Tom Furey wasn’t praying. He was swearing.
In front of him, despite the early hour and the fact that they were in the middle of the African bush, was a traffic jam. In London the cause might have been a car accident, but here it was a lion. Three lions, in fact. And it was gridlock.
Ahead of them was a line of four cars, parked bumper to bumper, waiting their turn to get onto a bridge across a mostly dry river. On the structure itself four cars were parked side by side, effectively blocking it. The canvas canopy over the open-sided Tinga Land Cruiser was high enough for Tom to stand up in the passenger seat, to get a better view of the mess ahead. He caught a glimpse of a big, shaggy mane as one of the trio of lions raised its head from the tar. It lay down again, out of sight.
‘The lions like the warmth of the tarred roads in the early morning. They’ll sleep there until they eventually get sick of the cars, or the sun gets too hot for them. Then they will move into the shade of the trees,’ Duncan explained.
‘How long will that take?’
The guide shrugged. ‘Five minutes, an hour?’
‘We don’t have that much time.’
Up ahead a horn sounded a short, sharp blast. Tempers were rising along with the sun. The bush on either side of them was painted a warm orange-gold by the morning rays, the grassy flood plain dotted with stunted ilala palms. It would have been beautiful, if not for the traffic jam and the fact that two men’s lives were hanging in the balance. The source of consternation, from what Tom could see, was a tour vehicle, a minibus towing a luggage trailer, which had pulled up sideways, blocking the bridge on the far side. Even if the drivers in the queue on their side of the river had their fill of lion photo opportunities and wanted to move on to allow the next in line a chance to see the cats, they were prevented from doing so. Tom watched through Duncan’s binoculars as the driver of the tour van gave someone the finger. ‘This is fucking ridiculous.’ He leaned over and honked the Land Cruiser’s horn. This brought a flurry of sympathetic hoots and catcalls from some of the other drivers, but both the tour bus and the lions remained stationary.
‘What will the lions do if they see a man on foot?’ Tom asked.
Duncan looked over at him. ‘You are not serious?’
‘Tell me.’
Duncan scratched his chin. ‘Well, one of two things. They will either run away or they will attack and kill that man.’
Tom drew his Glock and opened the passenger door. Duncan reached out to grab him, but was too slow. ‘Tom! Don’t be an idiot, man!’
Tom walked along the left-hand side of the first line of vehicles. Duncan started his engine and squeezed past them, driving on the dirt verge, directly behind Tom. ‘Get back in,’ he shouted.
People were starting to look back now and a child called out something in Afrikaans. Tom imagined it was something like ‘Look at that stupid bloody man about to be eaten’. A woman screamed and ducked behind the sill of her car door when she saw his gun. ‘Get back in your bloody vehicle,’ an elderly man yelled at him. Tom ignored him as he closed on the bridge. Duncan drove as close as he could to him, but there was no way the Land Cruiser could get onto the bridge itself.
Tom could see the lions now, but they were lying facing the other way, towards the tour van. The guide driving the bus saw him now and pointed, alerting his tourists to the madman approaching. Tom saw four lenses swing in unison to face him. ‘Police!’ he yelled. ‘Back off that bridge, now!’
The driver stared at him, hardly believing what he was seeing. The lions raised their heads as one at the sound of his voice. One stood and uttered a throaty, bass growl that sent a chill up Tom’s back.
‘Get in,’ a woman said to him, leaning back and opening the rear door of her BMW. Tom sidled up to the car but did not take up the invitation.
He held his gun up, pointed in the air. ‘Back up, now!’ The tour operator driver finally saw sense and started his engine. As he tried to reverse, however, he jack-knifed his trailer and had to engage first gear to move forward again. All three lions were on their paws now, growling and facing outwards in different directions. The van’s erratic movements were spooking them, but the cats, like the other drivers on the bridge, were trapped. ‘Move it!’
The lion that had spotted Tom caught sight of him again. Cornered, it had only one option. It bounded between two cars and started running directly at Tom. Women screamed and cameras whirred as the lion closed the gap, charging for the kill. Tom had moved to the front of the BMW better to communicate with the van driver, but now he saw the flash of tawny fur streaking towards him. ‘Get in!’ the woman behind him yelled again. He needed no further prompting. He took three paces back and dived, headfirst, onto the rear passenger seat. The woman was trying to close the door but his foot was in the way. He yelped as he felt the door crush against his ankle but, turning around to look back over his shoulder, he saw it was not the woman who was closing the door any more. She was bent double in the front seat, screaming maniacally. The lion was standing on its hind legs, roaring. The pressure on the door was coming from two massive paws, and the leathery pads, each the size of a dinner plate, were pressed against the car door’s window. The beast’s foul breath fogged the glass. Its deep, wheezy growls rocked the car almost as much as its massive weight as it fought to get inside the vehicle.
