The Leopard Hunts in Darkness Page 19

  Tungata grunted and the strength went out of him. Craig rolled out from under him, reared back onto his shoulders, and used all his body to launch himself forward again to hit with the stump. It sounded like an axe swung double-handed against a tree trunk, and it caught Tungata in the middle of his chest, right over the heart.

  Tungata dropped over backwards and lay still. Craig crawled to him and reached for his unprotected throat with both hands. He felt the ropes of muscle framing the sharp hard lump of the thyroid cartilage and he drove his thumbs deeply into it, and, at the feel of ebbing life under his hands, his rage fell away – he found he could not kill him. He opened his hands and drew away, shaking and gasping.

  He left Tungata lying crumpled on the rocky earth and crawled to where Sally-Anne lay. He picked her up and sat with her in his lap, cradling her head against his shoulder, desolated by the slack and lifeless feel of her body. With one hand he wiped away the trickle of blood before it reached her eyes.

  Above them on the road the following truck pulled up with a metallic squeal of brakes and armed men came swarming down the slope, baying like a pack of hounds at the kill. In his arms like a child waking from sleep, Sally-Anne stirred and mumbled softly.

  She was alive, still alive – and he whispered to her, ‘My darling, oh my darling, I love you so!’

  Four of Sally-Anne’s ribs were cracked, her right ankle was badly sprained, and there was serious bruising and swelling on her neck from the blow she had received. However, the cut in her scalp was superficial and the X-rays showed no damage to the skull. Nevertheless, she was held for observation in the private ward that Peter Fungabera had secured for her in the overcrowded public hospital.

  It was here that Abel Khori, the public prosecutor assigned to the Tungata Zebiwe case, visited her. Mr Khori was a distinguished-looking Shona who had been called to the London bar and still affected the dress of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, together with a penchant for learned, if irrelevant, Latin phrases.

  ‘I am visiting you to clarify in my own mind certain points in the statement that you have already made to the police. For it would be highly improper of me to influence in any way the evidence that you will give,’ Khori explained.

  He showed Craig and Sally-Anne the reports of spontaneous Matabele demonstrations for Tungata’s release, which had been swiftly broken up by the police and units of the Third Brigade, and which the Shona editor of the Herald had relegated to the middle pages.

  ‘We must always bear in mind that this man is ipso jure accused of a criminal act, and he should not be allowed to become a tribal martyr. You see the dangers. The sooner we can have the entire business settled mutatis mutandis, the better for everybody.’

  Craig and Sally-Anne were at first astonished and then made uneasy at the despatch with which Tungata Zebiwe was to be brought to trial. Despite the fact that the rolls were filled for seven months ahead, his case was given a date in the Supreme Court ten days hence.

  ‘We cannot nudis verbis keep a man of his stature in gaol for seven months,’ the prosecutor explained, ‘and to grant him bail and allow him liberty to inflame his followers would be suicidal folly.’

  Apart from the trial, there were other lesser matters to occupy both Craig and Sally-Anne. Her Cessna was due for its thousand-hour check and ‘certificate of air-worthiness’. There were no facilities for this in Zimbabwe, and they had to arrange for a fellow pilot to fly the machine down to Johannesburg for her. ‘I will feel like a bird with its wings clipped,’ she complained.

  ‘I know the feeling,’ Craig grinned ruefully, and banged his crutch on the floor.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, ‘Craig.’

  ‘No, don’t be. Somehow I no longer mind talking about my missing pin. Not with you, anyway.’

  ‘When will it be back?’

  ‘Morgan Oxford sent it out in the diplomatic bag and Henry Pickering has promised to chase up the technicians at Hopkins Orthopaedic – I should have it back for the trial.’

  The trial. Everything seemed to come back to the trial, even the running of King’s Lynn and the final preparations for the opening of the lodges at Zambezi Waters could not seduce Craig away from Sally-Anne’s bedside and the preparations for the trial. He was fortunate to have Hans Groenewald at King’s Lynn and Peter Younghusband, the young Kenyan manager and guide whom Sally-Anne had chosen, had arrived to take over the daily running of Zambezi Waters. Though he spoke to these two every day on either telephone or radio, Craig stayed on in Harare close to Sally-Anne.

