Текст книги "The Dark of the Sun"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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No mercy now, thought Bruce with hatred replacing his fear as he looked

at the women and saw by the attitudes in which they lay that there was

no life left in them. No mercy now!

He slung his rifle over his left shoulder and filled his hand with

grenades, pulled the pins and moved quickly to the corner so that he

could look down the length of the covered verandah. He rolled both

grenades down among the sleeping figures, hearing clearly the click of

the priming ,and the metallic rattle against the concrete floor.

Quickly he ducked back to the lounge window, snatching two more grenades

from his haversack and pulling the pins, he hurled them through the

closed windows. The crash of breaking glass blended with the double

thunder of the explosions on the verandah.

Someone shouted in the room, a cry of surprise and alarm, then the

windows above Bruce blew outwards, showering him with broken glass and

the noise half deafening him as he tossed two more grenades through the

gaping hole of the window. They were screaming and groaning in the

lounge. Ruffy's grenades roared in the bar-room bursting through the

double doors, then Bruce's grenades snuffed out the sounds of life in

the lounge with violent white flame and thunder. Bruce tossed in two

more grenades and ran back to the corner of the verandah unslinging his

rifle.

A man with his hands over his eyes and blood streaming through his

fingers fell over the low verandah wall and crawled to his knees.

Bruce shot him from so close that the shaft of gun flame joined the

muzzle of his rifle and the man's chest, punching him over backwards,

throwing him spreadeagled on to the earth.

He looked beyond and saw two more in the road, but before he could raise

his rifle the fire from his own gendarmes found them, knocking them down

amid spurts of dust.

Bruce hurdled the verandah wall. He shouted, a sound without form

or meaning. Exulting, unafraid, eager to get into the building, to get

amongst them. He stumbled over the dead men on the verandah. A burst of

gunfire from down the street rushed past him, so close he could feel the

wind on his face. Fire from his own men.

"You stupid bastards" Shouting without anger, without fear, with only

the need to shout, he burst into the lounge through the main doors. It

was half dark but he could see through the darkness and the haze of

plaster dust.

A man on the stairs, the bloom of gunfire and the sting of the bullet

across Bruce's thigh, fire in return, without aiming from the

hip, miss and the man gone up and round the head of the stairs, yelling

as he ran.

A grenade in Bruce's right hand, throw it high, watch it hit the wall

and bounce sideways round the angle of the stairs. The explosion

shocking in the confined space and the flash of it lighting the building

and outlining the body of the man as it blew him back into the lounge,

lifting him clear of the banisters, shredded and broken by the

blast, falling heavily into the room below.

Up the stairs three at a time and into the bedroom passage, another man

naked and bewildered staggering through a doorway still drunk or half

asleep, chop him down with a single shot in the stomach, jump over him

and throw a grenade through the glass skylight of the

second bedroom, another through the third and kick open the door of the

last room in the bellow and flash of the explosions.

A man was waiting for Bruce across the room with a pistol in his hand,

and both of them fired simultaneously, the clang of the bullet glancing

off the steel of Bruce's helmet, jerking his head back savagely,

throwing him side-ways against the wall, but he fired again, rapid fire,

hitting with every bullet, so that the man seemed to dance, a grotesque

twitching jig, pinned against the far wall by the bullets.

On his knees now Bruce was stunned, ears singing like a million mad

mosquitoes, hands clumsy and slow on the reload, back on his feet, legs

rubbery but the loaded rifle in his hands making a man of him.

Out into the passage, another one right on top of him, a vast dark shape

in the darkness – kill him! kill him!

Don't shoot, boss!" Ruffy, thank God, Ruffy.

"Are there any more?"

"All finished, boss – you cleaned them out good." "How many?" Bruce

shouted above the singing in his ears.

"Forty or so. Jesus, what a mess! There's blood all over the place.

Those grenades-"

"There must be more."

"Yes, but not in here, boss. Let's go and give the boys outside a hand."

They ran back down the passage, down the stairs, and the floor of the

lounge was sodden and sticky, dead men everywhere; it smelt like an

abattoir – blood and ripped bowels. One still on his hands and knees,

creepy-crawling towards the door. Ruffy shot him twice, flattening him.

"Not the front door, boss. Our boys will get you for sure.

Go out the window." Bruce dived through the window head first, rolled

over behind the cover of the verandah wall and came to his knees in one

movement. He felt strong and invulnerable.

Ruffy was beside him.

