A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur - Страница 157

The flight engineer's groans distracted her. As she turned to face China, she saw they had released the stricken Man and allowed him to slump to the floor. China had made no effort to withdraw the metal rod from his body, and he was still transfixed. As he rolled weakly about on the earthen floor, he plucked ineffectually at the protruding end of the rod. The heated metal had adhered to his bowels as it cooled and was firmly rooted in his flesh. Every time he tugged at it, a trickle of liquid feces bubbled from the terrible wound.

"Speak to the pilot," China commanded.

Claudia dragged her eyes from the dying man and addressed the pilot. "Please do what he wants."

"I cannot, my duty!" the pilot cried.

"The devil with your duty!" Claudia shouted back furiously.

"You and all your men will end up like this!" She gestured to the floor without looking down again. "That's what will happen to you!" She turned to the other Russians, who were shaken and appalled, pale with horror and terror.

"Look at him!" she screamed in English. "Is that what you want?"

They did not understand the words, but her meaning was clear to all of them. They turned their faces toward the pilot.

The pilot resisted their entreaties for a minute. Then, at a word from China, the Renamo officers seized another one of the ground crew and threw him screaming and kicking facedown across the bench.

The Russian pilot threw up both hands in a gesture of resignation.

"Tell him to stop," he said wearily to Claudia. "We will do as he orders."

"Thank you, Miss Monterro." China smiled at her charmingly.

"You are now free to rejoin Colonel Courtney."

"How will you communicate with the pilot?" she asked uncertainly.

"Already he understands me." China transferred the benevolence of his smile to the Russian. "I assure you that he will learn to speak my language with the utmost fluency in a very short time indeed." He turned back to Claudia. "Please convey my respects to Colonel Courtney and ask him to join me at his earliest convenience. I would like to take my leave of him, to thank him and wish him lion voyage." He gave her a mocking bow. "So Godspeed, Miss Monterro. I hope you will remember all of us, your friends in Africa, with affection."

Claudia could find no words to reply. She turned to the door of the bunker, and her legs were shaky and rubbery beneath her. In a daze of horror she stumbled down the hill. The sights around her, which at another time might have sickened and appalled her, she hardly noticed.

At the foot of the hill, she paused and tried to get a grip on herself. She breathed dci$ly, trying to quell the intermittent sobs that still caught her.usawares, and she combed her hair back from her face with her flingers and retied the strip of cloth she was using as a headband. With the tail of her shirt she wiped the tears and sweat from her face, shocked at the grimy smear they left on the cloth.

"I must look like hell," she whispered, clenching her hands to hide her broken fingernails. But she braced her shoulders and lifted her chin. "Sean mustn't see me like this," she told herself fiercely.

"Pull yourself together, woman."

Sean looked up as she hurried to where he was still working over Job's blanket-wrapped body. "What happened?" he demanded.

"What kept you?"

"General China is here. He made me go with him."

"What did he want? What happened?"

"Nothing, not important. I'll tell you about it later. How is Job?"

"I've got a full liter of plasma into him," Sean replied. He had suspended the drip set from a branch above them. "His pulse is better.

Job is as tough as an old buffalo bull. Help me dress the wound.

"Is he consciousT"

"He comes and goes," Sean warned her.

Beneath the field dressing was such a terrible injury that neither of them could bring themselves to discuss it, especially as Job might be able to hear and understand them.

Sean smothered the entire area with iodine paste, then bound it up again with pressure pads and clean white bandages from the medical pack. The blood and iodine soaked through the white even as he worked.

Between them they had to roll Job on to his side to pass the bandages over his back. Claudia held the half-severed arm in place, bending the elbow across his chest, and Sean strapped it securely.

By the time they finished, Job's entire upper body was swathed in a cocoon of expertly applied bandage from which only his left arm protruded.

"His pulse is going again." Sean looked up from his wrist. "I'm going to give him another liter of plasma."

There was a scattered outbreak of machine-gun and mortar fire from the forest beyond the hill laager, and Claudia looked up apprehensively. "What's that?"

"Frelimo counterattack." Sean was still busy with the drip set.

"But China has three companies in there, and Frelimo are going to be less than enthusiastic now that they have lost their air support. China's lads should be able to hold them off with no trouble."

"Sean, where did China come from? I tho "Yes, Sean cut in. "I also thought he was back on the river. The crafty bastard was right on our heels, ready to rush in and grab the spoils." He finished adjusting the plasma flow in the drip set and squatted down beside Claudia, studying her face.