to the lakeshore he just wanted to turn left and start driving up out of this valley on to the road to goddamn Salisbury, three hundred miles away, and start telling the people what they had to do to save the country, tell them and then get the hell out of it – wash his hands of goddamn Africa …
But he was going to Salisbury by air, and he had two hours to wait.
He did not want to hurt himself any further: but he had to say goodbye to the Noah’s Ark too. He drove slowly to the harbour.
There she lay on her mooring, long and white, her steel hull a little dented where drowning animals and treetops had hit her.
Mahoney sat, looking at her. The brave Noah’s Ark … He was leaving her too. He picked up a beer, got out of the Landrover and walked on to the jetty. There were a number of rowboats tied up. He rowed out to his Ark.
‘Hullo, old lady …’
He clambered aboard her. He stood on the gunnel, looking about. It was a long time since he had used her, because of the war. He stepped over to the wheel, held it a moment. Below, fore and aft, were the cabins and saloon, locked.
He sat down behind the wheel, with a sigh.
And oh, he did not want to sell her. He had bought her to keep forever. She was part of his Africa, a symbol of this great valley that had died, she had been here from the beginning – that was why he had bought her. For in those brave days of Partnership, when the waters began to rise behind that dam wall, the wild animals retreated into the hills, and slowly the hills became islands as the water rose about them, thousands of hilltop islands stretching on and on; and the animals stripped them of grass and bush and bark, as all the time the waters rose higher, and they crowded closer and closer together; and now they were starving; and eventually they had to swim. But they did not know which way to swim to get out of this terrible dying valley, so they swam to other hilltop islands they could see, and they were already stripped bare. The animals swam in all directions, hooves and paws weakly churning, great emaciated elephants ploughing like submarines with just their trunktips showing, starving buck with heads desperately stuck up, desperate monkeys and baboons and lions. Many, many drowned. The government sent in the Wildlife Department men, and volunteers like Joe Mahoney, to drive the animals off the islands with sticks and shouts and thunder-flashes, to make them swim for the faraway escarpments while they still had strength, heading them off from other islands, trying to drag the drowning aboard. The animals that would not take to the water they had to catch, in nets and ambushes and with rugby tackles, wild slashing buck and warthog and porcupine, and bind their feet and put them in the boats. For many, many months this operation went on as the waters of Partnership slowly rose and more hills became islands and slowly drowned: and the motherboat of the flotilla was this Noah’s Ark.
Now he sat behind her wheel on the great lake, eyes closed; and he could hear the thrashings and the cries and the cursing and the terror, the struggling and the dust and the blood, and the heartbreak of Africa dying. And he remembered the hope: that all this was going to be worth it, that out of this dying would come the new life that Great Britain promised. But it had not come. And now the valley was dead. There were now new cries and screams under the blazing sun, new blood and terror. Partnership was dead, and this grand old boat was all that was left of those brave days, and she also was going to be left behind.
There was military transport to Salisbury, but Mahoney and Bomber Brown and Lovelock and Max and Pomeroy flew back to the city in Mahoney’s Piper Comanche, with a crate of cold beers. Bomber did the flying because he did not drink and because Mahoney did not like piloting any more. In fact he downright disliked it. He had asked Lovelock to fly the aeroplane, but Lovelock had shown up at the aerodrome brandishing a brandy bottle and singing, so Mahoney had asked Bomber along. It was a squeeze in the Comanche with five of them, and there were only four sets of headphones, but they made Lovelock do without so that they could not hear him singing, only see his mouth moving. Pomeroy could have flown the plane, for he was an aircraft engineer who also had a commercial pilot’s licence, but Pomeroy was accident-prone and tonight he was throwing one of his back-from-the-bush parties and he had already started warming up for it. Pomeroy was a sweet man but when he drank he tended to quarrel with senior officers. Mahoney had represented him at several courts martial. ‘But Pomeroy,’ he had sighed the last time, ‘why did you make it worse by assaulting the police who came to arrest you on this comparatively minor charge?’
‘I didn’t,’ Pomeroy protested – ‘they assaulted me. They send six policemen to arrest me? An’ they say, “Are you coming voluntary?” An’ I said, “Voluntary? Nobody goes with coppers voluntary – you’ll ’ave to take me.” An’ they tried. Six police? That’s downright provocation, that is …’
But the army put up with Pomeroy because he was such a good aircraft engineer, like they put up with Lovelock because he was such a good flier. Lovelock always looked the same, even when he was sober; amiable and lanky and blonde and pink, not a hard thought in his head. He was one of those English gentlemen who had never done a day’s work in his life because all flying was sport to Lovelock, like golf. The Royal Air Force had finally had enough of him. The story was that he was bringing in this screaming jet for an emergency landing and he had the choice of two airfields: ‘For God’s sake, man, which one are you going for?’ his wing commander had bellowed over the radio. ‘Which one has the pub open, sir?’ Lovelock had asked earnestly. The RAF had fired him. So he got a job with British Airways, and the story was that when he was getting his licence on 747s he rolled the jumbo over and flew her along upside down for a bit, for the hell of it, and got fired again. Now he flew helicopters for the Rhodesian army, and the terrorists fired at him. It was said Lovelock may look like a long drink of water but he had nerves of steel. Mahoney’s view was that he had no nerves at all. He had been flown into combat only once by Lovelock, and that was enough: goddamn Lovelock peering with deep interest into a hail of terrorist gunfire, looking for a nice place to put his helicopter down to discharge his troops, had given Mahoney such heebie-jeebies that he had threatened to brain him then and there. Now Lovelock’s head was thrown back, his mouth moving in lusty silent song:
‘Oh Death where is thy sting-ting-a-ling …
‘The bells of Hell may ring, ting-a-ling …
‘For thee, but not for me-e-e— …’
Max shouted in his ear: ‘Louder, Lovelock, we can’t lip-read.’
‘I can’t hear you,’ Lovelock shouted apologetically, ‘I’m not a lip-reader, you know.’ But they couldn’t hear him.
Mahoney smiled. He had a lot of time for Max. Max was a Selous Scout, one of those brave, tough men who painted themselves black, dressed in terrorist uniform and went into the bush for months spying on them, directing the helicopters in by radio for the kill. Max still had blacking in his hairline and he was going to Pomeroy’s sauna party tonight to sweat it out and run around bare-assed. Bomber said to Mahoney over the headphones: ‘Do you want to fly her for a bit?’
‘No thanks,’ Mahoney said, ‘I don’t like heights.’ And he heard Shelagh say: ‘I don’t know why you bought the wretched thing. As soon as we’re airborne you say “Have you had enough, shall we go back now?” Why don’t you sell it? But no, it’s like that Noah’s Ark, and your safari lodge – you just like to have them.’
‘What else is there to do with money? You can’t take any out of the country.’
‘You could buy a decent house in the suburbs, like a successful lawyer, instead of living behind barbed wire on that farm.’
Oh, he could buy a lovely house in the suburbs for next to nothing these days, he could have lovely tennis courts and clipped lawns and hedges in the suburbs instead of his security fence; and he could also go right up the fucking wall. Mahoney took a swallow of beer to stop himself thinking about Shelagh as the aeroplane droned