Once on shore I had my first chance to tell Hammond privately about Dufour’s truck. ‘Harry saw six cases of the stuff, and checked one to be sure. If we have to we’re going to threaten to use it like a fire ship. Harry’s got a firing mechanism worked out. He’ll come back here, set it and cut the raft free.’
‘It might float clear before it goes off, Neil,’ Hammond said. His horror at this amateurish plan made me glad I hadn’t told him about it sooner. ‘Or run aground too soon. The firing mechanism might fail. Or blow itself to smithereens and never touch Kanjali at all!’
‘You know that and I know that, but will they? We’ll make the threat so strong that they won’t dare disbelieve it.’
It was a pretty desperate plan but it was all we had. And it didn’t help that at this point Antoine Dufour approached us and said, ‘Please, Monsieur Mannix, do not put too much faith in my cargo, I beg of you.’ He looked deeply troubled.
‘What’s the matter with it? If it’s old and unstable we’ll have to take our chances,’ I said brusquely.
‘Aah, no matter.’ His shrug was eloquent of distress. I sensed that he wanted to say more but my recent brush with McGrath had made me impatient with other men’s problems. I had enough on my plate.
Sadiq and his men moved out. The rest of us followed, nervous and tense. We moved quietly, well down in the cover of the trees and staying far back enough from Sadiq’s squad to keep them in sight until the moment they rushed the buildings. We stopped where the vegetation was cut back to make way for the landing point. I had a second opportunity to look at the moored ferry where it was caught in the sun’s first rays as though in a searchlight beam.
This time I recognized what had eluded me before.
This was no modern ferry. It was scarred and battered, repainted many times but losing a battle to constant rust, a valiant old warhorse now many years from its inception and many miles from its home waters. It was an LCM, Landing Craft Mechanized, a logistics craft created during the war years that led up to the Normandy landings in 1944. Developed from the broad-beamed, shallow-draughted barges of an earlier day, these ships had carried a couple of tanks, an assortment of smaller vehicles or a large number of men into action on the sloping European beaches. Many of them were still in use all over the world. It was about fifty feet long.
What this one was doing here on an inland lake up an unnavigable river was anybody’s guess.
I turned my attention to Kanjali, lying below us. There were five buildings grouped around the loading quay. A
spur from the road to Fort Pirie dropped steeply to the yards. Running into the water was a concrete ramp, where the bow of the ferry would drop for traffic to go aboard. A couple of winches and sturdy bollards stood one to either side. Just beyond was a garage.
The largest building was probably the customs post, not much bigger than a moderate-sized barn. Beyond it there was a larger garage, a small shop and filling station, and a second barn-like building which was probably a warehouse.
Sadiq’s men fanned out to cover the customs post front and rear, the store and warehouse. Our team followed more hesitantly as we decided where to go. Kemp, Pitman and I ran to our post, the landing stage, and into cover behind the garage. Thorpe was at my heels but I told him to go with McGrath and he veered away.
We waited tensely for any sounds. Kemp was already casting a careful professional eye on the roadway to the landing stage and the concrete wharf beside it on the shore. It was old and cracked, with unused bollards along it, and must have been used to ship and unship goods from smaller craft in the days before the crossing had a ferry. But it made a good long piece of hard ground standing well off the road, and Kemp was measuring it as another staging post for the rig. The steep spur road might be a problem.
We heard nothing.
‘Shall I go and look?’ Pitman asked after several interminable minutes. I shook my head.
‘Not yet, Bob.’
As I spoke a voice shouted and another answered it. There were running footsteps and a sudden burst of rifle fire. I flattened myself to peer round the corner of the garage. As I did so an unmistakably male European voice called from inside it, ‘Hey! What’s happening out there?’
We stared at one another. Near us was a boarded-up window. I reached up and pounded on it.
‘Who’s in there?’
‘For God’s sake, let us out!’
I heaved a brick at the window, shattering glass but not breaching the boards that covered it. The doors would be easier. We ran round to the front to see a new padlock across the ancient bolt. Then the yard suddenly swarmed with figures running in every direction. There were more rifle shots.
I struggled vainly with the padlock.
Kemp said, ‘They’re on the run, by God!’
He was right. A few soldiers stood with their arms raised. Some slumped on the ground. Others were streaking for the road. Someone started the Volvo but it slewed violently and crashed into the side of the warehouse. Sadiq’s men surrounded it as the driver, a Nyalan in civilian clothing, staggered out and fell to the ground. The door to the main building was open and two of our soldiers covered as men ran across the clearing and vanished inside, Bishop, Bing, McGrath and I thought Kirilenko, en route I hoped for the radio.
