Текст книги "The Dark of the Sun"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

close, and listened to it. It held no terror now, for they were warm and

secure in the afterglow of passion. It was like lying and listening to

the impotent fury of a rainstorm on the roof at night.

They went out to the bridge at sunrise, the shelter moving across the

open ground like the carapace of a multi-legged metallic turtle.

The men chartered and joked loudly inside, still elated by the novelty

of it.

"All right, everybody. That's enough talking," Bruce shouted them down.

"There's work to do now." And they began.

Within an hour the sun had turned the metal box into an oven.

They stripped to the waist and the sweat dripped from them as they

worked. They worked in a frenzy, gripped by a new urgency, oblivious of

everything but the roughsawed timber that drove white splinters into

their skin at the touch. They worked in the confined heat, amidst the

racket of hammers and in the piney smell of sawdust. The labour fell

into its own pattern with only an occasional grunted order from Bruce or

Ruffy to direct it.

By midday the four main trusses that would span the gap in the bridge

had been made up. Bruce tested their rigidity by propping one at both

ends and standing all his men on the middle of it. It gave an inch under

their combined weight.

"What do you think, boss?" Ruffy asked without conviction.

"Four of them might just do it. We'll put in king-posts

underneath," Bruce answered.

"Man, I don't know. That tanker weighs plenty."

"It's no flyweight," Bruce agreed. "But we'll have to take the chance.

We'll bring the Ford across first, then the trucks and the tanker last."

Ruffy nodded and wiped his face on his forearm, the muscles below his

armpits knotted as he moved and there was no flabbiness in the powerful

bulge of his belly above his belt.

Thew!" He blew his lips out. "I got the feeling for a beer now.

This thirst is really stalking me."

"You've got some with you?" Bruce asked as he passed his thumbs across

his eyebrows and squeezed the moisture from them so it ran down his

cheeks.

"Two things I never travel without, my trousers and a stock of the brown

and bubbly." Ruffy picked up the small pack from the corner of the

shelter and it clinked coyly.

"You hear that sound, boss?"

"I hear it, and it sounds like music," grinned Bruce.

"All right, everybody." He raised his voice. "Take ten minutes."

Ruffy opened the bottles and passed them out, issuing one to be shared

between three gendarmes. "These Arabs don't properly appreciate this

stuff" he explained to Bruce.

"It'd just be a waste." The liquor was lukewarm and gassy, it merely

aggravated Bruce's thirst. He drained the bottle and tossed it out of

the shelter.

"All right." He stood up. "Let's get these trusses into position."

"That's the shortest ten minutes I ever lived," commented

Ruffy.

"Your watch is slow," said Bruce.

Carrying the trusses within it, the shelter lumbered out on to the

bridge. There was no laughter now, only laboured breathing and curses.

"Fix the ropes!" commanded Bruce. He tested the knots personally, then

looked up at Ruffy and nodded.

"That'll do."

"Come on, you mad bastards," Ruffy growled. "Lift it." The first truss

rose to the perpendicular and swayed there like a grotesque maypole with

the ropes hanging from its top.

"Two men on each rope," ordered Bruce. "Let it down gently." He glanced

round to ensure that they were all ready.

"Drop it over the edge, and I'll throw you bastards in after it," warned

Ruffy.

"Lower away!" shouted Bruce.

The truss leaned out over the gap towards the fire-blackened stump

of bridge on the far side slowly at first, then faster as gravity took

it.

"Hold it, damn you. Hold it!" roared Ruffy with the muscles in his

shoulders humped out under the strain. They lay back against the ropes,

but the weight of the truss dragged them forward as it fell.

It crashed down across the gap, lifted a cloud of dead wood ash as it

struck, and lay there quivering.

"Man, I thought we'd lost that one for sure," growled Ruffy, then turned

savagely on his men.

