The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 40

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leaning his weight on it suddenly and the blade

vanished into the man's throat.

The body stiffened convulsively, legs thrust out straight and arms

rigid, there was a puffing of breath from the severed windpipe and then

the slow melting relaxation of death. Still with his foot on the chest,

Ruffy withdrew the" bayonet and stepped over the corpse.

That was very close, thought Bruce, stifling the qualm of horror

he felt at the execution. The man's eyes were fixed open in almost comic

surprise, the bottle still in his hand, his chest bare, the front of his

trousers unbuttoned and stiff with dried blood - not his blood, guessed

Bruce angrily.

They moved on past the kitchens. Bruce looked in and saw that they were

empty with the white enamel tiles reflecting the vague light

and piles of used plates and pots cluttering the tables and the sink.

Then they reached the bar-room and there was a hurricane lamp on the

counter diffusing a yellow glow; the stench of liquor poured out through

the half-open window, the shelves were bare of bottles and men were

asleep upon the counter, men lay curled together upon the floor like a

pack of dogs, broken glass and rifles and shattered furniture littered

about them.

Someone had vomited out of the window leaving a yellow streak down the

whitewashed wall.

"Stand here," breathed Bruce into Ruffy's ear. "I will go round to the

front where I can throw on to the verandah and also into the lounge.

Wait until you hear my first grenade blow." Ruffy nodded and leaned his

rifle against the wall; he took a grenade in each fist and

pulled the pins.

Bruce slipped quickly round the corner and along the side wall. He

reached the windows of the lounge. They were tightly closed and he

peered in over the sill. A little of the light from the lamp in the

bar-room came through the open doors and showed up the interior. Here

again there were men covering the floor and piled upon the sofas along

the far wall. Twenty of them at least, he estimated by the volume of

their snoring, and he grinned without humour.

My God, what a shambles it is going to be.

Then something at the foot of the stairs caught his eye and the grin on

his face became fixed, baring his teeth and narrowing his eyes to slits.

It was the mound of nude flesh formed by the bodies of the four women;

they had been discarded once they had served their purpose, dragged to

)the side to clear the floor for sleeping space, lying upon

"each other in a jumble of naked arms and legs and cascading hair.

No mercy now, thought Bruce with hatred replacing his fear as he looked

at the women and saw by the attitudes in which they lay that there was

no life left in them. No mercy now!

He slung his rifle over his left shoulder and filled his hand with

grenades, pulled the pins and moved quickly to the corner so that he

could look down the length of the covered verandah. He rolled both

grenades down among the sleeping figures, hearing clearly the click of

the priming ,and the metallic rattle against the concrete floor.

Quickly he ducked back to the lounge window, snatching two more grenades

from his haversack and pulling the pins, he hurled them through the

closed windows. The crash of breaking glass blended with the double

thunder of the explosions on the verandah.

Someone shouted in the room, a cry of surprise and alarm, then the

windows above Bruce blew outwards, showering him with broken glass and

the noise half deafening him as he tossed two more grenades through the

gaping hole of the window. They were screaming and groaning in the

lounge. Ruffy's grenades roared in the bar-room bursting through the

double doors, then Bruce's grenades snuffed out the sounds of life in

the lounge with violent white flame and thunder. Bruce tossed in two

more grenades and ran back to the corner of the verandah unslinging his

rifle.

A man with his hands over his eyes and blood streaming through his

fingers fell over the low verandah wall and crawled to his knees.

Bruce shot him from so close that the shaft of gun flame joined the

muzzle of his rifle and the man's chest, punching him over backwards,

throwing him spreadeagled on to the earth.

He looked beyond and saw two more in the road, but before he could raise

his rifle the fire from his own gendarmes found them, knocking them down

amid spurts of dust.

Bruce hurdled the verandah wall. He shouted, a sound without form

or meaning. Exulting, unafraid, eager to get into the building, to get

amongst them. He stumbled over the dead men on the verandah. A burst of

gunfire from down the street rushed past him, so close he could feel the

wind on his face. Fire from his own men.

"You stupid bastards" Shouting without anger, without fear, with only

the need to shout, he burst into the lounge through the main doors. It

was half dark but he could see through the darkness and the haze of

plaster dust.

A man on the stairs, the bloom of gunfire and the sting of the bullet

across Bruce's thigh, fire in return, without aiming from the

hip, miss and the man gone up and round the head of the stairs, yelling

as he ran.

A grenade in Bruce's right hand, throw it high, watch it hit the wall

and bounce sideways round the angle of the stairs. The explosion

shocking in the confined space and the flash of it lighting the building

and outlining the body of the man as it blew him back into the lounge,

lifting him clear of the banisters, shredded and broken by the

blast, falling heavily into the room below.

Up the stairs three at a time and into the bedroom passage, another man

naked and bewildered staggering through a doorway still drunk or half

asleep, chop him down with a single shot in the stomach, jump over him

and throw a grenade through the glass skylight of the

second bedroom, another through the third and kick open the door of the

last room in the bellow and flash of the explosions.

A man was waiting for Bruce across the room with a pistol in his hand,

and both of them fired simultaneously, the clang of the bullet glancing

off the steel of Bruce's helmet, jerking his head back savagely,

throwing him side-ways against the wall, but he fired again, rapid fire,

hitting with every bullet, so that the man seemed to dance, a grotesque

twitching jig, pinned against the far wall by the bullets.

On his knees now Bruce was stunned, ears singing like a million mad

mosquitoes, hands clumsy and slow on the reload, back on his feet, legs

rubbery but the loaded rifle in his hands making a man of him.

Out into the passage, another one right on top of him, a vast dark shape

in the darkness - kill him! kill him!

Don't shoot, boss!" Ruffy, thank God, Ruffy.

"Are there any more?"

"All finished, boss - you cleaned them out good." "How many?" Bruce

shouted above the singing in his ears.

"Forty or so. Jesus, what a mess! There's blood all over the place.

Those grenades-"

"There must be more."

"Yes, but not in here, boss. Let's go and give the boys outside a hand."

They ran back down the passage, down the stairs, and the floor of the

lounge was sodden and sticky, dead men everywhere; it smelt like an

abattoir - blood and ripped bowels. One still on his hands and knees,

creepy-crawling towards the door. Ruffy shot him twice, flattening him.

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