The Savage Day - Jack Higgins [64]
'Now you see how the other half live,' I said.
The Highlanders were on the offensive now, firing rubber bullets into the crowd, following this up with a wild baton charge to drive them back. It was a scene from hell, pools of fire all over the square from the petrol bombs, black greasy smoke billowing everywhere, shouts and screams from the crowd where hand-to-hand fighting was taking place.
Binnie was looking anything but happy, which was understandable enough so I gave him a push towards the Land-Rover. 'Time to go.'
He got behind the wheel and started the engine. As I climbed in beside him, Lieutenant Ford approached. 'Ready for off, sir?'
'That's right.'
'I think we've got things under control here now and another company's due to assist. I'll just put you on your way.'
He stood on the running-board, hanging on to the door as Binnie drove away. The square was, in fact, L-shaped and we moved round a corner and looked across to a church, the entrance to a narrow street beside it.
'That's where you want to be, sir,' Ford said and pointed.
There was a single shot, a high-powered rifle from the sound of it, he gave a grunt and went sideways. I dropped out, grabbed him by the flak jacket and dragged him round the corner as another bullet chipped a cobble-stone a yard to one side. As Binnie reversed to join us, a third round punched a hole in the left-hand side of the windscreen.
The bullet had gone straight through Ford's right thigh and he lay there on the cobbles clutching it with both hands, blood spurting between his fingers. The medics appeared on the run. There was a rumble of thunder above us and it started to rain, a sudden drenching downpour that put out the petrol fires almost instantly.
One of the medics slapped a couple of field dressings on either side of Ford's thigh and started to bandage it tightly. Binnie had got out of the Land-Rover and crouched against the wall beside me.
'Now what?' he whispered.
I heard Ford say, 'Johnson, take a look and see if you can spot him.'
Johnson, a stocky young sergeant, crawled to the corner and peered round cautiously. Nothing happened. Even the crowd on the other side of the square had gone quiet. Johnson eased forward, there was a single shot and he was lifted bodily backwards.
He cannoned against me and rolled over, gasping, but when a couple of his men lifted him into a sitting position we saw that the bullet had mushroomed against his flak jacket and he was simply winded by the blow.
Another round chipped the corner and a second ricocheted from the cobbles on the other side of the Land-Rover. Someone tried a steel helmet on the end of a stick round the corner and the moment it appeared, a bullet drilled a neat hole through it.
The medics were trying to persuade Ford to get on a stretcher so they could take him to the ambulance and he was telling them exactly what to do about it in crisp Anglo-Saxon.
'By God, but he's doing a great job whoever he is,' Binnie whispered. 'He's got every bastard here neatly pinned down.'
'Including us,' I said, 'Or had you forgotten that? We've got just over an hour to get to Spanish Head, Binnie, which means that if we're not out of here within the next ten minutes, Norah Murphy's had it.'
He stared at me aghast. I picked up the helmet with the hole through and handed it to him. 'When I give the word, toss that out into the square.'
I pulled off my beret, then crawled to the corner on my belly and peered round at ground level. The most likely spot seemed to be the church tower opposite. I was proved right a moment later, for when Binnie threw the helmet there was some sort of movement up there in the belfry and the helmet jumped twenty feet as another round pumped into it. A second shot chipped the corner just above my head and I withdrew hurriedly.
'What's the situation, sir?' Ford called.
'He's in the belfry,' I said, 'and he's good. He'll kill any man stone dead who tries to make it to that church door.'
Ford nodded wearily. 'We'll have to wait till B company gets here. We'll