Текст книги "Power of the Sword"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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They trudged forward and every pace required a conscious effort. Centaine's tongue filled her mouth, thick and leathery, and the mucous membrane of her throat and nostrils was swollen and painful so that it was difficult to breathe. She tried to collect her saliva and hold it in her mouth, but it was gummy and sour, serving only to make her thirst more poignant.

She had forgotten what it was like to be truly thirsty, and the soft sloshing sound of the water bottles on the saddle of the horse she was leading became a torment, She could think of nothing but when they would next be allowed to drink. She kept glancing at her wrist-watch, convincing herself that it had stopped, that she had forgotten to wind it, that at any moment Blaine would lift his arm to halt the column and they could unscrew the stoppers on the water bottles.

Nobody spoke from choice. All orders were terse and monosyllabic, every word an effort.

I won't be the first to give in, Centaine decided grimly, and then she was alarmed that the thought had even occurred to her. 'Nobody will give in. We have to catch them before the river and the river is not far ahead. She found she was focusing only on the earth at her feet, interest in her surroundings, and she knew that was losing a dangerous sign, the first small surrender. She forced herself to look up. Blaine was ahead of her. She had fallen back in those few paces, and she made a huge effort and dragged her horse forward until she was side by side with him again.

Immediately she felt heartened, she had won another victory over her body's frailty.

Blaine smiled at her, but she saw that it had cost him an

effort also. Those kopjes are not marked on the map, he said.

She had not noticed them, but now she looked up and a mile ahead saw their smooth bald granite heads raised above the forest. She had never been this far north; it was new territory for her.

I don't think this country has ever been surveyed, she whispered, and then cleared her throat and spoke more clearly. Only the river itself has been mapped., We will drink when we reach the foot of the nearest hill, he promised her.

A carrot for the donkey, she murmured, and he grinned.

Think about the river. That is a garden full of carrots. And they relapsed into silence; the Bushmen led them directly towards the hills. At the base of the granite cone they found the last of Lothar De La Rey's horses.

It lay on its side, but it lifted its head as they walked up to it. Blaine's mare whickered softly, and the downed animal tried to reply but the effort was too much. It dropped its head flat against the earth and its short hampered breathing raised tiny wisps of dust that swirled around its nostrils.

The Bushmen circled the dying animal and then conferred excitedly.

Kwi ran a short way towards the grey side of the kopje and looked up.

They all followed his example, staring up the steep rounded expanse of granite. It was two or three hundred feet high. The surface was not as smooth as it had appeared at a distance. There were deep cracks, some lateral, others running vertically from the foot to the summit, and the granite was flaking away in the onion peel effect caused by heat expansion and contraction. This left small sharp-edged steps which would give footholds and make it possible for a man to reach the top, though it would be an exposed and potentially dangerous climb.

On the summit a cluster of perfectly round boulders, each the size of a large dwelling house, formed a symmetrical crown. The whole was one of those natural compositions so artful and contrived that it seemed to have been conceived and executed by human engineers. Centaine was strongly reminded of the dolmens which she had visited as a child in France, or of one of those ancient Mayan temples in the South American jungles which she had seen illustrated.

Blaine had left her side and led his mount towards the foot of the granite cliff, and something on the crest of the kopje caught Centaine's eye. It was a flicker of movement in the shadow beneath one of the crowning boulders on the summit, and she shouted a warning.

Blaine, be careful! On the top, He was standing at his horse's head with the reins over his shoulder, staring upwards. But before he could respond to her warning there was a thud as though a sack of wheat had been dropped on a stone floor. Centaine did not recognize the sound as a high-velocity bullet striking living flesh until Blaine's horse staggered, its front legs collapsed and it dropped heavily, dragging Blaine with it.

Centaine was stunned until she heard the whiplash crack of the Mauser from the summit of the kopje and she realized that the bullet had reached them before the sound.

All around her the troopers were shouting and wrestling with their panicking horses, and Centaine spun and vaulted for the saddle of her own mount. With one hand on the pommel and without touching the stirrup irons she was up, dragging the horse's head around.

Blaine, I'm coming, she screamed. He had scrambled to his feet beside the carcass of his horse, and she rode for him.

