south, barely visible on the horizon, the ground leads up to odd rounded silhouettes protruding from the earth.
"What are those?" Jacob asks.
Lovemore glances. "Koppies."
"Excuse me?"
"Big rocks, granite boulders. Very common in Zimbabwe."
Veronica says, "Should we take the road?"
Jacob takes a deep breath. He wants to, it would be so much easier than crossing the rough and grassy ground, but - "No. The fire will burn right up to it. If it doesn't cross. And they'll come looking for us in the morning. We have to keep running as long as we can."
They set out again. Jacob makes it as far as the looming koppies before he collapses and can go no further. Veronica and Lovemore too are near the end of their strength. They pass a wordless and delirious night on the hard, cold ground between two of the massive boulders, all three of them clinging tightly to one another for warmth, lapsing only occasionally into sleep, as the bushfire rages and burns in the distance, much too far away to warm their shivering bodies.
* * *
"I feel like the Tin Woodsman," Jacob croaks, as Veronica and Lovemore help him to his feet. They have to support almost all his weight. His muscles are powerless. His joints feel like they have rusted into place. If it was warmer he would try to insist on sleeping longer, but the unforgiving cold of the hard ground and predawn air has seeped into his whole shivering body, invaded every aperture in his clothing, and made the suffering of motion seem less awful than the suffering of inaction. The cold night makes him irrationally angry. Africa is supposed to be warm, everyone knows that. But Zimbabwe is two thousand kilometres south of the equator, and its vast central plateau a thousand metres above sea level.
"You'll feel better when we start moving," Veronica says.
She doesn't sound confident. He can't blame her. Standing makes him dizzy, he has to lean on Lovemore or fall. His hands are covered by a mixture of dirt and his own dried blood, he half-skinned them when he fell from the train. He looks around. The dawn illuminates a few trees growing at unnatural angles from clefts in the smoothly rounded koppies. Beyond this bizarre cluster of house-sized boulders, which look like they have been dropped onto this grassland from outer space, the ground climbs southwards through more grassland. To the north, the kilometre-wide belt demarcated by the railway and the dirt cart track has been reduced to a still-smoking plain of black ash that continues east and west as far as Lucas could see.
They start south. Walking is a struggle. At first he has to lean on Lovemore. But after a few minutes, despite or perhaps because of the pain in his blistered feet, Jacob's head begins to clear and unexpected reservoirs of strength reopen. He thinks he might even be able to run again. For a short distance.
"Do you think they'll come after us?" he asks.
"Yes," Lovemore says.
"They haven't yet."
"Perhaps they were also waiting for dawn. Perhaps they went to get new orders. But they will come after us."
"Where can we go?" Veronica asks.
Lovemore says, simply, "Forward."
They walk on in silence. Lovemore moves steadily forward, and makes no complaint, but Jacob sees his face is taut with pain and realizes his limping leg is badly injured. At least Veronica seems to have survived the fall from the moving train relatively unscathed.
He imagines himself far away, in his favourite bar, the Duke of Gloucester on Yonge Street back in Canada, telling his story to a rapt audience. Maybe then it will all seem worth it. What Jacob has learned about adventure is that it is wonderful only in retrospect; at the time, it's unspeakably awful. He never wants to have another adventure again. All he wants is to be back home. He limps onward, propelled by that vision. If they can just get out of Africa they will be safe, the Interpol charges will never stick.
The sun rises and warms them. They follow a shallow dry watercourse for awhile, snaking its way up and south. Around them the world is a vast tawny field of dried grass dotted with koppies and clumps of trees. It is bleak but starkly beautiful. Here the trees at least are green, there must be some subsurface water left. Jacob wonders if they can somehow dig for it. His throat feels like it is cracking with thirst. But whatever water is left beneath this parched