"You bastards better be sharper with the next one – if you don't want to

swim this river." They repeated the process with the second truss, and

again they could not hold its falling length, but this time they were

not so lucky. The end of the truss hit the far side, bounced and slid

sideways.

"It's going! Pull, you bastards, pull!" shouted Ruffy.

The truss toppled slowly sideways an dover the edge. It hit the river

below them with a splash, disappeared under the surface, then bobbed up

and floated away downstream until checked by the ropes.

Both Bruce and Ruffy filmed and swore during the lengthy exasperating

business of dragging it back against the current and manhandling its

awkward bulk back on to the bridge.

Half a dozen times it slipped at the crucial moment and splashed back

into the river.

Despite his other virtues, Ruffy's vocabulary of cursing words was

limited and it added to his frustration that he had to keep repeating

himself. Bruce did much better – he remembered things that he had heard

and he made up a few.

When finally they had the dripping baulk of timber back on the bridge

and were resting, Ruffy turned to Bruce with honest admiration.

"You swear pretty good," he said. "Never heard you before, but no doubt

about it, you're good! What's that one about the cow again?" Bruce

repeated it for him a little self-consciously.

"You make that up yourself?" asked Ruffy.

"Spur of the moment," laughed Bruce.

"That's "bout the dirtiest I ever heard." Ruffy could not conceal his

envy. "Man, you should write a book." "Let's get this bridge finished

first," said Bruce. "Then I'll think about it." Now the truss was almost

servile in its efforts to please.

It dropped neatly across the gap and lay beside its twin.

"You curse something good enough, and it works every time," Ruffy

announced sagely. "I think your one about the cow made all the

difference, boss." With two trusses in position they had broken the back

of the project. They carried the shelter out and set it on the trusses,

straddling the gap. The third and fourth trusses were dragged into

position and secured with ropes and nails before nightfall.

When the shelter waddled wearily back to the laager at dusk, the men

within it were exhausted. Their hands were bleeding and bristled with

wood splinters, but they were also mightily pleased with themselves.

Sergeant Jacque, keep one of your searchlights trained on the bridge all

night. We don't want our friends to come out and set fire to it again."

"There are only a few hours" life left in each of the batteries." Jacque

kept his voice low.

at a time then." Bruce spoke without hesitation.

"We must have that bridge lit up all night.

"You think you could spare a beer for each of the boys that worked

on the bridge today?"

"A whole one each!" Ruffy was shocked. "I only got a Couple cases left."

Bruce fixed him with a stern eye and Ruffy grinned.

"Okay, boss. Guess they've earned it." Bruce transferred his attention

to Wally Hendry who sat on the running-board of one of the trucks

cleaning his nails with the point of his bayonet.

"Everything under control here, Hendry?" he asked coolly.

"Sure, what'd you think would happen? We'd have a visit from the

archbishop? The sky'd fall in? Your French thing'd have twins or

something?" He looked up from his nails at Bruce. "When are you jokers

going to get that bridge finished, instead of wandering around asking

damn-fool questions?"

"You've got the Bruce was too tired to feel annoyed.

night watch, Hendry," he said, "from now until dawn."

"Is that right, hey? And you? What're you going to do all night, or does

that question make you blush?"

"I'm going to sleep, that's what I'm going to do. I haven't been lolling

round camp all day." Hendry pegged the bayonet into the earth between

his feet and snorted.

"Well, give her a little bit of sleep for me too, Bucko." Bruce left him

and crossed to the Ford.

"Hello, Bruce. How did it go today? I missed you," Shermaine greeted

him, and her face lit up as she looked at him. It is a good feeling to

be loved, and some of Bruce's fatigue lifted.

"About half finished, another day's work." Then he smiled back at her. "I

won't lie and say I missed you – I've been too damn busy." "Your hands!"

she said with quick concern and lifted them to examine them. "They're in

a terrible state."

"Not very pretty, are they?"

"Let me get a needle from my case. I'll get the splinters out." From

across the laager Wally Hendry caught Bruce's eye and with one hand made

a

suggestive sign below his waist.

