Hendry's voice roaring triumphantly.
'Fooled you, you stupid bastard! Been watching you all the way up from
the bottom.' Bruce held his left arm against his stomach; the use of it
was returning as the numbness subsided, but with it came the ache. The
top joint of his thumb had caught in the trigger guard and been torn
off; now the blood welled out of the stump thickly and slowly, dark
blood the colour of apple jelly. With his right hand he groped for his
handkerchief.
'Hey, Curry, your rifle's lying there in the open. You might need it in
a few minutes. Why don't you go out and fetch it?' Bruce bound the
handkerchief tightly round the stump of his thumb and the bleeding
slowed. Then he looked at the rifle where it lay ten feet away. The
foresight had been knocked off, and the same bullet that had amputated
his thumb had smashed into the breech, buckled the loading handle and
the slide. He knew that it was damaged beyond repair.
'Think I'll have me a little target practice, shouted Hendry from above,
and again there was a burst of automatic fire. Bruce's rifle disappeared
in a cloud of dust and flying rock fragments and when it cleared the
woodwork of the rifle was splintered and torn and there was further
damage to the action.
Well, that's that, thought Bruce, the rifle is wrecked, Shermaine has
the pistol, and I have only one good hand. This is going to be
interesting.
He unbuttoned the front of his jacket and examined the welt that the
bullet had raised across his chest. It looked like a rope burn, painful
and red, but not serious. He rebuttoned his jacket.
'Okay, Bruce Baby, the time for games is over. I'm coming down to get
you.' Hendry's voice was harsh and loud, filled with confidence.
Bruce rallied under the goading of it. He looked round quickly which way
to go? Climb high so he must come up to get at you. Take the right-hand
turret, work round the side of it and wait for him on the top.
In haste now, spurred by the dread of being the hunted, he
scrambled to his feet and dodged away up the slope, keeping his head
down using the thick screen of rock and vegetation.
He reached the wall of the right-hand turret and followed it round,
found the spiral ledge that he had seen from below and went on to it, up
along it like a fly on a wall, completely exposed, keeping his back to
the cliff of granite, shuffling sideways up the eighteen-inch ledge with
the drop below him growing deeper with each step.
Now he was three hundred feet above the forest and could look out across
the dark green land to another row of kopjes on the horizon.
The rain had ceased but the cloud was unbroken, covering the sky.
The ledge widened, became a platform and Bruce hurried across it round
the far shoulder and came to a dead end.
The ledge had petered out and there was only the drop below. He had
trapped himself on the side of the turret the summit was unattainable.
If Hendry descended to the forest floor and circled the kopje he would
find Bruce completely at his mercy, for there was no cover on the narrow
ledge. Hendry could have a little more target practice.