Grab my stirrup, she called, and the Mausers up on the hill were cracking bullets amongst them. She saw Sergeant Hansmeyer's horse shot dead beneath him and he was pitched headlong from the saddle.

Blaine ran to meet her and seized her dangling stirrup. She turned the horse and heeled him into a full gallop, pumping the reins, heading back for the sparse cover of the mopani two hundred yards behind them.

Blaine was swinging on the stirrup leather, his feet skimming the ground, making giant strides as he kept level with her.

Are you all right? she yelled.

Keep going! His voice strained at the effort and she looked back under her arm. The gunfire still crackled and snapped around them. One of the troopers turned back to help Sergeant Hansmeyer, but as he reached him a bullet hit his horse in the head and it crashed over and flung the trooper sprawling to earth.

They are picking off the horses! Centaine cried, as she realized that hers was the only animal still unscathed. All the others were down, killed with a single shot in the head for each of them. It was superb marksmanship, for the men on the summit were firing downhill at a range of one hundred and fifty paces or more.

Ahead of her Centaine saw a shallow ravine that she had not noticed before. There was a tangle of fallen dead mopani branches upon the nearest bank, a natural palisade, and she rode for it, forcing her winded horse down the bank in a scrambling leap and then immediately springing down and seizing his head to control him.

Blaine had been dragged off his feet and had rolled down the bank, but he pulled himself up. I walked into that ambush like a greenhorn, he snarled, angry at himself. Too bloody tired to think straight. He jerked the rifle out of the scabbard on Centaine's saddle and climbed quickly to the lip of the bank.

Ahead of him the dead horses lay below the steep smooth slope of the kopje, and Sergeant Hansmeyer and his troopers were dodging and jinking as they sprinted back for the cover of the ravine. Mauser-fire crackled, kicking up spouts of yellow dust about their feet, and they winced and ducked at the implosion of air in their eardrums as passing shot whipped about their heads.

Magically the Bushmen had disappeared, like little brown leprechauns, at the first shot. Centaine knew they would not see them again. Already they were on their way back to join their clan at O'chee Pan.

Blaine pushed up the rear sight of the Lee Enfield to four hundred yards and aimed for the crest of the kopje, where a feather of drifting blue gun-smoke betrayed the hi gunmen. He fired as fast as he could work the bolt, spraying bullets to cover the fleeing troopers, watching white chips of granite burst from the skyline of the kopje as the raking fire withered away. He snatched a clip of ammunition from his bandolier and pressed the brass cartridges into the open breech of the hot rifle, slammed the bolt shut and flung the weapon to his shoulder, and poured fire up at the marksmen on the crest of the kopje.

one by one Hansmeyer and his troopers reached the ravine and tumbled into it, sweating and panting wildly. With grim satisfaction Blaine noticed that each of them had carried his rifle with him, and they wore their bandoliers strapped across their chests, seventy-five rounds a man.

They shot the horses in the head but never touched a man. Hansmeyer's breathing whistled in his throat as he struggled with the words.

They never fired a shot near me, Centaine blurted. Lothar must have taken great care not to endanger her. She realized with a tremor just how easily he could have put a bullet into the back of her skull as she fled.

Blaine was reloading the Lee Enfield, but he looked up and smiled bumourlessly. The fellow is no idiot. He knows that he has shot his bolt, and he is not looking to add murder to the long list of the charges against him. He looked at Hansmeyer. How many men on the kopje? he demanded.

I don't know, Hansmeyer answered. But there is more than one. The rate of fire was too much for one man, and I heard shots overlapping. All right, let's find out how many there are. Blaine beckoned Centaine and Hansmeyer up beside him and explained.

Centaine took his binoculars and moved down the ravine until she was well out on the flank and below a dense tuft of grass which grew on the lip of the ravine. She used the tuft as a screen and raised her head until she could make out the summit of the kopje. She cused the binoculars and called Ready! Blaine had his helmet on the ramrod of his rifle, and he lifted it and Hansmeyer fired two shots into the air to draw the attention of the marksmen on the kopje.

Almost immediately the answering fusillade crackled from the hilltop. More than one shot fired simultaneously, and dust kicked off the lip of the ravine inches from the khaki helmet while ricochet howled away over the mopani trees.

