Текст книги "The Dark of the Sun"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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"No damage done." He could grin at her. "Now I want you to get into that

compartment and stay there until I tell you to come out. Do you

understand?"

"Yes, Bruce."

"Off you go." He turned from her to

Ruffy. "Up on to the roof, Sergeant Major! We're going to have

fireworks. Those shufta have got a field gun with them and we'll be in

full view of the town right up to the top of the hills. By the time they

reached the roof of the train it had pulled out of Port Reprieve and was

making its first angling turn up the slope of the hills. The sun was up

now, well clear of the horizon, and the mist from the swamp had lifted

so that they could see the whole village spread out beneath

them.

General Moses's column had crossed the causeway and was into the main

street. As Bruce watched, the leading truck swung sharply across the

road and stopped. Men boiled out from under the canopy and swarmed over

the field gun, unhitching it, manhandling it into position.

"I hope those Arabs haven't had any drill on that piece," grunted

Ruffy.

"We'll soon find out," Bruce assured him grimly and looked back along

the train. In the last truck Boussier stood protectively over the small

group of four women and their children, like an old white-haired collie

with its sheep.

Crouched against the steel side of the truck, Andre de Surrier and half

a dozen gendarmes were swinging and sighting the two Bren guns.

In the second truck also the gendarmes were preparing to open fire.

"What are you waiting for?" roared Ruffy. "Get me that field gun – start

shooting." They fired a ragged volley, then the Bren guns

joined in.

With every burst Andre's helmet slipped forward over his eyes and he had

to stop and push it back. Lying on the roof of the leading coach, Wally

Hendry was firing short businesslike bursts.

The shufta round the field gun scattered, leaving one of their number

lying in the road, but there were men behind the armour shield -

Bruce could see the tops of their helmets.

Suddenly there was a long gush of white smoke from the barrel, and the

shell rushed over the top of the train, with a noise like the wings of a

giant pheasant.

"Over!" said Ruffy.

"Under!" to the next shot as it ploughed into the trees below them.

"And the third one right up the throat," said Bruce. But it hit the rear

of the train. They were using armour-piercing projectiles, not high

explosive, for there was not the burst of yellow cordite fumes but only

the crash and jolt as it struck.

Anxiously Bruce tried to assess the damage. The men and women in the

rear trucks looked shaken but unharmed and he started a sigh of relief,

which changed quickly to a gasp of horror as he realized what had

happened.

"They've hit the coupling," he said. "They've sheared the coupling on

the last truck." Already the gap was widening, as the rear truck started

to roll back down the hill, cut off like the tail of a lizard.

"Jump," screamed Bruce, cupping his hands round his mouth. "Jump before

you gather speed." Perhaps they did not hear him, perhaps they were too

stunned to obey, but no one moved. The truck rolled back, faster and

faster as gravity took it, down the hill towards the village and the

waiting army of General Moses.

"What can we do, boss?" "Nothing," said Bruce.

The firing round Bruce had petered out into silence as every man, even

Wally Hendry, stared down the slope at the receding truck. With a

constriction of his throat Bruce saw old Boussier stoop and lift his

wife to her feet, hold her close to his side and the two of them looking

back at Bruce on the roof of the departing train. Boussier raised his

right hand in a gesture of farewell and then he dropped it again and

stood very still. Behind him, Andre de Surrier had left the

Bren gun and removed his helmet. He also was looking back at Bruce, but

he did not wave.

At intervals the field gun in the village punctuated the stillness with

its deep boom and gush of smoke, but Bruce hardly heard it. He was

watching the shufta running down towards the station yard to welcome the

truck. Losing speed it ran into the platform and halted abruptly as it

hit the buffers at the end of the line. The shufta swarmed over it like

little black ants over the body of a beetle and faintly Bruce heard the

pop, pop, pop of their rifles, saw the low sun glint on their bayonets.

He turned away.

They had almost reached the crest of the hills; he could feel the

train increasing speed under him. But he felt no relief, only the

prickling at the corners of his eyes and the ache of it trapped in his

throat.

"The poor bastards," growled Ruffy beside him. "The poor bastards." And

then there was another crashing jolt against the train, another hit from

the field gun. This time up forward, on the locomotive. Shriek of

escaping steam, the train checking its pace, losing power. But they were

over the crest of the hills, the village was out of sight and gradually

the train speeded up again as they started down the back slope. But

steam spouted out of it, hissing white jets of it, and Bruce knew they

had received a mortal wound. He switched on the radio.

