The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 42

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wildly at the small movements of dying men..

In the half darkness something long and white lay against the far wall.

A body, a white man's naked body. He crossed to it and looked down.

"Andre," he said, "it's Andre - he threw the grenade." And he knelt

beside him.

Curled naked upon the concrete floor, Andre was alive but dying as the

haemorrhage within him leaked his life away. His mind was alive and he

heard the crump, crump of Bruce's grenades, then the gunfire in the

street, and the sound of running men. The shouts in the night and then

the guns very close, they were in the room in which he lay, He opened

his eyes. There were men at each of the windows, crouched below the

sills, and the room was thick with cordite fumes and the clamour of the

guns as they fired out into the night.

Andre was cold, the coldness was all through him. Even his hands drawn

up against his chest were cold and heavy.

His stomach only was warm, warm and immensely bloated.

It was an effort to think, for his mind also was cold and the noise of

the guns confused him.

He watched the men at the windows with a detached disinterest, and

slowly his body lost its weight. He seemed to float clear of the floor

and look down upon the room from the roof. His eyelids sagged and he

dragged them up again, and struggled down towards his own body.

There was suddenly a rushing sound in the room and plaster sprayed from

the wall above Andre's head, filling the air with pale floating dust.

One of the men at the windows fell backwards, his weapon ringing loudly

on the floor as it dropped from his hands; he flopped over twice and lay

still, face down within arm's length of Andre.

Ponderously Andres mind analysed the sights his eyes were

recording. Someone was firing on the building from outside. The man

beside him was dead and from his head wound the blood spread slowly

across the floor towards him.

Andre closed his eyes again, he was very tired and very cold.

There was a lull in the sound of gunfire, one of those freak silences in

the midst of battle. And in the lull Andre heard a voice far off,

shouting. He could not hear the words but he recognized the voice and

his eyelids flew open. There was an excitement in him, a new force, for

it was Wally's voice he had heard.

He moved slightly, clenching his hands and his brain started to sing.

Wally has come back for me - he has come to save me. He rolled his head

slowly, painfully, and the blood gurgled in his stomach.

I must help him, I must not let him endanger himself these men are

trying to kill him. I must stop them. I mustn't let them kill Wally.

And then he saw the grenades hanging on the belt of the man that lay

beside him. He fastened his eyes on the round polished metal bulbs and

he began to pray silently.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." He moved again,

straightening his body.

"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,

Jesus." His hand crept out into the pool of blood, and the sound of the

guns filled his head so he could not hear himself pray.

Walking on its fingers, his hand crawled through the blood as slowly as

a fly through a saucer of treacle.

"Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Pray for me now,

and at the hour. Full of grace." He touched the smooth, deeply segmented

steel of the grenade.

"Us sinners - at the day, at the hour. This day - this day our daily

bread." He fumbled at the clip, fingers stiff and cold.

"Hallowed be thy - Hallowed be thy-" The clip clicked open and he held

the grenade, curling his fingers round it.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace." He drew the grenade to him and held it with

both hands against his chest. He lifted it to his mouth and took the pin

between his teeth.

"Pray for us sinners," he whispered, and pulled the pin.

"Now and at the hour of our death." And he tried to throw it. It

rolled from his hand and bumped across the floor. The firing handle flew

off and rattled against the wall. General Moses turned from the window

and saw it, - his lips opened and his spectacles glinted above the

rose-pink cave of his mouth. The grenade lay at his feet. Then

everything was gone in the flash and roar of the explosion.

Afterwards in the acrid swirl of fumes, in the patter of falling

plaster, in the tinkle and crunch of broken glass, in the small

scrabbling noises and the murmur and moan of dying men, Andre was still

alive. The body of the man beside him had shielded his head and chest

from the full force of the blast.

There was still enough life in him to recognize Bruce Curry's face close

to his, though he could not feel the hands that touched him.

"Andre!" said Bruce. "It's Andre - he threw the grenade!"

"Tell him-" whispered Andre and stopped.

"Yes, Andre-?" said Bruce.

"I didn't, this day and at the hour. I had to - not this time."

He could feel it going out in him like a candle in a high wind and he

tried to cup his hands around it.

"What is it, Andre? What must I tell him?" Bruce's voice, but so far

away.

"Because of him - this time - not of it, I didn't." He stopped again and

gathered all of what was left. His lips quivered as he tried

so hard to say it.

"Like a man!" he whispered and the candle went out.

"Yes," said Bruce softly, holding him. "This time like a man.

He lowered Andre gently until his head touched the door again; then he

stood upright and looked down at the terribly mutilated body.

He felt empty inside, a hollowness, the same feeling as after love.

He moved across to the desk near the far wall. Outside the gunfire

dwindled like half-hearted applause, flared up again and then ceased.

Around him Ruffy and the four gendarmes moved excitedly, inspecting the

dead, exclaiming, laughing the awkward embarrassed laughter of men

freshly released from mortal danger.

Loosening the chin straps of his helmet with slow steady fingers, Bruce

stared across the room at Andre's body.

"Yes," he whispered again. "This time like a man. All the other times

are wiped Out, the score is levelled." His cigarettes were damp from the

swamp, but he took one from the centre of the pack and straightened it

with calm nerveless fingers. He found his lighter and flicked it open -

then, without warning, his hands started to shake.

The flame of the lighter fluttered and he had to hold it steady with

both hands. There was blood on his hands, new sticky blood. He

snapped the lighter closed and breathed in the smoke. It tasted bitter

and the saliva flooded into his mouth. He swallowed it down, nausea in

his stomach, and his breathing quickened.

It was not like this before, he remembered, even that night at the road

bridge when they broke through on the flank and we met them with

bayonets in the dark. Before it had no meaning, but now I can feel

again. Once more I'm alive.

Suddenly he had to be alone; he stood up.

"Ruffy."

"Yes, boss?"

"Clean up here. Get blankets from the hotel for de Sullier and the

women, also those men down in the station yard."

It was someone else speaking; he could hear the voice as though it were

a long way off.

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