A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 153

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Through the drifts of smoke and dust, he saw the Shanganes of the Renamo force rounding up the prisoners and searching for loot and booty. He recognized some of the missile crews. Once the Hinds had been destroyed, they must have abandoned their Stingers and rushed up the hill to join the sack of the laager.

He saw one of themWayoneting a Frelimo prisoner in the buttocks and legs and roaring with laughter as the man squirmed in the dirt, kic0big aridocontorting his body in an attempt to avoid the point of the blade. Other Renamo were emerging from the dugouts, rifles slung over their shoulders and arms full of booty.

Sean was accustomed to the ethics of irregular troops in Africa, but this blatant in discipline annoyed him. He snarled at them, and it was a measure of the force of his personality and the authority he wielded over them that even in the heady moments of victory they obeyed him with alacrity. The Renamo who had been torturing his prisoner paused only to dispatch the maimed victim with a bullet in the back of the neck before hurrying t o Sean's bidding.

"Guard these white prisoners," Sean ordered them. "If harm comes to them, General China will roast your testicles on a slow fire and make you eat them," he warned.

Without looking back he strode through the laager, reasserting his command, getting his triumphant howling shrieking Shanganes back to sanity. He saw Sergeant Alphonso ahead of him.

"We can't carry much loot away. Let the men take their pick, and then I want limpet mines in the storerooms after everything has been drenched with avgas from the drums," he ordered Sergeant Alphonso. He glanced at his wristwatch. "We can expect Frelimo to counterattack the laager within the hour. I want to be gone by then."

"No!" Alphonso shook his head. "General China has moved three companies in between us to hold the Frelimo counterattack.

He has ordered you to hold this position until he arrives."

Sean pulled up short and stared at Alphonso. "What the hell are you talking about? China is two days" march away on the river!"

Alphonso grinned and shook his head. "General China will be here in an hour. He followed us with five companies of his best troovs. He has never been more than an hour behind us, not since we lit the river."

"How do you know this?" Sean demanded.

Alphonso grinned again and patted the radio on the back of the trooper who stood beside him. "I spoke to the general ten minutes ago, as soon as we killed the last of the Russian hen shaw

"Why didn't you tell me before this, you bastard?" Sean growled.

"The general ordered me not to. But now he has ordered me to tell you that he is very pleased with the killing of the hen shaw and he says that you are like a son to him. When he arrives he will reward you."

"AB right." Sean changed his orders. "If we have to hold the laager, get your men into the perimeter defenses. We win use the 12.7-men heavy machine guns."

Sean broke off as a Shangane trooper came running up the hill toward him.

"Nkosi!" The man panted. As soon as he saw his face, Sean knew it was bad news.

"The woman?" he demanded, seizing the messenger's arm. "Is the white woman hurt?"

The Shangane shook his head. "She is safe. She sent me to you.

It's the Matabele, Captain Job. He is 4it."

"How bad?" Sean was already starting to run, and he shouted the question over his shoulder.

"He's dying," the Shangane called after him. "The Matabele is dying."

Sean knew where to look; he himself had selected the copse of knob-thorn acacia as Job's attack position. The first rays of the morning sun were turning the tops of the knob-thorns to gold as Sean ran down the hill. With the help of two Shanganes, Claudia had moved Job onto soft level ground beneath one of the trees. She had propped his head on one of the backpacks and had a field dressing over the wound.

She looked up and cried, "Oh, Sean, thank God!" Her shirt was drenched with drying blood, and she saw Sean's expression. "Not my blood," she assured him. "I'm all right."

Sean transferred all his attention to Job. His face was a sickly blue-gray color, and the flesh seemed to have melted from his skull like hot tar.

Sean touched his check, and his skin was cold as death. Frantically he searched for a pulse in the wrist of Job's good arm.

Although it was faint and rapid, his relief was intense.

"He's lost huge quantities of blood," Claudia whispered. "But I've contained the bleeding now."

"He's in shock," Sean muttered. "Let me have a look."

"Don't lift that dressing," Claudia warned him quickly. "It's ghastly.

He was hit on the point of the shoulder by a cannon shell.

It's just mangled flesh and bone chips. His arm is hanging by a shred of muscle and sinew."

"Take Matatu with you," Sean cut in brusquely. "Go up to the laager. Find where they had their first aid post. The Russians will have a decent stock. Find it. I want plasma and a drip set. Dressings and bandages, those are the most urgent. But if you can find antiseptic and painkillers-" Claudia scrambled to her feet. "Sean, I was so worried about you! I saw-" A

"You don't get ri4 of me that easy." He did not look up from Job's face. "Now off you go, and get back here as quick as you can.

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