“Ah, I guessed, because I know all the other gentlemen, you see, and there is a message, sir, just this minute come from the Navy communications base — from Commander Geisler.” Tonks blinked rapidly. “His assistant, Mr Hartog, was to have met you, but he has had an accident with his car. Miss Anne, that’s Mr Hartog’s daughter, sir, she will be meeting you and will be here almost immediately. If you would care to have a wash-and-brush-up, sir, my house is at your service.”
Shaw nodded briefly. “Thanks, Mr Tonks. I’ll take advantage of that, and glad to.”
“Good. Kindly follow me, sir.”
“Just a moment…” Shaw turned to Major Kennet. “What about reporting the hold-up?”
The Australian clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about a thing, Commander. Reckon I can call the train my responsibility and I’ll see to everything. Including the sad demise of that bloke who went for you in the coach! Right?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Shaw had just finished a quick wash and had drunk a welcome cup of steaming coffee when Anne Hartog turned up, coming in fast in a mud-spattered station-wagon and pulling up with a jerk and a flourish at the Tonks bungalow.
Shaw pulled on a clean shirt and looked out of the window when he heard the vehicle. He guessed who it was when he saw a slim, sun-tanned girl of around nineteen or twenty scramble out and dash through the rain for the verandah, dressed in an open-necked khaki shirt and slacks.
Tonks let the girl in, and when Shaw appeared he introduced them. They shook hands and Anne Hartog said in a light, attractive voice, “Daddy sends his apologies.” She smiled at him, rather defensively, he thought, and pushed some stray blonde hairs, all wet and curly with the rain, back off her forehead. She said, “You’ll do all right with me, though, Commander Shaw. Bet I’ll get you out to the base quicker than Daddy would — rains permitting, that is!”
Shaw glanced through the window at the station-wagon and grinned back at her understandingly. He said, “I hear your father’s had an accident. Hope it’s nothing serious?”
A shadow seemed to cross the girl’s face and she brushed the question aside. “No, it’s nothing much. He’d been down at one of the copper-mines last night — Kamumba, out west of here — and his car ran off the road. That’s all. He’d only just got back before I left.”
“I suppose the roads are pretty bad around here?”
She grimaced. “Perfectly frightful. Most of them are nothing but tracks, really, and in the rains — well, they’re just too awful for anything. You just can’t help the odd spot of bother.” The girl looked away as she spoke, and she flushed a little. Then she went on quickly, “Well, if you’re ready, we’ll go, shall we? Commander Geisler’s very anxious to meet you, I believe.”
“Right. I’m all ready now.”
Shaw thanked the stationmaster for his hospitality, picked up his grip, and followed Anne Hartog out to the wagon. He noticed a rifle lying on the back seat and asked, “Is that because of the general situation, Miss Hartog?”
“Anne,” she said. “Do call me Anne. The rifle… well, yes, it is really. My father won’t let Mummy or me take any chances. He thinks we may really have to defend ourselves before long.”
“Let’s hope it won’t come to that,” he said as he settled himself comfortably. “Know how to use it?” His eyes twinkled at her. “I suppose most people out here have some kind of acquaintance with guns, though.”
She said, “Yes, they’ve got to. I can use it all right if I ever have to, but like you, I hope it won’t come to that. It’s a hobby of mine, actually — range-firing, you know, and hunting, but shooting at people… well, I wouldn’t want to have to do that.” She put the vehicle in gear neatly and competently, and accelerated. The wheels spun in thick mud before taking a grip and then the wagon went forward with a jerk. They shot ahead, turned out of the station approach, and went off fast, a little too fast, along the muddy road. Looking aside at Shaw, Anne Hartog said suddenly, “Mr Tonks said there was some shooting last night when your train was held up.”
He nodded. “That’s right. Some one was — after the military stores, we think.”
“Where did it happen?”
“I couldn’t say just where. About sixty miles west of here, roughly.”
The girl’s head jerked a little and she gave him an odd look and went a little pale, but she didn’t say any more. Soon they’d left the little shanty-town of Manalati behind them and were heading west, almost back in the direction from which he’d come. They returned to the beginnings of jungle country under the teeming, soaking rain, which lashed down vertically, penetrating the green canopy of the trees which stretched over the rutted road. Ann, peering ahead through the windscreen where the wipers coped as best they could, was soon forced to ease down as they met the hint of coming flood.
She said crossly, “Damn. It’s pretty hopeless, isn’t it? We’ll be down in the valley soon, the Naka Valley, and it’ll get worse.”
“The base is right in the valley, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Not so good from the flooding point of view, surely?”
“Oh,” she said, “there’s no bother about that as far as the base itself is concerned. It’s on rising ground. It’s the roads I was thinking of. Actually the whole country’s terribly swampy for six months of the year.” Farther on she said, “You know, I don’t think we’ll make it before lunch at this rate. The rain’s got a lot worse since I started out, and it’s still some way to the base. If you don’t mind, I think we’d better turn off to our bungalow. It’s only a little farther on from here. I’ll take you home, and we can ring Commander Geisler and ask him to send the helicopter. It’ll be quicker in the end.”
“Well, if it’s no bother having me around?”
“Oh, no! Mummy’d love to see you. We never see a new face.”
“I dare say you all find it a bit isolated and lonely, don’t you, living out in the wilds?”
She answered rather dismally, “Oh, you get used to it. Or perhaps you don’t really… I mean, it’s got a lot worse lately. There’s no social life at all now since things got bad. When we get back to normal it’ll be all right, if we ever do.”
“Have you had much trouble around here?”
“No… not a lot just in this part. But there’s the go-slow in the mines, of course, and the whole atmosphere’s pretty nasty. What with that and the rains—” She broke off with a brittle laugh. “I shouldn’t say that, really. We’ve all been praying for the rains, and now I grumble because they’ve come! Matter of fact, we only just escaped the ants, so I hear — or I hope we have. Some of the houseboys say they are still around, though I don’t really believe it myself now the rains have started at last.”
Shaw asked, “Ants?”
“Yes, the driver ants — army ants, some people call them.”
“Now I come to think of it, I’ve read about them.”
“Have you? Hope you never see them, then! They’re brutes… they’re not very big, but they go through the country like locusts, only a thousand times worse. You can avoid them on rising ground — they give the higher places a miss, you see, and in fact you’re all right in any European-style building really. But they’ve got such beastly stings — agony if you get many bites, I believe, and they can be killers. They just strip everything. Not that I’ve seen them myself,” she added. “I think they only come when the rains are late like this time, and when there’s a lot of humidity… well, here we are.”
She shifted down, and they turned sharply off the road and headed up a private drive cut through high banks covered with thick, luxuriant green. At the end, in a clearing hemmed in by trees, was the Hartog bungalow. The drive turned in a broad sweep before the verandah, on to which a woman walked as they drove up.