The Burning Shore

You find the girl, said A

Well, Colonel, do we have an agreement? How do I know who this girl is? How do I know she is my daughter-in-law? Garry hedged uncomfortably. Will You agree to a test?

Lothar shrugged. As You wish And Garry turned to A

Show him, he said. Let him choose this test Between them, Garry and A

He studied the top photograph. it was a studio portrait of a young girl, a pretty girl in a velvet dress and feathered hat; dark ringlets hung to her shoulders. Lothar shook his head and placed the photograph at the bottom of the pack.

Swiftly he flicked through the rest of them, all of young women, and then handed them back to A

No, he said. I'm sorry to have brought you so far for nothing. The girl I saw is not amongst those, he lookedVery well, Hend over his shoulder at the big Ovambo.

rick, take them back to the drift.

Wait, Mijnheer."A

We have had many try to cheat us, 5,000 pounds is a great deal of money, Garry told him, but Lothar did not even look up from the photographs.

He turned over two of the paste boards, then stopped at the third. That's her. Centaine de Thiry, in her white confirmation dress, smiled self-consciously up at him.

She is older now, and her hair, Lothar made a gesture describing a thick wild bush. But those eyes. Yes, that's her. Neither Garry nor A

I have to sit down! A

It's just a Thank of hair. It could be anyone's hair. How do you know? Garry asked uncomfortably.

Oh, you silly man, A

How long will you need? Garry asked again, and Lothar frowned with irritation.

In the name of all that's merciful, how many times must I tell you I don't know? The three of them were seated around the fire at the entrance to the overhanging cave. They had been talking for hours, already the stars showed along the narrow strip of sky that the canyon walls framed.

I have explained where I saw the girl, and the circumstances. Didn't you understand, must I go over it all again?

A

We ask stupid questions. Forgive us. Very well. Lothar relit the butt of the cigar with a burning twig from the fire. The girl was the captive of the wild San. They are cu

They knew I was following them and they threw me off the spoor with ease. They could do it again, if I ever find their spoor. The area I will have to search is enormous, almost the size of Belgium. It's over a year since I last saw the girl, she could be dead of disease or wild animals or those murderous little yellow apes Do not even say it, Mijnheer, l A

I do not know, he said. Months, a year? How can I tell how long I will need? We should come with you, Garry muttered.

We should be allowed to take part in the search, at least be told in what area of the territory you first saw her. Colonel, you did not trust me. Very good. Now I don't trust you. As soon as the girl is in your hands, my usefulness to you is at an end. Lothar took the cigar butt from his mouth and inspected it ruefully. There was not another puff left in it; sadly he dropped it into the fire.

No, Colonel, when I find the girl we will make a formal exchange, amnesty for me, and your daughter for you. We accept, Mijnheer. A

I will prepare a package for Centaine. She will need good clothes, women's things. I will deliver it to you with the money.

Will you give it to her when you find her? A

It took almost five weeks for Lothar to make his preparations and then trek back to that remote water-hole below the Cunene river where he had cut the spoor of his quarry.

There was still water in the pan, it was amazing how long those shallow unshaded basins retained water even in the sweltering desert conditions, and Lothar wondered, as he had before, if there wasn't some subterranean seepage from the rivers in the north that found its way into them. In any event, the fact that there was still surface water boded well for their chances of being able to penetrate deeper eastwards, the direction which the long-dead spoor had taken.

While his men were refilling the water barrels from the water-hole, Lothar strolled around the periphery of the circular pan and there, incredibly, was the girl's footprint still preserved in the clay, just as he had last seen it.

He knelt beside it, and with his finger traced out the shape of the small, graceful foot. The cast was baked by the sun as hard as a brick. Though all around it the mud had been trampled by buffalo and rhinoceros and elephant, this single print remained.

It's an omen, he told himself, and then chuckled cynically . I've never believed in omens, why should I begin now? Yet his mood was buoyant and optimistic when he assembled his men around the camp fire that evening.

Apart from the camp servants and the wagoners, he had four mounted riflemen to help him conduct the actual search. All four of them had been with him since the days of the rebellion. They had fought and bled together, shared a looted bottle of Cape smoke, or a woollen blanket on a frosty desert night, or the last shreds of tobacco in the pouch, and he loved them a little, though he trusted them not at all.

There was Swart Hendrick or Black Henry, the tall, purplish-black Ovambo and Klein Boy, or Little Boy, his bastard son by a Hereto woman. There was Vark Janor Pig John, the wrinkled yellow Khoisan. Mixed blood of Nama and Bergdama and even of the true San ran in his veins, for his grandmother had been a Bushman slave, captured as a child on one of the great commando raids of the last century that the Boers had ridden against the San people. Lastly there was Vuil Lipped, the Bondelswart Hottentot with lips like fresh-cut liver and a vocabulary that gave him his name Dirty Lips.

My hunting pack, Lothar smiled, half-affectionately and half in revulsion as he looked them over. Truly the term outlaw had meaning when applied to them, they were beyond the rules of tribe or tradition. He studied their faces in the firelight. Like half-tamed wolves, they would turn and savage me at the first sign of weakness, he thought.