The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 13

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"It will be cutting it fairly fine. We must get through to Port

Reprieve by tomorrow evening and pull out again at dawn the next day."

"Why not keep going tonight?" Hendry removed the bottle from his lips to

ask. "Better than sitting here being eaten by mosquitoes."

"We'll stay," Bruce answered. "It won't do anybody much good to derail

this lot in the dark." He turned back to

Ruffy.

"Three-hour watches tonight, Sergeant Major. Lieutenant Haig will

take the first, then Lieutenant Hendry, then Lieutenant de Surrier, and

I'll do the dawn spell."

"Okay, boss. I'd better make sure my boys aren't sleeping." He left the

compartment and the broken glass from the corridor windows crunched

under his boots.

"I'll be on my way also." Mike stood up and pulled the ground sheet over

his shoulders.

"Don't waste the batteries of the searchlights, Mike.

Sweep every ten minutes or so."

"Okay, Bruce." Mike looked across at Hendry. "I'll call you at nine

o'clock."

"Jolly good show, old fruit." Wally exaggerated Mike's accent. "Good

hunting, what!" and then as Mike left the compartment, "Silly old

bugger, why does he have to talk like that?" No one answered him, and he

pulled up his shirt behind.

"Andre what's this on my back?"

"It's a pimple."

"Well, squeeze it then." Bruce woke in the night, sweating, with the

mosquitoes whining about his face. Outside it was still raining and

occasionally the reflected light from the searchlight on the roof of the

coach lit the interior dimly.

On one of the bottom bunks Mike Haig lay on his back.

His face was shining with sweat and he lolled his head from side to side

on the pillow. He was grinding his teeth - a sound to which

Bruce had become accustomed, and he preferred it to Hendry's snores.

"You poor old bugger," whispered Bruce.

From the bunk opposite, Andre de Surrier whimpered.

In sleep he looked like a child with dark soft hair falling over his

forehead.

The sun was hot before it cleared the horizon. It lifted a warm mist

from the dripping forest. and the rain petered out in the dawn.

As they ran north the forest thickened, the trees grew closer together

and the undergrowth beneath them was coarser than it had been around

Elisabethville.

Through the warm misty dawn Bruce saw the water tower at Msapa

junction rising like a lighthouse above the forest, its silver paint

streaked with brown rust. Then they came round the last curve in the

tracks and the little settlement huddled before them.

It was small, half a dozen buildings in all, and there was about it the

desolate aspect of human habitation reverting to jungl. Beside the

tracks stood the water tower and the raised concrete coal bins.

Then the station buildings of wood and iron, with the large sign above

the verandah:

MSAPA JUNCTION. Elevation 963m.

There was an avenue of casia flora trees with very dark green foliage

and orange flowers; and beyond that, on the edge of the forest, a row of

cottages.

One of the cottages had been burned, its ruins were fire blackened

and tumbled; and the gardens had lost all sense of discipline with three

months'neglect.

"Driver, stop beside the water tower. You have fifteen minutes to fill

your boiler."

"Thank you, monsieur." With a heavy sigh of steam the loco pulled up

beside the tower.

"Haig, take four men and go back to give the driver a hand."

"Okay, Bruce." Bruce turned once more to the radio.

"Hendry."

"Hello there."

"Get a patrol together, six men, and search those cottages. Then take a

look at the edge of the bush, we don't want any unexpected visitors."

Wally Hendry waved an acknowledgement from the leading truck, and Bruce

went on: "Put de

Surrier on." He watched Hendry pass the set to Andre

"De Surner, you are in charge of the leading trucks in Hendry's absence.

Keep Hendry covered, but watch the bush behind you also. They could come

from there." Bruce switched off the set and turned to Ruffy. "Stay up

here

on the roof, Ruffy. I'm going to chase them up with the watering. If you

see anything, don't write me a postcard, start pooping off." Ruffy

nodded. "Have some breakfast to take with you." He proffered an open

bottle of beer.

"Better than bacon and eggs." Bruce accepted the bottle and climbed down

on to the platform. Sipping the beer he walked back along the train and

looked up at Mike and the engine driver in the tower.

"Is it empty?" he called up at them.

"Half full, enough for a bath if you want one," answered Mike.

"Don't tempt me." The idea was suddenly very attractive, for he could

smell his own stale body odour and his eyelids were itchy and swollen

from mosquito bites. "My kingdom for a bath." He ran his fingers over

his jowls and they rasped over stiff beard.

He watched them swing the canvas hose out over the loco. The chubby

little engine driver clambered up and sat astride the boiler as

he fitted the hose.

A shout behind him made Bruce turn quickly, and he saw Hendry's patrol

coming back from the cottages. They were dragging two small prisoners

with them.

"Hiding in the first cottage," shouted Hendry. "They tried to leg it

into the bush." He prodded one of them with his bayonet. The child cried

out and twisted in the hands of the gendarme who held her.

"Enough of that." Bruce stopped him from using the bayonet again and

went to meet them. He looked at the two children.

The girl was close to puberty with breasts like insect bites just

starting to show, thin-legged with enlarged kneecaps out of proportion

to her thighs and calves. She wore only a dirty piece of trade cloth

drawn up between her legs and secured around her waist by a length of

bark string, and the tribal tattoo marks across her chest and cheeks and

forehead stood proud in ridges of scar tissue.

"Ruffy." Bruce called him down from the coach. "Can you speak to them?"

Ruffy picked up the boy and held him on his hip. He was younger than the

girl - seven, perhaps eight years old. Very dark-skinned and completely

naked, as naked as the terror on his face.

Ruffy grunted sharply and the gendarme released the girl.

She stood trembling, making no attempt to escape.

Then in a soothing rumble Ruffy began talking to the boy on his hip; he

smiled as he spoke and stroked the child's head. Slowly a little of the

fear melted and the boy answered in a piping treble that

Bruce could not understand.

"What does he say?" urged Bruce.

"He thinks we're going to eat them," laughed Ruffy. "Not enough

here for a decent breakfast." He patted the skinny little arm, grey with

crushed filth, then he gave an order to one of the gendarmes. The man

disappeared into the coach and came back with a handful of chocolate

bars. Still talking, Ruffy peeled one of them and placed it in the boy's

mouth. The child's eyes widened appreciatively at the taste and he

chewed quickly, his eyes on Ruffy's face, his answers now muffled with

chocolate.

At last Ruffy turned to Bruce.

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