"Look for Fleischer. Damn those things, look for Fleischer!" Rosa snapped at him.
"He's not with them."
"He must be. He must be there." Rosa rolled on her side and reached out to snatch the binoculars from Flynn's hands. Eagerly she scanned the long column that moved slowly towards them up the valley.
"He must be there. Please God, he must be there," she whispered her hatred through cracked dry lips.
"We will have to attack soon. They are nearly in position now." "We must find Fleischer." Desperately Rosa searched, her knuckles showing white through sun-brown skin as she clutched the binoculars.
"We can't let it go much longer. Sebastian is in position, he will be expecting my signal."
"Wait! You must wait."
"No. We can't let them get closer." Flynn half lifted his body, and called softly.
"Mohammed! Are you ready?"
"We are ready." The reply came from farther down the slope where the line of riflemen lay.
"Remember my words, oh, thou chosen -of Allah. Kill the Askari first and the others will run."
"Your words ring in my ears with the brightness and the beauty of golden bells," Mohammed replied.
"Up yours!" said Flynn and unbuttoned the pocket flap of his tunic. He fumbled out the hand-mirror and held it slanted to catch the sun, deflecting a bright splinter of light towards the far slope of the valley. From the jumble of rock and bush there was an immediate answering flash as Sebastian acknowledged the signal.
"Ah!" Flynn breathed theatrical relief, "I was afraid our Bassie might have fallen asleep over there." And he picked up the Mauser from the rock in front of him.
"Wait," pleaded Rosa. "Please wait."
"We can't. You know we can't if Fleischer is down there then we'll get him. If he isn't, then waiting any longer isn't going to help us."
"You don't care," she accused. "You have forgotten about Maria already."
"No," said Flynn. "No, I haven't forgotten," and he cuddled the Mauser into his shoulder.
There was an Askari he had been watching. A big man who moved ahead of the column. Even at this range Flynn sensed that this man was dangerous. He moved with aleopard's slouching awareness, head cocked and alert.
Flynn picked him up in the notch of the rear sight and rode the pip down his body, aiming low to compensate for the downhill shot, taking him in the belly. He gathered the slack in the trigger, squeezing it up gently. The Mauser cracked viciously and the recoil jumped back into his shoulder.
Incredulously Flynn saw the bullet throw a jump of dust from the slope below the Askari. A clean miss at four hundred yards from a carefully aimed shot By Christ, he was getting old.
Frantically he worked the bolt of the rifle, but already the Askari had ducked for cover, unslinging his rifle as he disappeared into, a bank of grey thorn bush, and Flynn's next shot ripped ineffectively into the coarse dry vegetation.
"Damn it to hell!" howled Flynn, and his voice was small in the storm of gun-fire that blew around him. From both slopes all his riflemen were shooting down into the solid pack of humanity that clogged the valley floor.
For startled seconds the mass of native bearers stood quiescent under the lash of the Mousers, each man frozen in the attitude in which the attack had caught him; bent to the giant wheels, leaning forward against the ropes, pari ga raised to strike at a branch, or merely standing watching while others worked. Every head lifted to stare up at the slopes from which Flynn's hidden rifles menaced them, then with a sound like a rising wind a single voice climbed in a wail of terror, to be lost almost instantly in the babble from a thousand throats.
Without regard for Flynn's orders to single out only the armed Askari, his men were firing blindly into the mass of men around the wheels, bullets striking with a meaty thump, thump, thump, or whining from rock to inflict the ghastly secondary wounds of a ricochet.
Then the bearers broke. Flowing back like flood water along the valley, carrying the Askari whose khaki uniforms bobbed with them like driftwood in the torrent.
Beside Flynn in the don ga Rosa was firing also. Her hands on the rifle incongruously feminine, fingers long and sensitive working the bolt as though it were the shuttle of a loom, weaving death, her eyes slitted behind the gunsight, her lips barely moving as they formed the name which had become her battle hymn.
"Maria! Maria!" With each shot she said it softly.
As he fumbled a fresh clip of cartridges from his bandolier, Flynn glanced sideways at her. Even in this moment of hot excitement Flynn felt the prickle of disquiet as he saw his daughter's face. There was a madness in her eyes, the madness of grief too long sustained, the madness of hatred too carefully nourished.
His rifle was loaded and he switched his attention back to the valley. The scene had changed. From the rush of fear-crazed bearers, the German, whom Flynn had earlier watched through the binoculars, was rallying a defence.
With him was the big Askari, the one that Flynn had missed with his first shot. These two stood to hold the guards who were being carried away on the rush of panic, stricken bearers, stopping them, turning them back, pushing and shoving them into defensive cover around the four huge wheels. Now they were returning the fire of Flynn's men.
"Mohammed! Get that man! The white man get him!" roared Flynn, and fired twice, missing with each shot. But his bullets passed so close that the German dodged back behind the metal shield of the nearest wheel.
