Текст книги "The Dark of the Sun"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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perhaps, but that's all." "How many men at this village?" asked Bruce,

and Ruffy turned back to the boy. In reply to the question he held up

the fingers of both hands, without interrupting the chewing.

"Does he know if the line is clear through to Port Reprieve? Have they

burnt the bridges or torn up the tracks?" Both children were dumb to

this question. The boy swallowed the last of his chocolate and looked

hungrily at Ruffy, who filled his mouth again.

"Jesus," muttered Hendry with deep disgust. "Is this a creche or

something. Let's all play ring around the roses."

"Shut up," snapped

Bruce, and then to Ruffy, "Have they seen any soldiers?" Two heads

shaken in solemn unison.

"Have they seen any war parties of their own people?" Again solemn

negative.

"All right, give them the rest of the chocolate," instructed

Bruce. That was all he could get out of them, and time was wasting. He

glanced back at the tower and saw that Haig and the engine driver had

finished watering. For a further second he studied the boy. His own son

would be about the same age now; it was twelve months since – Bruce

stopped himself hurriedly. That way lay madness.

Hendry, take them back to the edge of the bush and turn them loose.

Hurry up. We've wasted long enough."

"You're telling me!"

grunted Hendry and beckoned to the two children. With Hendry leading and

a gendarme on each side they trotted away obediently and disappeared

behind the station building.

"Driver, are your preparations complete?"

"Yes, monsieur, we are ready to depart."

"Shovel all the coal in, we've gotta keep her rolling." Bruce smiled at

him, he liked the little man and their stilted exchanges gave him

pleasure.

"Pardon, monsieur."

"It was an imbecility, a joke – forgive me."

"Ah, a joke!" The roly-poly stomach wobbled merrily.

"Okay, Mike," Bruce shouted, "get your men aboard. We are, -" A

burst of automatic gunfire cut his voice short. It came from behind the

station buildings, and it battered into the heat-muted morning with such

startling violence that for an instant Bruce stood paralysed.

"Haig," he yelled, "get up front and take over from de Surrier."

That was the weak point, and Mike's party ran down the train.

"You men." Bruce stopped the six gendarmes. "Come with me." They fell in

behind him, and with a quick glance Bruce assured himself that the train

was safe. All along its length rifle barrels were poking out

protectively, while on the roof Ruffy was dragging the Bren round to

cover the flank. A charge by even a thousand Baluba must fail before the

fire power that was ready now to receive it.

"Come on," said Bruce and ran, with the gendarmes behind him, to the

sheltering wall of the station building.

There had been no shot fired since that initial burst, which could mean

either that it was a false alarm or that Hendry's party had been

overwhelmed by the first rush.

The door of the station master's office was locked. Bruce kicked and it

crashed open with the weight of his booted foot behind it.

I've always wanted to do that, he thought happily in his excitement,

ever since I saw Gable do it in San Francisco.

"You four – inside! Cover us from the windows." They crowded into the

room with their rifles held ready. Through the open door Bruce saw the

telegraph equipment on the table by the far wall; it was clattering

metallically from traffic on the Elisabethville-Jadotville line. Why is

it that under the stimulus of excitement my mind always registers

irrelevances? Which thought is another irrelevancy, he decided.

"Come on, you two, stay with me." He led them down the outside

wall, keeping in close to its sheltering bulk, pausing at the corner to

check the load of his rifle and slip the selector on to rapid fire.

A further moment he hesitated. What will I find around this corner? A

hundred naked savages crowded round the mutilated bodies of

Hendry and his gendarmes, or ... ?

Crouching, ready to jump back behind the wall, rifle held at high port

across his chest, every muscle and nerve of his body cocked like a

hair-trigger, Bruce stepped sideways into the open.

Hendry and the two gendarmes stood in the dusty road beyond the first

cottage. They were relaxed, talking together, Hendry reloading his

rifle, cramming the magazine with big red hands on which the gingery

hair caught the sunlight. A cigarette dangled from his lower lip and he

laughed suddenly, throwing his head back as he did so and the cigarette

ash dropped down his jacket front. Bruce noticed the long dark sweat

stain across his shoulders.

