gauge is dropping swiftly.'
'Use all you can to take us down the hill. It is imperative that we pass
the level crossing before we halt. it is absolutely imperative - if we
stop this side of the level crossing they will be able to reach us with
their lorries.'.
'I will try, Captain.' They rocketed down the hills but as soon as they
reached the level ground their speed began to fall off. Peering through
the dwindling clouds of steam Bruce saw the pale brown ribbon
of road ahead of them, and they were still travelling at a healthy
thirty miles an hour as they passed it. When finally the train trickled
to a standstill Bruce estimated that they were three or four miles
beyond the level crossing, safely walled in by the forest and hidden
from the road by three bends.
'I doubt they'll find us here, but if they do they'll have to come down
the line from the level crossing to get at us.
We'll go back a mile and lay an ambush in the forest on each side
of the line,' said Bruce.
'Those Arabs won't be following us, boss. They've got themselves women
and a whole barful of liquor. Be two or three days before old
General Moses can sober them up enough to move them on.'
'You're probably right, Ruffy. But we'll take no chances.
Get that ambush laid and then we'll try and think up some idea for
getting home.' Suddenly a thought occurred to him: Martin Boussier had
the diamonds with him. They would not be too pleased about that in
Elisabethville.
Almost immediately Bruce was disgusted with himself.
The diamonds were by far the least important thing that they had left
behind in Port Reprieve.
Andre de Surrier held his steel helmet against his chest the way a man
holds his hat at a funeral, the wind blew cool and caressing through his
dark sweat-damp hair. His hearing was dulled by the strike
of the shell that had cut the truck loose from the rear of the train, he
could hear one of the children crying and the crooning, gentling voice
of its mother. He stared back up the railway line at the train, saw the
great bulk of Ruffy beside Bruce Curry on the roof of the second coach.
'They can't help us now.' Boussier spoke softly. 'There's nothing they
can do.' He lifted his hand stiffly in almost a military salute and then
dropped it to his side. 'Be brave, ma cheri,' he said to his
wife. 'Please be brave,' and she clung to him.
Andre let the helmet drop from his hands. It clanged on to the metal
floor of the truck. He wiped the sweat from his face with nervous
fluttering hands and then turned slowly to look down at the
village.
'I don't want to die,' he whispered. 'Not like this, not now, please not
now.' One of his gendarmes laughed, a sound without mirth, and stepped
across to the Bren. He pushed Andre away from it and started firing at
the tiny running figures of the men in the station yard.
'No,' shrilled Andre. Don't do that, no, don't antagonize them.
They'll kill us if you do that-'
