The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [100]
Jeremy took a deep breath – and stopped. How could he explain that he’d got the idea out of one of Mario’s children’s books? Anyway, there wasn’t time. If it was going to be done, they’d jolly well got to get on with it.
‘I’ll show you,’ he said, and wriggled away on his stomach just as he’d seen James Bond and people do.
‘Jeremy! Come back!’ hissed the Brigadier to no avail.
Quietly reaching for a rifle from the wheelbarrow, Jeremy continued on his serpentine way, more cautiously than ever, until he was just behind the two bemused men with the guns, in the cover of a thicket of leaves.
‘Where’s the boss? He’s split;’ one of them was saying.
‘So what?’ the other said. ‘We got our orders, don’t we?’
Now where was the safety-thingy? thought Jeremy, trying to keep his breathing as quiet as possible. The 349
Brigadier had been most insistent on shoving the things on; ah, that was it.
He pulled it back and stealthily stuck the rifle out of the leaves. Peering along the sights, he could just make out in the distance the very furthest of the men, one big one and one small one, who had come out of the far woods and were standing talking together. He could see the rest of them in between, all apparently uncertain of what to do next.
Now then. He didn’t want to kill him – though that was pretty silly, because if his plan worked… His mind stopped talking as he trained the gun on the shoulder of the big one’s anorak.
This wasn’t just aiming at a wooden duck some ten feet away. It was more like hitting it in the pupil of the eye at a hundred yards. He held his breath and pulled the trigger.
There was a horrible bang and the butt of the gun struck him a nasty blow on his shoulder.
Without looking to see if he’d scored a hit, he immediately dropped flat on the ground and lay there listening to his heart, which seemed to think it had just done the hundred yards in ten seconds flat.
The confusion of sounds which came from outside the thicket told him little, He heard again the strange noise of the energy blast and felt a rush of heat on his cheek; and smelt again the odour of roasting flesh, which somehow 350
didn’t seem so appetizing as it had when he’d known he was smelling goat meat.
There was a rattle of automatic fire from one of the guns, cut short by another blast; a confusion of shouting and vicious cursing from near and far; a lot more blasting; more shouting; more blasting; and then, silence.
He stood up and peered through the leaves. He couldn’t see a thing. He moved delicately sideways until he could see over the top of the clump of undergrowth. The only sign of any of Max’s men was a scorched area of woodland nearby with two melted guns lying near the edge, and in the distance a plume of smoke.
‘Jeremy?’
It was the Brigadier’s voice. ‘Jeremy? Are you all right?’
Then he saw them, as they stood up from their hiding place near the wheelbarrow. Too excited to be able to speak, he waved furiously in their direction and caught their eye.
‘That was quite brilliant,’ said the Brigadier as they joined forces again. ‘Whatever made you think of doing that?’
‘It worked, didn’t it? It really worked. I mean, it did, didn’t it? I mean, look!’ said Jeremy, waving the gun towards the empty battlefield.
‘Groovy, man,’ said Roberto.
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‘I’ll take that,’ said the Brigadier, relieving Jeremy of the gun and putting on the safety catch.
‘I mean, tell me. I couldn’t look, you see. I had to keep my head down.’
So the Brigadier told him. He had hit the big man right on target and knocked him over; and his partner, the small one, had seen the two standing with guns in their hands and must have jumped to the conclusion that one of them had fired the shot; and blasted him. By which time the wounded man was on his feet again and let fly at the man with the other gun, who was firing back.
Naturally enough, the bullets went wild before he too went up in flames, and someone else was wounded. In no time at all, there was a general melee in progress, with every man who was possessed by an N-Form letting