The two children lay in the road fifty yards farther on.

Bruce was suddenly cold, it came from inside, a cramping coldness of the

guts and chest. Slowly he straightened up and began to walk towards the

children. His feet fell silently in the powder dust and the only sound

was his own breathing, hoarse, as though a wounded beast followed close

behind him. He walked past Hendry and the two gendarmes

without looking at them; but they stopped talking, watching him

uneasily.

He reached the girl first and went down on one knee beside her, laying

his rifle aside and turning her gently on to her back.

"This isn't true," he whispered. "This can't be true." The bullet had

taken half her chest out with it, a hole the size of a coffee cup, with

the blood still moving in it, but slowly, oozing, welling up into it

with the viscosity of new honey.

Bruce moved across to the boy; he felt an almost dreamlike sense of

unreality.

"No, this isn't true." He spoke louder, trying to undo it with words.

Three bullets had hit the boy; one had torn his arm loose at the

shoulder and the sharp white end of the bone pointed accusingly out of

the wound. The other bullets had severed his trunk almost in two.

It came from far away, like the rising roar of a train along a tunnel.

Bruce could feel his whole being shaken by the strength of it, he shut

his eyes and listened to the roaring in his head, and with his eyes

tight closed his vision was filled with the colour of blood.

"Hold on!" a tiny voice screamed in his roaring head.

"Don't let go, fight it. Fight it as you've fought before." And he clung

like a flood victim to the straw of his sanity while the great roaring

was all around him. Then the roar was muted, rumbling away, gone past, a

whisper, now nothing.

The coldness came back to him, a coldness more vast than the flood had

been.

He opened his eyes and breathed again, stood up and walked back to where

Hendry stood with the two gendarmes.

"Corporal," Bruce addressed one of the men beside Hendry; and with a

shock he heard that his own voice was calm, without any trace of the

fury that had so nearly carried him away on its flood.

"Corporal, go back to the train. Tell Lieutenant Haig and

Sergeant Major Ruffararc, that I want them here." Thankfully the man

went, and Bruce spoke to Wally Hendry in the same dispassionate tone.

"I told you to turn them loose," he said.

"So they could run home and call the whole pack down on us – is that

what you wanted, Bucko?" Hendry had recovered now, he was defiant,

grinning.

"So instead you murdered them?"

"Murdered! You crazy or something, Bruce? They're Balubes, aren't they?

Bloody man-eating

Balubes!" shouted Hendry angrily, no longer grinning. "What's wrong

with you man? This is war, Bucko, war. C'est laguerre, like the man

said, c'est laguerre!" Then suddenly his voice moderated again.

"Let's forget it. I did what was right, now let's forget it; what's two

more bloody Balubes after all the killing that's been going on?

Let's forget it." Bruce did not answer, he lit a cigarette and looked

beyond Hendry for the others to come.

"How's that, Bruce? You willing we just forget it?" persisted

Hendry.

"On the contrary, Hendry, I make you a sacred oath, and I call upon God

to witness it." Bruce was not looking at him, he couldn't trust himself

to look at Hendry without killing him. "This is my promise to you: I

will have you hanged for this, not shot, hanged on good hemp rope. I

have sent for Haig and Ruffararo so we'll have plenty of witnesses. The

first thing I do once we get back to

Elisabethville will be to turn you over to the proper authorities."

"You don't mean that!"

"I have never meant anything so seriously in my life."

"Jesus, Bruce!-" Then Haig and Ruffy came; they came running until they

saw, and they stopped suddenly and stood uncertainly in the bright sun,

looking from Bruce to the two frail little corpses lying in the road.

"What happened?" asked Mike.

"Hendry shot them," answered Bruce.

"What for?"

"Only he knows."

"You mean he – he just killed them, just shot them down?"

