"AFRICA FLIGHT"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 January 1940, Page 10

"AFRICA FLIGHT"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GEILGUD.

(Author of “Announcer’s Holiday,” “Beyond Dover,” Etc,

CHAPTER XVI. Continued. “I just had 'em on me —and got tired of ’em." ‘Doing rounds? Isn’t that a littlecurious?" ‘What the heck are you hinting at. Larrimore?” "You weren’t thinking of taking another little drink on the quiet. I suppose?" “You mind your own business!’’ Larrimore jumped up. “It’s very much my business. I’m responsible for the safety and successful arrival at El Fayoum of this party. I’m also responsible for the ultimate rescue of the party we’ve left behind with the aeroplane. This water of ours is all we’ve got between us, and a beastly death for the lot of us!” “You've said that much before.” “And I don’t mean to have to say it again! You were going for a drink weren’t ■ you? Haven’t you either common-sense or self-control?” “Larrimore —for goodness sake don’t go on being quite so intolerably pompous! We’ve masses of water.” Even in the greenish flickering shadowed obscurity, there coud be no mistaking the grim expression that settled on Rupert Larrimore’s face with the realisation dhat his worst suspicions were justified—or almost the worst.

"I told you before we started that we had just enough water for us to make El Fayoum with most careful rationing —if we marched hard enough. We’re behind time—and you play the fool like this!” “That’s enough, Larrimore!”

“Of course you hang behind," Larrimore went on angrily, paying no heed to the interruption, “if you persist in weighing yourself down with all that silly armoury of pistols and ammunition!”

“You can’t get the weapons—and the whip hand —away from me like that!" sneered Sothern.

“D’you think I want the things? I could have taken the lot from you while you were asleep, our first night out in the desert —if I’d wanted to. I didn't. What I am going to carry now is your share of the water as well as my own. I can't trust you any more.” He stooped and swung up Sothern's water bottles by their slings. They came unexpectedly easily, and seemed quite unreasonably light. So there was one worse thing to experience after all.

He looked up to find himself facing the levelled muzzle of one of Sothern’s pistols. “Better drop ’em!” said Antony Sothern quietly. Larrimore let the slings slide from his hands.

“As near empty as doesn't matter!" he muttered blankly. “So that was it —you poor lunatic. Any explanation?” He seemed profoundly unconscious of the menace of the pistol, but now that his secret was out Sothern in his turn managed to achieve a certain dignity. “I was thirsty.” was all he said. “And so you kept lagging behind to take your little nip!" Fierce anger flared suddenly into Larrimore’s voice, as he remembered the agony he—and Carol more than he —had endured in the face of their own thirst, resisting the temptation of the weight of their own water-bottles.

“You realise you've probably dished us all—Carol, yourself, and me, and those others waiting out there by the ’plane?” “Nonsense!” “You still think I’m trying some sort of bluff, don’t you?” "1 know you are, Larrimore!" “Well. 1 happen not to be. We're now left with just over six pints—and it's not enough. How even you could be such an idiot ”

“Shut up, Larrimore! You told us yourself before starting, that we should find a well here.” “I told you there was a well marked on the map. I said it might contain water. It doesn’t. It’s dry.” Sothern moistened his lips with his tongue. “That’s bad luck,” he said hoarsely. “So what?” Larrimore’s eyes seemed to bore into his brain. “Better face it,” he said. “With all the doling out I can do, there’s not enough left to carry the three of us to El Fayoum." “You can't know a thing like that, Larrimore! We can try.” “Oh I can know —and we can't risk trying. I've other things to think of besides just our skins. There are the others. They're trusting us. Sothern —if you can imagine such a thing! There's also Carol.” "Leave her out of it!” “I wish I could. We cant!” “It was your idea to bring her. Larrimore.''

“Which is why it’s my responsibility to bring her safely through," was the retort. "And I don’t want her woken.” "For once.” said Sothern bitterly. “I can agree with you. I'll settle with you this time without any interference."

But Larrimore was evidently thinking of something else. "Of course,” he said slowly, “two might, still make it — with luck." “What?" asked Sothern. uncomprehcndingly.

"It'll be the deuce of a narrow squeal: at that." Larrimore wont on thoughtfully, “Lui 1 believe J can do it. I must do It.”

"What are you talking about?" "I said, Sothern—two of us might get through after all. even now." There was a deadly little pause. “I see,” said Sothern. And somewhere far away out in the desert a jackal howled, like some soul in torment. “If you see." said Larrimore at last, “that saves us both a lot of trouble and embarrassment.”