Tom lay on the back seat and racked his Glock, chambering a bullet as he let the slide fly forward. He reached out and pressed the electric window button in front of him, on the door opposite the lion. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, you fucking idiot?’ the woman’s husband said from the driver’s seat. He had been in shocked silence so far. As the window slid down, Tom felt the pressure relieved on the car. The lion hadn’t left, it had just got smarter.
He saw the hooked claws protruding, each as long as one of his fingers, as the lion hooked one huge paw into the gap in the partially open door. He was going to open it. Tom pulled his foot free at last and thrust his right hand out of the window. He squeezed the trigger four times. Children cried and parents hollered. The lion withdrew its paw at the deafening sounds of the gunshots, and turned and ran back over the bridge in pursuit of his two brothers.
The tour van had finally turned around and was speeding away. Like a champagne bottle uncorked, the road was now clear and cars spewed across the bridge, eager to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the madman with the gun as quickly as possible. Inside the BMW the woman who had probably saved Tom’s life was a sobbing wreck. ‘Get out of my fucking car now, you stupid rooinek,’ her husband spat at Tom.
Duncan pulled up beside them in the Land Cruiser, shaking his head. ‘Well, you cleared the bridge,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ was all Tom could think to say to the couple in the car. He climbed out and leapt back into the front passenger seat of the game-viewing vehicle.
Tom noted the sign on the bridge as they raced across the Sweni River. He checked the map as Duncan drove. People honked their annoyance at them as Duncan overtook car after car, not caring any longer that he was going almost twice the fifty kilometre per hour speed limit. They had already covered roughly sixty kilometres from Skukuza, but still had more than twenty to go, on dirt, once they reached the S100 road, just south of Satara camp. If the men they were pursuing were sticking to the speed limit, in order not to draw undue attention to themselves, then Tom was hopeful they would catch them before they abandoned their vehicle. Assuming, of course, they were on the right road and had correctly figured the kidnappers’ plan.
‘Can’t you go any faster?’ They had turned onto the dirt road now and Duncan had slowed the Land Cruiser to about sixty kilometres per hour — still twenty above the maximum for gravel.
‘If we hit a buck or an elephant you’ll be going nowhere.’ Duncan returned his concentration to the road. Tom held the bar on the front dashboard for support as they roller-coastered through a drainage culvert. All four wheels left the road as they hit a hump where a grader had turned off.
They left a cloud of red dust in their wake, which blanketed a pair of cars and their occupants, who had stopped to photograph a trio of giraffe. The long-limbed animals, scared by the roar of the Cruiser’s speeding diesel engine, cantered away, looking as though they might trip at any moment.
Tom was still looking backwards when Duncan braked hard, and he was thrown into the dashboard, his right shoulder connecting with it painfully. ‘What?’ He looked up to see a family of warthog, a big male, his female and three tiny piglets, galloping away, their tails pointed up like antennae as they ran. Duncan accelerated again and ground through the gears until they were back up to their safe maximum speed.
‘ Bakkie ahead,’ Duncan called. It was the fifth such vehicle they had seen. This one had its brand, Isuzu, written in bold, raised black letters across the tailgate. Tom noted that the enclosed rear canopy was heavily tinted. He slid his pistol from its holster and held it loose in his lap.
‘Take them,’ Tom said. Duncan pressed his foot to the firewall.
Tom saw a face in the driver’s wing mirror as Duncan brought them alongside the right rear corner of the pick-up. It was an African and he was watching them intently. He saw the rear passenger window of the twin cab start to come down. Tom raised his pistol so that it was level with the dashboard, but still out of the sight of any occupant of the other vehicle.
A man’s face peered out, but only for an instant. His complexion was dark, swarthy, but not black. If Tom had to guess he would say Arab. ‘Get ready to ram them if I tell you.’ Duncan’s face was grim, but he simply nodded.
Duncan slowed marginally as they prepared to draw alongside. At that moment, Tom heard a whining protest of changing gears and the other vehicle shot forward, accelerating. ‘Faster!’
