Still gasping but with the pain slowly receding, Bruce lifted his head.
The kopje was a vague blue-green shape ahead of him, then it was gone, swallowed by the eddying columns of rain.
Bruce pushed himself up on to his knees and the pain in his chest made him dizzy.
Now! he thought. Now, before it thins, and he lumbered clumsily to his feet.
For a moment he stood clutching his chest, sucking for breath in the haze of water-filled air, and then he staggered towards the edge of the forest.
His feet steadied under him, his breathing eased, and he was into the trees.
They closed round him protectively. He leaned against the rough bark of one of them and wiped the rain from his face with the palm of his hand. The strength came back to him and with it his hatred and his excitement.
He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and stood away from the tree with his feet planted wide apart.
“Now, my friend,” he whispered, “we fight on equal terms.” He pumped a round into the chamber of the FN and moved towards the kopje, stepping daintily, the weight of the rifle in his hands, his mind suddenly sharp and clear, vision enhanced, feeling his strength and the absence of fear like a song within him, a battle hymn.
He made out the loom of the kopje through the dripping rain-heavy trees and he circled out to the right. There is plenty of time, he thought. I can afford to case the joint thoroughly. He completed circuit of the rock pile.
The kopje, he found, was the shape of a galleon sinking by the head. At one end the high double castles of the poop, from which the main deck canted steeply forward as though the prow were already under water. This slope was scattered with boulders and densely covered with dwarf scrub, an interwoven mass of shoulder-high branches and leaves.
Bruce squatted on his haunches with the rifle in his lap and looked up the ramp at the twin turrets of the kopje.
The rain had slackened to a drizzle.
Hendry was on top. Bruce knew he would go to the highest point.
Strange how height makes a man feel invulnerable, makes him think he is a god.
And since he had fired upon them he must be in the turret nearest the vlei, which was slightly the higher of the two, its summit crowned by a patch of stunted broom bush.
So now I know exactly where he is and i will wait half an hour.
He may become impatient and move; if he does I will get a shot at him from here.
Bruce narrowed his eyes, judging the distance.
“About two hundred yards.” He adjusted the rear-sight of the FN
and then checked the load, felt in the side pocket of his jacket to make sure the two extra clips of ammunition were handy, and settled back comfortably to wait.
“Curry, you sonofabitch, where are you?” Hendry’s shout floated down through the drizzling rain and Bruce stiffened.
I was right - he’s on top of the left-hand turret.
“Come on, Bucko. I’ve been waiting for you since yesterday afternoon.” Bruce lifted the rifle and sighted experimentally at a dark patch on the wall of the rock. It would be difficult shooting in the rain, the rifle slippery with wet, the fine drizzle clinging to his eyebrows and dewing the sights of the rifle with little beads of moisture.
“Hey, Curry, how’s your little French piece of pussy?
Man, she’s hot, that thing, isn’t she?” Bruce’s hands tightened on the rifle.
“Did she tell you how I gave her the old business? Did she tell
you how she loved it? You should have heard her panting like a steam engine. I’m telling you, Curry, she just couldn’t get enough!” Bruce felt himself start to tremble. He clenched his jaws, biting down until his teeth ached.
Steady, Bruce my boy, that’s what he wants you to do.
The trees dripped steadily in the silence and a gust of wind stirred the scrub on the slope of the kopje. Bruce waited, straining his eyes for the first hint of movement on the left-hand turret.
“You yellow or something, Curry ? You scared to come on up here?
Is that what it is? Bruce shifted his position slightly, ready for a snap shot.
“Okay, Bucko. I can wait, I’ve got all day. I’ll just sit here thinking about how I mucked your little bit of French. I’m telling you it was something to remember. Up and down, in and out, man it was something!” Bruce came carefully up on to his feet behind the trunk of the tree and once more studied the layout of the kopie.
If I can move up the slope, keeping well over to the side, until I
reach the right-hand turret, there’s a ledge there that will take me to the top. I’ll be twenty or thirty feet from him, and at that range it will all be over in a few seconds.
He drew a deep breath and left the shelter of the tree.
Wally Hendry spotted the movement in the forest below him; it was a flash of brown quickly gone, too fast to get a bead on it.
He wiped the rain off his face and wriggled a foot closer to the edge. “Come on, Curry. Let’s stop buggering about,” he shouted, and cuddled the butt of his rifle into his shoulder. The tip of his tongue kept darting out and touching his lips.
At the foot of the slope he saw a branch move slightly, stirring when there was no wind. He grinned and snuggled his hips down on to the rock. Here he comes, he gloated, he’s crawling up, under the scrub
“I know you’re sitting down there. Okay, Curry, I can wait also.”
Half-way up the slope the top leaves of another bush swayed gently, parting and closing.
“Yes!” whispered Wally, “Yes!” and he clicked off the safety catch of the rifle. His tongue came out and moved slowly from one corner of his mouth to the other.
I’ve got him, for sure, There - he’ll have to cross that piece of open ground. A couple a yards, that’s all. But it’ll be enough.
He moved again, wriggling a few inches to one side, to the gap between two large grey boulders; settling his aim in he pushed the rate-of-fire selector on to rapid and his forefinger rested lightly on the trigger.
“Hey, Curry, I’m getting bored. If you are not going to come up, how about singing to me or cracking a few jokes?” Bruce Curry crouched behind a large grey boulder. In front of him were three yards of open
ground and then the shelter of another rock. He was almost at the top of 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