"Here come our boys," said Ruffy, and Bruce could see them coming down

the street, running forward in short bursts, stopping to fire, to

throw a grenade, then coming again.

"And there are Lieutenant Hendry's lot." From the opposite direction but

with the same dodging, checking run, Bruce could see

Wally with them. He was holding his rifle across his hip when he fired,

his whole body shaking with the juddering of the gun.

Like a bird rising in front of the beaters one of the shufta broke from

the cover of the grocery store and ran into the street unarmed, his head

down and his arms pumping in time with his legs. Bruce was

close enough to see the panic in his face. He seemed to be moving in

slow motion, and the flames lit him harshly, throwing a distorted shadow

in front of him. When the bullets hit him he stayed on his feet,

staggering in a circle, thrashing at the air with his hands as though he

were beating off a swarm of bees, the bullets slapping loudly against

his body and lifting little puffs of dust from his clothing.

Beside Bruce, Ruffy aimed carefully and shot him in the head, ending it.

"There must be more, protested Bruce. "Where are they hiding?"

"in the offices, I'd say." And Bruce turned his attention quickly to the

block of Union Mini&e offices. The windows were in darkness and as he

stared he thought he saw movement. He glanced quickly back at

Wally's men and saw that four of them had bunched up close behind Wally

as they ran.

"Hendry, watch out!" he shouted with all his strength.

"On your right, from the offices!" But it was too late, gunfire sparkled

in the dark windows and the little group of running men disintegrated.

Bruce and Ruffy fired together, raking the windows, emptying their

automatic rifles into them. As he reloaded Bruce glanced back at where

Wally's men had been hit.

With disbelief he saw that Wally was the only one still on his feet;

crossing the road, sprinting through an area of bullet-churned earth

towards them, he reached the verandah and fell over the low wall.

"Are you wounded?" Bruce asked.

"Not a touch – those bastards couldn't shoot their way out of a

French letter, Wally shouted defiantly, and his voice carried clearly in

the sudden hush. He snatched the off the bottom of his rifle, threw

it aside empty magazine and clipped on a fresh one. "Move over," he

growled, "let me get a crack at those bastards." He lifted his rifle and

rested the stock on top of the wall, knelt behind it, cuddled the butt

into his shoulder and began firing short bursts into the windows of the

office block.

"This is what I was afraid of." Bruce lifted his voice above the clamour

of the guns. "Now we've got a pocket of resistance right in the centre

of the town. There must be fifteen or twenty of them in there – it might

take us days to winkle them out." He cast a longing look at the

canvascovered trucks lined up outside the station yard.

"They can cover the lorries from here, and as soon as they guess what

we're after, as soon as we try and move them, they'll knock out that

tanker and destroy the trucks." The firelight flickered on the shiny

yellow and red paint of the tanker. It looked so big and vulnerable

standing there in the open. It needed just one bullet out of the many

hundred that had already been fired to end its charmed existence.

We've got to rush them now, he decided. Beyond the office block the

remains of Wally's group had taken cover and were keeping up a heated

fire. Bruce's group straggled up to the hotel and found positions at the

windows.

"Ruffy." Bruce caught him by the shoulder. "We'll take four men with us

and go round the back of the offices. From that building there we've got

only twenty yards or so of open ground to cover. Once we get up against

the wall they won't be able to touch us and we can toss grenades in

amongst them."

"That twenty yards looks like twenty miles from here," rumbled Ruffy,

but picked up his sack of grenades and crawled back from the verandah

wall.

"Go and pick four men to come with us," ordered Bruce.

"Okay, boss. We'll wait for you in the kitchen."

"Hendry. Listen to me."

"Yeah. What is it?"

"When I reach that corner over there I'll give you a wave. We'll be

ready to go then. I want you to give us all the cover you can – keep

their heads down."

"Okay," agreed Wally and fired another short burst.

"Try not to hit us when we close in." Wally turned to look at

Bruce and he grinned wickedly.

"Mistakes happen, you know. I can't promise anything.

You'd look real grand in my sights."

"Don't joke," said Bruce.

"Who's joking?" grinned Wally and Bruce left him. He found Ruffy and

four gendarmes waiting in the kitchen.

"Come on," he said and led them out across the kitchen yard, down the

sanitary lane with the steel doors lor the buckets behind the outhouses

and the smell of them thick and fetid, round the corner and across the

road to the buildings beyond the office i lock. "They stopped then and

crowded together, as though to draw courage and comfort from each other.

