The Iron Tiger - Jack Higgins [55]
As Drummond and Hamid ran forward, one horse cantered away slowly, back towards the village. The other stood patiently beside the body of its rider. Hamid slung his rifle across his back, gathered the reins and vaulted into the crude sheepskin saddle.
'I'll catch the other one, Jack.'
He urged his mount forward and disappeared into the curtain of snow. Drummond checked the action of the sub-machine gun and waited impatiently. Somewhere in the distance, he seemed to hear a faint cry and then Hamid galloped back along the road, the reins of the second horse in his right hand.
'We'd better get moving. More horsemen back along the road. The bastards are out early this morning.'
Drummond slung the sub-machine gun across his back and took the reins. The horse moved away from him, rolling an eye and he pulled it back savagely and scrambled into the crude saddle.
Hamid urged his mount into a gallop and Drummond hung on grimly as his own horse followed. There was excited shouting somewhere to the rear, but no shooting and then the black finger of rock loomed out of the falling snow on their left and Hamid turned into the trees.
Father Kerrigan was standing anxiously beside the truck and Janet leaned over the tailboard as they dismounted. 'What happened?' the old priest said.
'Never mind now,' Drummond told him. 'Get the boy. We've got to get out of here.'
Janet handed Kerim down, slung a small military haversack over her back and followed him. Swathed in the grey army blankets, the boy looked like a little old woman and didn't seem to be in the least afraid, his large, dark eye taking in everything with interest.
Drummond gave Janet a leg up on to his horse and handed her the child. She settled him in front of her and took the reins.
'Across the road and up the hillside,' he said, 'and don't waste any time getting there.'
As Hamid helped Father Kerrigan into the saddle of the other horse, there was movement up on the road, voices called excitedly and then, quite suddenly, the sharp report of a rifle and a bullet thudded into the side of the truck.
Drummond unslung his sub-machine gun and gave Hamid a violent shove. 'Get out of it, Ali! I'll hold them.'
Hamid didn't argue. He vaulted up behind Father Kerrigan and smashed his clenched fist against the horse's hindquarters. It bounded forward into the trees and the other horse followed instinctively.
Drummond fired a quick burst through the brush towards the excited voices and someone cried out sharply. He ran from the shelter of the truck and dropped on one knee behind a tree.
He could hear the sound of his friends' progress somewhere to the left as Hamid took them away on a diagonal course, obviously intending to cross the road lower down.
A mounted soldier burst through the trees towards the truck, another behind him. Drummond loosed off a long burst that sent both men and horses down in a confused heap, turned and ran headlong through the trees, following the trail left in the snow by the others.
There was movement over to his right, dark shadows against the snow and he emptied the sub-machine gun in a great, sweeping arc and ran on.
As he emerged into a small clearing, a Chinese soldier ran out of the trees on his right. Drummond's submachine gun was empty. He dropped it and rushed straight at the Chinese at the same headlong pace.
The man was badly shaken. Instead of trying to aim his Burp gun, he raised it defensively. Drummond ducked under the flailing weapon, grabbed for the throat and lifted a knee into the man's crutch. As the Chinese sank into the snow, he tore the weapon from his grasp and ran on.
He was sobbing for air as he stumbled through the trees and scrambled up the little slope to the road. He slipped and fell to one knee. As he stood up and made