"Yes." "My God," said Mike, and then again, his voice dull with shock,

my God."

"Go and look at them, Haig. I want you to look closely so you remember."

Haig walked across to the children.

"You too, Ruffy. You'll be a witness at the trial." Mike Haig and

Ruffy walked side by side to where the children lay, and stood staring

down at them. Hendry shuffled his feet in the dust awkwardly and then

went on loading the magazine of his rifle.

"Oh, for Chrissake!" he blustered. "What's all the fuss?

They're just a couple of Balubes." Wheeling slowly to face him

Mike Haig's face was a yellowish colour with only his cheeks and his

nose still flushed with the tiny burst of veins beneath the surface of

the skin, but there was no colour in his lips. Each breath he drew

sobbed in his throat. He started back towards Hendry, still breathing

that way, and his mouth was working as he tried to force it to speak.

As he came on he unslung the rifle from his shoulder.

"Haig! said Bruce sharply.

"This time – you you bloody – this is the last,-" mouthed Haig.

"Watch it, Bucko!" Hendry warned him. He stepped back, clumsily trying

to fit the loaded magazine on to his rifle.

Mike Haig dropped the point of his bayonet to the level of

Hendry's stomach.

"Haig!" shouted Bruce, and Haig charged surprisingly fast for a man of

his age, leaning forward, leading with the bayonet at Hendry's

stomach, the incoherent mouthings reaching their climax in a formless

bellow.

"Come on, then!" Hendry answered him and stepped forward. As they came

together Hendry swept the bayonet to one side with the butt of his own

rifle. The point went under his armpit and they collided chest to chest,

staggering as Haig's weight carried them backwards. Hendry dropped his

rifle and locked both arms round Haig's neck, forcing his head back so

that his face was tilted up at the right angle.

"Look out, Mike, he's going to butt!" Bruce had recognized the move, but

his warning came too late. Hendry's head jerked forward and

Mike gasped as the front of Hendry's steel helmet caught him across the

bridge of his nose. The rifle slipped from Mike's grip and fell into the

road, he lifted his hands and covered his face with Spread fingers and

the redness oozed out between them.

Again Hendry's head jerked forward like a hammer and again Mike gasped

as the steel smashed into his face and fingers.

"Knee him, Mike!" Bruce yelled as he tried to take up a position from

which to intervene, but they were staggering in a circle, turning like a

wheel and Bruce could not get in.

Hendry's legs were braced apart as he drew his head back to Strike

again, and Mike's knee went up between them, all the way up with power

into the fork of Hendry's crotch.

Breaking from the clinch, his mouth open in a silent scream of agony,

Hendry doubled up with both hands holding his lower stomach, and sagged

slowly on to his knees in the dust.

Dazed, with blood running into his mouth, Mike fumbled with the canvas

flap of his holster.

"I'll kill you, you murdering swine." The pistol came out into his right

hand; short-barrelled, blue and ugly.

Bruce stepped up behind him, his thumb found the nerve centre below the

elbow and as he dug in the pistol dropped from Mike's paralysed hand and

dangled on its lanyard against his knee.

Ruffy, stop him," Bruce shouted, for Hendry was clawing painfully at the

rifle that lay in the dust beside him.

"Got it, boss!" Ruffy stooped quickly over the crawling body at his

feet, in one swift movement opened the flap of the holster, drew the

revolver and the lanyard snapped like cotton as he jerked on it.

They stood like that: Bruce holding Haig from behind, and Hendry

crouched at Ruffy's feet. The only sound for several seconds was the

hoarse rasping of breath.

Bruce felt Mike relaxing in his grip as the madness left him; he

unclipped his pistol from his lanyard and let it drop.

"Leave me, Bruce. I'm all right now."

"Are you sure? I don't

want to shoot you."

"No, I'm all right."

"If you start it again, I'll have to shoot you. Do you understand?" Yes,

I'll be all right now. I

lost my senses for a moment." :You certainly did," Bruce agreed, and

released him.

