Hell's Legionnaire Page 6

  I divided the Chauchats and ammunition among them. When they had finished their paquetage, Montrey spoke up.

  “I suppose, mon corporal, that because of your rank, you do not find it necessary to carry a load other than your own equipment.”

  “Pardon, m’sieu,” I bowed, “but you have forgotten the dynamite and gunpowder that was left here with us. It makes a heavier load than any of you are carrying.”

  “And what do you want with that?”

  “If only to keep it from falling into Berber hands, I take it along.” With that, I dug the explosives out of the hole in the cliff face and packaged them. They had been used in constructing this post and when the company had left us there, their Moorish barbs had been too overloaded to carry them.

  I led off a few minutes before the moon came up. The ridge was like a knife back, hard to walk along. An incautious step would send a warning shower of boulders down into the ravine.

  A hundred yards away from the post I stopped and listened. I could hear rocks rolling down in the gully. That meant that our friends the Berbers were on the move. A shadowy figure was close behind me. That would be Ivan, judging from his hulk.

  As I reached the end of the ridge, I started the vertical descent to the bottom. To fight in the High Atlas, a soldier has to be half mountain goat, half pack barb, half Alpineer, and half crystal gazer. That makes two soldiers, doesn’t it? Well, no matter. You have to be at least three to stay in the Legion.

  Ivan dropped down beside me and slid into the shadow of the moon. He was uncannily silent for so huge a man. Then came the stolid Kraus. After him were Gian, Maurice and finally Montrey.

  Montrey’s whisper was shrill.

  “They’re starting to attack the post! We’d better get out of here. When they find we’re gone they’ll be able to track us. Those jackals have the noses of hounds.”

  “All right. Maurice, you’re rear guard. See that they don’t jump us and don’t waste too many of those Chauchat bullets, get me?”

  Maurice had a ratlike face. I didn’t like his tone when he said, “Oui, mon commandant!”

  I turned to Gian.

  “You keep bullets in your gun, understand? I’m leading off with Montrey.”

  Gian stroked the Chauchat’s butt.

  “Do not lead off too far, mon commandant. My range is better than a thousand yards—and in this moonlight—” he broke off with an oily smile.

  I knew that it was no use to try the mailed fist with them. They were all half-crazed.

  We had just started off when all hell broke loose back at the post. The Berbers had reached it and judging from the sounds they were tearing it apart.

  Stepping off as fast as we could, we heard Maurice go into action. Looking back I saw the top of the ridge thick with white, clearly shown by the moon. When the Chauchat rattled into full swing, men began to drop. They came down like shot gulls. Then I heard a roar of angry voices.

  Men poured out at us from the ravine below the post.

  Maurice stopped firing and came up to us on the run. We reached a bend in the gulch and turned it. Another bend presented itself dead ahead. We made that one. I snatched Maurice’s Chauchat.

  “Go on!” I bellowed. “Make the next bend and cover my retreat with the machine gun!”

  But Montrey in turn took the Chauchat from me and thrust it back at Maurice.

  “No! You’ve got to lead us to that town! Maurice, you heard his orders. Get busy!”

  Almost at once the Chauchat began to rave. The swirl of burnoose and the glint of moonlight on white headcloths was momentarily checked. The hillmen dived into cover behind boulders and their dead splotched the ravine floor with motionless white patches.

  We made the next bend and I halted. Montrey jerked at my arm.

  “Come on, you fool!” he cried.

  “We’ve got to cover Maurice’s retreat!” I bellowed.

  “To the devil with Maurice!”

  I struck him on the mouth. Gian had hesitated for an instant and I pointed down the gully. Gian leveled his auto-rifle over the top of a boulder and let drive. Maurice, head held low, sprinted across the patches of moonlight and came up to us, swearing and panting.

  “You’ll cover the next!” I snapped at Montrey.

  His face went gray, but he took Gian’s position behind the gun. I knew that Montrey would not reverse the piece on us. He was far too busy stemming the tide of white which rose like a wave before him.