Sadiq’s men were hotfoot after stragglers.
Neither Kemp, Pitman nor I were directly involved and within five minutes from the first shout it was all over. It was unnerving; the one thing my imagination had never dared to consider was a perfect takeover.
Hammond came away from one of the trucks grinning broadly and waving a distributor cap. Sadiq was everywhere, counting men, posting sentries, doing a textbook mopping up operation. We went to join the others, leaving whoever was in the locked garage to wait.
‘Christ, that was fantastic. Well done, Captain! How many were there?’
Hammond said, ‘We reckon not more than fourteen, less than we expected.’
‘Any casualties?’
McGrath was beside me, grinning with scorn. ‘Not to us and hardly to them. A few sore heads, mostly. Those laddies were half asleep and didn’t know what hit them. A few ran off, but I don’t think they’ll be telling tales. They thought we were demons, I reckon.’
I looked around. Several faces were missing.
‘Bing?’ I asked.
‘He’s fine, already playing with that dinky radio set of theirs. Brad and Ritchie are with him,’ McGrath said.
‘The Volvo’s had it,’ said Hammond, ‘but the other vehicles are fine. We can use them any time we want to. They didn’t even have a sentry posted.’
It wasn’t too surprising. They had no reason to expect trouble, no officer to keep them up to the mark, and probably little military training in the first place. I said, ‘We’ve found something interesting. There’s someone locked in the garage by the landing. There’s a padlock but we can shoot it off.’
We gathered round the garage door and I yelled, ‘Can you hear us in there?’
A muffled voice shouted back, ‘Sure can. Get us out of here!’
‘We’re going to shoot the lock off. Stand clear.’
One of Sadiq’s men put his gun to the padlock and blew it and a chunk of the door apart. The doors sagged open.
I suppose we looked as haggard and dirty to the two men who emerged as they looked to us. Both were white, one very large and somewhat overweight, the other lean and sallow-skinned. Their clothing was torn and filthy, and both were wounded. The big man had a dirtily bandaged left arm, the other a ragged and untreated scabby gash down the side of his face. The lean man took a couple of steps, wavered and slid gently to his knees.
We jumped to support him.
‘Get him into the shade,’ Kemp said, ‘Fetch some water. You OK?’
The big man nodded and walked unaided. I thought that if he fell it would take four of us to carry him.
I left Kemp to supervise for a moment, and took Sadiq aside.
‘Are you really in full command here?’ I asked. ‘What about the men who ran off?’
‘They will probably run away and not report to anyone. But if they do I hope it will be a long time before others get here.’
‘Do you think it’s safe to bring the convoy here? If we can work the ferry we won’t have any time to waste.’ Already hope was burgeoning inside me. Sadiq thought in his usual careful way before replying.
‘I think it is worth the chance.’
I called to Kemp. ‘Basil, take your team and get back to Kironji’s place. Start shifting the convoy. Leave the fuel tanker and the chuck wagon. Bring the rig and tractors, and cram the rest into a truck or two, no more.’
The two newcomers were being given some rough and ready first aid. Bishop had found the food stores and was preparing a meal for us, which was welcome news indeed.
I went back to squat down beside the recent prisoners.
‘I’m Neil Mannix of British Electric, and this mob works for Wyvern Transport. We’re taking stuff to the oilfields…or were when the war started. The soldiers with us are loyal to Ousemane’s government. We’re all in a bit of a fix, it seems.’
The big man gave me a smile as large as his face.
‘A fix it certainly is. Bloody idiots! After all I’ve done for them too. You’re American, aren’t you? I’m pleased to meet you—all of you. You’ve done us a good turn, pitching up like this. My name’s Pete Bailey, and it’s a far cry from Southampton where I got my start in life.’ He extended a vast hand to engulf mine. Good humour radiated from him.
His hand bore down on the shoulder of his companion. ‘And this here is my pal Luigi Sperrini. He talks good English but he doesn’t think so. Say hello, Luigi, there’s a good lad.’
Sperrini was in pain and had little of his friend’s apparently boundless stamina but he nodded courteously.
‘I am Sperrini. I am grateful you come,’ he said and then shut his eyes. He looked exhausted.
