War Cry. Wilbur Smith
Leon, putting his daughter down. ‘I’m very pleased that Mummy is so well set. And very well done to you for remembering everything.’
Saffron beamed with pleasure at her father’s praise. ‘What’s your runner called, Daddy?’ she asked, once her feet were back on terra firma.
‘Simel.’
‘He’s very small.’
Leon gave a rueful chuckle. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought, too, when I first saw him. But I think he’s putting up a pretty good show.’
Saffron looked at the two runners who were now separated by slightly more than the length of the back straight. Sopwith had completed his second lap while she had been negotiating with her mother and making her way to where her father was standing, and was now halfway around the third. He no longer appeared to be running ahead of Simel so much as chasing him from behind.
‘Is that man going to catch up with Simel?’ Saffron asked.
‘I hope not, my darling. But if he doesn’t then Mr Birchinall – he’s the chap over there doing stretches and looking terribly keen – is going to take over.’
‘Oh,’ said Saffron, thoughtfully. ‘That doesn’t sound very fair.’
‘Well, those are the rules I created.’
‘Well I think those rules are beastly to Simel. I’m going to go and cheer him up.’
Saffron raced off to the far corner of the field and waited for Simel to run past. When he was a few paces away from her she cried out, ‘Come on Simel! Come on Simel!’ and then dashed along beside him. Saffron could only keep up with him for a handful of strides, but the sight and sound of her encouraging their man brought heart to his supporters and they raised their voices again to urge him on.
Manyoro, however, had his eyes elsewhere. ‘Look at Bwana Sopwith, brother. His stride has shortened and his pace has slowed.’
‘By God you’re right,’ Leon agreed. He had brought a pair of field glasses with him and he trained them now on Sopwith, who would shortly cross the line for the third time. ‘He’s gasping for breath. It’s the altitude, probably, he’s just not used to it.’
‘But Simel keeps running,’ said Manyoro. ‘Soon the gap will start to open up again.’
Birchinall had now taken up his position on the track at the end of the clubhouse straight, urging his teammate on. Sopwith made one final effort, summoning every last ounce of strength as he ran to where Birchinall was standing with his hand held out behind him, as if waiting for a baton. Sopwith reached out, slapped the hand and then fell to his hands and knees on the grass, his head slumped down and his chest heaving.
Now it was Birchinall’s turn and he was a very different kind of athlete. He ran like a true sprinter, arms pumping, back straight, knees up high and suddenly the gap between him and Simel up ahead seemed to be narrowing again, and even more quickly this time. The spectators on the colonists’ side of the field roared for their man. They flooded forwards towards the rope that marked the track and the few police constables detailed to cover that side of the course – for no one had even considered the possibility that the white crowd might give way to disorder – found themselves trying to hold back a tide of shouting, fist-pumping farmers and businessmen.
Within the length of the back straight, right in front of Simel’s own supporters, Birchinall had taken another fifty yards out of the gap. By the time he had run across the width of the polo field and turned the corner into the clubhouse straight, Simel was only just passing the finishing line.
The little Masai was starting to worry, darting nervous glances over his shoulder, but still he did not increase his pace.
‘For God’s sake, run harder, man!’ Leon shouted, though he knew that Simel could not possibly hear him over the noise of the crowds.
Manyoro shook his head. ‘No, he must hold his nerve. That is his only hope.’
‘Tell that to de Lancey. He thinks he’s in the money.’
Sure enough, the opposition camp was already celebrating. A crate of champagne had been dragged from within the tent and the totos were busy opening bottles and pouring glasses. The victory toasts were just about to be poured.
Simel rounded the turn at the end of the clubhouse straight, his eyes wide with the fear of defeat, but sticking to the instructions Manyoro had given him, for he was even more scared of disobeying his chief than of losing the race.
Birchinall was coming up hard, still gaining, still maintaining his pace though he was far beyond the limits of his usual racing distance. His face bore an expression of savage fury, the look of a man who is fighting past the point of exhaustion, ignoring the screaming pain of his muscles, the bursting of his heart and the desperate craving of his lungs for air.
He was going to win if it killed him. He knew it. The crowd knew it. Simel knew it.
The distance between them closed. Twenty yards … fifteen … ten …
Simel could hear the Englishman’s feet pounding towards him and the rasping of his breath, like a wild animal at his heels.
He could not help himself. He broke into a sprint.
Birchinall increased his pace still further, pushing himself far beyond his normal limits, further than he’d gone in any race he’d ever run in his life.
Still he kept coming.
Simel closed his eyes, barely even conscious that he was still running, steeling himself for the moment when Birchinall would overtake him.
And then he heard a sudden scream of pain. He opened his eyes, glanced around again, and there was Hugo Birchinall on the ground, writhing in agony, clutching the back of his right thigh, desperately rubbing at the hamstring that had given way under the intolerable stress of the race and snapped.
Simel slowed to little more than a walk. He looked back again, not knowing what to do. Another human being was injured and in pain. Surely it was right to care for him. Should he go back, or keep running?
Confused by what had happened and breathless from the additional exertion required to keep himself that fateful hair’s breadth ahead of Birchinall, Simel was unaware of the shouts and gestures of both Leon and Manyoro who were now running towards the corner of the polo field where the injury had occurred, hotly pursued by Saffron and behind her both de Lancey and Jonty Sopwith. The Masai was barely moving now and de Lancey was yelling, ‘Umpire! Umpire! He’s stopped!’ But his voice was entirely lost in the pandemonium that had broken out among both sets of supporters.
Then Birchinall displayed the depths of his courage and fighting spirit. Grimacing in agony at the effort, he hauled himself to his feet and set off after Simel once again, hobbling and hopping on his one good leg. The sight of such a mighty runner reduced to this desperate parody of his former self was enough to reduce many of the women gathered under the clubhouse veranda to tears, and not a few of the men around them dabbed discreetly at their eyes or suddenly found the need to blow their noses.
Simel, however, had an entirely different reaction. He knew that a wounded animal could be the most dangerous of all, so when he saw Birchinall coming towards him again, no matter how slowly or awkwardly, his sympathy vanished. He had a chance now to open his lead up again, and he was not going to waste it.
He did not even see Birchinall finally accepting that he was beaten and his place being taken by van Doorn. In the time it took the South African to reach the point on the track where Birchinall had finally collapsed, Simel was able to open up the gap by a couple of hundred metres.
Barely ten minutes had passed and he was two-thirds of the way to proving that even the smallest Masai was more than a match for any white man.
In her chair on the clubhouse veranda, Eva slipped into a light sleep that gave her a brief respite from the worsening headaches and nausea she had been experiencing. But her dreams were troubled, incoherent and suffused