Then, at Bruce's frown of anger, he threw back his head and laughed with

huge delight.

ruce's stomach grumbled with hunger as he stood with Ruffy and

Hendry beside the cooking fire. In the early morning light he could just

make out the dark shape of the bridge at the end of the clearing.

That drum was still beating in the jungle, but they hardly noticed it

now. It was taken for granted like the mosquitoes. "The batteries are

finished," grunted Ruffy. The feeble yellow beam of the searchlight

reached out tiredly towards the bridge.

"Only just lasted the rught," agreed Bruce.

"Christ, I'm hungry," complained Hendry. "What could I do to a couple of

fried eggs and a porterhouse steak." At the mention of food

Bruce's mouth flooded with saliva. He shut his mind against the picture

that Wally's words had evoked in his imagination.

"We won't be able to finish the bridge and get the trucks across

today," he said, and Ruffy agreed.

"There's a full day's work left on her, boss."

"This is what we'll do then," Bruce went on. "I'll take the work party

out to the bridge.

Hendry, you will stay here in the laager and cover us the same as

yesterday. And Ruffy, you take one of the trucks and a dozen of your

boys. Go back ten miles or so to where the forest is open and they won't

be able to creep up on you. Then cut us a mountain of firewood; thick

logs that will burn all night. We will set a ring of watch fires round

the camp tonight."

"That makes sense, , Ruffy nodded. "But what

about the bridge?"

"We'll have to put a guard on it," said Bruce, and the -expressions on

their faces changed as they thought about this.

"More pork chops for the boys in the bushes," growled Hendry.

"You won't catch me sitting out on the bridge anight."

"No one's asking you to," snapped Bruce. "All right, Ruffy.

Go and fetch the wood, and plenty of it." Bruce completed the repairs to

the bridge in the late afternoon. The most anxious period was in the

middle of the day when he and four men had to leave the shelter and

clamber down on to the supports a few feet above the surface of the

river to set the kingposts in place. Here they were exposed at random

range to arrows from the undergrowth along the banks.

But no arrows came and they finished the job and climbed back to safety

again with something of a sense of anticlimax.

They nailed the crossties over the trusses and then roped everything

into a compact mass.

Bruce stood back and surveyed the fruit of two full days" labour.

"Functional," he decided, speaking aloud. "But we certainly aren't

going to win any prizes for aesthetic beauty or engineering design." He

picked up his jacket and thrust his arms into the sleeves; his sweaty

upper body was cold now that the sun was almost down.

Home, gentlemen," he said, and his gendarmes scattered to their

positions inside the shelter.

The metal shelter circled the laager, squatting every twenty or thirty

paces like an old woman preparing to relieve herself. When it lifted and

moved on it left a log fire behind it. The ring of fires was completed

by dark and the shelter returned to the laager.

"Are you ready, Ruffy?" From inside the shelter Bruce called across to

where Ruffy waited.

"All set, boss." Followed by six heavily armed. gendarmes, Ruffy crossed

quickly to join Bruce and they set off to begin their all night vigil on

the bridge.

Before midnight it was cold in the corrugated iron shelter, for the wind

blew down the river and they were completely exposed to it, and there

was no cloud cover to hold the day's warmth against the earth.

The men in the shelter huddled under their gas capes and waited.

Bruce and Ruffy leaned together against the corrugated iron wall, their

shoulders almost touching, and there was sufficient light from the stars

to light the interior of the shelter and allow them to make out the

guard rails of the bridge through the open ends.

"Moon will be up in an hour," murmured Ruffy.

"Only a quarter of it, but it will give us a little more light," Bruce

concurred, and peered down into the black hole between his feet where he

had prised up one of the newly laid planks.

"How about taking a shine with the torch?" suggested Ruffy.

"No." Bruce shook his head, and passed the flashlight into his other

hand. "Not until I hear them."

"You might not hear them."

