“What happened?” asked Mike.
“Hendry shot them,” answered Bruce.
“What for?”
“Only he knows.”
“You mean he - he just killed them, just shot them down?”
“Yes.” “My God,” said Mike, and then again, his voice dull with shock, my God.”
“Go and look at them, Haig. I want you to look closely so you remember.” Haig walked across to the children.
“You too, Ruffy. You’ll be a witness at the trial.” Mike Haig and
Ruffy walked side by side to where the children lay, and stood staring down at them. Hendry shuffled his feet in the dust awkwardly and then went on loading the magazine of his rifle.
“Oh, for Chrissake!” he blustered. “What’s all the fuss?
They’re just a couple of Balubes.” Wheeling slowly to face him
Mike Haig’s face was a yellowish colour with only his cheeks and his nose still flushed with the tiny burst of veins beneath the surface of the skin, but there was no colour in his lips. Each breath he drew
sobbed in his throat. He started back towards Hendry, still breathing that way, and his mouth was working as he tried to force it to speak.
As he came on he unslung the rifle from his shoulder.
“Haig! said Bruce sharply.
“This time - you you bloody - this is the last,-” mouthed Haig.
“Watch it, Bucko!” Hendry warned him. He stepped back, clumsily trying to fit the loaded magazine on to his rifle.
Mike Haig dropped the point of his bayonet to the level of
Hendry’s stomach.
“Haig!” shouted Bruce, and Haig charged surprisingly fast for a man of his age, leaning forward, leading with the bayonet at Hendry’s
stomach, the incoherent mouthings reaching their climax in a formless bellow.
“Come on, then!” Hendry answered him and stepped forward. As they came together Hendry swept the bayonet to one side with the butt of his own rifle. The point went under his armpit and they collided chest to chest, staggering as Haig’s weight carried them backwards. Hendry dropped his rifle and locked both arms round Haig’s neck, forcing his head back so that his face was tilted up at the right angle.
“Look out, Mike, he’s going to butt!” Bruce had recognized the move, but his warning came too late. Hendry’s head jerked forward and
Mike gasped as the front of Hendry’s steel helmet caught him across the bridge of his nose. The rifle slipped from Mike’s grip and fell into the road, he lifted his hands and covered his face with Spread fingers and the redness oozed out between them.
Again Hendry’s head jerked forward like a hammer and again Mike gasped as the steel smashed into his face and fingers.
“Knee him, Mike!” Bruce yelled as he tried to take up a position from which to intervene, but they were staggering in a circle, turning like a wheel and Bruce could not get in.
Hendry’s legs were braced apart as he drew his head back to Strike again, and Mike’s knee went up between them, all the way up with power into the fork of Hendry’s crotch.
Breaking from the clinch, his mouth open in a silent scream of agony, Hendry doubled up with both hands holding his lower stomach, and sagged slowly on to his knees in the dust.
Dazed, with blood running into his mouth, Mike fumbled with the canvas flap of his holster.
“I’ll kill you, you murdering swine.” The pistol came out into his right hand; short-barrelled, blue and ugly.
Bruce stepped up behind him, his thumb found the nerve centre below the elbow and as he dug in the pistol dropped from Mike’s paralysed hand and dangled on its lanyard against his knee.
Ruffy, stop him,” Bruce shouted, for Hendry was clawing painfully at the rifle that lay in the dust beside him.
“Got it, boss!” Ruffy stooped quickly over the crawling body at his feet, in one swift movement opened the flap of the holster, drew the revolver and the lanyard snapped like cotton as he jerked on it.
They stood like that: Bruce holding Haig from behind, and Hendry crouched at Ruffy’s feet. The only sound for several seconds was the hoarse rasping of breath.
Bruce felt Mike relaxing in his grip as the madness left him; he unclipped his pistol from his lanyard and let it drop.
“Leave me, Bruce. I’m all right now.”
“Are you sure? I don’t
want to shoot you.”
“No, I’m all right.”
“If you start it again, I’ll have to shoot you. Do you understand?” Yes, I’ll be all right now. I
lost my senses for a moment.” :You certainly did,” Bruce agreed, and released him.
They formed a circle round the kneeling Hendry, and Bruce spoke.
“If either you or Haig start it again you’ll answer to me, do you hear me?” Hendry looked up, his small eyes slitted with pain. He did
not answer.
“Do you hear me?” Bruce repeated the question and Hendry nodded.
“Good! From now on, Hendry, you are under open arrest.
I can’t spare men to guard you, and you’re welcome to escape if you’d like to try. The local gentry would certainly entertain you most handsomely, they’d probably arrange a special banquet in your honour.”
Hendry’s lips drew back in a snarl that exposed teeth with green slimy stains on them.
“But remember my promise, Hendry, as soon as we get back to,-“
“Wally, Wally, are you hurt?” Andre came running from the direction of the station. He knelt beside Hendry.
“Get away, leave me alone.” Hendry struck out at him impatiently and Andre recoiled.
“De Surrier, who gave you permission to leave your post?
Get back to the train.” Andre looked up uncertainly, and then back to Hendry.
“De Surrier, you heard me. Get going. And you also, Haig.” He watched them disappear behind the station building before he glanced once more at the two children. There was a smear of blood and melted chocolate across the boy’s cheek and his eyes were wide open in an expression of surprise. Already the flies were settling, crawling
delightedly over the two small corpses.
“Ruffy, get spades, Bury them under those trees.” He pointed at the avenue of casia flora. “But do it quickly.” He spoke brusquely so that how he felt would not show in his voice.
“Okay, boss. I’ll fix it.”
“Come on, Hendry,” Bruce snapped, and
Wally Hendry heaved to his feet and followed him meekly back to the train.
Slowly from Msapa junction they travelled northwards through the
forest. Each tree seemed to have been cast from the same mould, tall and graceful in itself, but when multiplied countless million times the effect was that of numbing monotony. Above them was a lane of open sky with the clouds scattered, but slowly regrouping for the next assault, and the forest shut in the moist heat so they sweated even in the wind of the train’s movement.
“How is your face?” asked Bruce and Mike Haig touched the parallel swellings across his forehead where the skin was broken and discoloured.
“It will do,” he decided; then he lifted his eyes and looked across the open trucks at Wally Hendry. “You shouldn’t have stopped me, Bruce.” Bruce did not answer, but he also watched Hendry as he leaned uncomfortably against the side of the leading truck, obviously favouring his injuries, his face turned half away from them, talking to
Andre.
“You should have let me kill him,” Mike went on. “A man who can shoot down two small children in cold blood and then laugh about it afterwards-!” Mike left the rest unsaid, but his hands were opening and closing in his lap.
“It’s none of your business, said Bruce, sensitive to the implied rebuke. “What are you? One of God’s avenging angels?”