The analogy was received with much amusement.
‘Those tractors don’t look big enough to weigh forty tons,’ he was prompted.
‘They carry ballast. Steel plates embedded in concrete. We have to have some counterbalance for the weight of the load or the transporter will overrun the tractors – especially on the hills. Negotiating hill country is very tricky.’
‘How fast will you go?’
Kemp took over now. ‘On the flat with all tractors hooked up I dare say we could push along to almost twenty miles an hour, even more going downhill. But we won’t. Five hundred and fifty tons going at twenty miles an hour takes a lot of stopping, and we don’t take risks. I don’t think we’ll do much more than ten miles an hour during any part of the journey, and usually much less. Our aim is to average five miles an hour during a ten hour day; twenty days from Port Luard to Bir Oassa.’
This drew whistles of disbelief and astonishment. In this age of fast transport, it was interesting that extreme slowness could exert the same fascination as extreme speed. It also interested me to notice that Nyala had not yet converted its thinking to the metric unit as far as distances were concerned.
‘How many wheels does it have?’
Hammond said, ‘Ninety-six on the ground and eight spares.’
‘How many punctures do you expect?’
‘None – we hope.’ This drew a laugh.
‘What’s the other big truck?’
‘That’s the vehicle which carries the airlift equipment and the machinery for powering it,’ said Kemp. ‘We use it to spread the load when crossing bridges, and it works on the hovercraft principle. It’s powered by four two hundred and forty-hp Rolls Royce engines – and that vehicle itself weighs eight tons.’
‘And the others?’
‘Spares, a workshop for maintenance, food and personal supplies, fuel. We have to take everything with us, you see.’
There was a stir as an aide came forward to whisper something into Daondo’s ear. He raised his hand and his voice. ‘Gentlemen, that will be all for now, thank you. I invite you all to gather round this great and marvellous machine for its dedication by His Excellency, the Minister of the Interior, the Right Honourable Hamah Ousemane, OBE.’ He touched me on the arm. ‘This way, please.’
As we followed him I heard Hammond saying to Kemp, ‘What’s he going to do? Crack a bottle of champagne over it?’
I grinned back at him. ‘Did you really design this thing?’
‘I designed some modifications to a standard rig, yes.’
Kemp said, ‘Ben built a lot of it, too.’
I was impressed. ‘For a little guy you sure play with big toys.’
Hammond stiffened and looked at me with hot eyes. Clearly I had hit on a sore nerve. ‘I’m five feet two and a half inches tall,’ he said curtly. ‘And that’s the exact height of Napoleon.’
‘No offence meant,’ I said quickly, and then we all came to a sudden stop at the rig to listen to Ousemane’s speech. He spoke first in English and then in Nyalan for a long time in a rolling, sonorous voice while the sun became hotter and everybody wilted. Then came some ribbon cutting and handshakes all round, some repeated for the benefit of the press, and finally he took himself off in his Mercedes. Kemp mopped his brow thankfully. ‘Do you think we can get on with it now?’ he asked nobody in particular.
Daondo was bustling back to us. In the background a surprising amount of military deployment was taking place, and there was an air of expectancy building up. ‘Excellent, Mister Kemp! We are all ready to go now,’ Daondo said. ‘You will couple up all the tractors, won’t you?’
Kemp turned to me and said in a harassed undertone, ‘What for? We won’t be doing more than five miles an hour on the flat and even one tractor’s enough for that.’
I was getting a bit tired of Kemp and his invincible ignorance and I didn’t want Daondo to hear him and blow a gasket. I smiled past Kemp and said, ‘Of course. Everything will be done as you wish it, Minister.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I must get to Independence Square before you arrive. I leave Captain Sadiq in command of the arrangements.’ He hurried away to his car.
I said to Kemp, putting an edge on my voice, ‘We’re expected to put on a display and we’ll do it. Use everything you’ve got. Line ’em up, even the chow wagon. Until we leave town it’s a parade every step of the way.’
‘Who starts this parade?’
‘You do – just tell your drivers to pull off in line whenever they’re ready. The others will damn well have to fall in around you. I’ll ride with you in the Land Rover.’
Kemp shrugged. ‘Bunch of clowns,’ he said and went off to give his drivers their instructions. For the moment I actually had nothing to do and I wandered over to have another look at the rig. It’s a funny thing, but whenever a guy looks at a vehicle he automatically kicks a tyre. Ask any second-hand auto salesman. So that’s what I did. It had about as much effect as kicking a building and was fairly painful. The tyres were all new, with deep tread earthmovers on the tractors. The whole rig looked brand new, as if it had never been used before, and I couldn’t decide if this was a good or a bad thing. I squinted up at it as it towered over me, remembering the one time I had towed a caravan and had it jackknife on me, and silently tipped my hat to the drivers of this outfit. They were going to need skill and luck in equal proportions on this trip.
Kemp drew up beside me in the Land Rover with a driver and I swung in the back. There was a lot of crosstalk going on with walkie-talkies, and a great deal of bustle and activity all around us.
‘All right, let’s get rolling,’ Kemp said into the speaker. ‘Take station on me, Ben: about three mph and don’t come breathing down my neck.’ He then said much the same thing into his car radio as drivers climbed into cabs and the vast humming roar of many engines began throbbing. Captain Sadiq rolled up alongside us in the back of an open staff car and saluted smartly.
‘I will lead the way, Mister Kemp. Please to follow me,’ he said.
‘Please keep your speed to mine, Captain,’ Kemp said.
‘Of course, sir. But please watch me carefully too. I may have to stop at some point. You are all ready?’
Kemp nodded and Sadiq pulled away. Kemp was running down a roster of drivers, getting checks from each of them, and then at last signalled his own driver to move ahead in Sadiq’s wake. I would have preferred to be behind the rig, but had to content myself with twisting in the rear seat of the car to watch behind me. To my astonishment something was joining in the parade that I hadn’t seen before, filtering in between Kemp and the rig, and at my sharp exclamation he turned to see for himself and swore.
The army was coming in no half measures. Two recoilless guns, two mortars and two heavy machine guns mounted on appropriate vehicles came forward, followed by a tank and at least two troop carriers. ‘Good God,’ said Kemp in horror, and gave hasty orders to his own driver, who swung us out of the parade and doubled back along the line of military newcomers. Kemp was speaking urgently to Sadiq on the radio.
‘I’ll rejoin after the army vehicles, Captain. I must stay with the rig!’
I grinned at him as he cut the Captain off in mid-sentence.
‘They’re armed to the teeth,’ he said irritably. ‘Why the hell didn’t he warn me about all this?’
‘Maybe the crowds here are rougher than in England,’ I said, looking with fascination at the greatly enhanced parade streaming past us.
‘They’re