Caravan to Vaccares (24 page)

The crowd had suddenly become very quiet. This, they knew, was a great
razateur,
a master mime and actor, but surely no one would carry the interest of his art to the suicidal lengths where, every second now as he rolled over the sand, he escaped death by inches and sometimes less, for twice in as many seconds the bull's horns tore through the back of the doublet.

Both times Bowman felt the horn scoring across his back and it was this that galvanized him to what he knew must be his final effort. Half a dozen times he rolled away from the bull as quickly as he could, seized what was only half a chance and scrambled upright. He could do no more than just stand there, swaying drunkenly and staggering from side to side. Again, that eerie silence fell across the arena as the bull, infuriated beyond measure and too mad to be cunning any more, came charging in again, but just as it seemed inevitable that the bull must surely this time impale him, an uncontrollable drunk lurch by Bowman took him a bare inch clear of the scything horn: so incensed was the bull that he ran on for another twenty yards before realizing that Bowman was no longer in his way and coming to a halt.

The crowd appeared to go mad. In their relief, in their unbounded admiration for this demigod, they cheered, they clapped, they shouted, they wept tears of laughter. What an actor, what a performer, what a magnificent
razateur!
Such an exhibition, surely, had never been seen before. Bowman leaned in total exhaustion against the barrier, a smiling Czerda only feet away from where he stood. Bowman was finished and the desperation on his face showed it. He was finished not only physically, he had come to the end of his mental tether. He just wasn't prepared to run any more. The bull lowered its head in preparation for another charge: again, silence fell over the arena. What fresh wonder was this miracle man going to demonstrate now?

But the miracle man was through with demonstrations for the day. Even as the silence fell he heard something that made him spin round and stare at the crowd, incredulity in his face. Standing high at the back of the crowd and waving frantically at him was Cecile, oblivious of the fact that scores of people had turned to stare at her.

‘Neil!' Her voice was close to a scream. ‘Neil Bowman! Come on!'

Bowman came. The bull had started on its charge but the sight of Cecile and the realization that escape was at hand had given Bowman a fresh influx of strength, however brief it might prove to be. He scrambled into the safety of the
callajon
at least two seconds before the bull thundered into the barrier. Bowman removed the pierrot's hat which had been hanging by its elastic band down the back of his neck, impaled it on one of the sharpened horns, brushed unceremoniously by the flabbergasted Czerda and ran up the terraces as quickly as his leaden legs would permit, waving to the crowd who parted to make way for him: the crowd, nonplussed though it was by this remarkable turn of events, nevertheless gave him a tumultuous reception: so unprecedented had the entire act been that they no doubt considered that this was also part of it. Bowman neither knew nor cared what their reactions were: just so long as they opened up before him and closed again after he had passed it would give him what might prove to be vital extra seconds over the inevitable pursuers. He reached the top, caught Cecile by the arm.

‘I just love your sense of timing,' he said. His voice, like his breathing, was hoarse and gasping and distressed. He turned and looked behind him. Czerda was ploughing his way up through the crowd and not leaving any newly made friends behind him: El Brocador was moving on a converging course: of Searl he could see no sign. Together they hurried down the broad steps outside the arena, skirting the bull pens, stables and changing rooms. Bowman slid a hand through one of the many rips in his tunic, located his car keys and brought them out. He tightened his grip on Cecile's arm as they reached the last of the changing rooms and peered cautiously round the corner. A second later he withdrew, his. face bitter with chagrin.

‘It's just not our day, Cecile. That gypsy I clobbered – Maca – is sitting on the bonnet of the Citroën. Worse, he's cleaning his nails with a knife. One of those knives.' He opened a door behind them, thrust Cecile into the changing room where he himself had robed before his performance, and handed her the car keys. ‘Wait till the crowd comes out. Mingle with them. Take the car, meet me at the southern end – the seaward end – of the church at Saintes-Maries. For God's sake, don't leave the Citroën anywhere near by – drive it out to the caravan park east of the town and leave it there.'