Duncan changed down quickly but the bakkie was pulling away from them. Tom had only a split second to make his decision. They could simply be local men who might resent some rich tourist from a private game lodge and his guide trying to overtake them at speeds in excess of the legal limit. Or they could be Robert Greeves’s kidnappers.
He raised his hand and aimed at the right rear tyre of the other vehicle. As he squeezed, Duncan hit a deep rut and had to wrestle with the wheel to keep them straight. Tom’s shot went wide. If the driver of the other vehicle heard the shot he did not heed it as a warning and continued to accelerate. Tom coughed as they drove through the dust plume churned up by the Isuzu. It would be hard to get a clear shot through the red-brown mist of grit and he was worried about accidentally killing one of the people they were trying to save.
Any doubt Tom had about the identity of the other vehicle disappeared when the tinted rear window of the bakkie ’s canopy suddenly flew up. Tom lifted his arm instinctively, but then ducked as he saw a man wearing a black ski mask pointing a short-barrelled version of an AK 47 at them. Duncan saw the threat too and swerved wildly as the assault rifle opened up on them. The rough ride made it hard for the gunman to aim and the bullets sailed high. Tom glanced up and saw two holes had been punched through the canvas sun canopy.
Tom felt no satisfaction that they had taken the right route, nor that they had found the criminals’ vehicle. They were outnumbered and outgunned. He didn’t imagine that was the only automatic weapon in the bakkie. He couldn’t shoot back — he was certain that the man with the AK was guarding Greeves and Bernard, who would be lying in the back of the truck’s cargo area. All they could do was keep them in sight.
‘Keep on them but don’t get too close,’ he said to Duncan, who was doing his best to do just that.
Tom fished his mobile phone from his pocket and held it up so he could see the screen. ‘No signal. Shit. We’re on our own, Duncan.’
‘Not quite.’ As he drove one-handed, Duncan snatched up the handset of his two-way radio and started talking rapidly in Shangaan. Tom listened in as he kept his eyes on the vehicle ahead, visible now and then through a swirling dust cloud. A series of acknowledgement messages came through in African dialect. He also heard some radio chatter in Afrikaans when Duncan turned up the volume. ‘We might get some support if we’re not too late.’
‘We can use it. Can you get Tinga on that thing?’
‘We’re too far away now, but I can try to relay a message.’ After some more talking on the radio, Duncan was able to pass a message back to Tinga giving their location and confirming that they were in sight of the missing persons.
As they bounced and skidded through tight turns and a dry river crossing, a message came back from Tinga. Duncan translated it. Sannie was relaying through another guide that the police were on their way, but there would be no air support, as the parks board’s helicopter, normally based in Kruger, was in Johannesburg for an engine overhaul. They were trying to get military air support from the nearby air base at Hoedspruit. ‘Still on our own,’ Tom said bitterly.
‘This road ends soon, in a T-junction. They can go left or right or, if your theory is right, they’ll ditch their bakkie and continue on foot.’
‘Well, let’s hope we’ve foiled that part of their plan. I’m assuming you can take this thing through the bush?’
‘You better believe it, man.’ Duncan slapped the dashboard fondly. ‘They’re slowing. What do you want me to do?’
‘Hang back.’
Tom’s command was too late. The bakkie in front of them skidded to a halt. Even though Duncan hit his brakes as well, the distance between them closed rapidly as a result of the lead vehicle’s sudden stop. ‘Get down!’ Tom yelled as he saw the gunman in the back taking deliberate aim. One of the rear doors of the twin-cab passenger compartment opened and another man in a ski mask climbed out. He carried a cut-down Russian assault rifle identical to the other man’s.
The two AK 47s fired on automatic and Tom felt the impact of slugs slamming into their engine. The front of the Land Cruiser sagged and Tom knew the tyres had been hit. Steam hissed from their punctured radiator and Tom heard the Isuzu’s engine start up again. He raised his head and saw the trailing dust cloud once again. ‘Grab your rifle.’
Tom got out of the stricken four-by-four and started running up the dirt road. He knew the track would end soon, and even if the other vehicle went off road, its momentum would be slowed by the bush, perhaps to walking pace if the trees were as thick ahead as they were to each side of him. He looked back and saw Duncan trotting behind him, working the bolt of his heavy hunting rifle and chambering a round as he ran. He felt a momentary pang of guilt at putting the safari guide in danger. He was a civilian and this was not his fight. Tom had no business ordering him into harm’s way, and he told him as much when he drew alongside.
