Blood Bond Read online

  CIVIL WAR ERUPTS AS WHITES AND AFRICANS

  FIGHT FOR CONTROL OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES

  ‘Nothing changed in this country,’ Mark scoffed as he scanned the article. ‘They were even suggesting the blacks were suffering different symptoms to the whites!’

  Mark’s party arrived back at Archangel as it was getting dark, carrying an assortment of bags and containers laden with vegetables they had located in deserted suburban gardens. They found Steven standing beside a large plastic barrel, a hose leading from it over the quayside. Mark glanced down at Penny, who was holding the other end of the hose running into the water-tank filler on Archangel ’s deck.

  ‘We found a well with a good supply of water,’ Steven said. ‘Found a couple of barrels too. It was a bit of a struggle rolling the barrels here over the rubble, but it was easier than buckets. A few more trips tomorrow and we’ll have the tanks full.’

  ‘Well done. Seen anything of Adam and his party?’ Mark asked as he and the others clambered down to the empty cockpit.

  ‘No — we heard a shot a few minutes ago, but it sounded a long way off.’

  ‘They should be back by now,’ Mark said irritably.

  ‘Mark told us to be back before dark,’ Fergus protested. He was sitting with Adam and Robert beneath a large tree on the lower slopes of the distinctive hill known as Lion’s Head, overlooking an expanse of grass. Luke had climbed the lower branches of the tree to gain a better view.

  ‘Mark may think he knows something about sailing,’ scoffed Adam, ‘but he doesn’t know the first thing about hunting. See that reservoir down there?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Animals have to drink. As it gets dark, that’s where they’ll congregate. It’ll be like shooting ducks in a barrel.’

  Adam was disappointed by his haul of four small deer and was keen to impress Mark and the rest of the group. He’d caught a glimpse of something much larger moving through the long grass in the distance, and while he had no idea what the animal was, he was keen to have a crack at it if it came into the open.

  Fergus persisted. ‘We should get these carcasses back while they’re still fresh.’ Insects were swarming around the bleeding gunshot wounds.

  ‘We’ll head back in the morning,’ Adam said flatly. ‘I’m in charge here.’ The tone of his voice suggested he was still smarting over the fact Fergus had been appointed watch captain.

  ‘You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?’ mocked Robert.

  Fergus wasn’t afraid. He just wanted to get back to Archangel — he’d been missing Jessica all day. ‘But they’ll be worried if we’re not back on time.’

  ‘They’ll guess we’re OK,’ argued Robert. ‘They know we’d have fired off four shots if we were in trouble.’

  ‘That’s enough bickering,’ Adam snapped. ‘I’m in charge and I’ve told you we’re staying put.’ The men watched as the shadowy figure of a lone deer moved into the clear ground between their hiding spot and the reservoir. ‘I’m going to move over to that log to our right. You three stay here. Robert, wait until there’s a good number of animals gathered and pick out a target on the left side of the herd. I’ll concentrate on the right. Wait until I start shooting, then go for it. With animals dropping on both sides of the herd they’ll get confused. They can’t cross the reservoir so they’ll stampede in this direction, and we’ll be able to bag a few more. Lay your ammunition out in front of you so you can reload quickly.’

  Robert took the ammunition from his pockets, and Fergus and Luke watched as Adam slunk off through the long grass towards the log about a hundred metres away. The growing darkness and tall grass swallowed up his figure.

  Half an hour later the moon rose, bathing the reservoir in silver light. They could also see it glinting off the barrel of Adam’s rifle. Satisfied his father was safely in position, Luke dropped down from the branches. From their vantage point the three young men watched as a growing number of deer tentatively made their way to the water’s edge to drink. Robert raised his rifle and sighted on a large deer to the left of the herd.

  ‘Why’s he taking so long?’ he whispered impatiently to the others.

  ‘Dad knows what he’s doing. Just wait for his shot,’ answered Luke.

  They sat, straining their ears. But the sound that reached them was terrifying — a long, piercing scream, followed by a single shot, then silence.

  ‘Come on,’ shouted Luke, already moving towards the log.

  Intuitively, Robert grabbed a handful of bullets and stuffed them in his pocket before hurrying after Luke and Fergus.

