Juggernaut

Everybody scribbled while the cameras ground on. Hammond added, airing some knowledge he had only picked up in the last few days, 'Elephants weigh about six tons each; so this is worth nearly a hundred elephants.'

The analogy was received with much amusement.

'Those tractors don't look big enough to weigh forty tons,' he was prompted.

They carry ballast. Steel plates embedded in concrete. We have to have some counterbalance for the weight of the load or the transporter will overrun the tractors – especially on the hills. Negotiating hill country is very tricky.'

'How fast will you go?'

Kemp took over now. 'On the flat with all tractors hooked up I dare say we could push along to almost twenty miles an hour, even more going downhill. But we won't. Five hundred and fifty tons going at twenty miles an hour takes a lot of stopping, and we don't take risks. I don't think we'll do much more than ten miles an hour during any part of the journey, and usually much less. Our aim is to average five miles an hour during a ten hour day; twenty days from Port Luard to Bir Oassa.'

This drew whistles of disbelief and astonishment. In this age of fast transport, it was interesting that extreme slowness could exert the same fascination as extreme speed. It also interested me to notice that Nyala had not yet converted its thinking to the metric unit as far as distances were concerned.

'How many wheels does it have?'

Hammond said, 'Ninety-six on the ground and eight spares.'

'How many punctures do you expect?'

'None – we hope.' This drew a laugh.

'What's the other big truck?'

That's the vehicle which carries the airlift equipment and the machinery for powering it,' said Kemp. 'We use it to spread the load when crossing bridges, and it works on the hovercraft principle. It's powered by four two hundred and forty-hp Rolls Royce engines – and that vehicle itself weighs eight tons.'

'And the others?'

'Spares, a workshop for maintenance, food and personal supplies, fuel. We have to take everything with us, you see.'

There was a stir as an aide came forward to whisper something into Daondo's ear. He raised his hand and his voice. 'Gentlemen, that will be all for now, thank you. I invite you all to gather round this great and marvellous machine for its dedication by His Excellency, the Minister of the Interior, the Right Honourable Hamah Ousemane, OBE.' He touched me on the arm. 'This way, please.'

As we followed him I heard Hammond saying to Kemp, 'What's he going to do? Crack a bottle of champagne over it?'

I grinned back at him. 'Did you really design this thing?'

'I designed some modifications to a standard rig, yes.'

Kemp said, 'Ben built a lot of it, too.'

I was impressed. 'For a little guy you sure play with big toys.'

Hammond stiffened and looked at me with hot eyes. Clearly I had hit on a sore nerve. 'I'm five feet two and a half inches tall,' he said curtly. 'And that's the exact height of Napoleon.'

'No offence meant,' I said quickly, and then we all came to a sudden stop at the rig to listen to Ousemane's speech. He spoke first in English and then in Nyalan for a long time in a rolling, sonorous voice while the sun became hotter and everybody wilted. Then came some ribbon cutting and handshakes all round, some repeated for the benefit of the press, and finally he took himself off in his Mercedes. Kemp mopped his brow thankfully. 'Do you think we can get on with it now?' he asked nobody in particular.

Daondo was bustling back to us. In the background a surprising amount of military deployment was taking place, and there was an air of expectancy building up. 'Excellent, Mister Kemp! We are all ready to go now,' Daondo said. 'You will couple up all the tractors, won't you?'

Kemp turned to me and said in a harassed undertone, 'What for? We won't be doing more than five miles an hour on the flat and even one tractor's enough for that.'

I was getting a bit tired of Kemp and his invincible ignorance and I didn't want Daondo to hear him and blow a gasket. I smiled past Kemp and said, 'Of course. Everything will be done as you wish it, Minister.'

'Good,' he said. 'I must get to Independence Square before you arrive. I leave Captain Sadiq in command of the arrangements.' He hurried away to his car.

I said to Kemp, putting an edge on my voice, 'We're expected to put on a display and we'll do it. Use everything you've got. Line 'em up, even the chow wagon. Until we leave town it's a parade every step of the way.'

'Who starts this parade?'

'You do – just tell your drivers to pull off in line whenever they're ready. The others will damn well have to fall in around you. I'll ride with you in the Land Rover.'