Sapper took charge of the building material and heavy equipment. With
Tessay relaying his orders, it was dragged and manhandled away to the
ancient quarry where it would be packed and stored until needed on site.
Darkness fell with More than half the pallets still not unpacked, lying
where they had fallen. Mek placed an armed guard over them, and they all
traipsed wearily back up the valley to the camp.
That night, with a dram of whisky and a decent meal warming his belly, a
mosquito net over his head and a thick foam mattress under him, Nicholas
drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face. They were off to a good
start.
The chanting of the monks at their matins woke him, "We won't need an
alarm clock here," he groaned, and staggered down to the river to wash
and shave.
As the sun gilded the battlements of the escarpment, he and Mek were
already at their post on the heights, searching the western sky. The
plan had been for Jannie to spend the night at Roseires, while Mek's men
assisted him with the loading of the cargo they had stored-there on
their first flight out from Malta. This was one of the vulnerable stages
of the operation. Although Mek had assured them that there was little
military presence in the area at the moment, it needed only a stray
Sudanese government patrol to stumble on Big, Dolly while she was on the
ground to plunge them all into disaster. So it was with a leap of the
heart that they heard the familiar drone of the turbo-props
reverberating off the cliffs.
Big Dolly lined up again for her first pass down the valley, and as she
flew over the quartz crosses the huge yellow front'end loader tumbled
out of her hold. Instinctively Nicholas held his breath as he watched it
come the parachute hurtling down and then jerk up short on shrouds. it
swayed wildly all over the sky, yoyoing on the nylon ropes, and the
monks howled with amazement and excitement as they watched it drop in.
it struck in a cloud of dust.
Sapper was standing next to Nicholas, groaning and covering his eyes so
that he did not have to watch the "Shit!' he said in a hollow cloud of
dust rising into the air.
voice.
"Is that a command, or merely a request?" Nicholas asked, but he wasn't
really amused.
As the last pallet dropped, and the aircraft climbed away under full
power, Nicholas called Jannie on the radio.
"Many thanks, Big Dolly. Safe flight home."
"Inshallahl If God wills!'Jannie called back.
"I will call you when I need a lift back."
"I'll be waiting." Big Dolly trundled away. "Break a leg!'
"Well now." Nicholas slapped Sapper's back. "Let's go down and see if
you still have a front'ender."
The battered yellow machine lay on its side with oil pouring out of her,
like blood from a heart-shot dinosaur.
"You can push off. just leave me a dozen of these black guys to help
me," Sapper told them as sorrowfully as if he was standing at the
graveside of his beloved, Sapper did not return to camp for dinner, so
Tessay sent a bowl of wat and some injera bread down to him to
1i eat while he worked. Nicholas considered going down to offer his help
with repairing the damaged tractor, but thought better of it. From
bitter experience he knew that at certain times Sapper wanted to be left
alone, and that this was one of those times.
in the small dark hours of the morning the camp was lit up by the blaze
of headlights and the hills reverberated to the roar of a diesel engine.
With, even his bald head covered with grease and dust, hollow-eyed but
triumphant, Sapper drove the yellow tractor into the camp and shouted at
them from the high driver's seat.
okay, knaves and nymphs! Drop your cocks and grab your socks. Let's go
build a dam."
t took them another two full days to gather in all the pallets that lay
strewn down the valley and to carry the stores into the ancient quarry.
There they stacked them carefully in accordance with the manifest that
Nicholas and Sapper had drawn up in England. it was essential that they
knew where every item was stored, and that they had immediate access to
it when needed. In the meantime Sapper was at work on the dam site,
laying out his foundations, driving numbered wooden pegs into the banks
of the river, and taking his final measurements with the long steel
surveyor's tape.
During this preliminary work Nicholas was watching the performance of
the monks, and getting to know them individually. He was able to pick
out the natural leaders and the most intelligent and willing men amongst
them.
He was also able to identify those who spoke Arabic or a little English.
The most promising of these was a monk named Hansith Sherif, whom
Nicholas made his personal assistant and interpreter.
Once they were settled into the camp, and had worked out a relationship
with the monks, Mek Nimmur took of Nicholas aside out of earshot the two
women.
"From now on, my work will be the security of the site.
MOS Maa's :rllar WV.
We will have to be ready to prevent another raid like the one on your
camp, and the slaughter at St. Frumentius.
Nogo and his thugs are still out there. It won't take long for him to
hear that you are back in the gorge. When he comes, I will be waiting
for him."
"You are better with an AK-47 than with a pickaxes' Nicholas agreed.
"Just leave Tessay here with me.. I need her."
"So do I' Mek smiled and shook his head ruefully, "I am only just
learning how much. Look after her for me. I will be back every night to
check on her."
Mek took his men into the bush and deployed them in defensive positions
along the trail and around the campWhen Nicholas looked up from his own
work he could often make out the figure of one of Mek's sentries on the
high ground above the camp. It was reassuring to know that they were
there.
However, as he had promised, Mek was back in camp most evenings, and
often in the night Nicholas heard, coming from the shelter he shared
with Tessay, his deep rumbling laughter blending with her sweet silvery
tones.
Then Nicholas lay awake and thought about Royan in the hut so close, but
yet so far away from where he lay.
On the fifth day the second draft of three hundred labourers that Mai
Metemma had conscripted for them arrived, and Nicholas was astonished,
Things seldom worked that way in Africa.
Nothing ever happened ahead of the promised time. He
wondered what exactly they decided
that he didn't really want to know, for now main construction work could
begin.
These men were not monks, for St. Frumentius had already given its all
to the sacred labour, but villagers who lived up on the highlands of the
escarpment. Mai Metemma had coerced them with promises of religious
indulgences and threats of hellfire.
Nicholas and Sapper divided this work force into gangs of thirty men
each, and set one of the picked monks as foreman over each gang. They
were careful to grade the men by their physical appearance, so that the
big strapping specimens were all grouped together as the project
storm.troopers, while the smaller, more wiry men could be reserved for