‘Tell the lads to hurry with that food,’ I said to Bishop, and then to Bailey, ‘How long were you two guys locked in there?’
‘Four days we made it. Could have been a little out, mark you, not being able to tell night from day. Ran out of water too. Silly idiots, they look after their bloody cattle better than that.’ But there didn’t seem to be much real animosity in him, in spite of the fact that he and his companion seemed to be a fair way to being callously starved to death.
I braced myself for the question I most wanted to ask.
‘Who are you guys anyway? What do you do?’
And I got the answer I craved.
‘What do you think, old son? We run the bloody ferry.’
‘Will she run?’
Bailey carne close to being indignant at the question.
‘Of course she’ll run,’ he said. ‘Luigi and I don’t spend a dozen hours a day working on her just for her looks.
Katie Lou
is as sweet a little goer as the girl I named her for, and a damn sight longer lasting.’
The time we spent between taking Kanjali and waiting for the convoy to arrive was well spent. We found a decent store of food and set about preparing for the incoming convoy. We found and filled water canteens, tore sheets into bandaging, and checked on weapons and other stores. We seemed to have stumbled on a treasure house.
The radio was a dead loss; even with parts cannibalized from the other Bing couldn’t make it function, which left us more frustrated for news than ever. Bailey and Sperrini could tell us little; we were more up to date than they were. We were fascinated to learn, however, that the juggernaut had already been heard of.
‘The hospital that goes walkabout,’ said Bailey. ‘It’s true then. We thought it just another yarn. They said it had hundreds of sick people miraculously cured, magic doctors and the like. I don’t suppose it was quite like that.’
‘Not quite,’ I said dryly, and enlightened them. Bailey was glad that there were real doctors on the way, not for
himself but for Sperrini, whose face looked puffy and inflamed, the wound obviously infected.
‘One of their laddies did that with his revolver,’ Bailey said. ‘First they shot me in the arm, silly buggers. If they’d been a little more polite we might have been quite cooperative. As if I could run away with
Katie Lou—
I ask you! She can’t exactly go anywhere now, can she?’
‘Except to Manzu,’ I said, and told him what we wanted. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t think of it yourselves.’
‘Of course we could have taken her across,’ he said tolerantly, ‘but I didn’t know we were supposed to be running away from anything until it was too late. The war didn’t seem to be bothering us much. One minute we’re unloading a shipment and the next the place is swarming with laddies playing soldiers. The head man demanded that we surrender the ferry. Surrender! I didn’t know what he was talking about. Thought he’d got his English muddled; they do that often enough. Next thing they’re damn well shooting me and beating up poor old Luigi here. Then they locked us both in.’
His breezy style belied the nastiness of what had happened.
‘We tried to break out, of course. But I built that garage myself, you see, and made it good and burglar-proof, more fool me. They didn’t touch
Auntie Bess
but the keys weren’t there and I couldn’t shift her. Tried to crosswire her but it wouldn’t work. Must say I felt a bit of an idiot about that.’
‘Who, or more likely what, is
Auntie Bess
?
‘
I asked. We hadn’t been to look in his erstwhile prison yet.
‘I’ll show you but I’ll have to find her keys. And to be honest I’d really rather get
Katie Lou
back into service first.’
Getting the ferry into service proved quite simple. There was a small runabout which Bailey used to get out to it, and in lieu of his trusty Sperrini he accepted the aid of Dufour, Zimmerman and Kirilenko. ‘Parkinson’s Law, you see,’ he said with easy amusement. ‘Three of you for one of him.
She only needs a crew of two really, but it’s nice to have a bit of extra muscle.’
He took his crew out to
Katie Lou
and with assured competence got her anchors up, judged her position nicely and ran her gently up onto the loading ramp, dropping the bay door on the concrete with a hollow clang. He directed the tying up procedure and spent some time inspecting her for any damage. He found none.
Sperrini waited with resignation.
‘He very good sailor,’ he said. ‘He never make mistake I ever see. For me, first rate partnership.’
Bailey was like Wingstead, engendering respect and liking without effort. I never had the knack; I could drive men and direct them, but not inspire them, except maybe McGrath, which didn’t please me. I’d never noticed it before. The difficult journey we’d shared had opened my eyes to some human attributes which hadn’t figured very strongly in my philosophy before now. On the whole I found it an uncomfortable experience.
I complimented Bailey on
Katie Lou’s
performance and he beamed.
