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.He kept his head down and heard the truck coming up as Reynolds drove well into his own lane.The truck was coming up with a roar.He felt the transporter lift slightly as they started going uphill.Now! He flattened the canvas ridge with the gun muzzle and his heart sank - the truck was much farther past than he had expected, the cab already beyond Reynolds, the covered side spread out in front of him.Pressing the trigger he swivelled the gun methodically low down along the canvas wall, just above the wooden side, sweeping the muzzle in slow arcs.Empty! He was ramming in a fresh magazine when Jacques called out: a German soldier peered round the end of the truck, machine-pistol aimed.Barnes fired, the man fell into the road as Barnes swivelled the muzzle back again, his finger pressing steadily on the trigger, a stream of bullets ripping and tearing through the canvas along one continuous strip.At that moment Reynolds took a hand.The road was climbing an embankment up to a bridge and the driver gave the pre-arranged signal, two long blasts on his own horn.Barnes shouted to Jacques to hold on tight and braced himself for the impact as the transporter began to speed up and edge across the road, moving ahead of the truck as it shifted its course to hit the truck broadside on.They were close to the summit when the German driver lost his nerve, swerving away when the colossus was only inches from him.Lifting his head Barnes saw the truck spin over sideways, falling from view.As they went over the bridge he heard a muffled thump, a boom, and then flames flared in the night behind them.The petrol tank had gone.The next thing he heard was a terrifying shriek of brakes, the transporter's brakes.The view from the cab was frightening.Reynolds had heard the stutter of Barnes' gun, had concentrated half his attention on that final manoeuvre which had destroyed the truck, then he was sweeping over the bridge at high speed.The road was going down now and he saw what faced him in a flash.Head-, lights blazed on a stone wall dead ahead, a right-hand turn at the bottom.Then the headlights were swinging wildly as he desperately tried to negotiate the unexpected hazard, braking, turning, going straight through the wall with a tremendous smash, the immense weight of the vehicle piercing the wall like butter.The whole transporter shuddered, knocking aside a small tree, skidded across the garden, then it stopped.Barnes lay still for a moment, collecting himself, still clutching the machine-pistol.He had been warned by the shriek of brakes and he had been saved by the pillow of spare canvas between himself and the rear of the cab, and his own body had saved Jacques when the lad was thrown against him.They got up cautiously, like men expecting a limb to fall off, and Colburn was waiting for them at the foot of the open cab door, his pistol under his arm, blood oozing from a cut on his forehead and gash on the back of his left hand.He said they were little more than scratches.'Is Reynolds all right?' asked Barnes.'Reynolds is all right,' said Reynolds from the cab.'I don't know why, but he's all right.Probably only because he was inside this brute - we went through that wall like going through paper.I'm sorry, Sergeant,' he added, 'but I was concentrating on the truck and when we got over the bridge the wall was on top of me.And by the way, this job,' he banged the wheel, 'is a write-off.So it's back to Bert now.''You did damned well.No one could have survived in that.truck - I riddled it before you bounced it over the edge and then the petrol went up - but I'll go back and make sure in a minute.It's a good job you braked when you did - we wouldn't have gone through that like paper.'He pointed to the house.Barely six feet beyond where the transporter had pulled up stood an ancient three-storey mansion.All the windows were broken, a wall creeper almost covered the front door, and the garden in which the transporter rested was knee-deep in weeds [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]