"Driver, can you hear me? How bad is it?"

Aw

"I cannot see, Captain. There is too much steam. But the pressure on the

gauge is dropping swiftly."

"Use all you can to take us down the hill. It is imperative that we pass

the level crossing before we halt. it is absolutely imperative – if we

stop this side of the level crossing they will be able to reach us with

their lorries.".

"I will try, Captain." They rocketed down the hills but as soon as they

reached the level ground their speed began to fall off. Peering through

the dwindling clouds of steam Bruce saw the pale brown ribbon

of road ahead of them, and they were still travelling at a healthy

thirty miles an hour as they passed it. When finally the train trickled

to a standstill Bruce estimated that they were three or four miles

beyond the level crossing, safely walled in by the forest and hidden

from the road by three bends.

"I doubt they'll find us here, but if they do they'll have to come down

the line from the level crossing to get at us.

We'll go back a mile and lay an ambush in the forest on each side

of the line," said Bruce.

"Those Arabs won't be following us, boss. They've got themselves women

and a whole barful of liquor. Be two or three days before old

General Moses can sober them up enough to move them on."

"You're probably right, Ruffy. But we'll take no chances.

Get that ambush laid and then we'll try and think up some idea for

getting home." Suddenly a thought occurred to him: Martin Boussier had

the diamonds with him. They would not be too pleased about that in

Elisabethville.

Almost immediately Bruce was disgusted with himself.

The diamonds were by far the least important thing that they had left

behind in Port Reprieve.

Andre de Surrier held his steel helmet against his chest the way a man

holds his hat at a funeral, the wind blew cool and caressing through his

dark sweat-damp hair. His hearing was dulled by the strike

of the shell that had cut the truck loose from the rear of the train, he

could hear one of the children crying and the crooning, gentling voice

of its mother. He stared back up the railway line at the train, saw the

great bulk of Ruffy beside Bruce Curry on the roof of the second coach.

"They can't help us now." Boussier spoke softly. "There's nothing they

can do." He lifted his hand stiffly in almost a military salute and then

dropped it to his side. "Be brave, ma cheri," he said to his

wife. "Please be brave," and she clung to him.

Andre let the helmet drop from his hands. It clanged on to the metal

floor of the truck. He wiped the sweat from his face with nervous

fluttering hands and then turned slowly to look down at the

village.

"I don't want to die," he whispered. "Not like this, not now, please not

now." One of his gendarmes laughed, a sound without mirth, and stepped

across to the Bren. He pushed Andre away from it and started firing at

the tiny running figures of the men in the station yard.

"No," shrilled Andre. Don't do that, no, don't antagonize them.

They'll kill us if you do that-"

"They'll kill us anyway," laughed the gendarme and emptied the magazine

in one long despairing burst. Andre started towards him, perhaps to pull

him away from the gun, but

his resolve did not carry him that far. His hands dropped to his sides,

clenching and unclenching. His lips quivered and then opened to spill

out his terror.

"No!" he screamed. "Please, no! No! Oh, God have mercy.

Oh, save me, don't let this happen to me, please, God. Oh, my

God." He stumbled to the side of the truck and clambered on to it. The

truck was slowing as it ran into the platform. He could see men coming

with rifles in their hands, shouting as they ran, black men in dirty

tattered uniforms, their faces working with excitement, pink shouting

mouths, baying like hounds in a pack.

Andre jumped and the dusty concrete of the platform grazed his cheek and

knocked the wind out of him. He crawled to his knees, clutching his

stomach and trying to scream. A rifle butt hit him between the

shoulder-blades and he collapsed. Above him a voice shouted in French.

"He is white, keep him for the general. Don't kill him." And again the

rifle butt hit him, this time across the side of the head.

He lay in the dust, dazed, with the taste of blood in his mouth and

watched them drag the others from the truck.

They shot the black gendarmes on the platform, without ceremony,

laughing as they competed with each other to use their bayonets on the

corpses. The two children died quickly torn from their mothers, held by

the feet and swung head first against the steel side of the truck

Old Boussier tried to prevent them stripping his wife and was bayoneted

from behind in anger, and then shot twice with a pistol held to his head

as he lay on the platform.

All this happened in the first few minutes before the officers arrived

to control them; by that time Andre and the four women were the only

occupants of the truck left alive.

