The Seventh Scroll (84 page)

During the next half-hour the sounds of the fighting along the river intensified until the rattle of small-arms fire was almost continuous, and gradually it crept closer to the far end of the airstrip. It was clear that Mek's men, spread , out thinly along the river end of the strip, were falling back before the thrust of Nogo's men. And every twenty minutes or so there was'the sound of the returning helicopter, as it ferried another stick of men to increase the pressure on Mek's scanty defence.

Nicholas and Sapper were the only ablebodied men left in the acacia grove, for all the others had gone out to defend the perimeter. The two of them moved the ammunition crates to the edge of the trees, where they could be loaded in haste once the Hercules landed.

Nicholas sorted out the cargo, reading the contents of each crate from the notations on the lids in Royan's handwriting. The crate containing the death -mask and the Taita ushabd would be the first to go aboard, followed by the three crowns-the blue war crown, the Nemes crown and the red and white crown of the united kingdoms of upper and lower Egypt. The value of those three crates probably exceeded that of all the rest of the treasure combined.

Once the cargo had been taken care of, Nicholas went down the row of wounded men and spoke to each of them in turn. First, he thanked them for their help and sacrifice, red to take them out on the Hercules to and then offed where they could receive proper medical attention. He mised each of them that, if they accepted the offer, he pro would see to it . -lat once they had recovered from their wounds they could return to Ethiopia. Seven of them - those who were less seriously wounded and were able to walk - refused to leave Mek Nimmur.

Their loyalty was a touching demonstration of the high regard in which Mek was held by his men. The others reluctantly agreed to be evacuated, but only after Tessay had intervened and added her assurances to Nicholas's.

Then he and Sapper carried them to the point at the edge of the grove where jannie would halt Big Dolly for the pick'up.

"What about you?" Nicholas asked Tessay. "Are you coming out with us?

You are still in pretty bad shape."

Tessay laughed. "While I can still stand on my two feet, I will never leave Mek Nimmur."

"I can't understand what you see in that old rogue," Nicholas laughed with her. "I have -spoken to Mek. He wants me to take his share of the booty with me. He won't be able to carry any extra luggage at the moment."

"Yes, I know. Mek and I discussed it. We need the money to continue the struggle here."

She broke off and ducked involuntarily, as a stunning explosion cracked in their eardrums and a tall column of dust leaped into the air close to the edge of the grove.

Shrapnel whistled over their heads and twigs and leaves rained down on them.

sweet Mary! What was that?" Tessay cried.

"Two-inch mortar,'said Nicholas. He had not moved, nor made any attempt to take cover. "More bark than bite.

Nogo must have brought it in with his last flight."

"When will the Hercules get here?"

"I'll give jannie a call, and ask him."

As Nicholas sauntered over to the radio set Tessay whispered to Royan,

"Are you English always so cooV

"Don't Ask me - I' mostly Egyptian, and I am terrified." Royan smiled easily and put her arm around Tessay. "I am going to miss you, Lady Sun."

"Perhaps we will meet again in happier times." Tessay turned her head and kissed her impulsively, and Royan hugged her hard.

"I hope so. I hope so with all my heart."

Nicholas spoke into the microphone. "Big Dolly, this is Pharaoh. "What is your position now?"

"Pharaoh, we are twenty minutes out, and hurrying.

Did you have baked beans for dinner or is that mortar fire I hear in the background?"

"With your wit you should have gone on the stage,'

Nicholas told him. "The uglies have control of the south end of the strip. Make your approach from the north. The wind is wester rly at about five knots. So any way you come in, it will be cross-wirid.

"Roger, Pharaoh. How many passengers and cargo do YOU have for me?"

"Passengers are six cas-evac plus three, Cargo is fifty-two crates, about a quarter of a ton weight."

"Hardly worth coming all this way for so little, Pharaoh."

"Big Dolly. Be advised, there is another aircraft in the circuit. A jet Ranger helter. Colour green and red. It 1cop is a hostile, but unarmed."

"Roger, Pharaoh. I will call again on finals."

the two women were Nicholas went back to where waiting with the wounded.

"Not long now," he told them cheerfully. He had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the din of mortar bursts and rapid small'arms fire.

