Baird surveyed the scene through a powerful pair of glasses. Up to now he had counted three guards, and was trying to locate the other two. Two of the guards were on the bridge house of the dipper dredge.
One of them had an automatic rifle under his arm; the other appeared to have only a pistol at his hip. The third guard walked slowly up and down on the narrow deck of the hydraulic dredge. He was armed with an automatic rifle and a .45 Smith and Wesson.
Baird shifted his glasses to a building made of logs and thatched with saw-grass that stood in a clearing away from the bank. He spotted another guard sitting in the shade, astride a Browning machine-gun, covering the road that led out of the swamp.
The machine-gun startled Baird. Noddy hadn’t said anything about a machine-gun.
‘Take a look at that guy in front of the hut,’ he said in a low voice to Rico. ‘He’s the one I’ve got to take care of.’
Rico raised his glasses and nearly dropped them when he saw the Browning.
‘He goes first,’ Baird went on. ‘There should be one more guard, but I can’t spot him. What’s the time?’
‘Six minutes to twelve,’ Rico said, through dry lips.
Baird grunted. He began to search the bush with his glasses, but he couldn’t spot the fifth guard.
‘Maybe he’s in the hut or somewhere with the dogs,’ he said, slipping the glasses into their case. He raised the Winchester and squinted through the telescopic sight. ‘I wish I’d had a little more practice with this gun,’ he muttered under his breath. He cradled the barrel in a fork of a branch. After shifting the gun a little he got the guard’s head in the exact centre of the cross-piece in the sight. He grunted, satisfied, and lowered the gun. ‘Seen Noddy?’
‘He’s by the truck with the red disc on it,’ Rico said, looking through his glasses. ‘That must be Hater near him.’
Baird took his glasses from the case and focused them on the truck. He spotted Noddy, standing by the truck, a cigarette in his mouth. His battered panama hat shielded his face, but Baird recognised him by his pigeon chest and tall, stooping figure.
Hater was shovelling liquid mud off the steam shovel into the truck. He was standing up to his knees in the heavy wet muck, and Baird recognised him immediately by his balding head and beetling eyebrows. He was the only convict in the gang who was bareheaded. He worked slowly and listlessly, stripped to the waist, his emaciated body burned brown by the sun.
‘That’s Hater,’ Baird said, nodding. ‘You’d bet er get down now and take up your position. Lob the first bomb on to the deck of the big dredge. Make sure every bomb you throw falls on something hard.
They won’t go off if they hit mud.’
Rico muttered something. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them smart. He was trembling so badly he was afraid to let go of the branch he was clinging to.
‘Make a job of it,’ Baird went on, watching him. ‘If you throw them high in the air, they won’t spot where they’re coming from.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Get going. We’ve got half a minute to twelve.’
Rico began to climb down the tree. His breath was laboured, and once or twice he had to stop while he tried to control his trembling. Baird watched him, his face set.
‘Get on with it!’ he snarled. ‘What are you scared about? Nothing’s going to happen to you.’
Rico finally reached the ground. He leaned against the tree trunk, his legs buckling under him, then he made an effort, and began to move forward, completely screened by the tall saw-grass.
From his perch Baird could watch his progress through the bush, but the guard on the bridge of the dredge was not in a high enough position to see him. From time to time Rico stopped and looked up at Baird to get his direction. Baird waved him on, and he turned and continued through the saw-grass, stumbling over the swampy ground until he was within thirty yards of the big dredge. Baird signalled him to slow down. He focused his glasses on Rico’s face.
‘The little rat’s nearly dead with fright,’ he mut ered to himself. ‘If he fal s down on this, we’re all sunk.’
Rico again looked over his shoulder. Baird made a signal telling him to go on more slowly still.
Another ten yards brought Rico to the edge of the saw-grass. He could see the bridge of the dredge now, and he hurriedly ducked back, dropping on one knee.
He and Baird had rehearsed what he had to do again and again during the morning. He had to remain just out of sight until Baird gave him the signal to throw the bombs. He opened the canvas sack and took out one of the bombs. It immediately became slippery in his sweating hands and he put it back and wiped his hands on his handkerchief.
He looked up at Baird. He had to stare for some seconds before he could see him. Baird was aiming the Winchester now, covering the guard at the machine-gun.
Baird felt completely impersonal as he squinted through the telescopic sights at the guard. The big, fat, red-faced man he could see in the sights was no more human to him than the close-up of a movie star on a cinema screen. Baird thumbed back the bolt, steadied the rifle and drew in a long, slow breath. The sights of the rifle were as if fixed to the guard’s head. It wasn’t a difficult shot: fifty yards, probably a little more, but everything depended on it. If he missed, the cat would be out of the bag, and the whole set-up ruined. His finger began to squeeze the trigger. The guard sat motionless. He seemed half asleep.
His hands rested on his knees, his head was lowered. Slowly and steadily Baird continued to put pressure on the trigger: then suddenly the gun went off: making a sharp plopping sound which was drowned by the steady thump-thump-thump of the diesel engine.
The guard slumped forward very slowly over the machine-gun, as if he had fallen asleep. His hat fell off and rolled away in the dust. His head rested on the barrel of the gun, and blood ran from his right ear in a quick, steady stream on to his trouser cuff and shoe.
Baird looked quickly at the dredge. Neither of the guards was looking towards the hut; neither of them appeared to have noticed that anything had happened.
Baird signalled to Rico. He watched Rico take a bomb from the sack. Rico seemed to be having difficulty in