Andre lay where he had fallen, watching in fascinated skin-crawling

horror as they tore the clothing off the women and with a man to each

arm and each leg held them down on the platform as though they were

calves to be branded, hooting with laughter at their struggling naked

bodies, bickering for position, already unbuckling belts, pushing each

other, arguing, some of them with fresh blood on their clothing.

But then two men, who by their air of authority and the red sashes

across their chests were clearly officers, joined the crowd. One of them

fired his pistol in the air to gain their attention and both of them

started a harangue that slowly had effect. The women were dragged up and

herded off towards the hotel.

One of the officers came across to where Andre lay, stooped over him and

lifted his head by taking a handful of hair.

"Welcome, mon ami. The general will be very pleased to see you.

It is a pity that your other white friends have left us, but then, one

is better than nothing." He pulled Andre into a sitting position, peered

into his face and then spat into his eyes with sudden violence.

"Bring him! The general will talk to him later." They tied Andre to one

of the columns on the front verandah of the hotel and left him there. He

could have twisted his head and looked through the large windows into

the lounge at what they were doing to the women, but he

did not. He could hear what was happening; by noon the screams had

become groans and sobbing; by midafternoon the women were making no

sound at all. But the queue of shufta was still out of the front door of

the lounge. Some of them had been to the head of the line and back to

the tail three or four times.

All of them were drunk now. One jovial fellow carried a bottle of

Parfait Amour liqueur in one hand and a bottle of Harpers whisky in the

other. Every time he came back to join the queue again he stopped in

front of Andre.

"Will you drink with me, little white boy!" he asked.

"Certainly you will," he answered himself, filled his mouth from one of

the bottles and spat it into Andre's face. Each time it got a big laugh

from the others waiting in the line.

Occasionally one of the other shufta would stop in front of Andre,

unsling his rifle, back away a few paces, sight along the bayonet at

Andre's face and then charge forward, at the last moment twisting the

point aside so that it grazed his cheek. Each time Andre could not

suppress his shriek of terror, and the waiting men nearly collapsed with

merriment.

Towards evening they started to burn the houses on the outskirts of

town. One group, sad with liquor and rape, sat together at the end of

the verandah and started to sing.

Their deep beautiful voices carrying all the melancholy savagery of

Africa, they kept on singing while an argument between two shufta

developed into a knife fight in the road outside the hotel.

The sweet bass lilt of singing covered the coarse breathing of the two

circling, bare-chested knife fighters and the shuffle, shuffle quick

shuffle of their feet in the dust. When finally they locked together for

the kill, the singing rose still deep and strong but with a triumphant

note to it. One man stepped back with his rigid right arm

holding the knife buried deep in the other's belly and as the loser sank

down, sliding slowly off the knife, the singing sank with him,

plaintive, regretful and lamenting into silence.

They came for Andre after dark. Four of them less drunk than the others.

They led him down the street to the Union Mini&re offices.

General Moses was there, sitting alone at the desk in the front office.

There was nothing sinister about him; he looked like an elderly clerk, a

small man with the short woollen cap of hair grizzled to grey above the

ears and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. On his chest he wore three

rows of full-dress medals; each of his fingers was encased in rings to

the second joint, diamonds, emeralds and the occasional red glow of a

ruby; most of them had been designed for women, but the metal had been

cut to enlarge them for his stubby black fingers. The face was almost

kindly, except the eyes.

There was a blankness of expression in them, the lifeless eyes of a

madman. On the desk in front of him was a small wooden case made of

unvarnished deal which bore the seal of the Union Mini&e Company

stencilled in black upon its side. The lid was open, and as Andre came

in through the door with his escort General Moses lifted a white canvas

bag from the case, loosened the drawstring and poured a pile of dark

grey industrial diamonds on to the blotter in front of him.

He prodded them thoughtfully with his finger, stirring them so they

glittered dully in the harsh light of the petromax.

"Was this the only case in the truck?" he asked without looking up.

"Oui, mon general. There was only one," answered one of Andre's

escorts..

"You are certain?"

"Oui, mon general. I myself have searched thoroughly." General Moses

took another of the canvas bags from the case and emptied it on to the

blotter. He grunted with disappointment as he saw the drab little

stones. He reached for another bag, and another, his anger mounting

steadily as each yielded only dirty grey and black industrial diamonds.

Soon the pile on the blotter would have filled a pint jug.

"Did you open the case?" he snarled.

"Non, mon general It was sealed. The seal was not broken, you saw that."

