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

his rifle. He had developed the knack of instant sleep, and while he
slept it snowed again.

When Mark woke in the sickly grey light of dawn, he was blanketed by the
fine white flakes. Careful not to disturb them, he lifted his head
slowly, and blinked his eyes rapidly to clear them. His fingers were
stiff and cold; he worked them steadily in the gloves, forcing warm
blood to flow.

He had been lucky again, twice in one night was too much. First the
patrol to lead him through the wire and now this thin white coat of
natural camouflage to blend his shape with the tangled roots of the oak.
Too much luck, the pendulum must swing.

Slowly the darkness drew back, widening his circle of vision, and as it
expanded so the whole of Mark's existence came to centre in those two
wide golden brown eyes. They moved quickly in the pattern of search,
touching in turn each irregularity and fold, each feature, each object,
each ting colour or texture of snow and mud and earth, contras each
stump of shattered timber or fallen branch, the irregular rim of every
shell hole, looking for shadows where they should not have been, seeking
the evidence of disturbance beneath the new thin coat of snow, seeking,
searching for life, literally for life.

The snow stopped again a little before nine, and by noon the sky had
lightened and there were holes in the cloudcover, a single watery ray of
sun fell and moved like a searchlight across the southern slope of the
hill. Right, Cuthbert, let's draw some Hun fire. Fergus had marked
each of the German sniper's kills on the trench map the Sergeant-Major
had loaned him. There were two black spots close to each other in the
same section of trench. At those places the parapet was too low for the
commanding bulk of the hill that commanded the front line. After five
men had been killed at those two spots the parapet had been raised with
sand-bags and crudely lettered notices warned the unwary.

KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN. SNIPER AT WORK. The two black spots were only
fifty paces apart, and Fergus guessed that the sniper had achieved his
successes here by waiting for a victim to pass down the trench. He
would get a glimpse of a head in the first gap, and would be aiming into
the second gap with his finger on the hairtrigger as the man passed it.
He explained this to Sean Courtney as he made his preparations, for by
this time Sean was so intrigued by the hunt that only a major German
offensive would have lured him back to his headquarters.

During the morning he had spoken to his aide-de-camp over the field
telephone, and told them where they could find him in an emergency.

But make sure it's an emergency, he had growled ferociously into the
headset. I'll draw him from south to north, Fergus explained, that will
force the bloody Hun to turn away from Mark's stand, it will give the