The Dogs Of War

Sha

Having tune, Sha

The five empty and open-topped oil barrels had been stored for later use, and these were now streamed astern of the Toscana for bazooka practice. At a hundred yards all of the men, black and white, could riddle a barrel before they had ceased their practice. Four barrels were destroyed and sunk in this ma

“You said you wanted a door taken off, Cat?”

“That’s right, a bloody great wooden gate, Tiny.”

“I’ll give it to you in matchsticks, and that’s a promise,” said the Belgian.

Because of the noise they had made, Sha

When they were hove-to for the second time, they tested all three. Without the muffling boxes placed over the top of each engine, the Johnsons made an audible mutter even when four hundred yards away from the Toscana. With the boxes in place and the engines throttled back to less than quarter-power, there was hardly a sound at thirty yards. They tended to overheat after twenty minutes at half-power, but this could be stretched to thirty minutes if power was reduced. Sha

The walkie-talkies were also tested at up to four miles, and despite the heavy atmospherics and the hint of thunder in the stifling air, messages could still be heard if read over clearly and slowly. To get them tised to the notion, the Africans were also given trips in the power craft, at a varying range of speeds, in daylight and at night. The night exercises were the most important.

For one of them Sha

Back on board, Carl Waldenberg came up to Sha

“I hardly heard a sound,” he said. “Not until you were a couple of hundred meters away, and I was listening hard. Unless they have very alert guards posted, you should be able to make the beach, wherever you are going. Incidentally, where are you going? I need more charts if I have to proceed much farther.”

“I think you’d all better know,” said Sha

Until dawn, the crew (with the exception of the engineer, who still slept with his engines), the seven Africans, and the four mercenaries listened to Sha

When he had finished, there was dead silence in the stifling cabin, the blue wreaths of cigarette smoke trickling out through the open portholes into the equally clammy night outside.

Finally Waldenberg said, “Gott in Himmel.” Then they all started. It took an hour before the questions were answered. Waldenberg wanted reassurance that if anything went wrong the survivors would be back on board and the Toscana well over the horizon before sunrise. Sha

“We have only your word for it they have no navy, no gunboats,” Waldenberg said.

“Then my word will have to do,” said Sha

“Just because you did not see any—”

“They have none,” snapped Sha

The six Africans had no questions. Each would stick close to the mercenary who would lead him and trust that he knew what he was doing. The seventh, the doctor, asked briefly where he would be, and accepted that he would remain on board the Toscana. The four mercenaries had a few purely technical questions, which Sha

When they came back up on deck, the Africans stretched themselves out on their sleeping bags and went to sleep. Sha

The five mercenaries grouped themselves on the afterdeck behind the crew quarters and talked until the sun was high. They all approved of the plan of attack and accepted that Sha