‘Mr Greeves and Mr Joyce were clients. Their safety is as much my responsibility as yours, so be quiet and save your breath for the fight.’
Duncan raised a hand and moved off the graded road into the long golden grass and thickets of thorn-studded trees on their right. Tom followed the guide, who had reduced his pace. They heard the Isuzu’s diesel engine ahead, but it had slowed to a laboured growl. Duncan paused and dropped to one knee, and Tom followed suit. Ahead of him through the bush, he could see the intersection.
Duncan cocked his head to one side. ‘They have gone on ahead, driving through the bush. They will not move fast. Listen.’
From their left, Tom heard another vehicle’s engine, though this one was screaming at a high pitch. He squinted into the morning sun and saw a dark green Land Rover closing on them, a dust cloud in tow. The vehicle stopped at the intersection, and Tom and Duncan emerged to greet it.
‘Howzit, my boet,’ the Afrikaner driving the Land Rover said to Duncan as they shook hands, African style, linking their hands by the thumbs halfway through the traditional European greeting. The man was grey-haired and his face, tanned to the colour of mahogany, was lined with deep furrows, worn by age and a lifetime in the unrelenting African sun, and his beard was stained yellow by tobacco smoke. He conversed rapidly with Duncan in Shangaan. In the rear of his Land Rover, which, like Duncan’s Cruiser, had no sides or solid roof, just a canvas awning above, were two plainly confused tourists, a young couple.
‘Duncan’s explained what’s going on?’ Tom asked the man.
‘ Ja. I’m Willie. He tells me you want to take my Land Rover off road into that bush, to follow those other okes.’
‘That’s right,’ Tom said. ‘We don’t have time to waste. Radio your position and get someone else to come collect you and your clients.’
‘Hold on, bru. You don’t tell me what to do, and no one, not even Duncan, gets to drive my vehicle. I’ve told him to stay here. I’ll drive you.’
Duncan looked at Tom and shrugged. The white man went on, ‘I was a recce commando in our war in Angola. If those okes are as bad as Duncan’s made them out to be, you need someone like me more than someone like him.’ Willie took his own rifle from its cradle on the Land Rover’s dashboard and inserted its bolt and then chambered a bullet as long as Tom’s middle finger. ‘Now then, folks, my colleague Duncan here is going to look after you while this gentleman and I go look for some tsotsis in the bush.’
Before the confused tourists could ask too many questions, Tom was sitting in the passenger seat beside Willie. The big Afrikaner engaged low-range four-wheel drive and the boxlike truck lurched down a drainage ditch and into the bush. Ahead of them the trail carved by the Isuzu was plainly visible. ‘This should be fun.’ Willie veered off to the right.
‘What are you doing?’
‘They’ll be watching their backs, expecting us to follow their tracks. Look around you — this is a valley. They’re only going in one direction, and that’s east, towards Mozambique. I’m going to try to outflank them. This beast of mine will go harder and faster through the bundu than theirs will — take my word for it.’
The ride was almost sickening as the Land Rover lurched up and over fallen logs, bounced through hidden holes and plunged in and out of ditches and sandy watercourses. Thorn-covered branches whipped past them, shredding the canvas canopy and Tom’s exposed arms in the process. If Willie felt the stings of the vicious barbs he said not a word. Tom saw his crazed grin and knew the man was completely and utterly in his element.
‘After Angola I served with the parks board for a while. I know this country better than most,’ Willie said above the protesting whine of the engine. ‘There’s a town on the Mozambique side, not far from here. The road starts there and leads all the way to the coast.’
‘So I’ve been told.’
Willie nodded. ‘We’re also about to hit a fire trail, which, hopefully, your bad guys don’t know about. It’s not on any publicly available map.’
On cue, they crashed through a screen of low bushes, flattening the saplings in the process, and landed on a cleared dirt track. It was rutted and rock-studded, but after their carving ride through virgin bushland it felt like a four-lane motorway to Tom. Willie disengaged low range and floored the accelerator. A tiny antelope — a steenbok, according to the Afrikaner — darted across their path and bounded deeper into the bush.
The track took them down a natural ridgeline above a re-entrant to the Olifants River valley, which both Tom and Willie had reasoned would be the escaping vehicle’s most logical path into Mozambique. On a downhill stretch, Willie cut the engine and coasted in neutral. ‘Listen now.’
Above their vehicle’s noises they heard the Isuzu’s engine, still groaning slowly as the bakkie ground its way through the uncleared country. Willie turned the steering wheel and let his vehicle plough into some thornbushes. ‘Ambush time,’ he grinned.
Tom climbed down, ignoring the barbs that raked him and snagged his already torn shirt. He followed Willie through the bush. Every few paces the bigger man stopped to listen. He raised his nose at one point. ‘We’re downwind, I can smell their exhaust smoke — it’s blowing past them, faster than they’re moving.’
They picked their site well, in among a cluster of granite boulders, looking down over a dry tributary. ‘They’ll be following that game trail, I reckon,’ Willie said, pointing to a well-worn path about a metre wide, which wound through the bush on the floor of the shallow valley. ‘They’ll have to slow to cross. That’s when we’ll flatten them.’
‘Aim for the driver and the passengers in the cab. Don’t fire on the canopy and the load area. That’s where the hostages are.’
Willie nodded, resting his hunting rifle on the smooth surface of a boulder.
Tom had had three magazines of seventeen rounds each at the start of the day, and now he was missing six bullets from two of them. Up to five men in that vehicle were armed. For now, he and Willie had surprise on their side but that was about the only factor in their favour. What worried Tom was a gut feeling that if the men thought they were at risk of being captured they would shoot Greeves and Joyce. He was out of options, though, and the noise of the truck was getting closer. The blue bonnet of the four-wheel drive came into sight. Tom used a two-handed grip to steady his pistol.
‘We shoot to kill, hey?’ Willie whispered.
Tom nodded.
Willie’s first shot killed the driver of the Isuzu instantly. The. 458 calibre round was designed to stop a charging bull elephant and it took the top of the man’s skull clean off, spraying the other four occupants and the interior of the twin-cab with his blood and brains. The bakkie slewed off to the left and rammed into a leadwood tree. Its engine continued chugging, but it was going nowhere.
Tom fired two aimed shots into the rear of the cab, but couldn’t see if he had hit anyone because their first salvo was already being answered, more than in kind. The man sitting behind the driver had rested his AK 47 on the open sill of the window and was firing blindly on full automatic. Most of his rounds were sailing high, but a few knocked chips of pink granite off the rocks behind which Tom and Willie were hiding, close enough to make them duck.
When Tom risked looking over the rock again he saw all the vehicle’s doors bar the driver’s were open, as was the rear window and tailgate.
Willie gave a primal war cry and, chambering another round as he stood, climbed over his protective rock and scrambled down the valley floor. An African man, without a mask to hide his face, was kneeling and changing the magazine of his AK. Tom ran after the crazed Afrikaner and raised his arm and fired two shots. The second round hit the African with the assault rifle in the chest, knocking him backwards.
More fire came their way, and Willie slowed to take cover behind a stout tree trunk. Tom pushed on ahead, now uncaring about the risk to himself, the blood lust and anger seizing control of his emotions and swamping them. Something burned across the skin of his upper right thigh, and he stumbled and fell. When he looked up he saw two hooded figures being dragged from the rear of the bakkie and thrust forward, past the nose of the crashed vehicle. Tom tried to stand, found he could, and then braced himself against a tree to take aim again. A man was shouting something in a strange language, possibly Arabic, at Greeves and Joyce, who were being prodded along by another, who used his rifle as a combination prod and club.
Willie’s weapon boomed again but the noise of the single shot was soon drowned out by two AKs firing on automatic. Tom was forced to kneel again as leaves and twigs rained down on him and bullets whizzed past him on both sides. He heard other rounds thud into the tree, which protected him. He had to regain the initiative, he told himself. He stepped from behind the tree and started to run. He was only twenty metres from the disabled Isuzu and that would be his next firing position.
As he ran and stumbled along — now more than aware of the pain in his thigh and the blood soaking his shorts — one of the masked gunmen stepped from behind a tree. It seemed the other two had vanished, with the captives, down the dry watercourse. The man fired, one handed, across Tom’s front and he heard a cry of pain from the direction he’d last seen Willie.
In the gunman’s other hand was a cylinder about the size of a can of soft drink, but painted green. The man knelt, dropped his rifle and yanked the pin from the grenade.
Tom heard Willie shout a warning, as his own brain registered what was going on.
