Текст книги "Cry Wolf"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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her. They carried her forward into the goods yards of the railways,

through the steel gate, past the mountainous pile of naked mutilated

corpses, all that remained of men whom she had helped to nurse.

The yard was lit by the smoky fluttering light of hundreds of torches,

and it was only when she was almost up to the warehouse veranda that

she recognized the figure that lolled indolently upon his cushions,

using the raised concrete ramp as a grandstand from which to direct and

watch the execution.

Vicky's terror came rushing back like a black icy flood, and she tried

desperately to twist herself free of the clutching hands, but they

carried her forward and then lifted her suddenly.

Three of the heavy Galla lances had been set into the soft earth of the

yard in the form of a tripod, with the steel lance tips bound firmly at

the apex of the pyramid. With a force that she could not resist, her

arms and legs were spread, and again she felt the lashing of rawhide at

her wrists and ankles.

Her captors fell back in a circle, and she found herself suspended from

the tripod of lances like a starfish, and the weight of her body cut

the leather straps viciously into her flesh.

She looked up. Directly above her on the concrete ramp sat Ras

Kullah. He said something to her in a high piping voice, but she did

not understand the words and she could only stare in fascinated terror

at his thick, soft lips. The tip of his tongue came out and ran slowly

across his lips, like a fat golden cat.

He giggled suddenly and motioned to the two women who flanked him on

the cushions. They came down into the yard, with their silver

jewellery tinkling and the multicoloured silk of their robes glowing in

the lamplight like the plumage of two beautiful birds of paradise.

As though they had rehearsed their movements, one went to each side of

Vicky as she hung on the tripod of lances. Their faces were serene,

remote and lovely as two exotic blooms on the long graceful stems of

their necks.

It was only when they reached up to touch her that Vicky saw the little

silver knives in their hands, and she wriggled helplessly,

her head twisting to watch the blades.

With expert economical movements the two women slit the fabric of

Vicky's clothing, from the yoke of her blouse at the throat, down in a

single stroke to the hem of her skirt, and the dress fell away like an

autumn leaf, and dropped into the mud below her.

Ras Kullah clapped his hands with glee, and the dense pack of dark

bodies swayed and growled, pressing a little closer.

With the same unhurried knife strokes, the sheer silk of Vicky's

underwear was cut away and discarded, and she hung there naked and

vulnerable, unable to cover her pale smooth body, with the long finely

sculptured limbs spread and pinioned.

She dropped her head forward so that the golden hair fell forward and

covered her face.

One of the Galla women moved around until she faced Vicky directly. She

reached out with the little silver knife and touched the point to the

white skin just below the base of her throat where a pulse beat visibly

like a tiny trapped animal, and slowly, achingly slowly,

she drew the blade downwards.

Vicky's whole body convulsed, every limb stiffened and her back arched

rigidly so that the shape of the muscle stood out clearly beneath the

smooth unblemished skin.

Her head flew back, her eyes wide and staring, her mouth gaping open

and she screamed.

The woman drew the knife on downwards, between the tense straining

breasts. The white skin opened to the shallow carefully controlled

razor point, and a vivid scarlet line marked the slow track of the

blade as it moved on inexorably downwards.

The voice of the crowd rose, a gathering roar like the sound of a storm

wind coming from afar, and Ras Kullah leaned forward on his cushions.

His eyes shone and the wet pink lips were parted.

Two things happened simultaneously. From the darkness beyond the

station buildings, Priscilla the Pig burst out into the torch-lit

area.

Up until that moment when Jake Barton thrust down fully on the

throttle, the gentle hum of the engine had been drowned by the animal

roar of the crowd.

The heavy steel hull, driven by the full thrust of the old Bentley

engine, ploughed into the crowd and went through it like a combine

harvester through a field of standing wheat. Without any slackening of

speed, it tore a pathway through the dense pack, directly towards the

clearing where Vicky hung on the tripod of lances.

At the same moment, Gareth Swales stepped out of the black oblong of

the warehouse door, directly behind where Ras Kullah sat.

He had the Italian rifle over the crook of his injured arm, and he

fired without lifting the butt to his shoulder.

The bullet smashed into the elbow of the Galla woman's knife arm,

and the arm snapped like a twig, the knife flew from the nerveless

fingers and the woman shrieked and collapsed into the mud at Vicky's

feet.

The second woman swirled, her right hand drew back like the head of a

striking adder, and she aimed the knife blade at Vicky's soft white

stomach; as she began the stroke that would plunge it hilt-deep,

Gareth moved the rifle muzzle fractionally and fired again.