‘She’s a bit rusty but by God she can do the job,’ he said. ‘I knew we were on to a good thing from the start.’
‘How the hell did she come to be here anyway?’ I asked.
‘Luigi and I used to run the old ferry. We’ve been in this trade for donkey’s years, the two of us. The old ferry was a cow to handle and very limiting; only deck cargo and passengers and not too many of them. I saw that cars and trucks would want to cross as trade improved and the oilfields opened up. Manzu hasn’t got any oil itself but it’s got a damn sight better port for off-loading heavy gear.’
I made a mental note to remember this for later, assuming there would be a later.
‘The two countries negotiated a traffic agreement. At a price, of course. We started to look for something better, and
I’d always had these old bow loaders in mind. Saw them in action on D-Day and never forgot them. Remember, I’ve been in this trade all my life. Started in Southampton docks as a nipper.’
‘Me too, I sail with my father from a boy,’ Sperrini put in.
‘Don’t ask us how we got her down to Nyala, laddie. It’s a long tale and I’ll tell it one day over a cold beer. But the long and short of it is that I got wind of this old LCM lying beached up on the North African coast and bought her for a song. Well, a whole damn opera really. Then we sailed her down the coast to Manzu and arranged to bring her overland to Lake Pirie.’
I whistled. With the first-hand knowledge of large rig transport that I’d gained lately I knew this to be possible, but a hell of a job all the same. I said as much and he swelled with pride.
‘A lovely operation, I tell you. Not a scratch on her—well, not too many. And has she ever paid off! Luigi and me, we’re doing just fine.’ He became pensive. ‘Or we were. But when things get back to normal we might go looking for something bigger.’
Sandy Bing was prowling back and forth from the ferry yards up to the main road. His failure to get the radio going had niggled him and he was restless and anxious. Suddenly he ran towards us, interrupting Bailey’s story with news of his own. The convoy was on the way.
I said to Bailey, ‘We’ll start to load invalids onto the ferry at once, plus any other Nyalans who want to go. I’d like one vehicle on board. The Land Rover, say.’
‘No problem there.’
‘How long will it take to unload and return? On the second run we’ll want a couple of trucks. The more transport we have the better. Would there be time for a third trip?’
He said, ‘I usually cross twice a day but that’s not pushing it. With luck I can be back in two hours, I doubt if
there’ll be anybody to help at the other side, it’ll take time to get your sick folk unloaded. But we’ll be back as soon as we can make it.’
Sperrini pushed himself up.
‘Me, I come too,’ he announced firmly. ‘I maybe not work so good, but I watch out for you.’
Bailey said, ‘Of course you’ll come, mate. Couldn’t do it without you. We’ll need some of your lads, Neil.’
‘You’ll have them.’
He said, ‘If there’s trouble before I get back, what will you do?’
‘We’ve got the transport we came here with. And by God, Pete, that’s something you’d have to see to believe!’ But I had my doubts about the ‘B’-gon. It was moored too far away to be of use in a crisis. Bailey gave me one of his great smiles.
‘Well, I’ve got the very thing if you need it. In fact I’d appreciate it if you’d bring it across anyway. You can use
Auntie Bess.’
‘Just what is
Auntie Bess
?
’
‘A duck,’ he said, and laughed at my expression.
‘A
duck
?
’
I had a sudden vision of Lohengrin’s swan boat. ‘We’re going to float across the lake on a giant mutant muscovy, is that it?’
‘Come and see,’ he said. ‘You’ll love this.’
Zimmerman, Kirilenko and I followed him to the garage. We pulled the double doors wide and stared into the gloom. A long low shape sat there, puzzling for a moment and then marvellously, excitingly explicit.
‘A
DUKW
!’
Bailey patted its hood lovingly.
‘Meet
Auntie Bess.
Named for the most adaptable lady I’ve ever known. Nothing ever stopped her. I’ve found the keys and she’s ready to go.’
We gathered round the thing, fascinated and intrigued. It was a low-profiled, topless vehicle some thirty feet in
length, one set of tyres in front and two more pairs not quite at the rear, where dropping curved metal plates protected a propeller. It had a protruding, faintly boat-shaped front and was hung about with tyres lashed around what in a boat would be called the gunwale. The body was made of tough, reinforced metal, flanged down the sides, and the headlamps were set behind heavy mesh grilles. An old-fashioned windscreen provided all the cover the driver would get on land or water, though there were points along the sides where a framework could be inserted to carry a canvas awning.
