The gunfire had stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Two more of Khosa’s soldiers were running back into the village, bursting with news to report to their commander.
Ben thought, Shit, they’ve caught Sizwe.
He was wrong. They hadn’t caught Sizwe. Sizwe was still out there somewhere. But they had caught something.
The soldiers had caught the lion.
Chapter 59
The lion had been in the thicket all along. Watching, hiding, waiting. When the soldiers had gone in to search for the deserters as Khosa had ordered them, two men split from the main hunting party had accidentally flushed the animal from its hiding place. It had tried to attack one of them but been driven back by a volley of gunfire and gone crashing off through the thicket. In its blind panic, it had fallen into a ditch with steep banks from which it could not escape.
The soldiers breathlessly reported to Khosa that it was still there, trapped.
The General’s eyes widened in enthralment at the news. ‘I must see it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Show me the way!’ His fury had abated instantly, like a child’s tantrum appeased by some placatory gift. From one second to the next, he seemed to completely forget about the villagers he’d been just about to have chopped into pieces, and about the attempts at treachery and deception that had so enraged him just moments earlier. Gripped by fascination to see the lion, he ordered for some of his soldiers to stay behind and guard the five village men while everyone else accompanied him to the spot where the animal had become trapped.
The two who had found it led the way, Khosa striding after them with a rapt smile on his face. Ben, Jeff, Tuesday, Jude, Gerber and Hercules were marched along at gunpoint in the General’s wake. Few of the soldiers seemed particularly excited to see the lion. There were looks of disappointment that their fun had been interrupted, if no actual grumbles of dissent. Nobody would have dared push it that far. In any case, the fun would resume soon enough. The villagers weren’t going anywhere.
As the procession of men headed deeper into the thicket, Ben exchanged anxious glances with Jeff and Tuesday. But their worry that Khosa was about to be led right past the spot where the headless Captain Terminator and the bodies of the other soldiers lay stretched out in the long grass soon left them when the procession instead veered off in a dogleg to the right, into an area thick with thorn bushes where the ground was loose and crumbly and the terrain rose and fell steeply in a series of natural ridges and troughs. Ben first made sure that none of the guards was watching him, then slipped the pistol from his pocket to discreetly lose it in the bushes.
A tough decision to make. It felt as if the last flimsy thread connecting him to the world had just been snipped.
They heard the animal’s frantic roars before they got within sight of it. The soldiers bent back a tangle of thorny growth for their general to duck through, followed by the rest of the contingent, and then there it was. A big male, with a shaggy mane and a tawny coat streaked with dust and dirt. Just as the two soldiers had reported, it had got itself trapped between the steep earth banks of a deep trough that was closed off at both ends by thorn bushes so dense that not even a rhino could have ploughed through them.
Peering through the crowd that assembled at the edge of the ditch, Ben watched the frightened animal trying to get free. To his eye it looked thin and emaciated, its ribs too visible through its fur. Every time it hurled itself in an attempt to scramble up the bank, it could only rake desperately for a purchase using its front paws and kept slithering back down to the bottom time after time in a small landslide of dirt and stones and ripped plant roots. Ben saw right away why the poor beast was unable to climb or leap its way out. The same reason it had turned to preying on people. It had a withered and dragging hind leg that was too weak to help give it the push it needed to escape. An old injury, maybe, or the result of disease. The kind of debility that no wild animal, prey or predator, could hope to survive in the long term. That accounted for the emaciation, too. The lion was a desperate animal that was slowly starving and living on borrowed time.
Nature is cruel. But even a lame, starving lion was still a lion. Five hundred pounds of muscle and teeth and claws and killer instinct. If this thing had made an appearance earlier, things might have gone quite differently for Ben and the others.
Khosa stood on the edge of the ditch and shook his head in awed admiration. ‘I would like to have this magnificent creature as a pet,’ he announced to his men. Motioning at two of them, he added, ‘You and you. Go in there and bring it to me.’
The men hesitated, not quite certain at that moment which frightened them more, Khosa or the lion.
