"Guy N. Smith - The Wood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

had been successful and he was alive; it was his duty to return as soon as
possible. The war would not last long now, France had fallen and Britain was
on her knees. The hour of glory was nigh.

He found himself listening intently. No longer could he hear the familiar
sounds of battle and neither was the sky still aglow with the fires of
destruction. Bertie Hass might as well have parachuted down into some country
where war was unknown, just the unbroken silence of a land at peace. It was
decidedly uncanny.

The mud was oozing and bubbling, settling back down beneath the thick grass. A
night bird called softly somewhere. He must remain here until daylight, when
he would try to get his bearings. After that it would be a question of
travelling by night, hiding by day, until he found an aerodrome. Stealth,
combined with a little bit of luck, was all he needed, A plane, any plane. And
once he got behind the controls they could not stop him.

He tried to dispel his feeling of unease but it would not go away. He was all
alone in a strange land. An enemy, a beast of the chase.

A sound; like a foot sinking into deep mud, remaining there because to have
extricated it would have made too much noise. Which all added up to stealth -
to being watched.

Shivers up his spine, goose-pimpling his flesh all the way up into his scalp.
Trembling fingers eased the push-stud of his leather holster open, drew out
the heavy Luger automatic. Show yourself, pig, and you die. You are facing one
of the Fuhrer's Luftwaffe.

Silence. Even the nightbird was not calling any more, just the almost
inaudible sound of trapped gases escaping from the bog. But Bertie Hass knew
without any doubt that there was somebody out there watching him.


Victor Amery had been up on the knoll since dusk. Three nights a week he was
assigned to his post throughout the hours of darkness, reclining in a
deckchair which he kept up there to make the long boring nights a little more
bearable. Fire-watching, it was termed, and somehow you had to try and
convince yourself that you were doing your bit for your country. That was what
the Home Guard was all about, a psychological boost both for the able who were
too old for active service and the population of a virtually unprepared
nation.

'Caught with our bleedin' trousers down,' was Victor's favourite phrase most
nights in the Dun Cow before he went on duty. 'Everybody could see it comin'
but they kept on sayin' "peace in our time" until bloody war broke out. Then
"who would've thought it?" So the best they can do is arm all the old fogies
with twelve-bores and say "give it the Hun good and proper up his arse if he
dares to come".' And he had come, all right, Victor reflected grimly. At fifty
life was becoming very tiresome. A clerk by day and a fire-watcher by night.