by Wilbur Smith
Another drop hit Bruce’s upturned face and he blinked back the tears of anger and frustration that pricked the rims of his eyelids.
Faster now, tapping on his helmet, plopping on to his shoulders and face, the rain fell.
‘Quickly,’ cried Bruce. ‘Follow as long as you can.’
Jacque opened his mouth to speak, but before a word came out he was flung backwards, punched over as though by an invisible fist, his helmet flying from his head as he fell and his rifle clattering on the earth.
Simultaneously Bruce felt the bullet pass him, disrupting the air, so the wind of it flattened his shirt against his chest, cracking viciously in his ears, leaving him dazedly looking down at Sergeant Jacque’s body.
It lay with arms thrown wide, the jaw and the side of the head below the ear torn away; white bone and blood bubbling over it. The trunk twitched convulsively and the hands fluttered like trapped birds. Then flat-sounding through the rain he heard the report of the rifle.
The kopje, screamed Bruce’s brain, he’s lying in the kopje!
And Bruce moved, twisting sideways, starting to run.
– 32 –
Wally Hendry lay on his stomach on the flat top of the turret. His body was stiff and chilled from the cold of the night and the rock was harsh under him, but the discomfort hardly penetrated the fringe of his mind. He had built a low parapet with loose flakes of granite, and he had screened the front of it with the thick bushy stems of broom bush.
His rifle was propped on the parapet in front of him and at his elbow were the spare ammunition clips.
He had lain in this ambush for a long time now – since early the preceding afternoon. Now it was dawn and the darkness was drawing back; in a few minutes he would be able to see the whole of the clearing below him.
I coulda been across the river already, he thought, coulda been fifty miles away. He did not attempt to analyse the impulse that had made him lie here unmoving for almost twenty hours.
Man, I knew old Curry would have to come. I knew he would only bring one nigger tracker with him. These educated Johnnies got their own rules – man to man stuff, and he chuckled as he remembered the two minute figures that he had seen come out of the forest in the fading light of the previous evening.
The bastard spent the night down there in the clearing. Saw him light a match and have hisself a smoke in the night – well, I hope he enjoyed it, his last.
Wally peered anxiously out into the gradually gathering dawn.
They’ll be moving now, coming up the clearing. Must get them before they reach the trees again. Below him the clearing showed as a paleness, a leprous blotch, on the dark forest.
The bastard! Without preliminaries Hendry’s hatred returned to him. This time he don’t get to make no fancy speeches. This time he don’t get no chance to be hoity-toity.
The light was stronger now. He could see the clumps of ivory palms against the pale brown grass of the clearing.
‘Ha!’ Hendry exclaimed.
There they were, like two little ants, dark specks moving up the middle of the clearing. The tip of Hendry’s tongue slipped out between his lips and he flattened down behind his rifle.
Man, I’ve waited for this. Six months now I’ve thought about this, and when it’s finished I’ll go down and take his ears. He slipped the safety catch; it made a satisfying mechanical click.
Nigger’s leading, that’s Curry behind him. Have to wait till they turn, don’t want the nigger to get it first. Curry first, then the nigger.
He picked them up in his sights, breathing quicker now, the thrill of it so intense that he had to swallow and it caught in his throat like dry bread.
A raindrop hit the back of his neck. It startled him. He looked up quickly at the sky and saw it coming.
‘Goddam it,’ he groaned, and looked back at the clearing. Curry and nigger were standing together, a single dark blob in the half-light. There was no chance of separating them. The rain fell faster, and suddenly Hendry was overwhelmed by the old familiar feeling of inferiority; of knowing that everything, even the elements, conspired against him; the knowledge that he could never win, not even this once.
They, God and the rest of the world.
The ones who had given him a drunk for a father.
A squalid cottage for a home and a mother with cancer of the throat.
The ones who had sent him to reform school, had fired him from two dozen jobs, had pushed him, laughed at him, gaoled him twice – They, all of them (and Bruce Curry who was their figurehead), they were going to win again. Not even this once, not even ever.
