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

rockery into a flowerbed. Trees that had died, rotted, but still stood firm. A
very old wood indeed.

But it was when the fogs came in from the marsh that you had to worry, Victor
Amery reflected grimly. There was no telling when they would come, winter or
summer. A bright May day would cloud over, turn sultry, hazy; then before you
knew it that vile opaque vapour was wisping up through the trees, blotting
everything out. And Jesus Christ help you if you were in Droy Wood when that
happened!

Dawn came, bringing with it clear skies, a glow that could have been from the
rising sun, or else a reflection from the city which still burned. You could
smell the smoke.

A dog barked. Brutus, the Alsatian that belonged to Owen, the gamekeeper. Owen
was somewhere abroad, nobody had heard from him for over two months, didn't
bloody well want to, either. Like a lot of others you knew the next time you
saw his name it would be on the War Memorial plaque in the church. Secretly,
selfishly, you hoped so if you'd lost one of your cats in his snares or traps.
That dog was a personification of its absent master; vicious. If anybody was
in the wood, and in all probability the German was lying low there, he'd find
the bugger. And if he didn't, then Tom Morris's Jack Russell would, a snappy
little creature that raced and barked all over the place, sniffed every clump
of grass in the hope of a scent; a bloody nuisance on any day except today.

Victor Amery could see the others spaced over half a mile in a half-moon
formation. Waiting. Captain Cartwright and old Emson would be at the far end
of the wood, the guns in a pheasant drive. Everybody else were the beaters.
Take your time, tap every tree and bush with your stick. An assorted armoury;
twelve-bores, a couple of .410s, air-rifles, pitchforks, pick-axe handles,
anything that could be used as a weapon.

A shrill whistle jerked Amery into action, had him moving forward with the
rest of them, thumb resting on the hammer of his gun. That Jerry was
undoubtedly armed, at bay. Nobody could blame you if you shot him.

Self-defence; and think of all those folks who got caught in the raid last
night. Women and kids. Anger: he would have walked with his shotgun cocked in
readiness if the ground had not been so uneven.

Twenty yards from the wood. The dogs had already gone in, the terrier yapping
incessantly. Even with the dogs, Victor decided, it was like looking for the
proverbial needle in the haystack. You needed a full pack of hounds, ten times
the number of searchers, and even then the German had a good chance of holing
up somewhere.

Amery's uneasiness grew once they were inside the wood. So dark, it was
incredible how the summer foliage shut out the light, gave everywhere a kind
of sinister green hue, the shade that film cameras exaggerated to produce an
everglades effect. Everything smelled damp and rotten, the black soil wet,