have we stopped, Mister Mannix? Rumour is there’s more trouble.’
‘That there is. There’s a bridge down between us and Kanja, and no way we can get there. We haven’t made the
decision official yet, but I can tell you we’re going to have to turn back.’
‘Take the east-west road, then, like you planned? With all this lot?’
‘Maybe. Ask Doctor Kat to come down, would you.’
‘He won’t come.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s busy,’ McGrath said. ‘Soon as we stopped he went into action at the operating table. Right now I think he’s lifting off the top of someone’s skull.’
I said, ‘All right, don’t bother him yet. But when you can, tell him that Doctor Marriot is here. I think it will please him. Tell him her husband was killed at Kodowa, though. And I’d like a word with him as soon as possible.’
I walked back to where the Wyvern management and the Lat-Am men were sitting in the shade of the trucks. Atheridge was not with them. As I approached, Wingstead said, ‘Neil, I’ve put Harry and Russ in the picture geographically. They travelled the east-west road, a few months ago and say it’s not too bad. The two rivers come together at a place called Makara. It’s very small, not much more than a village, but it may be of some strategic importance. It’s a crossroads town, the only way up from the coast used to be from Lasulu and Fort Pirie through Makara to here, before Ofanwe’s government built the new road direct.’
‘Is there a bridge there?’
‘Yes, apparently quite good but narrower than the new bridge that you crossed when you met the army. Assuming it’s still there. We’ll send outriders ahead to find out; if our gallant Captain’s on the ball they’ve already gone. And someone’s gone to fetch down Lat-Am’s friends to join us.’
‘The army might be there. If I were commanding either side I’d like to hold Makara, if it hasn’t been bombed into oblivion.’
Wingstead stood up. ‘We don’t have to make up our minds until we hear the report. Where’s Doctor Kat?’
‘Operating. He’ll join us when he can, and I expect he’ll have something to say about all this.’
I too stood up, and as I did so Mick McGrath came over. We knew instantly that something was wrong; he looked like thunder.
‘Mister Wingstead, there’s trouble,’ he said. ‘You’re about to receive a deputation.’
Five other men were approaching with the dogged stomping walk you see on TV newscasts featuring strikers in action. They appeared to be having an argument with a couple of soldiers in their way, and then came on to face us. I wasn’t surprised to see that the ringleader was Bob Sisley, nor that another was Johnny Burke, the man who’d been heard to speak of danger money some time past. The others were Barry Lang, Bob Pitman, and the fifth, who did surprise me, was Ron Jones. They walked into a total silence as we followed Wingstead’s lead. I’d handled industrial disputes in my time but here I was an outsider, unless the Wyvern management invoked my aid directly.
Sisley, naturally, was the spokesman. He said, ignoring Wingstead for an easier target, ‘Mister Kemp, these Yanks say that the bridge up north has gone, right?’
‘That’s right.’
I wondered how Burns liked being called a Yank, though he was free enough with derogatory nicknames himself.
‘Seems we can’t take the rig on, then. You planned for us to go down to Lake Pirie, before we ran into all this crap with the sickies. What’s to stop us going there now? You said we could get across the border into a neutral country.’
I felt a wash of disgust at the man, and I saw my thoughts echoed on other faces. The odd thing was that one of those faces belonged to Ron Jones. Kemp still said nothing and Sisley pressed on.
‘You’ve broken your own contract so you can’t hold us to ours. We say it’s getting dangerous here and we didn’t sign on to get involved in any nignog’s bloody political duff-ups. We’re getting out of here.’
‘With the rig?’ Kemp asked coldly.
‘To hell with the rig. We’re in a jam. A war’s something we didn’t bargain for. All we want is out. It’s your duty to see us safe, yours and the boss’s here.’ He indicated Wingstead with an inelegant jerk of his thumb. He may have been a good transport man, Wyvern wouldn’t hire less, but he was a nasty piece of work nonetheless.
Wingstead took over smoothly.
