The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur (читать книгу онлайн бесплатно полностью без регистрации .TXT) 📗

to stop and push it back. Lying on the roof of the leading coach, Wally

Hendry was firing short businesslike bursts.

The shufta round the field gun scattered, leaving one of their number

lying in the road, but there were men behind the armour shield -

Bruce could see the tops of their helmets.

Suddenly there was a long gush of white smoke from the barrel, and the

shell rushed over the top of the train, with a noise like the wings of a

giant pheasant.

"Over!" said Ruffy.

"Under!" to the next shot as it ploughed into the trees below them.

"And the third one right up the throat," said Bruce. But it hit the rear

of the train. They were using armour-piercing projectiles, not high

explosive, for there was not the burst of yellow cordite fumes but only

the crash and jolt as it struck.

Anxiously Bruce tried to assess the damage. The men and women in the

rear trucks looked shaken but unharmed and he started a sigh of relief,

which changed quickly to a gasp of horror as he realized what had

happened.

"They've hit the coupling," he said. "They've sheared the coupling on

the last truck." Already the gap was widening, as the rear truck started

to roll back down the hill, cut off like the tail of a lizard.

"Jump," screamed Bruce, cupping his hands round his mouth. "Jump before

you gather speed." Perhaps they did not hear him, perhaps they were too

stunned to obey, but no one moved. The truck rolled back, faster and

faster as gravity took it, down the hill towards the village and the

waiting army of General Moses.

"What can we do, boss?" "Nothing," said Bruce.

The firing round Bruce had petered out into silence as every man, even

Wally Hendry, stared down the slope at the receding truck. With a

constriction of his throat Bruce saw old Boussier stoop and lift his

wife to her feet, hold her close to his side and the two of them looking

back at Bruce on the roof of the departing train. Boussier raised his

right hand in a gesture of farewell and then he dropped it again and

stood very still. Behind him, Andre de Surrier had left the

Bren gun and removed his helmet. He also was looking back at Bruce, but

he did not wave.

At intervals the field gun in the village punctuated the stillness with

its deep boom and gush of smoke, but Bruce hardly heard it. He was

watching the shufta running down towards the station yard to welcome the

truck. Losing speed it ran into the platform and halted abruptly as it

hit the buffers at the end of the line. The shufta swarmed over it like

little black ants over the body of a beetle and faintly Bruce heard the

pop, pop, pop of their rifles, saw the low sun glint on their bayonets.

He turned away.

They had almost reached the crest of the hills; he could feel the

train increasing speed under him. But he felt no relief, only the

prickling at the corners of his eyes and the ache of it trapped in his

throat.

"The poor bastards," growled Ruffy beside him. "The poor bastards." And

then there was another crashing jolt against the train, another hit from

the field gun. This time up forward, on the locomotive. Shriek of

escaping steam, the train checking its pace, losing power. But they were

over the crest of the hills, the village was out of sight and gradually

the train speeded up again as they started down the back slope. But

steam spouted out of it, hissing white jets of it, and Bruce knew they

had received a mortal wound. He switched on the radio.

"Driver, can you hear me? How bad is it?"

Aw

"I cannot see, Captain. There is too much steam. But the pressure on the

gauge is dropping swiftly."

"Use all you can to take us down the hill. It is imperative that we pass

the level crossing before we halt. it is absolutely imperative - if we

stop this side of the level crossing they will be able to reach us with

their lorries.".

"I will try, Captain." They rocketed down the hills but as soon as they

reached the level ground their speed began to fall off. Peering through

the dwindling clouds of steam Bruce saw the pale brown ribbon

of road ahead of them, and they were still travelling at a healthy

thirty miles an hour as they passed it. When finally the train trickled

to a standstill Bruce estimated that they were three or four miles

beyond the level crossing, safely walled in by the forest and hidden

from the road by three bends.

"I doubt they'll find us here, but if they do they'll have to come down

the line from the level crossing to get at us.

We'll go back a mile and lay an ambush in the forest on each side

of the line," said Bruce.

"Those Arabs won't be following us, boss. They've got themselves women

and a whole barful of liquor. Be two or three days before old

General Moses can sober them up enough to move them on."

"You're probably right, Ruffy. But we'll take no chances.

Get that ambush laid and then we'll try and think up some idea for

getting home." Suddenly a thought occurred to him: Martin Boussier had

the diamonds with him. They would not be too pleased about that in

Elisabethville.

Almost immediately Bruce was disgusted with himself.

The diamonds were by far the least important thing that they had left

behind in Port Reprieve.

Andre de Surrier held his steel helmet against his chest the way a man

holds his hat at a funeral, the wind blew cool and caressing through his

dark sweat-damp hair. His hearing was dulled by the strike

of the shell that had cut the truck loose from the rear of the train, he

could hear one of the children crying and the crooning, gentling voice

of its mother. He stared back up the railway line at the train, saw the

great bulk of Ruffy beside Bruce Curry on the roof of the second coach.

"They can't help us now." Boussier spoke softly. "There's nothing they

can do." He lifted his hand stiffly in almost a military salute and then

dropped it to his side. "Be brave, ma cheri," he said to his

wife. "Please be brave," and she clung to him.

Andre let the helmet drop from his hands. It clanged on to the metal

floor of the truck. He wiped the sweat from his face with nervous

fluttering hands and then turned slowly to look down at the

village.

"I don't want to die," he whispered. "Not like this, not now, please not

now." One of his gendarmes laughed, a sound without mirth, and stepped

across to the Bren. He pushed Andre away from it and started firing at

the tiny running figures of the men in the station yard.

"No," shrilled Andre. Don't do that, no, don't antagonize them.

They'll kill us if you do that-"

"They'll kill us anyway," laughed the gendarme and emptied the magazine

in one long despairing burst. Andre started towards him, perhaps to pull

him away from the gun, but

his resolve did not carry him that far. His hands dropped to his sides,

clenching and unclenching. His lips quivered and then opened to spill

out his terror.

"No!" he screamed. "Please, no! No! Oh, God have mercy.

Oh, save me, don't let this happen to me, please, God. Oh, my

God." He stumbled to the side of the truck and clambered on to it. The

truck was slowing as it ran into the platform. He could see men coming