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

darkness, so Jake reversed Priscilla gingerly down the steep slope of

the ravine, backing and filling carefully, until she was in a hull-down

position below the bank with just the top of her turret exposed but

facing back towards the west with her front wheels at a point in the

bank which she could climb handily, if a quick start and a fast escape

were necessary.

He switched off the engine, and the two of them armed themselves with

machetes and wandered about in the open, hacking down the small wiry

desert brush and then piling it over the exposed turret, until from a

hundred yards it blended into the desert landscape.

Jake spilled gasoline from one of the spare cans into a bucket of sand,

then placed the bucket in the bottom of the ravine and put a match to

it. They crouched over the primitive stove, warming themselves against

the desert chill, while the coffee brewed. They were silent, thawing

out slowly, each thinking his own thoughts.

"I think we've got a problem" said Jake at last, as he stared into the

fire.

"With me that condition goes back as far as I can remember,"

Gareth agreed politely. "But apart from the fact that I am stuck in

the middle of a horrible desert, with savages and bleeding hearts for

company, with an army of Eyeties trying to kill me, broke except for a

post-dated cheque of dubious value, not a bottle of the old Charlie

within a hundred miles, and no immediate prospect of escape apart from

that, I'm in very good shape."

"I was thinking of Vicky."

"Ah!

Vicky!"

"You know that I am in love with her."

"You surprise me."

Gareth grinned devilishly in the flickering firelight. "Is that why

you have been mooning around with that soppy look on your face,

bellowing like a bull moose in the mating season? Good Lord, I would

never have guessed, old boy."

"I'm being serious, Gary."

"That, old son, is one of your problems. You take everything too

seriously. I am prepared to offer odds of three to one that your mind

is already set on the ivy-covered cottage, bulging with ghastly

brats."

"That's the picture," Jake cut in sharply. "It's that serious, I'm

afraid. How do we stand?" Gareth drew two cigars from his breast

pocket, placed one between Jake's lips, lit a dry twig from the fire

and held it for him.

The mocking grin dropped from his lips and his voice was suddenly

thoughtful, but the expression in his eyes was hard to read in the

uncertain firelight.

"Down in Cornwall, there's a place I know. A hundred and fifty acres.

Comfortable old farm house, of course. I'd have to do it up a bit, but

the cattle sheds are in good nick.

Always did fancy myself as the country squire, bit of hunting and

shooting in between tilling the earth and squirting the milk out of the

cows. Might even run to three or four brats, at that. With fourteen

thousand quid, and a whacking great mortgage bond, I could just about

swing it." They were both silent then, as Jake poured the coffee and

doused the fire, and squatted again facing Gareth.

"It's that serious," Gareth said at last.

"So there isn't going to be a truce? No gentlemen's agreement? "Jake

murmured into his mug.

"Tooth and claw, I'm afraid," said Gareth. "May the best man win,

and we'll name the first brat after you. That's a promise." They were

silent again, each of them lost in his own thoughts, sipping at the

mugs and sucking on their cheroots.

"One of us could get some sleep, "said Jake at last.

"Spin you for it." Gareth flipped a silver Maria Theresa dollar,

and caught it neatly on his wrist.

"Heads,"said Jake.

"Tough luck, old son." Gareth pocketed the coin and flicked out the

coffee grounds from his mug. Then he went to spread his blanket on the

sandy ravine bottom, under Priscilla the Pig's chassis.

Jake shook him gently in the dawn, and cautioned him with a touch on

the lips. Gareth came swiftly awake, blinking his eyes and smoothing

back his hair with both hands, then rolling to his feet and following

Jake quickly up the side of Priscilla's hull.

The dawn was a silent explosion of red and gold and brilliant apricot

that fanned out across half the eastern sky, touched the high ground

with fire but left the long grey blue shadows smeared across the low

places. The crescent of the sinking moon low on the western horizon

was white as a shark's tooth.

"Listen," said Jake, and Gareth turned his head slightly to catch the

tremble of sound in the silence of the dawn.

"Hear it?" Gareth nodded, and lifted his binoculars. Slowly he swept

the distant sun-touched ridges.

"There," said Jake sharply, and Gareth swung the glasses in the

direction of Jake's arm.

Some miles off, a string of dark indefinite blobs were moving through

one of the depressions in the gently undulating terrain. They looked

like beads on a rosary; even in the magnifying lens of the glasses they

were too far off and too dimly lit to afford details.

They watched them, following the almost sinuous line as it snaked

across their front until the leading blob drew the line up the gentle

slope of ground. As it reached the crest, it was struck with startling

suddenness by the low golden sun. In the still cool air there was no

distortion, and the dramatic side-lighting made every detail of its low

profile clear and crisp.

"CV.3 cavalry tanks," said Gareth, without hesitation.

"Fifty-horse-power Alfa engines. Ten centimetres of frontal armour and

a top speed of eighteen miles an hour." It was as though he were

reading the specifications from a catalogue, and Jake remembered that

these were part of his stock-in-trade. "There's a crew of three,

driver, loader gunner and commander and it looks as though they are

mounting the fifty-men. Spandau. They are accurate at a thousand

yards and the rate of fire is fifteen rounds a minute." As he was

speaking the leading tank dropped from sight over the reverse slope of

the ridge, followed in quick succession by the five others and their

engine noise droned away into silence.

Gareth lowered his glasses and grinned ruefully. "Well, we are a

little out of our class. Those Spandaus are in fully revolving

turrets. We are out-gunned all to hell."

"We are faster than they are," said Jake hotly, like a mother whose

children had been scorned.

"And that, old son, is all we are, "grunted Gareth.

"How about a bite of breakfast? It's going to be a long hard day to

sit out before it's dark enough to head for home." They ate tinned

Irish stew, heated over the bucket, and smeared on thick spongy hunks

of unleavened bread, washed down by tea, strong and sweet with

condensed milk and lumpy brown sugar. The sun was well up before they

finished.

Jake belched softly. "My turn to sleep," he said, and he curled up

like a big brown dog in the shade under the hull.

Gareth tried to make himself comfortable against the turret and keep

watch out across the open plain, where the mirage was already starting

to quiver and fume in the rising heat. He congratulated himself

comfortably on his choice of shift; he'd had a good few hours" sleep in