Night Raiders
Page 18
Yule didn’t doubt it, and the thought worried him. “That might have tickled them up a bit too much, sir... they could have started shooting at every Spit, Mustang and Kittyhawk...”
“It seems to me that’s what they’re already doing. Anyway, go on.”
“That’s about all, sir. Our gallant allies promptly shot me down as soon as I tried to engage the enemy who were strafing them.”
The squadron leader tilted back his chair and began inserting an Egyptian cigarette into a gold-banded amber holder. “You were lucky to get down safely.”
“With so little height, yes. I thought I was going slap into olive trees or a vineyard... no time to look around for a good spot...”
O’Neill gave him a sharp stare. “What are you shaking for, Toby? Got ague... or malaria?”
“N-no, sir.” Something worse: an instant flash in his mind’s eye of the six-foot Moroccan pounding towards him brandishing a knife that seemed, in recollection, to have been about a yard long.
“What’s up, then?”
“There was a Goumier, sir... luckily, only one of them... don’t know what he was doing on his own... charged at me to stick his dagger in me...”
“Excitable, the Goumiers,” Fiver agreed. “How did you dissuade him?”
Yule dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet. “Had to shoot him, sir.”
His C.O. leaped to his feet with a roar. “Bloody good show! Where is the brute? I’ll have his head mounted for the mess...”
“We thought it best to leave him where he was, sir. The people in the farm where it happened were frightfully agitated, sir... dead scared of what his mates would do if they found out... they started digging a hole and planting him straight away, sir.”
“Damn! He’d have made a unique trophy for the squadron... any taxidermist would be delighted to work on a Goumier’s head. Good show, Toby; but it’s hardly an even score, is it? A Spit to a Goumier.” He turned to Flt. Lt. Tustin, who was standing by. “Find out the identity and location of the unit that shot Toby down, Tusty, and the name of the C.O. Quick as you can. I want to go and have a quiet word in his ear.”
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