A throwing by Ruffy was an unforgettable experience, both for the victim and the spectators. Bruce vividly recalled that night at the
Hotel Lido when he had been a witness at one of Ruffy’s most spectacular throwings.
The victims, three of them, were journalists representing
publications of repute. As the evening wore on they talked louder; an
American accent has a carry like a well-hit golf ball and Ruffy recognized it from across the terrace. He became silent, and in his silence drank the last gallon which was necessary to tip the balance.
He wiped the froth from his upper lip and stood up with his eyes fastened on the party of Americans.
“Ruffy, hold it. Hey!” - Bruce might not have spoken.
Ruffy started across the terrace. They saw him coming and fell
into an uneasy silence.
The first was in the nature of a practice throw; besides, the man was not aero-dynamically constructed and his stomach had too much wind resistance. A middling distance of twenty feet.
“Ruffy, leave them!” shouted Bruce.
On the next throw Ruffy was getting warmed up, but he put excessive loft into it. Thirty feet; the journalist cleared the terrace and landed on the lawn below with his empty glass still clutched in his hand.
“Run, you fool!” Bruce warned the third victim, but he was paralysed.
And this was Ruffy’s best ever, he took a good grip neck and seat of the pants - and put his whole weight into it. Ruffy must have known that he had executed the perfect throw, for his shout of
“Gonorrhoea!”
as he launched his man had a ring of triumph to it.
Afterwards, when Bruce had soothed the three Americans, and they had recovered sufficiently to appreciate the fact that they were privileged by being party to a record throwing session, they all paced out the distances. The three journalists developed an almost proprietary affection for Ruffy and spent the rest of the evening buying him beers and boasting to every newcomer in the bar. One of them, he who had been thrown last and farthest, wanted to do an article on Ruffy - with pictures. Towards the end of the evening he was talking wildly of whipping up sufficient enthusiasm to have a man-throwing event included in the Olympic Games.
Ruffy accepted both their praise and their beer with modest gratitude; and when the third American offered to let Ruffy throw him again, he declined the offer on the grounds that he never threw the same man twice. All in all, it had been a memorable evening.
Apart from these occasional lapses, Ruffy had a more powerful body and happier mind than any man Bruce had ever known, and Bruce could not
help liking him. He could not prevent himself smiling as he tried to reject Ruffy’s invitation to play cards.
“We’ve got work to do now, Ruffy. Some other time.”
“Sit down, boss,” Ruffy repeated, and Bruce grimaced resignedly and took the chair opposite him.
“How much you going to bet?” Ruffy leaned forward.
Bruce laid a thousand-franc note on the table; “when that’s gone, then we go.”
“No hurry,” Ruffy soothed him. “We got all day.” He dealt the three cards face down. “The old Christian monarch is in there somewhere; all you got to do is find him and it’s the easiest mille you ever made.”
“in the middle,” whispered the gendarme standing beside Bruce’s chair. “That’s him in the middle.”
“Take no notice of that mad Arab - he’s lost five mille already this morning,” Ruffy advised.
Bruce turned over the right-hand card.
“Mis-luck,” crowed Ruffy. “You got yourself the queen of hearts.”
He picked up the banknote and stuffed it into his breast pocket.
“She’ll see you wrong every time, that sweetfaced little bitch.”
Grinning, he turned over the middle card to expose the jack of spades with his sly eyes and curly little mustache. “She’s been shacked up there with the jack right under the old king’s nose.” He turned the king face up.
“Look you at that dozy old guy - he’s not even facin in the right direction.” Bruce stared at the three cards and he felt that sickness in his stomach again. The whole story was there; even the man’s name
was right, but the jack should have worn a beard and driven a red Jaguar and his queen of hearts never had such innocent eyes. Bruce spoke abruptly. “That’s it, Ruffy. I want you and ten men to come with me.”
“Where we going?”
“Down to Ordinance - we’re drawing special supplies.”
Ruffy nodded and buttoned the playing cards into his top pocket while he selected the gendarmes to accompany them; then he asked Bruce, “We might need some oil; what you think, boss?” Bruce hesitated; they had
only two cases of whisky left of the dozen they had looted in August.
The purchasing power of a bottle of genuine Scotch was enormous and
Bruce was loath to use them except in extraordinary circumstances. But now he realized that his chances of getting the supplies he needed were remote, unless he took along a substantial bribe for the quartermaster.
“Okay, Ruffy. Bring a case.” Ruffy came up out of the chair and clapped his steel helmet on his head. The chin straps hung down on each side of his round black face.
A “A full case?” He grinned at Bruce. “You want to buy a battleship?”
“Almost,” agreed Bruce; “go and get it.” Ruffy disappeared into the back area of the house and returned almost immediately with a case of Grant’s Stand awl”
fast under one arm and half a dozen bottles of Simba beer held by their necks between the fingers of his other hand.
“We might get thirsty,” he explained.
The gendarmes climbed back into the back of the truck with a clatter of weapons and shouted cheerful abuse at their fellows on the
verandah. Bruce, Mike and Ruffy crowded into the cab and Ruffy set the whisky on the floor and placed two large booted feet upon it.
“What’s this all about, boss?” he asked as Bruce trundled the truck down the drive and turned into the Avenue I’Etoile. Bruce told him and when he had finished Ruffy grunted noncommittally and opened a bottle of beer with his big white chisel-blade teeth; the gas hissed softly and a little froth ran down the bottle and dripped onto his lap.
“My boys aren’t going to like it,” he commented as he offered the open bottle to Mike Haig. Mike shook his head and Ruffy passed the bottle to Bruce.
Ruffy opened a bottle for himself and spoke again. “They going to hate it like hell.” He shook his head. “And there’ll be even bigger trouble when we get to Port Reprieve and pick up the diamonds.” Bruce glanced sideways at him, startled. “What diamonds?”
“From the dredgers,” said Ruffy. “You don’t think they’re sending us all that way just to bring in these other guys.
They’re worried about the diamonds, that’s for sure!” Suddenly, for Bruce, much which had puzzled him was explained. A half-forgotten conversation that he had held earlier in the year with an engineer from
Union Mine jumped back into his memory. They had discussed the three diamond dredgers that worked the gravel from the bed of the Lufira swamps. The boats were based on Port Reprieve and clearly they would have returned there at the beginning of the emergency; they must still be there with three or four months” recovery of diamonds on board.
Something like half a million sterling in uncut stones. That was the reason why the Katangese Government placed such priority on this expedition, the reason why such a powerful force was being used, the reason why no approaches had been made to the U.N. authorities to conduct the rescue.
Bruce smiled sardonically as he remembered the human itarian arguments that had been given to him by the Minister of the Interior.