Two or three, Hansmeyer called.

Three, Centaine confirmed, lowering the binoculars as she ducked down. I saw three heads., Good. Blaine nodded. We've got them then, just a matter of time. Blaine. Centaine loosened the strap of her water bottle from the saddle. That's all we have got., She shook the bottle, and it was less than a quarter full. They all stared at it, and involuntarily Blaine licked his lips.

We will be able to recover the other bottles, just as soon as it's dark, he assured them, and then briskly, Sergeant, take two troopers with you, try and work your way around the other side of the kopje. Make sure nobody leaves by the back door. Lothar De La Rey sat propped against one of the huge round granite boulders at the top of the kopje. He sat in the shade, with the Mauser across his lap. He was bare-headed and his long golden hair blew softly across his forehead.

He stared out towards the south, across the plain and the scattered mopani forest, in the direction from which the relentless pursuit would come. The climb up the sheer granite wall had taxed him severely and he was not yet recovered from it.

Leave me one water bottle, he ordered and Hendrick placed it beside him.

I have filled it from those, Hendrick indicated the pile of discarded, empty water bottles. And we have a full bottle to see us as far as the river. Good. Lothar nodded and checked the other equipment laid out beside him on the granite slab.

that was There were four hand grenades, the old potato masher type with a wooden handle. They had lain in the cache with the horse irons and other equipment for almost twenty years and he could not rely upon them.

Klein Boy had left his rifle and his bandolier of Mauser ammunition with the grenades. So Lothar had two rifles and 150 rounds – more than enough, if the grenades worked. If they didn't it wouldn't matter anyway.

All right, Lothar said quietly. I have everything I need.

You can go. Hendrick turned his cannonball of a head to peer into the south. They were on a grandstand, high above the world, and the sweep of their horizon was twenty miles or more, but there was as yet no sign of the pursuit.

Hendrick started to rise to his feet, and then paused. He squinted into the heat haze and the glare. Dust! he said. It was still five miles away, a pale haze above the trees.

Yes. Lothar had seen it minutes before. It could be a herd of zebra, or a willy willy, but I wouldn't bet my share of the loot on it.

Move out now. Hendrick did not obey immediately. He stared into the white man's sapphire-yellow eyes.

Hendrick had not argued nor protested when Lothar had explained what they must do. It was right, it was logical.

They had always left their wounded, often with just a pistol at hand, for when the pain or the hyenas closed in. And yet, this time Hendrick felt the need to say something, but there were no words that could match the enormity of the moment. He knew he was leaving a part of his own LIFE upon this sun-blasted rock.

I will look after the boy, he said simply, and Lothar nodded.

I want to talk to Manie. He licked his dry, cracked lips and shivered briefly with the heat of the poison in his blood.

Wait for him at the bottom. It will take only a minute. Come. Hendrick jerked his head, and Klein Boy stood up beside him. Together they moved with the swiftness of hunting panthers to the cliff, and Klein Boy slipped over the edge. Hendrick paused and looked back. He raised his right hand.

Stay in peace, he said simply.

Go in peace, old friend, Lothar murmured. He had never called him friend before and Hendrick flinched at the word.

Then he turned his head so Lothar could not see his eyes, and a moment later he was gone.

Lothar stared after him for long seconds, then shook himself lightly, driving back the self-pity and the sickly sentiment and the fever mists which threatened to close in and unman him completely.

Manfred, he said, and the boy started. He had been sitting as close as he dared to his father, watching his face, hanging on every word, every gesture he made.

Pa, he whispered. I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to be without you., Lothar made an impatient gesture, hardening his features to hide this softness in him. You will do as I tell you. Pa, I You have never let me down before, Manie. I have been proud of you. Don't spoil it for me now. Don't let me find out that my son is a coward I'm not a coward! Then you will do what you have to do, he said harshly, and before Manfred could protest again he ordered, Bring me the haversack. Lothar placed the bag between his feet and with his good hand unbuckled the flap. He took one of the packages from it and tore open the heavy brown paper with his teeth. He spilled the stones into a small pile on the granite beside him and then spread them. He picked out ten of the biggest and whitest gems.