"If they swim downstream and climb up the piles, which is what I expect,

then we'll hear them all right. They'll be dripping water all over the

place," said Bruce.

"Kanaki and his boys didn't hear them," Ruffy pointed out.

"Kanaki and his boys weren't listening for it," said Bruce.

They were silent then for a while. One of the gendarmes started to snore

softly and Ruffy shot out a huge booted foot that landed in

the small of his back. The man cried out and scrambled to his knees,

looking wildly about him.

"You have nice dreams?" Ruffy asked pleasantly.

"I wasn't sleeping," the man protested. "I was thinking."

"Well, don't think so loudly," Ruffy advised him. "Sounds though you

sawing through the bridge with a cross cut." Another half hour dragged

itself by like a cripple.

"Fires are burning well," commented Ruffy, and Bruce turned his head and

glanced through the loophole in the corrugated iron behind him at the

little garden of orange flame-flowers in the darkness.

"Yes, they should last till morning." Silence again, with only the

singing of the mosquitoes and the rustle of the river as it flowed by

the piles of the bridge. Shermaine has my pistol, Bruce remembered with

a small trip in his pulse, I should have taken it back from her.

He unclipped the bayonet from the muzzle of his rifle, tested the edge

of the blade with his thumb, and slid it into the scabbard on his

web-belt. Could easily lose the rifle if we start mixing it in the dark,

he decided.

"Christ, I'm hungry," grunted Ruffy beside him.

"You're too fat," said Bruce. "The diet will do you good." And they

waited.

Bruce stared down into the hole in the floorboards. His eyes began

weaving fantasies out of the darkness, he could see vague shapes that

moved, like things seen below the sud ce of the sea. His stomach

tightened and he fought the impulse to shine his flashlight into the

hole. He closed his eyes to rest them. I will count slowly to ten, he

decided, and then look again.

Ruffy's hand closed on his upper arm; the pressure of his fingers

transmitted alarm like a current of electricity. Bruce's eyelids flew

open.

Listen," breathed Ruffy.

Bruce heard it. The stealthy drip of water on water below them.

Then something bumped the bridge, but so softly that he felt rather than

heard the jar.

"Yes," Bruce whispered back. He reached out and tapped the shoulder of

the gendarme beside him and the man's body stiffened at his

touch.

With his breath scratching his dry throat, Bruce waited until he was

sure the warning had been passed to all his men. Then he shifted the

weight of his rifle from across his knees and aimed down into the hole.

He drew in a deep breath and switched on the flashlight.

The beam shot down and he looked along it over his rifle barrel.

The square aperture in the floorboards formed a frame for the picture

that flashed into his eyes. Black bodies, naked, glossy with wetness,

weird patterns of tattoo marks, a face staring up at him, broad sloped

forehead above startlingly white eyes and flat nose. The

long gleaming blade of a panga. Clusters of humanity clinging to the

wooden piles like ticks on the legs of a beast. Legs and arms and shiny

trunks merged into a single organism, horrible as some slimy

sea-creature.

Bruce fired into it. His rifle shuddered against his shoulder and the

long orange spurts from its muzzle gave the picture a new flickering

horror. The mass of bodies heaved, and struggled like a pack of rats

trapped in a dry well. They dropped splashing into the river, swarmed up

the timber piles, twisting and writhing as the bullets hit them,

screaming, babbling over the sound of the rifle.

Bruce's weapon clicked empty and he groped for a new magazine.

Ruffy and his gendarmes were hanging over the guard rails of the bridge,

firing downwards, sweeping the piles below them with long bursts, the

flashes lighting their faces and outlining their bodies against the sky.

"They're still coming!" roared Ruffy. "Don't let them get over the

side." Out of the hole at Bruce's feet thrust the head and naked upper

body of a man. There was a panga in his hand; he slashed at

Bruce's legs, his eyes glazed in the beam of the flashlight.