The heavy bullet caught the woman in the exact centre of her golden

forehead. The black hole -appeared there like a third empty eye

socket, and her head snapped backwards as though from a heavy blow.

As she went down, Gareth worked the bolt of the rifle and dropped the

muzzle, again only fractionally, but as Ras Kullah twisted around

desperately on his cushions, his mouth wide open and a gurgling cry

keening from the thick wet lips, the muzzle of the rifle was aimed

directly into the pink pit of his throat and Gareth fired the third

shot. It shattered the front teeth in Ras Kullah's upper jaw, before

plunging on into his throat and then exiting through the back of the

neck. The Ras went over backwards, and flapped and jumped like a

maimed frog.

Garet stepped over him, and jumped down lightly into the yard. A

Galla rushed at him with a broadsword held high above his head. Gareth

fired again without lifting the rifle, stepped over the body and

reached Vicky's side just as Jake Barton swung the car to a skidding

halt next to them and tumbled out of the driver's hatch with a Harari

dagger in his hand.

In the turret above them, Sara fired the Vickers in a long continuous

blast, swinging it back and forth in its limited traverse and the Galla

crowd scattered panic-stricken into the night.

Jake slashed the thongs that held Vicky suspended and she fell forward

into his arms.

Gareth stooped and gathered Vicky's torn clothing out of the mud and

bundled it under his injured armpit.

"Shall we move on now, old son?" he asked Jake genially.

"I think the fun is over," and between them they lifted Vicky up the

side of the hull.

The drums brought Count Aldo Belli out of a troubled dream-plagued

sleep and he sat bolt upright from his hard couch on the floorboards of

the hull, with his eyes wide and staring, and -fumbled frantically for

his pistol.

"Gino!" he shouted. "Gino!" and there was no reply. Only that

terrible rhythm in the night, pounding against his head so that he

thought it might drive him mad. He tried to close his ears, pressing

the palms of his hands to them, but the sound came through, like a

gigantic pulse, the heartbeat of this cruel and savage land.

He could bear it no longer, and he crawled up inside the hull until he

reached the rear hatch of the tank, and thrust his head out.

"Gino!" He was answered instantly. The little sergeant's head popped

up from where he had been cowering in his blankets on the rocky ground

between the steel tracks. The Count could hear his teeth clattering in

his skull like typewriter keys.

"Send the driver to fetch Major Castelani, immediately."

"Immediately." Gino's head disappeared, and a few moments later

appeared again so abruptly that the Count let out a startled cry and

pointed the loaded pistol between his eyes.

"Excellency,"squawked Gino.

"Idiot," snarled the Count, his voice husky with terror. "I could have

killed you, don't you realize I have the reactions of a leopard?"

"Excellency, may I enter the machine?".

Aldo Belli thought about the request for a moment, and then enjoyed a

perverse pleasure in refusing.

"Make me a cup of coffee," he ordered, but when it came he found that

the incessant cacophony of drums that filled his head had worked on his

nerves to the point where he could not hold the mug steady, and the rim

rattled against his teeth.

"Goat's urine!" snapped the Count, hoping that Gino had not noticed

the unsteady hand. "You are trying to poison me," he accused and

tossed the steaming liquid over the side, and at that moment the stocky

figure of the Major loomed out of the darkness of the gorge.

"The men are standing to, Colonel he growled. "In another fifteen

minutes it will be light enough-"

"Good. Good." The Count cut him short. "I have decided that I should

return immediately to headquarters. General Badoglio will expect

me-"

"Excellent Colonel,"

the Major interrupted in his turn. "I have received intelligence that

large bands of the enemy have infiltrated our lines, and are operating

in the rear areas.

There is a good chance you might be able to bring them to account."

Castelani, by this time, knew his man intimately.

"Of course, with the small escort that can be spared, it will be a

desperate business."

"On the other hand, the Count mused aloud, "I

wonder if my heart does not lie here with my boys? There comes a time

when a warrior must trust his heart rather than his head and I

warn you, Castellani, my fighting blood is aroused."

"Indeed, Colonel."

"I shall move up immediately," announced Aldo Belli, and glanced

anxiously back into the dark depths of the gorge. His intention was to

place his command tank fairly in the centre of the armoured column,

protected from both front and rear.

The drumming continued, booming and pounding against his brain until he

felt he must scream aloud.