‘I see.' She was, Bowman thought, remarkably calm. ‘And meantime you have things to attend to?'

‘As always.' He peered through a crack in the door: for the moment there was no one in sight. ‘Four bridesmaids,' he said, slipped out and closed the door behind him.

The three manacled men were lying in their bunks, quietly and seemingly uncaring, Lila was sniffing disconsolately and Le Grand Duc scowling thunderously when Searl came running up the steps. The apprehensive look was back on his face again and he was noticeably short of breath.

‘I trust,' Le Grand Duc said ominously, ‘that you are not the bearer of ill tidings.'

‘I saw the girl,' Searl gasped. ‘How did she – '

‘By God, Searl, you and your nincompoop friend Czerda will pay for this. If Bowman is dead – ' He broke off and stared over Searl's shoulder, then pushed him roughly to one side. ‘Who in heaven's name is that?'

Searl turned to follow Le Grand Duc's pointing finger. A red-and-white-clad pierrot was making his way at a lurching, stumbling run across the improvised car park: it was evident that he was near total exhaustion.

‘That's him,' Searl shouted. ‘That's him.' As they watched, three gypsies appeared from behind some huts, Czerda unmistakably one of them, running in pursuit of Bowman and covering the ground a great deal faster than he was. Bowman looked over his shoulder, located his pursuers, swerved to seek cover among several caravans, checked again as he saw his way blocked by El Brocador and two other gypsies, turned at rightangles and headed for a group of horses tethered near by, white Camargue horses fitted with the heavy-pommelled and high-backed Camargue saddles which look more like ribbed and leatherupholstered armchairs than anything else. He ran for the nearest, unhitched it, got a foot into the peculiarly fenced stirrup and managed, not without considerable effort, to haul himself up.

‘Quickly!' Le Grand Duc ordered. ‘Get Czerda. Tell him if Bowman escapes neither he nor you shall. But I want him alive. If he dies, you die. I want him delivered to me within the hour at the Miramar Hotel in Saintes-Maries. I myself cannot afford to remain here another moment. Don't forget to catch that damned girl and bring her along also. Hurry, man, hurry!'

Searl hurried. As he made to cross the road he had to step quickly and advisedly to one side to avoid being run down by Bowman's horse. Bowman, Le Grand Duc could see, was swaying in the saddle to the extent that even although he had the reins in his hands he had to hold on to the pommel to remain in his seat. Beneath the artificial tan the face was pale, drawn in pain and exhaustion. Le Grand Duc became aware that Lila was standing by his side, that she too was watching Bowman.

‘I've heard of it,' the girl said quietly. No tears now, just a quietness and a sadness and disbelief. ‘And now I see it. Hounding a man to death.'

Le Grand Duc put a hand on her arm. ‘I assure you, my dear girl – '

She struck his hand from her arm and said nothing. She didn't have to, the contempt and the loathing in her face said it all for her. Le Grand Duc nodded, turned away and watched the diminishing figure of Bowman disappearing round the bend in the road to the south.

Le Grand Duc was not the only one to take so keen an interest in Bowman's departure. Her face pressed against a small square window in the side of the changing room, Cecile watched the galloping white horse and its rider till it vanished from sight. Sure knowledge of what would happen next kept her there nor did she have long to wait. Within thirty seconds five other horsemen came galloping by – Czerda, Ferenc, El Brocador, Searl and a fifth man whom she did not recognize. Drylipped, near tears and sick at heart, she turned away from the window and started searching among the racks of clothes.

Almost at once she found what she wanted – a clown's outfit consisting of the usual very wide trousers, red, with wide yellow braces as support, a red-and-yellow-striped football jersey and a voluminous dark jacket. She pulled on the trousers, stuffing in the long fiesta dress as best she could – the trousers were cut on so generous a scale that the additional bagginess was scarcely noticeable – pulled the red-and-yellow jersey over her head, shrugged into the big jacket, removed her red wig and stuck a flat green cap on her head. There was no mirror in the changing room: that, she thought dolefully, was probably as well.

