Wilbur Smith - The Sunbird

‘Come,’ he said, serious again, and we went to the long table against the wall. There was a chart spread and pinned on the green baize. It was a high table, and I scrambled quickly on to a chair and leaned across it. Now I was almost on equal terms with Louren who stood beside me. We pored over the chart.

‘Aeronautical Series A. Southern Africa. Chart 5. Botswana and Western Rhodesia.’

I searched it quickly, looking for some indication - a cross, or pencil mark perhaps.

‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where?’

‘You know that I’ve got twenty-five thousand square miles of mineral concession down here south of Maun—’

‘Come on, Lo. Don’t try and sell me shares in Sturvesant Minerals. Where the hell is it?’

‘We’ve put a landing-strip in here that will take the Lear jet. Just finished it.’

‘It can’t be that far south of the gold series.’

‘It isn’t,’ Louren reassured me. ‘Throttle back, you’ll rupture something.’ He was enjoying himself tormenting me.

His finger moved across the chart, and stopped suddenly - my heart seemed to stop with it. It was looking better and better. The latitude was perfect, all the clues I had so painstakingly gathered over the years pointed to this general area.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Two hundred and twelve miles south-east of Maun, fifty-six miles from the south-western beacon of the Wankie game reserve, tucked below a curve of low hills, lost in a wilderness of rock and dry land scrub.’

‘When can we leave?’ I asked.

‘Wow!’ Louren shook his head. ‘You do believe it. You really do!’

‘Someone else could stumble on it.’

‘It’s been lying there for a thousand years - another week won’t—’

‘Another week!’ I cried in anguish.

‘Ben, I can’t get away before then. I’ve got the Annual General Meeting of Anglo-Sturvesant on Friday, and on Saturday I have business in Zürich - but I’ll cut it short, especially for you.’

‘Cut it altogether,’ I begged. ‘Send one of your bright young men.’

‘When somebody lends you twenty-five million, it’s only polite to go fetch the cheque yourself, not send the office boy.’

‘Christ, Lo. It’s only money - this is really important.’

For a moment Louren stared at me, the pale blue eyes bemused and reflective.

‘Twenty-five million is only money?’ He shook his head slowly and then wonderingly as though he had heard a new truth spoken. ‘I suppose you are right.’ He smiled, gently now, the smile of affection for a well-loved friend. ‘Sorry, Ben. Tuesday. We’ll fly at dawn, I promise you. We’ll recce from the air. Then land at Maun. Peter Larkin - you know him?’

‘Yes. very well.’ Peter ran a big safari business out of Maun. Twice I’d used him on my Kalahari expeditions.

‘Good. I’ve been on to him already. He will service the expedition. We will go in light and fast - one Land-Rover and a pair of three-ton Unimogs. I can only spare five days - and that’s a squeeze - but I’ll get a charter helicopter to fetch me out, and I’ll leave you to scratch around—’ As he talked Louren led me out of the projection room into the long gallery.

Sunlight spilled in through the high windows, giving good light to the paintings and sculptures that decorated the gallery. Here works of the leading South African artists mingled easily with those of the great internationals living and dead. Louren Sturvesant, and his ancestors before him, had spent money wisely. Even now in the urgency of the moment, my eyes were tugged aside by the soft fleshy glow of a Renoir nude.

Louren paced easily over the sound-deadening pile of Oriental carpets, and I matched him stride for stride. My legs are as long as his and as powerful.

‘If you turn up what we are both hoping for, then you can go in full-scale. A permanent camp, airstrip, assistants of your choice, a full crew, and any equipment you call for.’

‘Please God, let it happen,’ I said softly and at the head of the staircase we paused. Louren and I grinned at each other like conspirators.

‘You know what it could cost?’ I asked. ‘We might be digging for five or six years.’

‘I hope so,’ he agreed.

‘It could run into a couple of hundred thousand.’

‘It’s only money, like the man said.’ And again that great bull laugh started me off. We went down the staircase roaring and tittering, each in his own way. Elated and hyper-tense, we faced each other in the hall.

‘I’ll be back at seven-thirty Monday evening. Can you meet me at the airport, Alitalia flight 310 from Zürich? In the meantime you get your end arranged.’

‘I’ll need a copy of that photograph.’

‘I’ve already had an enlargement delivered by hand to the Institute. You have got a week to gloat over it,’ He glanced at the gold Piaget on his wrist. ‘Damn. I’m late.’

He turned to the doorway at the moment that Hilary Sturvesant came through it from the patio. She wore a short white tennis dress, and her legs were long and achingly beautiful. A tall girl with gold-brown hair hanging shiny and soft to her shoulders.

‘Darling, you aren’t going?’

‘I’m sorry, Hil. I meant to tell you I wouldn’t be staying for lunch, but Ben will need somebody to hold him down.’

‘You’ve shown him?’ She turned and came to me, stooped to kiss me on the lips easily and naturally, with not the least sign of revulsion, and then she stepped back and smiled full into my eyes. Every time she does that she makes me her slave for another hundred years.

‘What do you think of it, Ben? Is it possible?’ But before I could answer Louren had slipped his arm about her waist and they both smiled down at me.

‘He’s doing his nut. He’s frothing at the mouth and doing back flips. He wants to rush into the desert now, this minute.’ Then he pulled Hilary to him and kissed her. For a long minute they were oblivious of my presence as they embraced. They are, for me, the epitome of beautiful woman and manhood, both of them tall and strong and well-favoured. Hilary is younger than he is by twelve years, his fourth wife and the mother of only the youngest of his seven children. In her middle twenties she has the maturity and poise of a much older woman.

‘Give Ben some lunch, my darling. I’ll be home late.’ Louren pulled away from the embrace.

‘I’ll miss you,’ Hilary said.

‘And I you. I’ll see you Monday, Ben. Cable Larkin if you thing of anything special we will need. So long, partner.’ And he was gone.

Hilary took my hand and led me out on to the wide flagged patio. Five acres of lawn and dazzling flowerbeds sloped gently down to the stream and artificial lake. Both tennis courts were occupied and a shrieking mob of small near-naked bodies thrashed the water of the swimming-pool to sun-sparkled white. Two uniformed servants were laying out a cold buffet on the long patio trestle-table, and with a small squirming twinge of dread I saw a half-dozen young matrons is tennis dress sprawled in the lounging chairs beside the outside bar. They