It seemed to emanate from the very earth, out of the fierce dark slope

of rock directly ahead, and it bounced and reverberated from the rock

walls of the gorge, driving in upon him in great hammers of sound.

Suddenly, the Count realized that the darkness was dispersing. He

could make out the shape of a stunted cedar tree on the scree slope

above his position where, moments before, there had been only black

shades. The tree looked like some misshapen monster, and quickly the

Count averted his eyes and looked upwards.

Between the mountains the narrow strip of sky was defined, a paler pink

light against the black brooding mass of rock. He dropped his gaze and

looked ahead, the darkness retreated rapidly, and the dawn came with

dramatic African suddenness.

Then the beat of the drums stopped. It was so abrupt, the transition

from a pounding sea of sound to the deathly, unearthly silence of the

African dawn in the mountains.

The shock of it held Aldo Belli transfixed and he peered, blinking like

an owl, up the gorge.

There was a new sound, thin and high as the sound of night birds

flying, plaintive and weird, an ululation that rose and fell so that it

was many moments before he recognized it as the sound of hundreds upon

hundreds of human voices; Suddenly he started, and his chin snapped

up.

"Mary, Mother of God," he whispered, as he stared up the gorge.

It seemed that the rock was rolling down swiftly upon them like a dark

fluid avalanche, and the ululation rose, becoming a wild loolooing

clamour. Swiftly the light strengthened and the Count realized that

the avalanche was a sweeping tide of human shapes.

"Pray for us sinners," breathed the Count and crossed himself swiftly,

and at that instant he heard Castelani's voice, like the bellow of a

wild bull, out of the darkened Italian positions.

Instantly the machine guns opened together in a thunderous hammering

roar that drowned out all other sound.

The tide of humanity seemed no longer to be moving forward; like a wave

upon a rock it broke on the Italian guns, and milled and eddied about

the growing reef of their own fallen bodies.

The light was stronger now strong enough for the Count to see clearly

the havoc that the entrenched machine guns made of the massed charge of

Harari warriors. They fell in thick swathes, dead upon dead,

as the guns traversed back and forth. They piled up in banks in front

of the Italian positions so that those still coming on had to clamber

over the fallen, and when the guns swung back, they too fell building a

wall of bodies.

The Count's terror was forgotten in the fascination of the spectacle.

The racing figures coming down the narrow gorge seemed endless, like

ants from a disturbed nest. Like fields of moving wheat,

and the guns reaped them with great scythe-strokes and piled them in

deep windrows.

Yet here and there, a few of the racing figures came on reached the

barbed wire that Castelani had strung, beat it down with their swords,

and were through.

Of those who breached the wire, most died on the very lips of the

Italian trenches, shot to bloody pieces by close range volleys of rifle

fire but a few, a very few came on still. A group of three figures

leaped the wire at a point where two dead Ethiopians had fallen and

dragged it down, making a breach for those who followed.

They were led by a tall, skeletal figure in swirling white robes.

He was bald, the pate of his head gleaming like a black cannon ball,

and perfect white teeth shone in the sweat-coiled face. He carried

only a sword, as long as the spread of a man's arms and as broad as the

span of his hand, and he swung the huge blade lightly about his head as

he j inked and dodged with the agility of a goat.

The two warriors who followed him carried ancient Martini-Henry rifles

which they fired from the hip as they ran, each shot blowing a long

thick blue flag of black powder smoke, while the leader swung the sword

above his head and loolooed a wild war cry. A machine gun picked up

the group neatly and a single burst cut two of them down but the tall

leader came on at a dead run.

The Count, peering over the turret of the tank, was so astonished by

the man's persistence that his own fear was momentarily forgotten.

In the tank parked beside his, the machine gun fired, a ripping tearing

burst, and this time the racing white clad figure staggered slightly

and Aldo Belli saw the bullets strike, lifting tiny pale puffs of dust

from the warrior's robes, and leaving bloody splotches across his chest

yet he came on running, still howling, and he leaped the first line of

trenches, coming straight down towards the line of tanks, and it seemed

as though he had recognized the Count as his particular adversary. His

charge seemed to be directed. at him alone, and he was suddenly very

close. Standing fascinated in the turret, Aldo Belli could clearly see

the staring eyes in the deeply lined face, and noticed the incongruity

of the man's rows of perfect white teeth. His chest was sodden with

dark red blood, but the swinging sword in his hands hissed through the

air and the dawn light flickered on the blade like summer lightning.