  Craig’s leg arrived back the day before Sally-Anne’s discharge from hospital. He pulled up his trouser-cuff to show it to her.

  ‘Straightened, panel-beaten, lubricated and thoroughly reconditioned,’ he boasted. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘The same as your leg,’ she laughed. ‘Although the doctors have warned me off bouncing on it again for at least the next few weeks.’

  She was using a cane for her ankle, and her chest was still strapped when he carried her bag down to the Land-Rover the following morning.

  ‘Ribs hurting?’ He saw her wince as she climbed into the vehicle.

  ‘As long as nobody squeezes them, I’ll pull through.’

  ‘No squeezing. Is that a rule?’ he asked.

  ‘I guess—’ she paused and regarded him for a moment before she lowered her eyes and murmured demurely, ‘but then rules are for fools, and for the guidance of wise men.’

  And Craig was considerably heartened.

  Number Two Court of the Mashonaland division of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Zimbabwe still retained all the trappings of British justice.

  The elevated bench with the coat of arms of Zimbabwe above the judge’s seat dominated the courtroom; the tiers of oaken benches faced it, and the witness box and the dock were set on either hand. The prosecutors, the assessors and the attorneys charged with the defence wore long black robes, while the judge was splendid in scarlet. Only the colour of the faces had changed, their blackness accentuated by the tight snowy curls of their wigs and the starched white swallow-tail collars.

  The courtroom was packed, and when the standing room at the back was filled, the ushers closed the doors, leaving the crowd overflowing into the passages beyond. The crowds were orderly and grave, almost all of them Matabele who had made the long bus journey across the country from Matabeleland, many of them wearing the rosettes of the ZAPU party. Only when the accused was led into the dock was there a stir and murmur, and at the rear of the court a black woman dressed in ZAPU colours cried hysterically ‘Bayete, Nkosi Nkulu!’ and gave the clenched-fist salute.

  The guards seized her immediately and hustled her out through the doors. Tungata Zebiwe stood in the dock and watched impassively, by his sheer presence belittling every other person in the room. Even the judge, Mr Justice Domashawa, a tall, emaciated Mashona, with a delicately bridged atypical Egyptian nose and small, bright, birdlike eyes, although vested in all the authority of his scarlet robes, seemed ordinary in comparison. However, Mr Justice Domashawa had a formidable reputation, and the prosecutor had rejoiced in his selection when he told Craig and Sally-Anne of it.

  ‘Oh, he is indeed persona grata and now it is very much in gremio legis, we will see justice done, never fear.’

  While the country had still been Rhodesia, the British jury system had been abandoned. The judge would reach a verdict with the assistance of the two black-robed assessors who sat with him on the bench. Both these assessors were Shona: one was an expert on wildlife conservation, and the other a senior magistrate. The judge could call upon their expert advice if he so wished, but the final verdict would be his alone.

  Now he settled his robes around him, the way an ostrich shakes out its feathers as it settles on the nest, and he fixed Tungata Zebiwe with his bright dark eyes while the clerk of the court read out the charge sheet in English.

  There were eight main charges: dealing in and exporting the products of scheduled wild animals, abducting and holding
a hostage, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, violently resisting arrest, theft of a motor vehicle, and malicious damage to state property. There were also twelve lesser charges.

  ‘By God,’ Craig whispered to Sally-Anne, ‘they are throwing the bricks from the walls at him.’

  ‘And the tiles off the floor,’ she agreed. ‘Good for them, I’d love to see the bastard swing.’

  ‘Sorry, my dear, none of them are capital charges.’ And yet all through the prosecution’s opening address, Craig was overcome by a sense of almost Grecian tragedy, in which an heroic figure was surrounded and brought low by lesser, meaner men.