‘Wait,’ Khosa said, holding up a finger. He thought for a moment; then a smile spread over his face. ‘No. I have had a better idea.’
He turned to Ben.
‘I have thought of another test, soldier.’
‘I thought we had passed the test.’
‘This test is not for you,’ Khosa replied, and pointed back through the crowd of soldiers at Hercules. ‘It is for him.’
Ben said nothing. His stomach had turned into a ball of molten lead.
Holding up his hands and smiling widely, Khosa seemed to address the sky and proclaimed the words ‘Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.’
Down below where they stood, the lion charged at the bank and crashed its claws into the earth and fell back, roaring in rage and frustration.
‘Homer, The Odyssey,’ Khosa said to Ben. ‘I told you, soldier, I am a very learned man. I have read all of Greek mythology. One of my favourites is the legend of the warrior Hercules. Do you know it?’
Ben knew it. That was why he said nothing. Because he was beginning to realise where this was going and it made him feel even sicker than before.
‘If you do not know it, I will tell you. According to the legend, the great warrior Hercules was commanded by his king to carry out twelve labours, tasks so difficult and dangerous that no ordinary man could perform them. His first task was to slay a lion so mighty that its teeth could penetrate any armour, and it could not be killed by normal weapons. To prove himself, Hercules had to make the king an offering of its skin.’
Khosa beamed, liking his idea more and more. He pointed again at Hercules, the real Hercules, surrounded by Khosa’s men with guns. ‘You say he is strong, soldier. Now let us see how strong he is. You! Big man! Go down there and kill this lion and bring me its skin.’
Ben began, ‘General—’
‘Quiet! I have given an order. I am this man’s king. He is my vassal. He must now do as I tell him. There is to be no discussion!’
‘If you want to be a king,’ Ben said quietly, ‘then act like one. I can’t let you do this.’
Khosa gave Ben another of his lingering, mind-scouring stares. ‘This is the last time you will dare to tell me what I can and cannot do. Let me show you, soldier, what I can do.’
He motioned to his men. ‘Kill the boy.’
Chapter 60
The soldiers instantly raised their rifles. Over the roars of the trapped lion below them came the metallic rattle of actions being cocked, safeties being released. Jude stood very still, very stiff, very pale. He raised his chin and looked resolutely into Ben’s eyes, as if to say ‘It’s all right.’
‘No,’ Ben said.
Khosa slowly turned back to gaze at Ben. ‘No?’
‘Don’t kill him.’
‘Are you commanding your king?’
‘I’m asking,’ Ben said, fighting to keep his voice steady. His eyes were locked on Jude’s.
‘Does one now ask a king, as an equal?’
‘All right,’ Ben said. ‘I’m begging.’
Jude gave a single shake of his head. It’s okay. Really.
Khosa smiled and said, ‘Better. Now tell me why I should not kill him.’
‘Because if you do, it ends our arrangement,’ Ben said.
‘Then you have accept
ed my offer, soldier? Because I was not sure that you had, in your heart. I am not sure that you did not try to trick me before. A clever man like you is full of tricks, hmm?’
Ben said, ‘Yes. I accept and agree.’
‘With all your heart?’
‘With all my heart.’
‘Am I a wise and just king?’
‘Yes,’ Ben said. ‘Very wise and very just.’
‘You will serve me with loyalty?’
‘To the last,’ Ben said.
‘And obey my orders?’
‘Without question,’ Ben said.
Khosa looked pleased. He glanced at the soldiers still pointing their rifles at Jude’s head, then looked back at Ben. ‘As you are my military advisor, let me ask your advice. Should I order my men to kill the boy, or should I send Hercules into combat with this lion?’
The huge tawny cat was still struggling to escape from the ditch. It was clawing and raking at the earth banks in a desperate attempt to clamber up and away to safety, but without the power in its hindquarters it still couldn’t gain the momentum to scramble up the sheer slope. The bank was becoming eroded away by its efforts and becoming only more vertical as the lion dug itself in deeper.