Bruce measured the distance with his eye.

"It's not far," he announced.

"Depends on how you look at it," grunted Ruffy.

"There are only two windows opening out on to this side."

"Two's enough – how many do you want?"

"Remember, Ruffy, you can only die once."

"Once is enough," said Ruffy. "Let's cut out the talking, boss.

Too much talk gets you in the guts." Bruce moved across to the corner of

the building out of the shadows. He waved towards the hotel and imagined

that he saw an acknowledgement from the end of the verandah.

"All together," he said, sucked in a deep breath, held it a second and

then launched himself into the open. He felt small now, no longer brave

and invulnerable, and his legs moved so slowly that he seemed to be

standing still. The black windows gaped at him.

Now, he thought, now you die.

Where, he thought, not in the stomach, please God, not in the stomach.

And his legs moved stiffly under him, carrying him half way across.

Only ten more paces, he thought, one more river, just one more river to

Jordan. But not in the stomach, please God, not in my stomach. And his

flesh cringed in anticipation, his stomach drawn in hard as he ran.

Suddenly the black windows were brightly lit, bright white oblongs in

the dark buildings, and the glass sprayed out of them like untidy

spittle from an old man's mouth.

Then they were dark again, dark with smoke billowing from them and the

memory of the explosion echoing in his ears.

"A grenade!" Bruce was bewildered. "Someone let off a grenade in there!"

He reached the back door without stopping and it burst open before his

rush. He was into the room, shooting, coughing in the fumes, firing

wildly at the small movements of dying men..

In the half darkness something long and white lay against the far wall.

A body, a white man's naked body. He crossed to it and looked down.

"Andre," he said, "it's Andre – he threw the grenade." And he knelt

beside him.

Curled naked upon the concrete floor, Andre was alive but dying as the

haemorrhage within him leaked his life away. His mind was alive and he

heard the crump, crump of Bruce's grenades, then the gunfire in the

street, and the sound of running men. The shouts in the night and then

the guns very close, they were in the room in which he lay, He opened

his eyes. There were men at each of the windows, crouched below the

sills, and the room was thick with cordite fumes and the clamour of the

guns as they fired out into the night.

Andre was cold, the coldness was all through him. Even his hands drawn

up against his chest were cold and heavy.

His stomach only was warm, warm and immensely bloated.

It was an effort to think, for his mind also was cold and the noise of

the guns confused him.

He watched the men at the windows with a detached disinterest, and

slowly his body lost its weight. He seemed to float clear of the floor

and look down upon the room from the roof. His eyelids sagged and he

dragged them up again, and struggled down towards his own body.

There was suddenly a rushing sound in the room and plaster sprayed from

the wall above Andre's head, filling the air with pale floating dust.

One of the men at the windows fell backwards, his weapon ringing loudly

on the floor as it dropped from his hands; he flopped over twice and lay

still, face down within arm's length of Andre.

Ponderously Andres mind analysed the sights his eyes were

recording. Someone was firing on the building from outside. The man

beside him was dead and from his head wound the blood spread slowly

across the floor towards him.

Andre closed his eyes again, he was very tired and very cold.

There was a lull in the sound of gunfire, one of those freak silences in

the midst of battle. And in the lull Andre heard a voice far off,

shouting. He could not hear the words but he recognized the voice and

his eyelids flew open. There was an excitement in him, a new force, for

it was Wally's voice he had heard.

He moved slightly, clenching his hands and his brain started to sing.

Wally has come back for me – he has come to save me. He rolled his head

slowly, painfully, and the blood gurgled in his stomach.

I must help him, I must not let him endanger himself these men are

trying to kill him. I must stop them. I mustn't let them kill Wally.

And then he saw the grenades hanging on the belt of the man that lay

beside him. He fastened his eyes on the round polished metal bulbs and

he began to pray silently.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." He moved again,

straightening his body.

"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,

Jesus." His hand crept out into the pool of blood, and the sound of the

guns filled his head so he could not hear himself pray.

Walking on its fingers, his hand crawled through the blood as slowly as

a fly through a saucer of treacle.

"Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Pray for me now,

and at the hour. Full of grace." He touched the smooth, deeply segmented

steel of the grenade.

"Us sinners – at the day, at the hour. This day – this day our daily

bread." He fumbled at the clip, fingers stiff and cold.