Bruce jumped back and the knife missed his knees by inches. The man

wormed his way out of the hole towards Bruce. He was screaming

shrilly, a high meaningless sound. Bruce lunged with the barrel

of his empty rifle at the contorted black face. All his weight was

behind that thrust and the muzzle went into the Baluba's eye. "The

foresight and four inches of the barrel disappeared into his head,

stopping only when it hit bone. Colourless fluid from the burst eyeball

gushed from round the protruding steel.

Tugging and twisting, Bruce tried to free the rifle, but the foresight

had buried itself like the barb of a fish hook.

The Baluba had dropped his panga and was clinging to the rifle barrel

with both hands. He was wailing and rolling on his back upon the

floorboards, his head jerking every time Bruce tried to pull the muzzle

out of his head.

Beyond him the head and shoulders of another Baluba appeared through the

aperture.

Bruce dropped his rifle and gathered up the fallen panga; he jumped over

the writhing body of the first Baluba and lifted the heavy knife above

his head with both hands.

The man was jammed in the hole, powerless to protect himself. He

looked up at Bruce and his mouth fell open.

Two-handed, as though he were chopping wood, Bruce swung his whole body

into the stroke. The shock jarred his shoulders and he felt blood

splatter his legs. The untempered blade snapped off at the hilt and

stayed imbedded in the Baluba's skull.

Panting heavily, Bruce straightened up and looked wildly about him.

Baluba were swarming over the guard rail on one side of the bridge. The

starlight glinted on their wet skins. One of his gendarmes was lying in

a dark huddle, his head twisted back and his rifle still in his hands.

Ruffy and the other gendarmes were still firing down over the far side.

"Ruffy!" shouted Bruce. "Behind you! They're coming over!" and he

dropped the handle of the panga and ran towards the body of the

gendarme. He needed that rifle.

Before he could reach it the naked body of a Baluba rushed at him.

Bruce ducked under the sweep of the panga and grappled with him. They

fell locked together, the man's body slippery and sinuous against him,

and the smell of him fetid as rancid butter.

Bruce found the pressure point below the elbow of his knife arm and dug

in with his thumb. The Baluba yelled and his panga clattered on the

floorboards. Bruce wrapped his arm round the man's neck while with his

free hand he reached for his bayonet.

The Baluba was clawing for Bruce's eyes with his fingers, his nails

scored the side of Bruce's nose, but Bruce had his bayonet out now. He

placed the point against the man's chest and pressed it in.

He felt the steel scrape against the bone of a rib and the man redoubled

his struggles at the sting of it. Bruce twisted the blade, working it in

with his wrist, forcing the man's head backwards with his

other arm.

The point of the bayonet scraped over the bone and found the gap

between. Like taking a virgin, suddenly the resistance to its entrance

was gone and it slid home full length. The Baluba's body jerked

mechanically and the bayonet twitched in Bruce's fist.

Bruce did not even wait for the man to die. He pulled the blade out

against the sucking reluctance of tissue that clung to it and scrambled

to his feet in time to see Ruffy pick another Baluba from his feet and

hurl him bodily over the guard rail.

Bruce snatched the rifle from the gendarme's dead hands and stepped to

the guard rail. They were coming over the side, those below shouting and

pushing at the ones above.

Like shooting a row of sparrows from a fence with a shotgun, thought

Bruce grimly, and with one long burst he cleared the rail.

Then he leaned out and sprayed the piles below the bridge. The rifle was

empty. He reloaded with a magazine from his pocket. But it was all over.

They were dropping back into the river, the piles below the bridge were

clear of men, their heads bobbed away downstream.

Bruce lowered his rifle and looked about him. Three of his gendarmes

were killing the man that Bruce had wounded, standing over him and

grunting as they thrust down with their bayonets. The man was still

wailing.

Bruce looked away.

One horn of the crescent moon showed above the trees; it had a gauzy

halo about it.

Bruce lit a cigarette and behind him those gruesome noises ceased.

