The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные полные книги .TXT) 📗

of them hurried to the Avon he had been allocated. Nicholas gave Royan a

boost over the gunwale of their boat, and then helped his men launch her

down the rocky bank. As soon as the hull floated free they scrambled

aboard and each man grabbed a paddle.

As they bent to their paddles, Nicholas Saw at once that every man of

his crew was indeed a riverman, as Mek had boasted. They pulled strongly

but smoothly, and the light inflatable craft shot out into the main

stream of the Nile.

The Avons were designed to accommodate sixteen, and were lightly loaded.

The ammunition cases that held the grave goods from the tomb were bulky

but weighed little, and there were not more than a dozen people in any

one boat. They all floated high and handled well.

"Bad water ahead," Nicholas told Royan grimly. "All the way to the

Sudanese border." He stood at the steering sweep in the stem, from where

he had a good forward view.

 Royan crouched at his feet, clinging to on of the safety straps and

trying to keep out of the way of the oarsmen.

They cut across the current that was scouring the great stone basin

below the falls, and Nicholas lined up for the narrow heads through

which the river was escaping to the West. He looked up at the sky and

saw through the spray that the rain clouds were low and purple. They

seemed to sag down upon the tops of the tall cliffs.

"Luck starting to run our way," he told Royan. "Even with the helicopter

they won't be able to find us in this Weather."

He glanced at his Rolex and the spray was heading the glass. "Couple of

hours until nightfall. We should be able to put a few miles of river

behind us before we are forced to stop for the night."

He looked back over his stem and saw the rest of the little flotilla

bobbing along behind him. The Avons were reflective yellow in colour and

stood out brilliantly even in the mist and murk of the gorge. He lifted

his clenched fist high in the signal to advance, and from the following

boat Mek repeated the gesture and grinned at him through his beard.

The river grabbed them and they shot through its portals into the

narrow, twisted gut of the Nile. The men at the oars stopped paddling,

and let the river take them.

All they could do now was to help Nicholas to steer her through any

desperate moments, and they crouched ready along the gunwales.

The high water in the gorge had covered many of the reefs of rock, but

their presence below the surface was clearly marked by the waters that

humped up in standing waves or foamed white in the narrows between them.

The flood reached up high on either bank, dashing against the cliffs of

the sub-gorge. If an Avon overturned, or even if a crew member were

thrown overboard there would be no place on this river to heave-to and

pick up survivors.

658 95, Nicholas stood high and craned ahead. He had to pick his route

well in advance, and once committed he had to steer her through. It all

depended on his ability to read the river and judge her mods. He was out

of practice, and he had that tight, hard cannonball of fear in the pit

of his belly as he put the long sweep over and steered for the first run

of fast green water. They went swooping down it, Nicholas holding their

bows into it with delicate touches of the sweep, and came out into the

bottom of it with all the other boats following them down in sequence.

"Nothing to it!" Royan laughed up at him.

Don't say itV Nicholas pleaded with her. The bad angel is listening."

And he lined up for the head of the next set of rapids that raced

towards them with terrifying speed.

Nicholas steered through the gap between two outcrops of rock and they

shot the barrel, gaining speed down the chute. It was only when they

were halfway down that he saw the tall standing wave below them over

which the river leaped. He put the sweep across and tried to steer round

it, but the river had them firmly in its grip.

Like a hunter taking a fence they shot up the front of the standing

wave, and then with a sickening lurch plummeted down the far side into

the deep trough. The Avon folded across the middle, the bows almost

touching the stem as she tried to pull through the hole in the river

surface.

The crew were tumbled over each other and Nicholas would have been

catapulted overside if it had not been for his body line and his grip on

the steering sweep. Royan flung herself flat on the deck and hung on to

the safety strap with all her strength as the Avon's buoyancy exerted

itself and the boat bounded high in the air, whipping back elastically

into its original shape, then hovered a moment and almost capsized

before it crashed back, right side up.

One of the crew had been hurled overboard and was floundering alongside,

carried along at the same speed as the flying Avon, so his comrades were

able to lean out and haul him back on board. The cargo of ammunition

crates had tumbled and shifted, but the nets had prevented any of them

from being lost over the side.

"What did you do that for?" Royan yelled at him. "Just when I was

beginning to trust you."

"Just testing'he yelled back. "Wanted to see how tough you really are."

"I admit it, I am a sissy," she assured him. "You really don't need to

do it again."

Looking back, Nicholas saw Mek's boat crash through the trough just as

they had, but the following craft had enough warning to steer clear and

slip through the sides of the run.

He looked ahead again, and his whole existence became the wild waters of

the river. His universe was contained within the tall cliffs of the

sub-gorge as he battled to bring the racing Avon through. He did not

know whether it was spray or rain that stung his cheeks and his wounded

chin, and that flew horizontally into his eyes and half-blinded him. At

times it was a mixture of the two.

An hour later Nicholas misjudged the rapids again, and they went in

sideways and almost capsized. Two of his crew were hurled overboard.

Steering fine and leaning outboard they managed to pull one of them from

the river, but the other man struck a rock before they could reach him.

He went under and did not rise again. None of them spoke or mourned him,

for they were all too busy staying alive themselves.

Once Royan shouted up at Nicholas through the rattling spray and the

thunder of the river all around them, "Helicopter! Can you hear it?"

Half-deafened, he looked up at the lowering grey belly of the clouds

that hung at the level of the cliffs, and faintly made out the whistle

and flutter of the rotors.

"Above the cloud!" he shouted back, wiping the rain and the spray from

his eyes with the back of his hand.

"They will never spot us in this."

The onset of the African night was sped upon them by the low cloud. In

the gathering darkness another hazard leaped upon them with no warning

at all. One instant they were running hard and clear down a smooth

stretch of the river, and the next the waters opened ahead of them and

they were hurled out into space. It seemed that they fell for ever,

although it was a drop of not more than thirty feet, before they hit the

bottom and found themselves floating in a tangle of men and boats in the

pool below the falls. Here the river was stalled for a moment, revolving