John Robb - Zone Zero

Vogel was showing unsuspected theatrical gifts. He was shaking with anger when he finished. The two guards looked doubtful. They glanced towards the bunk room where the legionnaires had moved nearer the door, despite the pistols. They were straining with apparent curiosity.

It was then that a slight commotion occurred in the-bunk room.

It was centred around Legionnaire Batini, an Italian who possessed a luxurious black beard.

Batini was gesticulating lavishly as he poured forth a torrent of garbled explanation.

“I had the duty to do last night,” he said. “Thus I put them behind… they are better behind for they are smart are they not? They will be behind the stove now where I put them when I cleaned the cook house… why was I not asked? Am I a fool? Am I not right…”

He was interrupted by a crash of carefully simulated anger from his comrades. Then D’Aran called out: “You’ll find the pitchers behind the oil stove. It seems Batini put them there when he was cleaning the place.”

Keith laughed. Then turning to the couple of guards he said: “I think we’re all too thirsty to wait for coffee.”

He went to the stove and pulled out the pitchers.

“They’re here all right,” he said clearly. “But it’s a damned awful place to put them. You’d think they’d been hidden…”

Vogel took one from him. Together they carried the water into the bunk room. They deposited the pitchers a few feet from the door where three guards stood. The two others had departed to look for the missing Sarle.

Keith watched while the legionnaires drank.

Then casually, Vogel said: “We must eat, too. I’ll get the biscuits.” He moved out of the room.

Probably because their numbers had been reduced, the guards hesitated about having him followed. It was a fatal hesitation.

Immediately Vogel was beyond the threshold he stopped. He swivelled on his heel. He re-entered the room holding his Luger.

There did not seem to be any interval between his reappearance and a shattering crash of fire from several pistols.

Vogel, being a Dutchman, was a realist. By the same token he was a brave man. Therefore he almost certainly knew that he would die. Tactically, his position was quite impossible.

The three guards were standing against the wall—two on the left side of the door, the other on the right.

The first shot came from Vogel. He aimed at the single man at his right side. The heavy slug lifted off the top of his skull as if it was on a hinge.

But he had not time to turn completely round to face the others. Nor had the legionnaires time to rush to his assistance. Four bullets entered Vogel’s large body before the garrison, headed by Keith, closed with the men who had fired them.

But some men do not easily say farewell to life. Some men die hard. Vogel was one of them.

A hot slug had passed at an oblique angle through his chest, carrying fragments of the second and third ribs with it when it dropped on the floor behind him.

And—as a strange quirk—the ankle of his left foot was smashed.

But he reeled against the door. He leaned his great weight against it so that it slammed shut. He was on his knees when he groped feebly for the heavy bolt. His last action was to push it into the socket,

Then, shattered face against the woodwork, he died.

The legionnaires…

It had been easier for them. Much easier than they had expected. The two remaining guards had had no chance to confront them after shooting Vogel. They crashed to the floor under a mass of cursing, clawing, kicking men.

Keith got one of the pistols after a quick wrench at a wrist. But he was knocked down by the impetus of the legionnaires behind him. He found himself kneeling on top of the guard, who was already semi-conscious as wild boots thudded against his cropped skull. One kick, intended for the guard, sent a rasp of pain up Keith’s thigh. He wanted desperately to get out of that avenging mass, but he could not.

But presently D’Aran’s voice cut through the confusion.

“ Gare a vousl ”

The command was theoretically ludicrous at such a time. But any such theory discounted the effect of prolonged military training under inflexible discipline.

The legionnaires drew away from the two guards—both now disarmed and severely injured. They came to an approximate position of attention, all dishevelled and breathing heavily.

D’Aran had gained the other gun. He gestured with it ferociously.

“ Sacre ! Must you behave like a mob? Our real work has scarcely begun. Have you forgotten the horses?”

Then he turned and ran to the window at the far end of the room, Keith at his side.

It was a narrow window and (as was the habit in Legion forts) protected by widely spaced iron bars. They stood on a bunk to peer through.

The horses were there. Thirteen of them, plus the mules. They were tethered to individual wood stakes which had been driven into the ground. They were less than fifteen yards away. Slightly beyond and to the left were the tents where Gallast’s men slept.

D’Aran checked the ejection action of his pistol. Then he turned a tense face to Keith.

“I feel more sympathy for the horses than I do for the two-legged swine,” he panted. “But this has got to be done… don’t miss…”

They aimed carefully through the bars. And a second afterwards the air was again filled by the harsh explosions of Luger cartridges. It was a cruel, satanic spectacle.

The first four slugs were well directed. Each hit an animal in the upper part of the head. They were dead before they fell sideways to the ground. But by this time the others had taken panic. They reared on their hind legs as though performing in a circus ring and whinnied like sobbing children.

An expert marksman using a rifle under ideal shooting conditions might have been able to dispose of them humanely. But it was beyond the powers of two men, holding unfamiliar pistols, and aiming between iron bars. Several shots missed completely. Most of the others hit where they would kill but slowly. These fatally wounded horses lay beside the more fortunate dead threshing their hooves.

But two of them escaped entirely.

Both were powerful mares which were tethered further away than the others. As they reared they dragged the stakes out of the baked ground.

Then they bucked wildly for a moment before stampeding towards the tents.

Keith managed to aim a shot at one of them, but it churned up the sand far ahead. Then they had passed the tents and were out of sight, although the thudding of their hooves as they circled the compound could still be heard.

D’Aran said: “Wait! They may be back.” They waited for a full minute. But suddenly the thudding ceased and there was a distant cry of voices.

Keith said: “They’ve been caught… those swine have still got two horses.”

“Two horses won’t be much use to them, man ami ,” D’Aran said.

Keith gestured towards the mules.

“Have they got to go?”

“ Oui … I fear it must be so.”

In a sense the killing of the mules was more unpleasant than that of the horses. It was so easy. They were such extraordinarily philosophical creatures.

During the entire carnage they had remained quite still, there heads together like old men in conference. They even died with decorum. And Keith and D’Aran were able to make the end quick.

It had seemed longer, much longer, but they had been at the window less than two minutes when they turned from it to survey the room.

D’Aran breathed relief. “ Bon … they are doing well.”

The legionnaires were indeed doing well. After D’Aran’s sharp reprimand they had remembered and acted according to the carefully prepared plan.