Thunderbolt Wilbur Smith (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📖

‘Next step, the dogs,’ I said. ‘You dug up the snare-spoils?’

Mo nodded, reached inside his bag, and pulled out a piece of plastic in which he’d folded our most recent catches. He’d already cut them into pieces. I took a morsel. Xander did too.

Together with Mo and Amelia, we jogged back to where I’d last seen the dogs, sheltering in the lee of General Sir’s shack. One of them – the one I’d befriended – was still there, a solid shape in the gloom. For a moment I was worried. What if we couldn’t find the other one? But dogs are uncanny. At home, I swear Chester knows when I’m about to feed him before I do. He’s always right there as I pick up his bowl to fill it.

Now, the dog, sensing our approach, was already up on its feet, and the other, thicker-set, dog must have sensed its expectation. It emerged from behind the water butt just as I was offering the bloodhound its treat.

Xander tossed his scrap at the bigger dog’s feet. As it bent to snaffle it Amelia slipped a guy-rope noose under the dog’s collar and fastened it with a clove-hitch knot. The other dog sat obediently, eyeing me for more to eat, while I did the same.

The ropes were just a precaution. If we had to pull the dogs away they’d come in handy. As it was, I reckoned both of them would have followed us anyway, especially after Mo had shown them both another sliver of bush meat. In a place where there wasn’t much in the way of treats going, we’d made ourselves a source of something good, so they wanted to be with us. It was as simple as that. I let the hound’s makeshift lead trail on the ground behind him as he followed us back to the pits. The thickset dog came too, led by Xander.

Perhaps because they wanted to distance themselves from Kayd and Liban in their cages, or simply because that’s what he’d told them to do, Mo’s band of escapees had already moved off into the near darkness. We caught up with them soon enough. With a brief, ‘Everyone good to go?’ to us and, I assume, the same question to the group in Somali, Mo set off.

There was no doubt who was in charge now. Mo led the way at a good pace. In single file, we picked our way purposefully through the scrub, heading south. My night vision had kicked in. Everything was shades of starlit grey and I could follow what path there was well enough.

The plan was to head for the border with Kenya. Mo reckoned it would be a two- or three-day hike, off-road. We couldn’t risk being passed on a track or spotted in a village. Though there weren’t that many settlements about, Mo insisted General Sir had eyes in all of them.

Our best chance lay in picking up a river (‘more of a stream, really’) Mo said lay some twenty-five kilometres away. It clipped the border near a settlement called Kolbio, which lay on the Kenyan side. We’d cross there.

By tracking the river upstream we’d know we were going in the right direction, and we’d have water when what we were carrying ran out. When Amelia had queried whether the General would guess at that plan Mo just shrugged. ‘He may do, but more likely he’ll think we go the quickest route, following the paved road. Or he might think we’d head for the sea.’

Either seemed a fair assumption. I ran through the discussion as we padded on in silence beneath the stars, feeling strong, optimistic even. So far, the plan was working. General Sir wouldn’t realise we were actually gone until he’d shot his way out of his shack, hopefully in the morning. Kayd and Liban were stuck underground for the night with only the screaming wind for company, and General Sir’s tracking dogs were literally eating out of our hands, for now. We had a little food, full water bottles, and we were all tough kids. Mo’s band were actual trainee soldiers! If we put our heads down and just kept going, surely we’d make it.

Even as I thought all this, I knew in my gut I was wrong to be hopeful. I often get a sense when something’s about to go wrong, and this was no exception. I just didn’t realise how quickly it was going to happen.

49.

For the first hour or two it seemed we were making good progress. In single file, at a pace somewhere between a swift walk and a trot, we pushed on into the wind and dark.

Mo was at the front. He’d told one of the older boys, a broad-shouldered kid called Addie, to bring up the rear. The rest of us were strung out along the line.

I was near the back with one of the youngest of Mo’s crew immediately in front of me. He had thin little legs made all the more scrawny-looking by the high-top trainers he was wearing. They had to be too big for him, surely.

I fixated on those shoes as they padded along in front of me. Despite their size, the boy seemed to glide along in them. I followed, matching his step where I could, since he read the rough ground so well.

We got into a rhythm. I zoned out, marvelling at how nimble that little kid was, concentrating on keeping up, conserving my strength as best I could, focusing on each individual footstep, and not allowing myself to think of the great distance ahead.

Nobody spoke, or at least I didn’t hear anyone over the wind. We forged on until, out of nowhere, an abrupt grunt and a thumping noise came from behind me.

I turned to see Addie sprawled on the ground. Thinking quickly, I called out for the others to stop; if I hadn’t,