  Despite his feelings, Craig was aware that Abel Khori was doing a good businesslike job of laying out his case in his opening address, even displaying restraint in his use of Latin maxims. The first of a long list of prosecution witnesses was General Peter Fungabera. Resplendent in full dress, he took the oath and stood straight-backed and martial with his swagger-stick held loosely in one hand. His testimony was given without equivocation, so direct and impressive that the judge nodded his approval from time to time as he made his notes.

  The Central Committee of the ZAPU party had briefed a London barrister for the defence, but even Mr Joseph Petal QC could not shake General Fungabera and very soon realized the futility of the effort, so he retired to wait for more vulnerable prey.

  The next witness was the driver of the truck containing the contraband. He was an ex-ZIPRA guerrilla, recently released from one of the rehabilitation centres and his testimony was given in the vernacular and translated into English by the court interpreter.

  ‘Had you ever met the accused before the night you were arrested?’ Abel Khori demanded of him after establishing his identity.

  ‘Yes. I was with him in the fighting.’

  ‘Did you see him again after the war?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you tell the court when that was?’

  ‘Last year in the dry season.’

  ‘Before you were placed in the rehabilitation centre?’

  ‘Yes, before that.’

  ‘Where did you meet Minister Tungata Zebiwe?’

  ‘In the valley, near the great river.’

  ‘Will you tell the court about that meeting?’

  ‘We were hunting elephant – for the ivory.’

  ‘How did you hunt them?’

  ‘We used tribesmen, Batonka tribesmen, and a helicopter, to drive them into the old minefield.’

  ‘I object to this line of questioning, my lord.’ Mr Petal QC jumped up. ‘This has nothing to do with the charges.’

  ‘It has reference to the first charge,’ Abel Khori insisted.

  ‘Your objection is overruled, Mr Petal. Please continue, Mr Prosecutor.’

  ‘How many elephant did you kill?’

  ‘Many, many elephant.’

  ‘Can you estimate how many?’

  ‘Perhaps two hundred elephant, I am not sure.’

  ‘And you state that the Minister Tungata Zebiwe was there?’

  ‘He came after the elephant had been killed. He came to count the ivory and take it away in his helicopter—’

  ‘What helicopter?’

  ‘A government helicopter.’

  ‘I object, your lordship, the point is irrelevant.’

  ‘Objection overruled, Mr Petal, please continue.’

  When his turn came for cross-examination, Mr Joseph Petal went into the attack immediately.

  ‘I put it to you that you were never a member of Minister Tungata Zebiwe’s resistance fighters. That you never, in fact, met the minister until that night on the Karoi road—’

  ‘I object, your lordship,’ Abel Khori shouted indignantly. ‘The defence is trying to discredit the witness in the knowledge that no records of patriotic soldiers exist and that the witness cannot, therefore, prove his gallant service to the cause.’

  ‘Objection sustained. Mr Petal, please confine your questions to the matter in hand and do not bully the witness.’

  ‘Very well, your lordship.’ Mr Petal was rosy-faced with frustration as he turned back to the witness. ‘Can you tell the judge when you were released from the rehabilitation centre?’

  ‘I forget. I cannot remember.’

  ‘Was it a long time or a short time before your arrest?’

  ‘A short time,’ the witness replied sulkily, looking down at his hands in his lap.

  ‘Were you not released from the prison camp on the condition that you drove the truck that night, and that you agreed to give evidence—’

  ‘My lord!’ shrieked Abel Khori, and the judge’s voice was as shrill and indignant.

  ‘Mr Petal, you will not refer to state rehabilitation centres as prison camps.’

  ‘As your lordship pleases.’ Mr Petal continued, ‘Were you made any promises when you were released from the rehabilitation centre?’

  ‘No.’ The witness looked about him unhappily.

  ‘Were you visited in the centre, two days before your release, by a Captain Timon Nbebi of the Third Brigade?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you have any visitors in the camp?’

  ‘No! No!’

  ‘No visitors at all, are you sure?’

  ‘The witness has already answered that question,’ the judge stopped him, and Mr Petal sighed theatrically, and threw up his hands.

  ‘No further questions, my lord.’

  ‘Do you intend calling any further witnesses, Mr Khori?’

