Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
But instead of dispersing, the crowd continued to grow as every last person who had hidden away in the township cottages, expecting trouble, finally succumbed to curiosity and crept out to join the multitude.
After each new arrival of trucks there was another round of argument and futile orders to disperse, and in the heat and the impatience of waiting, the mood of the crowd gradually changed. There were no more smiles and the singing had a different tone to it as they began to hum the fierce fighting songs. Rumours flashed through the throng - Robert Sobukwe was coming to speak to them, -›erwoerd had ordered the passes to be abolished and Moses Gama to be released from jail, and they cheered and sang and then growled and surged back and forth as each rumour was denied.
The sun made its noon, blazing down upon them, and the smell of the crowd was the musky African odour, alien and yet dreadfully familiar.
The white men who had stood to arms all that morning were reaching the point of nervous exhaustion and each time the crowd surged against the frail wire fence they made little jumpy movements and one or two of them without orders loaded their sten guns and lifted them into the high port position. Lothar noticed this and went down the line, ordering them to unload and uncock their weapons.
'We have to do something soon, sir,' he told his commander. 'We can't go on like this - someone or something is going to snap." It was in the air, strong as the odour of hot African bodies, and Lothar felt it in himself. He had not slept that night, and he was haggard and he felt brittle and jagged as a blade of obsidian.
'What do you suggest, De La Rey?" the commander barked irritably, justas edgy and tense. 'We must do something, you say. da, I agree - but w_ 'We should take the ringleaders out of the mob." Lothar pointed at Raleigh Tabaka who was still at the gate. It was almost five hours since he had taken up his station there. 'That black swine there is holding them together. If we pick him and the other ringleaders out, the rest of them will soon lose interest." 'What is the time?" the commander asked, and although it seemed irrelevant, Lothar glanced at his watch. 'Almost one o'clock." 'There must be more reinforcements on the way,' the commander said. 'We will wait another fifteen minutes and then we will do as you suggest." 'Look there,' Lothar snapped and pointed to the left.
Some of the younger men in the crowd had armed themselves with stones and bricks, and from the rear other missiles, chunks of paving slab and rocks, were being passed over the heads of the crowd to those in the front ranks.
'Ja, we have to break this UlS now,' the commander agreed, 'or else there will be serious trouble." Lothar turned and called a curt order to the constables nearest him.
'You men, load your weapons and move up to the gate with me." He saw that some of the other men further down the line had taken his words as a general order to load, and there was the snicker of metal on metal as the magazines were clamped on to the sten guns and the cocking handles jerked back. Lothar debated with himself for a moment whether he should countermand, but time was vital.
He knew he had to get the leaders out of the crowd, for violence was only seconds away. Some of the black youths in front of the crowd were already shaking the mesh and heaving against it.
With his men behind him he marched to the gate and pointed at Raleigh Tabaka. 'You,' he shouted. 'I want to speak to you." He reached through the square opening beside the gate lock and seized the front of Raleigh's shirt.
q want you out of there,' he snarle& and Raleigh pulled back against his grip, jostling the men behind him.
Amelia screamed and clawed at Lothar's wrist. 'Leave him! You must not hurt him." The young men around them saw what was happening and hurled themselves against the wire.
'deeY they cried, that long, deep, drawn-out war cry that no Nguni warrior can resist. It made their blood smoke with the fighting madness, and it was taken up as others echoed them. 'dee/' The section of the crowd behind where Raleigh struggled with Lothar De La Rey heaved forward, throwing themselves upon the fence, humming the war cry, and the fence buckled and began to . topple.
'Get back!" Lothar shouted at his men, but the back ranks of the crowd surged forward to see what was happening in front - and the fence went.
It came crashing over, and though Lothar jumped back, one of the metal posts hit him a glancing blow and he was knocked to his knees. The crowd was no longer contained, and the ranks behind pushed those in front so they came bursting into the yard, trampling over Lothar as he struggled to get to his feet.
From one side a brick came sailing out of the crowd in a high parabok It struck the windscreen of one of the parked trucks, and shattered At in a shower of diamond-bright chips.
The women were screaming, and falling under the feet of those who were borne forward by the pressure from behind, and men were fighting to get back behind the wire as others thrust them forward, uttering that murderous war cry 'Jee. that brought on the madness.
Lothar was sprawmd under the rushing tide, struggling to regain his feet, while a hail of stones and bricks came over the wire. Lothar rolled to his feet, and only because he was a superb athlete he kept his balance as the rush of frenzied bodies carried him backwards.
There was a loud and jarring sound close behind him that Lothar did not at first recognize. It sounded as though a steel rod had been drawn rapidly across a sheet of corrugated iron. Then he heard the other terrible sounds, the multiple impact of bullets into living flesh, like ripe mdons bursting open from blows with a heavy club, and he shouted, 'No! Oh good Christ, no!" But the sten guns rushed and tore the air with a sound like sheets of silk being ripped through, drowning out his despairing protest, and he wanted to shout again, 'Cease fire!" but his throat had closed and he was suffocating with horror and terror.
He made another strenuous effort to give the order, and his throat strained to enunciate the words, but no sound came and his hands moved without his conscious Volition, lifting the sten gun from his side, jerking back the cocking handle to feed a round into the breech.
In front of him the crowd was breaking and turning, the pressure of human bodies against him was relieved, so he could mount the machine pistol to waist height.
He tried to stop himself, but it was all a nightmare over which he had no control, the weapon in his hands shuddered and buzzed like a chain saw. In a few fleeting seconds the magazine of thirty rounds was empty, but Lothar had traversed the sten gun like a reaper swinging a scythe, and now the bloody harvest lay before him in the dust twitching and kicking and moaning.
Only then did he realize fully what he had done, and his voice returned.
'Cease fire!" he screamed and struck out at the men around him to reinforce the order. 'Cease fire! Stop it! Stop it!" Some of the younger recruits were reloading to fire again, and he ran amongst them striking out with the empty sten to prevent them.
A man on the roof of one of the troop carriers lifted his weapon and fired another burst and Lothar leapt on to the cab and knocked up the barrel so that the last spray of bullets went high into the dusty air.
From his vantage point on the cab of the truck, Lothar looked out over the sagging fence across the open ground where the dead and the wounded lay, and his spirit quailed.
Oh, God forgive me. What have we done?" he choked. 'Oh, what have we done?" In the middle of the morning Michael Courtney took a chance, for there seemed to be a lull in the activity around the police station. It was, of course, difficult to make out exactly what was happening. He could see only the backs of the rear ranks of the crowd, and over their heads the top of the wire fence and the iron roof of the station.
