A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur (книги серии онлайн .TXT) 📗
"The river is my front line," Tippoo Tip conceded reluctantly.
"But the nearest Frehmo forces are still many miles further south.
My patrols cover this ground without interference from them. The men I am sending after the white man will catch him long before he. gets into Frelimo-held territory." Tippoo Tip broke off and pointed along the riverbank. "All, here they come." A long double file of heavily armed guerrillas came trotting down the footpath toward them. "Fifty of my best men. You will eat white chickens for dinner tonight.
Don't worry, my friend. They are as good as on your plate already."
The two platoons of Renamo halted and fell out on the bank, waiting for their trackers. China was a good judge of troops. He walked among them, and he recognized in them that eagerness and enthusiasm tempered by discipline and professionalism that is the peculiar mark of first-class bush fighters. For once he agreed with Tippoo Tip. These were hard men who could be relied on to get the job done. China beckoned the section leaders across to him.
"You know who you are chasing?" he asked, and they nodded.
"The white man is as dangerous as a wounded leopard, but I want him alive. Do you understand?"
"We understand, General."
"You have a radio. I want a report of your progress every hour on the command frequency."
"Yes, General."
"And when you have the quarry in sight, call me. I will come in the hen shaw I want to be there at the death."
The section leaders looked across the river, their expressions alert, and moments later, even with his impaired hearing, China picked up the whistle of the Hind's turbos returning from the north.
"If you do your job, you will be rewarded. But if you fail me, you will regret it. You will regret it deeply," China promised them.
As soon as the helicopter landed, the two trackers clambered down with alacrity from the small rear cabin. Tippoo Tip shouted at them and pointed to the outgoing spoor Sean and his party had left.
Watching the trackers begin their task, China was even more confident of the outcome. These two were good. They made a quick cast ahead, and then came back to the center and squatted over the spoor, whispering together softly, touching the faint tracks with the supple wands of wild willow they each carried, tent as a pair of bloodhounds taking the scent of the chase. When in they stood up again, a change had come over them. They were determined and businesslike. They turned to face the southern forests and went away at a run.
Behind them the two full platoons of camouflaged Renamo assault troopers fanned out into their running formation and set their pace to match the trackers.
"The white woman can never keep up that speed," Tippoo Tip exulted. "We will overtake them before they reach the Frelimo lines. We will have them before the end of this day. This time they'll not escape." He turned back to China. "Why don't we follow them in the helicopter?"
China hesitated. He did not want to explain the Hind's shortcomings. It was better to. let Tippoo Tip go on believing in its infallibility. He would not discuss with him the difficulty of bringing up sufficient fuel, 4he Hind's limited range even with full tanks, or the facts that his Portuguese engineer had warned him that the turbos were long overdue for service and that the pilot had already reported a malfunction and loss of power in the starboard engine.
"I will wait here," he said. "When your men catch up with the white man, they will call on the radio. That is when I will follow them."
China adjusted his dark glasses and sauntered across to the Hind. The pilot was waiting for him, leaning with assumed nonchalance against the camouflaged fuselage below the main cockpit.
"How is the engine behavine." China asked in Portuguese.
"It is beginning to surge and miss. It needs to be worked on."
"Fuel?"
"Main tanks are down to quarter. However, I still have the auxiliary."
"The convoy of porters with the fuel will be at our forward base by tomorrow morning. The engineer can work on her tonight, but I have to have her on standby until dark. I'll need her when they catch up with the runaways."
The pilot shrugged. "I'll fly her if you are willing to take the chance on that engine," he agreed.
"Keep a listening watch on the radio," China ordered. "With luck it will all be over in a few hours."
Sean realized Claudia could not maintain this pace much further.
She was running just ahead of him, so he could study the changes Mi in her that privation and hard living had brought about. She was I so lean and wispy that her scanty threadbare shirt flapped around ir her flanks, and the legs of her trousers had been reduced by thorns and razor-edged grass to a fringe of tatters that hung halfway down her thighs; below that, the length of her legs was exaggerated by their extreme thinness, yet somehow they had retained their elegant, high-bred lines. However, the thorns and sharp grass had wrought havoc on the exposed skin of her arms and legs. It looked as though she had been scourged by a cat-o'-nine-tails. Some of the scratches were healed, others scabbed over, but a few still bled.
Her hair had grown into a lank sweat-tangled mop that thumped between her prominent bony shoulder blades with each pace, and her back was so thin he could have counted the knobs of her vertebrae beneath her shirt. The perspiration had soaked through in a dark line down her spine, and hard exercise had firmed her buttocks into a pair of India-rubber balls in the sun bleached cotton pants; through a tiny three-cornered tear a tender flash of her white bottom winked at him with each pace. Her legs were floppy with exhaustion, throwing out sideways, and her ankles were loose and wobbled under her.
