waved.
'Au revoir, Doctor Michael.'
'So long, Mike.' Bruce watched him in the rear-view mirror, tall in his
ill-fitting cassock, something proud and worthwhile in his stance. He
waved once more and then turned and hurried back into the hospital.
Neither of them spoke until they had almost reached the main road.
Shermaine nestled softly against Bruce, smiling to herself, looking
ahead down the tree-lined passage of the road.
'He's a good man, Bruce.'
'Light me a cigarette, please, Shermaine.' He didn't want to talk about
it. It was one of those things that can only be made grubby by words.
Slowing for the intersection, Bruce dropped her into second gear,
automatically glancing to his left to make sure the main road was clear
before turning into it.
'Oh my God!' he gasped.
'What is it, Bruce?' Shermaine looked up with alarm from the cigarette
she was lighting.
'Look! ' A hundred yards up the road, parked close to the edge of the
forest, was a convoy of six large vehicles. The first five were heavy
canvas-canopied lorries painted dull military olive, the sixth was a
gasoline tanker in bright yellow and red with the Shell Company insignia
on the barrel-shaped body. Hitched behind the leading lorry
was a squat, rubbertyred 25-pounder anti-tank gun with its long barrel
pointed jauntily skywards. Round the vehicles, dressed in an assortment
of uniforms and different styled helmets, were at least sixty men. They
were all armed, some with automatic weapons and others with obsolete
bolt-action rifles. Most of them were urinating carelessly into the
grass that lined the road, while the others were standing in small
groups smoking and talking.
'General Moses!' said Shermaine, her voice small with the shock.
'Get down,' ordered Bruce and with his free hand thrust her on to the
floor. He rammed the accelerator flat and the Ford roared out into the
main road, swerving violently, the back end floating free in the loose
dust as he held the wheel over. Correcting the skid, meeting it and
straightening out, Bruce glanced at the rear-view mirror. Behind
them the men had dissolved into a confused pattern of movement; he heard
their shouts high and thin above the racing engine of the Ford.
Bruce looked ahead; it was another hundred yards to the bend in the road
that would hide them and take them down to the causeway across the
swamp.
Shermaine was on her knees pulling herself up to look over the back of
the seat.
'Keep on the floor, damn you!' shouted Bruce and pushed her head down
roughly.
As he spoke the roadside next to them erupted in a rapid series of
leaping dust fountains and he heard the high hysterical beat of
machine-gun fire.
The bend in the road rushed towards them, just a few more seconds.
Then with a succession of jarring crashes that shook the whole body of