  ‘Dad, are you all right?’ Luke called as they approached. There was no reply, but a noise from the long grass stopped them in their tracks. They stood and listened, Robert nervously holding his gun at the ready.

  ‘Dad!’ Luke called again.

  ‘Look!’ yelled a terrified Fergus. ‘Behind the log!’

  The adults aboard Archangel were sitting in the cockpit eating supper when they heard four distant rifle shots echo off the slopes of Table Mountain.

  ‘I knew it!’ cursed Mark.

  Steven grabbed his rifle with one hand and began pulling Archangel closer to the quayside with the stern mooring line.

  ‘We’re not going out there now,’ Mark said firmly.

  ‘We have to!’

  ‘I told them to be back by dark. Our first responsibility is to the women and children.’

  Steven hesitated.

  ‘We’ve got absolutely no idea what the problem is. Do you want to leave Penny here, or take her with you?’ Mark asked him bluntly.

  Accepting the reality of the situation, Steven released the mooring line. ‘I’ll fire my rifle to at least let them know we’ve heard their signal.’

  His shot was answered by another far-off firing.

  Jessica began to cry, and Mark put his arm around her shoulder. ‘It’s too dangerous for us to go out there in the dark,’ he explained. ‘Steven and I will head out at first light.’

  The rescue party of Mark, Steven and Jessica who, despite Mark’s objections, insisted on accompanying them, was ready to set off as dawn broke.

  ‘Keep everyone on the boat,’ Mark said to Allison. ‘No one’s to go ashore until we come back.’

  They clambered onto the quay and Steven fired off another signal, which was answered immediately.

  ‘They’re obviously still alive,’ Mark said.

  ‘Well, one of them is at least,’ Steven said without thinking.

  Jessica began to cry again, sobbing even louder when Tommy, who had been woken by the gunshot, called after her.

  They hurried west along the Sea Point promenade, past the derelict swimming pool and towards the direction of the shot. Once it was completely light, Steven fired a second shot, which again was answered. Half an hour later, a third signal was returned.

  ‘Whoever’s firing the gun is holed up somewhere,’ remarked Mark, scanning the ground ahead with his binoculars. ‘We’re moving towards them, but they’re not heading in our direction.’

  At the top of a low rise which Mark guessed must in the right vicinity, Steven fired another shot.

  ‘Over here,’ they heard Fergus shout.

  ‘What are you doing up there?’ yelled Steven, who had spotted three figures high in the branches of a tree several hundred metres away.

  ‘Lions!’ called a terrified Robert.

  Mark trained his binoculars on the ground beneath the tree. Several lionesses and their cubs were asleep in its shade.

  ‘I wonder where Adam is?’ said Steven.

  Mark continued searching with his binoculars. ‘About fifty metres to the right,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Oh God,’ Steven said. A huge lion with an impressive dark mane sat at a distance from the rest of the pride, haughtily protecting his own special kill.

  Jessica started crying again.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Steven said, ‘is why there are lions this close to Cape Town. I always understood
the only lions left in Africa were further north.’

  ‘There was Tygerberg Zoo, and several game ranches scattered around Cape Town to service the cruise-ship industry,’ Mark explained. ‘They probably escaped and congregated down here following the pandemic — easy pickings.’

  ‘How are we going to get them out of the tree?’ sobbed a desperate Jessica.

  ‘Only one thing for it,’ Mark said, jumping to his feet. ‘Make as much noise as you can.’

  Before Steven and Jessica could consider the implications, they found themselves running down the hill after Mark, yelling at the top of their voices. Mark and Steven fired their rifles as they ran. Robert, Luke and Fergus joined in the noise-making from their position in the tree.

  The startled lionesses hurried off, followed by their cubs. Glaring, the big male took the remains of his kill in his massive jaws and began to drag it into the bushes. Mark knelt down to take aim, then thought better of it. Letting the lion take Adam’s body was a more practical solution than hanging around to bury the corpse.

  As soon as the lions were out of sight, the three frightened men jumped from the trees and ran towards their rescuers.

  ‘Why didn’t you shoot your way out?’ Mark asked Robert as the whole group turned tail and ran back towards the slopes of Lion’s Head.

