Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur - Страница 83

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"I'm disappointed in you, Bassie. Most young fellows would jump at this chance." Flynn was literally in excellent spirits. Joyce had come through with three cases of best Beefeater gin. He sat on one of the gasoline drums that lay beneath the shade of the palm trees above the beach, around him in various attitudes of relaxation lay twenty of his scouts, for it was a drowsy, warm and windless morning.

A bright sun burned down from a clear sky, and the white sand was dazzling against the dark green of the sea. The low surf sighed softly against the beach, and half a mile out, a cloud of seabirds were milling and diving on a shoal of bait fish Their cries blending with the sound of the sea.

Even though they were a hundred miles north of the Rovuma mouth, deep in German territory, a holiday atmosphere prevailed. Heightened by anticipation of the imminent arrival of the flying-machine they were enjoying themselves all of them except Sebastian and Rosa. They were holding each other's hands and looking into the southern sky.

"You must find it for us." Rosa's voice was low, but not low enough to cover her intensity. For the last ten days, since Flynn had returned from his meeting with Joyce on board the Renounce, she had spoken of little else but the German warship. It had become another cup to catch the hatred that overflowed from her.

"I'll try, "said Sebastian.

"You must, "she said. "You must."

"Should be able to get a good view from up there. Like standing on a mountain only with no mountain under you, said Sebastian and he felt his skin crawl at the thought.

"Listen!" said Rosa.

"What?"

"Ssh!" And he heard it, an insect drone that swelled and sank and swelled again. They heard it under the trees also, and some of them came out into the sun and stood peering towards the south.

Suddenly in the sky there was a flash of reflected sunlight off metal or glass, and a shout went up from the watchers.

It came in towards them, low on wobbly wings, the clatter of its engine rising to a crescendo, its shadow racing ahead of it along the white beach. The group of native scouts exploded in panic-stricken retreat, Sebastian dropped on his face in the sand, only Rosa stood unmoving as it roared a few feet over her head, and then rose and banked away in a curve out over the sea.

Sebastian stood up and sheepishly brushed sand from his bush-jacket, as the aircraft levelled in and sank down on to the hard-packed sand near the water's edge. The beat of its engine faded to a spluttering burble, and it waddled slowly towards them, the backwash of the propeller sending a misty plume of sand scudding out behind. The wings looked as though they were about to fall off.

"All right," bellowed Flynn at his men who were standing well back in the palm grove. "Get these drums down there." The pilot switched off the motor, and the silence was stunning. He climbed stiffly out of the cockpit on to the lower wing, (Limpy and awkward in his thick leather jacket, helmet and goggles. He jumped down on to the beach and shrugged out of the jacket, pulled off the helmet and was revealed as the SUave young Portuguese lieutenant.

"Da Silva," he said offering his right hand as Sebastian ran forward to greet him. "Hernandez da Silva." While Flynn and Sebastian supervised the refuelling of the aircraft, Rosa sat with the pilot under the palms, while he breakfasted on garlic polo ny and a bottle of white wine that he had brought with him. suitably exotic food for a dashing knight of the air.

Although his mouth was busy, the pilot's eyes were free and he used them on Rosa. Even at a distance of fifty yards Sebastian became aware with mounting disquiet that Rosa was Suddenly a woman again. Where before there had been a lifted chin and the straight-forward masculine gaze; now there were downcast eyes broken with quick bright glances and secret smiles, now there were soft rose colours that glowed and faded beneath the sun-browned skin of her cheeks and neck. She touched her hair with a finger, pushing a strand back behind her ear. She tugged at the front of her bush-jacket to straighten it, then drew her long khaki-clad legs up sideways beneath her as she sat in the sand. The pilot's eyes followed the movement. He wiped the neck of the wine bottle on his sleeve, and then with a flourish offered it to Rosa.

Rosa murmured her thanks and accepted the bottle to sip at it delicately. With the freckles across her cheeks and the skin peeling from her nose she looked as fresh and as innocent as a little girl, Sebastian thought.

The Portuguese lieutenant on the other hand looked neither fresh nor innocent. He was handsome, if you liked the slimy continental type with that slightly jaded torn cat look. Sebastian decided that there was something obscenely erotic about that little black mustache, that lay upon his upper lip and accentiated the cherry-pink lips beneath.

Watching him take the bottle back from Rosa and lift it towards her in salutation before drinking, Sebastian was overcome with two strong desires. One was to take the wine bottle and thrust it down the lieutenant's throat, the other was to get him into the flying-machine and away from Rosa just as quickly as was possible.

"Paci. Paci," he growled at Mohammed's gang who were slopping gasoline into the funnel on the upper wing. "Get a move on, for cat's sake!"

"Get your clobber into this thing, Bassie, and stop giving orders you know it just confuses everybody."

"I don't know where to put it you'd better tell that greaser to come and show me. I can't speak his language."

"Put it in the front cockpit the observer's cockpit."

"Tell that damned Portuguese to come here." Sebastian dug in stubbornly. "Tell him to leave Rosa alone and come here." Rosa followed the pilot to the aircraft and the expression of awed respect on her face, as she listened to him throwing out orders in Portuguese, infuriated Sebastian. The ritual of starting the aircraft completed, it stood clattering and quivering on the beach, and the pilot waved imperiously at Sebastian from the cockpit to come aboard.

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