General Moses grunted again, his dark chocolate face set hard with

frustration. Once more he dipped his hand into the wooden case and

suddenly he smiled.

"Ah!" he said pleasantly. "Yes! yes! what is this?" He brought out a

cigar box, with the gaudy wrappers still on the cedarwood. A

thumbnail prised the lid back and he beamed happily. In a nest of cotton

wool, sparkling, breaking the white light of the petromax into all the

rainbow colours of the spectrum, were the gem stones. General

Moses picked one up and held it between thumb and forefinger.

"Pretty," he murmured. "Pretty, so pretty." He swept the industrial

stones to one side and laid the gem in the centre of the blotter. Then

one by one he took the others from the cigar box, fondling each and

laying it on the blotter, counting them, smiling, once chuckling softly,

touching them, arranging them in patterns.

"Pretty," he kept whispering. "Bon – forty-one, forty-two.

Pretty! My darlings! Forty-three." Then suddenly he scooped them up and

poured them into one of the canvas bags, tightened the drawstring,

dropped it into his breast pocket above the medals and

buttoned the flap.

He laid his black, bejewelled hands on the desk in front of him and

looked up at Andre.

His eyes were smoky yellow with black centres behind his spectacles.

They had an opaque, dreamlike quality.

"Take off his clothes," he said in a voice that was as expressionless

as the eyes.

They stripped Andre with rough dispatch and General Moses looked at his

body.

"So white," he murmured. "Why so white?" Suddenly his jaws began chewing

nervously and there was a faint shine of sweat on his forehead.

He came round from behind the desk, a small man yet with an intensity

about him that doubled his size.

"White like the maggots that feed in the living body of the elephant."

He brought his face close to Andre's– "You should be fatter, my maggot,

having fed so long and so wellyou should be much fatter." He touched

Andre's body, running his hands down his flanks in a caress.

" he said, and

"But now it is too late, little white maggot. Andre cringed from his

touch and from his voice. "For the elephant has shaken you from the

wound, shaken you out on to the ground, shaken you out beneath his feet

– and will you pop when he crushes you?" His voice was still soft though

the sweat oozed in oily lines down his cheeks and the dreaminess of his

eyes had been replaced by a burning black brightness.

"We shall see," he said and drew back. "We shall see, My maggot," he

repeated, and brought his knee up into Andws crotch with a force that

jerked his whole frame and flung his shoulders back.

The agony flared through Andre's lower body, fierce as the touch of

heated steel. It clamped in on his stomach, contracting it in a spasm

like childbirth, it rippled up across the muscles of his chest into his

head and burst beneath the roof of his skull in a whiteness that blinded

him.

"Hold him," commanded General Moses, his voice suddenly shrill.

The two guards took Andre by the elbows and forced him to his knees, so

that his genitals and lower belly were easily accessible to the

general's boots. They had done this often.

"For the times you gaoled me!" And General Moses swung his booted foot

into Andre's body. The pain blended with the other pain, and it was too

strong for Andre to scream.

"This, for the insults," and Andre could feel his testicles crush

beneath it. Still it was too strong – he could not use his voice.

"This, for the times I have grovelled." The pain had passed its zenith,

this time he could scream with it. He opened his mouth and filled his

empty lungs.

"This, for the times I have hungered." Now he must scream. Now he must -

the pain, oh, sweet Christ, I must, please let me scream.

"This, for your white man's justice." Why can't I, please let me. Oh,

no! No – please. Oh, God, oh, please.

"This, for your prisons and your Kiboko!" The kicks so fast now, like

the beat of an insane drummer, like rain on a tin roof In his stomach he

felt something tear.

"And this, and this, and this." The face before him filled the whole

field of his vision.

The voice and the sound of the boot into him filled his ears.

"This, and this, and this." The voice high-pitched and in him the sudden

warm flood of internal bleeding.

The pain was fading now as his body closed it out in defence, and he had

not screamed. The leap of elation as he knew it. This last thing I can

do well, I can die now WITHOUT SCREAMING. He tried to stand up, but they

held him down and his legs were not his own, they were on the other side

of the great numb warmth of his belly. He lifted his head and looked at

the man who was killing him.

"This for the white filth that bore you, and this, and this-" The blows

were not a part of reality, he could feel the shock of them as though he

stood close to a man who was cutting down a tree with an axe.

And Andre smiled.

He was still smiling when they let him fall forward to the floor.