The machine gun fired again, and this time the burst seemed to tear the

man's body to pieces. The Count saw shreds of his clothing and flesh

fly from him in a cloud, yet incredibly he kept coming onwards,

staggering and dragging the sword beside him.

The last burst of fire struck him, and the sword dropped from his hand;

he sank to his knees, but kept crawling now he had seen the Count and

his eyes fastened on the white man's face. He tried to shout

something, but the sound was drowned in a bright flooding gout of blood

that filled his open mouth. The crawling, mutilated figure reached the

hull of the stationary tank, and the Italian almost as though in awe of

the man's tenacity. guns fell silent

Laboriously, the dying warrior dragged his broken body up towards the

Count, watching him with a terrible dying anger, and the Count fumbled

nervously with the ivory butt of the Beretta, slipping a fresh clip of

cartridges into the recessed butt.

"Stop him, you fools," he cried. "Kill him! Don't let him get in."

But the guns were silent.

With shaking hands, the Count slapped the magazine home and lifted the

pistol. At a range of six feet he sighted briefly into the crawling

Ethiopian.

He emptied the magazine of the Beretta in frantic haste, the shots

crashing out in rapid succession in the sudden silence that hung over

the field.

A bullet struck the warrior in the centre of his sweat-glazed forehead,

leaving a perfectly round black hole in the gleaming brown skin, and

the man slithered backwards and then rolled down the hull,

coming to rest at last upon his back, and he stared up at the swiftly

lightening sky with wide, unseeing eyes. Out between the slack lips

dropped a set of artificial teeth, and the old mouth collapsed and fell

inwards.

The Count was shaking still, but then quite unexpectedly a surging

emotion swept away the terrors that had gripped him. He felt a vast

proprietorial sense of emotional involvement with the man he had killed

he wanted to take some part of him, some trophy of his kill. He wanted

to scalp him, or take his head and have it cured so that he might

preserve this moment for ever, but before he could move, there was the

shrilling of whistles, and a bugle began urgently to sound the

advance.

On the slope ahead of them, only the dead lay in their piles and

mounds, while the last of those who had survived that crazy suicidal

charge were disappearing like wisps of smoke back among the rocks.

The road to Sardi was open, and like the hard professional he was,

Luigi Castelani seized the chance. As the bugle sang its brassy

command, the Italian infantry rose from the trenches, and the formation

of tanks rumbled forward.

The corpse of the ancient Harari warrior lay directly in the track of

the command tank, and the rumbling steel treads pressed it into the

rocky ground as it passed over, squashing it like the carcass of a

rabbit on a highway, as it bore Colonel Count Aldo Belli triumphantly

up the gorge to Sardi and the Dessie road.

At the wall of rock built right across the throat of the gorge, the

armoured column ground to a halt, blocked at the very lip of the

valley, and when the Italian infantry, who had moved under cover of the

black steel hulls, swarmed out to tear the wall down, they met another

wave of Ethiopian defenders who rose from where they had been lying

behind the wall, and immediately attackers and defenders had become so

entwined in a single struggling mass that the artillery and machine

guns could not fire for fear of gunning down their own.

Three times during the morning the infantry had been thrown back from

the wall, and the heavy artillery barrage that they had directed

against it made no impression on the granite boulders. When the tanks

came clanking and squealing like great black beetles hunting for a

breach, there was none, and the trace had clawed sparks from the rock

but been unable to lift the great weight of steel at the acute angle

necessary to climb the wall.

Now there was a lull that had lasted almost half an hour, and

Gareth and Jake sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning against one of the

massive granite blocks. Both of them were staring upwards at the

sky,

and it was Jake who broke the silence.

"There is the blue." They saw it through the last eddying banks of

cloud that still clung like the white arms of a lover to the shoulder

of the mountain, but were slowly smeared away by the fresh dry breeze

off the desert.

A ray of brilliant sunlight burst into the valley, and threw a rainbow

of vivid colour in a mighty arc from mountain to mountain.

"That's beautiful," murmured Gareth Softly, staring upwards.

Jake drew the watch from his pocket, and glanced at the dial.

"Seven minutes past eleven." He read the hands. "Just about right now

they'll radio them that the clouds are open.

They'll be sitting in the cockpits, eager as fighting cocks." He

patted the watch back into his pocket. "In just thirty-five minutes

they'll be here." Gareth straightened up and pushed the lank blond

hair off his forehead.

"I know one gentleman who won't be here when they come.

