They will, Mallory assured him.Just as soon as we fire and they find out where we are. Gawd help us, Miller muttered.Fragmentation bombs, you said He lapsed into gloomy silence. A six-inch mortar, almost certainly using fragmentation bombs-you use a brush and shovel for clearing up afterwards. Guaranteed to turn the knees to jelly, especially after nightfall-but it's stifi the other one you have to watch. Almost three seconds had passed before the handful of those who still lived-about a quarter of the way in from either end of the line where converging streams of fire had not yet met-realised what was happening and flung themselves desperately to the ground in search of the cover that didn't exist.Īlso a mortar, Mallory explained.A five-barrelled job, and very nasty. Only a couple stood still where they had been hit, vacant surprise mirrored in their lifeless faces, then slipped down tiredly to the stony ground at their feet. Schmeissers-it was no war, as he had said, but sheer, pitiful massacre, with the defenceless figures on the slope below, figures still stunned and uncomprehending, jerking, spinning round and collapsing like marionettes in the hands of a mad puppeteer, some to lie where they fell, others to roll down the steep slope, legs and arms flailing in the grotesque disjointedness of death. With four machine-guns in their hands-two Brens and two 9 mm. His last words were caught up and drowned in the tearing, rapid-fire crash of the automatic carbines. The quiet voice was almost a prayer.That's all I ask. That inhuman bastard that sent these poor devils up that hill, Mallory said quietly.Make a wonderful pietare seen over the sights of your rifle, wouldn't he? Miller looked round at him, eyes cold and still and empty of all recognition, then he blinked several times and grinned, a cut and bruised hand automatically reaching for his cigarettes. I have been thinking, and it can be nothing else. Won't try again, huh? Miller was already sliding his gun around the rock in front of him when Mallory caught his arm and pulled him back. But what in the universe that other weird looking contraption can be. He squinted again at the guns, forehead lined in puzzlement.That first one's a mortar, I reckon. We leave them be?Īh, well, mebbe I was mistaken, Miller said magnanimously. He risked a quick peep round one of the boulders, eased himself back again.Eight, mebbe ten of them still down there, boss, he reported.The poor bastards are like ostriches-trying to take cover behind stones the size of an orange. He shook out his pack of cigarettes.Have one? Jus' daydreamin', boss he said easily.Jus' daydreamin'. He broke off suddenly, flattened himself in reflex instinct as a burst of machine-gun bullets struck the steep-walled rock above their beads and whined up the gorge in vicious ricochet.Ībruptly Miller's smile vanished and he nodded. The thought of any more slaughter made him feel almost physically sick.They won't try again. We leave them be Mallory echoed emphaticaliy. Mallory stared at him, slowly released his grip on the glasses, nodded several times in succession.
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