I shook my head like a punch-drunk boxer and cleared away the intruding cloud of memories. The ground began to rise and become harder — K2 at last. I got rid of the sand from my boots and paused before the final effort of the ascent. From where I crouched only the tabletop of The Hill lay open to my view, rather lovely but with that enduring air of watchfulness mysterious in its own way, like Nadine with the queen's ring. It brought to mind a final kickback of my night's diamond recollections: my father had an affectation of calling an engagement ring a Tower Ring because out-offavour Royal Favourites used the rings lovingly bestowed upon them to scratch messages before execution on the walls and windows of the Tower of London. I intended to find our love again in its own special context — damn all diamonds!
I pulled on my boots and started up the steep slope out of the bowl towards the rim, keeping below the skyline to avoid detection by Rankin. The wadi separating K2 from The Hill was deserted and the pinpoint of light from my fire had disappeared. There had been no shots for a long time; I took this at face value only because my mind and body were too fagged to make any effort beyond the last burst to reach the baobab. I arrived at a plateau on the top and trudged the few remaining yards to my target. Its massive trunk had (as I had hoped) a cool hollow in which I would be safe. I crawled thankfully into it and with the diamond pencil sliced a segment of pithy bark to suck and quench my thirst. The thin, acid sweetness tasted better than any drink I'd ever known.
I propped myself up against the cool wall of the interior, meaning to keep watch for Rankin. But my eyes grew heavier and my right one more painful until I could keep them open no longer. So I yielded and stretched out on the ground: the last thing I remembered was Charlie Furstenberg's doggereclass="underline"
'Winkel, winkel, little store.
I slept.
CHAPTER SIX
The buzzing in my ears woke me.
I came to with a start of guilt at having overslept, perhaps at having slept at all. It was broad daylight outside the shelter and I caught the sound of a faint, disappearing drone. My right eye was swollen and full of pus; my leg muscles stiff and aching. I became aware of my physical discomforts but it was the humming which made me wide awake and tense. My snap diagnosis, as I became fully conscious, made me feel sick and depressed. I had heard that faint sound once before when I had collapsed during the scientific expedition and I knew that it portended an attack of malaria.
Before getting round to considering its effects on my campaign against Rankin, I concentrated on its immediate implications which were negative and ominous: illness made me a sitting duck for him. Thirst and inevitable delirium could drive me out into the open once the attack got under way. There either Rankin or heat-stroke would get me. I sat up quickly, determined to try and sidetrack those consequences as much as I could before my senses started to slip away. In a kind of panic I got out the diamond pencil and started to hack myself a supply of the baobab's acidsweet pith as an insurance against the days ahead, at the same time cramming my mouth with it and chewing to obtain as much liquid as I could. I also gathered together flaked bark, leaves and other veld rubbish into a corner to make a rough sick-bed for myself. I tried to focus my thoughts on the attractive smell of my den's concealed moisture as a kind of mental gimmick to keep myself hidden and not venture out when I became irrational. Whatever happened, I drummed into myself over and over, I must remain inside the humpbacked walls and low gnarled roof. My testing-time came quicker than I expected when the hum returned, still distant but deep inside my head. I went to the entrance and spat out the chewed pith, meaning to recharge my mouth immediately with a fresh supply. As my head emerged so did the sound grow and I realized with a surge of thankfulness that it was nothing to do with me but that it came from overhead in the sky — a plane.
For a moment I forgot all about Rankin and made my way beyond the tree's thick shade to try and spot the aircraft. Its echo struck back from the koppies and the way it waxed and waned led me to think it must be circling out of sight on the river side of The Hill.
I was automatically suspicious of its movements, a carryover from my first instinct, after emerging from jail, to duck at the sight of a policeman. There were several harmless explanations of the plane's presence: it might be on a crossborder flight to Rhodesia and was simply checking its bearings on the most prominent landmark in the area; or it might be a sportsman taking an innocent look-see on his way to a shooting safari in neighbouring Botswana.
On the other hand, it could be the official plane returning to pick up the guard whose body I had seen. If so, once again Rankin became the key to my innocence. If I were picked up near The Hill's forbidden area in suspicious circumstances, how could I prove that I had not been involved in the burning of the hut, the ashes of which no doubt contained a charred skull? Circumstantial evidence alone was strong enough to bring me to trial — for murder this time.
I was not able to pinpoint the sound because of the hills'
double echo, so I left the baobab altogether and went a few yards to the edge of the rock outcrop where K2 fell several hundred feet in a steep slope to the wadi below. It afforded me a grand view and almost at once I sighted the bright flash of a spinning airscrew in the strange hard light away to the north, near the confluence of the Shashi and Limpopo rivers; in other words, by the pool near which I had hidden my boat. I felt exposed and naked on the coverless cliff-top despite the fact that the pilot could not possibly see me, and I sank to one knee to watch the plane's movements. It was very low, making towards The Hill. After a few minutes it crossed the confluence. Then it swung wide in order to avoid The Hill and headed towards the valley between the fortress and K2 whose floor consisted of the wadi. At the same time the machine dropped very low — no more than sixty feet, I judged. This ruled out my first thought of a bearings check or casual joyride. The pilot was risking his neck now flying through the valley with its updraughts of superheated air. What made me doubly sure that it was a guard-plane was the fact that I identified it as a Tiger Moth of the type the Air Force had used as trainers during the war and had later sold. It was just the sort of light, highly manoeuvrable machine for a bush landing-strip.
The plane ducked and dropped and for a moment I thought it was about to sideslip into a jagged mass of rocks which seemed mere feet below the wheels. But it pulled clear and began an erratic course over my camping-site. At that height the pilot could not fail to spot the remains of my fire and other things scattered about. He banked, as if scrutinizing them closely, then edged in perilously close to the cliffs. He completed a tight circle and retraced his flight-path, slowing almost to stalling speed. Then two heads craned out peering down at what lay below. I kept low and motionless; when the plane turned back yet again after passing over the tabletop I became convinced that the pilots were carrying out a methodical search of The Hill and its surroundings. Whatever their reason, I decided I'd be wise to keep well out of sight. I dismissed the only possible reason which might involve me, namely, that Dr Sands had revealed to someone my presence at The Hill. But it seemed scarcely likely that my collecting hyena fossils was considered important enough to warrant a plane search.
As I watched, the plane, its business with The Hill apparently finished, headed towards the western hills, the hills from which I'd started towards K2 the previous night.
I knew I should get back at once into my hide-out, but curiosity overcame my caution for a moment and I decided to see quickly if anything below me on K2 could have attracted the plane.