"I think he is dead," said one of the guards. General Moses turned away

and walked back to his seat at the desk.

He was shaking as though he had run a long way, and his breathing

was deep and fast. The jacket of his uniform was soaked with sweat.

He sank into the chair and his body seemed to crumple; slowly the

brightness faded from his eyes until once more they were filmed over,

opaque and dreamy. The two guards squatted down quickly on each side of

Andre's body; they knew it would be a long wait.

Through the open window there came an occasional shout of drunken

laughter, and the red flicker and leap of flames.

Bruce stood in the centre of the tracks and searched the floor of the

forest critically. At last he could make out the muzzle of the

Bren protruding a few inches from the patch of elephant grass. Despite

the fact that he knew exactly where to look for it, it had taken him a

full two minutes to find it.

"That'll do, Ruffy," he decided. "We can't get it much better than

that."

"I reckon not, boss." Bruce raised his voice. "Can you hear me?" There

were muffled affinnatives from the bush on each side, and Bruce

continued.

"If they come You must let them reach this spot before you open fire. I

will mark it for you." He went to a small shrub beside the line, broke

off a branch and dropped it on the tracks.

"Can you see that?" Again the affirmatives from the men in ambush.

"You will be relieved before darkness – until then stay where you

are." The train was hidden beyond a bend in the line, half a mile ahead,

and Bruce walked back with Ruffy.

The engine driver was waiting for them, talking with Wally Hendry beside

the rear truck.

"Any luck?" Bruce asked him.

regret, mon capitaine, that she is irreparably damaged.

The boiler is punctured in two places and there is considerable

disruption of the copper tubing."

"Thank you," Bruce nodded. He was neither surprised nor disappointed. It

was precisely what his own

judgement had told him after a brief examination of the locomotive.

"Where is Madame Cartier?" he asked Wally.

"Madame is preparing the luncheon, monsir," Wally told him with heavy

sarcasm. "Why do you ask, Bucko? Are you feeling randy again so

soon, hey? You feel like a slice of veal for lunch, is that it?" Bruce

snuffed out the quick flare of his temper and walked past him. He found

Shermaine with four gendarmes in the cab of the locomotive. They had

scraped the coals from the furnace into a glowing heap on the steel

floor and were chopping potatoes and onions into the five gallon pots.

The gendarmes were all laughing at something Shermaine had said.

Her usually pale cheeks were flushed with the heat; there was a sooty

smudge on her forehead. She wielded the big knife with professional

dexterity. She looked up and saw Bruce, her face lighting instantly and

her lips parting.

"We're having a Hungarian goulash for lunch – bully beef, potatoes and

onions."

"As of now I am rating you acting second cook without pay."

"You are too kind," and she put her tongue out at him. It was a pink

pointed little tongue like a cat's. Bruce felt the old familiar

tightening of his legs and the dryness in his throat as he looked at it.

"Shermaine, the locomotive is damaged beyond repair. It is of no further

use." He spoke in English.

"It makes a passable kitchen," she demurred.

"Be serious." Bruce's anxiety made him irritable. "We're stranded here

until we think of something."

"But, Bruce, you are the genius. I

have complete faith in you. I'm sure you'll think of some truly

beautiful idea." Her face was solemn but she couldn't keep the banter

out of her eyes. "Why don't you go and ask General Moses to lend you his

transportation?" Bruce's eyes narrowed in thought and the black inverted

curves of his eyebrows nearly touched above the bridge of his nose.

"The food better be good or I'll break you to third cook," he warned,

clambered down from the cab to the ground and hurried back along the

train.

"Hendry, Sergeant Major, come here, please. I want to discuss something

with you." They came to join him and he led the way up the ladder into

one of the covered coaches. Hendry dropped on to the bunk and placed his

feet on the washbasin.

"That was a quick one," he grinned through the coppery stubble of his

beard.

"You're the most uncouth, filthy-mouthed son of a bitch I have ever met,

Hendry," said Bruce coldly. "When I get you back to

Elisabethville I'm going to beat you to pulp before I hand you over to

the military authority for murder."

"My, my," laughed Hendry. "Big talker, hey? Curry, big, big talker."

"Don't make me kill you now -

don't do that, please. I still need you."

"What's with you and that

Frenchy, hey? You love it or something? You love it, or you just fancy a

bit of that fat little arse? It can't be her titties – she ain't got

much there, not even a handful each side." Bruce started for him, then

changed his mind and swung round to stare out of the window.

