John Robb - I Shall Avenge!

Rex, peering through the ventilation grille, licked his dry lips with an equally dry tongue. He said to Pete: “It won’t be long now, bud.”

They heard the pad of sandalled feet in the corridor outside. They went past their own door. They stopped at the next cellar.

There was a faint scuffle of movement. Then the sound of hard shoes walking slowly on stone.

Pete joined Rex at the grille.

The mob outside seemed to have diminished since night. Probably many of the Arabs had retired exhausted after the long hours of triumph and hysteria. There seemed to be only a few hundred gathered outside the main gates of the barracks. And most of them were quiet, almost jaded, as if they had exhausted their capacity for emotion. The execution, it seemed, was not attracting much attention.

And it seemed also that it was to be a restricted affair. None of the mob was being allowed into the barracks. A dozen Touareg guards were standing there, keeping all potential spectators away.

Pete was about to comment on this when they saw the execution squad.

It consisted of eight men hostages. Precisely the same number that had shot Legionnaire Tovak. They shambled in a nervous and ungainly group towards the gates, shepherded by warriors. The Man With Asthma was at the back. He walked in a dazed way, as though in his sleep.

Then the door of their cellar was unlocked and pushed open. Annice Tovak stood in the entrance. Her face was pale. The normal richness of her lips had been compressed into a couple of horizontal lines.

She said: “You do not look so happy, my friends! You are suffering I think. That is good. I hope you are suffering as much as my Kriso suffered two days ago!”

They did not answer because they could not trust their voices.

She nodded to the guards, who gripped their arms and pushed them out of the cellar.

At first they blinked in the sudden sunlight as they crossed towards the barracks. A few Arabs spat upon them. Others jeered and cursed. But the same general apathy that they had noticed earlier, prevailed. The population had had a surfeit of excitement.

They passed through the gates.

Pete told himself: “This is a nightmare. It just can’t be true.”

And Rex thought: “I must have been a bad guy somewhere back to have deserved this…” The insolent and semi-barbaric Touareg warriors in place of the immaculate Legion sentries… A few Arabs of high degree walking the parade ground, which had been the domain of the Legion… it twisted and corrupted the imagination.

They walked over the parade ground that skirted the main buildings of the barracks. Then they were at the rifle range. At the place where executions were always held.

The preparations had been made most carefully.

The stake at which Tovak had stood was still there, its wood chipped by bullets. But another stake had been erected at its side. They were separated by less than four inches.

Annice Tovak came up to them. She was smiling. It was the evil smile.

She said softly, almost caressingly: “It has come, my friends! Is there anything I can say to make it easier for you? Any words of comfort I can offer?”

It was the mockery of a diseased and unbalanced mind. They ignored it so far as they could. But the gentle mockery continued: “Look at the big clock! Look at it even as my Kriso must have looked at it in his last moments. It says four minutes to eight. You have four minutes to live, for when it strikes I shall give the order to your executioners. Look at them! Look at the men you tried to save! They cannot kill you fast enough; Their one concern is for their own bloated lives.”

They looked. A Touareg was putting a single shot into each of eight aged muzzle-loading guns. He handed a loaded gun to each of the men. Behind the execution squad stood a dozen armed Touaregs there, no doubt, to quell any last moment revulsion or rebellion.

They noticed the Man With Asthma. His hand was trembling as though stricken with convulsion as he took his gun.

Pete murmured to Rex: “That lot’ll never hit us if they go on trying all day.”

But Annice overheard. She said: “That is not true. I have told them that they will be allowed three rounds in which to kill you. If they fail in that time, my undertaking to preserve their lives will be void. I think you will find that their aim is good!”

A Touareg handed her two pieces of black cloth. She took them, then she inspected them doubtfully.

“I had wondered,” she said, “whether to use these. Frankly, I would far rather see your eyes—see the horror in them the moment before you die. But I am conscientious. I was trained to be thus. I want to bring your execution into line as far as possible with that of my husband. I want as many details as possible to be the same. So you will be blindfold.”

She gave an order and they were pushed to the stakes. They did not resist. There would have been no point in doing so. Their hands and feet were lashed to the wood. She walked behind them. First she wrapped a piece of black cloth over Pete’s eyes, making a viciously tight knot. Rex was next. They heard her say: “Two minutes to eight. You have that time to live. In another minute you shall hear me giving the orders to your bloated executioners…”

Colonel Jeux felt longingly at the flask in his hip pocket. It was half-full—or half-empty, depending on one’s point of view—with brandy. Not a top-level brandy. Not a Dubouche or even a Courvausiare . Such would be spoiled in a flask. But, nonetheless, it was a solidly stimulating drink. And he wanted some of it badly. His head felt like an inflated pumpkin. But he resisted the temptation. Only two more minutes and he would have other things to think about.

If he could think…

That was the danger. What if, even in this terrible moment, his brain refused to function?

It was a ghastly thought. Perhaps just one pull would help… Mais non . He had promised Monclaire. He would keep that promise.

But that infernal ticking was driving him mad. It ate into the brain. He had never realised how much noise the clock at Sadazi made. No one could possibly realise it, unless they spent hours closeted inside the clock tower with fifty legionnaires.

Still, Jeux thought, it must be just as bad for his men. They all looked tense after the long spell of waiting.

They were specially selected, those fifty legionnaires. Not a freshly trained recruit among them. Each was battle hardened, each a tested veteran. And each of them looked it, as they crouched around gripping their specially issued Piet guns.

It had, Jeux conceded, been a good idea of Monclaire’s. A stroke of genius, in fact. He had realised that the Arabs would not be able to check upon whether the whole of the garrison left Sadazi. So why not leave a small, highly efficient group behind? And conceal them until the moment when there was the best chance of rescuing both the hostages and the two legionnaires. The clock tower was the best place to hide. The moment before the hideous execution was best in which to strike. And, strangely enough, Monclaire had suggested that he, Jeux, was the best man to lead the operation. Why? Because it would be so easy to let the Arabs and that woman believe that he was drunk and helpless in the first-aid wagon.

It had not been very flattering, of course. But Jeux was dispassionate enough to know that he had not done much recently to justify flattery.

It was one minute to eight. He could see that by the inside reflection of the clock hands. He had been looking vertically upwards almost every other second for the last ten minutes. Thank heaven it was not over. The time had come.

Jeux stood up. He drew out his pistol. The legionnaires saw him do it. They did not need any further orders. They cocked the pins of their Piets. They sucked their lips. Those tough, villainous looking fighting men were already savouring the delights of battle. Jeux absorbed some of their confidence.