"Adams, Robert - Horseclans 10 - Bili the Axe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

Another sigh from Corbett. "David, thank you; most sincerely, I thank you for your obvious concern, but no thank you on the machine guns. For one thing, only I and a very few of my current officers have ever fired one. For another, I've no faintest idea where I'd be able to round up the additional pack mules I'd need to carry God alone knows how many more thousands of rounds of ammo for the damned things. Besides, we're well enough armed, in my considered judgment, without any fully automatic weapons.

"Each trooper has a rifle and fifty-five rounds of ammo for it, plus four grenades, a bayonet, a saber and a dirk. Each of the officers and senior noncoms has a carbine, pistol, saber and dirk, plus grenades if they want them; they carry fifty-five rounds for their carbines and at least fourteen for their pistols. I've also seen to it that every one of my packers is armed with and qualified with a carbine or rifle. The ammo carried by the men plus the spare ammo in the mule packs gives us something over thirty-two thousand rounds for the shoulder weapons, alone. I am convinced that we cannot possibly need more than we have."

"Allright, Jay, allright," said Sternheimer. "I make no pretense of knowing the best ways of handling a military situation, never having had any training or experience along those lines. I simply wish no stone unturned in seeing to it that we at the Center provide you everything and anything you need or might need to accomplish your ends, up there. We lost poor Erica, last time, we certainly don't want to lose you, too."

Corbett noted silently that the Director made no mention of Dr. Harry Braun, Dr. Erica Arenstein's former husband and her murderer. Because he had been suffering from a severe infection in a broken leg, Braun had been sent ahead along with an escort of three men when a sudden and unexplained malady had struck down most of Corbett's then command.

But instead of proceeding as ordered and then sending back aid from Broomtown Base, Braun had coldly murdered again, then informed all at Broomtown and the Center that he was the only survivor of the party, that Corbett and all of the others were long since dead.

Of course, when Corbett and his reduced party arrived to put the lie to Braun's fanciful tales, the murderer's rising star had abruptly plunged to absolute nadir. Unwilling to kill one of his peersЧone of the few twentieth-century scientists and specialists who made up the hierarchy of the CenterЧSternheimer had given some thought to the murders, misdeeds and assorted lies of Harry Braun, then arrived at a truly fiendish punishment just short of a richly deserved execution.

After being openly stripped of all his offices and the privileges he had had, he was assigned to a demeaning and most tedious job. But that had not been the extent of Sternheimer's savage retribution, and Jay Corbett could not.repress a cold shudder when he thought of what else had been done to Braun.

Braun had been drugged, and taken to the transfer laboratories and his mind had been transferred from its young, healthy body into another oneЧan older one, which was slowly dying of an exceedingly painful and very unpleasant variety of cancer. Each time Corbett had visited the Center since then and had chanced to see the bent, shuffling, unwell body in which Braun was now imprisoned, he had been nauseated, wishing that he had shot Braun when he had had the opportunity, for any death would have been far more merciful than this form of lingering torture.

When he had finally bidden the director goodbye and gone back out to where his mule was patiently waiting at the hitchbar, he could see that Major Gumpner had already started the long column moving out of the town precincts, headed due north, up the trail that wound through the mountains toward the centuries-old treasure they were seeking to reclaim.

Here, in the southerly reaches, where the northbound track was almost as wide as a road, the column could proceed four to six abreast and thus make better time, but the general knew that all too soon they would be out of Broomtown lands and the trail would narrow till no more than two or, right often, only one rider at a time could travel it; then the column would string out.

There would be no danger in thisЧhe hopedЧfor the first few days or weeks, perhaps, of travel, for the mountain folk hereabouts knew the Broomtown men of old and respected them. Rather, they respected the rifles and pistols that the Broomtowners carried and used to deadly effect, when such proved necessary.

But farther north, in the long, broad stretch of mountains which were home to the savage, marauding Ganiks, the column might very well need every rifle, carbine, pistol and edge weapon, every last grenade and round of ammunition to accomplish its mission and return safely to Broomtown Base. Corbett had had to fight large packs of the degenerate aborigines twice on his previous, disastrous expedition, and he was not anxious to repeat the experience this time around.

But, he thought, what will be, will be. At least this time we'll be closer to full-strength, I hope, without a damned earthquake or forest fires to contend with. Then, too, we'll have Old Johnny on our side from the beginning, and, in his element, he's worth at least another full troop of men. He chuckled to himself. It was a damned lucky day for me and for quite a few others when I smashed Johnny's shoulder and then took him prisoner instead of killing him the way we did the rest of those wounded Ganiks.

As a platoon of dragoons approached, their officer called them to attention in their saddles and then, as they came closer, drew his gleaming saber and saluted Corbett with a practiced flourish, while, on the command of a brazen-voiced noncom, the troopers executed an eyes left.

Corbett drew himself erect and uncased his own saber to return the courtesy. Recognizing the face of the young officer, he thought, Vance Cabell, if he lives long enough, will be as good a leader as was his uncle.

Corbett still experienced a twinge of guilt whenever he thought of the elder, now-deceased Cabell and of how it had been his orders that had sent the Broomtown noncom off to his death at the hands of the murderous Dr. Harry Braun. He was ruminating on his guilt, his eyes following the young officer and his platoon, when a familiar voice nearby gave him a start.

"The younker do put a body''t' mind of ol' Sarge Cabell, don't he, generlЧway'he moves an' sets his mule?"

Corbett turned in his saddle to behold the speakerЧa bald but bushy-bearded man, wrinkled and graying with late middle age, but still erect of carriage, muscular and clearly strong. Skinhead Johnny Kilgore forked his mount of preferenceЧone of the small horses the Broomtowners had bred up from the wild mountain poniesЧand he had so schooled the little equine that it now could move almost as silently as the woods-wise man himself.

Mock-seriously, Corbett demanded, "What the hell is my chief scout doing back here? You should be up ahead of the column, by rights."

The old cannibal's wide grin caused his bushy eyebrows to hump up like a pair of fuzzy caterpillars, "Aw, generl, hain't no need fer Ol' Johnny up ther yet awhile. Them Purvis Tribe fellers'll do yawl jest fine till we comes to git inta Ganik ter'tory. And I'd a heap rather ride lowng of you an Gump an' fellers whut I knows."

Corbett could see the man's point, and, even had he not, he would have found it difficult to be truly angry at Johnny, who had saved his life and those of many other Broomtown men for all that he had beenЧtechnicallyЧa prisoner-of-war at the time.

Responding to the gapped grin of the sometime-Ganik with a smile of his own, the officer said, "You're more than welcome, Johnny. I can think of no man I'd rather have beside me on a dangerous trail." His grin widening and a note of banter entering his voice, he then added, "But only so long as you continue bathing and washing your clothes."

The Ganik barbarians never bathed or washed their rags and often went clothed in green, uncured hides and pelts. The stench of Old Johnny when first he had been captured hadЧas Corbett recalledЧbeen enough to turn a hog's stomach; moreover, he had been crawling with fat lice and had harbored more fleas than a sick dog.

But his months with the Broomtowners had altered his overall appearance and personal habits drastically. He was now clothed decently in a mixture of military and civilian garbЧdragoon boots and leather-faced trousers, a dark-green cotton shirt with flaring sleeves, a snakehide waistbelt with a buckle of chiseled silver and a broad-brimmed dragoon hat bouncing on his back by its cord.

Corbett noted that both his shirt and the scarf occasionally visible through the beard showed the precise and highly decorative embroidery of Old Johnny's new womanЧSergeant Cabell's widow, already gravid of Johnny Kilgore's seed.