Tom flung himself flat and heard the blast, which was not as loud as he recalled from his military days. He looked up and his vision was seared by a flash of blinding white light from within the Isuzu.
‘White phos!’ Willie called.
Tom blinked, seeing stars, and felt a wave of stifling radiant heat rolling across him. He rolled away from the Isuzu and crawled blindly through the grass as the vehicle’s fuel tank erupted. All around him, the bush seemed to be burning. When he managed to sit up he saw the white phosphorus was burning fiercely and brightly, and had ignited a fire that was spreading fast along the valley floor. The pall of smoke from the blazing vehicle, and the spot fires created everywhere the incendiary material had landed, had covered the terrorists’ withdrawal.
Tom raised his pistol as he heard movement through the dry grass beside him.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Willie said, staggering into view. He clutched his left shoulder. Blood oozed through his fingers, coating his right forearm. ‘Wind’s against us. This fire’s going to be on top of us any second.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I’ve got to keep going. I’ll try to get around the fire. How’s your shoulder?’
‘ Ag, I’ve had worse. I’ll live.’ Then the big man’s face seemed to lose all its colour and he passed out.
‘Shit,’ Tom said. Ash and burning embers were already swirling around him as he knelt and heaved Willie across his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. His thigh still stung from the wound he had received, but he had checked and found the bullet had grazed a shallow furrow across his skin rather than penetrating skin or muscle. That was about it, he reckoned, for his quota of good luck so far today.
He staggered under the weight of the safari guide and felt Willie’s blood, hot and sticky, soaking his shirt. He should have bandaged the wound, but if he didn’t get moving they would both be burned alive. The smoke was strong in his nose and he noticed movement in the dry yellow grass on either side of him. Rats and lizards, and God alone knew what else, were fleeing the encroaching blaze. Birds swooped and rolled around him, catching insects flushed ahead of the fire. He could feel the heat on his back and forced his legs to work harder.
Tom followed through the bush the path of destruction left by the Isuzu bakkie. Another explosion behind told him what he had suspected, that Willie’s Land Rover would be engulfed by the flames. He glanced back and saw a black-and-orange pyre rising above the bushfire. Tom hoped that Sannie had been able to organise some air support — that would be their only hope now of keeping up with the gang.
He grunted, pausing for a second to readjust Willie’s body across his aching shoulders. As he looked down he saw the grass around his feet was burning. He coughed as smoke entered his lungs. Forcing himself to keep moving he set off again. Somewhere in the distance he heard an elephant trumpet. Wild animals were the least of his worries now.
Tom risked another glance back and saw a tall tree ablaze. Still moving, but not watching the ground, he stumbled as his foot went into some creature’s hole and he pitched face forwards into the grass. Willie’s bulk crushed him, knocking the air from his lungs. When he tried to get them working again he sucked in smoke and ash and retched. He was pinned under the Afrikaner and felt a furnace-like blast of hot air singe the hairs on the back of his legs. He tried to get the man off his back, but strength seemed to have left him. Now, he thought, was a good time to die.
Without warning, the pressing weight was off him. Light-headed from the smoke, his eyes watering, he was vaguely aware of someone calling his name. A black hand was in front of his face, fingers outstretched. He reached for it.
‘On your feet, Tom. Come on,’ Duncan said. He yanked on Tom’s hand, rolling him over and dragging him to his feet.
Duncan knelt and grabbed Willie under the arms. The white man, his shirt now drenched in his own blood, came to and groaned. Tom stood and got under one of Willie’s arms while Duncan supported the other. Tom felt slapping on his back and looked across at Duncan, whose eyes were wide with horror.
‘Your shirt was on fire, man! This is too close!’
They ran, with Willie’s help, as a lofty leadwood tree crashed down behind them, sending a shower of sparks and ash into the air.
Three other safari vehicles from different lodges were waiting for them at the T-junction. Tom and Duncan laid Willie in the back of a Land Rover, along a green canvas-covered bench seat. Tom had grabbed his first-aid kit before leaving Tinga, and Duncan handed it to him. Tom ripped open a dressing and did his best to patch up the man who had done so much in such a short time.
‘The terrs…?’ Willie coughed and winced as he tried to sit up.
‘Lie down, mate. We have to get you to a doctor.’ Tom looked back at the burning African bush as Duncan climbed in next to the guide behind the wheel and told the man to head to Tinga.