  Maurice seemed to understand. He choked out, “Merci,” as we ran on.

  Ivan had stopped. He had slung the machine gun to its tripod behind a rock. I looked ahead to see that another white blur had materialized to our front. We were hemmed in front and rear. A boulder crashed near at hand. On the left cliff side I saw a flurry of cloth. The Berbers were up there, trying to smash us with rocks.

  There was only one answer to that. We had to scale a sheer wall in full pack and in full view of those very competent riflemen, the Berbers.

  Ivan started to fire short, snapping bursts. Men sought cover from the leaden sleet. Gian had covered Montrey’s retreat with an indifferent fire and Montrey was with us again. I pointed to the high summit above us.

  “Who has the rope?” And when it was forthcoming, I slid out of my pack and gripped for the first handholds. “Get those devils on the other side up there. And when I drop this end to you, pass up the machine gun on it. Then send Gian with his Chauchat. I think we can make it.”

  Climbing, I wondered how long our ammunition would last at this rate. Chauchats and machine guns have a way of using up lead and powder. On the cliff face I was aware that I made a tempting target, but I had not dared to trust any of the others. Not that they were yellow. You can’t stay in the Legion and be yellow. But they were off balance, giddy.

  A slug showered me with sharp fragments. Another twitched at my kepi, but by some miracle it stayed on. I remember thinking that I would rather lose my life than my kepi. Without that headgear, I would have lost my mind under the onslaught of sun.

  The top seemed very far away, though it was less than three hundred feet. I stopped midway and sent down the line for the machine gun. Bracing myself I pulled it up.

  As I fed in a new belt I shouted for Gian and went to work driving the surrounding hillmen away from the sniping points. In something like three minutes, Gian was there with me. I put him behind the machine gun and went on up.

  The second half of the trip was more difficult than the first, but with the machine gun at that elevation, the sniping had almost ceased. With a thankful grunt I wrapped my fingers over the edge of the cliff and hoisted myself up.

  A movement over my head caught my eye. I was staring straight into black, contracted eyes. The man’s knife was reaching out playfully to sink itself into my ribs.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Skeleton

  THE short scrap of that afternoon flashed across my mind. Then it had been the Berber who had been below, trying to reach up to the murette, and whom I had pounded into a bloody and battered pulp with bullets. It appeared that the tables were turned. I did not seem to fear the awful pain of the knife thrust half so much as the fall. Three hundred feet is a long way down. The white kepis below me looked like dimes.

  To do it I had to let go with both hands. I jerked down a foot, dangling over space. Then I had the hillman’s knife wrist in my hand. He tried to shake me without pulling back. He was wise, that one. He knew what I intended to do.

  He must have felt himself slipping too close to the edge. Pebbles were showering down all around me. He jerked back and suddenly I was on hard earth. I rolled over, taking him with me. Behind him burnooses swirled. I would have to act fast.

  Planting both my feet in his belly, I shoved up and back. He catapulted headfirst over the edge, screaming, through emptiness.

  A rifle spat beside my face. I snatched the barrel and twisted it away. Evidently, the hillmen were too terrified at their companion’s fate. They turned and
ran. It was an easy matter to cut them down. Their white burnooses made excellent targets.

  Then I had the hillman’s knife wrist in my hand. He tried to shake me without pulling back. He was wise, that one. He knew what I intended to do.

  Once more I lowered the rope which I had coiled about my waist. Presently Gian and the machine gun were both there. And, after another short interval, Maurice and Montrey were on top and out of sight behind a boulder. Kraus, grunting and sweating, rolled over the edge and reached back to help Ivan.

  I took a sight along the ridge, discovering that it ran in the direction we wanted to travel. There did not seem to be any immediate end to it and so we struck out, running rapidly from cover to cover, keeping the Berbers out of sight with a swift and certain rear-guard action, taking turns at staying behind.

  By the moonlight, about 2 AM, I stopped and consulted Copain’s map. He had marked a water hole about a mile from our course.

