'I'll help you,' Vicky stated boldly.
'The hell you will,' snapped Jake, tearing his eyes off her magnificent
chest. 'You'll stay where you are and keep the engine running.' The
doors flew open and Jake tumbled headfirst out on to the sandy earth.
Spitting grit from his mouth, he crawled swiftly to the carcass of the
white horse. Close up, the hide was shaggy and flea-bitten, dappled
with faint patches of chestnut. On this pale background the bullet
holes were like dark red mouths where already the metallic blue flies
clustered delightedly.
The stallion lay heavily across Sara's lower body, pinning her face
down to the earth.
The naked boy child had been hit by one of the hooves as the horse
fell. The side of the tiny bald skull had been crushed, a deep
indentation above the temple into which a baseball would have fitted
neatly. There was no chance that he still lived and Jake transferred
his attention to the girl.
'Sara,' he called, and she lifted herself on her elbows, looking back
at him from huge terrified dark eyes. Her face was smeared with dust,
the skin shaved from one cheek where she had slid against the ground,
exposing the pale pink meat from which lymph leaked in clear liquid
beads.
'Are you hit? 'Jake reached her.
'I don't know,' she whispered huskily, and he saw that the satin of her
breeches was soaked with dark blood. He placed both feet against the
carcass of the horse and tried to roll it off her legs, but the dead
weight of the animal was enormous. He would have to stand, taking his
chances with the guns.
Jake came to his feet and felt the cold fingers of fear brush lightly
along his spine as he turned his back to the nearest Italian trenches
and stooped to the horse.
Crouching with his weight balanced evenly on the balls of both feet, he
took the tail and the lower hind leg of the animal; lifting and turning
with all his strength, he began to roll the carcass off Sara's legs and
pelvis. She cried out in pain, such a sharp high-pitched shriek that
he had to stop.
She was praying incoherently in Amharic, weeping slow fat tears of
agony that cut tunnels through the pale dust on her cheeks.
Jake panted, 'Once more I'm sorry,' and he braced himself. At that
moment Vicky yelled from the car.
'Jake, they are coming! Hurry, oh God, please hurry!' Jake swung
around and ran to the car, peering over the high engine compartment.
With a long plume of pale dust boiling out from behind it, a large open
vehicle crowded with armed men was dropping swiftly down towards them
from the ridge.
'My God,' grunted Jake, screwing up his eyes against the low blinding
rays of the morning sun. 'It can't be!' But even at that range in the
dust and bad light, there was no mistaking the gracious and dignified
lines of a Rolls-Royce.
Jake was seized by a feeling of unreality that amid all this horror
appear something of such beauty.
