"Smith, Wilbur - Courtney 01 - The Burning Shore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

This edition published 1993 by Mandarin Paperbacks an imprint of Reed
International Books Limited Michelin House, 8i Fulham Road, London SW3
6RB and Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore and Toronto

Copyright 0 Wilbur Smith 1976

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library

ISBN, 741) 3 .6

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or oth erw ise
circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding
or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser.

So have I heard on Afric's burning shore, A hungry lion give a grievous
roar.

William Barnes Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso, sc. IV

Michael awoke to the mindless fury of the guns.

It was an obscene ritual celebrated in the darkness before each dawn in
which the massed banks of artillery batteries on both sides of the
ridges made their savage sacrifice to the gods of war.

Michael lay in the darkness under the weight of six woollen blankets and
-watched the gunfire flicker through the canvas of the tent like some
dreadful aurora borealis.

The blankets felt cold and clammy as a dead man's skin, and light rain
spattered the canvas above his head. The cold struck through his
bedclothes and yet he felt a glow of hope. In this weather they could
not fly.

False hope withered swiftly, for when Michael listened again to the
guns, this time more intently, he could judge the direction of the wind
by the sound of the barrage.

The wind had gone back into the south-west, muting the cacophony, and he
shivered and pulled the blankets up under-his chin. As if to confirm
his estimate, the light breeze dropped suddenly. The patter of rain on
canvas eased and then ceased. Outside he could hear the trees of the
apple orchard dripping in the silence, and then there was an abrupt gust
so that the branches shook themselves like a spaniel coming out of the
water and released a heavy fall of drops on to the roof of the tent.