The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные полные книги .TXT) 📗

the helicopter. Without those supplies of fuel he would long ago have

been forced to give up the chase.

Nogo had placed his men to cover the trails leading along the river bank

towards the west, and he had not even considered guarding the river

itself. It was quite by chance that one of his patrols had been in a

position to spot the flotilla of yellow boats as they came racing

downstream. However, there had not been enough warning to enable them to

set up an effective ambush, and they had been able to fire on the boats

only briefly before they escaped. They had not inflicted serious damage

on any of the boats - at least, not enough to stop them getting through.

Immediately the company commander had radioed his report of this contact

with Mek Nimmur, Nogo had started ferrying men downstream to the

Sudanese border to cut off the flotilla. Unfortunately, the Jet Ranger

could carry no more than six fully armed men at a time, and transporting

them had been a time-consuming business. He had only succeeded in

bringing sixty of his men into position before night had fallen.

During the night he fretted that the flotilla was slipping past him, and

with the dawn they were in the air again. Fortunately the cloud had

broken up during the night. There was still some high cumulus overhead,

but they were now able to fly low along the river and search for any

sign of Mek Nimmur's flotilla.

They had first flown back along the river on the Ethiopian side of the

border, as far as the point where Mek Nimmur and Harper had been fired

upon. They had picked up no sign of the boats, so Nogo had forced the

pilot to turn back, cross the border and search the Sudanese stretch the

Nile. But Nogo had only been able to persuade his pilot to penetrate

sixty nautical miles along the Nile into the Sudan before the man had

rebelled. Despite the Tokarev pistol that Nogo held to his head, he had

banked the jet Ranger into a 180-degree turn and headed back low along

the river.

By now Nogo knew he had been defeated and ourwitd. He brooded unhappily

in the front seat of the helicopter ter beside the pilot, trying to

fathom out what had happened to his quarry. He saw the tall smokestack

of the abandoned sugar-mill at Roseires poking up into the early morning

sky, and he glowered at it angrily. They had passed the mill only a

short while before on their way downstream.

"Turn in towards the north bank," he ordered the pilot, and the man

hesitated and glanced at him before he obeyed..

They passed directly over the building, flying lower than the chimney.

The factory was roofless and the windows were empty rectangles in the

broken walls. The boilers and machinery had been removed twenty years

previously, and Nogo could look into the empty shell. The pilot hovered

the aircraft while Nogo peered down, but there was no place where anyone

could hide, and Nogo shook his head.

"Nothing! We have lost them. Head back upstream." The pilot lifted the

machine's nose and turned away towards the river, obeying the order with

alacrity. As the aircraft banked steeply, Nogo was looking down directly

into the overgrown canefields verging the river when a flash of bright

yellow caught his eye.

"Waid' he shouted into his mike. "There is something 9 there. Go back!'

The helicopter hovered over the field, and Nogo gestured urgently

downwards. "Down! Put us down."

As soon as the skids touched the earth, the stick of six heavily armed

troopers dived out of the rear cabin and raced out to take up defensive

positions. Nogo clambered out of the front door and ran into the

overgrown bed of tall cane. One look was all he needed. The yellow boats

had been deflated and folded and hastily covered. The earth around them

had been churned up by booted feet.

The tracks led away inland. The men who had made them had been heavily

laden, for they had trodden deeply into the soft, sandy earth.

Nogo ran back to the helicopter and thrust his head in through the open

cabin door. "Is there an airstrip near here?" he shouted at the pilot,

who shook his head.

"There is nothing shown on the chart,, "There must have been one. The

sugar'mill would have had a strip."

"If there was one, it must have been decommissioned years ago.

"We will find it,'Nogo declared. "Mek Nimmur's tracks will lead us to

it." He sobered immediately. "But I will have to bring up more men.

judging by his spoor, Mek Nimmur has at least fifty of his shufta with

him."

He left his men at the sugar-mill and flew back to the border with an

empty rear cabin to pick up the first load of reinforcements.

'nDig Dolly! Come in, Big Dolly. This is Pharaoh.

Do you read?" Nicholas put out his first call an MD hour before sunrise.

"If I know the way jannie's mind works, and I should, he would plan to

make his approach flight in darkness and arrive here as soon as there is

enough light to pick up the strip and land."

7L 111.7- 7 -7

"If the Fat Man comes," Mek Nimmur qualified.

"He will come," said Nicholas confidently. "Jannie has never let me down

yet." He thumbed the microphone and called again: "Big Dolly! Come in,

Big Dolly."

The static hummed softly, and Nicholas retuned the set carefully. He

called again every fifteen minutes as they huddled around the set in the

dark under the acacia trees.

Suddenly Royan started to her feet and exclaimed excitedly, "There he

is. I can hear Big Dolly's engines.

Listen!'

Nicholas and Mek ran out into the open, and turned their faces upwards,

looking into the north.

Nicholas exclaimed sud

"That's not the Hercules, denly. "That's another machine." He turned and

faced southwards, towards the river. "Anyway, it's coming from the wrong

direction."

"You are right," Mek agreed. "That's a single engine, and it's not a

fixed wing. You can hear the rotors."

"The Pegasus helicopter!" Nicholas exclaimed bitterly.

"They are on to us again."

As they listened, the sound of the rotors faded.

Nicholas looked relieved. "They missed us. They can't have IR spotted

the Avons."

They trooped back under the cover of the acacias, and Nicholas called

again on the radio, but there was no reply from Jannie.

Twenty minutes later they heard the sound of the jet Ranger returning,

and they monitored it anxiously.

"Gone again," said Nicholas after a while, but then twenty minutes later

they heard it yet again.

"Nogo is up to something out there,'Mek said uneasily.

"What do you think it is?" Nicholas was infected by his mood. When Mek

worried, there was usually a damned good reason to worry.

"I don't know," Mek admitted. "Perhaps Nogo has spotted the Avbns and is

bringing up more men before he comes after us." He went out into the

open and listened intently, then came back to where Nicholas crouched

over the radio.

"Keep calling," he said. "I am going out to the perimeter to make

certain my men are ready to hold Nogo off if he comes., The helicopter

moved up and down the Nile at'short intervals during the next three

hours, but the lack of any further developments lulled them, and

Nicholas barely looked up from the radio each time they heard the