Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 116

as she sat at the controls.

"Tell Jake if I'm not there on the first to cash the Lijs cheque and

buy You a bottle of Charlie from me, and when you drink it,

remember I really did love you,-" Before she could reply he had turned

and darted back to the armoured car and scrambled up into the driver's

hatch.

Like a team in harness, the car and the little blue aircraft ran side

by side down the open field and the Italian fire drummed against the

steel hull of the car.

Then slowly the heavily laden aircraft drew ahead of the speeding car,

but by then they were beyond effective rifle range, and as Vicky felt

the Puss Moth come alive and the wheels bumped clear of the rough turf,

she glanced quickly backwards.

Gareth stood in the driver's hatch, and she saw his lips Move as he

shouted after her, and he lifted his bandaged arm in a gesture of

farewell.

She did not hear the words, but she read them upon his lips.

"Noli il legitimi carborundum," and saw the flash of that devilish

buccaneer smile, before the aircraft lifted away from the earth and she

must turn all her attention back to it.

are th halted Priscilla at the edge of the field and he stood in the

hatch, shielding his eyes with his good 3hand, and watched the little

blue aircraft climb laboriously into the thin mountain air.

Again it caught the sun and flashed as it turned unsteadily towards the

gap in the mountains where the pass led up into the highlands.

His whole attention was fixed on the dwindling speck of blue, so that

he did not see the three CV.3 tanks crawl out of the main street of the

village five hundred yards away.

He was still staring upwards as the tanks stopped, rocking gently on

their suspensions, and the turrets with the long Spandaus traversed

around towards him.

He did not hear the crash of cannon for the shell struck long before

the sound carried to him. There was only the earth stopping impact and

the burst of shell that hurled him from the hatch.

He lay on the earth beside the shattered hull, and he felt downwards

with his good hand, for there was something wrong with his stomach. He

groped down, and there was nothing where his stomach should have been,

just a gaping hole into which his hand sunk, as though into the soft

warm flesh of a rotten fruit.

He tried to withdraw his hand, but it would not move.

There was no longer muscular control, and it grew darker.

He tried to open his eyes and then realized that they were wide open,

staring up at the bright sky. The darkness was in his head, and the

cold was in his whole body.

In the darkness and the icy cold, he heard a voice say in Italian,

"E marta he is dead." And he thought with mild surprise, "Yes, I am.

This time, I am," and he tried to grin, but his lips would not move and

he went on staring up at the sky with pale blue eyes.

He is dead," repeated Gino.

"Are you certain?" Count Aldo Belli demanded from the turret of the

tank.

"Si, I am certain." Warily the Count climbed down the hull.

"You are right," he agreed, studying the man. "He is truly dead. "Then

he straightened up and puffed out his chest.

"Gino," he commanded. "Get a picture of me with the cadaver of the

English bandit." And Gino backed away, staring into the viewfinder of

the big black camera.

"Chin up a little, my Colonel," he instructed.

Vicky Camberwell brought the Puss Moth out over the final crest of the

pass, with a mere two hundred feet to spare, for the small overladen

aircraft was fast approaching its ceiling.

Ahead of her, the highlands stretched away to Addis Ababa in the south.

Below her passed the thin raw muddy bisecting lines of the

Dessie road. She saw the road was deserted. The army of Ethiopia had

passed. The fish had slipped through the net but the thought gave her

no pleasure.

She turned in her seat and looked back, down the long gloomy corridor

of the Sardi Gorge. From the cliffs on each side of the gorge, the

rain waters still fell in silver white waterfalls and muddy cataracts

so that it seemed that even the mountains wept.

She straightened up in her seat, and lifting her hand to her face she

found without surprise that her own cheek was wet and slick with

tears.