Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 94

head."

"I have told that idiot not to run the game down on the guns so hard,"

snapped the Count petulantly. "I -have told him a dozen times,

have I not, Gino?"

"Indeed, my Count."

"Run them hard at the beginning,

then bring them in gently for the last mile or so. "The Count took an

angry gulp at his glass. "The man is a fool, an insufferable fool

and

I can't abide fools around me." "Indeed not, my Count. I shall send

him back to Massawa-" the rest of the threat trailed away, and the

Count sat suddenly upright, the canvas chair creaking under his

weight.

"Gino," he murmured uneasily. "There is something very strange taking

place out there." Both of them peered anxiously out through the rifle

slots in the thatched wall of the blind at the billowing dust clouds

that raced down upon them with quite alarming speed.

"Gino, is it possible?" asked the Count.

"No, my Count," Gino assured him, but without any true conviction.

"It is the mirage. It is not possible."

"Are you certain, Gino?" The

Count's voice "took on a strident edge.

"No, my Count."

"Nor am I, Gino. What does it look like to you?"

"It looks like,- Geno's voice choked off. "I do not like to say, my

Count," he whispered. "I think I am going mad." At that moment the

Captain of tanks, whose efforts to catch up with the fleeing armoured

car and stampeding elephant were unavailing, opened fire with the 50

men.

Spandau upon them. More accurately, he opened fire in the general

direction of the rolling dust cloud which obscured his forward

vision,

and through which he caught only occasional glimpses of beast and

machine. To confound further the aim of his gunner, the range was

rapidly increasing, the manoeuvres with which the armoured car was

trying to throw off the close pursuit of the elephant were violent and

erratic, and the cavalry tank itself was plunging and leaping wildly

over the rough ground.

Fire!" shouted the Captain. "Keep firing," and his gunner sent half a

dozen high-explosive shells screeching low over the plain. The other

tanks heard the banging of their Captain's cannon and immediately and

enthusiastically followed his example.

One of the first shells struck the thatched front wall of the blind in

which the Count and Gino cowered in horrified fascination.

The flimsy wall of grass did not trigger the fuse of the shell so there

was no explosion, but nevertheless the high-velocity shell passed not

eighteen inches from the Count's left ear, with a crack of disrupted

air that stunned him, before exiting through the rear wall of the blind

and howling onwards to burst a mile out in the empty desert.

"If the Count no longer needs me-" Gino snapped a hasty salute and

before the Count had recovered his wits enough to forbid it, he had

dived through the shell hole in the rear wall of the blind and hit the

ground on the far side, already running.

Gino was not alone. From each of the blinds along the line leapt the

figures of the other hunters, the sound of their hysterical cries

almost drowned by the roar of engines, the trumpeting of an angry bull

elephant and the continuous thudding roar of cannon fire.

The Count tried to rise from his chair, but his legs betrayed him and

he managed only a series of convulsive leaps. His mouth gaped wide in

his deathly pale face, but no sound came out of it. The Count was

beyond speech, almost beyond movement just the strength for one more

desperate heave, and the chair toppled forward, throwing the Count face

down upon the sunken earth floor of the blind, where he covered his

head with both arms.

At that instant, the armoured car, still under full throttle, came in

through the front wall. The thatched blind exploded around it, but the

impetus of the car's charge was sufficient to carry it in a single leap

over the dugout. The spinning wheels hurled inches over the

Count's prostrate form, showering him with a stinging barrage of sand

and loose gravel. Then it was gone.

The Count struggled to sit up, and had almost succeeded when the huge

enraged form of the bull elephant pounded over the blind. One of its

great feet struck the Count a glancing blow on the shoulder and he

screamed like a hand-saw and once again flung himself flat on the floor

of the dugout while the elephant pounded onwards towards the far

horizon, still in pursuit of the flying car.

The earth shook beneath the approach of another heavy body, and the

Count flattened himself to the floor of the dugout deafened,

dazed and paralysed with terror, until the commander of tanks stood

over him and asked solicitously, "Was the game to your liking, my

Colonel?" Even after Gino returned and Helped the Count to his feet,

dusted him down and helped him into the back seat of the Rolls,

the threats and insults still poured from the Count's choked throat in

a high-pitched stream.

"You are a degenerate and a coward. You are guilty of dereliction of

duty, of gross irresponsibility. You allowed them to escape, sir and

you placed me in deadly peril-" They eased the Count down on the

cushions of the Rolls, but as the car pulled away he jumped up to hurl

a parting salvo at the Captain of tanks.

"You are an irresponsible degenerate, sir! - a coward and a

Bolshevik and I shall personally command your firing squad-" His voice

faded into the distance as the Rolls drew away up the ridge in the

direction of the camp, but the Count's good arm was still waving and

gesticulating as they crossed the skyline.

The elephant followed them far out across the desert, long after the

pursuing tank squadron had been left behind and abandoned the chase.

The old bull lost ground steadily over the last mile or so,

until at last he also gave up and stood swaying with exhaustion but

still shaking out his ears and throwing up his trunk in that

truculent,

almost human gesture of challenge and defiance.

Gareth saluted him with respect as they drew away and left him,

like a tall black monolith, out on the dry pale plains. Then he lit

two cheroots, crouching down into the turret out of the wind, and

passed one down to Jake in the driver's compartment.

"A good day's work, (old son. We pronged two of the godless ones,

and we have put the others in the right frame of mind."

"How's that again? "Jake puffed gratefully at the cheroot.

"Next time those tank men lay eyes on us, they'll not stop to count

consequences, but they'll be after us like a pack of long dogs after a

bitch."

"And that's a good thing? "Jake removed the cheroot from his mouth to

ask incredulously.

"That's a good thing' Gareth assured him.

"Well, you could have fooled me." He drove on for a few more minutes

in silence towards the mountains, then shook his head bemusedly.

Tranged? What the hell kind of word is that?"

"Just thought of it this minute," Gareth said. "Expressive, what?" -"

The Count lay face down upon his cot; he wore only a pair of silk

shorts, of a pale and delicate blue, embroidered with his family coat

of arms.

His body was smooth and pale and plump, with that sleek well-fed sheen