  Craig knew that the next witness should have been Timon Nbebi, but unaccountably Abel Khori, passed over him and called instead the trooper who had been knocked down by the Land-Rover. Craig felt an uneasy little chill of doubt at the change in the prosecution’s tactics. Did the prosecutor want to protect Captain Nbebi from cross-examination? Did he want to prevent Mr Petal from pursuing the question of a visit by Timon Nbebi to the rehabilitation centre? If this was so, the implications were unthinkable, so Craig forced himself to put his doubts aside.

  The necessity for all questions and replies to be translated made the entire court process long-drawn-out and tedious, so it was only on the third day that Craig was called to the witness stand.

  After Craig had taken the oath, and before Abel Khori had begun his examination, he glanced towards the dock. Tungata Zebiwe was watching him intently and as their eyes locked, Tungata made a sign with his right hand.

  In the old days when they had worked together as rangers in the Game Department, Craig and Tungata had developed this sign language to a high degree. During the dangerous work of closing in on a breeding herd to begin the bloody elephant culls during which it had been their duty to destroy surplus animals that were over-populating the reserves, or when they were stalking a marauding cattle-killing pride of lions, they had communicated silently and swiftly with this private language.

  Now Tungata gave him the clenched fist, his powerful black fingers closing over the clear pink of his palrn in the sign that said ‘Beware! Extreme danger.’

  The last time Tungata had given him that sign, he had had only microseconds to turn and meet the charge of the enraged lung-wounded lioness as she came grunting in bloody pink explosive gasps of breath out of heavy brush cover, launching herself like a golden thunderbolt upon him, so that even though the bullet from his .458 magnum had smashed through her heart, her momentum had hurled Craig off his feet.

  Now Tungata’s sign made his nerves tingle and the hair on his forearms rise, at the memory of danger past and the promise of danger present. Was it a threat – or a warning, Craig wondered, staring at Tungata. He could not be certain, for Tungata was now expressionless and unmoving. Craig gave him the signal, ‘Query? I do not understand,’ but Tungata ignored it, and Craig abruptly realized that he had missed Abel Khori’s opening question.

  ‘I’m sorry – will you repeat that?’

  Swiftly Abel Khori led him through his questions.

&nbs
p; ‘Did you see the driver of the truck make any signal as the Mercedes approached?’

  ‘Yes, he flashed his lights.’

  ‘And what was the response?’

  ‘The Mercedes stopped and two of the occupants left the vehicle and went to speak with the driver of the truck.’

  ‘In your opinion, was this a pre-arranged meeting?’

  ‘Objection, your lordship, the witness cannot know that.’

  ‘Sustained. The witness will disregard the question.’

  ‘We come now to your gallant rescue of Miss Jay from the evil clutches of the accused.’

  ‘Objection – the word “evil”.’

  ‘You will discontinue the use of the adjective “evil”.’

  ‘As your lordship pleases.’

  After that hand-signal, and during the rest of Craig’s testimony, Tungata Zebiwe sat immovable as a figure carved in the granite of Matabeleland, with his chin sunk in his chest, but his eyes never left Craig’s face.

  As Mr Petal rose to cross-examine, he moved for the first time, leaning forward to rumble a few terse words. Mr Petal seemed to protest, but Tungata made a commanding gesture.

  ‘No questions, your lordship,’ Mr Petal acquiesced, and sank back in his seat, freeing Craig to leave the witness box without harassment.

  Sally-Anne was the last of the prosecution witnesses and, after Peter Fungabera, perhaps the most telling.

  She was still limping with her sprained ankle, so that Abel Khori hurried forward to help her into the witness box. The dark shadow of the bruise on her neck was the only blemish on her skin, and she gave her evidence without hesitation in a clear pleasing voice.

  ‘When the accused seized you, what were your feelings?’

  ‘I was in fear of my life.’

  ‘You say the accused struck you. Where did the blow land?’

  ‘Here on my neck – you can see the bruise.’

  ‘You state that the accused aimed the stolen rifle at Mr Mellow. What was your reaction?