"Smith, Wilbur - Courtney 03 - A Sparrow Falls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

, Sir Shall we get on back, sir? the Captain asked quietly. Off with
you, growled Sean, his voice gruff with the premonition of coming
tragedy. I'll stay on a while. Though he could give no help, somehow
it seemed like deserting the boy to leave now.

Mark moved quickly along the line that the patrol had laid to guide him
through the wire. He stooped to keep contact with the line in his left
hand, and he carried the PJ4 in his right. He lifted his feet
carefully, and stepped lightly, trying not to scuff the snow, trying to
spread his weight evenly on each foot so as not to break the crust.

Yet every time, a flare went up, he had to fall face forward and lie
still and huddled, a dark blot in the electric glare of light against
the sheet of white, screened only by the persistently falling veils of
snow. When he scrambled up in the darkness and moved on, he knew he
left a disturbed area of snow. Ordinarily it would not have mattered,
for in the barren, shell-churned wilderness of no-man's-land, such light
scrabble marks passed unnoticed. But Mark knew that in the first cold
light of dawn an unusual pair of eyes would be scrutinizing every inch
of the ground, hunting for just this kind of sign.

Suddenly, colder than the icy snow-laden air against his cheeks, was the
deep chill of loneliness. The sense of vulnerability, of being pitted
against a skilled and implacable enemy, an invisible, terrifying,
efficient adversary who would deliver instant death at the slightest
error.

The latest flare sank and died, and he scrambled to his feet and
blundered to the dark, jagged wall of the ruined farm house. He
crouched against it, and tried to control his breathing for this newly
conceived terror threatened to smother him. it was the first time it
had come upon him.

Fear he had known, had lived with it as his constant companion these
last two years, but never this terrible paralysing terror.

When he touched his fingers of his right hand to his ice-cold cheek, he
felt the tremble in them, and in sympathy his teeth chattered in a short
staccato rhythm. I can't shoot like this, he thought wildly, clenching
his jaw until it ached and locking his hands together and holding them
hard against his groin, and I can't stay here. The ruin was too obvious
a stand to make. It would be the first point the German sniper would
study. He had to get out of there, and quickly. Back to the trenches.
Suddenly his terror was panic, and he lifted himself to begin the crazed
flight back, leaving his rifle propped against the ruined wall. Bist du
da? a voice whispered softly near him in the darkness. Mark froze
instantly. Ja! The reply was further along the wall and Mark found the
rifle with his left hand settling naturally on to the stock and his
right curling about the pistol grip, forefinger hooking over the
trigger.