Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur. Страница 8

"For Chrissake, be careful with that goddamn piece,"

Flynn bellowed too late. The rifle fired, and the recoil toppled Sebastian sprawling onto the pile of ivory behind him. The canoe rocked dangerously while the paddlers struggled to keep it from capsizing, and then disappeared around the bend.

Twelve hours later, the canoes reappeared around the same bend, and headed towards the lone monkey-bean tree on the bank. The canoes rode lightly, empty of ivory, and the paddlers were singing one of the old river chants.

Freshly shaved, wearing a clean shirt and his other pair of boots, a case of Flynn's liquor between his knees, Sebastian peered eagerly ahead for his first glimpse of the big American.

A fine blue tendril of camp-fire smoke smeared out across the river, but there were no figures waving a welcome from the bank. Suddenly Sebastian frowned as he realized that the silhouette of the monkey-bean tree had altered. He wrinkled his eyes, peering ahead uncertainly.

Behind him rang the first cry of alarm from his boatmen.

"Allemand!"And the canoe swerved under him.

He glanced back and saw the other canoes wheel away in tight circles aime downstream, the boatmen jabbering in terror as they leaned forward to thrust against the paddles.

His own canoe was in swift pursuit of the others as they darted beyond the bend.

"Hey!" Sebastian shouted at the sweat-shiny backs of his paddlers. "What do you think you're doing?"

They gave him no answer but the muscles beneath their black skins bunched and rippled in their frantic efforts to drive the canoe faster.

"Stop that immediately!" Sebastian yelled at them. "Take me back, dash it all. Take me to the camp."

In desperation Sebastian lifted the rifle and aimed at the nearest man. "I'm not joking," he yelled again. The native glanced over his shoulder into the gaping twin muzzles and his face, already twisted with fear, now convulsed into a mask of terror. They had all developed a healthy reverence for the way Sebastian handled that rifle.

The man stopped paddling, and one by one the others followed his example. Sitting frozen under the hypnotic eyes of Sebastian's rifle.

"Back!" said Sebastian and gestured eloquently upstream.

Reluctantly the man nearest him dipped his paddle and the canoe turned broadside across the current. "Back!" Sebastian repeated and the men dipped again.

Slowly, warily, the single canoe crept upstream towards the monkey-bean tree and the grotesque new fruit that hung from its branches.

The hull slid in onto the firm mud and Sebastian stepped ashore.

"Oud" he ordered the boatmen and gestured again. He wanted them well away from the canoe for he knew that, otherwise, the moment his back was turned they would set off downstream again with renewed enthusiasm. "Oud" and he herded them up the steep bank into Flynn O'Flynn's camp.

The two bearers who had died of gunshot wounds lay beside the smouldering fire. But the four men in the monkey bean tree had been less fortunate. The ropes had cut deeply into the flesh of their necks and their faces were swollen, mouths wide in the last breath that had never been taken. On the lolling tongues the flies crawled like metallic green bees.

"Cut them down!" Sebastian roused himself from the nausea that was bubbling queasily up from his stomach. The boatmen stood paralysed and Sebastian felt anger now mixed with his revulsion. Roughly he shoved one of the men towards the tree. "Cut them down," he repeated, and thrust the handle of his hunting knife into the man's hand.

Sebastian turned away as the native shinned up into the fork of the tree with the knife blade clamped between his teeth. Behind him he heard the heavy meaty thuds as the dead men dropped from the tree. Again his stomach heaved, and he concentrated on his search of the trampled grass around the camp.

"Flynn!" he called softly. "Flynn. I say Flynn! Where are you?" There were the prints of hobnailed boots in the soft earth, and at one place he stooped and picked up the shiny brass cylinder of an empty cartridge case. Stamped into the metal of the base around the detonator cap were the words Mauser Fabriken.

"Flynn!" more urgently now as the horror of it came home to him. "Flynn!" and he heard the grass rustle near him. He swung towards it, half raising the rifle.

"Master!" and Sebastian felt disappointment swoop in his chest.

"Mohammed. Is that you, Mohammed?" and he recognized the wizened little figure with the eternal fez perched on the woolly head as it emerged. Flynn's chief gun-boy, the only one with a little English.

"Mohammed," with relief, and then quickly, Fini? Where is Fini?"

"They shot him, master. The Askari came in the early morning before the sun. Fini was washing. They shot him and he fell into the water."

"Where? Show me where."

Below the camp, a few yards from where the canoe was drawn up, they found the pathetic little bundle of Flynn's clothing. Beside it was a half-consumed cake of cheap soap and a metal hand-mirror. There were the deep imprints of naked feet in the mud, and Mohammed stooped and broke off one of the green reeds at the water's edge. Wordlessly he handed it to Sebastian. A drop of blood had dried black on the leaf, and it crumbled as Sebastian touched it with his thumb-nail.

"We must find him. He might still be alive. Call the others. We'll search the banks downstream."

In an agony of loss, Sebastian picked up Flynn's soiled shirt and crumpled it in his fist.