She went back to the window. The afternoon show was clearly over and people were streaming down the steps and across the road to their cars. She moved towards the door. Dressed as she was in a dress so shriekingly conspicuous that it conferred a degree of anonymity on the wearer, with the men she most feared in pursuit of Bowman and with plenty of people outside with whom to mingle, this, she realized, would be the best opportunity she would be likely to have to make her way undetected to the Citroën.

And, as far as she could tell, no one remarked her presence as she crossed the road towards the car or, if they did, they made no song and dance about it which, as far as Cecile was concerned, amounted to the same thing. She opened the car, glanced forwards and back to make sure she was unobserved, slid into the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition and cried out more in fright than in pain as a large and vice-like hand closed around her neck.

The grip eased and she turned slowly round. Maca was kneeling on the floor at the back. He was smiling in a not very encouraging fashion and he had a large knife in his right hand.

CHAPTER 9

The hot afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on the baking plains beneath, on the
étangs,
on the marshes, on the salt-flats and the occasional contrasting patches of bright green vegetation. A shimmering haze characteristic of the Camargue rose off the plains and gave a curiously ethereal quality, a strange lack of definition, to all the features of the landscape, an illusion enhanced by the fact that none of those features was possessed of any vertical element. All plains are flat, but none as flat as the Camargue.

Half-a-dozen horsemen on steaming horses galloped furiously across the plain. From the air, their method of progress must have seemed peculiar and puzzling in the extreme as the horses seldom galloped more than twenty yards in a straight line and were continuously swerving off course. But seen at ground level the mystery disappeared: the area was so covered with numerous marshes, ranging from tiny little patches to areas larger than a football field, that it made continuous progress in a direct line impossible.

Bowman was at a disadvantage and knew it. He was at a disadvantage on three counts: he was, as his strained face showed and the blood-stains and dirt-streaks could not conceal, as exhausted as ever – this full-stretch gallop, involving continuous twisting and turning, offered no possibility of recuperating any strength – his mind was as far below its decision-making best as his body was of executing those decisions: his pursuers knew the terrain intimately whereas he was a complete stranger to it: and, fairly accomplished horseman though he considered himself to be, he knew he could not even begin to compare with the expertise his pursuers had developed and refined almost from the cradle.

Constantly he urged his now flagging horse on but made little or no attempt to guide it as the sure-footed animal, abetted by experience and generations of inborn instinct, knew far better than he did where the ground was firm and where it was not. Occasionally he lost precious seconds in trying to force his horse to go in certain directions when his horse balked and insisted on choosing his own path.

Bowman looked over his shoulder. It was hopeless, in his heart he knew it was hopeless. When he had left Mas de Lavignolle he had had a lead of several hundred yards over his pursuers: now it was down to just over fifty. The five men behind him were spread out in a shallow fan shape. In the middle was El Brocador who was clearly as superb a horseman as he was a
razateur.
It was equally clear that he had an intimate knowledge of the terrain as from time to time he shouted orders and gestured with an outflung arm to indicate the direction a certain rider should go. On El Brocador's left rode Czerda and Ferenc, still heroically bandaged: on his right rode Simon Searl, an incongruous sight indeed in his clerical garb, and a gypsy whom Bowman could not identify.

Bowman looked ahead again. He could see no sign of succour, no house, no farm, no lonely horseman, nothing: and by this time he had been driven, not, he was grimly aware, without good reason, so far to the west that the cars passing on the main Arles-Saintes-Maries road were no more than little black beetles crawling along the line of the horizon.

He looked over his shoulder again. Thirty yards now, not more. They were no longer riding in a fan shape but were almost in line ahead, bearing down on his left, forcing him now to alter his own line of flight to the right. He was aware that this was being done with some good purpose in mind but, looking ahead, he could see nothing to justify this move. The land ahead appeared as normally variegated as the terrain he had just crossed: there was, directly ahead, an unusually large patch of almost dazzling green turf, perhaps a hundred yards by thirty wide, but, size apart, it was in no way different from scores of others he had passed in the last two or three miles.