Take off your jacket, he ordered, and when Manfred handed the garment to him Lothar pierced a tiny hole in the lining with his clasp knife.

These stones will be worth thousands of pounds. Enough to see you full grown and educated, he said, as he stuffed them one at a time into the lining of the jacket with his forefinger.

But these others, there are too many, too heavy, too bulky to hide. Dangerous for you to carry them with you, a death warrant. He pushed himself to his feet with an effort.

Come! He led Manfred amongst the cluster of huge boulders, bracing himself against the rock to keep himself from falling while Manfred supported him from the other side.

Here! He grunted and lowered himself to his knees, Manfred squatting down beside him. At their feet the granite cap was cracked through as though split with a chisel. At the top the crack was only as wide as two hand-spans, but it was deep, they could not see the bottom of it though they peered down thirty feet or more. The crack narrowed gradually as it descended and the depths of it were lost in shadow.

Lothar dangled the haversack of diamonds over the aperture. Mark this place well, he whispered. Look back often when you go northwards so that you will remember this hill. The stones will be waiting for you when you need them. Lothar opened his fingers and the haversack dropped into the crack. They heard the canvas scraping against the sides of the granite cleft as it fell, and then silence as it jammed deep down in the narrow throat of the crack.

Side by side they peered down, and they could just make out the lighter colour and the contrasting texture of the canvas thirty feet down, but it would escape even the concentrated scrutiny of anyone who did not know exactly where to look for it.

That is my legacy to you, Manie, Lothar whispered, and crawled back from the aperture. All right, Hendrick is waiting for you. It is time for you to go. Go quickly now. He wanted to embrace his son for the last time, to kiss his eyes and his lips and press him to his heart, but he knew it would undo them both. If they clung to each other now, they could never bring themselves to part.

Go! he ordered, and Manfred sobbed and flung himself at his father.

I want to stay with you, he cried.

Lothar caught his wrist and held him at arm's length.

Do you want me to be ashamed? he snarled. Is that how you want me to remember you, snivelling like a girl? Pa, don't send me away, please. Let me stay. Lothar drew back, released his grip on Manfred's wrist and immediately whipped his open palm across his face and then swung back with his knuckles. The double slap knocked Manfred onto his haunches, leaving livid red blotches on his pale cheeks, and a tiny serpent of bright blood crawled from his nostril down over his upper lip. He stared at Lothar with shocked and incredulous eyes.

Get out of here, Lothar hissed at him, summoning all his courage and resolve to make his voice scornful and his expression savage. I won't have a blubbering little ninny hanging around my neck. Get out of here before I take the strap to you! Manfred scrambled to his feet and backed away, still staring with horrified disbelief at his father.

Go on! Get away! Lothar's expression never wavered, and his voice was angry and disdainful and unrelenting. Get out of here! Manfred turned and stumbled to the edge of the cliff.

There he turned once more and held out his hands. Pa!

Please don't, Go, damn you. Go! The boy scrambled over the edge, and the sounds of his clumsy descent dwindled into silence.

only then Lothar let his shoulders droop, and he sobbed once, then suddenly he was weeping silently, his whole body shaking.

It's the fever, he told himself. The fever has weakened me. But the image of his son's face, golden and beautiful and destroyed with grief, still filled his mind and he felt something tearing in his chest, an unbearable physical pain.

Forgive me, my son, he whispered through his tears. There was no other way to save you. Forgive me, I beg you. Lothar must have relapsed into unconsciousness, for he awoke with a start and could not remember where he was or how he had got there. Then the smell of his arm, sick and disgusting, brought it back to him, and he crawled to the edge of the cliff and looked out towards the south. He saw his pursuers then for the first time, and even at the distance of a mile or more he recognized the two wraith-like little figures that danced ahead of the column of horsemen.

Bushmen, he whispered. Now he understood how they had come so swiftly. She has put her tame Bushmen onto me. He realized then that there had never been any chance of throwing them off the spoor; all that time Lothar had used in covering their sign and in anti-tracking subterfuges had been wasted. The Bushmen had followed them with barely a check over the worst going and most treacherous tracking terrain.

