A Cleft Of Stars

She replied almost detachedly, 'A plane can't offer him any shelter'

'No. But I know that if I had been in his place I would have beaten it to Rankin's cave post-haste once The Hill started falling down.'

Her eyelids flickered when I said 'The Hill' as though I'd been discussing a person.

'Yes.' Her tone remained non-committal.

'I've got a solid-meths stove in the for'ard cabin and some coffee — I think we could both use some. While I'm still soaked I'

ll run and fetch it.'

I wondered what was eating her and I found out when I had changed and we'd had our coffee almost in silence.

'Guy — are we going to run away? Is this the end of The Hill for us?'

'I hadn't thought that far, Nadine. We needed shelter and safety and the-boat was our obvious bet.'

'Do you want to go back, Guy?'

'My innocence is locked up there and so is whatever Praeger is after.'

'The other half of the Cullinan.''If we accept that, it makes a mockery of Rankin's admission. He said cut diamonds, not one diamond but many, and certainly never mentioned one great diamond.'

'It would have been much simpler if he hadn't dragged in that business of the hyena's blanket.'

'That takes us right back to square one, Nadine.'

She came swiftly and knelt in front of the low locker I sat on and rested her arms on my knees.

'We must go back, Guy! We must!'

'If there's anything left to go back to.'

'We must be sure! We know we were on to something with the isifuba board. We can't throw it away.'

'The decision may be taken out of our hands,' I said. 'Listen to that!'

The boat rocked under a more powerful gust from the north-east. The rain went on hammering on the deck but the electric storm had clearly lost steam.

'It's ominous,' I went on. 'It's not an ordinary storm. My guess is that it was a thunderstorm at the start but that wasn't the major thing in itself: it was the small stuff on the fringe of a major blow-up. You don't get rain and wind like this from anything as local as a thunderstorm. It's coming in from the sea. And if I read the signs right, it's a cyclone which has run amok inland from the Indian Ocean, which isn't more than a few hundred miles from here as the crow flies. It's pouring in on that north-easter and it scares the pants off me, especially in this cockleshell.'

'Let's get back ashore, then.'

'That's impossible: we're too late. Feel that. She's just starting to ride the water. I went up to my waist in muck over the side just now. There's already enough water in the river to drown us before we could reach firm ground'

Are we simply going to wait for the river to sweep us away?'

The boat lurched farther upright and began to snatch at its mooring.

'Now's our moment of decision, Nadine. We're so to say afloat. If we're to keep the idea of somehow getting back to The Hill as soon as possible we'll have to fight the river. Otherwise we can simply hang around until we judge there's enough water under the boat and hightail it downstream.'

While I was speaking the boat swung cleanly on to an even keel and brought up with a jerk at the end of her rope.

'Do you still want The Hill, Guy?'

I took her hands and kissed the palms. 'More than anything in the world.'

She buried her head against me, still kneeling, and the warm drops fell on my hands.

When finally she drew back her eyes were very bright. 'I'm under captain's orders.' She threw me a mock salute. 'The captain and crew had better go and take a look at the situation on deck.'

I gave her my oilskins and wrapped myself in a kind of improvised poncho made of tarpaulin.

To my mind the wind seemed to be gaining momentum, and it sent sheets of rain slanting at us so that it was almost impossible to face the weather for more than a few minutes at a time. We turned our backs on the north-east and, hunched and streaming, tried to assess our chances.

The river front was a breath-taking sight. The formidable sky was a little less black in the east where the sun should have been, and gave off a smudgy grey, watershot light which made all outlines indeterminate. There was no horizon to be seen — just the slanting curtains of rain. The Hill appeared _ once or twice through the murk like a ship pitching in a seaway and throwing water all over itself. Nearer at hand, the edge of the terrace looked equally strange. Torrents of frothing, chocolate-coloured water pouring over it were caught by the whipping north-easter so that it had the appearance of a great roller breaking on shore. What had a short while before been a stagnant pool at the confluence of the two rivers was now a flowing river beginning to flex its muscles. It was difficult to estimate its strength because the gale was churning it up against the run of the stream into masses of small waves. From every quarter came the roar of pouring water and the moan of the wind through the bare trees. Some of those near the terrace were already half submerged.

I pointed this out: 'No good there — the water's banking up,' I shouted.

'The edge of the terrace looks like Niagara!'

'The opposite side in the Shashi channel is our best bet,' I told her. 'Look at its big trees. They'll give safe moorings. This palm isn't going to hold much longer. Once the storm's blown itself out, we'll recross to The Hill.'

'How wide can the river become in flood?'

'A mile — two miles — who knows?'

The Empress of Baobab was now straining and tugging at its mooring like a dog on a leash. Her shallow draught and high freeboard made her very cranky in the gale.

'It's no use trying to plug into the teeth of this wind; the engine simply won't make it,' I said. 'We'd do better to strike diagonally across the confluence and then allow the current to carry us down to the tree we choose.'

'Isn't that pretty dangerous?'

'Anything's dangerous in this. You steer and I'll nurse the outboard.'

I pointed out as our target a large tree on a high bank opposite, slightly above the confluence.

'Steer for that and don't let her head fall off, if you value our lives, or we'll be swamped'

'Isn't it simply Hobson's choice which bank we go for? Why not strike to this side where The Hill is?'

'If I'm right about a runaway cyclone, we can expect still more wind. Those high Shashi banks will shelter us. We'll make fast right under their lee.'

'What about your flash flood?'

'The Shashi's gradient isn't steep like the Limpopo's and therefore the run-off won't be as fast. Let's go!'

I stripped off the waterproof engine cover and prayed the electrics would work, It took half a dozen pulls on the starting cord before it kicked but it sounded healthy enough. Of course, her head fell off as soon as I cast off but I managed to bring her back on course by gunning the motor to its maximum.

The crossing was as slow and tedious in its way as our plod on foot through the wadi's sand. The engine's power against the combined forces of the river and the gale was weaker than I had expected and we chugged across the choppy water (with the bows trying to break away all the time) with a kind of hellish single-mindedness. Nadine was kept busy compensating but our course was as zig-zag as a war-time convoy under attack. We finally made it across and then nearly came to grief when the current bore us down on the tree I had selected. The boat's unexpected speed caught us by surprise and she was snared by a sunken branch which luckily snapped before ripping the hull.

I secured the boat fore and aft to the big tree and, with the lesson of the underwater branch in mind, lashed several small trunks to the boat's above-water bulges to serve as buffers. It was mid-morning before we crept below out of the wind and driving rain.

It stormed all day.