Rourke swung the lever action, feigning, one of the spears snapping out toward him as he sidestepped, the .rifle in his hands crashing around, impacting against the man's neck. Rourke backstepped, a shot nailing the second man. It was Rubenstein with the Browning.
"Still got a little left for this!"
"Save 'em till we need 'em!" Rourke started to move, stopped, the man on Rubenstein's far side taking a hit in the leg, going down.
"You get the other guy out," Rourke shouted, running back to the second trooper.
"I'll get this one."
Rourke dropped to his knees beside the man, the knee apparently hit, blood pumping from it between the man's interlaced fingers. Rourke shifted magazines in his pistols—counting the half spent magazines, he judged he had three dozen rounds left.
"Lean on me," Rourke rasped, hauling the man's left arm across his shoulders, holding the left wrist in his left hand to keep the man up, a Detonics pistol in his right hand.
The wildmen were-consolidating—at least Rourke judged it as that looking behind him.
Had the men who tortured their victims on crosses had the slightest amount of organization, he realized full well he and Rubenstein would have been dead in the first minute of battle.
But they seemed intent on personal bloodletting rather than victory, using their knives rather than guns—they were insane, he thought absently as he hobbled under the added .weight of the wounded man.
The man was talking. "My knee—my knee—Jesus help me—my knee!"
"Not much farther," Rourke !ied, reaching the base of the rocks—but the rocks were still there to climb, Rubenstein now only a few yards ahead, helping his wounded man up into the rocks.
There would be little chance to run for it, but run for it they must, Rourke realized—to the beach, and hope that Lieutenant O'Neal would have dispatched another boarding party.
He heard a high pitched scream—a woman's voice. "Kill the heathens!"
Heathens—despite it all, a smile crossed his lips as he ran.
Chapter 38
"Captain—the gunfire's pretty much died out."
"Hope those men haven't died out with it, O'Neal," Gundersen panted, pulling himself up over a breadloaf-shaped rock and starting for the next one.
Gundersen judged the distance remaining to the height of the rocks as some twenty yards—twenty yards that could well take another five minutes to traverse.
"O'Neal—take your men and spread 'em out—both ends of the rocks. We get up there and there's an ambush waiting for us, don't want 'em having too easy a time of it."
"Like a pincer movement, sir—"
"Don't give me that Army crap," Gundersen laughed, panting, his breathing coming hard. He realized now—shifting his weight to pull up over another rock—what a soft life it was to be a submariner.
O'Neal was shouting orders, the men of the landing party fanning out. Gundersen silently wished he had Marines with him—he'd used Marines in a shore party once and despite the massive Navy-Marine Corps rivalry, he considered them consummate fighters.
He was nearly to the top of the rocks, to the ridgeline there and he stopped, leaning against a slab of flat rock, taking the Government Model . from the shoulder holster strapped across his chest, jacking back the slide. He still wished he hadn't lost the Detonics.
He raised the thumb safety, then turned toward the rocks again, inhaling deeply, resigning himself to the last part of the climb. As he started it, he shouted to O'Neal and the others, the words coming in gasps because of his breathlessness.
"We reach the—reach the top—con-consolidate on me and on O'Neal—consolidate on us before fanning out." He didn't know if that was proper tactics, but he didn't want his men too scattered. He reached up with his left hand,-then his right, the pistol in his right hand scraping across the rock. "Kiss off the finish," he murmured, peering up over the ledge.
He could see Rourke, Rubenstein and two men—the men looked butchered and half dead—running, limping, pursued by what seemed like a hundred men who looked even more terrifyingly feral than the prisoners brought back to the submarine. They brandished knives, guns, torches. And faintly, as the running bands came even closer, he could hear shouts—savage cries. "Kill the heathens!"
"Holy cow," he swore. "Christ—"
Chapter 39
Rourke dropped the man to the ground, turning toward the mob, a Detonics pistol, freshly loaded, in each hand.
"Paul—we can't haul these guys any further!"
"I know," Rubenstein's voice came back, sounding odd.
"If I don't get out—and you do—"
"I'll get back—I'll find them—I swear it to God, John—"
"And Natalia—"
"I'll take care of her—"
The younger man was beside him now—no rocks to hide in, nowhere to run, out in the open, the savage horde of wildmen running toward them brandishing spears, clubs, knives, a" bizarre assortment of guns—and the torches lighting the night, their glowing brilliance leaving floaters on the eyes as Rourke watched.
"John—"
Rourke stabbed one of the pistols into his belt, his right hand going out, to Rubenstein's shoulder. He said nothing, just looked at the man—his friend.
He moved his hand away, retaking the Detonics . in his fist, his fingers balling on the checkered rubber of the Pachmayr grips.
Rourke had predetermined it—he would save one round, to shoot Paul if somehow it looked the wildmen would take him alive. It was better than the cross, far better.
He held the pistols at his hips, ready.
The mob was slowing its advance, the leaders or front runners—Rourke couldn't tell which—waving their torches in the air.
The mob stopped, then began to advance, slowly, at a determined walk. The isolated shouts and curses were gone, but the voices now becoming one voice, a chant, the words chilling his soul. "Kill the heathens! Kill the heathens! Kill the heathens! Kill—"
"John—remember how you used to tell me—trigger control?"
Rourke nodded, words hard to come for him, his throat tight. "Yeah. I remember."
"It's been like a second life anyway, hasn't it," the younger man's voice murmured, Rourke not looking at him.
"Yes."
Rourke turned to look at Rubenstein, the pistol—the battered Browning High Power—clutched in his right fist. His left hand, as if an automatic response, moved to the bridge of his nose, to push back the wire-framed glasses.
"It has—a second life," Rourke nodded, seeing his friend he judged perhaps for the last time.
The mob was less than fifty yards from them now, the smell of the torches acrid on the night air, the faces of the men and women who held them gleaming and reddened, glistening sweat.
The chanting of the mob had stopped.
One man stepped out of the front ranks, a torch in his right hand, a long bladed knife in the left, the torchlight glinting in streaks of orange and red from the steel—blood was there. He shouted, the crowd otherwise hushed.
"Kill the heathens!"
Rourke snapped the pistol in his right hand to shoulder height and fired once.
The -grain JHP brought the man down, the body
lurching into the crowd, the torch igniting the animal skin covering a woman near him. Her scream was loud, but died in the shouts of the mob as they broke and ran— toward Rourke and Rubenstein.
Rourke waited, remembering a tine his father had quoted often, but only as a joke. It was no joke now. "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes."