Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur (книги онлайн без регистрации полностью .TXT) 📗

The momentum of her charge down the side of the dune carried her up on

the second dune with loose sand pouring out in a cloud from her

spinning rear wheels. She reached the crest and went over it at

speed,

dropping with a gut swooping dive down the far side.

Jake cut the engine before she had come to rest, and he and

Gregorius sprang out of the opened hatches and went panting back up the

dune, labouring in the heavy loose footing, and panting as they reached

the crest and looked down into the trough at almost the same instant as

the four Italian tanks came over the crest opposite them.

Their racks boiling in the loose sand, they came crashing over the top

of the dune, and roared down into the trough.

They tore into the thick bank of scrub, and immediately the bush was

alive with naked black figures. They swarmed around the monstrous

wallowing hulls like ants around the bodies of shiny black scarab

beetles.

Twenty men to each steel rail, using it like a battering ram, they

charged in from each side of every tank, thrusting the end of the rail

into the sprocketed jockey wheels of the tracks.

The rail was caught up immediately, and with the screech of metal on

metal was whipped out of the hands of the men who wielded it, hurling

them effortlessly aside. To an engineer, the sound that the machines

made as they tore themselves to pieces was like the anguish of living

things, like that terrible death squeal of a horse.

The steel rails tore the jockey wheels out of them, and the tracks

sprang out of their seating on the sprockets and whipped into the

air,

flogging themselves to death in a cloud of dust and torn vegetation.

It was over very swiftly, the four machines lay silent and stalled,

crippled beyond hope of repair and around them lay the broken bodies of

twenty or more of the Ethiopians who had been caught up by the flailing

tracks as they broke loose. The bodies were torn and shredded, as

though clawed and mauled by some monstrous predator.

Those who had survived the savage death of the tanks, hundreds of

almost naked figures, swarmed over the stranded hulls, loolooing wildly

and pounding on the steel turrets with their bare hands.

The Italian gunners still inside the hulls fired their machine guns

despairingly, but there was no power on their traversing gear and the

turrets were frozen. The guns could not be aimed. They were blinded

also for Jake had armed a dozen Ethiopians each with a bucket of engine

oil and dirt mixed to a thick paste. This they had slapped in gooey

handfuls over the drivers" and gunners" visors. The tank crews were

helplessly imprisoned and the attackers pranced and howled like

demented things. The din was such that Jake did not even hear the

approach of the other car.

It stopped on the crest of the dune opposite where Jake stood.

The hatches were flung open, and Gareth Swales and Ras Golam leaped out

of the hull.

The Ras had his sword with him, and he swung it around his head as he

charged down the slope to join his men around the crippled tanks.

Across the valley that separated them, Gareth threw Jake a cavalier

salute, but beneath the mockery, Jake sensed real respect.

Each of them ran down into the trough and they met where the gallon

cans of gasoline were buried under a fine layer of sand and cut

branches.

Gareth spared a second to punch Jake lightly on the shoulder.

"Hit the beggars for six, what? Good for you," and then they stooped

to drag the cans out of the shallow hole, and with one in each hand

staggered through the waist-deep scrub to the tank carcasses.

Jake passed a can up to Gregorius who was already perched on the turret

of the nearest tank where his grandfather was trying to prise open the

turret hatch with the blade of his broad-sword. His eyes flashed and

rolled wildly in his wrinkled black head, and a high-pitched incoherent

"Looloo" keened from the mouthful of flashing artificial teeth for the

Ras was transported into the fighting mania of the berserker.

Gregorius hefted the gasoline can up on to the tank's sponson, and

plunged his dagger through the thin metal of the lid. The clear liquid

spurted and hissed from the rent, under pressure of its own volatile

gases.

"Wet it down good!" shouted Jake, and Gregorius; grinned and

splattered gasoline over the hull. The stink of it was sharp, as it

evaporated from the hot metal in a shimmering haze.

Jake ran on to the next tank, unscrewing the cap of the can as he

clambered up over the shattered jockey wheels.

Avoiding the stationary barrel of the forward machine gun, he stood

tall on the top of the turret and splashed gasoline over the hull,

until it shone wetly in the sunlight and little rivulets of the stuff

found the joints and gaps in the plating and splattered into the

interior.

"Get back," shouted Gareth. "Everybody back." He had doused the other

steel carcasses and he stood now on the slope of the dune with an unlit

cheroot in the corner of his mouth and a box of Swan Vestas in his left

hand.

Jake jumped lightly down from the hull, laying a trail of gasoline from

the can he carried as he backed up to where Gareth waited.

"Hurry. Everybody out of the way," Gareth called again.

Gregorius was laying a wet trail of gasoline back to Gareth.

"Somebody go get that old bastard out of the way" Gareth called with

exasperation. A single figure pranced and howled and loolooed on the

nearest tank, and Jake and Gregorius dropped the empty cans and raced

back. Ducking under the swinging arc of the sword, Jake got an arm

around the Ras's skinny, bony chest, swung him bodily off his feet and

passed him down to his grandson. Between them they carried him away to

safety, still how ling and struggling.

Gareth struck one of the Swan Vestas and casually lit the cheroot in

his mouth. When it was drawing nicely, he cupped the match to let the

game flare brightly.

"Here we go, chaps," he murmured. "Guy Fawkes, Guy.

Stick him in the eye. Hang him on a lamp post' he flicked the burning

match on to the gasoline-sodden earth, and leave him there to die." For

a moment nothing happened, and then with a thump that concussed the air

against their eardrums, the gasoline ignited.

Instantly the belt of scrub turned to atoll roaring red inferno, and

the flames boiled and swirled, leaped and drummed high into the desert

air, engulfing the four stranded tanks in sheets of fire that obscured

their menacing silhouettes.

The Ethiopians watched from the dunes, awed by the terrible pageant of

destruction they had created. Only the Ras still danced and howled at

the edge of the flames, the blade of his sword reflecting the red

leaping flames.

The hatches of the nearest tank were thrown open, and out into the

searing air leaped three figures, indistinct and shadowy through the

flames. Beating wildly at their burning uniforms, the tank crew came

staggering out on to the slope of the dune.

The Ras flew to meet them, the sword hissing and glinting as it swung.

The head of the tank commander seemed to leap from his fire-blackened

shoulders, as the blade cut through. The head struck the ground behind

him and rolled back down the dune like a ball, while the decapitated

trunk dropped to its knees with a fine crimson spray from the neck