- nsps bullshit
|
from first
to last he never once confided in her; and he never once accepted
as a fact one single scrap of information from her except such
as she revealed in her efforts to win the whip hand over him.
so far, she seemed the only really capable agent dorje had. the
others, the moment danger showed itself, seemed to run around
like ducks with their heads cut off. |
| but all conspiracies are
like that; there are never more than half a dozen, if as many,
dependable desperadoes--all the others merely follow those if
they succeed--desert them if they fail.
for the moment baltis, who was a genuine desperado, had chullunder
ghose to deal with; and he was as full of exasperation as a boiling
kettle, having bertolini on his hands and being anxious to get away
before bertolini could learn what a trap he was in. the chauffeur
was a thoroughly reliable old-timer of mcgowan's, stupid enough
to take no interest in anything but food and wages, clever enough
to seem more stupid than he was in order to avoid mistakes; so
there was no anxiety on his score. but there was an awful risk
that some more of dorje's men might appear at any moment and give
the game away. it is not likely, either, that she had forgotten bertolini's
comments on her own shortcomings and she probably understood she was
in danger from him. |
| but she could not resist her natural impulse
to annoy the babu and, if possible, to make his blood run cold
with forebodng. but then
the car moved off and i was left standing, wondering what new
dilemma was in store for our ingenious babu. i wished i had kept
baltis with us. if she had
happened to get killed, we could have spared her, it seemed to me.
i had already forgotten i felt sorry for her. if a less efficient and alert man
than lieutenant allison had been in command of that motor-lorry
with its searchlight and squad of infantry, that night would
probably have been our last on earth. |
| however, i must explain
what had happened.
after listening to learn what line chullunder ghose would take
with bertolini, and having assured himself that copper-belly and
his gang were not being troublesome, grim left the ante-chamber
and hurried for a conference with mcgowan at the pyramid entrance.
there he yielded to mcgowan's protest that it was unsafe to neglect
those visitors who had fled when honey foxman was shot in the back. |
|
they agreed to signal for the motor-lorry, and to do that mcgowan
had had to make a circuit of the pyramid, which takes time.
he did not dare to signal from the entrance, because of the risk
of being seen by dorje's men, and there was the added difficulty
that he did not know exactly where the lorry was in hiding. from the summit he had only dared to make
three or four quick flashes, but he had been answered instantly,
and by the time he had got to the foot of the pyramid lieutenant
allison and the lorry were almost within hailing distance. however,
he did not dare to hail them; dorje's men might be lurking anywhere
in the shadows.
he took the lesser risk of walking out to meet the lorry, getting
in its way and hoping rather than expecting not to be shot by some
keen-eyed riflemen. |
| so mcgowan
got into the lorry, and from that moment there began to be action
that would have satisfied even old-time movie patrons.
i am not quite sure that mcgowan had not lost patience with grim's
peculiar tactics, although he never dropped a hint of it, that i
heard. at any rate, with or without grim's concurrence, he had
decided on a clean-up; and one of the most marvellous things i
have ever seen was the instantaneous, mechanically perfect response
of the cordon of troops from the moment the lorry went into action. |
|
someone--i have no idea who--not only had trusted mcgowan implicitly,
but had imposed exact cooperation in a plan that must have been
decided on, in almost no time at all, at a conference during the
day's confusion. |
as the lorry approached the south side of the pyramid mcgowan
ordered the searchlight turned on. it flooded all the lower
courses of the masonry with a white glare in which hardly a snake
could have hidden. it was answered instantly by a revolver shot
from one of honey foxman's gang lurking somewhere in a gap in
the broken masonry; he probably aimed at the lens in the hope
of smashing it, but he hit the driver of the lorry, whose crew
cut loose with a machine-gun while allison himself took the wheel
and two men picked up the wounded man. |
| then the lorry came on
again, spurting rifle and machine-gun fire and wiping out the
shadows with its roving eye. one moment there was a broad path
of light in front of it; the next it was sweeping the pyramid;
and there must have been twenty-five or thirty men in hiding,
every one of whom aimed at the light and tried to smash it with
revolver fire. each shot from the pyramid courses was instantly
answered by a belt or half a belt from the machine-gun, and in
the glare from the light i saw several men come tumbling headlong. one was, whether the car containing
chullunder ghose and bertolini was already far enough away to
permit the babu to invent a plausible enough explanation of the
firing, which the blind man's sharp ears could not fail to detect.
the other was that the searchlight could inevitably sweep in my
direction in a moment. there was nothing to distinguish me as
friend or enemy--no cover where i was at the moment--nothing for
it but to walk straight forward, wondering what the next world
looks like, if there is one. |
and sure enough, about fifty bullets
clipped the macadam road on either side of me before mcgown spotted
who i was and yelled to me to come and attend to the wounded driver.
unless you have steady light and instruments, there is not an
awful lot that you can do for a man with a revolver bullet in
his shoulder, especially in a crowded motor-lorry that is bumping
over sand and broken masonry.
by that time there was no more shooting from the pyramid; they
were turning the searchlight in every direction and potting at
fugitives. i had time to observe what the cordon of troops was doing.
searchlights--i would never have believed there were so many in
all egypt. they were advancing ahead of the troops in a wide arc
with one end extended toward the pyramid and the other, away to
the south of us, curving around toward the nile. |
| they did not,
of course, at time make a perfectly unbroken zone of
in front of , but was not an inch of that
searchlights did not sweep, and it was impossible to beyond
them except for when two lights diverged and one could
glimpse between. one could only imagine the supporting troops,
converging like of . i wondered what would happen if
that tremendous quantity of electric current should disturb
the as uncovered cache of 's thunderbolts. what would
happen, for , to ammunition in men's belts? i
did not know they had none.
meanwhile, there was another of men hit and mcgowan himself
was half-stunned by pitched off the back of lorry when
we struck a of masonry that covered with
sand; so i had my hands full, although mcgowan recovered rapidly
and very soon took charge again.. .. |