Then he looked beyond the trackers an counted the number of men coming against him. Seven, he whispered, and his eyes narrowed as he tried to pick out a smaller feminine figure amongst them, but they were dismounted leading their horses and the intervening mopani obscured his vision.

He transferred all his attention from the approaching horsemen to his own preparations. His only concern now was to delay the pursuit as long as possible, and to convince the pursuers that all of his band were still together here upon the summit. Every hour he could win for them would give Hendrick and Manie just that much more chance of escape.

It was slow and awkward working with one hand, but he jammed Klein Boy's rifle into a niche of the granite with the muzzle pointing down towards the plain. He looped a strap from one of the water bottles over the trigger and led the other end to his chosen shooting stance in the shadows, protected by a flare of the granite ledge.

He had to pause for a minute to rest, for his vision was starring and breaking up into patches of blackness, and his legs felt too weak to support his weight. He peeped over the edge and the horsemen were much closer, on the point of emerging from the mopani forest into the open ground. Now he recognized Centaine, slim and boyish in her riding-breeches, and he could even make out the bright yellow speck of the scarf around her throat.

Despite the fever heat and the darkness in his head, despite his desperate circumstances, he still found a bitter-sweet admiration for her. By God, she never gives up, he muttered. She'll follow me over the other side to the frontiers of hell. He crawled to the pile of discarded water bottles and dragging them after him, arranged them in three separate piles along the lip of the ledge, and he knotted the leather straps together so that he could agitate all the piles simultaneously with a single twitch of the strap in his hand.

Nothing else I can do, he whispered, except shoot straight. But his head was throbbing and his vision danced with the hot mirage of his fever. Thirst was an agony in his throat and his body was a furnace.

He unscrewed the stopper on the water bottle and drank, carefully controlling himself, sipping and holding it in his mouth before swallowing. Immediately he felt better, and his vision firmed. He closed the water bottle and placed it beside him with the spare ammunition clips. Then he folded his jacket into a cushion on the lip of granite in front of him and laid the Mauser on top of it. The pursuers had reached the foot of the kopje and were clustered about his abandoned horse.

Lothar held up his good hand in front of his eyes with fingers extended. There was no tremor, it was steady as the rock on which he lay and he cuddled the butt of the Mauser in under his chin.

The horses, he reminded himself. They can't follow Manie without horses, and he drew a long breath, held it, and shot Blaine Malcomess chestnut mare in the centre of the white blaze.

As the echoes of the shot still bounced from the cliffs of the surrounding hills, Lothar flicked the bolt of the Mauser and fired again, but this time he jerked the strap attached to the other rifle and the report of the two shots overlapped.

The double report would deceive even an experienced soldier into believing there was more than one man on the summit.

Strangely, in this moment of deadly endeavour, the fever had receded. Lothar's vision was bright and clear, the sights of the Mauser starkly outlined against each target and his gun hand steady and precise as he swung the rifle from one horse to the next and sent each one crashing to earth with a head shot. Now they were all down except one: Centaine's mount.

He picked Centaine up in the field of his gunsight. She was galloping back towards the mopani, lying flat over her horse's neck, her elbows pumping, a man hanging from her stirrup, and Lothar lifted his forefinger from the curve of the trigger. It was an instinctive reaction; he could not bring himself to send a bullet anywhere near her.

Instead he swung the barrel away from her. The riders of the downed horses, all four of them, were straggling away towards the mopani. Their thin cries of panic carried to the summit. They were easy marks; he could have knocked them down with a single bullet for each, but instead he made it a game to see how close he could come without touching one of them. They ducked and cavorted as the Mauser fire whipped around them. It was comical, hilarious.

He was laughing as he worked the bolt, and suddenly he heard the wild hysterical quality of his laughter ringing hollowly in his own skull and he bit it off. I'm losing my head, he thought. Got to last it out. The last of the running men disappeared into the forest and he found himself shaking and sweating with reaction.

Got to be ready, he encouraged himself. Got to think.

Can't stop now. Can't let go. He crawled to the second rifle and reloaded it, then rolled back to his shooting stance in the shadow of the summit boulders.

Now they are going to try and mark me, he guessed.

