Читать книгу Fort in the Jungle - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 6

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It was their leader, the suave, cynical Paladino, a baffling enigmatical man, who made the suggestion, as they sat in a circle about the glowing embers of the fire, waiting for death, matter-of-fact, business-like and unperturbed, each man bon camarade and bon légionnaire.

Although literally a case of eat and drink, for to-morrow we die, they maintained, from force of habit, all correct military procedure, and a sentry paced the cat-walk, the long narrow firing-platform that ran round the inside of the fort four feet below the top of the wall.

“Hell!” yawned Paladino lazily, and stretched himself. “Soon be there, too.”

“Wonder whether le bon Dieu tries us one by one, or in a bunch,” he added, as he lay back against a box of ammunition, settled himself comfortably and lit a cigarette.

“What, us? Us old légionnaires? Oh, one by one, of course,” asserted Lemoine, “and in camera, too.”

“In camera, behind closed doors? Oh, too bad,” grinned Borodoff. “We would have liked to hear the worst about one another.”

“True,” agreed Paladino.

“Well, why not have it now?” he added.

“Afraid we haven’t—er—quite enough time,” smiled old Bethune. “My own sins alone would take ...”

“Of course they would, mon vieux,” agreed Paladino. “Take a month at least. I wasn’t so optimistic as to imagine that we were going to have time to hear it all. Not even just yours. What I suggested was ‘the worst’. Let’s each confess our worst, blackest, beastliest deed, fully and faithfully, truly and honestly.”

“Yes,” agreed Lemoine. “And no boasting. Let’s form a Dirty Dogs’ Club and see who, on his own confession, is the dirtiest dog. He shall be proclaimed President. First and last President of the most short-lived club on earth.”

Paladino rose to his feet.

“Bon! I declare the Club to be about to be. We are the original and only candidates for membership. I am the founder. Our friends the Black Flags will be the un-founders. Let none of your confessions be unfounded though.... You begin, Nul de Nullepart.”

Le Légionnaire Nul de Nullepart began, and others followed his excellent and stimulating lead ...

Suddenly a Snider boomed, and Schenko, looking out through a creneau, staggered back and fell from the cat-walk down into the enceinte.

“Aux armes!” bawled Paladino, as every man, grabbing his rifle, sprang to meet the rush of savages that surged over all four walls, like a wave.

The struggle that followed was long and desperate, ending in a wild mêlée in which single légionnaires with whirling rifle-butts or darting bayonets fought desperately, each against a dozen; dying, man by man, until but one of them was left alive. He, clubbed from behind, had been knocked from the cat-walk down into the enceinte, and lay partly buried, and almost concealed, beneath the half-naked corpses of fallen dacoits, brown bodies partly clad in bright panaungs.