The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 15

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went, and Bruce spoke to Wally Hendry in the same dispassionate tone.

"I told you to turn them loose," he said.

"So they could run home and call the whole pack down on us - is that

what you wanted, Bucko?" Hendry had recovered now, he was defiant,

grinning.

"So instead you murdered them?"

"Murdered! You crazy or something, Bruce? They're Balubes, aren't they?

Bloody man-eating

Balubes!" shouted Hendry angrily, no longer grinning. "What's wrong

with you man? This is war, Bucko, war. C'est laguerre, like the man

said, c'est laguerre!" Then suddenly his voice moderated again.

"Let's forget it. I did what was right, now let's forget it; what's two

more bloody Balubes after all the killing that's been going on?

Let's forget it." Bruce did not answer, he lit a cigarette and looked

beyond Hendry for the others to come.

"How's that, Bruce? You willing we just forget it?" persisted

Hendry.

"On the contrary, Hendry, I make you a sacred oath, and I call upon God

to witness it." Bruce was not looking at him, he couldn't trust himself

to look at Hendry without killing him. "This is my promise to you: I

will have you hanged for this, not shot, hanged on good hemp rope. I

have sent for Haig and Ruffararo so we'll have plenty of witnesses. The

first thing I do once we get back to

Elisabethville will be to turn you over to the proper authorities."

"You don't mean that!"

"I have never meant anything so seriously in my life."

"Jesus, Bruce!-" Then Haig and Ruffy came; they came running until they

saw, and they stopped suddenly and stood uncertainly in the bright sun,

looking from Bruce to the two frail little corpses lying in the road.

"What happened?" asked Mike.

"Hendry shot them," answered Bruce.

"What for?"

"Only he knows."

"You mean he - he just killed them, just shot them down?"

"Yes." "My God," said Mike, and then again, his voice dull with shock,

my God."

"Go and look at them, Haig. I want you to look closely so you remember."

Haig walked across to the children.

"You too, Ruffy. You'll be a witness at the trial." Mike Haig and

Ruffy walked side by side to where the children lay, and stood staring

down at them. Hendry shuffled his feet in the dust awkwardly and then

went on loading the magazine of his rifle.

"Oh, for Chrissake!" he blustered. "What's all the fuss?

They're just a couple of Balubes." Wheeling slowly to face him

Mike Haig's face was a yellowish colour with only his cheeks and his

nose still flushed with the tiny burst of veins beneath the surface of

the skin, but there was no colour in his lips. Each breath he drew

sobbed in his throat. He started back towards Hendry, still breathing

that way, and his mouth was working as he tried to force it to speak.

As he came on he unslung the rifle from his shoulder.

"Haig! said Bruce sharply.

"This time - you you bloody - this is the last,-" mouthed Haig.

"Watch it, Bucko!" Hendry warned him. He stepped back, clumsily trying

to fit the loaded magazine on to his rifle.

Mike Haig dropped the point of his bayonet to the level of

Hendry's stomach.

"Haig!" shouted Bruce, and Haig charged surprisingly fast for a man of

his age, leaning forward, leading with the bayonet at Hendry's

stomach, the incoherent mouthings reaching their climax in a formless

bellow.

"Come on, then!" Hendry answered him and stepped forward. As they came

together Hendry swept the bayonet to one side with the butt of his own

rifle. The point went under his armpit and they collided chest to chest,

staggering as Haig's weight carried them backwards. Hendry dropped his

rifle and locked both arms round Haig's neck, forcing his head back so

that his face was tilted up at the right angle.

"Look out, Mike, he's going to butt!" Bruce had recognized the move, but

his warning came too late. Hendry's head jerked forward and

Mike gasped as the front of Hendry's steel helmet caught him across the

bridge of his nose. The rifle slipped from Mike's grip and fell into the

road, he lifted his hands and covered his face with Spread fingers and

the redness oozed out between them.

Again Hendry's head jerked forward like a hammer and again Mike gasped

as the steel smashed into his face and fingers.

"Knee him, Mike!" Bruce yelled as he tried to take up a position from

which to intervene, but they were staggering in a circle, turning like a

wheel and Bruce could not get in.

Hendry's legs were braced apart as he drew his head back to Strike

again, and Mike's knee went up between them, all the way up with power

into the fork of Hendry's crotch.

Breaking from the clinch, his mouth open in a silent scream of agony,

Hendry doubled up with both hands holding his lower stomach, and sagged

slowly on to his knees in the dust.

Dazed, with blood running into his mouth, Mike fumbled with the canvas

flap of his holster.

"I'll kill you, you murdering swine." The pistol came out into his right

hand; short-barrelled, blue and ugly.

Bruce stepped up behind him, his thumb found the nerve centre below the

elbow and as he dug in the pistol dropped from Mike's paralysed hand and

dangled on its lanyard against his knee.

Ruffy, stop him," Bruce shouted, for Hendry was clawing painfully at the

rifle that lay in the dust beside him.

"Got it, boss!" Ruffy stooped quickly over the crawling body at his

feet, in one swift movement opened the flap of the holster, drew the

revolver and the lanyard snapped like cotton as he jerked on it.

They stood like that: Bruce holding Haig from behind, and Hendry

crouched at Ruffy's feet. The only sound for several seconds was the

hoarse rasping of breath.

Bruce felt Mike relaxing in his grip as the madness left him; he

unclipped his pistol from his lanyard and let it drop.

"Leave me, Bruce. I'm all right now."

"Are you sure? I don't

want to shoot you."

"No, I'm all right."

"If you start it again, I'll have to shoot you. Do you understand?" Yes,

I'll be all right now. I

lost my senses for a moment." :You certainly did," Bruce agreed, and

released him.

They formed a circle round the kneeling Hendry, and Bruce spoke.

"If either you or Haig start it again you'll answer to me, do you hear

me?" Hendry looked up, his small eyes slitted with pain. He did

not answer.

"Do you hear me?" Bruce repeated the question and Hendry nodded.

"Good! From now on, Hendry, you are under open arrest.

I can't spare men to guard you, and you're welcome to escape if you'd

like to try. The local gentry would certainly entertain you most

handsomely, they'd probably arrange a special banquet in your honour."

Hendry's lips drew back in a snarl that exposed teeth with green slimy

stains on them.

"But remember my promise, Hendry, as soon as we get back to,-"

"Wally, Wally, are you hurt?" Andre came running from the direction of

the station. He knelt beside Hendry.

"Get away, leave me alone." Hendry struck out at him impatiently and

Andre recoiled.

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