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

the slope and Hendry had not spotted him. Across the patch of open

ground was good cover to the foot of the right-hand turret.

It would take him two seconds to cross and the chances were that

Hendry would be watching the forest at the foot of the slope.

He gathered himself like a sprinter on the starting blocks.

"Go!" he whispered and dived into the opening, and into a hell storm of

bullets. One struck his rifle, tearing it out of his hand with such

force that his arm was paralysed to the shoulder, another stung his

chest, and then he was across.

He lay behind the far boulder, gasping with the shock, and listened to

Hendry's voice roaring triumphantly.

"Fooled you, you stupid bastard! Been watching you all the way up from

the bottom." Bruce held his left arm against his stomach; the use of it

was returning as the numbness subsided, but with it came the ache. The

top joint of his thumb had caught in the trigger guard and been torn

off; now the blood welled out of the stump thickly and slowly, dark

blood the colour of apple jelly. With his right hand he groped for his

handkerchief.

"Hey, Curry, your rifle's lying there in the open. You might need it in

a few minutes. Why don't you go out and fetch it?" Bruce bound the

handkerchief tightly round the stump of his thumb and the bleeding

slowed. Then he looked at the rifle where it lay ten feet away. The

foresight had been knocked off, and the same bullet that had amputated

his thumb had smashed into the breech, buckled the loading handle and

the slide. He knew that it was damaged beyond repair.

"Think I'll have me a little target practice, shouted Hendry from above,

and again there was a burst of automatic fire. Bruce's rifle disappeared

in a cloud of dust and flying rock fragments and when it cleared the

woodwork of the rifle was splintered and torn and there was further

damage to the action.

Well, that's that, thought Bruce, the rifle is wrecked, Shermaine has

the pistol, and I have only one good hand. This is going to be

interesting.

He unbuttoned the front of his jacket and examined the welt that the

bullet had raised across his chest. It looked like a rope burn, painful

and red, but not serious. He rebuttoned his jacket.

"Okay, Bruce Baby, the time for games is over. I'm coming down to get

you." Hendry's voice was harsh and loud, filled with confidence.

Bruce rallied under the goading of it. He looked round quickly which way

to go? Climb high so he must come up to get at you. Take the right-hand

turret, work round the side of it and wait for him on the top.

In haste now, spurred by the dread of being the hunted, he

scrambled to his feet and dodged away up the slope, keeping his head

down using the thick screen of rock and vegetation.

He reached the wall of the right-hand turret and followed it round,

found the spiral ledge that he had seen from below and went on to it, up

along it like a fly on a wall, completely exposed, keeping his back to

the cliff of granite, shuffling sideways up the eighteen-inch ledge with

the drop below him growing deeper with each step.

Now he was three hundred feet above the forest and could look out across

the dark green land to another row of kopjes on the horizon.

The rain had ceased but the cloud was unbroken, covering the sky.

The ledge widened, became a platform and Bruce hurried across it round

the far shoulder and came to a dead end.

The ledge had petered out and there was only the drop below. He had

trapped himself on the side of the turret the summit was unattainable.

If Hendry descended to the forest floor and circled the kopje he would

find Bruce completely at his mercy, for there was no cover on the narrow

ledge. Hendry could have a little more target practice.

Bruce leaned against the rock and struggled to control his breathing.

His throat was clogged with the thick saliva of exhaustion and fear. He

felt tired and helpless, his thumb throbbed painfully and he lifted it

to examine it once more.

Despite the tourniquet it was bleeding slowly, a wine-red drop at a

time.

Bleeding! Bruce swallowed the thick gluey stuff in his throat and looked

back along the way he had come. On the grey rock the bright red splashes

stood out clearly. He had laid a blood spoor for Hendry to follow.

All -right then, perhaps it is best this way. At least I'll be able to

come to grips with him. If I wait behind this shoulder until

he starts to cross the platform, there's a three hundred foot drop on

one side, I may be able to rush him and throw him off.

Bruce leaned against the shoulder of granite, hidden from the platform,

and tuned his ears to catch the first sound of Hendry's approach.

The clouds parted in the eastern sector of the sky and the sun shone

through, slanting across the side of the kopje.

It will be better to die in the sun, thought Bruce, a sacrifice to the

Sun god thrown from the roof of the temple, and he grinned without

mirth, waiting with patience and with pain.

The minutes fell like drops into the pool of time, slowly measuring out

the edition of life that had been allotted to him. The pulse in his ears

counted also, in-id his breath that he drew and held and gently exhaled

-- how many more would there be?

I should pray, he thought, but after this morning when I prayed that it

shouldnot rain, and the rains came and saved me, i will not presume

again to tell the Old Man how to run things.

Perhaps he knows best after all.

Thy will be done, he thought instead, and. suddenly his nerves

jerked tight as a line hit by a marlin. The sound he had heard was that

of cloth brushing against rough rock.

He held his breath and listened, but all he could discern was the pulse

in his ears and the wind in the trees of the forest below. The

wind was a lonely sound.

Thy will be done, he repeated without breathing, and heard Hendry

breathe close behind the shoulder of rock.

He stood away from the wall and waited. Then he saw Hendry's shadow

thrown by the early morning sun along the ledge. A great distorted

shadow on the grey rock.

Thy will be done. And he went round the shoulder fast, his good hand

held like a blade and the weight of his body behind it.

Hendry was three feet away, the rifle at high port across his chest,

standing close in against the cliff, the cup-shaped steel helmet pulled

low over the slitty eyes and little beads of sweat clinging in the

red-gold stubble of his beard. He tried to drop the muzzle of the rifle

but Bruce was too close.

Bruce lunged with stiff fingers at his throat and he felt the crackle

and give of cartilage. Then his weight carried him on and

Hendry sprawled backwards on to the stone platform with Bruce on top of

him.

The rifle slithered across the rock and dropped over the edge, and they

lay chest to chest with legs locked together in a horrible parody of the

love act. But in this act we do not procreate, we destroy!

Hendry's face was purple and swollen above his damaged throat, his

Mouth open as he struggled for air, and his breath smelt old and sour in

Bruce's face.

With a twist towards the thumb Bruce freed his right wrist from

Hendry's grip and, lifting it like an axe, brought it down across the

bridge of Hendry's nose. Twin jets of blood spouted from the nostrils

and gushed into his open mouth.

With a wet strangling sound in his throat Hendry's body arched violently