They formed a circle round the kneeling Hendry, and Bruce spoke.

"If either you or Haig start it again you'll answer to me, do you hear

me?" Hendry looked up, his small eyes slitted with pain. He did

not answer.

"Do you hear me?" Bruce repeated the question and Hendry nodded.

"Good! From now on, Hendry, you are under open arrest.

I can't spare men to guard you, and you're welcome to escape if you'd

like to try. The local gentry would certainly entertain you most

handsomely, they'd probably arrange a special banquet in your honour."

Hendry's lips drew back in a snarl that exposed teeth with green slimy

stains on them.

"But remember my promise, Hendry, as soon as we get back to,-"

"Wally, Wally, are you hurt?" Andre came running from the direction of

the station. He knelt beside Hendry.

"Get away, leave me alone." Hendry struck out at him impatiently and

Andre recoiled.

"De Surrier, who gave you permission to leave your post?

Get back to the train." Andre looked up uncertainly, and then back to

Hendry.

"De Surrier, you heard me. Get going. And you also, Haig." He watched

them disappear behind the station building before he glanced once more

at the two children. There was a smear of blood and melted chocolate

across the boy's cheek and his eyes were wide open in an expression of

surprise. Already the flies were settling, crawling

delightedly over the two small corpses.

"Ruffy, get spades, Bury them under those trees." He pointed at the

avenue of casia flora. "But do it quickly." He spoke brusquely so that

how he felt would not show in his voice.

"Okay, boss. I'll fix it."

"Come on, Hendry," Bruce snapped, and

Wally Hendry heaved to his feet and followed him meekly back to the

train.

Slowly from Msapa junction they travelled northwards through the

forest. Each tree seemed to have been cast from the same mould, tall and

graceful in itself, but when multiplied countless million times the

effect was that of numbing monotony. Above them was a lane of open sky

with the clouds scattered, but slowly regrouping for the next assault,

and the forest shut in the moist heat so they sweated even in the wind

of the train's movement.

"How is your face?" asked Bruce and Mike Haig touched the parallel

swellings across his forehead where the skin was broken and discoloured.

"It will do," he decided; then he lifted his eyes and looked across the

open trucks at Wally Hendry. "You shouldn't have stopped me, Bruce."

Bruce did not answer, but he also watched Hendry as he leaned

uncomfortably against the side of the leading truck, obviously favouring

his injuries, his face turned half away from them, talking to

Andre.

"You should have let me kill him," Mike went on. "A man who can shoot

down two small children in cold blood and then laugh about it

afterwards-!" Mike left the rest unsaid, but his hands were opening and

closing in his lap.

"It's none of your business, said Bruce, sensitive to the implied

rebuke. "What are you? One of God's avenging angels?"

"None of my business, you say?" Mike turned quickly to face Bruce. "My

God, what kind of man are you? I hope for your sake you don't mean

that."

"I'll tell you in words of one syllable what kind of man I am, Haig,"

Bruce answered flatly. "I'm the kind that minds my own bloody business,

that lets other people lead their own lives. I am ready to take

reasonable measures to prevent others flouting the code which society

has drawn up

for us, but that's all. Hendry has committed murder; this I agree is a

bad thing, and when we get back to Elisabethville I will bring it to the

attention of the people whose business it is.

But I am not going to wave banners and quote from the Bible and froth at

the mouth."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"You don't feel sorry for those two kids?"

"Yes I do. But pity doesn't heal bullet wounds; all "it does is distress

me. So I switch off the pity – they can't use it."

"You don't feel anger or disgust or horror at Hendry?"

"The same thing applies," explained Bruce, starting to lose patience

again. "I could work up a sweat about it if I let myself loose on an

emotional orgy, as you are doing."

"So instead you treat something as evil as Hendry with an indifferent

tolerance?" asked Mike.

"Jesus Christ!" grated Bruce. "What the hell do you want me to do?"

"I want you to stop playing dead. I want you to be able to recognize

evil and to destroy it." Mike was starting to lose his temper also; his

nerves were taut.

