Juggernaut

Getting news back from the rig was difficult. Local telephone lines were often out of action and our own cab radios had a limited range. One morning, though, John Sutherland had managed a long call and had news for me as soon as I came into the office.

'They're on schedule. I've put it on the map. Look here. They're halfway in time but less than halfway in distance. And they'll slow up more now because they have to climb to the plateau. Oh, and Geoff Wingstead is flying back here today. He has to arrange to send a water bowser up there. Seems the local water is often too contaminated to use for drinking.'

I could have told Geoff that before he started and was a little surprised that he had only just found out. I decided that I wanted to go and see the rig for myself, in case there was any other little detail he didn't know about. I was about due to go back to London soon, and rather wanted one more fling upcountry before doing so.

I studied the map. This town – Kodowa – just ahead of them. It's got an airstrip. Any chance of renting a car there?'

He grimaced. 'I shouldn't think so. It's only a small place, about five thousand population. And if you could get a car there it would be pretty well clapped out. The airstrip is privately owned; it belongs to a planters' cooperative.'

I measured distances. 'Maybe we should have a company car stationed there, and arrange for use of the airstrip. It would help if anyone has to get up there in a hurry. See to it, would you, John? As it is I'll have to fly to Lasulu and then drive nearly three hundred miles. I'll arrange to take one of Wyvern's spare chaps up with me to spell me driving.' I knew better than to set out on my own in that bleak territory.

I saw Wingstead on his return and we had a long talk. He was reasonably happy about his company's progress and the logistics seemed to be working out well, but he was as wary as a cat about the whole political situation. As I said, he was remarkably acute in his judgements. I asked if he was going back to England.

'Not yet, at any rate,' he told me. 'I have some work to do here, then I'll rejoin the rig for a bit. I like to keep a finger on the pulse. Listen, Neil…'

'You want something?' I prompted.

'I want you to put Basil Kemp completely in the picture. He doesn't know the score and he may not take it from me. Why should he? We're both new to Africa, new to this country, and he'll brush off my fears, but he'll accept your opinion. He needs to know more about the political situation.'

'I wouldn't call Kemp exactly complacent myself,' I said.

'That's the trouble. He's got so many worries of his own that he hasn't room for mine – unless he can be convinced they're real. You're going up there, I'm told. Lay it on the line for him, please.'

I agreed, not without a sense of relief. It was high time that Kemp knew the wider issues involved, and nothing I had heard lately had made me any less uneasy about the possible future of Nyala. The next morning I picked up Ritchie Thorpe, one of the spare Wyvern men, and Max Otterman flew us up to Lasulu. From there we drove inland along that fantastic road that thrust into the heart of the country. After Ofanwe had it built it had been underused and neglected. The thick rain forest had encroached and the huge trees had thrust their roots under it to burst the concrete. Then came the oil strike and now it was undergoing a fair amount of punishment, eroding from above to meet the erosion from below. Not that the traffic was heavy in the sense of being dense, but some damn big loads were being taken north. Our transformer was merely the biggest so far.

The traffic varied from bullock carts with nerve-wracking squeaking wheels plodding stolidly along at two miles an hour to sixty-tonners and even larger vehicles. Once we came across a real giant parked by the roadside while the crew ate a meal.

It carried an oil drilling tower lying on its side, whole and entire, and must have weighed upwards of a hundred tons.

I pulled in and had a chat with the head driver. He was a Russian and very proud of his rig. We talked in a mixture of bad English and worse French, and he demonstrated what it would do, a function new to me but not to Ritchie. Apparently it was designed to move in soft sand and he could inflate and deflate all the tyres by pushing buttons while in the cab. When travelling over soft sand the tyres would be deflated to spread the load. He told me that in these conditions the fully loaded rig would put less pressure on the ground per square inch than the foot of a camel. I was properly appreciative and we parted amicably.