Ben said nothing. He could feel Jeff’s presence behind him, and Tuesday’s, and Gerber’s. He could sense the grim strain coming off all three of them like electric charge from a high-voltage cable. Nobody spoke. Ben looked down at the lion. Looked across at Jude. Then at Hercules.
‘I am waiting for my advisor’s counsel,’ Khosa said with a raised eyebrow.
‘Shoot me,’ Jude called out. ‘It’s my choice. Go ahead and shoot me and let Hercules live.’
Khosa kept his eyes on Ben as he said, ‘It is not your decision to make, White Meat. It is for my advisor to choose. But I hear nothing from him. Perhaps he is not a good advisor after all. Perhaps I have misplaced my faith in his judgement, and should replace him.’
Ben looked again at Hercules.
There’s nothing I can do, he said with his eyes.
Hercules looked back at him. I know.
I’m so sorry.
I know.
Forgive me.
‘I don’t want my son to die,’ Ben said to Khosa.
Khosa asked keenly, ‘That is your choice?’
Ben swallowed hard. ‘Yes. That’s my choice.’
Khosa nodded. ‘So it will be. For the moment.’ He turned to the soldiers by Jude and waved down the rifles. Then he turned to the soldiers by Hercules.
‘Put him in the hole.’
The soldiers closed in around Hercules. Hands grabbed his thick arms. He didn’t try to resist. His shoulders sagged and his eyes were full of nothing but sadness.
Ben bowed his head as they shoved Hercules to the edge of the ditch and toppled him down the slope. The big man went slithering and sliding downwards, throwing up a plume of loose dirt and grunting as he hit the bottom.
The lion saw him and turned. Sensing a new threat, it lost interest in trying to escape. The law of nature. Flight was impossible. Now it had something to fight, instead. It lowered its maned head close to the ground and its shoulder muscles coiled and rippled under the matted fur. Its black lips gaped open in a snarl, showing fangs like devil’s horns.
Hercules backed away. He threw a helpless, wide-eyed glance up at the crowd above him.
‘In the legend,’ Khosa declared, ‘Hercules used a club to kill the lion. Even a mighty warrior should have a weapon. Throw him a club.’
One of the soldiers jerked the magazine out of his AK-47, jacked the round from the chamber and then tossed the rifle into the ditch. Hercules hesitated and then picked up the empty weapon, holding it by the barrel with the triangular wooden buttstock raised shoulder-high like a bat.
Ben’s knees sagged under him. He wanted to curl up on the ground and sleep, but he knew he couldn’t sleep again for a long time. Maybe for the rest of his life.
Hercules faced the lion. ‘Come on then, motherfucker!’
The lion’s snout wrinkled into another snarl. It made explosive huffing sounds from its chest and blew from its nostrils and pawed at the ground. Its great amber eyes gazed impassively at its trapped prey.
Then it attacked with all the massive force and shocking aggression of the most dangerous land predator in Africa. A lame, sick, starving lion. But still a lion. Five hundred pounds or more of muscle and teeth and lashing claws. Twice Hercules’s weight. Ten times the strength of even the strongest human. It was only in the story world of old legends that a man armed with nothing but a club could defeat such an animal.
Hercules never had a chance. His first and only swing of the empty rifle struck the lion with what to a human would have been a skull-crushing blow across the side of the head, but the cat barely flinched and kept on coming. It swatted Hercules to the ground with one swipe of a forepaw the size of a dinner plate. Then it crushed him with its weight and closed its jaws around his thick neck and shook him from side to side like a terrier shaking a rat.
The screaming didn’t last very long. Hercules was soon almost dead, although he was still moving, the fingers of an outflung and bloody arm flexing and twitching in the dirt. The lion backed away, sniffing at him, one paw cocked to prod and roll him to test if he was still alive. Then it closed back in and bit him again, ripping into his flesh. Hercules’s arms and legs flailed and jerked spasmodically as the lion tore into the muscles of his shoulder and back, but ninety percent of it was just nerve response. He couldn’t feel much any longer.
At least, Ben hoped he couldn’t.
