Half rations from now on." He was so engrossed in the study of this new
complication that he did not notice the faint hum from outside the
laager.
"Captain," called Jacques. "Can you hear it?" Bruce inclined his head
and listened.
"The trucks!" His voice was loud with relief, and instantly there was an
excited murmur round the laager.
The waiting was over.
They came growling out of the bush into the clear, Heavily loaded,
timber and sheet-iron protruding backwards from under the canopies,
sitting low on their suspensions.
Ruffy leaned from the cab of the leading truck and shouted.
"Hello boss. Where shall we dump?"
"Take it up to the bridge.
Hang on a second and I'll come with you." Bruce slipped out of the
laager and crossed quickly to Ruffy's truck. He could feel his back
tingling while he was in the open and he slammed the door behind him
with relief.
"I don't relish stopping an arrow," he said.
"You have any trouble while we were gone?"
"No," Bruce told him.
"But they're here. They were drumming in the jungle all night."
"Calling up their buddies," grunted Ruffy and let out the clutch.
"We'll have some fun before we finish this bridge.
Most probably take them a day or two to get brave, but in the end
they'll have a go at us."
"Pull over to the side of the bridge, Ruffy," Bruce instructed and
rolled down his window. "I'll signal Hendry to pull in beside us. We'll
off-load into the space between the two trucks and start building the
corrugated iron shield there." While
Hendry manoeuvred his truck alongside, Bruce forced himself to look down
on the carnage of the beach.
"Crocodiles," he exclaimed with relief. The paunching racks still stood
as he had last seen them, but the reeking pile of human remains was
gone. The smell and the flies, however, still lingered.
"During the night," agreed Ruffy as he surveyed the long slither marks
in the sand of the beach.
"Thank God for that."
"Yeah, it wouldn't have made my boys too joyful having to clean up that
lot."
"We'll send someone down to tear out those racks. I don't want to look
at them while we work."
"No, they're not very pretty." Ruffy ran his eyes over the two sets of
gallows.
Bruce climbed down into the space between the trucks.
"Hendry."
"That's my name." Wally leaned out of the window.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but the crocs have done the chore for you."
"I can see. I'm not blind."
"Very well then. On the assumption
that you are neither blind nor paralysed, how about getting your trucks
unloaded?"
"Big deal," muttered Hendry, but he climbed down and began shouting at
the men under the canvas canopy.
"Get the lead out there, you lot. Start jumping about!"
"What were the thickest timbers you could find?" Bruce turned to Ruffy.
"Nine by threes, but we got plenty of them."
"They'll do," decided
Bruce. "We can lash a dozen of them together for each of the main
supports." Frowning with concentration, Bruce began the task of
organizing the repairs.
"Hendry, I want the timber stacked by sizes. Put the sheet-iron over
there." He brushed the flies from his face.
"Ruffy, how many hammers have we got?"
"Ten, boss, and I found a couple of handsaws."
"Good. What about nails and rope?"
"We got
plenty. I got a barrel of six4inch and,-" Preoccupied, Bruce did not
notice one of the coloured civilians leave the shelter of the trucks.
He walked a dozen paces towards the bridge and stopped. Then unhurriedly
he began to unbutton his trousers and Bruce looked up.
"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted and the man started guiltily.
He did not understand the English words, but Bruce's tone was
sufficiently clear.
"Monsieur," he explained, "I wish to-"
"Get back here!" roared
Bruce. The man hesitated in confusion and then he began closing his fly.
"Hurry up - you bloody fool." Obediently the man hastened the closing of
his trousers.
Everyone had stopped work and they were all watching him. His face was
dark with embarrassment and he fumbled clumsily.
"Leave that." Bruce was frantic. "Get back here." The first arrow rose
lazily out of the undergrowth along the river in a silent parabola.
Gathering speed in its descent, hissing softly, it dropped into the
ground at the man's feet and stuck up jauntily. A thin reed, fletched
with green leaves, it looked harmless as a child's plaything.
"Run," screamed Bruce. The man stood and stared with detached disbelief
at the arrow.
Bruce started forward to fetch him, but Ruffy's huge black hand closed
on his arm and he was helpless in its grip.
He struck out at Ruffy, struggling to free himself but he could not
break that hold.
A swarm of them like locusts on the move, high arching, fluting softly,
dropping all around the man as he started to run.
Bruce stopped struggling and watched. He heard the metal heads clanking
on the bonnet of the truck, saw them falling wide of the man, some of
the frail shafts snapping as they hit the ground.
Then between the shoulders, like a perfectly placed banderilla, one hit
him. It flapped against his back as he ran and he twisted his arms
behind him, vainly trying to reach it, his face twisted in horror and in
pain.
"Hold him down," shouted Bruce as the coloured man ran into the shelter.
Two gendarmes jumped forward, took his arms and forced him face
downwards on to the ground.
He was gabbling incoherently with horror as Bruce straddled his back and
gripped the shaft. Only half the barbed head had buried itself - a
penetration of less than an inch - but when Bruce pulled the shaft it
snapped off in his hand leaving the steel twitching in the flesh.
"Knife," shouted Bruce and someone thrust a bayonet into his hand.
"Watch those barbs, boss. Don't cut yourself on them."
"Ruffy, get your boys ready to repel them if they rush us," snapped
Bruce and ripped away the shirt. For a moment he stared at the crudely
hand-beaten iron arrowhead. The poison coated it thickly, packed in
behind the barbs, looking like sticky black toffee.
He's dead," said Ruffy from where he leaned over the "bonnet of the
truck. "He just ain't stopped breathing Yet." The man screamed and
twisted under Bruce as he made the first incision, cutting in deep
beside the arrowhead with the point of the bayonet.
"Hendry, get those pliers out of the tool kit."
"Here they are."
Bruce gripped the arrowhead with the steel jaws and pulled. The flesh
clung to it stubbornly, lifting in a pyramid.
with the bayonet, feeling it tear. Bruce imagined It was like trying to
get the hook out of the rubbery mouth of a cat-fish.
"You're wasting your time, boss!" grunted Ruffy with all eptance of
violent death, "the calm African in him, fresh This boy's a goner.
That's no horse! That's snake juice mixed. He's finished."
"Are You sure, Ruffy!" Bruce looked up, "Are you sure it's snake venom?"