"That's great! Do you know where I can buy a secondhand crusader

outfit and a white horse, then singlehanded I will ride out to wage war

on cruelty and ignorance, lust and greed and hatred and poverty-"

"That's not what I-" Mike tried to interrupt, but Bruce overrode him,

his handsome face flushed darkly with anger and the sun. "You want me to

destroy evil wherever I find it. You old fool, don't you know that it

has a hundred heads and that for each one you cut off another hundred

grow in its place?"

"Don't you know that it's in you also, so to destroy it you have to

destroy yourself?"

"You're a coward, Curry!

The first time you burn a finger you run away and build yourself an

asbestos shelter,-"

"I don't like being called names, Haig. Put a leash on your tongue."

Mike paused and his expression changed, softening into a grin.

"I'm sorry, Bruce. I was just trying to teach you-"

"Thank you," scoffed Bruce, his voice still harsh; he had not been

placated by the

apology. "You are going to teach me, thanks very much! But what are you

going to teach me, Haig? What are you qualified to teach? "How to find

success and happiness" by Laughing. "Haig who worked his way down to a

lieutenancy in the black army of Katanga – how's that as a title for

your lecture, or do you prefer something more technical like: "The

applications of alcohol to spiritual research-""

"All right, Bruce. Drop it, I'll shut up," and Bruce saw how deeply he

had wounded

Mike. He regretted it then, he would have liked to unsay it. But that's

one thing you can never do.

Beside him Mike Haig was suddenly much older and more tired looking, the

pouched wrinkles below his eyes seemed to have deepened in the last few

seconds, and a little more of the twinkle had gone from his eyes. His

short laughter had a bitter humourless ring to it.

"When you put it that way it's really quite funny."

"I punched a little low," admitted Bruce, and then, perhaps I should let

you shoot

Hendry. A waste of ammunition really, but seeing that you want to so

badly," Bruce drew his pistol and offered it to Mike butt first, "use

mine." He grinned disarmingly at Mike and his grin was almost impossible

to resist; Mike started to laugh. It wasn't a very good joke, but

somehow it caught fire between them and suddenly they were laughing

together.

Mike Haig's battered features spread like warm butter and twenty

years dropped from his face. Bruce leaned back against the sandbags with

his mouth wide open, the pistol still in his hand and his long lean body

throbbing uncontrollably with laughter.

There was something feverish in it, as though they were trying with

laughter to gargle away the taste of blood and hatred. It was the

laughter of despair.

Below them the men in the trucks turned to watch them, puzzled at first,

and then beginning to chuckle in sympathy, not recognizing the sickness

of that sound.

Hey, boss," called Ruffy. "First time I ever seen you laugh like you

meant it." And the epidemic spread, everyone was laughing, even

Andre de Surrier was smiling.

Only Wally Hendry was untouched by it, silent and sullen, watching

them with small expressionless eyes.

They came to the bridge over the Cheke in the middle of the afternoon.

Both the road and the railway crossed it side by side, but after this

brief meeting they diverged and the road twisted away to the left. The

river was padded on each bank by dense dark green bush; three hundred

yards thick, a matted tangle of Thorn and tree fern with the big trees

growing up through" it and bursting into flower as they reached the

sunlight.

"Good place for an ambush," muttered Mike Haig, eyeing the solid green

walls of vegetation on each side of the lines.

"Charming, isn't it," agreed Bruce, and by the uneasy air of alertness

that had settled on his gendarmes it was clear that they agreed with

him.

The train nosed its way carefully into the river bush like a steel snake

along a rabbit run, and they came to the river.

Bruce switched on the set.

"Driver, stop this side of the bridge. I wish to inspect it before

entrusting our precious cargo to it."

"Oui, monsieur." The Cheke river at this point was fifty yards wide,

deep, quick-flowing and angry with flood water which had almost covered

the white sand beaches along

each bank. Its bottle-green colour was smoked with mud and there were

whirlpools round the stone columns of the bridge.

