Bayonets Along the Border Read Free Page B

Then she cast an anxious glance at her husband. ‘I’m not sure, though, Simon, that I’m going to be good enough with this damned rifle to support you in keeping these three at bay. It’s a bit heavy for me in this heat.’
    ‘Don’t worry. Go back to the revolver if you are more comfortable with that, but I think you’d better keep most of your ammunition for the handgun until they get close, because it won’t be too effective at long range. In the meantime I’ll do my best and they will have to cross the open road to get to us. That’s when we can bring them down. But keep behind cover most of the time – and go to the other side of the boulder to keep them guessing.’
    ‘Do you think there are any of them behind us?’
    ‘No. They would have revealed their hand by now. Keep under cover and leave the fine marksmanship to this Bisley champion.’
    They exchanged grins and Fonthill marvelled once again at the great good fortune that God had bestowed on him in allowing him to find and then marry this magnificent woman: so cool in a crisis and as brave as a guardsman. Their one joint regret over the years of their marriage had been the failure of the pregnancy incurred in the Sudan, after a heavily disguised Alice had found her way over the barren desert sands and then through the lines of the Mahdi’s camp outside Khartoum to rescue him and Jenkins from imprisonment, torture and slave labour there. The miscarriage – it had been a boy – had damaged Alice’s ability to conceive again. But they remained close, each one’s love of adventure and challenge matching the other’s – and that of Jenkins.
    Simon licked his lips, which were now beginning to blister fromthe heat and the cordite. This would be one of the closest scrapes that they had ever endured. The question was: could they keep these three Pathans at bay long enough for Jenkins – a Jenkins who notoriously couldn’t find his way from A to B if it was lit for him by blazing torches – to bring relief? And would the Welshman meet any further Pathans on the road, waiting to bring him down? On that score, however, he felt more at ease. Jenkins could fight his way out of the tightest corner. He shook his head. Just as well, for he was their only hope!
    He stole a glance around the rock, which immediately brought a shot crashing into the stone. This wouldn’t do. If he didn’t keep constant watch, they could creep up on them. And if he continually exposed himself to do so, then he would provide an easy target to men whose shooting was now beginning to match their reputation. What to do?
    Fonthill nodded reassuringly to Alice and gestured to her to stay covered. Then he seized a sizeable stone and, keeping low behind the outline of the boulder, tossed it as far as he could to the right. It fell with a crash amongst the scree and immediately produced three shots from across the track, which slammed into the rocks where his stone had landed.
    Simon had realised some time ago that the Pathans were firing with old single-shot Martini-Henry British rifles not the rapid-firing Lee-Metford. So he immediately took advantage of their clumsy reloading to scramble high up the hill and seek the shelter of another large rock – there were plenty of them about. This gave him a slight height advantage and he levelled his rifle and took careful aim – Jenkins’s oft-repeated mantra of ‘squeeze gently now and don’t jerk’ ringing in his ears – at the scrap of fabric he could see protruding around a rock opposite. He swore happily as he heard the soft thudof the bullet hitting flesh not stone and saw a rifle fall from behind the rock and slither down the slope.
    ‘Think I’ve got one of the varmints,’ he called down to Alice, who looked up and nodded wearily. He realised now that it was like being in a blast furnace, crouching on this hillside among the rocks that were reflecting the heat. It was obviously getting too much for Alice. She had removed her