The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 40
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leaning his weight on it suddenly and the blade
vanished into the man's throat.
The body stiffened convulsively, legs thrust out straight and arms
rigid, there was a puffing of breath from the severed windpipe and then
the slow melting relaxation of death. Still with his foot on the chest,
Ruffy withdrew the" bayonet and stepped over the corpse.
That was very close, thought Bruce, stifling the qualm of horror
he felt at the execution. The man's eyes were fixed open in almost comic
surprise, the bottle still in his hand, his chest bare, the front of his
trousers unbuttoned and stiff with dried blood - not his blood, guessed
Bruce angrily.
They moved on past the kitchens. Bruce looked in and saw that they were
empty with the white enamel tiles reflecting the vague light
and piles of used plates and pots cluttering the tables and the sink.
Then they reached the bar-room and there was a hurricane lamp on the
counter diffusing a yellow glow; the stench of liquor poured out through
the half-open window, the shelves were bare of bottles and men were
asleep upon the counter, men lay curled together upon the floor like a
pack of dogs, broken glass and rifles and shattered furniture littered
about them.
Someone had vomited out of the window leaving a yellow streak down the
whitewashed wall.
"Stand here," breathed Bruce into Ruffy's ear. "I will go round to the
front where I can throw on to the verandah and also into the lounge.
Wait until you hear my first grenade blow." Ruffy nodded and leaned his
rifle against the wall; he took a grenade in each fist and
pulled the pins.
Bruce slipped quickly round the corner and along the side wall. He
reached the windows of the lounge. They were tightly closed and he
peered in over the sill. A little of the light from the lamp in the
bar-room came through the open doors and showed up the interior. Here
again there were men covering the floor and piled upon the sofas along
the far wall. Twenty of them at least, he estimated by the volume of
their snoring, and he grinned without humour.
My God, what a shambles it is going to be.
Then something at the foot of the stairs caught his eye and the grin on
his face became fixed, baring his teeth and narrowing his eyes to slits.
It was the mound of nude flesh formed by the bodies of the four women;
they had been discarded once they had served their purpose, dragged to
)the side to clear the floor for sleeping space, lying upon
"each other in a jumble of naked arms and legs and cascading hair.
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.
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