Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 45

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From the mouth of the wadi emerged a running horse, a rawboned and

rangy white stallion galloping heavily over the sandy ground with a

frail boyish figure lying low along its neck, a black sham ma flying

out wildly behind. The rider drove the stallion on towards where the

child stood weeping, and had almost covered the open ground before the

gunners realized what was happening.

The first machine gun traversed on the galloping animal, but this

lead-off was stiff and the bullets kicked dust slightly high and

behind. Then the horse reached the child and the rider reined in

sharply, sending it rearing on its hind quarters, and the rider swung

down to make the pick-up.

At that moment, two other machine guns opened up on the stationary

target.

Jake Barton realized that there was only one way To prevent a

confrontation between the Italian force which had appeared so silently

and menacingly at the wells and the undisciplined mob of warriors and

camp followers of the Ras's entourage. there was no chance that he

could make himself heard in the hubbub of anxiously raised voices and

emotional outbursts of Amharic as the Ras tried to make his view heard

above the attempts of fifty of his chieftains and captains to do

exactly the same thing.

Jake needed an interpreter and he thrust his way towards Gregorius

Maryam, grabbed him firmly by the arm and dragged him out of the cave.

It needed considerable force, for Gregorius was as intent as everybody

else in having his views and suggestions aired.

Jake was surprised to find how light it was outside the caves, and that

the night had passed so swiftly. Dawn was only minutes away, and the

dry desert air was sweet and heady after the crowded cave with its

smoking fires.

In the light of the camp fires and the pale sky, he saw the mob

streaming away down the wadi towards the wells, as happily excited as

the crowds at a fairground.

"Stop them, Greg," he shouted. "Come on, we've got to stop them," and

the two of them ran forward.

"What is it, Jake?"

"We've got to stop them running into the Eyetie camp."

"Why?"

"If somebody starts shooting, there will be a massacre." BUt we are

not at war, Jake. They can't shoot."

"Don't bet on it, buddy boy," grunted Jake grimly, and his alarm was

contagious. Side by side, they caught up with the straggling rear of

the column and elbowed and kicked their way through it.

"Back, you bastards," roared Jake. "Get back, all of you, and made the

meaning clear with flying fists and feet.

With Gregorius beside him, Jake reached the narrow mouth of the wadi

where it debauched into the saucer shaped valley of the wells. Like

the wall of a dam the two of them linked arms and managed to hold the

flood of humanity there for a minute or so, but the pressure from those

straining forward from the rear threatened to sweep them away, while

the mood changed from high-spirited "curiosity to angry resentment at

this check upon their efforts to join the hundreds of their comrades

who had already passed out of the wadi and were streaming out across

the open valley.

At the moment when they were swept aside, the firing began out there

upon the slopes of the valley and instantly the mob froze and their

voices died away. There was no further forward movement, and Jake

turned and scrambled up the steep side of the wadi for a better view

out into the valley.

From there he watched the slaughter that turned the va ley into a

charnel house. He watched with a sick fascination that changed slowly,

as minute after minute the guns continued their clamour. He felt it

become anger and outrage that outweighed all else, so that he was

hardly aware of the slim cold hand that sought his, and he glanced down

only for an instant at Vicky's golden head at his shoulder, before

turning his entire concentration back to the dreadful tragedy being

played out before them.

Vaguely he was aware that Vicky was sobbing beside him, and that she

had gripped his hand so tightly that the nails were driven deep into

his palm. Yet even in his dreadful anger, Jake was studying the ground

and marking the Italian positions. On his other hand, Gregorius Maryam

was praying softly, his smooth young face turned to a muddy grey with

horror and the words of the prayer forced between tight lips like the

last breaths of a dying man.

"Oh God," whispered Vicky in a tight, choked voice, as the mortar

bombing began, dropping relentlessly into the depressions where the

survivors huddled for shelter. "Oh God, Jake, what can we do?" But he

did not answer and it went on and on. They were caught in the

nightmare of it, powerless in the grip of this horror watching the

mortars continue the hunt, until the woman with her two infants burst

out into the open not three hundred yards ahead of them.

"Oh God, oh please Jesus," whispered Vicky. "Please don't let it

happen. Please make it stop now." The guns hunted the woman and they

watched her die, and the child rise to its feet and stand lost and

bewildered beside the mother's corpse. The thud of galloping hooves

sounded in the wadi below them and Gregorius swung around and cried,

"Sara! No!" as the girl rode out, crouched low over the stallion's

neck. She rode bare-backed, a tiny dark figure on the big white

animal.

"Sara!" Gregorius cried again, and would have followed her, running

out alone into that deadly plain, but Jake grabbed his arm and held him

easily, though he struggled and cried out again in Amharic.

The girl rode on unscathed through the storm of fire, and Vicky's

breathing stopped as she watched. It was impossible that Sara could

reach the child and return. It was stupid, so stupid as to make her

anger leap even higher and yet there was something so moving about that

frail beautiful child riding out to her death, that it filled Vicky

with a sense of her own inadequacy, a sense of great humility for even

in this proud moment, she was aware that she was incapable of such

sacrifice.

She watched the stallion rear, and the girl lean out to gather the

small brown infant, saw the machine guns find their target at last, and

the stallion whinnied and went down in a tangle of flailing hooves,

pinning both the girl and the child, while the bullets continued to

spurt dust and slap loudly against the still kicking body of the

stallion.

Gregorius was still struggling and blab bering his horror, and Jake

turned and struck him an open-handed blow across the face.

"Stop that!" Jake snarled, his own anger and outrage making him

brutal. "Anybody who goes out there is going to get his arse shot

off." The blow seemed to steady Gregorius.

"We have got to get her, Jake. Please, Jake. Let me fetch her."

"We'll do it my way," snapped Jake. His face seemed carved from hard

brown stone, but his eyes were ferocious and his jaws clamped closed

with his anger. Roughly he shoved Gregorius ahead of him down into the

wadi, and he dragged Vicky after him. She tried to resist, leaning

back against his strength, her head turned towards the plain, and her

reluctant feet sliding in the loose earth.

"Jake, what are you doing?" she protested, but he ignored her.

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