Khosa watched with a smile as the lion pulled Hercules apart. It ripped off one arm, tossed it aside, then ripped off the other. Then it buried its face into what was left of his throat. Chewing, tugging, tearing, swallowing.
By now Lou Gerber was on the ground, weeping openly.
‘Make the goat man watch,’ Khosa commanded. The soldiers seized Gerber’s arms and yanked him back to his feet.
It was another long, agonising minute before Khosa got bored with the bloody spectacle. ‘He has failed the test,’ he declared. ‘It is as I thought. This man was never a true warrior. Now let us return to the village. I have more business to attend to there.’
Chapter 61
Ben was barely conscious of the presence of the soldiers around him as he walked back to the village. He could only dimly sense that Jude, Jeff and the others were looking at him. He couldn’t return their looks. He felt as though he had lead weights attached to his legs. His head was filled with a kind of buzzing and everything seemed somehow distant and unreal.
Back at the village, the rearguard of soldiers left behind stood over Sizwe’s five companions, still kneeling on the ground with their heads bowed so low that their hair brushed the dirt. Sizwe himself would be long gone now. If he had any sense. Running through the bush, stricken with grief, streaming tears in the knowledge that his friends and family could no longer be saved, and there was nothing he could do but try to stay alive himself.
Trust me, Ben had said. And Sizwe had trusted him. And now it had come to this.
Khosa ordered for the village’s vehicles to be brought, and soldiers hurried off to fetch them. Moments later, the grunt and snort of diesel engines filled the air. This was Africa, where fuel stations were so few and far that even the poorest man kept his truck fully gassed, if he could afford one at all, and loaded it with all the spare jerrycans he could fill. The vehicles lumbered through the village: a scarred and rusted-out old Mercedes-Benz L-series nineteen-ton heavy truck, and an even more ragged long-wheelbase Land Rover with a spare wheel mounted on the bonnet and a canvas top so ripped by thorns and branches that it was hanging in tatters. Both were blowing clouds of smoke, and their engines clattered and rattled.
Ben didn’t have many prayers left in him, but he was praying that the arrival of the vehicles would spur Khosa to get out of here before he wrought worse carnage on the blighted village.
Once more,
Ben’s prayers went unanswered.
After Khosa had surveyed the vehicles and seemed satisfied with them, he turned his attention back to Uwase, Ntwali, Gasimba, Mugabo and Rusanganwa, the five them all kneeling silently in the dirt. ‘I have tried to show fairness to these men,’ he proclaimed, in a tone that conveyed both his greatness as a leader and his hurt at their betrayal. ‘I have offered them the chance of freedom, for themselves and their families. What do they offer in return? Treachery. They have proved to me that they are nothing more than cockroaches. Unworthy of mercy. Unworthy of life.’
Khosa paused. He shook his head, solemnly, like a judge weighing up the gravity of the moment before passing sentence.
‘You will bring the women and children,’ he told the soldiers. ‘You will make them kneel here before me. Then you will kill the children in front of their mothers. Cut off their heads. Then cut off the heads of the mothers. Then you will kill the last of the men. Kill them all.’
And they did.
Chapter 62
Afterwards, the dark clouds that had been gathering like battlefield smog in the air finally burst, as if a giant knife had reached up to the heavens and slashed their guts open. The rainstorm came down in solid sheets, lashing and pounding the ground. It washed the blood into the earth, and washed the earth into rivers of purple mud. But nothing would ever wash the stench of death from this place.
A dismal hush fell over the remaining prisoners as they let themselves be herded into the Mercedes box truck. They moved slowly through the rain. Their clothes and hair were soaked, but they didn’t care. The soldiers barked and shoved and jabbed. They didn’t care about them, either.
Soon afterwards, the heavily laden trucks were bumping and lurching away in tandem from the silent village, down the muddied track towards the dirt road. Heading west, big tyres crashing through flooded potholes, headlights poking beams through the deluge, wipers slapping back and forth as fast as they could bat the rain aside. Khosa had made Ben ride with him in the lead vehicle. The General lounged in the front of the Land Rover with one elbow crooked on the door sill, laughing at his own jokes and smoking and talking away happily.