Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur - Страница 60

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"Are you hurt?" he asked her in a whisper, not wanting to hear the answer. But she made no answer, lying inert in his arms.

"Tell me, Rosa. Speak to me. Where is Maria?" At the mention of the child's name, she reacted for the first time. She began to tremble.

"Where is she?" more urgency in his voice now.

She rolled her head against his shoulder and looked across the floor of the room. He followed the direction of her gaze.

Near the far wall an area of the floor had been swept clear of debris and ash. Rosa had done it with her bare hands while the ash was still hot. Her fingers were blistered and burned raw in places, and her arms were black to the elbows. Lying in the centre of this cleared space was a small, charred thing.

"Maria?" Sebastian whispered, and Rosa shuddered against him.

"Oh, God," he said, and lifted Rosa. Carrying her against his chest, he staggered from the ruins of the bungalow out into the cool, sweet evening air, but in his nostrils lingered the smell of smoke and burned flesh. He wanted to escape from it. He ran blindly along the path and Rosa lay unresisting in his arms. The following day Flynn buried their dead on the kopje above

Lalapanzi. He placed a thick slab of granite over the small grave that stood apart from the others, and when it was done he sent a bearer to the camp to fetch Rosa and Sebastian.

When they came, they found him standing alone by Maria's grave under the man da trees. His face was puffy and purply red. The thinning grey hair hung limply over his ears and forehead, like the wet feathers of an old rooster. His body looked as though it was melting.

It sagged at the shoulders and the belly. Sweat had soaked through his clothing across the shoulders, and at the armpits and crotch.

He was sick with drink and sorrow.

Sebastian stood beside Rosa, and the three of them took their silent farewell of the child.

"There is nothing else to do now," Sebastian spoke huskily.

"Yes," said Flynn. He stooped slowly and took a handful of the new earth from the grave. "Yes, there is. "He crumbled the earth between his fingers. "We still have to find the man who did this and kill him." Beside Sebastian, Rosa straightened up. She turned to

Sebastian, lifted her chin, and spoke for the first time since he had come home.

"Kill him! "she repeated softly.

PART TWO

With his hands clasped behind his back, and his chin thrust forward aggressively, Rear-Admiral Sir Percy Howe sucked in his lower lip and nibbled it reflectively. What was our last substantiated sighting on Blitcher?"he asked at last.

"A month ago, sir. Two days before the outbreak of war.

Sighting reported by S.S. Tygerberg. Latitude 027N. Longitude 5"-16"E. Headed south-west; estimated speed, eighteen knots."

"And a hell of a lot of good that does us," Sir Percy interrupted his flag-captain and glared at the vast Admiralty plot of the Indian Ocean. "She could be back in Bremerhaven by now."

"She could be, sir," the flag-captain nodded, and Sir Percy glanced at him and permitted himself a wintry smile.

"But you don't believe that, do you, Henry?"

"No, sir, I don't.

During the last thirty days, eight merchantmen have disappeared between

Aden and Lourenco Marques. Nearly a quarter of a million tons of shipping.

That's the Blitcher's work."

"Yes, it's the Blitcher, all right,"

agreed the Admiral, and reached across the-plot to pick up the black counter labelled "Blitcher', that lay on the wide green expanse of the

Indian Ocean.

A respectful silence held the personnel of the plotting room South

Atlantic and Indian Oceans while they waited for the great man to reach his decision. It was a long time coming. He stood bouncing the

"counter in the palm of his right hand, his grey eyebrows erect like the spines of a hedgehog's back, as his forehead creased in thought.

A

full minute they waited.

"Refresh my memory of her class and commission." Like most successful men Sir Percy would not hurry a decision when there was time to think, and the duty lieutenant who had anticipated his request,

stepped forward with the German Imperial Navy list open at the correct page.

"Blitcher. Commissioned August 16, 1905. "B" Class heavy cruiser. Main armament, eight nine-inch guns. Secondary armament, six six-inch guns."" The lieutenant finished his reading and waited quietly.

"Who is her captain?" Sir Percy asked, and the lieutenant consulted an addendum to the list.

"Otto von Kleine (Count). Previously commanded the light cruiser

Sturm Vogel.""

"Yes," said Sir Percy. "I've heard of him," and he replaced the counter on the plot, keeping his hand on it. "A dangerous man to have here, south Of Suez," and he Pushed the counter up towards the Red Sea and the entrance to the canal, where the tiny red shipping lanes amalgamated or here," and he pushed it down into a thick artery, towards the Cape of Good Hope, around which were curved the same red threads that joined London to Australia and India. Sir Percy lifted his hand from the black counter and left it sitting menacingly upon the shipping lanes.

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