‘We’re taking the rig and all transport back to Kodowa,’ he said. ‘Including the hospital patients. Once there, we’ll reassess the situation and probably, all being well, we’ll start back on the road to Port Luard. If we think that unsafe we’ll take the secondary road to Fort Pirie. We are all under a strain here, and cut off from vital information, but we’ll do the best we can.’
But calm, reasoned argument never did work in these affairs. Sisley made a face grotesque with contempt. ‘A strain! Oh, we’re under a strain all right. Playing nursemaid to a bunch of blacks who can’t take care of themselves and baby-sitting a rig that’s worthless junk while the food runs out and the country goes to hell in a handcart. Christ, we haven’t even been paid for two weeks. You can fart-arse up and down this bloody road as much as you like, but you’ll do it without us.’
‘What exactly is it you want?’ Wingstead asked.
‘We want to get the hell back to Fort Pirie as we planned. With or without the rig—it makes no difference.’
‘
You
didn’t plan anything, my friend.’ I knew I should stay out of this but I was livid. ‘Your boss has run a hell of a risk coming up here to join you, and he’s the man who does the planning around here.’
‘You keep out of this, Mister Bloody Mannix.’
Wingstead said, ‘Bob, this is crazy talk. How far can any of us get without the whole group for support?’
‘The group! Christ, old men and babies and walking dead, mealy-mouthed nuns and God knows who else we’re dragging around at our heels! Now we hear you’re bringing a bunch of damned foreigners into it too. Well, we won’t stand for it.’
None of the others said a word. They stood behind him in a tight wall of silent resentment, as Sisley gave full rein to his foul mouth and fouler thoughts. At his reference to the nuns McGrath’s breathing deepened steadily. I suspected that an outbreak was imminent and tried to forestall it.
‘You can argue shop floor principles all you want with your boss, Sisley,’ I said. ‘But leave out the personalities, and don’t foul-mouth these people like that.’
He rounded on me. ‘I told you to shut up, you bigmouth Yank. Keep the hell out of this!’ He cocked his arm back like a cobra about to strike. I took a step forward but McGrath grabbed my arm in a steel grip. ‘Now, hold it, Mister Mannix,’ he said in a cool, soft voice, and then to Sisley, ‘Any more lip from you, my lad, and you’ll be shitting teeth.’ I think it was the matter-of-fact way he said it that made Sisley step back and drop his arm.
For a moment the whole tableau froze; the two groups facing each other, the Lat-Am men and several other Wyvern people crowding up to listen, Atheridge behind them, and myself, McGrath and Sisley in belligerent attitudes front and centre. Then from nowhere Ben Hammond’s voice broke in.
‘Right, you’ve had your say, and very well put it was, Bob. Now you’ll give Mister Wingstead and Mister Kemp five minutes to talk it over, please. Just you shift along, you chaps, nothing’s going to happen for a while. Sandy! Where’s that grub you were getting ready? Go on, you lot,
get it while it’s there. Bert, we’ve got a spot of bother with the rear left axletree.’
It was masterly. The tableau melted like a spring thaw and I found myself alone with Kemp and Wingstead, shaking our heads with relief and admiration. Hammond’s talents seemed boundless.
Wingstead said, ‘Sisley and Pitman run the airlift truck. It’s obvious they’d be in this together, they’ve always been buddies and a bit bloody-minded. Johnny Burke is what the Navy would call a sea lawyer, too smart for his own good. He’s a fair rigger, though. And Lang and Jones are good drivers. But Sisley and Pitman are the specialists, and we’ll need that airlift again. Who else can run it?’
Kemp shook his head but Hammond, who had rejoined us after some skilful marshalling of the men, said, ‘I can. I can run any damned machine here if I have to. So could McGrath, come to that.’
‘We’ll need you both on the rig,’ said Kemp.
‘No you won’t. You’re as good on the rig as I am,’ Hammond said. ‘I could work with Sammy Wilson though.’
‘I suppose we must assume that Sisley’s had a go at everyone,’ I said. ‘So whoever wasn’t with him is on your side?’
‘I have to assume that. I’m surprised about Ron Jones, I must say,’ said Wingstead. ‘So we’ve still got Grafton and Proctor, and Ritchie Thorpe too. Thank God you brought him up here, Neil.’