"Hallowed be thy – Hallowed be thy-" The clip clicked open and he held

the grenade, curling his fingers round it.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace." He drew the grenade to him and held it with

both hands against his chest. He lifted it to his mouth and took the pin

between his teeth.

"Pray for us sinners," he whispered, and pulled the pin.

"Now and at the hour of our death." And he tried to throw it. It

rolled from his hand and bumped across the floor. The firing handle flew

off and rattled against the wall. General Moses turned from the window

and saw it, – his lips opened and his spectacles glinted above the

rose-pink cave of his mouth. The grenade lay at his feet. Then

everything was gone in the flash and roar of the explosion.

Afterwards in the acrid swirl of fumes, in the patter of falling

plaster, in the tinkle and crunch of broken glass, in the small

scrabbling noises and the murmur and moan of dying men, Andre was still

alive. The body of the man beside him had shielded his head and chest

from the full force of the blast.

There was still enough life in him to recognize Bruce Curry's face close

to his, though he could not feel the hands that touched him.

"Andre!" said Bruce. "It's Andre – he threw the grenade!"

"Tell him-" whispered Andre and stopped.

"Yes, Andre-?" said Bruce.

"I didn't, this day and at the hour. I had to – not this time."

He could feel it going out in him like a candle in a high wind and he

tried to cup his hands around it.

"What is it, Andre? What must I tell him?" Bruce's voice, but so far

away.

"Because of him – this time – not of it, I didn't." He stopped again and

gathered all of what was left. His lips quivered as he tried

so hard to say it.

"Like a man!" he whispered and the candle went out.

"Yes," said Bruce softly, holding him. "This time like a man.

He lowered Andre gently until his head touched the door again; then he

stood upright and looked down at the terribly mutilated body.

He felt empty inside, a hollowness, the same feeling as after love.

He moved across to the desk near the far wall. Outside the gunfire

dwindled like half-hearted applause, flared up again and then ceased.

Around him Ruffy and the four gendarmes moved excitedly, inspecting the

dead, exclaiming, laughing the awkward embarrassed laughter of men

freshly released from mortal danger.

Loosening the chin straps of his helmet with slow steady fingers, Bruce

stared across the room at Andre's body.

"Yes," he whispered again. "This time like a man. All the other times

are wiped Out, the score is levelled." His cigarettes were damp from the

swamp, but he took one from the centre of the pack and straightened it

with calm nerveless fingers. He found his lighter and flicked it open -

then, without warning, his hands started to shake.

The flame of the lighter fluttered and he had to hold it steady with

both hands. There was blood on his hands, new sticky blood. He

snapped the lighter closed and breathed in the smoke. It tasted bitter

and the saliva flooded into his mouth. He swallowed it down, nausea in

his stomach, and his breathing quickened.

It was not like this before, he remembered, even that night at the road

bridge when they broke through on the flank and we met them with

bayonets in the dark. Before it had no meaning, but now I can feel

again. Once more I'm alive.

Suddenly he had to be alone; he stood up.

"Ruffy."

"Yes, boss?"

"Clean up here. Get blankets from the hotel for de Sullier and the

women, also those men down in the station yard."

It was someone else speaking; he could hear the voice as though it were

a long way off.

"You okay, boss?"

"Yes."

"Your head? Bruce lifted his hand and touched the long dent in his

helmet.

"It's nothing," he said.

"Your leg?"

"Just a touch, get on with it."

"Okay, boss. What shall we do with these others?"

"Throw them in the river," said Bruce and walked out into the street.

Hendry and his gendarmes were still on

the verandah of the hotel, but they had started on the corpses there,

using their bayonets like butchers" knives, taking the ears, laughing

also the strained nervous laughter.

Bruce crossed the street to the station yard. The dawn was coming,

drawing out across the sky like a sheet of steel rolled from the mill,

purple and lilac at first, then red as it spread above the forest.

The Ford Ranchero stood on the station platform where he had left it. He

opened the door, slid in behind the wheel, and watched the dawn become

day.

Captain, the sergeant major asks you to come. There is something he

wants to show you." Bruce lifted his head from where it was resting on

the steering wheel. He had not heard the gendarme approach.

"I'll come," he said, picked up his helmet and his rifle from the seat

beside him and followed the man back to the office block.

His gendarmes were loading a dead man into one of the trucks, swinging

him by his arms and legs.

Un, deux, trois," and a shout of laughter as the limp body flew over the

tailboard on to the gruesome pile already there.