"Just enough time for a cup of tea," he said. He pushed a few twigs into the embers of the previous night's fire, then rummaged in his small emergency pack for the last of his tea bags while Sapper placed the smoke-blackened billycan back on the burgeoning flames.

They only had one mug between them. "Girls first," said Nicholas, passing it to Royan. She took a swallow and scalded her lips.

Good!, she sighed, and then cocked her head. "This time it is definitely Big Dolly I can hear."

Nicholas listened and then nodded. "I think you are right." He stood up and went to the radio. "Big Dolly. You are audible."

"Five minutes to landing, Pharaoh."

From where he stood, Nicholas looked down the long strip. Mek's men were retreating, flitting like smoke through the thorn scrub and firing back in the direction of the river. Nogo was pushing them hard now.

"Hurry along, Jannie he murmured, and then adjusted his expression as he turned back to the two women. "Plenty of time to finish your tea. Don't waste it."

The rumble of Big Dolly's engines was louder than the sound of gunfire now. Then suddenly she was in sight, coming in so low that she seemed to brush the tops of the thorn trees. She was enormous, Her wingspan reached from one side of the narrow overgrown strip to the other. Jannie touched her down short, and she blew out a long rolling cloud of brown dust behind her as he put the engines into reverse thrust.

Big Dolly went barrelling past the clump of acacia, and Jannie waved to them from the high cockpit. The moment he had bled off enough speed, he stood on his footbrakes and rudder bar. Big Dolly spun around in her own length and came roaring back down the strip towards them, her loading ramp beginning to drop open even before she reached them. Fred was waiting in the open hatchway, and he ran down to'help Sapper and Nicholas with the wounded men on the litters. It took only a few minutes to carry them up the ramp, and then they started loading the ammunition crates. Even Royan gave a hand, staggering up the ramp with one of the lighter crates clutched to her chest.

A mortar shell exploded a hundred and fifty yards beyond the parked Hercules, and then half a minute later a second shell fell a hundred yards short.

"Ranging shots," Nicholas grunted, picking up a crate under each arm and running up the ramp.

"They have us in their sights now," Fred shouted. "We have to get out of here. Leave the rest of the cargo. Let's go, GoV

There were only four crates still lying under the NMI-, MOrJL

spreading branches of the acacia, and both Nicholas and Sapper ignored the order and ran back down the ramp.

and raced back.

They snatched up a crate under each arm "Me ramp was starting to rise and Big Dolly's engines roared as she began to taxi out. They hurled the crates over the tailboard of the rising ramp and then jumped up to grab a handhold and pull themselves aboard. Nicholas was the first up and reached down to haul Sapper in.

When he looked back, Tessay was a small, lonely figure under the acacias.

"Give Mek my love and thanks," he bellowed at her.

ou know how to contact us," she screamed back.

"Goodbye, Tessay' Royan's voice was lost in the blast of the great engines, and the dust blew back in a sheet over Tessay so that she was forced to cover her face and turn away. The ramp hissed closed on its hydraulic. rams, and cut out their last glimpse of her.

Nicholas put an arm around Royan's shoulders and hustled her down the length of the cavernous cargo hold and into one of the jum seats at the entrance to the cockpit.

"Strap yourself in!" he ordered, and ran up the steps to the cockpit.

"Thought you had decided to stay behind," Jannie greeted him mildly, without looking up from his controls.

"Hold tight! Here we go."

Nicholas clung on to the back of the pilot's seat as bank of Jannie and Fred between them pushed forward the throttle levers to full power, and Big Dolly built up speed until she was careering down the strip.

Looking over Jannie's shoulder" Nicholas saw the vague shapes of men in camouflage battledre.ss amongst . Some of them the thorn scrub at the end of the runwa raced tow huge aircraft as it ards were firing at the them.

"Those popguns aren't going to hurt her much," Jannie . "Big Dolly is a tough old lady." And - lifted her grunted into the air. They flashed over the heads of the enemy troops on the ground, and Jannie set her nose high in the climb attitude.

"Welcome aboard! folks, thank you for flying Africair.

Next stop Malta," Jannie drawled, and then his voice rose sharply, "Oh, oh!

Where did this little piss-cat come from?"