‘He might not thank me,’ I said.
Our rueful smiles brought a momentary lightening of tension.
‘I wouldn’t like an inexperienced man on a tractor when it’s coupled to the rig,’ Kemp said. ‘We can get along with three tractors at some expense to our speed. And we can ditch that damned tank. I don’t suppose you can drive a tractor, Mannix?’ I smiled again, but to myself, at Kemp’s
single-mindedness. There were times when it came in handy. Right now he was too busy juggling factors to get as fully steamed up at having a mutiny on his hands as any good executive should.
‘No, but I might find someone who can.’
Wingstead and Kemp conferred for a while and I left them to it. The breakaway group had taken their food well away from the others, and a huddle of shoulders kept them from having to look at their mates while they were eating. The faithful, as I mentally dubbed them, were laughing and talking loudly to demonstrate their camaraderie and freedom from the guilt of having deserted. It was an interesting example of body language at work and would have delighted any psychologist. The Nyalans, sensing trouble, were keeping well clear, and there was no sign of any of the medical people.
Presently Wingstead called me over.
He said, ‘We’re going to let them go.’
‘You mean
fire
them?’
‘What else? If they don’t want to stay I can hardly hold them all prisoner.’
‘But how will they manage?’
Wingstead showed that he had become very tough indeed.
‘That’s their problem. I’ve got…how many people to take care of, would you say? I didn’t ask for it, but I’m stuck with it and I won’t weasel out. I can’t abandon them all for a few grown men who think they know their own minds.’
Suddenly he looked much older. That often talked of phenomenon, the remoteness of authority, was taking visible hold and he wasn’t the boyish, enthusiastic plunger that he’d seemed to be when we first met in the workshop garage in England. He had taken the whole burden of this weird progression on his own shoulders, and in truth there
was nowhere else for it to lie. I watched him stand up under the extra load and admired him more than ever.
‘Tell them to come over, Basil.’
The rebels came back still wary and full of anger. This time, at Wingstead’s request, McGrath stayed a little way off and exerted his own powerful authority to keep bystanders back out of earshot. Wingstead said, ‘Right, we’ve had our chat. Are you still sure you want out?’
‘Bloody sure. We’ve had it, all of this.’
‘Do you speak for everyone?’ Wingstead looked past him to the other four, but no-one spoke. Sisley said, ‘You can see that.’
‘Right you are then. You can buzz off. All five of you. You’re fired.’
The silence this time was almost comical.
Sisley said at last, ‘All right then, just you try that. You can’t just bloody well fire us! We’re under contract, aren’t we, Johnny?’
‘That’s right,’ Burke said.
‘You said yourself that if our contract with Nyala was broken, which it is, then so was yours. Hop it,’ Wingstead said.
‘Then what about our pay? We missed two weeks, plus severance. We want it now.’
I stared at him in astonishment.
‘Go on, give them a cheque, Geoff,’ I said sarcastically. ‘They can cash it at the bank in Kodowa.’
‘I’ll write vouchers for the lot of you. You can be sure that Wyvern will honour them,’ Wingstead said. ‘You can collect them from Mister Kemp in one hour’s time.’
‘We’ll do that,’ said Sisley. ‘But we want some security against them too. We’ll take one of the trucks.’
Hammond said, ‘The hell you will, Bob!’
‘Or the airlift truck. There’s room for all of us at a pinch, and it’s worth more. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.’
Hammond was beginning to lose his temper. ‘Over my dead body!’
Wingstead held out a hand to calm him. ‘There’ll be no arguments. I forbid you to touch the transports, Sisley,’ he said.
‘And just how are you going to stop us?’
This had gone far enough. It was time I intervened. ‘You’re not taking that airlift truck anywhere. Or any other vehicle. Wyvern Transport is heavily in debt to British Electric and I’m calling that debt. In lieu of payment I am sequestering all their equipment, and that includes all vehicles. Your vouchers will come from me and my company will pay you off, when you claim. If you live to claim. You’ve got one hour and then you can start walking.’