“Does it? I see a very pretty scheme from your point of view. You certainly run true to form, Larrimore.” “What? Go on.” “I’ve every intention of going on. You want me to do the Captain Oates gesture and speed my gallant comrades on their way to El. Fayoum.. I told you in the plane that you were planning to desert Carol in the desert. Now I’m with you you’ve got to get me out of the way first. Larrimore, there isn’t a name invented to describe you properly for the swine you are!” And his fingers- tightened convulsively round the pistol he held. But once more Larrimore kept his temper. “Listen,”, he said quietly. “We don’t agree —we never got on. And I know what you feel about me and Carol. But this situation is beyond and outside all that, Sothern. Leaving our personal quarrel aside—you've done an unforgivable thing. You’ve put Carol and the rest of the party into the deadliest danger, just because you couldn’t keep your hands off that water you were carrying in trust for us all. In the circumstances there's only one thing you can do.” "I should have thought a realist like yourself would have, despised heroic gestures!”

“This isn’t a gesture, Sothern. It's a problem in elementary arithmetic, the miles between here and El Faythe miles between here adn El Fayoum. That’s all.” "You seriously suggest that I ” Sothern broke off. His face looked suddenly ghastly. “You’ve got the pistols,” said Larrimore, and there was perhaps a ghost of pity in his voice. “You’d be doing a kindness to Carol if you went out of earshot.”

“It's too much to expect me to believe you,” said Sothern desperately. “Why not make your own gesture, if you're so certain of its necessity?”

“Because," said Larrimore deliberately, ‘I can trust myself to get her through. I can’t trust you.” Again silence fell between the two men. Then Sothern, with a strangled, croking sound, half gasp, half sob, turned away. He took a couple of uncertain steps, then swung round. "You've been very frank,’ he 'said, tumbling out his words very fast, “and now I’ll be frank with you. I don’t believe a word of this yarn of yours. And I'll see you in Hades before I go and shoot myself on your recommendation. You reminded me just now that I’ve got the pistols. I have. And now I’m going to have that map of yours, and your compass, and your two water-bottles, and I’m going to make El Fayoum on my own. I’ll have a lovely reception all ready for you when you turn up. And I won’t even give you away, which is what I call doing the decent thing. We can have been separated by a dust-storm or something. You can vamp up the yarn, being the accomplished fictionwriter you are. You two grand marchers with your self-control and your mutual affection will do it easily on your own. And now just hand over—or take a bullet. My pistol will have gone off most regrettably by mistake, of course.” “You’re serious?” asked Larrimore.

Sothern Jaughed. “Absolutely.” Larrimore shrugged his shoulders, collected water-bottles, map and compass, and throw them at Sothern's feet. The latter stowed them about his person. “Good-bye,” he said, ‘and good luck.” He moved away through the trees towards the moonlit expanse of sand beyond. CHAPTER XVII. Some ten minutes later Carol stirred sharply in her sleep, and sat up. Everything was quiet about her. She was conscious of an intolerable heartshaking loneliness. Rupert must be standing sentry somewhere “Rupert!” she whispered into the darkness.

There was no answer. She scrambled to her feet. She could see nothing but shadowed trees, and she felt desperately afraid. The prowling jackal howled again, and Carol's nerves snapped like fiddle-strings. She stumbled blindly across the oasis to the tree where she knew the men were sleeping.

"Rupert!” she called. “Antony! Where are you?" Still no one answered but the jackal. There was a blanket and some scattered gear at the foot of the second tree. Nothing else. They couldn't have deserted her while she slept—it was impossible.

“Rupert!” , she screamed, shrilly helplessly, ineffect\(iely, like a lost child.

Meanwhile. Larrimore. unhampered bj' any equipment, crouching almost double, making use of all the scoutcralt he had learned years before as a soldier, was moving on Sothern s trail. He did not follow directly behind. He knew enough of human instinct to know that the deserter always looks uneasily over his shoulder. Larrimore moved in a wide semi-circle, flanking the other, and using the sand-ridges lor cover. R Took him a quarter of an hour to come up with his quarry. And during that quarter of an hour of essentially practical action, he had become perfectly coldly clear in his own mmd as to what he must do. Sothern. mercifully perhaps, had hardly a moment in which to appreciate what happened to him. As he ploughed painfully to the top of one of the sandridges, a shadow seemed to detach itself from the obscurity at his feet. Next instant he found his feet knocked from under him, and himself face downward, half-choking in the sand. Strong searching hands dragged j

away his weapons, emptied his pockets, and twisted the slings of his water-bot-tles from his shoulder. At last he managed to roll over, gasping and bruised. Rupert Larrimoe was kneeling in the sand about three yards away, one of the pistols was in his hand. Sothern cried out pitifully. "I'm sorry!" said Larrimore, and pressed the trigger. To Carol's ears, standing, almost as if crucified, against her tree, came the distant crash of a shot, "Rupert!" she screamed out. “Rupert—what is it?” Still getting no answer, she ran desperately out of the circle of the shadowing trees, and stared wildly at the immensity of the desert. She saw, coming towards her, slowly, bowed, rather like some illustration from the "Pilgrims Progress." a solitary man’s figure. (To be Continued.)