His voice was strangled when he spoke.

"I'll make a bargain with you, Hendry. Until we get out of this you keep

off my back and I'll keep off yours. When we reach Msapa

Junction the truce is off. You can do and say whatever you like and, if

I don't kill you for it, I'll try my level best to see you hanged for

murder."

"I'm making no bargain with you or nobody, Curry. I play along until it

suits me, and I won't give you no warning when it doesn't suit me to

play along any more. And let me tell you now, Bucko! I don't need you

and I don't need nobody. Not Haig or you, with your fancy

too-good-to-kiss my-arse talk; when the time comes I'm

going to trim you down to size. – Remember that, Curry. And don't say I

just didn't warn you." Hendry was leaning forward, hands on his knees,

body braced and his whole face twisting and contotted with the vehemence

of his speech.

"Let's make it now, Hendry." Bruce wheeled away from the window,

crouching slightly, his hands stiffening into the flat hard blades of

the judo fighter.

Sergeant Major Ruffararo stood up from the Opposite bunk with surprising

grace and speed for such a big man.

He interposed his great body.

"You wanted to tell us something, boss?" Bruce straightened out of his

crouch, his hands Slowly relaxing. Irritably he brushed at the damp lock

of dark hair that had fallen on to his forehead, as if to brush Wally

Hendry out of his mind with the same movement.

"Yes," controlling his voice with an effort, "I wanted to discuss our

next move." He fished the cigarette pack from his top pocket and lit

one, sucking the smoke down deep.

Then he perched on the lid of the washbasin and studied the ash on the

tip of the cigarette. When he spoke again his voice was normal.

"There is no hope of repairing this locomotive, so we have to find

alternative transport out of here. Either we can walk two hundred miles

back to Msapa junction with our friends the Baluba ready to dispute our

passage, or we can ride back in General Moses's trucks!" He paused to

let it sink in.

"You going to pinch those trucks off him?" asked Ruffy.

"That's going to take some doing, boss."

"No, Ruffy, I don't think we have any chance of getting them out from

under his nose. What we will have to do is attack the town and wipe him

out."

"You're bloody crazy," exclaimed Wally. "You're raving bloody mad."

Bruce ignored him. (I estimate that Moses has about sixty men. With

Kanaki and nine men on the bridge, Haig and de Surrier and six others

gone, we have thirty-four men left.

Correct, Sergeant Major?"

"That's right, boss."

"Very well," Bruce

nodded. "We'll have to leave at least ten men here to man that ambush in

case Moses sends a patrol after us, or in case of an attack by the

Baluba. It's not enough, I know, but we will just have to risk it."

"Most of these civilians got arms with them, shotguns and sports

rifles," said Ruffy.

"Yes," agreed Bruce. "They should be able to look after themselves. So

that leaves twenty-four men to carry out the attack, something like

three to one."

"Those shufta will be so full of liquor, half of them won't be able to

stand up."

"That's what I am banking on:

drunkenness and surprise.

We'll hit them and try and finish it before they know what's happened. I

don't think they will have realized how badly we were hit; they probably

expect us to be a hundred miles away by now."

"When do

you want to leave, boss?"

"We are about twelve miles from Port Reprieve – say, six hours" march in

the dark. I want to attack in the early hours of tomorrow morning, but

I'd like to be in position around midnight. We'll leave here at six

o'clock, just before dark."

"I'd better go and start sorting the boys out."

"Okay, Ruffy. Issue an extra hundred rounds to each man and ten

grenades. I'll want four extra haversacks of grenades also." Bruce

turned to Hendry and looked at him for the first time. "Go with the

sergeant major, Hendry, and give him a hand."

"Jesus, this is going to be a ball," grinned Wally in anticipation.

"With any luck I'll get me a sackful of ears." He disappeared down the

corridor behind Ruffy, and Bruce lay back on the seat and took off his

helmet. He closed his eyes and once again he saw

Boussier and his wife standing together in the truck as it rolled back

down the hill, he saw the huddle of frightened women, and Andre standing

bareheaded staring back at him with big brown gentle eyes.

He groaned softly. "Why is it always the good ones, the harmless, the

weak?" A tap on the door roused him and he sat up quickly.

"Yes?"

"Hello, Bruce." Shermaine came in with a multipledecked metal canteen in

one hand and two mugs in the other. "It's lunchtime."

"Already!" Bruce checked his watch. "Good Lord, it's after one."