The flies were crawling into the bloody nostrils and clustering round the eyes.
Then he spoke aloud.
“So Mike Haig was right and I was wrong - you can destroy it.”
Without looking back he walked away. The tiredness left him.
Carl Engelbrecht came through the doorway from the cockpit into the main cabin of the Dakota.
“Are you two happy?” he asked above the deep drone of the engines, and then grinning with his big brown face, “I can see you are!” Bruce grinned back at him and tightened his arm around Shermaine’s shoulders.
“Go away! Can’t you see we’re busy?”
“You’ve got lots of cheek for a hitch-hiker - bloody good mind to make you get out and walk,” he grumbled as he sat down beside them on the bench that ran the full length of the fuselage. “I’ve brought you some coffee and sandwiches.”
“Good. Good. I’m starving.” Shermaine sat up and reached for the thermos flask and the greaseproof paper packet. The bruise on her cheek had faded to a shadow with yellow edges - it was almost ten days old. With his mouth full of chicken sandwich Bruce kicked one of the wooden cases that were roped securely to the floor of the aircraft.
“What have you got in these, Carl?” “Dunno,” said Carl and poured coffee into the three plastic mugs. “In this game you don’t ask questions. You fly out, take your money, and let it go.” He drained his mug and stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone now. We’ll be in Nairobi in a couple of hours, so you can sleep or something!” He winked. “You’ll have to stay aboard while we refuel. But we’ll be airborne again in an hour or so, and the day after tomorrow, God and the weather permitting, we’ll set you down in Zurich.”
“Thanks, old cock.”
“Think nothing of it - all in the day’s work.” He went forward
and disappeared into the cockpit, closing the door behind him.
Shermaine turned back to Bruce, studied him for a moment and then laughed.
“You look so different - now you look like a lawyer!”
Self-consciously Bruce tightened the knot of his Old Michaelhouse tie.
“I must admit it feels strange to wear a suit and tie again.” He looked down at the well-cut blue suit - the only one he had left - and then up again at Shermaine.
“And in a dress I hardly recognize you either.” She was wearing a lime-green cotton frock, cool and crisp looking, white high-heel shoes and just a little make-up to cover the bruise. A damn fine woman, Bruce decided with pleasure.
“How does your thumb feel? she asked, and Bruce held up the stump with its neat little turban of adhesive tape.
“I had almost forgotten about it.” Suddenly Shermaine’s expression changed, and she pointed excitedly out of the perspex window behind Bruce’s shoulder.
“Look, there’s the sea!” It lay far below them, shaded from blue to pale green in the shallows, with a round of white beach and the wave formation moving across it like ripples on a pond.
“That’s Lake Tanganyika.” Bruce laughed. “We’ve left the Congo behind.”
“Forever?” she asked.
“Forever!” he assured her.
The aircraft banked slightly, throwing them closer together, as
Carl picked out his landmarks and altered cours towards the north-east.
Four thousand feet below them the dark insect that was their shadow flitted and hopped across the surface of the water.