Prologue | Novel

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‘The river of death has brimmed its banks, And England’s far, and Honour a name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks: Play up! play up! and play the game.’

Sir Henry Newbolt.

The trees were a smear of green as the 4x4 rotated like a pig on a spit, landed on its edge and folded. The brim of the driver’s nose met the steering wheel, bloomed and burst with blood. The neck of the man in front of Greg, in the blood red tie and the intelligent brow contorted at a sickening angle, whilst the guard beside him smashed his elbow through the window and spun around, severing flesh to the bone. Greg, unharmed, chained as he was to the floor by the wrists and ankles and the only one strapped in, watched the accident unfold in slow-motion.

Rotations complete, the car crashed back onto its wheels. Smoke appeared from under the bonnet. When gravity returned to normal Greg feverishly fished the key from the pocket of the dying guard to his right and unlocked his wrist and ankle cuffs. Opening up his door, he flinched as he hit the track; it seemed he hadn’t escaped the accident completely unharmed after all. Looking down he saw a spoke of rusty metal imbedded in his calf. His hiking trousers were torn and dampening with blood, but it didn’t appear all too deep. Thankfully he had decided to update his tetanus back in England. It was the most expensive jab he’d got, but considering the nature of his visit to Kenya, he had decided at the last moment that it was worth the expense.

He looked both ways along the track. Nothing stirred, nobody followed, nothing, apart from a bird with long legs nodding across the line of tyre shredders that the driver had failed to avoid. The sky looked like it was going to storm. In the distance, he heard the faint murmur of aggressive hip-hop, thudding bass heralding backup. Greg knew that he had only minutes before they would stumble upon the 4x4, see their friends dead or dying and their prize missing. The forest seemed the only way. He looked into its depths. It was neither silent nor still but constantly in motion, ambience draped across its canopy like a soft blanket.

The bass was closing in, the man in the red tie moaned and spat up blood.

“You won’t get far, Gooseman.”

Perhaps he too had been impaled by one of the many rusty thorns that grew from the old machine. Greg considered asking the man how far he had left to go. They were close, he knew it. But at that moment the man let out a soft gurgle like he was about to spit out mouthwash, and then stopped moving altogether.

The thudding was growing in definition, the individual words of the accompanying rap solidifying. Greg winced as he slipped from the highway and into the trees. He was close. He could sense her.

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