‘Goddam it,’ he cursed in hopeless, wordless anger against them all.
‘Goddam it, goddam it to hell,’ and he fired at the dark blob in his sights.
– 33 –
As he ran Bruce looked across a hundred yards of open ground to the edge of the forest.
He felt the wind of the next bullet as it cracked past him.
If he uses rapid fire he’ll get me even at three hundred yards.
And Bruce jinked his run like a jack-rabbit. The blood roaring in his ears, fear driving his feet.
Then all around him the air burst asunder, buffeting him so he staggered; the vicious whip-whip-whip of bullets filled his head.
I can’t make it.
Seventy yards to the shelter of the trees. Seventy yards of open meadowland, and above him the commanding mass of the kopje.
The next burst is for me – it must come, now!
And he flung himself to one side so violently that he nearly fell. Again the air was ripping to tatters close beside him.
I can’t last! He must get me!
In his path was an ant-heap, a low pile of clay, a pimple on the open expanse of earth. Bruce dived for it, hitting the ground so hard that the wind was forced from his lungs out through his open mouth.
The next burst of gunfire kicked lumps of clay from the top of the ant-heap, showering Bruce’s back.
He lay with his face pressed into the earth, wheezing with the agony of empty lungs, flattening his body behind the tiny heap of clay.
Will it cover me? Is there enough of it?
And the next hail of bullets thumped into the ant-heap, throwing fountains of earth, but leaving Bruce untouched.
I’m safe. The realization came with a surge that washed away his fear.
But I’m helpless, answered his hatred. Pinned to the earth for as long as Hendry wants to keep me here.
The rain fell on his back. Soaking through his jacket, coldly caressing the nape of his neck and dribbling down over his jaws.
He rolled his head sideways, not daring to lift it an inch, and the rain beat on to the side of his face.
The rain! Falling faster. Thickening. Hanging from the clouds like the skirts of a woman’s dress.
Curtains of rain. Greying out the edge of the forest, leaving no solid shapes in the mist of falling liquid mother-of-pearl.
Still gasping but with the pain slowly receding, Bruce lifted his head.
The kopje was a vague blue-green shape ahead of him, then it was gone, swallowed by the eddying columns of rain.
Bruce pushed himself up on to his knees and the pain in his chest made him dizzy.
Now! he thought. Now, before it thins, and he lumbered clumsily to his feet.
For a moment he stood clutching his chest, sucking for breath in the haze of water-filled air, and then he staggered towards the edge of the forest.
His feet steadied under him, his breathing eased, and he was into the trees.
They closed round him protectively. He leaned against the rough bark of one of them and wiped the rain from his face with the palm of his hand. The strength came back to him and with it his hatred and his excitement.
He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and stood away from the tree with his feet planted wide apart.
‘Now, my friend,’ he whispered, ‘we fight on equal terms.’ He pumped a round into the chamber of the FN and mov
ed towards the kopje, stepping daintily, the weight of the rifle in his hands, his mind suddenly sharp and clear, vision enhanced, feeling his strength and the absence of fear like a song within him, a battle hymn.
He made out the loom of the kopje through the dripping rain-heavy trees and he circled out to the right. There is plenty of time, he thought. I can afford to case the joint thoroughly. He completed his circuit of the rock pile.
The kopje, he found, was the shape of a galleon sinking by the head. At one end the high double castles of the poop, from which the main deck canted steeply forward as though the prow were already under water. This slope was scattered with boulders and densely covered with dwarf scrub, an interwoven mass of shoulder-high branches and leaves.
Bruce squatted on his haunches with the rifle in his lap and looked up the ramp at the twin turrets of the kopje. The rain had slackened to a drizzle.
Hendry was on top. Bruce knew he would go to the highest point. Strange how height makes a man feel invulnerable, makes him think he is a god.
And since he had fired upon them he must be in the turret nearest the vlei, which was slightly the higher of the two, its summit crowned by a patch of stunted broom bush.
