By the end of the week only two men had in their heads the knowledge of what really lay inside the Crystal Mountain. One had given his word to his wife to remain silent forever, and the other was plotting his next move.
five
Simon Endean entered Sir James Manson’s office with a bulky file containing his hundred-page report on the republic of Zangaro, a dossier of large photographs, and several maps. He told his chief what he had brought.
Manson nodded his approval. “No one learned while you were putting all this together who you were or who you worked for?” he asked.
“No, Sir James. I used a pseudonym, and no one questioned it.”
“And no one in Zangaro could have learned that a file of data could have been put together about them?”
“No. I used existing archives, sparse though they are, some university libraries here and in Europe, standard works of reference, and the one tourist guide published by Zangaro itself, although in fact this is a leftover from colonial days and five years out-of-date. I always claimed I was simply seeking information for a graduate thesis on the entire African colonial and postcolonial situation. There will be no comebacks.”
“All right,” said Manson. “I’ll read the report later. Give me the main facts.”
For answer Endean took one of the maps from the file and spread it across the desk. It showed a section of the African coastline, with Zangaro marked.
“As you see, Sir James, it’s stuck like an enclave on the coast here, bordered on the north and east by this republic and on the short southern border by this one. The fourth side is the sea, here.
“It’s shaped like a matchbox, the short edge along the seacoast, the longer sides stretching inland. The borders were completely arbitrarily drawn in the old colonial days during the scramble for Africa, and merely represent lines on a map. On the ground there are no effective borders, and due to the almost complete nonexistence of roads there is only one border-crossing point—here, on the road leading north to the neighbor country, Manandi. All land traffic enters and leaves by this road.”
Sir James Manson studied the enclave on the map and grunted. “What about the eastern and southern borders?”
“No road, sir. No way in or out at all, unless you cut straight through the jungle, and in most places it is impenetrable bush.
“Now, in size it has seven thousand square miles, being seventy miles along the coast and a hundred miles deep into the hinterland. The capital, Clarence, named after the sea captain who first put in there for freshwater two hundred years ago, is here, in the center of the coast, thirty-five miles from the northern and southern borders.”
“Behind the capital lies a narrow coastal plain, which is the only cultivated area in the country, apart from the bush natives’ tiny clearings in the jungle. Behind the plain lies the river Zangaro, then the foothills of the Crystal Mountains, the mountains themselves, and beyond that, miles and miles of jungle up to the eastern border.”
“How about other communications?” asked Manson.
“There are virtually no roads at all,” said Endean. “The river Zangaro flows from the northern border fairly close to the coast across most of the republic until it reaches the sea just short of the southern border. On the estuary there are a few jetties and a shanty or two, which constitute a small port for the exporting of timber. But there are no wharves, and the timber businesses have virtually ceased since independence. The fact that the Zangaro River flows almost parallel to the coast, slanting in toward it, for sixty miles, in effect cuts the republic in two; there is this strip of coastal plain to the seaward side of the river, ending in mangrove swamps which make the whole coast unapproachable by shipping or small boats, and the hinterland beyond the river. East of the river are the mountains, and beyond them the hinterland. The river could be used for barge traffic, but no one is interested. Manandi has a modern capital on the coast with a deep-water harbor, and the Zangaro River itself ends in a silted-up estuary.”
“What about the timber-exporting operations? How were they carried out?”
Endean took a larger-scale map of the republic out of the file and laid it on the table. With a pencil he tapped the Zangaro estuary in the south of Zangaro.
“The timber used to be cut up-country, either along the banks or in the western foothills of the mountains. There’s still quite good timber there, but since independence no one is interested. The logs were floated downriver to the estuary and parked there. When the ships came they would anchor offshore and the log rafts were towed out to them by power boats. Then they hoisted the logs aboard by using their own derricks. It always was a tiny operation.”
Manson stared intently at the large-scale map taking in the seventy miles of coast, the river running almost parallel to it twenty miles inland, the strip of impenetrable mangrove swamp between the river and the sea, and the mountains behind the river. He could identify the Crystal Mountain but made no mention of it.
“What about the main roads? There must be some.”
Endean warmed to his explanation. “The capital is stuck on the seaward end of a short, stubby peninsula here, midway down the coast. It faces toward the open sea. There’s a small port, the only real one in the country, and behind the town the peninsula runs back to join the main landmass. There is one road which runs down the spine of the peninsula and six miles inland, going straight east. Then there is the junction—here. A road runs to the right, heading south. It is laterite for seven miles, then becomes an earth road for the next twenty. Then it peters out on the banks of the Zangaro estuary.
“The other branch turns left and runs north, through the plain west of the river and onward to the northern border. Here there is a crossing point manned by a dozen sleepy and corrupt soldiers. A couple of travelers told me they can’t read a passport anyway, so they don’t know whether there is a visa in it or not. You just bribe them a couple of quid to get through.”
“What about the road into the hinterland?” asked Sir James.
Endean pointed with his finger. “It’s not even marked, it’s so small. Actually, if you follow the north-running road after the junction, go along it for ten miles, there is a turnoff to the right, toward the hinterland. It’s an earth road. It crosses the remainder of the plain and then the Zangaro River, on a rickety wooden bridge—”
“So that bridge is the only communication between the two parts of the country on either side of the river?” asked Manson in wonderment.
Endean shrugged. “It’s the only crossing for wheeled traffic. But there is hardly any wheeled traffic. The natives cross the Zangaro by canoe.”
Manson changed the subject, though his eyes never left the map. “What about the tribes who live there?”
“There are two,” said Endean. “East of the river and right back to the end of the hinterland is the country of the Vindu. For that matter, more Vindu live over the eastern border. I said the borders were arbitrary. The Vindu are practically in the Stone Age. They seldom, if ever, cross the river and leave their bush country. The plain to the west of the river and down to the sea, including the peninsula on which the capital stands, is the country of the Caja. They hate the Vindu, and vice versa.”