The Sand Pebbles (79 page)

“Yes, sir,” Holman said. “I got it.”

Bronson tugged Lt. Collins to his feet and Crosley took his other arm. Each of them pulled one of Lt. Collins’ arms around his neck. They hopped him back across the courtyard so fast that his good foot barely touched the ground.

Well, he had it. They were gone. He fired a shot over the wall. He had to yell something.

“Fire in the hole!” he yelled.

It did not matter what he yelled, because all they spoke out there was Chinese. He could not understand what the guy out there was yelling, either. He was pacing back and forth in the shelter of the wall and counting the laps he made. That helped him guess how far away the party had gotten. The Chinese had a story about a girl who did that in her courtyard, and she sent her spirit to a temple far away. He walked very fast, as if that would help speed them on their way to the boat.

It was stupid. He was just making night noises with his gun and his mouth. He was a scarecrow trying to keep the crows scared for a few more minutes. No it’s not stupid, it’s serious, he thought. It had become serious just as soon as the others were gone. He missed Crosley, especially. It was time to fire again.

Crack!
and the jar to the shoulder.

“How we doing, Crosley, old frog, old shipmate?” he shouted across the courtyard.

After that when he fired he always yelled something to Crosley. A bullet clipped off a twig and dropped it at his feet. He sniffed the green, barky smell of it and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. They had gotten onto the low roofs of the houses across the way and were firing down. It shortened the bullet shadow of the front wall. It was about time for him to leave.

“Ten more laps and we’ll shove off!” he yelled to the imaginary Crosley.

All he had wanted was to live among them and do the things he knew how to do best. Now, out there, they had not so much as seen his face, and they wanted to kill him. I should have listened to Scharf, he thought. It ain’t my revolution. It sure never was my revolution.

The bullets were forcing him closer to the front wall. The scarecrow is getting very scared, he thought. Three bodies lay strung out in a line parallel to the spirit screen. Crosley would have stepped on arms and legs. Holman curved in and out around the bodies as he paced. From deep in the seabag of his memory he recalled a game they made the kids play in first grade back in Wellco, Nevada. You held hands and you wove in and out like that and you sang a song about go in and out the window. The little boys thought it was sissy, but the teachers made them play. When you grew up they had different games, but you still had to play. Everybody plays and everybody loses, he thought.

He pressed a new clip into the magazine. The cartridges made oily, slithering clicks. Well, all he really ever had to lose was a hope. Well, he did not grudge her to Gillespie. Ten more laps and then I will really go, he told himself.

He was no more ready to face them than he had been when he volunteered to stay behind. He still had to figure how to act toward them. Just natural, he thought. They won’t know. But I know. What’s natural, anyway? Well, he could not put it off. The rate of firing increased suddenly and a bullet brushed his hair. He jumped closer to the spirit screen.

“Hit him again, he’s Irish!” he roared, in fear and defiance.

Something bit him behind the left knee. He tried to jump and his leg buckled and he went down. He rocked back up on his rump and swiveled and smashed his rifle butt against the lifted head. The head fell. It was the same body Crosley had smashed and a knife lay beside the outflung hand.

“You son of a bitch!” Holman told it. “Now you done it!”

He stood up and he could tell that he was hamstrung. He had to lean his back against the spirit screen to stay up on both legs. There was only a stinging back of his knee, but the muscles in that leg were wanting to charleyhorse.

She’s got a brother named Charley, he remembered. Charley and Gillespie will take care of her.

The firing was very heavy now and many voices were screaming
out there in the dark. Bullets blizzarded all over the courtyard, except in the shadow of the wall. It was to mask the noises they made getting ready to scale both sides of the house. But his ears sought out the very littlest noises and he knew what they were doing. From both ridgepoles they would fire down into the courtyard and then the spirit screen would no longer cast a bullet shadow.

Well, at least there won’t be a long time you have to think about it, he told himself. He was having to stand very still to keep the leg from charleyhorsing.

He would not think about it. They were to the boat by now, he thought. Sure they were. Sitting in the waist, the two of them close together. It was a kind of wedding present. If they escaped, they would be beating the game, in a way of figuring. And so, in a very small way, would Jake Holman be beating the game.

It was a very twisted way of figuring, but it made him feel better. He strained his ears through the tumult and he thought he heard the far-away popping of the boat engine. He knew it was his imagination, but he believed it anyway.

The yelling and the heavy firing stopped abruptly. It was only then that the real fear began to grip him. One Chinese voice was shouting orders. They sounded like cat squalls. He tried to shout back,
Go to hell, you bastards!
and the words would not form. His mouth was too dry. He was very frightened and trembling. He could not help it.

They were on the roofs. From both sides he could hear clanks and scrabblings on the roofs. Suddenly he knew he had only seconds left.

He roared wordlessly and began firing at the roofline. Answering shapes rose all along both ridgelines and guns answered in a blazing roar. The flailing storm of lead crumpled and threw Jake Holman like a giant hand wadding wastepaper.