"Make that two, "Jake agreed.

"That's it, old son. We've done our bit. Old Lij Mikhael can't grouse

about a couple of minutes. It will be as close to noon as pleasure is

to sin."

"What about these poor devils?" Jake indicated the few hundreds of

Harari who crouched with them behind the wall of rock all that remained

of Ras Golam's army.

"As soon as we hear the bombers coming, they can beat it. Off into the

mountains like a pack of long dogs-" after a bitch, "Jake finished for

him, and grinned.

"Precisely."

"Someone will have to explain it to them."

"I'll go and fetch young Sara to tell them," and he crawled away, using

the wall as cover from the Italian snipers who had taken up position in

the cliffs above them.

Priscilla the Pig was parked five hundred yards back in a grassy

wrinkle of ground, under a screen of cedar trees, beside the road.

Gareth saw immediately that Vicky had recovered from the state of

collapse in which they had found her, although she was haggard and

pale, and the torn rags of her clothing were filthy, stained with dried

blood from the long flesh wound between her breasts. She was helping

Sara with the boy who lay on the floorboards of the cabin, and she

looked up with an expression which told of regained strength and

determination.

"How is he doing? "Gareth asked, leaning forward through the open rear

doors. The boy had been hit twice and been carried back from the

killing-ground of the gorge by two of his loyal tribes men.

"He will be all right, I think," said Vicky, and Gregorius opened his

eyes and whispered, "Yes, I'll be all right."

"Well, that's more than you deserve," grunted Gareth. "I left you in

charge not leading the charge."

"Major Swales." Sara looked up fiercely, protective as a mother. "It

was the bravest-"

"Spare me from brave and honest men,"

Gareth drawled.

"Cause of all the trouble in the world." And before Sara could flash

at him again he went on, "Come along with me, my dear. Need you to do

a bit of translating." Reluctantly she left Gregorius and climbed down

out of the car. Vicky followed her, and stood close to Gareth beside

the side of the hull.

"Are you all right? "she asked.

"Never better," he assured her, but now she noticed for the first time

the flush of unnatural colour in his cheeks and the feverish glitter in

his eyes.

Quickly she reached out and before he could prevent it she took the

hand of his injured arm. It was swollen like a balloon, and it had

turned a sickly greenish purple. She leaned forward to sniff the

filthy stained rags that covered the arm, and she felt her gorge rise

at the sweet stench of putrefaction.

Alarmed, she reached up and touched his cheek.

"Gareth, you are hot as a furnace."

"Passion, old girl. The touch of your lily-white, "Let me look at your

arm, "she demanded.

"Better not." He smiled at her, but she caught the iron in his voice.

"Let sleeping dogs lie, what? Nothing we can do about it until we get

back to civilization."

"Gareth-"

"Then my dear, I will buy you a large bottle of Charlie, and send for

the preacher man."

"Gareth, be serious."

"I am serious." Gareth touched her cheek with the fingers of his good

hand. "That was a proposal of marriage, "he said, and she could feel

the fiery heat of the fever in his finger, tips.

"Oh Gareth! Gareth!"

"By which I take it you mean thanks, but no thanks." She nodded

silently, unable to speak.

"Jake?"he asked, and she nodded again.

"Oh well, you could have done a lot better. Me, for instance,"

and he grinned, but the pain was there with the fever in his eyes, deep

and poignant. "On the other hand, you could have done a lot worse." He

turned away abruptly to Sara, taking her arm. "Come along, my dear."

Then over his shoulder, "We'll be back as soon as the bombers come.

Get ready to run."

"Where to? "she called after them.

"I don't know," he grinned. "But we'll try to think of a pleasant

place." Jake heard them first, so far off that it was only the

hive-sound of bees on a drowsy summer's day, and almost immediately it

was gone again, blanketed by the mountains.

"Here they come," he said, and almost immediately, as if in

confirmation, a shell burst under the lee of the rock wall, fired from

the Italian battery a mile down the gorge. The yellow smoke from the

marker poured a thick column into the still sunlit air.

"Move!" shouted Gareth, and placed the silver command whistle between

his lips and blew a series of sharp blasts.

But by the time they had hurried along the wall, making certain that

all the Harari had understood and were running back down the valley

into the cedar forests, the drone of approaching engines was growing

louder.

"Let's go!" called Jake urgently, and caught Gareth's good arm.

They turned and ran, pelting back across the open ground to the lip of

the valley, and Jake looked back over his shoulder as they reached

it.