  “We’ll get something to drink now,” I said. “But we may have to fight for it.”

  “Why so?” challenged Montrey. “Our retreat is losing those devils at the rate of a hundred a mile.”

  “There are other tribes through here,” I replied. “And water holes are few and far between. See that fire about six miles behind us?”

  He looked back and stared at the blinking point of light.

  “They’re passing a blanket before that flame,” I said. “They must have learned a few tricks from the French. Anybody ahead of us will be on the scout, looking for us. And they’re bound to protect the water holes.”

  “Oui, mon commandant,” said Montrey with an ugly, twisted smile. “You frighten me out of my senses.”

  Ivan laughed, but Maurice fumbled with his Chauchat as though he wanted to squirt lead.

  We went on. The dryness of our throats was increased by the rising dust. But the others did not seem to care. Their minds were far ahead of us, over the ranges of the High Atlas, and they dreamed of a mysterious, uncharted city where riches could be picked up for the effort of reaching.

  We spotted the water hole far below us and began the descent to it, sliding through loose stone. In the lead, I stopped and held up my hand. The others stopped behind me. An errant breeze had come up from the ravine and with it had come the odor of wet steam. The message was obvious. A fire had burned there until a few moments before. The Berbers had poured water over it in the hopes of ambushing us when we came down to drink.

  “They’re waiting for us,” I said.

  “Let’s go down,” insisted Montrey. “We can’t go without water forever.”

  “All right, Montrey. If you’re so thirsty, lead the way with an auto-rifle.”

  He went ahead after giving me a hard look. Ivan had been busy with his pet. Mounting a rock, he straddled the tripod legs and pulled back the loading handle of the machine gun. I followed Montrey.

  A rifle roared ten feet in front. Other rifles began to rave. The Chauchats went into action; the machine gun rolled out a guttural bass to the overture. Berbers howled. That which had been a black rocky pit suddenly swirled with white robes and lashing flame.

  I dived behind a rock and began to fire into the thick of it with my Lebel. It was impossible to miss.

  Hastily organizing themselves, the hillmen rolled out of the semicircular rock amphitheatre like a typhoon. In an instant they were all around me. Ivan’s gun sent a burst ricocheting off my boulder. The Berbers drew away from me.

  I saw Kraus pick up a hillman by the waist and pitch him bodily back into the thick of the rush.

  With three Chauchats and a machine gun backing up rifle fire, the noise was head-splitting. A hundred men pounding on a hundred anvils could not have made a greater racket. Evidently it was too much for the Berbers, for to my right the gorge began to fill up with men.

  For a heart-stopping instant I thought that reinforcements had come for the hillmen. Then a shaft of moonlight showed me that their faces were turned away. I sent a parting clip into the stragglers and then silence settled down upon the water hole.

  As I approached the small pool, I saw a big hillman lying in my path. He was not dead, though the lower part of his burnoose was covered with blood. Suddenly he rolled over and grabbed for his rifle. As the muzzle came up, my rifle drilled a hole between his eyes.

  We wasted but little time in filling our canteens and our mouths with water. Though it was muddy and foul it tasted like nectar. The hillmen had left a few kettles of boiled mutton on the scene. It was still warm and we ate it, scooping the greasy mess out with our bare hands.

  Ten minutes later we were once more on the trail, heading northwest toward the square on Copain’s map. Kraus was limping and saying nothing about it. He was afraid that we would leave him if he confessed a wound. I let him be. His first-aid packet was open and I knew he had dressed the hole. Maurice’s jaw was covered with blood from a torn ear.

  By a combination of luck and skill I found that we were on the trail which had been marked down by Copain. Dawn broke to find us toiling up the side of a mountain range, heading toward a pass. We had marched hard and fast as Legionnaires are supposed to march and now we would need protection from the sun and daylight attacks.

