Брайан Гарфилд - The Last Bridge

The stovepipe projected up through a square of boards. Khang said, “I guess it’s covered with tarpaper and nailed down.”

Hooker held the lower end of the pipe steady. The small yellow flame flickered, turning bluish. Khang worked with a rusty screwdriver, trying to pry the stovepipe out. Saville braced his weight. Presently Khang uttered a sigh and dropped his hands. “Arms get damn tired up there.” After a moment he lifted them again. Tyreen glanced down, and at that moment the lighter went out. “Just as well. It was getting too damned hot to hold.” He had only a few matches left. “Hurry up.”

“Take it easy, Colonel.” There was a metallic crackle, the flue bending back. Everyone froze. Tyreen held his breath and listened.

Nothing stirred. After a long interval, one of the sentries laughed in the street. “All right,” Tyreen said, and lighted a fresh match. “I’ve only got three of these left.”

“I’ve got some,” Saville said. “Be careful, Sergeant.”

“What in hell you think I’m doing?”

Tyreen measured time by the matches he burned. He reached into Saville’s pocket for a matchbook. The floor was littered with burnt matches. Khang said, “God, my arms are tired. I think it’s about ready to bust loose. Somebody catch the thing if I drop it, for God’s sake.”

Saville stood like a heavy machine, supporting Khang’s legs. Hooker waited below the stove, his head far back and his mouth hanging open. Inscrutably patient, Saville stood unmoving, holding up Khang’s weight at a difficult angle.

“I think my arms are falling off,” Khang said.

“Relax a minute, then,” Saville said.

“No — it’s about to come loose. I can feel it.”

Another match. Sulphur was a stink in the air. Tyreen’s lips pulled away from his teeth as though tugged by strings. He sweated and felt dizzy. Saville bulked above him — enormous, silent, unmovable, the great fists untiring. Tyreen heard the soft klink of metal on metal, metal on wood, the creak of nails working loose. There was faint laughter, an echo from the street. “You’d think they’d know each other’s jokes by now,” Saville said. Tyreen’s chest moved shallowly, the cautious breathing of fear.

Khang’s voice came quick and low: “Here it comes.” Tyreen’s cheeks sucked in.

One stretched squeak, and all motion stopped. The soldiers outside still laughed. Khang straightened his back, pulling the chimney and boards toward him in a piece. The stovepipe bent slowly. It began to come apart in the middle. Khang said, “It’s jointed there. Let it come loose. Hooker, hold that stove steady. You want the puking thing to fall over?”

“Shut up.” Hooker braced his arms against the stove. His pendulous mouth hung away from his teeth. In the matchlight, a tide of color turned his cheeks ruddy. The thick muscles of his arms bunched against the sleeves. With a scrape, the top half of the pipe lifted away and Khang stood like a diver ready to plunge down, holding a two-foot square of wood pierced by a black tube of metal.

“Coming down.”

Tyreen lifted a match overhead. The chimney passed down from Khang’s hands to Saville’s to Tyreen’s. The match went out. He laid the stovepipe down. “Don’t step on this thing. Theodore, can you fit through up there?”

“Not without making a racket.”

“Then wait here with Eddie. Cover us from the door.”

Sergeant Khang said, “I’m up here already. I may as well go on up. Somebody hand me my gun.”

“No guns,” said Tyreen. “Go on up.”

“No guns, Colonel?”

Saville climbed down. “You heard him. Quit wasting time.”

Khang grabbed the edges of the hole with his hands. “I hope this old roof holds our weight.” He kicked himself away from the truck. For a moment his legs dangled. Then they pulled up out of sight, and in a moment his face appeared. “Looks safe enough. I can’t see anybody. There’s a parapet, kind of, around the edge. Come on up.”

Tyreen climbed onto the truck. He felt Saville’s arms lifting him up. The square hole splashed sky light in his face. He crawled onto the roof, out of breath, and rolled away from the hole. The roof creaked. Hooker came up through the hole, dragging his gun and a harness full of grenades. Tyreen made motions violently. With a sour face Hooker took the weaponry off and laid it aside. Tyreen moved forward toward the edge of the roof, crawling on his belly. A mountain lifted behind them, but there was no sign of life on it. The gasoline storage tanks still burned on the farther hillside. A thick black roll of smoke hung over the fires. Tyreen could smell it. He reached the edge and snagged himself forward to look down.

The jeep stood idle; the machine gun lay on its squat tripod. One man sat with his legs spread on either side of the gun, his arms cradled across the handle, chin dropped on his arms. Another sat with his back to the side of the jeep, cupping his hands around a fresh cigarette, lighting it. The match flipped from his fingers and sizzled in a puddle. The one who liked to laugh leaned hipshot on one of the wooden sawhorses thrown across the street. The man at the gun lifted his head and spoke a few words. His companion laughed coarsely, almost falsely.

Khang came up and lay belly-flat by him. Tyreen glanced up. The gray surface of the clouds was pearled. Here and there the sun shone through. It seemed a little warmer than it had been. Hooker crawled up, his face bloodless, his brooding gaze dropping to fix itself on the machine gun and the soldiers. Hooker glanced at Khang, and his expression was static. A car rattled along a street nearby. Tyreen whispered, “One thing wrong. There were four men when they set up the roadblock. Where’s that fourth man?”

“Walking a beat,” said Hooker. “Hear him?”

“No.”

“He’s down the far end of the block. Coming back this way.”

“All right,” said Tyreen. “Wait for him to turn the corner up at that end. Jump him when he’s out of sight of the others. And Hooker — no noise. Understand?”

Hooker’s eyes were devoid of everything but consciousness. He lifted the knife from his boot. Tyreen said, “Live soldiers are more use to me than dead heroes, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hooker turned away and crawled toward the side of the building. Tyreen watched him go over the edge onto the roof of the neighboring building. When Hooker was out of view, Tyreen heard the soft thud of boots coming back up the street, under the wall. The sentry walked on slowly toward the far corner where Hooker waited. Tyreen caught Khang’s sullen glance and said, “Wait here.” He went off, trailing Hooker across the rooftops, moving with silent speed. Looking back, he saw Khang’s round head turning steadily to watch him. Khang was showing his teeth. Tyreen went over the edge onto the lower roof and saw Hooker at the end of it; Hooker’s hard, bright eye flickered, and then he swung around, swinging one leg over the wall. He looked back again, and Tyreen nodded.

Fine short wrinkles converged around Tyreen’s tired eyes. Hooker was bent over, a dozen feet ahead of him, looking down into the alley. Cold air clung to the rooftops. Looking at Hooker’s wide flat back, Tyreen could feel the strain in Hooker, temper crowding self-control. Hooker tensed, crouching poised. The knife lifted and glinted dull reflection against Tyreen’s eyes. Hooker’s fist clenched at the rim of the roof and he bent, curved his knife-arm, and dropped soundlessly from sight.

Tyreen dug his feet in, lifting his knife. He moved rapidly to the edge and looked down.

Ten feet below, Hooker stood with feet spread, body bent in an attitude of strained anticipation. Before him a stirring shadow on the ground was the soldier, knocked flat by the force of Hooker’s jump. Hooker held his knife up. The blade was still clean. “Damned fool,” Tyreen murmured. He saw the soldier’s arm move. He lifted his own knife by the point and flung it down with enough force to sink it hilt-deep in the soldier’s back.