So now I know exactly where he is and I will wait half an hour. He may become impatient and move; if he does I will get a shot at him from here.
Bruce narrowed his eyes, judging the distance.
‘About two hundred yards.’
He adjusted the rear-sight of the FN and then checked the load, felt in the side pocket of his jacket to make sure the two extra clips of ammunition were handy, and settled back comfortably to wait.
‘Curry, you sonofabitch, where are you?’ Hendry’s shout floated down through the drizzling rain and Bruce stiffened. I was right – he’s on top of the left-hand turret.
‘Come on, Bucko. I’ve been waiting for you since yesterday afternoon.’
Bruce lifted the rifle and sighted experimentally at a dark patch on the wall of the rock. It would be difficult shooting in the rain, the rifle slippery with wet, the fine drizzle clinging to his eyebrows and dewing the sights of the rifle with little beads of moisture.
‘Hey, Curry, how’s your little French piece of pussy? Man, she’s hot, that thing, isn’t she?’
Bruce’s hands tightened on the rifle.
‘Did she tell you how I gave her the old business? Did she tell you how she loved it? You should have heard her panting like a steam engine. I’m telling you, Curry, she just couldn’t get enough!’
Bruce felt himself start to tremble. He clenched his jaws, biting down until his teeth ached.
Steady, Bruce my boy, that’s what he wants you to do.
The trees dripped steadily in the silence and a gust of wind stirred the scrub on the slope of the kopje. Bruce waited, straining his eyes for the first hint of movement on the left-hand turret.
‘You yellow or something, Curry? You scared to come on up here? Is that what it is?’
Bruce shifted his position slightly, ready for a snap shot.
‘Okay, Bucko. I can wait, I’ve got all day. I’ll just sit here thinking about how I mucked your little bit of French. I’m telling you it was something to remember. Up and down, in and out, man it was something!’
Bruce came carefully up on to his feet behind the trunk of the tree and once more studied the layout of the kopje.
If I can move up the slope, keeping well over to the side, until I reach the right-hand turret, there’s a ledge there that will take me to the top. I’ll be twenty or thirty feet from him, and at that range it will all be over in a few seconds.
He drew a deep breath and left the shelter of the tree.
Wally Hendry spotted the movement in the forest below him; it was a flash of brown quickly gone, too fast to get a bead on it.
He wiped the rain off his face and wriggled a foot closer to the edge.
‘Come on, Curry. Let’s stop buggering about,’ he shouted, and cuddled the butt of his rifle into his shoulder. The tip of his tongue kept darting out and touching his lips.
At the foot of the slope he saw a branch move slightly, stirring when there was no wind. He grinned and snuggled his hips down on to the rock. Here he comes, he gloated, he’s crawling up, under the scrub.
‘I know you’re sitting down there. Okay, Curry, I can wait also.’
Half-way up the slope the top leaves of another bush swayed gently, parting and closing.
‘Yes!’ whispered Wally, ‘Yes!’ and he clicked off the safety catch of the rifle. His tongue came out and moved slowly from one corner of his mouth to the other.
I’ve got him, for sure! There – he’ll have to cross that piece of open ground. A couple a yards, that’s all. But it’ll be enough.
He moved again, wriggling a few inches to one side, settling his aim into the gap between two large grey boulders; he pushed the rate-of-fire selector on to rapid and his forefinger rested lightly on the trigger.
‘Hey, Curry, I’m getting bored. If you are not going to come up, how about singing to me or cracking a few jokes?’
Bruce Curry crouched behind a large grey boulder. In front of him were three yards of open ground and then the shelter of another rock. He was almost at the top of the slope and Hendry had not spotted him. Across the patch of open ground was good cover to the foot of the right-hand turret.
It would take him two seconds to cross and the chances were that Hendry would be watching the forest at the foot of the slope.
He gathered himself like a sprinter on the starting blocks.
‘Go!’ he whispered and dived into the opening, and into a hell storm of bullets. One struck his rifle, tearing it out of his hand with such force that his arm was paralysed to the shoulder, another stung his chest, and then he was across. He lay behind the far boulder, gasping with the shock, and listened to Hendry’s voice roaring triumphantly.