They'll draw fire and watch for– He saw the helmet being offered invitingly above the lip of the ravine at the edge of the forest and grinned. That was a hoary old trick; even the red-necked pommy soldiers had learned not to fall for it as far back as the opening years of the Boer War. It was almost insulting that they should try to entice him with it now.

All right then! he taunted them. We'll see who foxes who? He fired both rifles simultaneously, and a moment later jerked the straps attached to the piles of empty water bottles.

At that range the movement of the round felt-covered bottles would show against the skyline just like the heads of hidden riflemen.

Now they will send men to circle the hill, he guessed, and watched for movement amongst the trees on his flanks, the Mauser ready, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear them.

Five hours until dark, he told himself. Hendrick and Manie will be at the river by dawn tomorrow. Got to hold them until then. He saw a flash of movement out on the right flank: men crouching and running forward in short bursts, outflanking the kopje, and he aimed for the trunks over their heads.

Mauser fire whiplashed and bark exploded from the mopani, leaving wet white wounds on the standing timber.

Keep your heads down, myne heeren! Lothar was laughing again, hysterical, delirious cackles.

He forced himself to stop it, and immediately the image of Manie's face appeared before him, the beautiful topaz eyes swimming with tears and the flash of blood on his upper lip.

My son, he lamented. Oh God, how will I live without you! Even then be would not accept that be was dying, but blackness filled his skull and his head dropped forward onto the filthy pus-stained bandage that swaddled his arm. The stench of his own decaying flesh became part of the delirious nightmares which continued to torment him even in unconsciousness.

He came back to reality gradually, and he was aware that the sunlight had mellowed and the terrible heat had passed.

There was a tiny breeze fanning the hilltop and he panted for the cooler air, sucking it gratefully into his lungs. Then he became aware of his thirst and his hand shook as he reached for the water bottle; it required an enormous effort to remove the stopper and lift it to his lips. One gulp and the bottle slipped from his grip and precious water splashed the front of his shirt and glugged from the bottle, pooling on the rock, evaporating almost immediately. He had lost fully a pint before he could retrieve the bottle and the loss made him want to weep.

Carefully he screwed the stopper closed, then lifted his head and listened.

There were men on the hill. He heard the distinct crunch of a steel-shod boot biting into a granite foothold and he reached for one of the potato masher grenades. With the Mauser over his shoulder he crawled back from the edge and used the rock to pull himself to his feet. He could not stand unassisted, and he had to lean his way around the boulder.

He crept forward cautiously with the grenade ready.

The summit was clear; they must still be climbing the cliff. He held his breath and listened with all his being. He heard it again, close at hand, the scrape and slide of cloth against granite and a sharp involuntary inhalation of breath, a gasp of effort as somebody missed and then retrieved a foothold just below the summit.

They are coming up from behind, he told himself as though explaining to a backward child. Every thought required an effort. 'Seven-second delay on the fuse of the grenade. He stared down at the clumsy weapon that he held by its wooden handle. Too long. They are very close. He lifted the grenade and tried to pull the firing-pin. It had corroded and was firmly stuck. He grunted and heaved at it and the pin came away. He heard the primer click and he began to count.

A thousand and one, a thousand and two, And at the fifth second he stooped and rolled the grenade over the edge.

Out of sight, but close by, someone shouted an urgent warning.

Christ! It's a grenade! And Lothar laughed wildly.

Eat it, you jackals of the English! He heard them sliding and slipping as they tried to escape and he braced himself for the explosion, but instead he heard only the clatter and rattle of the grenade as it bounced and dropped down the slope.

Misfire! He stopped laughing. job damn it to hell. Then abruptly, but belatedly, the grenade exploded, far down the cliff. A crash of sound followed by the rattle and whine of shrapnel on the rock, and a man cried out.

Lothar fell to his knees and crawled to the edge. He looked over.

There were three khaki-uniformed men on the cliff, sliding and scrambling downwards. He propped the Mauser on the lip and fired rapidly. His bullets left lead smears on the rock close beside the terrified troopers. They dropped the last few feet and started back towards the trees. One of them was hurt, hit by shrapnel; his companions supported him on each side and dragged him away.

Lothar lay exhausted by the effort for almost an hour before he could drag himself back to the south side of the summit. He looked down at the dead horses lying in the sun.