Thunderbolt by Wilbur Smith (reading strategies book .txt) 📕

I found this vagueness unsettling, and in private I asked the others whether we should pressure Mo to give us more detail. Amelia, ever logical, pointed out that we had little to pressure him with: without him we were lost. That didn’t help much, but Xander said Mo’s quiet approach made sense to him for now. So I sat on my misgivings and waited.

43.

The morning after we’d set the first snares, I crept out of the tent early and went to inspect them. They hadn’t worked. Worse than that, two of the five we’d built had gone off without trapping anything. The gunk-bait in them was gone, and something had gnawed through one of the lengths of string, but the snare was empty. I bit my tongue, retied the noose, set the trap again. I didn’t want to break this disappointing news to the others, but they were up when I returned and Amelia quickly put two and two together.

‘Empty-handed,’ she said.

‘Did you check them all?’ asked Xander.

Amelia answered for me. ‘Of course he did.’

Xander’s face fell.

Mo cut in gently with, ‘What were you expecting?’

‘Well, something, I suppose,’ Xander replied. ‘Not nothing.’

I hadn’t even told them about the snares that had gone off unsuccessfully and decided not to now. Somehow Xander’s bitter disappointment was my fault. ‘It’s early days,’ was the best I could muster.

‘Indeed it is,’ said Mo more brightly. ‘Just one night! Trust me, the snares will work if we give them time. And today we can make a few more to increase the probability of success.’

I tried to look as positive as he sounded for the benefit of the others, but I didn’t like the idea that we had to rely upon him to boost our morale. What, practically, could I do to help us? The traps needed re-baiting. When our breakfast slop arrived, I saved a pinch of mine in a folded leaf. I tried to do this surreptitiously, waiting for a moment when the others were distracted by a squabble that had broken out between two of the little kids, whose fight over one of the wooden guns (at least it wasn’t a real one) had spilled across the dirt patch separating the main clutch of tents from ours, but Mo saw me do it.

‘I’ll come with you, help check everything works again,’ he said.

‘If you like, but I think I know what I’m doing.’

‘You’re disappointed,’ said Mo. ‘In fact, it’s a good sign.’

‘What is?’

‘If something disturbed the traps, took the bait, it means we nearly succeeded.’

‘It would be a better sign if the snare actually worked, surely.’

‘Of course,’ said Mo. ‘But still.’

He followed me out of camp. The flies were up already – it was a still morning – but I’d learned to wave them away more lazily, which somehow stopped them being quite so maddening. I went straight to the first trap that needed re-baiting. Mo watched me do it and I was relieved that he said nothing; I didn’t need his supervision after all.

The short walk to the other spent snare took us past one that had been undisturbed just an hour ago. As we approached it Mo suddenly shot forward, running low to the ground.

He’d spotted a movement. Unbelievably, something was caught in the snare, and Mo was immediately upon the little creature, smothering it with both hands.

He had his back to me. I barely had a chance to feel sorry for whatever it was – at least it hadn’t been struggling against the noose for long – before he’d dispatched it with a sharp flick of his wrist. By the time I’d caught him up he’d removed the noose and was holding the creature, limp now, in an outstretched hand. It looked like a big gerbil.

‘Here!’ he said, offering it to me.

I’ve said before that I’m no fan of rodents, and to be honest the last thing I wanted to do was take the dead gerbil from Mo, but I was even less a fan of appearing squeamish before him. Also, I was genuinely delighted the snare had worked. We needed this result. The gerbil was warm to touch. Its head and tail flopped either side of my extended palm, opening up the fur on its neck. Sandy orange at the tips, the fur close to the animal’s body was white. I didn’t like the idea of the dead gerbil in my hand, but in that quiet moment its warmth and delicate beauty sent a strange feeling – a sort of triumphant sadness – right through me.

We checked the other traps and found them empty. But that didn’t matter now: we had proof of success. I’d trudged back to camp earlier, but the two of us had a spring in our step now.

Mo had noted who made the successful trap. He wasted no time in congratulating Xander with, ‘Your snare worked!’

Xander’s mouth fell open.

By way of proof, Mo pulled the dead gerbil from his shirt pocket and held it up for Xander to inspect.

‘Huh! Look at that,’ said Xander. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Looks pretty incontrovertible to me,’ Amelia said.

The hound I’d stroked was still sleeping on its side under the thorn bush. Another was nosing in the dirt a little way off. ‘I say we give it to the dogs straight away,’ I said.

‘Won’t they fight over it?’ asked Xander.

‘We’ll give them a piece each,’ said Mo, deadpan, pocketing the gerbil again.

‘But we don’t have a knife to cut it up with,’ said Amelia.

‘We don’t need one,’ Mo replied, standing up. In plain view he set off for General Sir’s shack, but rather than approaching the front door he disappeared round the back of the little building. He was only out of sight for a minute. When he emerged, he was carrying the four tools we’d be using that day in our field-clearing: the spade and mattock under one arm, the crowbar