We'll be back by nightfall or tomorrow morning at the latest. They
should be safe enough. I doubt there is a big war party here, a few
strays perhaps, but the main force will be closer to the town.'
'I hope you're right.' 'So do I' said Bruce absently, his mind busy with
the problem of defending the bridge. 'We'll strip all the sand' bags off
the coaches and build an emplacement here in the middle of the roadway,
leave two of the battery-operated searchlights and a case of flares with
them, one of the Brens and a couple of cases of grenades. Food and water
for a week. No, they'll be all right.' The train was rolling down slowly
towards them - and a single arrow rose from the edge of the jungle.
Slowly it rose, curving in flight and falling towards the train,
dropping faster now, silently into the mass of men in the leading truck.
So Hendry had missed and the Baluba had come up stream through the thick
bush to launch his arrow in retaliation. Bruce sprang to the guard rail
and, using it as a rest for his rifle, opened up in short bursts,
searching the green mass and seeing it tremble with his bullets. Haig
was shooting also, hunting the area from which the arrow had come.
The train was up to them now and Bruce slung his rifle over his shoulder
and scrambled up the side of the truck.
He pushed his way to the radio set.
Driver, stop the covered coaches in the middle of the bridge,' he
snapped, and then he switched it off and looked for Ruffy.
'Sergeant Major, get all those sandbags off the roof into the roadway.'
While they worked, the gendarmes would be protected from further arrows
by the body of the train.
'Okay, boss.' va
'Kanaki.' Bruce picked his most reliable sergeant. 'I am leaving you
here with ten men to hold the bridge for us.
Take one of the Brens, and two of the lights.--' Quickly Bruce issued
his orders and then he had time to ask Andre: 'What happened to that
arrow? Was anyone hit?'
'No, missed by a few inches. Here it is.'
'That was a bit of luck.' Bruce took the arrow from Andre and inspected
it quickly. A light reed, crudely fletched with green leaves and with
the iron head bound into it with a strip of rawhide. It
looked fragile and ineffectual, but the barbs of the head were smeared
thickly with a dark paste that had dried like toffee.
'Pleasant,' murmured Bruce, and then he shuddered slightly. He could
imagine it embedded in his body with the poison purple-staining the
flesh beneath the skin. He had heard that it was not a comfortable
death, and the irontipped reed was suddenly malignant and repulsive.
He snapped it in half and threw it out over the side of the bridge
before he jumped down from the truck to supervise the building of the
guard post.
'Not enough sandbags, boss.'
'Take the mattresses off all the
bunks, Ruffy.' Bruce solved that quickly. The leather-covered coir
pallets would stop an arrow with ease.
Fifteen minutes later the post was completed, a shoulder-high ring of
