The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 52

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"Are You sure, Ruffy!" Bruce looked up, "Are you sure it's snake venom?"

"That's what they use. They mix it with kassava meal."

"Hendry, where's the snake bite outfit!"

"It's in the medicine box back at the camp." Bruce tugged once more at

the arrowhead and it came away, leaving a deep black hole between the

man's shoulder blades.

"Everybody into the trucks, we've got to get him back.

Every second is vital."

"Look at his eyes," grunted Ruffy. "That injection stuff ain't going to

help him much." The pupils had

contracted to the size of match heads and he was shaking uncontrollably

as the poison spread through his body.

"Get him into the truck." They lifted him into the cab and everybody

scrambled aboard. Ruffy started the engine, slammed into reverse and the

motor roared as he shot backwards over the intervening thirty yards to

the laager.

take him out," instructed Bruce. "Bring him into the "shelter."

The man was blubbering through slack lips and he had started to sweat.

Little rivulets of it coursed down his face and naked upper body.

There was hardly any blood from the wound, just a trickle of brownish

fluid. The poison must be a coagulant, Bruce decided.

"Bruce, are you all right?" Shermaine ran to meet him.

"Nothing wrong with me." Bruce remembered to check his tongue this time.

"But one of them has been hit."

"Can I help you?"

"No, I don't want you to watch." And he turned from her. "Hendry,

where's that bloody snake bite outfit?" he shouted.

They had dragged the man on a blanket into the laager and laid him in

the shade. Bruce went to him and knelt beside him. He took the scarlet

tin that Hendry handed him and opened it.

ruffy, get those two trucks worked into the circle and make sure your

boys are on their toes. With this success they may get brave sooner than

you expected."

as Bruce fitted the hypodermic needle on to the syringe he spoke.

"Hendry, get them to rig some sort of screen round us.

"You can use blankets." With his thumb he snapped the top off the

ampoule and filled the syringe with the pale yellow serum.

"Hold him," he said to the two gendarmes, lifted a pinch of skin close

beside the wound and ran the needle under it.

The man's skin felt like that of a frog, damp and clammy. As he expelled

the serum Bruce was trying to calculate the time that had elapsed since

the arrow had hit. Possibly seven or eight minutes, mamba venom kills in

fourteen minutes.

"Roll him over," he said.

The man's head lolled sideways, his breathing was quick and shallow and

the saliva poured from the corners of his mouth, running down his

cheeks.

"Get a load of that!"" breathed Wally Hendry, and Bruce glanced up at

his face. His expression was a glow of deep sensual pleasure and

his breathing was as quick and shallow as that of the dying man.

"Go and help Ruffy," snapped Bruce as his stomach heaved with disgust.

"Not on your Nelly. This I'm not going to miss." Bruce had no time to

argue. He lifted the skin of the man's stomach and ran the needle in

again. There was an explosive spitting sound as the bowels started to

vent involuntarily.

"Jesus," whispered Hendry.

"Get away," snarled Bruce. "Can't you let him die without gloating over

it?" Hopelessly he injected again, under the skin of the chest above the

heart. As he emptied the syringe the man's body twisted violently in the

first seizure and the needle snapped off under the skin.

"There he goes," whispered Hendry, "there he goes. Just look at him,

man. That's really something." Bruce's hands were trembling and slowly a

curtain descended across his mind.

"You filthy swine," he screamed and hit Hendry across the face

with his open hand, knocking him back against the side of the gasoline

tanker. Then he went for his throat and found it with both hands. The

windpipe was ropey and elastic under his thumbs.

"Is nothing sacred to you, you unclean animal?" he yelled into

Hendry's face. "Can't you let a man die without,-" Then Ruffy was there,

effortlessly plucking Bruce's hands from the throat, interposing the

bulk of his body, holding them away from each other.

"Let it stand, boss."

"For that,-" gasped Hendry as he massaged his throat.

"For that I'm going to make you pay." Bruce turned away, sick and

ashamed, to the man on the blanket.

"Cover him up." His voice was shaky. "Put him in the back of one of the

trucks. We'll bury him tomorrow." before nightfall they had completed

the corrugated iron screen. It was a simple four-walled structure with

no roof to it. One end of it was detachable and all four walls were

pierced at regular intervals with small loop holes for defence.

Long enough to accommodate a dozen men in comfort, high enough to

reach above the heads of the tallest, and exactly the width of the

bridge, it was not a thing of beauty.

"How you going to move it, boss?" Ruffy eyed the screen dubiously.

"I'll show you. We'll move it back to the camp now, so that in the

morning we can commute to work in it." Bruce selected twelve men

and they crowded through the open end into the shelter, and closed it

behind them.

"Okay, Ruffy. Take the trucks away." Hendry and Ruffy reversed the two

trucks back to the laager, leaving the shelter standing at the head of

the bridge like a small Nissen hut. Inside it Bruce stationed his men at

intervals along the walls.

"Use the bottom timber of the frame to lift on," he shouted. "Are you

all ready? All right, liftv The shelter swayed and rose six inches above

the ground.

From the laager they could see only the boots of the men inside.

"All together," ordered Bruce. "Walk!" Rocking and creaking over the

uneven ground the structure moved ponderously back towards the laager.

Below it the feet moved like those of a Caterpillar.

The men in the laager started to cheer, and from inside the shelter they

answered with whoops of laughter. It was fun. They were enjoying

themselves enormously, completely distracted from the horror of poison

arrows and the lurking phantoms in the jungle around them.

They reached the camp and lowered the shelter. Then one at a time the

gendarmes slipped across the few feet of open ground into the safety of

the laager to be met with laughter, and back-slapping and mutual

congratulation.

"Well, it works, boss," Ruffy greeted Bruce in the uproar.

"Yes." Then he lifted his voice. "That's enough. Quiet down all of you.

Get back to your posts." The laughter subsided and the confusion became

order again. Bruce walked to the centre of the laager and looked about

him. There was complete quiet now. They were all watching him. I have

read about this so often, he grinned inwardly, the heroic speech to the

men on the eve of battle.

Let's pray I don't make a hash of it.

"Are you hungry?" he asked loudly in French and received a chorus of

hearty affirmatives.

"There is bully beef for dinner." This time humorous groans.

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