  ‘I didn’t have enough ammunition. I’d laid my spare ammunition on the ground like my father told me.’

  Mark shook his head as he ran.

  At the brow of a ridge they stopped and looked back. ‘I’m completely out of ammunition,’ confessed Robert, nervously glancing back down the slope.

  Mark angrily handed him a clip. ‘Next time, do as you’re told.’

  Archangel sailed two days later. The water tanks were full, but they had not gathered as much food as Mark had hoped. Not prepared to venture far from the quayside, they had had only limited success with their rifles. They had, however, set up fires on the quayside and bottled a quantity of vegetables, and had caught a few fish in the harbour.

  ‘Well, there’s no argument about it now,’ Mark said to Steven as they released Archangel’s mooring lines. ‘We don’t have enough food to get back to New Zealand. We have to stop off somewhere — it might as well be Brisbane.’

  Steven reluctantly agreed. ‘At least Brisbane will be safer than this place,’ he joked. ‘We can only be mauled by kangaroos.’

  Allison shot him a glance as Luke looked up from where he sat on the cabintop, his scowl matching that of his brother.

  8

  The five senior members of the Haver community gathered in the Morgans’ lounge as the clock on Cromwell’s Tower rang the chimes of nine o’clock. They were all exhausted: the trauma of the massacre, compounded by the twelve-hour workday they had just endured, had taken its toll.

  ‘We could have met half an hour earlier if you hadn’t opened your big mouth,’ Susan accused Paul. The strain was showing on Susan even more than on her cousins. Her sharp-featured face was haggard and her hair thinning. She spat the words out, furious that Paul’s offer to man the treadmill twenty-four hours a day in return for the release of Mary-Claire had resulted in an extra half hour being added to everyone’s working day.

  ‘He probably would have done it sooner or later anyway,’ said Duncan, combing his unkempt beard and unruly mop of red hair with his fingers as he came to the defence of the nervously twitching Paul.

  ‘You’d have done the same thing if it had been one of your grandchildren,’ challenged Jennifer. At fifty, she was the youngest of the cousins left at Haver and the only one of the five who didn’t look her age.

  ‘This bickering isn’t getting us anywhere,’ Diana snapped. ‘Nigel and his sons are the enemy, not the people in this room.’ With the rebuke delivered, she took control of the meeting. ‘We’ve got two immediate problems to deal with: the allocation of labour, and the question of the young women. We’ll deal with the organisation of labour first.’

  Paul, Susan and Jennifer listened as Duncan and Diana exchanged views. Nigel had appointed Duncan to organise and allocate the labour for the estate’s maintenance and the running of the gardens and farm, and Diana to organise the labour for the house. But by the end of the discussion Duncan found himself overseeing a labour allocation largely decided by Diana.

  ‘Now, on the other matter,’ Diana said, as Jennifer made tea for the group, ‘I’m interested in everyone’s ideas, of course, but at the end of the day the decisions are going to have to be made by the women involved.’ Having organised Duncan’s portfolio, Diana had no intention of having her own area of responsibility run by a committee, however unpalatable the task was going to be.

  ‘Or by Nigel and his sons,’ Paul stuttered. ‘Maybe they’ll each latch on to one of the women, like Miles did with Theresa, and that’ll be that.’

  ‘Jasper and Greg have never settled on a single woman before,’ Duncan pointed out. ‘Jasper in particular is always trying to put it about.’

  ‘They’re not going to have any choice but to spread themselves around now, are they?’ Jennifer said, as she handed round the cups. ‘Nigel wants as many babies as he can get.’

  ‘From what I hear, Greg’s no real problem,’ Susan said. ‘Typical kid — two minutes and it’s all over. And I don’t think Jasper’s a problem either. Apparently he just wants to prove he’s the greatest lover since Casanova. Typical man.’

  Paul and Duncan squirmed in their seats.

  ‘The real problem,’ concluded Susan, ‘is Nigel.’

  Duncan looked at her hard. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on — surely you know. Allison was terrified of him. Didn’t you ever notice the bruises?’

