'But they're Nyalans. They'd be in a foreign country without papers.'

She laughed. 'You're naive, Mister Mannix These people think of it simply as land, Africa. They haven't much nationalistic fervour, you know. They cross borders with little fear of officialdom, and officialdom has better things to do than worry about them. They just go where the grazing and hunting is good.'

I wished it was as simple for us, but we had a lot to do first. I left the Sister to her bandages and went to find Hammond, McGrath and Sam Wilson.

We walked down to stand at the pontoon, looking out over the water. Hammond said, 'I don't see many possibilities. If there was a bridge we could at least fight for it.'

'The ferry point is swarming with rebels,' I said,. 'I don't think we've got the force we'd need.'

'You know, I was getting really worried about fuel,' Hammond said. 'It's ironic that now, when we can't go anywhere, we've got all we want and more.'

'I've been thinking about that,' said McGrath. 'We could float petrol down to the ferry and set it alight, construct a fire ship.'

Wilson said, 'Pleasant ideas you have, Mick,' and I caught an undertone I recognized; here was someone else who mistrusted the Irishman.

Hammond said, 'We can get people across Manzu in threes and fours, with this little boat… or perhaps not,' he added as he crossed the pontoon to look down into it. He hopped up and down, making the pontoon bobble on the water, then came back ashore looking thoughtful.

'I wonder why they have a pontoon instead of a fixed jetty,' he said.

'Does it matter?' I was no sailor and the question wouldn't have occurred to me, but Wilson took up Hammond's point. 'A fixed jetty's easier to build, unless you need a landing stage that'll rise and fall with the tide,' he said. 'Only there's no tide here.'

'You can see the water level varies a little,' Hammond said. He pointed out signs that meant nothing to me, but Wilson agreed with them. 'So where does the extra water come from?' I asked. 'It's the dry season now. When the rains come the river must swell a lot. Is that it?'

'It looks like more than that. I'd say there was a dam at the foot of the lake,' Hammond hazarded. McGrath followed this carefully and I could guess the trend of his thoughts; if there was a dam he'd be all for blowing it up. But I didn't recall seeing a dam. on the maps, faulty though they were, and hadn't heard one mentioned.

But this wasn't Hammond's line of thinking at all.

'They have level control because the lake rises and falls at times. That's why they need a floating jetty,' he said.

'So?'

The point is that the jetty is a tethered raft.' He pointed to the dinghy. 'That isn't very seaworthy but if we cut the pontoon loose it could be towed across the lake with people on it.'

Now he was giving me ideas. 'Only a few at a time,' I said.

'But we could build a bigger one. We might find other outboards,' Hammond went on, growing interested in his own hypothesis.

'Supposing you could do it. What does everyone do at the other side without transport? It's a long way to Batanda.'

'I hadn't got that far,' he admitted glumly.

I looked around. One boat, one pontoon, one outboard motor, plenty of fuel, a workshop… a work force… raw materials… my mind raced and I felt excitement rising. I said, 'All of you go on thinking about this. But don't share your ideas with anyone else for the time being.'

I got into the Land Rover and shot off up the road to the filling station and went up to Sam Kironji's cabin, which was latched. He let me in with some reluctance.

He said bitterly, 'You come, now they all come. Stealers! You didn't tell me this big crowd come. They steal everything I got. They steal things I don't got.' He was hurt and angry.

'Relax, Sam. We didn't bring them, they followed us. You said yourself you heard the travelling hospital was big magic.'

'That not magic. That theft. How I relax? How I explain to Mister Obukwe?'

'You won't have to. Mister Zimmerman will explain and Lat-Am Oil will be very pleased with you. You'll probably get a bonus. Got another beer?'

He stared at the desk top as I opened the cooler, which was empty, and then looked along his shelves which were as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Kironji looked up sardonically. 'Stealers! I tell you. Here.' He reached under the desk and came up with a beer can which he thrust out at me as if ashamed of his own generosity. I took it thankfully and said, There's still lots of stuff here, Sam.'

'Who eat tyres? Who eat batteries? You tell me that.'

I sat down on the edge of his desk. 'Sam. You know all those petrol drums you've got outside and down by the lake?'

'Why? You want to steal them?'

'No, of course not. How big are they?'

He addressed the desk top again. 'Forty-two gallon.'

'Imperial?'

'What you mean? Gallons, man – that what they are.'

Forty-two imperial gallons, which is what they probably were, equalled about fifty American. I had tried to decipher the marks on one but they were pretty rusty.

'Sam,' I said, 'please do me a big favour. Give me some paper and a pen or a pencil, let me borrow your office, and go away for a bit. I have to do some calculating, some planning. I'll be really grateful.'

He reluctantly produced a pad of paper with Lat-Am's logo on it and a ballpoint pen. 'I want my pen back,' he said firmly and began to retreat.

'Wait a moment. What's the weight of an empty drum?'

He shrugged. 'I dunno. Plenty heavy.'

It didn't matter too much at this stage. 'How many empty drums have you got here?'

Again his shoulders hunched. 'Too many. No supplies come, I use 'em up. Many empty now.'

'For Christ's sake, Sam, I don't want a long story! How many?'

'Maybe a thousand, maybe more. I never count.'

I jotted down figures. Thanks. Sam, that cooler. Where do you get your power from?'

'Questions. You ask too much questions.' He jerked his thumb. 'You not hear it? The generator, man!'

I had got so accustomed to hearing the steady throb of a generator on the rig that it hadn't penetrated that this one was making a slightly different sound. 'Ah, so you do have one.'

'Why? You want to steal it?' He flapped his hand dejectedly. 'You take it. Mister Obukwe, he already mad at me.'

'Don't worry,' I told him. 'Nobody will steal it, or anything else. But buying would be different, wouldn't it? My company is British Electric. Perhaps we can buy your generator from you.'

'You pay cash?'

I laughed aloud. 'Not exactly, but you'll get it in the end. Now let me alone for a while, Sam, would you?'

Before he left he went and wrote down one can of beer on my tab.

CHAPTER 24

I had a bit of figuring to do. For one thing, while we Americans think our way of doing things is always best, the European metric system is actually far better than our own multi-unit way, even the conservative British are adopting it, and oddly enough an imperial gallon is a better measure than our American gallon because one imperial gallon weighs exactly ten pounds of fresh water. It didn't take much figuring to see that a drum would hold four hundred and twenty pounds of water.

There was some other reckoning to be done and I persevered, even to cutting shapes out of paper with a rusty pair of scissors. At last I stretched, put Kironji's pen safely back in a drawer, took a hopeful but useless look in the cooler and set off down to the lakeside on foot. It was only a short distance and I used the walk to do some more thinking. I went straight down to look at the pontoon once again.

It was a rickety enough contraption, just a few empty oil drums for flotation with a rough log platform bolted. on top. It was very weathered and had obviously stood the test of time, but it was as stable as a spinning top just about to lose speed and I wouldn't have cared to cross Central Park Lake on it.