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The helicopter paused, pitching slightly, directly over his Jiead An arm came out of the cockpit and a torch flashed at him It flashed dot-dash, the morse for A

The round flashed back a B and a C He stuck the fourth torch into the ground andwhirl of dust Above him the pitch of the rotor blades flattened imperceptibly and the helicopter settled smoothly into the space between the four torches The clatter of the engine stopped with a final cough, the tail rotor spun briefly in neutral, and the main rotor blades completed a feard revolutions and then drooped to a halt

In the echoing silence, a cricket started to zing in the thorn bush, and sohtbird

After a pause to let the dust settle, the pilot banged open the door of the cockpit, pushed out a sround He waited beside his machine while the other round picking up and dowsing the torches The pilot was half an hour late at the rendezvous and he was bored at the prospect of listening to the other man’s inevitable complaint He despised all Afrikaners This one in particular To a Reichs-deutscher -and to a Luftwaffe pilot who had fought under Galland in defence of the Reich they were a bastard race, sly, stupid and ill-bred Of course this brute had a tricky job, but it was nothing to navigating a helicopter five hundred ht, and then taking it back again

As the other“Everything all right?”

“I hope so But you’re late again I shall only just ht”

“Magneto trouble We all have our worries Thank God there are only thirteen full ot the stuff let’s have it and we’ll tank her up and I’ll be off’,’

Without speaking, the man from the diamond mines reached into his shirt and handed over the neat, heavy packet

The pilot took it It was daler’s ribs The pilot dropped it into a side pocket of his triers on the seat of his shorts

“Good,” he said He turned towards his machine

“Just a ler There was a sullen note in his voice

The pilot turned back and faced hiht: it’s the voice of a servant who has screwed himself up to complain about his food “Ja What is it?”

“Things are getting too hot At the ence man down from London You’ve read about him This man Sillitoe They say he’s been hired by the Diaulations and all punishhtened out some of my smaller men I had to be ruthless and, well, one of thes up a bit But I’ve had to pay more An extra ten per cent And they’re still not satisfied One of these days those security people are going to get one of my middlemen And you know these black swine They can’t stand a real beating” He looked swiftly into the pilot’s eyes and then away again “For the matter of that I doubt if anyone could stand the sjambok Not even me”

“So?” said the pilot He paused “Do you want me to pass this threat back to ABC?”

“I’ anyone,” said the other h They must know it themselves They must know about this man Sillitoe And look what the Chairman said in our annual report He said that our h sovernment to stop it And what does that mean? It means ’stop me’!”

“And me,” said the pilot mildly “So what do you want? More money?”

“Yes,” said the other er cut Twenty per cent more or I’ll have to quit” He tried to read some sympathy in the pilot’s face

“All right,” said the pilot indifferently “I’ll pass the e on to Dakar, and if they’re interested I expect they’ll send it on to London But it’s nothing to do with me, and if I were you” the pilot unbent for the first time, “I wouldn’t put too her than this Sillitoe, or the Coovernment I’ve ever heard of On just this end of the pipeline, threeyelloo for stealing from the packet And you know it That was a nasty accident your predecessor had, wasn’t it? Funny place to keep gelignite Under his bed Unlike hi”

For a ht The diaht,” he said “Just tell them I’m hard up and need more money to pass down the line They’ll understand that, and if they’ve got any sense they’ll add another ten per cent on for me If not…” He left the sentence unfinished and ive you a hand with the gas”

Ten minutes later the pilot climbed up into the cockpit and pulled the ladder in after hi,” he said “See you in a month”

The round suddenly felt lonely “Totsiens,” he said with a wave of the hand that was almost the wave of a lover “Alles van die beste” He stood back and held a hand up to his eyes against the dust