For stunned seconds, Flynn crouched behind the boulder, and with each second the chances of a shot dwindled. Flynn jumped to his feet and ran out to one side of the fig-tree, opening his field of fire for a snap shot at the bull as he fled, a try for the spine where it curved down between the massive haunches to the tuft less tail.
Spiked agony stabbed up through the ball of his lightly shod foot, as he trod squarely on a three-inch buffalo thorn.
Red-tipped, wickedly barbed, it buried its full length in his flesh, and he stumbled to his knees crying a protest at the pain.
Two hundred yards away, the old bull disappeared into one of the wooded ravines, and was gone.
"Flynn! Flynn!"
Sobbing in pain and frustration, his injured foot twisted up into his lap, Flynn sat in the grass and waited for Sebastian Oldsmith to come down to him.
"I'll let him get real close," Flynn told himself. Sebastian was approaching with the long awkward strides of a man running downhill. He had lost his hat and the black tangled curls danced on his head at each stride. He was still shouting.
"I'll give it to him in the belly," Flynn decided. "Both barrels!" and he groped for the rifle that lay beside him.
Sebastian saw him and swerved in his run.
Flynn hefted the rifle. "I warned him. I said I'd do it," and his right hand settled around the pistol grip of the rifle, his forefinger instinctively hooking forward for the trigger.
"Flynn! Germans! A whole army of them. just over the hill. Coming this way."
"Christ!" said Flynn, immediately abandoning his homicidal intentions.
Lifting himself in the stirrups, Herman Fleischer reached behind to massage himself. His buttocks were of a plump, almost feminine, quantity and quality. After five hours in the saddle Herman longed to rest them. He had just crossed the ridge of the Sonia Heights on his donkey, and it was cool here beneath the outspread branches of the wild fig-tree. He flirted with the temptation, decided to indulge himself, and turned to give the order to the troop of twenty Askari who stood behind him. All of them were watching him avidly, anticipating the order that would allow them to throw themselves down and relax.
"Lazy dogs!" thought Herman as he scowled at them. He turned away from them, settled his aching posterior gently on to the saddle and growled. "Akwende! Let us go!" His heels thumped against the flanks of his donkey and it started forward at a trot.
From a crotch in the trunk of the fig-tree ten feet above Herman's head, Flynn O'Flynn viewed his departure over the double barrels of his rifle. He watched the patrol wind away down the slope and drop from sight over a fold in the ground before he put up the gun.
Thew! That was close." Sebastian's voice came from the leafy mass above Flynn.
"If he'd touched one foot to the ground, I'd have blown his bloody head off," said Flynn. He sounded as though he regretted missing the opportunity. "All right, Bassie, get me down out of this frigging tree."
Fully dressed, except for his boots, Flynn sat against the base of the fig-tree and proffered his right foot to Sebastian.
I had him right there in my sights."
Who?" asked Sebastian.
"The elephant, you idiot. For the first time I had him cold. And then... Yeow! What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm trying to get the thorn out, Flynn."
"Feels like you're trying to knock it in with a hammer."
"I can't get a grip on it."
"Use your teeth. That's the only way," Flynn instructed, and Sebastian paled a little at the thought. He considered Flynn's foot. It was a large foot; corns on the toes, flakes of loose skin and other darker matter between them. Sebastian could smell it at a range of three feet. "Couldn't you reach it with your own teeth, Flynn?"he hedged.
"You think I'm a goddamned contortionist?"
"Mohammed?" Sebastian's eyes lit up with relief as he turned on the little gun-bearer. In answer to. the question Mohammed drew back his lips in a death's head grin, exposing his smooth, pink toothless gums. "Yes," agreed
180 Sebastian. "I see what you mean." He returned his gaze to the foot, and studied it with sickened fascination His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.
"Get on with it," said Flynn, and Sebastian stooped.
There was a howl from Flynn, and Sebastian straightened up with the wet Thorn gripped in his teeth. He spat it out explosively, and Mohammed handed him the gin bottle.
Sebastian took a big swallow and as he brought the bottle to his lips again, Flynn laid a restraining hand on his forearm. "Now don't overdo it, Bassie boy," he remonstrated mildly, retrieved the bottle and placed it to his own mouth.
It seemed to refuel Flynn's anger, for when he removed the bottle his voice had fire in it. "That goddamn sneaking, sausage-eating slug. He spoiled the only chance I've ever had at that elephant." He paused to breathe heavily. "I'd like to do something really nasty to him, like... like..
he searched for some atrocity to commit upon Herman Fleischer, and suddenly he found one. "My God!" he said, and his scowl changed to a lovely smile. "That's it!"
"What?" Sebastian was alarmed. He was certain that he would be selected as the vehicle of Flynn's revenge. "What?"
he repeated.
"We will go..." said Flynn, to Mahenge!"
"Good Lord, that's the German headquarters!"
"Yes," said Flynn. "With no Commissioner and no Askari to guard it! They've just passed us, heading in the opposite direction."
"They hit Mahenge two hours before dawn, in that time of utter darkness when mankind's vitality is at its lowest ebb. The defence put up by the corporal and five Askari whom Fleischer had left to guard his headquarters was hardly heroic. In fact, they were only half awakened by the lusty and indiscriminate use of Flynn's boot, and by the time they were fully conscious, they found themselves securely locked behind the bars of the jail-house.
There was only one casualty. It was, of course, Sebastian Oldsmith, who, in the excitement, ran into a half-open door. It was fortunate, as Flynn pointed out, that he struck the door with his head, otherwise he might have done himself injury. But as it was, he had recovered sufficiently by sunrise to watch the orgy of looting and vandalism in which Flynn and his gun-bearers indulged themselves.
They began in the office of the Commissioner. Built into the thick adobe wall of the room was an enormous iron safe.
"We will open that first," decreed Flynn as he eyed it greedily. "See if you can find some tools."
Sebastian remembered the blacksmith shop at the end of the parade ground. He returned from there laden with sledge-hammers and crow-bars.
Two hours later they were sweating and swearing in an atmosphere heavy with plaster dust. They had torn the safe from the wall, and it lay in the centre of the floor. Three of Flynn's gun-boys were beating on it with sledge-hammers in a steadily diminishing display of enthusiasm, while Sebastian worked with a crow-bar at the hinge joints. He had succeeded in inflicting a few bright scratches upon the metal. Flynn was seated on the Commissioner's desk, steadily working himself into a fury of frustration; for the last hour his contribution to the assault on the safe had been limited to consuming half a bottle of schnapps that he had found in a drawer of the desk.