  ‘And it wasn’t just the violence,’ said Jennifer. ‘Allison confided in me. She didn’t elaborate of course, but from what she hinted at, I’m sure Nigel’s into some really kinky stuff.’

  There was silence as they sipped their tea, each pondering how they might protect their own womenfolk from Nigel’s attentions.

  ‘What about Damian?’ Duncan asked.

  The mood in the room grew even gloomier.

  ‘Well, he’s hardly going to be a problem to any of the women, is he?’ Diana said dryly.

  ‘Frigging poofter,’ spat Susan.

  ‘It’s not the fact he’s gay — that’s a whole different issue,’ Jennifer said. ‘Some of my best friends are — were — gay. The problem is, he’s a sadist like his father, and a paedophile to boot.’

  ‘Exactly. How are we going to protect the young boys from him?’ Paul stuttered. They could all see Paul’s concern for his grandsons, Ruben and Harry. He was close to tears.

  ‘Perhaps if we had a word with Nigel…’ Duncan suggested.

  ‘Are you prepared to have a word with him?’ Susan asked bluntly.

  Duncan shook his head.

  ‘Me neither. God knows how he’d react to being told what a little pervert he’s sired.’

  ‘Would it do any good anyway?’ Jennifer asked. ‘Could he stop Damian, even if he wanted to?’

  ‘We have to find a way,’ Paul pleaded, desperation in his voice.

  Nobody appeared to have an answer to the Damian problem. There was silence as each wondered if they could manage to escape, perhaps simply follow Mark to New Zealand. But they all knew that would be extremely dangerous. Nigel and his sons had pursued Mark’s group with weapons. There’d only be further deaths. Besides, they couldn’t leave Mary-Claire. To end the silence, Susan brought the conversation back around to the ‘escort agency’.

  ‘As far as the younger women are concerned, it’s going to be pretty academic. They’re all going to have to be involved. There are three men to satisfy — four if you count Damian — and only six women.’

  ‘Eight,’ corrected Diana.

  ‘Six: Cheryl, Bridget, Virginia, Kimberley, Rebecca and Theresa.’

  ‘And Amy and Beatrice.’

  ‘What? Don’t you dare offer the Chatfields those two children!’ Du
ncan threatened.

  ‘It’s not my decision,’ Diana said angrily. ‘Nigel’s already told me to put them on the list.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘Do you think I had any choice?’

  ‘Well, you’d better protect them,’ Duncan shouted, slamming down his cup and storming out of the room. Paul scurried after him.

  ‘Well, I guess that’s the meeting over,’ Susan said as she rose from her chair and shuffled out of the room.

  Jennifer remained seated and leaned closer to Diana. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  At lunchtime the next day, Diana and Jennifer took the younger women aside and acquainted them with the situation. The adult women had already resigned themselves to their plight, but the teenage twins, Amy and Beatrice, were terrified.

  ‘I’ll protect you as best I can,’ Diana promised, putting her arms around them.

  ‘I’ll look after Damian,’ Cheryl volunteered. The others looked at her, incredulous that she had offered her services. ‘I have my reasons,’ she added, but didn’t offer an explanation.

  ‘In reality, I won’t be making the decisions — it will be Nigel and his sons calling the shots,’ Diana explained. The sobs of the young girls were accompanied by those of their mother, Virginia. ‘But I’ll do my best for you two girls.’ The clock above Cromwell’s Tower struck twelve-thirty. The lunch break was over. There was no time for further discussion.

  As the other women left to begin their afternoon’s work, Diana hurried to the staterooms. From the library window, she could see Nigel and his sons enjoying a leisurely lunch in the garden. Theresa was serving them, scurrying backwards and forwards to the kitchens to supply their needs. Despite her role as a servant there was no disguising the elegance of the tall, long-necked young woman. From her vantage point Diana noticed Nigel attempt to force his hand between Theresa’s thighs as his sons’ attention was diverted. Diana quickly resumed her search through the books on the shelves. There was no time to lose. She had to find the information she needed as quickly as possible.

  When she saw Nigel stand and begin to stagger drunkenly back towards the house, she hurriedly replaced the books she had been reviewing and made her way to his private quarters. She was busy making his bed by the time he arrived.