The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 41

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

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

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

movement. He felt strong and invulnerable.

Ruffy was beside him.

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

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

throw a grenade, then coming again.

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

with the same dodging, checking run, Bruce could see

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

his whole body shaking with the juddering of the gun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

as they ran.

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

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

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

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

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

Wally's men had been hit.

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

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

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

"Are you wounded?" Bruce asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

office block.

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

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

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

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

canvascovered trucks lined up outside the station yard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

windows.

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

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

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

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

amongst them."

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

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

wall.

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

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

"Hendry. Listen to me."

"Yeah. What is it?"

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

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

their heads down."

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

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

Bruce and he grinned wickedly.

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

You'd look real grand in my sights."

"Don't joke," said Bruce.

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

four gendarmes waiting in the kitchen.

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

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

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

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

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

Bruce measured the distance with his eye.

"It's not far," he announced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

standing still. The black windows gaped at him.

Now, he thought, now you die.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

spittle from an old man's mouth.

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

memory of the explosion echoing in his ears.

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

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

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

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