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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, the rifle is 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 round,
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'll 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 gri
mirth, waiting with patience and with pain.
The minutes fell like drops into the pool of time, slowly measuring out
the edition of life that had been allotted to him. The pulse in his ears
counted also, in-id his breath that he drew and held and gently exhaled
-- how many more would there be?
I should pray, he thought, but after this morning when I prayed that it
shouldnot rain, and the rains came and saved me, i will not presume
again to tell the Old Man how to run things.
Perhaps he knows best after all.
Thy will be done, he thought instead, and. suddenly his nerves
jerked tight as a line hit by a marlin. The sound he had heard was that
of cloth brushing against rough rock.
He held his breath and listened, but all he could discern was the pulse
in his ears and the wind in the trees of the forest below. The
wind was a lonely sound.
Thy will be done, he repeated without breathing, and heard Hendry
breathe close behind the shoulder of rock.
He stood away from the wall and waited. Then he saw Hendry's shadow
thrown by the early morning sun along the ledge. A great distorted
shadow on the grey rock.
Thy will be done. And he went round the shoulder fast, his good hand
held like a blade and the weight of his body behind it.
Hendry was three feet away, the rifle at high port across his chest,
standing close in against the cliff, the cup-shaped steel helmet pulled
low over the slitty eyes and little beads of sweat clinging in the
red-gold stubble of his beard. He tried to drop the muzzle of the rifle
but Bruce was too close.
Bruce lunged with stiff fingers at his throat and he felt the crackle
and give of cartilage. Then his weight carried him on and
Hendry sprawled backwards on to the stone platform with Bruce on top of
him.
The rifle slithered across the rock and dropped over the edge, and they
lay chest to chest with legs locked together in a horrible parody of the
love act. But in this act we do not procreate, we destroy!
Hendry's face was purple and swollen above his damaged throat, his
Mouth open as he struggled for air, and his breath smelt old and sour in
Bruce's face.
With a twist towards the thumb Bruce freed his right wrist from
Hendry's grip and, lifting it like an axe, brought it down across the
bridge of Hendry's nose. Twin jets of blood spouted from the nostrils
and gushed into his open mouth.
With a wet strangling sound in his throat Hendry's body arched violently