Midnight Plus One - Lyall Gavin - Страница 51

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I decided it probably hadn't got my stomach, and since my breathing didn't seem to have any leaks, it hadn't got a lung. I found Harvey squatting down beside me.

'I've got a busted rib or two,' I said. 'I think it ran around outside them.'

'Probably. He was using a 7.65 Sauer.' He tossed a small automatic into the mud by my face. 'Peanut gun; you were lucky. Can you walk back to the car?'

'We've got so far. It's not much farther.'

'You'vegot so far,' he corrected, 'and you ain't no advertisement. In case you want to know, neither of these guys is Alain. He's holed up in a pillbox across the track with a Sten.'

I hadn't really expected we'd killed Alain, but I'd hoped.

'Alain won't stay,' I said. 'Not if he knows we're still trying. The odds are against him now – he's a professional.'

'Still playing Caneton, hey?' He stood up and back. 'All right, let's see how you look on your feet.'

I took a deep breath – which was a mistake – and started. It took time and blood, and it was climbing a skyscraper with little green men swinging axes into my side. But after a while, I was up on my two feet and leaning hard against the wall.

Harvey said: 'Me, I'd say the wall was doing the work.'

'I'll chase him out,' I snarled. I was breathing in fast, shallow gasps, to keep the strain off my ribs. 'Get me the petrol tin out of the car.'

'Recommended procedure for knocking out pillboxes.' He went on looking at me. Then there was a distant shouting. We both looked back up the trench, to where the dark slope rose up above it to the frontier road and the mountain wall beyond. Light flickered, like men running with torches.

'I'd forgotten about the cops,' Harvey said thoughtfully. 'If we go back, we're still in Switzerland.' He swung back to me. 'You've kind of committed us, haven't you?'

'Get me the petrol.'

'Where'll you be?'

I nodded towards the culvert. 'Far side of the path.'

He nodded and hurried back towards the communication trench.

Crawling through the culvert started the little axes chipping away at my ribs again, but I made it. Then I had an eight-foot stretch of trench wall before it turned a corner leading forwards to the parallel where the pillbox was.

I knelt down carefully and took a quick look round the corner. The narrow dark eye of the pillbox stared back at me.

I jerked back. Thepillbox wasn't only to cover the tank path – but also the trench itself. To stop an enemy spreading along it if he broke in. Just what it was going to stop me doing – if Alain was still there.

'Alain,'I called softly.'Voici Caneton. C'est tout fini, Alain.'

The pillbox stayed quiet.

I climbed up on the firestep, found a place where I could peep through the bushes and the wet sand-heaps, laid the Mauser down, and waited. Moonlight washed over the pillbox, turning it to a dirty bone-white – and as cold and quiet as the far side of the moon.

Are you still there, Alain? Don't you remember that a fixed position can turn into a trap? Damn it, you're a professional – you must have crept out and away. Given it up as a bad job, decided you wouldn't earn this twelve thousand or whatever you're getting paid…

Then the loophole spluttered flame and noise. Short, fast burst, as when a man knows what he's firing at. Harvey must have reached the car.

I fired two single shots and ducked, swearing angrily. Behind me, the shots had started more shouting among the cops weaving their way through the trenches from the frontier road.

But damn you, Alain – you shouldn't still be there. You've forgotten everything. You should never cling to a fixed position when the odds turn against you; it can kill you. It must kill you – because now we must go on.

There was a clatter in the culvert behind me, and a few moments later Harvey whispered: 'I've got it – where do I throw it?'

'I'mthrowing it. Cover me as I go round the corner; he can see down that stretch.'

He hung on to the tin and said coldly: 'What's the matter – one medal isn't enough for you?'

'I'llget him. Give me the petrol.'

'Listen, hero,' he said softly. 'We don't have time for you to stagger bravely on and get your head blown off. Cover me.'

I'dcommitted us all right. And he had to dig us out.

I nodded. 'Don't go until he shoots at me.'

'Okay. Where do I throw it – over the top so it drips down and blocks the loophole?'

'That wouldn't stop Alain. Chuck it inside.'

He looked at me, then turned away. Then he turned back and said: 'Can you really light gasoline off a gunflash?'

'Yes.'

He walked carefully up the firestep to the corner. I waited until he was there, then raised my head and started firing careful single shots at the loophole. The first one raised dust just below it; the second didn't – it must have gone straight in. With a Mauser on a butt at eight yards, you can place shots the way a brain surgeon places a scalpel. The third shot didn't raise dust, either.

The Sten blared at me, throwing gobs of wet sand and bullets clattering against the back wall. Harvey went round the corner with a rush and splash.

Alain had forgotten another lesson. He'd let himself be distracted. I flicked the Mauser on to automatic and let go a burst that scattered dust around the loophole and then climbed uncontrollably off the roof. But the Sten had stopped.

Harvey didn't pause. He must have had the top off the can already. He jumped up the steps; I saw his head and shoulders rise above the parapet, holding the big can upside down to lay a petrol trail.

He ran smack into Alain coming out.

For a moment they hung together, so close that Alain couldn't use the Sten – and Harvey's gun was in his belt. Then they bounced apart. Harvey dropped the can and grabbed for his waist; Alain slashed with the Sten, knocking him back off the steps.

I stood straight up, shoved the Mauser out to arm's length, and squeezed the trigger. It fired once and was empty. Alain ducked, then calmly straightened the Sten in his hands and aimed down into the trench.

Harvey fired.

I saw the reflected flash – and Alain became flames.

You can have seen petrol fires before – have lit them before – and you never remember how fast they light because you just don't believe what you see. Alain must have been soaked in the stuff from bumping into the can, and the steps were flooded. Together, they turned into fire.

He didn't shoot at Harvey. He turned, a man of flames standing in a hedge of flames, tried to wipe the fire out of his eyes with a burning arm, then started to shoot careful bursts across my head at the Rolls. He had forgotten a lot -but not what he was here for.

Harvey fired again. The figure toppled off the steps with the Sten still going, and hit the bottom of the trench with a hiss.

I laid my head down on the wet sand of the parapet and started to feel very sick.

Harvey met me at the tank path; he was moving slowly and wearily, and he looked singed, dirty, and damp. Behind him, the flames still flickered in the trench, and behind me the waving torches of the police were only a few hundred yards off. But somehow they didn't seem important; nothing to hurry us.

HarviV said: 'We seem to have won the war.' His voice was flat, numbed, without any expression.

I said: 'Yes,' and braced myself for anything he had to say about my bright ideas.

But all he said was: 'I could use a drink.'

'Me, too.'

We walked slowly towards the Rolls, which had come across the culvert and stopped just past the front-line trenches. When we got there, I said: Take the wire-cutters out of my case. There's probably some front-line wire ahead.'

He took them and started out in front of the car, then stopped and said: 'Bernard. And now Alain.' But his voice was still dead. He wasn't feeling anything about it – yet.

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