Solo

functionaries who ran the colony in days gone by. The place was showing clear signs of its age – the paint was flaking and the concrete floors needed rewaxing – but it was clean and simple in its efficiency. Bond’s room had a bed with a mosquito net suspended above it and a wooden stand with an enamel jug and ewer. There was a WC at the end of the corridor.
    He and Blessing sat on the veranda – they were the only guests – watching the bats swoop and swerve in the brief African gloaming as the sun set in its sudden blood-orange termination. They drank whisky and water and smoked steadily to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Blessing showed him on the map how far they had travelled – they had covered some 200 miles on these back roads, she reckoned. The next day’s drive would see them enter the fringes of the Zanza River Delta, where they could expect roadblocks and inevitable delays. The soldiers often kept cars waiting for hours in order to up the fee for being allowed to motor on.
    Bond savoured this moment on the veranda as they sat and chatted. He had a powerful sundowner in his hand and the heat was leaving the atmosphere as the cool of the tropical night advanced. He felt at ease – and he was also enjoying the company of a beautiful young woman, he realised. Blessing had changed into an embroidered, tie-dyed dress of many hues of vermilion and rose that had the effect of making her look more exotic and African – or was that just the result of their journey into the interior of Zanzarim, Bond wondered, recalling her cool sci-fi beauty of the previous evening. He could tell, moreover, that she wore no brassiere under the dress – he could see her pert breasts shiver as she flicked her hand to shoo away a fluttering moth. He found himself imagining her naked, wondering what her youthful firm body might be like beneath the— Stop right there, Bond! – he issued the stern instruction to himself. Don’t go down that road.
    A white-haired toothless old man, the manager of the Good Companion, called them in for their evening meal: fruit salad, followed by a tough steak with fried cassava. Bond decided to forego the sago pudding with raspberry jam offered as dessert and called for another whisky. They had been driving for a good eight hours today, Bond realised, and he was feeling tired.
    So was Blessing, Bond saw, as she yawned widely, and they both agreed it was time to turn in. They climbed the stairs to their bedrooms and parted on the landing.
    ‘I think we should start at dawn tomorrow,’ Blessing said. ‘I’ll knock on your door.’
    ‘Fine,’ Bond said and resisted the urge to kiss her goodnight. ‘See you in the morning.’
    He lay in his bed under the gauze tent of his mosquito net listening to the night noises beyond the shuttered windows – the tireless crickets, the whooping owls, burping toads and pie-dogs yapping in Kolo-Ade’s outskirts. One more day’s driving, Bond thought, another night in a rest-house and the infiltration into the shrinking heartland of Dahum. He felt the prickle of the adrenalin rush but also a rare sense of foreboding. The drive through the lonely interior of Zanzarim had reminded him of the problems, not to say the enormity, of the task that faced him. As his surroundings had grown more primitive and elemental so, it seemed, whatever strength, capability and powers he possessed appeared more insubstantial and weak. What was it about Africa that unmanned you so? he wondered, turning over and punching the hard kapok pillow into a more amenable shape for his head – why did the continent so effortlessly remind you of your human frailties?
     
    When Blessing knocked on his door it was still dark. Breakfast was a mug of Camp coffee and some toast and marmalade and when they set off the light was growing pearly and the air was wonderfully cool. They made good progress in the morning but, just as they were contemplating their lunch break, they met their first roadblock. There was a queue of around two dozen cars on either side of an armoured personnel carrier that had parked itself across the road. Half a dozen soldiers, in the now familiar patchwork uniforms, lazily scrutinised identity cards and searched the belongings of resigned and unprotesting motorists.
    A young officer ambled down the line of cars towards them, attracted by the 1100’s self-described press status. He looked smarter than the other soldiers and was wearing a lozenge-camouflaged blouson