  We gained the summit. It was Montrey that spotted an old murette halfway up a cliff. We made for it. I was rather puzzled by its presence as this country had never been posted. However, Copain and Tanner and André had come this way and this must have been their handiwork.

  Maurice was the first one over the wall. He dropped out of sight and then came back to give the others a hand. A slanting ray of sunlight struck us, showing up the old camp in detail. I stopped halfway over and stared at the base of the cliff across the compound.

  A skeleton lay there in the storm-beaten clothes of a Legionnaire. His tattered kepi had rolled several feet away. His boots were cracked by sun and dust. His pack had been torn apart and lay scattered about him.

  From the back of the faded tunic there protruded a French bayonet!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Gold Madness

  THE man’s kit revealed his name—or the name he had borne in the Legion. It was Schrader, onetime Intelligence private. I had never known him very well, but I did know that he was one of the squad who had been with Copain on that mapping expedition.

  Tanner, André, Copain and now Schrader. All these men were dead, two of them because they knew too much about a city lost in this mountain waste.

  When I tried to pull the bayonet out of Schrader’s back, it would not come. There was no flesh to hold it and I rolled the skeleton back from it.

  The bayonet was embedded three inches in the ground. They had killed him while he slept!

  I was not especially concerned that Copain and Tanner and André had killed Schrader. I was thinking about my own neck. When Montrey and the others got to the city they might think they had no further use for me. Perhaps they would strike out for the coast without me. Perhaps they had learned enough about the direction of these mountains to guide themselves.

  That day I slept away from them with one hand on my gun, the other on my bayonet.

  When the midday heat was gone, we buried the skeleton. Montrey was smiling as though he possessed a new inspiration. I knew what that inspiration was. Montrey knew now that he did not have to divide with the rest. Montrey was thinking that he would get it all for himself.

  Aside from a very occasional bullet from great range we were not much troubled by the hillmen. They had developed a healthy respect for the auto-rifle and machine gun.

  With darkness shrouding our movements we hit the trail again. All that night we tramped over mountains, through passes, down ravines, and when dawn came again we had progressed twenty-seven miles.

  We had to build our own murette that morning, but on the three succeeding days we found them built for us.

  That mapping squad had taken no chances with the Berbers.

  Six days’ march from our original base, we made camp on a high
summit which overlooked countless square miles of upended country.

  Montrey sat on a boulder beside me.

  “I suppose you know just exactly where you are, don’t you. Right to a dot.”

  “Pretty near,” I replied, disregarding his surly tone.

  “Wouldn’t care to point out the valley, would you?”

  “No. I don’t think I would.”

  “Afraid you’d get it in the neck?”

  “I know I would, Montrey. Just as sure as I can see that valley from this point.”

  The statement brought the others to their feet. They crowded around me, their faces lit up, their eyes burning with greed.

  “Show us!” cried Gian.

  “You’ll be there when the moon comes up late tonight,” I assured him.

  Posting two sentries, I rolled over against a boulder and went to sleep, facing the murette where Montrey and Maurice were standing the first watch.

  I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke up on my feet. The machine gun was going full blast, with Montrey behind the butt. Maurice was sprawled over the edge of the parapet, blood gushing from a spot between his eyes.

  In an instant I was beside him, a Chauchat in my hands. Down the slope three men were scurrying away, their white robes ballooning away from them. Montrey got two with one burst.

  I shot the other.

  “How did they get so close to you?” I demanded, staring at Maurice.

  Montrey shrugged and smiled crookedly.

  “They got close to you once, didn’t they?”

  Pulling Maurice back into the compound, I inspected the wound. Looking up, I said, “Close is right, Montrey. There are powder marks around this hole.”

  Before he could jump away I wrenched his revolver out of his belt and sniffed at the barrel.

  It had certainly been fired within ten minutes.

  All the others were up. Kraus glowered at Montrey. Gian licked his lips. Ivan stood with widespread feet, glaring.

  “Listen,” I said. “Watch Montrey. He just shot Maurice under the cover of that attack and he may try to get the rest of you.”