“Look at his eyes,” grunted Ruffy. “That injection stuff ain’t going to help him much.” The pupils had
contracted to the size of match heads and he was shaking uncontrollably as the poison spread through his body.
“Get him into the truck.” They lifted him into the cab and everybody scrambled aboard. Ruffy started the engine, slammed into reverse and the motor roared as he shot backwards over the intervening thirty yards to the laager.
take him out,” instructed Bruce. “Bring him into the “shelter.”
The man was blubbering through slack lips and he had started to sweat.
Little rivulets of it coursed down his face and naked upper body.
There was hardly any blood from the wound, just a trickle of brownish fluid. The poison must be a coagulant, Bruce decided.
“Bruce, are you all right?” Shermaine ran to meet him.
“Nothing wrong with me.” Bruce remembered to check his tongue this time. “But one of them has been hit.”
“Can I help you?”
“No, I don’t want you to watch.” And he turned from her. “Hendry, where’s that bloody snake bite outfit?” he shouted.
They had dragged the man on a blanket into the laager and laid him in the shade. Bruce went to him and knelt beside him. He took the scarlet tin that Hendry handed him and opened it.
ruffy, get those two trucks worked into the circle and make sure your boys are on their toes. With this success they may get brave sooner than you expected.”
as Bruce fitted the hypodermic needle on to the syringe he spoke. “Hendry, get them to rig some sort of screen round us.
“You can use blankets.” With his thumb he snapped the top off the ampoule and filled the syringe with the pale yellow serum.
“Hold him,” he said to the two gendarmes, lifted a pinch of skin close beside the wound and ran the needle under it.
The man’s skin felt like that of a frog, damp and clammy. As he expelled the serum Bruce was trying to calculate the time that had elapsed since the arrow had hit. Possibly seven or eight minutes, mamba venom kills in fourteen minutes.
“Roll him over,” he said.
The man’s head lolled sideways, his breathing was quick and shallow and the saliva poured from the corners of his mouth, running down his cheeks.
“Get a load of that!”” breathed Wally Hendry, and Bruce glanced up at his face. His expression was a glow of deep sensual pleasure and
his breathing was as quick and shallow as that of the dying man.
“Go and help Ruffy,” snapped Bruce as his stomach heaved with disgust.
“Not on your Nelly. This I’m not going to miss.” Bruce had no time to argue. He lifted the skin of the man’s stomach and ran the needle in again. There was an explosive spitting sound as the bowels started to vent involuntarily.
“Jesus,” whispered Hendry.
“Get away,” snarled Bruce. “Can’t you let him die without gloating over it?” Hopelessly he injected again, under the skin of the chest above the heart. As he emptied the syringe the man’s body twisted violently in the first seizure and the needle snapped off under the skin.
“There he goes,” whispered Hendry, “there he goes. Just look at him, man. That’s really something.” Bruce’s hands were trembling and slowly a curtain descended across his mind.
“You filthy swine,” he screamed and hit Hendry across the face
with his open hand, knocking him back against the side of the gasoline tanker. Then he went for his throat and found it with both hands. The windpipe was ropey and elastic under his thumbs.
“Is nothing sacred to you, you unclean animal?” he yelled into
Hendry’s face. “Can’t you let a man die without,-” Then Ruffy was there, effortlessly plucking Bruce’s hands from the throat, interposing the bulk of his body, holding them away from each other.
“Let it stand, boss.”
“For that,-” gasped Hendry as he massaged his throat.
“For that I’m going to make you pay.” Bruce turned away, sick and ashamed, to the man on the blanket.
“Cover him up.” His voice was shaky. “Put him in the back of one of the trucks. We’ll bury him tomorrow.” before nightfall they had completed the corrugated iron screen. It was a simple four-walled structure with no roof to it. One end of it was detachable and all four walls were pierced at regular intervals with small loop holes for defence.
Long enough to accommodate a dozen men in comfort, high enough to
reach above the heads of the tallest, and exactly the width of the bridge, it was not a thing of beauty.
“How you going to move it, boss?” Ruffy eyed the screen dubiously.
“I’ll show you. We’ll move it back to the camp now, so that in the morning we can commute to work in it.” Bruce selected twelve men
and they crowded through the open end into the shelter, and closed it behind them.
“Okay, Ruffy. Take the trucks away.” Hendry and Ruffy reversed the two trucks back to the laager, leaving the shelter standing at the head of the bridge like a small Nissen hut. Inside it Bruce stationed his men at intervals along the walls.
“Use the bottom timber of the frame to lift on,” he shouted. “Are you all ready? All right, liftv The shelter swayed and rose six inches above the ground.
From the laager they could see only the boots of the men inside.
“All together,” ordered Bruce. “Walk!” Rocking and creaking over the uneven ground the structure moved ponderously back towards the laager. Below it the feet moved like those of a Caterpillar.
The men in the laager started to cheer, and from inside the shelter they answered with whoops of laughter. It was fun. They were enjoying themselves enormously, completely distracted from the horror of poison arrows and the lurking phantoms in the jungle around them.
They reached the camp and lowered the shelter. Then one at a time the gendarmes slipped across the few feet of open ground into the safety of the laager to be met with laughter, and back-slapping and mutual congratulation.
“Well, it works, boss,” Ruffy greeted Bruce in the uproar.
“Yes.” Then he lifted his voice. “That’s enough. Quiet down all of you. Get back to your posts.” The laughter subsided and the confusion became order again. Bruce walked to the centre of the laager and looked about him. There was complete quiet now. They were all watching him. I have read about this so often, he grinned inwardly, the heroic speech to the men on the eve of battle.
Let’s pray I don’t make a hash of it.
“Are you hungry?” he asked loudly in French and received a chorus of hearty affirmatives.
“There is bully beef for dinner.” This time humorous groans.
“And bully beef for breakfast tomorrow,” he paused, “and then it’s finished.” They were silent now.
“So you are going to be truly hungry by the time we cross this river. The sooner we repair the bridge the sooner you’ll get your bellies filled again.” I might as well rub it in, decided Bruce.
“You all saw what happened to the person who went into the open today, so I don’t have to tell you to keep under cover. The sergeant major is making arrangements for sanitation - five-gallon drums. They won’t be very comfortable, so you won’t be tempted to sit too long.”
They laughed a little at that.
“Remember this. As long as you stay in the laager or the shelter they can’t touch you. There is absolutely nothing to fear. They can beat their drums and wait as long as they like, but they can’t harm us.” A murmur of agreement.
And the sooner we finish the bridge the sooner we will be on our way.” Bruce looked round the circle of faces and was satisfied with what he saw. The completion of the shelter had given their morale a boost.
“All right, Sergeant Jacque. You can start sweeping with the searchlights as soon as it’s dark.” Bruce finished and went across to join Shermaine beside the Ford. He loosed the straps of his helmet and lifted it off his head. His hair was damp with perspiration and he ran his fingers through it.