"Are you okay, boss?"

"Yes, I'm fine. How about you, Ruffy?"

"I got me a terrible thirst now. Hope nobody trod on my pack." About

four minutes from the first shot to the last, Bruce guessed. That's the

way of war, seven hours of waiting and boredom, then four minutes of

frantic endeavour. Not only of war either, he thought. The whole of life

is like that.

Then he felt the trembling in his thighs and the first spasm of

nausea as the reaction started.

"What's happening?" A shout floated across from the laager. Bruce

recognized Hendry's voice. "Is everything all right?"

"We've beaten them off," Bruce shouted back. "Everything under control.

You can go to sleep again," And now I have got to sit down quickly, he

told

himself.

Except for the tattoos upon his cheeks and forehead the dead

Baluba's features were little different from those of the Barnbala and

Bakuha men who made up the bulk of Bruce's command.

Bruce played the flashlight over the corpse. The arms and legs were thin

but stringy with muscle, and the belly bulged out from years of

malnutrition. It was an ugly body, gnarled and crabbed. With distaste

Bruce moved the light back to the features. The bone of the skull formed

harsh angular planes beneath the skin, the nose was flattened and the

thick lips had about them a repellent brutality.

They were drawn back slightly to reveal the teeth which had been filed

to sharp points like those of a shark.

"This is the last one, boss. I'll toss him overboard." Ruffy spoke in

the darkness beside Bruce.

"Good." Ruffy heaved and grunted, the corpse splashed below them and

Ruffy wiped his hands on the guard rail, then came to sit beside

Bruce.

"Goddam apes." Ruffy's voice was full of the bitter tribal antagonism of

Africa. "When we get shot of these U.N. people there'll be a bit of

sorting out to do. They've got a few things to learn, these bloody

Baluba." And so it goes, thought Bruce, Jew and Gentile, Catholic and

Protestant, black and white, Bambala and

Baluba.

He checked the time, another two hours to dawn. His nervous reaction

from physical violence had abated now; the hand that held the cigarette

no longer trembled.

"They won't come again," said Ruffy. "You can get some sleep now if you

want. I'll keep an eye open, boss."

"No, thanks. I'll wait with you." His nerves had not settled down enough

for sleep.

"How's it for a beer?"

"Thanks." Bruce sipped the beer and stared out at the watch fires round

the laager. They had burned down to puddles of red ash but Bruce knew

that Ruffy was right. The Baluba would not attack again that night.

"So how do you like freedom?"

"How's that, boss?" The question puzzled Ruffy and he turned to Bruce

questioningly.

all?

"How do you like it now the Belgians have gone?"

"It's pretty good, I reckon."

"And if Tshombe has to give in to the Central

Government?"

"Those mad Arabs!" snarled Ruffy. "All they want is our copper. They're

going to have to get up early in the morning to take

it. We're in the saddle here." The great jousting tournament of the

African continent.

"I'm in the saddle, try to unhorse me! As in all matters of survival it

was not a question of ethics and political doctrine (except to the

spectators in Whitehall, Moscow, Washington and Peking). There were big

days coming, thought Bruce. My own country, when she blows, is going to

make Algiers look like an old ladies-sewing circle.

The sun was up, throwing long shadows out into the clearing, and

Bruce stood beside the Ford and looked across the bridge at the

corrugated iron shelter on the far bank.

He relaxed for a second and let his mind run unhurriedly over his

preparations for the crossing. Was there something left undone, some

disposition which could make it more secure?

Hendry and a dozen men were in the shelter across the bridge, ready to

meet any attack on that side.

Shermaine would take the Ford across first. Then the lorries would

follow her. They would cross empty to minimize the danger of the bridge

collapsing, or being weakened for the passage of the tanker.

After each lorry had crossed, Hendry would shuttle its load and

passengers over in the shelter and deposit them under the safety of the

canvas canopy.

The last lorry would go over fully loaded. That was regrettable but

unavoidable.

