• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Hagen took a pace forward and out of the corner of his eye saw the automatic appear in Kossoff's hand. 'Why should I?' he said. 'You'll kill us anyway.' Captain Tsen lifted his foot up smartly into Hagen's groin.

As he writhed on the floor he was dimly aware of Kossoff's voice snarling viciously at the captain. 'You fool!' he screamed. 'We need him in one piece. That isn't the way to handle this man. If you want your share you'd better leave things to me.'

And then it all came clear to Hagen so that even through the agony that gripped his loins with fire, he managed to smile, mirthlessly, through clenched teeth. After a few moments he hauled himself up and stood leaning on the table. He began to laugh. It was all so plain now. The reason for the lack of naval forces to prevent his entry into the marshes. The one shabby motor launch, the handful of soldiers. He laughed again and said to Kossoff: 'You bloody twister. I might have known. You want the gold for yourself.'

Rose moved to his side and gently eased him back into the chair and Kossoff laughed pleasantly. 'But of course. Has it taken you so long to discover that? After all, it is one desire that we have in common.'

There was a short, electric silence and Rose said in a low, angry voice, 'That's a lie.'

Kossoff smiled gently. 'Ask him. Surely you were not so naive as to believe that everything he did was for love.'

She turned and looked straight into Hagen's eyes. There was a puzzled frown on her forehead. 'Tell him it isn't true, Mark.'

For a moment he wanted to lie. It would have been easy to refute the charge and she would have believed him because she wanted to believe, but suddenly he felt sick. Sick of the whole damned thing. He dropped his eyes and reached blindly for another cigarette from Kossoff's packet. 'No, he's right, angel,' he said. 'The man's one hundred per cent correct.'

She turned away quickly. For a moment he waited, expecting a blow, but when he raised his eyes he saw that she was gazing out of the window with a strange expression on her face. She said slowly, 'You won't get any help from us - from either of us.' She moved her head and looked directly into Hagen's eyes.

For a moment he held her gaze and then he shivered and a queer fatalism ran through him. He stood up. 'She's right, Kossoff,' he said. 'You can scour the marshes from now till Domesday.'

Kossoff bowed suddenly from the waist. 'I salute you, my dear,' he said to Rose. 'You are a most remarkable young woman.' He made a gesture to Tsen who nodded and went out quickly through the front door.

Hagen suddenly felt weary and in a funny way he was happy. He grinned tiredly. From the beginning he had known deep inside him that the girl would never agree to use the gold for a wrong purpose. For the first time he realized what it must have meant to her. Her father had died for it. It had been placed in his charge as a trust and the trust had passed on to her. Hagen smiled briefly. To think that in this world he should have found someone who still lived by a code. Honour! It had been a long time since he had forced himself to face the implications of that word. From outside came a shouted command and Kossoff said: 'Please come out on to the verandah. There is something I would like you to watch.'

They moved outside and stood at the top of the steps, and twenty or thirty yards away there were four soldiers standing to attention. On the ground a fisherman, one of the villagers, was pegged-out, face downwards, his legs wrenched cruelly apart. The man was quite naked. A few paces to the rear of him Captain Tsen was standing. In one hand he carried a three-foot bamboo pole, the end sharpened and pointed like a needle. Kossoff nodded and Tsen got down on his knees beside the unfortunate fisherman.

Rose turned away at once. She tried to rush into the hut but Kossoff barred the way. She turned to Hagen and buried her head against his shoulder. The screams were unbelievable. For a few moments Hagen gazed in