Sergeant Jacque came out of the office dragging a man by his heels. The

head bumped loosely down the steps and there was a wet brown drag mark

left on the cement verandah.

"Like pork," Jacque called cheerily. The corpse was that of a small

grey-headed man, skinny, with the marks of spectacles on the bridge of

his nose and a double row of decorations on his tunic. Bruce noted that

one of them was the purple and white ribbon of the military cross -

strange loot for the Congo. Jacque dropped the man's heels, drew his

bayonet and stooped over the man. He took one of the ears that lay flat

against the grizzled skull, pulled it forward and freed it with a single

stroke of the knife. The opened flesh was pink with the dark hole of the

eardrum in the centre.

Bruce walked on into the office and his nostrils flared at the abattoir

stench.

"Have a look at this lot, boss." Ruffy stood by the desk.

"Enough to buy you a ranch in Hyde Park," grinned Hendry beside him. In

his hand he held a pencil. Threaded on to it like a kebab were a dozen

human ears.

"Yes," said Bruce as he looked at the pile of industrial and gem

diamonds on the blotter. "I know about those. Better count them, Ruffy,

then put them back in the bags."

"You're not going to turn them in?" protested Hendry.

"Jesus, if we share this lot three ways – you, Ruffy and I there's

enough to make us all rich." "Or put us against a wall," said Bruce

grimly. "What makes you think the gentlemen in Elisabethville don't

know about them?" He turned his attention back to Ruffy. "Count them and

pack them. You're in charge of them. Don't lose any." Bruce looked

across the room at the blanket-wrapped bundle that was Andre de

Surrier.

"Have you detailed a burial squad?"

"Yes, boss. Six of the boys are out back digging."

"Good," Bruce nodded. "Hendry, come with me.

We'll go and have a look at the trucks." Half an hour later Bruce closed

the bonnet of the last vehicle. "This is the only one that won't run.

The carburettor's smashed. We'll take the tyres off it for spares." He

wiped his greasy hands on the sides of his trousers.

"Thank God, the tanker is untouched. We've got six hundred gallons

there, more than enough for the return trip."

"You going to take the

Ford?" asked Hendry.

"Yes, it may come in useful."

"And it will be more comfortable for you and your little French thing."

Heavy sarcasm in Hendry's voice.

"That's right," Bruce answered evenly. "Can you drive?"

"What you think? You think I'm a bloody fool?"

"Everyone is always trying to get at you, aren't they? You can't trust

anyone, can you?" Bruce asked softly.

"You're so bloody right!" agreed Hendry.

Bruce changed the subject. "Andre had a message for you before he died."

"Old doll boy!"

"He threw that grenade. Did you know that?"

"Yeah. I knew it." "Don't you want to hear what he said?"

"Once a queer, always a queer, and the only good queer is a dead queer."

"All right." Bruce frowned. "Get a couple of men to help you. Fill the

trucks with gas. We've wasted enough time already."

IF

They buried their dead in a communal grave, packing them in quickly and

covering them just as quickly. Then they stood embarrassed and silent

round the mound.

"You going to say anything, boss?" Ruffy asked, and they all looked at

Bruce.

"No." Bruce turned away and started for the trucks.

What the hell can you say, he thought angrily. Death is not someone to

make conversation with. All YOU can say is, "These were men; weak and

strong, evil and good, and a lot in between. But now they're dead – like

pork." He looked back over his shoulder.

"All right, let's move out." The convoy ground slowly over the

causeway. Bruce led in the Ford and the air blowing in through the

shattered windscreen was too humid and steamy to give relief from the

rising heat.

The sun stood high above the forest as they passed the turn-off to the

mission.

Bruce looked along it, and he wanted to signal the convoy to continue

while he went up to St. Augustine's. He wanted to see Mike

Haig and Father Ignatius, make sure that they were safe.

Then he put aside the temptation. If there is more horror up there at

St. Augustine's, if the shufta have found them and there are

raped women and dead men there, then there is nothing I can do and I

don't want to know about it.

It is better to believe that they are safely hidden in the jungle.

It is better to believe that out of all this will remain something good.

He led the convoy resolutely past the turn-off an dover the hills

towards the level crossing.

Suddenly another idea came to him and he thought about it, turning it

over with pleasure.

Four men came to Port Reprieve, men without hope, men abandoned by

God.

And they learned that it was not too late, perhaps it is never too late.

For one of them found the strength to die like a man, although he had

lived his whole life with weakness.