Finally Bruce himself would drive the tanker across. Not as an act of

heroism, although it was the most dangerous business of the morning, but

because he would trust no one else to do it, not even

Ruffy. The five hundred gallons of fuel it contained was their

safe-conduct home. Bruce had taken the precaution of filling all the

gasoline tanks in the convoy in case of accidents, but they would need

replenishing before they reached Msapa junction.

He looked down at Shermaine in the driver's seat of the Ford.

"Keep it in low gear, take her over slowly but steadily.

Whatever else you do, don't stop." She nodded. She was composed and she

smiled at him.

Bruce felt a stirring of pride as he looked at her, so small and lovely,

but today she was doing man's work. He went on. "As soon as you are

over, I will send one of the trucks after you. Hendry will put six of

his men into it and then come back for the others."

"Oui, Monsieur Bonaparte."

"You'll pay for that tonight," he threatened her. ""Now you go.

Shermaine let out the clutch and the Ford bounced over rough ground to

the road, accelerated smoothly out on to the bridge.

Bruce held his breath, but there was only a slight check and sway as it

crossed the repaired section.

"Thank God for that." Bruce let out his breath and watched while – the

line drew up alongside the shelter.

Bruce shouted "Next!" colod was ready at the wheel of the first truck.

The man smiled his cheerful chubby-faced smile, waved, and the truck

rolled forward.

Watching anxiously as it went on to the bridge, Bruce saw the new

timbers give perceptibly beneath the weight of the truck, and he heard

them creak loudly in protest.

"Not so good," he muttered.

"No-" agreed Ruffy. "Boss, why don't you let someone else take the

tanker over?"

"We've been over that already," Bruce

answered him without turning his head. Across the river Hendry was

transferring his men from the shelter to the back of the truck.

Then the shelter started its tedious way back towards them.

Bruce fretted impatiently during the four hours that it took to get four

trucks across. The long business was the shuttling back and forth of the

corrugated iron shelter, at least ten minutes for each trip.

Finally there was only the fifth truck and the tanker left on the north

bank. Bruce started the engine of the tanker and put her into auxiliary

low, then he blew a single blast on the horn. The driver of the truck

ahead of him waved an acknowledgement and pulled forward.

The truck reached the bridge and went out into the middle. It was fully

loaded, twenty men aboard. It came to the repaired section and

slowed down, almost stopping.

"Go on! Keep it going, damn you," Bruce shouted in impotent anger. The

fool of a driver was forgetting his orders. He crawled forward and the

bridge gave alarmingly under the full weight, the high canopied roof

rocked crazily, and even above the rumble of his own engine Bruce could

hear the protesting groan of the bridge timbers.

"The fool, oh, the bloody fool," whispered Bruce to himself.

Suddenly he felt very much alone and unprotected here on the north bank

with the bridge being mutilated by the incompetence of the truck driver.

He started the tanker moving.

Ahead of him the other driver had panicked. He was racing his engine,

the rear wheels spun viciously, blue smoke of scorched tyres, and one of

the floorboards tore loose. Then the truck lurched forward and roared up

the south bank.

Bruce hesitated, applying the brakes and bringing the tanker to a

standstill on the threshold of the bridge.

He thought quickly. The sensible thing would be to repair the damage to

the bridge before chancing it with the weight of the tanker.

But that would mean another day's delay. None of them had eaten since

the previous morning. Was he justified in gambling against even odds,

for that's what they were? A fifty-fifty chance, heads you get across,

tails you dump the tanker in the middle of the river.

Then unexpectedly the decision was made for him.

From across the river a Bren gun started firing. Bruce jumped in his

seat and looked up. Then a dozen other guns joined in and the tracer

flew past the tanker. They were firing across towards him, close on

eachside of him. Bruce struggled to drag from his uncomprehending brain

an explanation of this new development. Suddenly

everything was moving too swiftly. Everything was confusion and chaos.