"No trouble here, boss. They come from a small village about an hour's

walk away. just five or six families, and no war party. These kids

sneaked across to have a look at the houses, pinch what they could

perhaps, but that's all." "How many men at this village?" asked Bruce,

and Ruffy turned back to the boy. In reply to the question he held up

the fingers of both hands, without interrupting the chewing.

"Does he know if the line is clear through to Port Reprieve? Have they

burnt the bridges or torn up the tracks?" Both children were dumb to

this question. The boy swallowed the last of his chocolate and looked

hungrily at Ruffy, who filled his mouth again.

"Jesus," muttered Hendry with deep disgust. "Is this a creche or

something. Let's all play ring around the roses."

"Shut up," snapped

Bruce, and then to Ruffy, "Have they seen any soldiers?" Two heads

shaken in solemn unison.

"Have they seen any war parties of their own people?" Again solemn

negative.

"All right, give them the rest of the chocolate," instructed

Bruce. That was all he could get out of them, and time was wasting. He

glanced back at the tower and saw that Haig and the engine driver had

finished watering. For a further second he studied the boy. His own son

would be about the same age now; it was twelve months since - Bruce

stopped himself hurriedly. That way lay madness.

Hendry, take them back to the edge of the bush and turn them loose.

Hurry up. We've wasted long enough."

"You're telling me!"

grunted Hendry and beckoned to the two children. With Hendry leading and

a gendarme on each side they trotted away obediently and disappeared

behind the station building.

"Driver, are your preparations complete?"

"Yes, monsieur, we are ready to depart."

"Shovel all the coal in, we've gotta keep her rolling." Bruce smiled at

him, he liked the little man and their stilted exchanges gave him

pleasure.

"Pardon, monsieur."

"It was an imbecility, a joke - forgive me."

"Ah, a joke!" The roly-poly stomach wobbled merrily.

"Okay, Mike," Bruce shouted, "get your men aboard. We are, -" A

burst of automatic gunfire cut his voice short. It came from behind the

station buildings, and it battered into the heat-muted morning with such

startling violence that for an instant Bruce stood paralysed.

"Haig," he yelled, "get up front and take over from de Surrier."

That was the weak point, and Mike's party ran down the train.

"You men." Bruce stopped the six gendarmes. "Come with me." They fell in

behind him, and with a quick glance Bruce assured himself that the train

was safe. All along its length rifle barrels were poking out

protectively, while on the roof Ruffy was dragging the Bren round to

cover the flank. A charge by even a thousand Baluba must fail before the

fire power that was ready now to receive it.

"Come on," said Bruce and ran, with the gendarmes behind him, to the

sheltering wall of the station building.

There had been no shot fired since that initial burst, which could mean

either that it was a false alarm or that Hendry's party had been

overwhelmed by the first rush.

The door of the station master's office was locked. Bruce kicked and it

crashed open with the weight of his booted foot behind it.

I've always wanted to do that, he thought happily in his excitement,

ever since I saw Gable do it in San Francisco.

"You four - inside! Cover us from the windows." They crowded into the

room with their rifles held ready. Through the open door Bruce saw the

telegraph equipment on the table by the far wall; it was clattering

metallically from traffic on the Elisabethville-Jadotville line. Why is

it that under the stimulus of excitement my mind always registers

irrelevances? Which thought is another irrelevancy, he decided.

"Come on, you two, stay with me." He led them down the outside

wall, keeping in close to its sheltering bulk, pausing at the corner to

check the load of his rifle and slip the selector on to rapid fire.

A further moment he hesitated. What will I find around this corner? A

hundred naked savages crowded round the mutilated bodies of

Hendry and his gendarmes, or ... ?

Crouching, ready to jump back behind the wall, rifle held at high port

across his chest, every muscle and nerve of his body cocked like a

hair-trigger, Bruce stepped sideways into the open.

Hendry and the two gendarmes stood in the dusty road beyond the first

cottage. They were relaxed, talking together, Hendry reloading his

rifle, cramming the magazine with big red hands on which the gingery

hair caught the sunlight. A cigarette dangled from his lower lip and he

laughed suddenly, throwing his head back as he did so and the cigarette

ash dropped down his jacket front. Bruce noticed the long dark sweat

stain across his shoulders.

The two children lay in the road fifty yards farther on.

Bruce was suddenly cold, it came from inside, a cramping coldness of the

guts and chest. Slowly he straightened up and began to walk towards the

children. His feet fell silently in the powder dust and the only sound

was his own breathing, hoarse, as though a wounded beast followed close

behind him. He walked past Hendry and the two gendarmes

without looking at them; but they stopped talking, watching him

uneasily.

He reached the girl first and went down on one knee beside her, laying

his rifle aside and turning her gently on to her back.

"This isn't true," he whispered. "This can't be true." The bullet had

taken half her chest out with it, a hole the size of a coffee cup, with

the blood still moving in it, but slowly, oozing, welling up into it

with the viscosity of new honey.

Bruce moved across to the boy; he felt an almost dreamlike sense of

unreality.

"No, this isn't true." He spoke louder, trying to undo it with words.

Three bullets had hit the boy; one had torn his arm loose at the

shoulder and the sharp white end of the bone pointed accusingly out of

the wound. The other bullets had severed his trunk almost in two.

It came from far away, like the rising roar of a train along a tunnel.

Bruce could feel his whole being shaken by the strength of it, he shut

his eyes and listened to the roaring in his head, and with his eyes

tight closed his vision was filled with the colour of blood.

"Hold on!" a tiny voice screamed in his roaring head.

"Don't let go, fight it. Fight it as you've fought before." And he clung

like a flood victim to the straw of his sanity while the great roaring

was all around him. Then the roar was muted, rumbling away, gone past, a

whisper, now nothing.

The coldness came back to him, a coldness more vast than the flood had

been.

He opened his eyes and breathed again, stood up and walked back to where

Hendry stood with the two gendarmes.

"Corporal," Bruce addressed one of the men beside Hendry; and with a

shock he heard that his own voice was calm, without any trace of the

fury that had so nearly carried him away on its flood.

"Corporal, go back to the train. Tell Lieutenant Haig and

Sergeant Major Ruffararc, that I want them here." Thankfully the man