"That's done it," lamented Flynn, as his hopes of quick success faded. "They're getting settled in (down there. We are going to have to prise them loose." The prospect was unattractive. Flynn had found from experience that while every man in his motley band was a hero when firing from ambush, and a master in the art of strategic retreat, yet their weak Suit was frontal assault, or any other manoeuvre that involved exposure to the enemy.
Of the hundred under his command, there were a dozen whom he could rely on to obey an order to attack. Flynn was understandably reluctant to issue such an order, for there are few situations more humiliating than bellowing, "Charge!" then having everybody look at you with a "Who, me? You must be joking! "expression
Now he steeled himself to do it, aware that with every second the battle madness of his men was cooling and being replaced by sanity and caution. He filled his lungs and opened his mouth, but Rosa saved him.
She rolled and lifted her knees, coming on to her feet with one fluid motion whose continuation was a catlike leap that carried her over the shale bank and into the open.
Boyish, big-hipped, but graceful the rifle across her hip, firing. Long hair streaming, long legs flying, she went down the slope.
"RosaV roared Flynn in consternation, and jumped up to chase her in an ungainly lumbering run like the charge of an old bull buffalo.
"Fini!" shouted Mohammed, and scampered after his master.
"My goodness!" Sebastian gasped where he lay on the opposite side of the valley. "It's Rosa!" and in a completely reflex response he found himself on his feet and bounding down the rocky slope.
"Akwende!" yelled the man beside him, carried away in his excitement, and before any of them had time to think, fifty of them were up and following. After the first half-dozen paces they were committed, for once they had started to run down the steep incline they could not stop without falling flat on their faces, they could only accelerate.
Down both slopes of the valley, scrambling, sliding on loose stone, pell-mell through thorn bush, screaming, shouting, they poured down on the cluster of Askari around the wheels.
From opposite sides, Rosa and Sebastian were first to reach the perimeter of the German position. Their momentum carried them unscathed through the first line of the defenders, and then with the empty rifle in her hands Rosa ran chest to chest against the big Askari who rose from behind a boulder to meet her. She shrieked as he caught her, and the sound exploded within Sebastian's brain in a red burst of fury.
Twenty yards away Rosa struggled with the man, but she w
as helpless as a baby in his arms. He lifted her, changing his grip on her body, snatching her up above his head, steadying himself to hurl her down on to the pointed rock behind which he had hidden. There was such animal power in the bunched muscles of his arms, in the thick sweat-slimy neck, in the muscular straddled legs, that Sebastian knew that when he dashed Rosa against the rock he would kill her. Her spine, her ribs must shatter with the force of it; the soft vital organs within her trunk must bruise or burst.
Sebastian went for him. Brushing from his path two lesser men of the bewildered defenders, clubbing the Mauser in his hands because he could not fire for fear of hitting Rosa, silently saving his breath for physical effort, he crossed the distance that separated them and reached them in the moment that the Askari began the first downward movement of his arms.
"Aah!" A gusty grunt was forced up Sebastian's throat by the force with which he swung the rifle, he used it like an axe, swinging it low with the full weight of his body behind it. The blade of the butt hit the Askari across the small of his back, and within his body cavity the kidneys popped like over-ripe satsuma plums. He was dying as he toppled backwards. As he hit the ground Rosa fell on top of him, his body cushioning her fall.
Sebastian dropped the rifle and stooped to gather her in his arms, crouching over her protectively.
Around them Flynn led his men boiling over the defenders, swamping them, knocking the rifles from their hands and dragging them to their feet, laughing in awe of their own courageous assault, chattering in excitement and relief. Sebastian was on the point of straightening up and lifting Rosa to her feet, he glanced around quickly to assure himself that all danger was past and his breathing jammed in his throat.
Ten paces away, kneeling in the shadow of one of the huge steel wheels was the white officer. He was a young man, swarthy for a German, but with pale green eyes. The tropical white of his uniform was patchy with damp sweat stains, and smeared with dust; his cap was pushed back, the gold braid on its peak sparkling with incongruous gaiety, for beneath it the face was taut and angry, the mouth pulled tight by the clenched jaws.
There was a Luger pistol clutched in his right hand. He lifted it and aimed.
"No!" croaked Sebastian, clumsily trying to shield Rosa with his own body, but he knew the German was going to fire.
U5dchenl" cried Sebastian in his schoolboy German.
"Nein shut zen ths em M5dchen!" and he saw the change in the young officer's expression, the pale green glitter of his eyes softening as he responded automatically to the appeal to his chivalry. Yet still the Luger was levelled, and over it Sebastian and the officer stared at each other. All this in seconds, but the delay was enough. While the officer still hesitated, suddenly it was too late, for Flynn stood over him and pressed the muzzle of his rifle into the back of the German's neck.
"Drop it, me beauty. Else I'll shoot your tonsils clean out through your Adam's apple."
Strewn along the floor of the valley were the loads dropped by the native bearers, in their anxiety to leave for far places and fairer climes. Many of the packs had burst open and all had been trampled in the rush, so the contents littered the ground and discarded clothing flapped in the lower branches of the thorn trees.
Flynn's men were looting, a pastime in which they demonstrated a marked aptitude and industry. Busy as jackals around a lion's kill they gleaned the spoils and bickered over them.
The German officer sat quietly against the metal wheel.
In front of him stood Rosa; she had in her hand the Luger pistol. The two of them watched each other steadily and expressionlessly. To one side Flynn squatted and pored over the contents of the German's pockets. Beside him Sebastian was ready to give his assistance.
"He's a naval officer," said Sebastian, looking at the German with interest. "He's got an anchor on his cap bridge."
"Do me a favour, Bassie," pleaded Flynn.
"Of Course." Sebastian was ever anxious to please.
"Shut up!" said Flynn, without looking up from the contents of the officer's wallet which he had piled on the ground in front of him. In his dealings with Flynn, Sebastian had built up a thick layer of scar tissue around his sensitivity.
He went on without a change of tone or expression.
"I wonder what on earth a naval officer is doing in the middle of the bush, pushing these funny contraptions around. "Sebastian examined the wheel with interest, before addressing himself to the German. "Bitte, was it clos?" He pointed at the wheel. The young officer did not even glance at him. He was watching Rosa with almost hypnotic concentration.
Sebastian repeated his question and when he found that he was again ignored he shrugged slightly, and leaned across to lift a sheet of paper from the small pile in front of Flynn.
"Leave it," Flynn slapped his hand away. "I'm reading."
"Can I look at this, then?" He touched a photograph.
"Don't lose it," cautioned Flynn, and Sebastian held it in his lap and examined it. It showed three young men in white overalls and naval peaked caps. They were smiling broadly into the camera with their arms linked together.
In the background loomed the superstructure of a warship, the gun-turrets showed clearly. One of the men in the photograph was their prisoner who now sat against the wheel.
Sebastian reversed the square of heavy cardboard and read the inscription on the back of it.
"Bremerhaven. 6 Aug. 1911 Both Flynn and Sebastian were absorbed in their studies, and Rosa and the German were alone. Completely alone, isolated by an intimate relationship.
Gunther Raube was fascinated. Staring into the girl's face, he had never known this sensation of mingled dread and elation which she invoked within him. Though her expression was flat and neutral, he could sense in her a hunger and a promise. He knew that they were bound together by something he did not understand, between them there was something very important to happen. It excited him, he felt it crawling like a living thing in his loins, ghost-walking along his spine, and his breathing was cramped and painful. Yet there was fear with it, fear that was as cloying as warm olive oil in his belly.
"What is it?" he whispered huskily as a lover. "I do not understand. Tell me." And he sensed that she could not understand his language, but his tone made something move in her eyes.
They darkened like cloud shadow on a green sea, and he saw she was beautiful. With a pang he thought how close he had been to firing the Luger she now held in her hand.
I might have killed her, and he wanted to reach out and touch her. Slowly he leaned forward, and Rosa shot him in the centre of his chest.
The impact of the bullet threw him back against the metal frame of the wheel. He lay there looking at her.
Deliberately, each shot spaced, she emptied the magazine of the pistol. The Luger jumped and steadied and jumped again in her hand. Each blurt of gun-fire shockingly loud, and the wounds appeared like magic on the white front of his shirt, beginning to weep blood as he slumped sideways, and he lay with his eyes still fastened on her face as he died.
The pistol clicked empty and she let it drop from her hand.
Sir Percy held the square of cardboard at arm's length to read the inscription on the back of it.
"Bremerhaven. 6 Aug. 1911"" he said. Across the desk from him his flag-captain sat uncomfortably on the edge of the hard-backed chair. His right hand reached for his pocket, checked, then withdrew guiltily.
"For God's sake, Henry. Smoke that damned thing if you must, grunted Sir Percy.
"Thank You, sir." Gratefully Captain Henry Green completed the reach for his pocket, brought out a gnarled briar and began stuffing it with tobacco.
Laying aside the photograph, Sir Percy took up the bedraggled sheet of paper and studied the crude hand-drawn circles upon it, reading the descriptions that were linked by arrows to the circles. This sample of primitive art had been laboriously drawn by Flynn Patrick O'Flynn as an addendum to his report.
"You say this lot came in the diplomatic bag from the
Embassy in Lourenco Marques?"
"That's right, sir."
"Who is this fellow Sir Percy checked the name, "Flynn Patrick O'Flynn?"
"It seems that he is a major in the Portuguese army, sir.) "With a name like that?"
"You find these Irishmen everywhere, sir." The captain smiled. "The commands a group of scouts who raid across the border into German territory. They have built up something of a reputation for derring-do." Sir Percy grunted again, dropped the paper, clasped his hands behind his head and stared across the room at the portrait of Lord Nelson.
"All right, Henry. Let's hear what YOU make of it." The captain held a flaring match to the bowl of his pipe and sucked noisily, waved the match to extinguish it, and spoke through wreaths of smoke.
Wilbur Smith - Shout At The Devil Page 26