The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur. Страница 7

could be exciting.

"I hope they know about us." Mike Haig lit his cigarette with a show of

nonchalance, but he peered over it anxiously at the piles of fresh earth

on each side of the tracks that marked the position of emplacements.

"These boys have got bazookas, and they're Irish Arabs," muttered

Ruffy. "I reckon it's the maddest kind of Arabs there is - Irish. How

would you like a bazooka bomb up your throat, boss?"

"No, thanks, Ruffy," Bruce declined, and pressed the button of the

radio.

"Hendry!" In the leading truck Wally Hendry picked up his set and,

holding it against his chest, looked back at Bruce.

"Curry?"

"Tell your gunners to stand away from the Brens, and the rest of them to

lay down their rifles."

"Right Bruce watched him relaying the order, pushing them back, moving

among the gendarmes who

crowded the forward trucks. Bruce could sense the air of tension that

had fallen over the whole train, watched as his gendarmes reluctantly

laid down their weapons and stood empty handed staring sullenly ahead at

the U.N. barrier.

"Drived" Bruce spoke again into the radio. "Slow down.

Stop fifty metres this side of the barrier. But if there is any shooting

open the throttle and take us straight through."

"Oui, monsieur." Ahead of them there was no sign of a reception

committee, only the hostile barrier of poles and petrol drums across the

line.

Bruce stood upon the roof and lifted his arms above his head in a

gesture of neutrality. It was a mistake; the movement changed the

passive mood of the gendarmes in the trucks below him. One of them

lifted his arms also, but his fists were clenched.

"U. N. - merde!" he shouted, and immediately the cry was taken up.

"U. N. - merde! U.N. - merde!" They chanted the war cry - laughing at

first, but then no longer laughing, their voices rising sharply.

"Shut up, damn you," Bruce roared and swung his open hand against the

head of the gendarme beside him, but the man hardly noticed it.

His eyes were glazing with the infectious hysteria to which the African

is so susceptible; he had snatched up his rifle and was holding it

across his chest; already his body was beginning to jerk convulsively

as he chanted.

Bruce hooked his fingers under the rim of the man's steel helmet and

yanked it forward over his eyes so the back of his neck was exposed; he

chopped him with a judo blow and the gendarme slumped forward over the

sandbags, his rifle slipping from his hands.

Bruce looked up desperately; in the trucks. below him the hysteria was

spreading.

"Stop them - Hendry, de Surrier! Stop them for God's sake." But his

voice was lost in the chanting.

A gendarme snatched up his rifle from where it lay at his feet; Bruce

saw him elbow his way towards the side of the truck to begin firing; he

was working the slide to lever a round into the breech.

"Mwembe!" Bruce shouted the gendarme's name, but his voice could not

penetrate the uproar.

In two seconds the whole situation would dissolve into a pandemonium of

tracer and bazooka fire.

Poised on the forward edge of the roof, Bruce checked for an instant to

judge the distance, and then he jumped.

He landed squarely on the gendarme's shoulders, his weight throwing the

man forward so his face hit the steel edge of the truck, and they went

down together on to the floor.

The gendarme's finger was resting on the trigger and the rifle fired as

it spun from his hands. A complete hush followed the roar of the rifle

and in it Bruce scrambled to his feet, drawing his pistol from the

canvas holster on his hip.

"All right he panted, menacing the men around him.

"Come on, give me a chance to use this!" He picked out one of his

sergeants and held his eyes. "You! I'm waiting for you - start

shooting!" At the sight of the revolver the man relaxed slowly and the

madness faded from his face. He dropped his eyes and shuffled awkwardly.

Bruce glanced up at Ruffy and Haig on the roof, and raised his voice.

"Watch them. Shoot the first one who starts it again."

"Okay, boss." Ruffy thrust forward the automatic rifle in his hands.

"Who's it going to be?" he asked cheerfully, looking down at them. But

the mood had changed. Their V

Awl attitudes of defrance gave way to sheepish embarrassment and a small

buzz of conversation filled the silence.

"Mike," Bruce yelled, urgent again. "Call the driver, he's trying to

take us through!" The noise of their passage had risen, the driver

accelerating at the sound of the shot, and now they were racing down

towards the U.N. barrier.

Mike Haig grabbed the set, shouted an order into it, and immediately the

brakes swooshed and the train jolted to a halt not a hundred yards short

of the barrier.

Slowly Bruce clambered back on to the roof of the coach.

"Close?" asked Mike.

"My God!" Bruce shook his head, and lit a cigarette with slightly

unsteady hands. "Another fifty yards-!" Then he turned and stared coldly

down at his gendarmes.

"Canaille! Next time you try to commit suicide don't take me with you."

The gendarme he had knocked down was now sitting up, fingering the ugly

black swelling above his eye. "My friend," Bruce turned on him, "later I

will have something for your further discomfort!" Then to the other man

in the emplacement beside him who was massaging his neck, "And for you

also! Take their names, Sergeant Major."

"Sir!" growled

Ruffy.

"Mike." Bruce's voice changed, soft again. "I'm going ahead to

toss the blarney with our friends behind the bazookas. When I give you

the signal bring the train through."

"You don't want me to come with you?" asked Mike.

"No, stay here." Bruce picked up his rifle, stung it over his shoulder,

dropped down the ladder on to the path beside the tracks, and walked

forward with the gravel crunching beneath his boots.

An auspicious beginning to the expedition, he decided grimly, tragedy

averted by the wink of an eye before they had even passed the outskirts

of the city.

At least the Mickies hadn't added a few bazooka bombs to the

altercation. Bruce peered ahead, and could make out the shape of helmets

behind the earthworks.

Without the breeze of the train's passage it was hot again, and

Bruce felt himself starting to sweat.

"Stay where you are, Mister." A deep brogue from the emplacement nearest

the tracks; Bruce stopped, standing on the wooden crossties in the sun.

Now he could see the faces of the men beneath the helmets:

unfriendly, not smiling.

"What was the shooting for?" the voice questioned.

"We had an accident."

"Don't have any more or we might have one also."

"I'd not be wanting that, Paddy." Bruce smiled thinly, and the

Irishman's voice had an edge to it as he went on.

"What's your mission?"

"I have a pass, do you want to see it?"

Bruce took the folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket.

"What's your mission?" repeated the Irishman.

"Proceed to Port Reprieve and relieve the town." & "We know about