Read Tales of Adventurers for Free Online Page A

other, so sad and wirily small and determined.
    “I have had my orders,” that second Frenchman murmured, “to accord to M. Dupont the justice he has so richly merited. I shall obey. I beg you to believe that I do not say it
with pleasure. But –” he sought their eyes with a simple honesty that, in the circumstances, was monstrous “– he is a heavy man, and I shall need some help.”
    “This Smith,” Medlock suggested. “The colonel said he was to make himself useful.”
    True, Fayze had airily assured them that the mysterious driver was ready to do whatever he was told; but Virian was unwilling to force such responsibility upon any human being till there was
some evidence of a real lack of sensitivity.
    “I’ll get hold of him and see what he says, if you’ll just stand by the car, Medlock, and keep an eye on Dupont.”
    He took Smith a little apart, and asked him what exactly his orders were.
    “To assist you in every possible way, sir,” Smith answered.
    Virian was uneasy. There was a light in the young eyes which looked uncommonly like hero worship. Yet Smith’s expression was tough and set. The very smoothness of the skin hid emotion more
absolutely than the mobile lines of an older face.
    “You understand, of course, just exactly what the job is?”
    “I did the reccy with the colonel,” Smith assured him.
    He produced the word
reccy
with a certain pride, which suggested to Virian that he had not been long in the army. Well, God knew what some of these young commando chaps, quickly,
violently trained, must have seen and done already!
    “Then will you go up with that gentleman and the prisoner to the mine-shaft? He, of course, is going to – to take the necessary steps. And, look here, Smith, refuse if you want to!
This is no part of your duty as a soldier.”
    “I understand that, sir.”
    There wasn’t any shaking that firm professional. His attitude was so matter-of-fact that Virian began to doubt the value of his own scruples. He gave full credit to Fayze for choosing a
murderer’s mate whose cold-blooded morale was an example to them all.
    They took Dupont out of the car. The polite smile with which he had brightened his formal conversation was fixed at half its full extent. He looked at them, his eyes searching each face in turn
with the uneasy instinct of an animal at the shambles gate.
    The French major reassured him with deliberate ambiguity.
    “This is the rendezvous,” he said. “It is here that you will shortly meet certain Free Frenchmen.”
    Dupont again anxiously reviewed the faces. What he saw relieved him – for their orders were to keep him quiet, and even their eyes were obedient. His smile returned to its natural
mobility. Two big drops of sweat trickled down his fat cheeks, shaved to a piglike smoothness for the morning inspection of his person and his cell.
    Smith, Dupont and the executioner walked up over the grass towards the hut. The French major remained by the car, torturing a cigarette between his fingers. Medlock went to the curve of the
road; Virian to the top of the hill. So long as both held their hands in their pockets, the road was clear. When their hands were exposed, it was a sign that traffic was approaching. Smith stood by
the door of the hut, relaying their gestures to the interior.
    Virian could see quarter of a mile of empty road. He put his hands in his pockets, dismissing quickly a thought of Roman thumbs. On a distant slope was a small convoy moving down towards him,
but the job would be over by the time it arrived.
    Medlock, at his end, kept his hands very plainly in sight. A baker’s van came round the corner, along the straight and up the hill past Virian – who now also revealed his hands, for
the approaching convoy was too close. A motorcycle, a truck and six heavy lorries bumbled interminably past at regulation intervals and twenty miles an hour, adding to Dupont’s store three more
minutes of October noon.
    Medlock put his