‘Fooled you, you stupid bastard! Been watching you all the way up from the bottom.’
Bruce held his left arm against his stomach; the use of it was returning as the numbness subsided, but with it came the ache. The top joint of his thumb had caught in the trigger guard and been torn off; now the blood welled out of the stump thickly and slowly, dark blood the colour of apple jelly. With his right hand he groped for his handkerchief.
‘Hey, Curry, your rifle’s lying there in the open. You might need it in a few minutes. Why don’t you go out and fetch it?’
Bruce bound the handkerchief tightly round the stump of his thumb and the bleeding slowed. Then he looked at the rifle where it lay ten feet away. The foresight had been knocked off, and the same bullet that had amputated his thumb had smashed into the breech, buckled the loading handle and the slide. He knew that it was damaged beyond repair.
‘Think I’ll have me a little target practice,’ shouted Hendry from above, and again there was a burst of automatic fire. Bruce’s rifle disappeared in a cloud of dust and flying rock fragments and when it cleared the woodwork of the rifle was splintered and torn and there was further damage to the action.
Well, that’s that, thought Bruce, rifle’s wrecked, Shermaine has the pistol, and I have only one good hand. This is going to be interesting.
He unbuttoned the front of his jacket and examined the welt that the bullet had raised across his chest. It looked like a rope burn, painful and red, but not serious. He rebuttoned his jacket.
‘Okay, Bruce Baby, the time for games is over. I’m coming down to get you.’ Hendry’s voice was harsh and loud, filled with confidence.
Bruce rallied under the goading of it. He looked round quickly. Which way to go? Climb high so he must come up to get at you. Take the right-hand turret, work round the side of it and wait for him on the top.
In haste now, spurred by the dread of being the hunted, he scrambled to his feet and dodged away up the slope, keeping his head down using the thick screen of rock and vegetation.
He reached the wall of the right-hand turret and followed it roun
d, found the spiral ledge that he had seen from below and went on to it, up along it like a fly on a wall, completely exposed, keeping his back to the cliff of granite, shuffling sideways up the eighteen-inch ledge with the drop below him growing deeper with each step.
Now he was three hundred feet above the forest and could look out across the dark green land to another row of kopjes on the horizon. The rain had ceased but the cloud was unbroken, covering the sky.
The ledge widened, became a platform and Bruce hurried across it round the far shoulder and came to a dead end. The ledge had petered out and there was only the drop below. He had trapped himself on the side of the turret – the summit was unattainable. If Hendry descended to the forest floor and circled the kopje he would find Bruce completely at his mercy, for there was no cover on the narrow ledge. Hendry could have a little more target practice.
Bruce leaned against the rock and struggled to control his breathing. His throat was clogged with the thick saliva of exhaustion and fear. He felt tired and helpless, his thumb throbbed painfully and he lifted it to examine it once more. Despite the tourniquet it was bleeding slowly, a wine-red drop at a time.
Bleeding! Bruce swallowed the thick gluey stuff in his throat and looked back along the way he had come. On the grey rock the bright red splashes stood out clearly. He had laid a blood spoor for Hendry to follow.
All right then, perhaps it is best this way. At least I may be able to come to grips with him. If I wait behind this shoulder until he starts to cross the platform, there’s a three hundred foot drop on one side, I may be able to rush him and throw him off.
Bruce leaned against the shoulder of granite, hidden from the platform, and tuned his ears to catch the first sound of Hendry’s approach.
The clouds parted in the eastern sector of the sky and the sun shone through, slanting across the side of the kopje.
It will be better to die in the sun, thought Bruce, a sacrifice to the Sun god thrown from the roof of the temple, and he grinned without mirth, waiting with patience and with pain.
The minutes fell like drops into the pool of time, slowly measuring out the ration of life that had been allotted to him. The pulse in his ears counted also, and his breath that he drew and held and gently exhaled – how many more would there be?