Odds and ends of equipment for both elements on which it could travel were strapped about it; an anchor and line, a life belt, a couple of fuel cans, a tyre jack, shovel and spare tyres. Like the
Katie Lou
it was rusty but seemed in good repair. Bailey swung himself in and the engine came to life with a healthy rattle as it slid into the sunlight. He slapped its side with heavy-handed self-approval.
‘I did think of calling her
Molly Brown,’
he said, ‘but after all she might sink one of these days. She’s got a tendency to ship a little water. But she’s crossed this pond often enough and she’ll do it once more for you, I promise.’
It could carry so many men that to bring off a dozen or so would be no problem. ‘How hard is she to drive?’ I asked.
Zimmerman said, ‘I handled one on land once. Nothing to it. Don’t know about the performance on water, though.’
Bailey said, ‘Come on, let’s go for a swim. I’ll show you.’
Zimmerman swung himself on board and in front of an admiring audience the
DUKW
pounded down the causeway into the water. Pete Bailey was careful with
Katie Lou
but with his
DUKW
he was a bit of a cowboy. It chugged away throwing up an erratic bow wave to make a big circle on the lake.
The rig was arriving as we walked up the curving spur road from the ferry yard. Kemp and Hammond brought it to a stop on the main road that overlooked Kanjali. We got busy transferring the invalids into trucks to take them on board the ferry. Bailey and Sperrini came to see the rig and get medical attention.
The rig was as impressive as ever, its massive cargo still hulking down between the two trailers. The tractors coupled up fore and aft added power to its bulk. The modifications we had imposed made it look quite outlandish. By now the thatching had been blown away and renovated so often that it appeared piebald as the palm fronds weathered. A workmanlike canvas wall framed the operating theatre but the canvas itself was mildewed so that it looked like the camouflaging used during war to disguise gun emplacements. Sturdy rope ladders hung from every level and the faces of the patients peered out from their straw beds.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Bailey marvelled. ‘Worth going a mile to see, that is—good as a circus any day. Hello, who’s this?’
‘This’ was the Nyalan escort still following their fetish, overflowing the road and looked down at the ferry yard with curiosity. Sperrini put into words what we had been feeling about this strange parade for so long.
‘It is a
processione sacra,’
he said solemnly. ‘As is done to honour a saint.’
I told Kemp and Hammond about
Auntie Bess.
Hammond was delighted and regretted that he would probably have no time to play with the
DUKW
himself.
‘We may have to use it as a getaway craft,’ I said.
‘What about the raft and Dufour’s truck?’
‘We might need it yet, if there’s trouble,’ I said. ‘Ben, you and Harry and Kirilenko could slope off and bring the raft downriver closer to Kanjali. Still out of sight but where we
can fetch it up bloody fast if we have to. This is strictly a volunteer assignment, though—what do you think?’
Hammond said, ‘I’ll do it. It would be a shame not to have a weapon like that handy should we need it.’
Zimmerman spoke rapidly to Kirilenko, then said, ‘We’re both on.’
‘Off you go then. I’ll cover for you. Try and make it quick.’
‘Very funny, Neil,’ Zimmerman said. I grinned and left them.
Unloading had begun. Wingstead and the rest had heard of the taking of Kanjali from Kemp; but none were ready for the sight of the ferry resting majestically on the causeway, the ramp down to form a welcome mat. Bishop and Bing were on board handing out food and water. The invalids were laid on straw mattresses.
Dr Kat was strict about rations. ‘They can feed for a month on the other side,’ he said. ‘But too much too soon is dangerous. Nurse, tell them that the crossing will be less bumpy than the rig and not dangerous; some of them have never been on water before. And say there will be proper food and beds for them in Manzu. Sister Mary! What are you doing carrying that child! Put her down at once. Helen, take over there, please.’ His eyes were everywhere, considering a hundred details. The excitement in the air and the prospect of salvation so close made him more cheerful than I’d ever seen him.
‘How do you feel, leaving Nyala?’ I asked during a lull. He regarded me with astonishment.
‘How do you think I feel? Only relief, Mister Mannix. At last I see a hope of saving these poor people. I am tired, sad at our losses, infuriated by this senseless wasteful war and what is happening to my country. But I will come back soon enough. I intend to rebuild the hospital at Kodowa.’
He was a man dedicated and inspired. I said, ‘You’ll get all the help I can muster, and that’s not peanuts.’