"Looks all right," Haig gave his opinion. "How far are we from

Port Reprieve now?" Bruce spread his field map on the roof of the coach

between his legs and found the brackets that straddled the convoluted

ribbon of the river.

"Here we are." He touched it and then ran his finger along the stitched

line of the railway until it reached the red circle that marked Port

Reprieve. "About thirty miles to 90, another hour's run.

We'll be there before dark."

"Those are the Lufira hills." Mike Haig pointed to the blue smudge that

only just showed above the forest ahead of them.

"We'll be able to see the town from the top," agreed Bruce. "The river

runs parallel to them on the other side, and the swamp is off to the

right, the swamp is the source of the river." He rolled the map and

passed it back to Ruffy who slid it into the plastic map case.

"Ruffy, Lieutenant Haig and I are going ahead to have a look at the

bridge. Keep an eye on the bush."

"Okay, boss. You want a beer to take with you?"

"Thanks." Bruce was thirsty and he emptied half the bottle before

climbing down to join Mike on the gravel embankment.

Rifles unslung, watching the bush on each side uneasily, they hurried

forward and with relief reached the bridge and went out into the centre

of it.

"Seems solid enough commented Mike. "No one has tampered with it."

"It's wood." Bruce stamped on the heavy wild mahogany timbers.

They were three feet thick and stained with a dark t chemical to inhibit

rotting.

"So, it's wood?" enquired Mike.

"Wood burns," explained Bruce. "It would be easy to burn it down." He

leaned his elbows on the guard rail, drained the beer bottle and dropped

it to the surface of the river twenty feet below. There was a thoughtful

expression on his face.

"Very probably there are Baluba in the bush'– he pointed at the banks

–'watching us at this moment. They might get the same idea. I

wonder if I should leave a guard here?" Mike leaned on the rail beside

him and they both stared out to where the river took a bend two hundred

yards downstream; in the crook of the bend grew a tree twice as tall as

any of its neighbours. The trunk was straight and covered with smooth

silvery bark and its foliage piled to a high green steeple against the

clouds. It was the natural point of focus for their eyes as they weighed

the problem.

"I wonder what kind of tree that is. I've never seen one like it

before." Bruce was momentarily diverted by the grandeur of it. "It looks

like a giant blue gum."

"It's quite a sight," Mike concurred.

"I'd like to go down and have a closer,-" Then suddenly he stiffened and

there was an edge of alarm in his voice as he pointed.

"Bruce, there! What's that in the lower branches?"

"Where?" Just above the first fork, on the left-" Mike was pointing and

suddenly

Bruce saw it. For a second he thought it was a leopard, then he realized

it was too dark and long.

"It's a man," exclaimed Mike.

"Baluba," snapped Bruce; he could see the shape now and the sheen

of naked black flesh, the kilt of animal tails and the headdress of

feathers. A long bow stood up behind the man's shoulder as he balanced

on the branch and steadied himself with one hand against the trunk. He

was watching them.

Bruce glanced round at the train. Hendry had noticed their agitation

and, following the direction of Mike's raised arm, he had spotted the

Baluba. Bruce realized what Hendry was going to do and he

opened his mouth to shout, but before he could do so Hendry had snatched

his rifle off his shoulder, swung it up and fired a long, rushing,

hammering burst.

1 "The trigger-happy idiot," snarled Bruce and looked back at the tree.

Stabs of white bark were flying from the trunk and the bullets reaped

leaves that fluttered down like crippled insects, but the Baluba had

disappeared.

The gunfire ceased abruptly and in its place Hendry was shouting with

hoarse excitement.

"I got him, I got the bastard."

"Hendry!" Bruce's voice was also hoarse, but with anger, "Who ordered

you to fire?"

"He was a bloody

Baluba, a mucking big bloody Baluba.

Didn't you see him, hey? Didn't you see him, man?"

"Come here, Hendry."

"I got the bastard," rejoiced Hendry.

