'What's your mission?' repeated the Irishman.
'Proceed to Port Reprieve and relieve the town.' & 'We know about
you.' The Irishman nodded. 'Let me see the pass.' Bruce left the tracks,
climbed the earth wall and handed the pink slip to the
Irishman. He wore the three pips of a captain, and he glanced briefly at
the pass before speaking to the man beside him.
'Very well, Sergeant, you can be clearing the barrier now.'
'I'll call the train through?' Bruce asked, and the captain nodded
again.
'But make sure there are no more accidents - we don't like hired
killers.'
'Sure and begorrah now, Paddy, it's not your war you're a-fighting
either,' snapped Bruce and abruptly turned his back on the man, jumped
down on to the tracks and waved to Mike Haig on the roof of
the coach.
The Irish sergeant and his party had cleared the tracks and while the
train rumbled slowly down to him Bruce struggled to control his
irritation. - the Irish captain's taunt had reached him.
Hired killer, and of course that was what he was. Could a man sink any
lower?
As the coach drew level with where he stood, Bruce caught the hand rail
and swung himself aboard, waved an ironical farewell to the Irish
captain and climbed up on to the roof.
'No trouble?' asked Mike.
'A bit of lip, delivered in music-hall brogue,' Bruce answered)
'but nothing serious.' He picked up the radio set.
'Driver.'
'Monsieur?'
'Do not forget my instructions.'
'I will not exceed forty kilometres the hour, and I shall at all times
be prepared for an emergency stop.'
'Good!' Bruce switched off the set and sat down on the sandbags between
Ruffy and Mike.
Well, he thought, here we go at last. Six hours run to Msapa
Junction. That should be easy. And then - God knows, God alone knows.
The tracks curved, and Bruce looked back to see the last white-washed
buildings of Elisabethville disappear among the trees.
They were out into the open savannah forest.
Behind them the black smoke from the loco rolled sideways into the
trees; beneath them the crossties clattered in strict rhythm, and ahead
the line ran arrow straight for miles, dwindling with perspective until
it merged into the olive-green mass of the forest.
Bruce lifted his eyes. Half the sky was clear and tropical blue, but in
the north it was bruised with cloud, and beneath the cloud grey rain
drifted down to meet the earth.
The sunlight through the rain spun a rainbow, and the cloud shadow moved
across the land as slowly and as darkly as a herd of grazing buffalo.
He loosened the chin strap of his helmet and laid his rifle on the roof
beside him.
'You'd like a beer, boss?'
