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“They've been fighting for three days, at least,” Isabel noted.
“We'll take a look at the combatants presently,” Burton said. “First, eat, rest, and attend to your weapons.”
This was duly done, and slightly under an hour later they climbed the hill, passing through the trees, descended the other side, scrambled up the next slope, and crawled onto its summit. They looked out over the twilit plain on the other side. The sun had just set and the western horizon was blood-red, the sky above it deep purple and flecked with bright stars.
The land beneath was considerably more verdant than the ground they'd just crossed; large tracts had obviously been irrigated; there were grain fields and many trees, the latter casting very long shadows.
A little to the north, a monolithic verdure-topped outcrop of rock dominated the otherwise flat landscape, and just to the south of it, right in front of them, there was a small town, little more than a wide scattering of wooden houses and shacks, with a few larger residences at its centre.
Lights flashed all along its eastern and northern borders and the noise of gunfire punctured the African night.
Burton whispered, “The Prussians have Kazeh under siege!”
CHAPTER 9
“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
The plant was roughly the shape of a boat. It moved on thick white roots that grew in tangled bunches beneath its squat, flattened, and elongated stem. From this, ten white flowers grew in pairs, aligned in a row. Their petals were curled around the men who sat in them, forming extremely comfortable seats. Sir Richard Francis Burton was in one of the middle blooms. Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was sitting beside him. Schutztruppenoccupied the others. The driver's head was pierced just above the ears by thorny tendrils through which he controlled the conveyance. The soldier beside him was positioned behind a seedpod, which, to Burton, looked exactly like a mounted gun. From the rear of the vehicle, three long leaves curved upward and forward like a canopy, protecting the passengers from the sun.
It was a bizarre conveyance. It was also a very fast one.
They'd left Stalag IV at Ugogi yesterday and were travelling along a well-defined trail-almost a road-in a westerly direction.
As the landscape unfolded around them, another unfolded inside Burton. His lost memories were returning, and each one inserted itself into his conscious mind with a violent stab that made his eyes water and caused a curious sensation in his sinuses, as if he'd accidentally snorted gunpowder instead of snuff.
The vehicle scuttled over the Marenga M'khali desert, and he recognised it. A grassy plain, a jungle, and rolling sava
He remembered his companions and felt the hollow grief of untimely deaths. He knew who Al-Manat had been.
Isabel. Whatever became of you?
As if reading his thoughts, Lettow-Vorbeck said, “This road, it is built on the old trail that you followed so many years ago, ja?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And the other trail, the one parallel to it, to the north, that is now our Tanganyika Railway Line, which the Greater German Empire employs to bring civilisation to Africa, and which your people attack and sabotage with such tedious frequency.”
Burton shrugged. He was sick of this war. He'd had more than enough of the twentieth century.
The plant raced across dusty ground and climbed into the Ugogo region.
“Nearly two hundred miles westward,” the generalmajor informed him, “then we shall steer north to avoid Tabora. An inconvenience, but one that we'll not have to put up with for much longer.”
“The ‘final solution’ you spoke of before?”
“Ja.It is on its way, even now, Herr Burton. We have a great flying ship, the L.59 Zeppelin, following inland the river that so obsesses you. I speak of the Nile, of course.”
Another missing shard of Burton's memory slammed into place, causing him to catch his breath and stifle a groan.
Lettow-Vorbeck continued, “The name Zeppelinis a very suitable one for das Afrika Schiff, I think, for it is widely held that a Zeppelin was present at the start of the war, and now a Zeppelin will be present at its end!”
The generalmajor suddenly frowned and peered inquisitively at his prisoner. “Ja, ja,”he said, thoughtfully. “You, also, were in Africa when all this began. Perhaps you met the Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin of whom I speak? Maybe you can enlighten our historians and tell us how and where he died, for this is a great mystery.”
Burton shook his head. “No, sir, I didn't and I ca
“Hmm, so you say, aber ich denke, dass Sie mehr wissen. Richtig?”
“No. I know nothing more.”
The road bisected a rolling plain then ran through a chaotic jungle that had been burned back from the thoroughfare and was held at bay by tall wire fences.
Lettow-Vorbeck pointed. “You see there, the unkontrollierbare Anlagen!”
The “uncontrollable plants” were lurchers. There were many hundreds of them writhing against the barrier.
“We will see more as we approach the Lake Regions, for they are much more numerous near the Blutdschungel. What a nuisance they are!”
The hot air blew against Burton's face as the vehicle raced along, then the sun set and he fell asleep. When he awoke, it was early morning, and they were leaving the Uyanzi region and entering another blistering desert.
He stretched and yawned and said, “Generalmajor, where is all the wildlife? I haven't seen an elephant for years!”
“Elephants are extinct, mein Freund.As for the other creatures, our Eugenicists have adapted a great many for frontline warfare, and the rest have sought refuge in less battle-torn areas of the country; the South, primarily, where you British have no presence and where civilisation prospers in harmony with nature.”
“No presence? South Africa was part of the British Empire in my day.”
“That is so, and the Boers and the Zulus were not happy about it. My people offered them full independent rule, and, with our military assistance, they overthrew you. It took less than a year to drive the British out. After that, it was simply a case of establishing strong trade and industrial relations, and, before many years had passed, the South was very willingly incorporated into the Greater German Empire.”
They soon left the desert and the road began to snake between small domed hills, finally emerging from a valley into a wide basin. The ground was torn up and dried into grotesque configurations; the trees were nothing but stumps; burned wreckage was strewn about; but there was something in this old battlefield that Burton recognised-its contours told him that this was where the village of Tura had stood. There was no sign of the settlement.
The driver shouted something.
“Ah,” Lettow-Vorbeck said. “Now we leave the road and travel north. Later we shall go west again. You are hungry?”
“Yes.”
The generalmajor snapped an order and the man sitting in front of Burton lifted a hamper onto his lap, opened it, and started to pass back packets of sliced meat, a loaf of bread, fruit, and other comestibles. With a shock, Burton noticed that the soldier's face was covered with short bristly fur and that his jaws extended forward into a blunt muzzle. His mouth was stretched into a permanent and nasty smile. A hyena.
They sped out of the hills onto a wide expanse of flatland broken only by a long ridge that ran along to the north of them.