Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 69

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This one is dead, Blaine Malcomess said quietly, standing over the prostrate figure. They had climbed the cliff at two places in the darkness; then in the dawn they had carried the summit in a concerted rush only to find it undefended.

Where are the others? Sergeant Hansmeyer hurried out of the shadowy cluster of boulders. There is no one else on the hill, sir. They must have got clean away. Blaine! Centaine called urgently. 'Where are you? What is happening? He had insisted that she remain at the foot of the kopje until they had captured the summit. He had not yet signalled her to come up, but here she was, only a minute behind their attack.

Over here, he snapped. And then, as she ran towards him, You disobeyed an order, madam. She ignored the accusation. Where are they? She broke off as she saw the body. Oh God, it's Lothar. She went down beside him.

So this is De La Rey. Well, he's dead, I'm afraid, Blaine told her.

Where are the others? Centaine looked up at him anxiously. She had been both dreading and anticipating finding Lothar's bastard; she still tried to avoid using the boy's name, even to herself.

Not here. Blaine shook his head. Given us the slip. De La Rey fooled us and put up a good rear guard delay. They have got clear away.

They'll be across the river by now. Manfred. Centaine capitulated and thought of him by name. Manfred, my son. And her disappointment and sense of loss was so strong that it shocked her. She had wanted him to be there. To see him at last. She looked down at his father, and other emotions, long buried and suppressed, rose in her.

Lothar lay with his face cradled in the crook of his elbow.

The other arm, bound up in strips of stained blanket, was outflung. She touched his neck below the ear, feeling for the carotid artery, and exclaimed immediately she felt the fever heat of his skin.

He's still alive. Are you sure? Blaine squatted beside her. Between them they rolled Lothar onto his back, and they saw the grenade lying under him.

You were right, Blaine said softly. He did have another grenade. He could have killed you last night., Centaine shivered as she stared down at Lothar's face. He was no longer beautiful and golden and brave. The fever had ruined him, his features had collapsed like those of a corpse and he was shrunken and grey.

He is badly dehydrated, she said. Is there water left in that bottle? While Blaine dribbled water into his mouth, Centaine unwrapped the festering rags from his arm.

Blood poisoning. She recognized the livid lines beneath the skin and the stench of his rotting flesh. That arm will have to come off. Though her voice was steady and businesslike, she was appalled at the damage she had wrought. It seemed impossible that a single bite could have caused that.

Her teeth were one of her good features and she was proud of them, always kept them clean and white and cared for.

That arm looked as though it had been savaged by one of the carrion eaters, by a hyena or a leopard.

There is a Portuguese Roman Catholic mission at Cuangar on the river, Blaine said. But he'll be lucky if we can get him there alive.

With all but one of the horses dead, we'll all be lucky to make it as far as the river ourselves., He stood up. Sergeant, send one of your men to fetch the first-aid kit and then have the rest of them search every inch of this hilltop. A million pounds worth of diamonds are missing. Hansmeyer saluted and hurried away, rapping out orders at his troopers.

Blaine sank down beside Centaine. While we are waiting for the medical kit, I suppose we had better search his clothing and equipment in the off-chance that he kept any of the stolen diamonds with him. 'It's an off-chance all right, Centaine agreed with bitter resignation.

The diamonds are almost certainly with his son and that big black Ovambo ruffian of his. And without our Bushmen trackers, She shrugged.

Blaine spread Lothar's dusty stained tunic on the rock and began examining the seams, while Centaine bathed Lothar's injured arm and then bound it up with clean white bandages from the medical kit.

Nothing, sir. Hansmeyer reported back. We've gone over every inch

of this rock, every nook and cranny. Very well, Sergeant. Now we have to get this beggar off the kopje without letting him fall and break his neck. Not that he doesn't deserve it. Blaine grinned. He does deserve it. But we don't want to do the hangman out of his five guineas, do we now, Sergeant? They were ready to move out within the hour. Lothar De La Rey was strapped into a drag litter of mopani saplings behind their single remaining horse, and the wounded trooper, the grenade shrapnel still in his back and shoulder, rode up in Centaine's saddle.

Centaine lingered on at the foot of the kopje after the column had started northwards towards the river once more, and Blaine came back to stand beside her.

He took her hand and she sighed and leaned lightly against his shoulder. Oh, Blaine, for me so much has ended here in this God-forsaken wilderness, on this sun-blasted lump of rock. I think I can understand how much the loss of the diamonds means. Do you, Blaine? I don't think so. I don't think even I can take it in yet. Everything has changed, even my hatred for Lothar There is still a chance we will recover the stones. No, Blaine. You and I both know there is no chance. The diamonds are gone. He did not attempt to deny it, did not offer false comfort.

I have lost it all, everything I ever worked for, for me and my son. It's all gone. I didn't realize, he broke off and looked down at her with pity and deep concern. I understood it would be a hard blow, but everything? Is it that bad? Yes, Blaine, she said simply. Everything. Not all at once, of course, but now the whole edifice will start to crumble and I will struggle to shore it up. I will borrow and beg and plead for time, but the foundation is gone from under me.

A million pounds, Blaine, it's an enormous sum of money. I will stave off the inevitable for a few months, a year perhaps, but it will go faster and faster, like a house of cards, and at the end it will come crashing down around me. Centaine, I am not a poor man, he began. I could help you, I She reached up and laid her forefinger on his lips.

There is one thing I would ask from you, she whispered.

Not money, but in the days ahead, I will need some comfort. Not often, just when it gets very bad. I will be there whenever you need me, Centaine. I promise you that. You have only to call. Oh, Blaine. She turned to him. if only! Yes, Centaine, if only. And he took her in his arms.

There was no guilt nor fear, even the terrible threat of ruin and destitution that hung over her seemed to recede when she was in his arms.

I wouldn't even mind being poor again, if only I had you beside me always, she whispered, and he could not reply.

In desperation he bowed his head over her and stopped her lips with his mouth.

The Portuguese priest doctor at Cuangar Mission took off

Lothar De La Rey's arm two inches below the elbow. He operated by the bright flat white light of the Petromax lantern, and Centaine stood at his side, sweating behind the surgical mask, responding to the doctor's requests in French, trying to prevent herself freezing in horror at the rasping of the bone saw and the suffocating stench of chloroform and gangrene that filled the daub and thatch hut that served as an operating theatre. When it was over, she slipped away to the earthpit lavatory and vomited up her revulsion and pity.

Alone in the mission hut that had been allocated to her, under the billowing ghostly mosquito net, she could still taste it in the back of her throat. The gangrene smell seemed to have impregnated her skin and lingered in her hair. She prayed that she might never smell it again, nor ever be forced to live through another hour as harrowing as watching the man she had once loved shorn of a limb, turned into a cripple before her eyes.

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