Another rediscovered the self-respect he had lost along the way, -and

with it the chance to start again.

The third found – he hesitated – yes, the third found love.

And the fourth? Bruce's smile faded as he thought of Wally

Hendry. It was a neat little parable, except for Wally Hendry. What

had he found? A dozen human ears threaded on a pencil?

"Can't you get up enough steam to move us back to the crossing -

only a few miles."

"I am desolate, m'sieur. She will not hold even a belch, to say nothing

of a head of steam." The engine driver spread his pudgy little'hands in a

gesture of helplessness.

Bruce studied the rent in the boiler. The metal was torn open like the

petals of a flower. He knew it had been a forlorn request.

"Very well. Thank you." He turned to Ruffy. "We'll have to carry

everything back to the convoy. Another day wasted."

"It's a long walk," Ruffy agreed. "Better get started."

"How much food have we?"

"Not too much. We've been feeding a lot of extra mouths, and we sent a

lot out to the mission."

"How much?"

"About two more days."

"That should get us to Elisabethville."

"Boss, you want to carry everything to the lorries?

Searchlights, ammunition, blankets – all of it?" Bruce paused for a

moment. "I think so. We may need it."

"It's going to take the rest of the day."

"Yes," agreed Bruce. Ruffy walked back along the train but Bruce called

after him.

"Ruffy!"

"Boss?"

"Don't forget the beer." Ruffy's black moon of a face split laterally

into a grin.

"You think we should take it?"

"Why not?" Bruce laughed.

"Man, you talked me right into it." And the night was almost on them

before the last of the equipment had been carried back from the

Abandoned train to the convoy and loaded into the trucks.

Time is a slippery thing, even more so than wealth. No bank vault can

hold it for you, this precious stuff which we spend in such prodigal

fashion on the trivialities. By the time we have slept and eaten and

moved from one place to the next there is such a small percentage left

for the real business of living.

Bruce felt futile resentment as he always did when he thought about it.

And if you discount the time spent at an office desk, then how much is

there left? Half of one day a week, that's how much the average man

lives! That's how far short of our potential is the actuality of

existence.

Take it further than that: we are capable of using only a fraction of

our physical and mental strength. Only under hypnosis are we able to

exert more than a tenth of what is in us. So divide that half of one day

a week by ten, and the rest is waste! Sickening waste!

"Ruffy, have you detailed sentries for tonight?" Bruce barked at him.

"Not yet. I was just-"

"Well, do it, and do it quickly." Ruffy looked at Bruce in speculation

and through his anger Bruce felt a qualm of regret that he had selected

that mountain of energy on which to vent his frustration.

"Where the hell is Hendry?" he snapped.

Without speaking Ruffy pointed to a group of men round one of the

trucks at the rear of the convoy and Bruce left him.

Suddenly consumed with impatience Bruce fell upon his men.

Shouting at them, scattering them to a dozen different tasks. He walked

along the convoy making sure that his instructions were being

carried out to the letter; checking the siting of the Brens and the

searchlights, making sure that the single small cooking fire was

screened from Baluba eyes, stopping to watch the refuelling of the

trucks and the running maintenance he had ordered. Men avoided catching

his eye and bent to their tasks with studied application.

There were no raised voices or sounds of laughter in the camp.

Again Bruce had decided against a night journey. The temptation itched

within him, but the exhaustion of those gendarmes who had not slept

since the previous morning and the danger of travelling in the dark he

could not ignore.

"We'll leave as soon as it's light tomorrow," Bruce told Ruffy.

"Okay, boss," Ruffy nodded, and then soothingly, "you're tired.

Food's nearly ready, then you get some sleep." Bruce glared at him,

opening his mouth to snarl a retort, and then closed it again. He turned

and strode out of the camp into the forest.

He found a fallen tree, sat down and lit a cigarette. It was dark now

and there were only a few stars among the rain clouds that blackened the

sky. He could hear the faint sounds from the camp but there were no

lights – the way he had ordered it.

The fact that his anger had no focal point inflamed it rather than

quenched it. It ranged restlessly until at last it found a target, -

himself. He recognized the brooding undirected depression that was

descending upon him. It was a thing he had not experienced for a long

time, nearly two years. Not since the wreck of his marriage and the loss

of his children. Not since he had stifled all emotion and trained

himself not to participate in the life around him.

But now his barrier was gone, there was no sheltered harbour from

the storm surf and he would have to ride it out.

The anger was gone now. At least anger had heat but this other thing was