"Are you deaf? Come here!" While Hendry climbed down from the truck and

came towards them Bruce asked Haig:

"Did he hit him?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think so, I think he jumped. If he had been hit

he'd have been thrown backwards, you know how it knocks them over."

"Yes," said Bruce, "I know." A .300 bullet from an FN struck with a

force of well over a ton. When you hit a man there was no doubt about

it. All right, so the Baluba was still in there.

Hendry came up, swaggering, laughing with excitement.

"So you killed him, hey?" Bruce asked.

"Stone dead, stone bloody deadv "Can you see him?"

"No, he's down in the bush."

"Do you want to go and have a look at him, Hendry? Do you want to go and

get his ears?" Ears are the best trophy you can take

from a man, not as good as the skin of a blackmaned lion or the great

bossed hams of a buffalo, but better than the scalp. The woolly cap of

an

African scalp is a drab thing, messy to take and difficult to cure.

You have to salt it and stretch it inside out over a helmet; even then

it smells badly. Ears are much less trouble and Hendry was an avid

collector. He was not the only one in the army of Katanga; the taking of

ears was common practice.

"Yeah, I want them." Hendry detached the bayonet from the muzzle of his

rifle. "I'll nip down and get them."

"You can't let anyone go in there, Bruce. Not even him," protested Haig

quietly.

"Why not? He deserves it, he worked hard for it."

"Only take a minute." Hendry ran his thumb along the bayonet to test the

edge. My

God! He really means it, thought Bruce; he'd go into that tangled stuff

for a pair of ears – he's not brave, he's just stupendously lacking in

imagination.

"Wait for me, Bruce, it won't take long." Hendry started back.

"You're not serious, Bruce?" Mike asked.

"No," agreed Bruce, "I'm not serious," and his voice was cold and hard

as he caught hold of Hendry's shoulder and stopped him.

"Listen to me! You have no more chances – that was it.

I'm waiting for you now, Hendry. just once more, that's all.

Just once more." Hendry's face turned sullen again.

"Don't push me, Bucko."

"Get back to the train and bring it across," said Bruce contemptuously

and turned to Haig.

"Now we'll have to leave a guard here. They know we've gone across and

they'll burn it for a certainty, especially after that little

fiasco."

"Who are you going to leave?"

"Ten men, say, under a sergeant.

We'll be back by nightfall or tomorrow morning at the latest. They

should be safe enough. I doubt there is a big war party here, a few

strays perhaps, but the main force will be closer to the town."

"I hope you're right." "So do I" said Bruce absently, his mind busy with

the problem of defending the bridge. "We'll strip all the sand" bags off

the coaches and build an emplacement here in the middle of the roadway,

leave two of the battery-operated searchlights and a case of flares with

them, one of the Brens and a couple of cases of grenades. Food and water

for a week. No, they'll be all right." The train was rolling down slowly

towards them – and a single arrow rose from the edge of the jungle.

Slowly it rose, curving in flight and falling towards the train,

dropping faster now, silently into the mass of men in the leading truck.

So Hendry had missed and the Baluba had come up stream through the thick

bush to launch his arrow in retaliation. Bruce sprang to the guard rail

and, using it as a rest for his rifle, opened up in short bursts,

searching the green mass and seeing it tremble with his bullets. Haig

was shooting also, hunting the area from which the arrow had come.

The train was up to them now and Bruce slung his rifle over his shoulder

and scrambled up the side of the truck.

He pushed his way to the radio set.

Driver, stop the covered coaches in the middle of the bridge," he

snapped, and then he switched it off and looked for Ruffy.

"Sergeant Major, get all those sandbags off the roof into the roadway."

While they worked, the gendarmes would be protected from further arrows

by the body of the train.

"Okay, boss." va

"Kanaki." Bruce picked his most reliable sergeant. "I am leaving you

here with ten men to hold the bridge for us.

Take one of the Brens, and two of the lights.–" Quickly Bruce issued

his orders and then he had time to ask Andre: "What happened to that