Directly ahead of them the Jet Ranger rose out of the thick scrub on the banks of the Nile. The angle of the helicopter's climb meant that the approaching Hercules was hidden from the pilot's view, and he continued to rise directly into their path.

"Only five hundred feet and a hundred and ten knots on the clock," Fred shouted a warning at his father from the right'hand seat. "Too low to turn." The jet Ranger was so close that Nicholas could clearly see Tuma Nogo in the front seat, his spectacles reflecting the sunlight like the eyes of a blind man, and his face freezing into a rictus of terror as he suddenly saw the great machine bearing down on them. At the last possible moment the pilot put his aircraft over in a wild dive to try to ear It nose of the approaching Hercules. It seemed impossible to avoid the collision, but he managed to bank, the lighter, more manoeuvrable machine over until it rolled almost on to its back. It slipped under the belly of the Hercules, and the men in the cockpit of Jannie's plane barely felt the light kiss of the two fuselages.

However, the helicopter was flung over on to its nose by the impact, until it was pointing straight down at the earth only four hundred feet below, While Big Dolly flew on, climbing away steadily on an even keel, the pilot of the et Ranger struggled to control his crazily plummeting

machine. Two hundred feet above the earth the turbulence thrown out astern by the massive T56,A-15 turbo-prop engines of the Hercules, each rated at 4900 horsepower, struck the helicopter with the force of an avalanche.

Like a dead leaf in an autumn gale she was swept away, spinning end over end, and when she struck the ground her own engines were still squealing at full power. On impact the fuselage crumpled like a sheet of aluminium cooking foil, and Nogo was dead even before the fuel tanks exploded and a fireball engulfed the jet Ranger.

As soon as Jannie reached safe manoeuvring altitude he brought Big Dolly around on her northerly heading, and they could look back over the wing at the Roseires airstrip falling away behind them. The column of black smoke from the burning helicopter was tar-thick as it drifted away on the light westerly wind.

"You did say they were the uglies?" Jannie asked. "So rather them than us, then?"

nce Jannie had settled Big Dolly on her sailing low northerly heading, and they were over the open deserted Sudanese plains, Nicholas went back into the main hold.

"Let's get the wounded settled down comfortably , he an unbuckled their safety belts suggested. Sapper and Roy and went back with him to attend to the men lying where haste of the their litters had been dumped during the getaway from Roseires.

After a while Nicholas left them to it and went forward flight deck. He to the small, well-stocked galley behind the soup and sliced hunks of fresh bread opened some canned from the loaves he found in the refrigerator. While the tea water boiled, he found his small emergency pack, and took from it.the nylon wallet which contained his medicines and drugs. From one of the vials he shook five white tablets into the palm of his hand. In the galley he crushed the tablets to powder, and when he poured tea into two of the mugs he stiffed the powder in with it. Royan had enough English blood in her veins never to be able to refuse a mug of hot tea.

After they had served soup and buttered toast to the wounded men, Royan accepted her mug from Nicholas gratefully. While she and Sapper sipped their tea, Nicholas went back to the flight deck and leaned over the back of Jannie's seat.

"What is our flying time to the Egyptian border?" he asked.

"Four hours twenty minutes,'Jannic told him.

"Is there any way that we can avoid flying into Egyptian air space?"Nicholas wanted to know.

Jannie swivelled around in his seat and stared at him with astonishment. "I suppose we could make a turn out to the west, through Gadaffi-land. Of course, it would mean an extra seven hours' flying time, and we would probably run out of fuel and end up making a forced landing somewhere out there in the Sahara." He lifted an eyebrow at Nicholas. "Tell me, my boy, what inspired that stupid question?"

"It was just a rare thought,'Nicholas said.

"Let it be not merely rare, but extinct," Jannie advised.

"I don't want to hear it asked again, ever."

Nicholas slapped his shoulder. "Put it out of your mind." When he went back into the main hold, Sapper and Royan were sitting on two of the folddown bunks that were bolted to the main bulkhead. Royan's empty tea mug stood on the deck at her feet. Nicholas sat down beside her, and she reached up and touched the bloodstained dressing that covered his chin.

"You had better let me see to that." Her fingers were deft and cool on his hot inflamed skin as she cleaned the T