Robert Adams (ed) - Book of Soldiers # with Martin H. Greenberg & Pamela Crippen Adams (ed) raw by Unknown Author

Author:Unknown Author
Language: eng
Format: epub

Von Rheydt’s school Latin seemed to be coming back; Casca, listening at the grille, nodded slowly and frowned as he finished his explanation of the upcoming test. “I have been thinking, German. The framea (spear?) could not have healed like this.” He drew up a dirty tunic and showed von Rheydt a smooth, unmarked chest covered with curly black hair. “When will we go into battle?”

“About nine hours from now.”

“I am ready,” said the centurion. “I found some arms in my room. I will sleep, I think, before the contest of the gods.”

“The gods?…Yes,” said von Rheydt, realizing the inadequacy of his Latin to explain alien races and galactic wars to a man who thought the earth flat. “Yes, sleep well, Junius.”

Mbatha was not at his grille. Von Rheydt drew his dagger, stuck it through the bars and rattled it to attract the Zulu’s attention. An instant later he froze as the point of a broad-bladed, razor-sharp assegai touched his throat.

Von Rheydt smiled as he let go of the dagger, which the African took and examined critically, at last pulling back the assegai and returning the knife to the German.

“We must fight soon, Mbatha,” said von Rheydt in English. “You, me, and Casca, the other man with us. We must win. If we lose, we die.”

“Fight English? Fight you and Casca?”

“No, you do not fight us,” said von Rheydt desperately, thinking that the three of them might have to act as a team in a very few hours; having one man suspicious of the other two might kill them all. The Zulu had fallen fighting white men; to him all whites were the hated English. “I am not English. Casca is not English. We three men fight three… devils.”

“Devils?” said the African.

“Spirits. Ghosts.”

“Ghosts,” repeated the Zulu, deadpan. “Warriors cannot fight ghosts, u-Rheydt.”

“‘We don’t have a choice, Mbatha. We fight in the morning—in one sleep.”

“I sleep now, u-Rheydt,” said Mbatha and left the grating. A scraping sound came from his room for a few minutes, and then silence.

Von Rheydt went back to his bunk and sat down, eased his boots off. He had a light meal of tinned sausage and biscuit from the ration pack and found what tasted like vodka in the canteen. When he had finished his meal, he lay back on the bunk, placed the Luger under his pillow and fell into a heavy sleep.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.