The first gigantic bomber came out of the mouth of the gorge, and the

spread of its black wings seemed to darken the sky. Two bombs fell

from under it; one burst short but the second struck the wall, and the

blast knocked them both off their feet, slamming them savagely against

the earth.

When Jake lifted his head again, he saw through the fumes and smoke the

gaping breach it had blown in the rock wall.

"Well, now the party is definitely over," he said, and hauled

Gareth to his feet.

Where are we going?" shouted Vicky from the cabin below them, and

neither Jake in the driver's seat nor Gareth in the turret replied.

"Can't we just drive up the road to Dessie?" Sara demanded; she sat

cross-legged on the floor of the cabin with Gregorius's head cushioned

on her lap. "We could fight our way through those cowardly

Gallas."

"We've got enough gas to take us about another five miles."

"Our best bet is to drive to the foot of Ambo Sacal." Gareth pointed

to the towering bulk of the mountain that rose sheer into the southern

sky. "Ditch the car there and try and make it on foot across the

mountains." Vicky crawled up into the turret beside him, and thrust

her head out of the hatch. Together they stared up at the sheer sides

of the Ambo.

"What about Gregorius?"she asked.

"We'll have to carry him."

"We'll never make it. The mountains are crawling with Gallas."

"Have you got a better idea?" Gareth asked,

and she looked despairingly around her.

Priscilla the Pig was the only thing that moved in the whole valley.

The Harari had vanished into the rocky ground on the slopes of the

mountains, and behind them the Italian tanks had not yet come in over

the lip of the valley.

She lifted her eyes to the sky again, where only a few wreaths of cloud

still clung to the peaks, and suddenly her whole mood changed.

Her chin came up, and new colour flooded into her cheeks her hand shook

as she pointed up between the peaks.

"Yes," she cried. "Yes, I've got a better idea. Look! Oh, won't "you

look!" The tiny blue aircraft caught the sun as it banked in steeply,

turning in under the rearing granite cliffs, and it flashed like a

dragonfly in flight.

"Italian?" Gareth stared up at it.

"No! No! Vicky shook her head. "It's Lij Mikhael's plane.

I recognize it. It came to fetch him here before." She was laughing

almost hysterically, her eyes shining. "He said he would send it,

that's what he was trying to tell me before he was cut off."

"Where will it land?" Gareth demanded, and Vicky scrambled down into

the driver's compartment to direct him towards the polo field beyond

the burned and still smoking town.

They watched anxiously, all of them except Gregorius, standing on the

edge of the open field close beside the bulk of the car, all their

heads craning to watch the little blue aircraft circle.

"What the hell is he doing? "Jake demanded angrily. "The Eyeties will

be here before he makes up his mind."

"He's nervous," Gareth guessed. "He doesn't know what the hell is

going on down here. From where he is, he can see the town has been

destroyed, and he can probably see the tanks and the trucks following

us down from the gorge." Vicky turned from them and ran back to the

car; she climbed up on to the turret and stood high, waving both arms

above her head.

On the next circuit the little blue Puss Moth dropped lower, and they

could see the pilot's face in the side window of the cockpit peering

down at them. He banked steeply over the smoking remains of the town,

with the lower wing pointing directly at the earth and then he came

back at them, this time only ten feet above the field.

He was staring at Vicky, and with a lift of her heart she recognized

the same young white pilot as had flown Lij Mikhael. He recognized her

at the same instant, and she saw him grin and lift a hand in salute as

he flashed past.

As he came out of his next turn, he was lined up on the field for his

landing and he touched down and taxied tail-up to where they stood.

As the light aircraft rolled to a halt, they crowded up to the cabin

door. The wash of the propeller buffeted them savagely and the pilot

slid back the pane of his window and shouted above the noise of his

engine.

"I can take three small ones or two big ones." Jake and Gareth

exchanged a single brief glance and then Jake jerked the cabin door and

roughly they thrust the two girls into the tiny cramped cabin.

"Hold it," Gareth shouted into the pilot's ear. "We've got another

small one for you." They carried Gregorius between them, trying to be

as gentle as haste would allow. The pilot was already turning the

machine into the wind and they staggered after it lifting the boy's

body into the open door as it was moving.

"Jake-"Vicky shouted, and her eyes were wild with grief.

"Don't worry," Jake shouted back, as they tumbled Greg.

onus across the girls" laps. "We'll get out just remember I

love you."

"I love you, too," Vicky called back, and her eyes swam with bright