grunted with amazement as he saw what Armstrong meant. The bolt had penetrated more than its own length into the earth and had buried itself completely. As Armstrong dug it out, O’Hara said, ‘We’d better all practise with this thing and find out who’s the best shot.’ He looked at Armstrong. ‘You’d better get some sleep; you look pooped.’
‘I’ll wait until I see the bow in action,’ said Armstrong. ‘Maybe it’ll need some modification. Willis is making another – he has some ideas for improvements – and we put Peabody to making more bolts.’ He stood upright with the bolt in his hands. ‘And I’ve got to fix the sights.’
All of them, excepting Aguillar and Rohde, practised with the crossbow, and – perhaps not surprisingly – Miss Ponsky turned out to be the best shot, with Forester coming next and O’Hara third. Shooting the bow was rough on Miss Ponsky’s shoulder, but she made a soft shoulder-pad and eight times out of ten she put a bolt into a twelve-inch circle, clucking deprecatingly when she missed.
‘She’s not got the strength to crank it,’ said Forester. ‘But she’s damned good with the trigger.’
‘That settles it,’ said O’Hara. ‘She gets first crack at the enemy – if she’ll do it.’ He crossed over to her and said with a smile, ‘It looks as though you’re elected to go into action first. Will you give it a go?’
Her face paled and her nose seemed even sharper. ‘Oh, my!’ she said, flustered. ‘Do you think I can do it?’
‘They’ve put in another four planks,’ said O’Hara quietly. ‘And Rohde’s saving his last four bullets until he’s reasonably certain of making a hit. This is the only other chance we’ve got – and you’re the best shot.’
Visibly she pulled herself together and her chin rose in determination. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Good! You’d better come and have a look at the bridge to get your range right – and maybe you’d better take a few practice shots at the same range.’
He took her up to where Rohde was lying. ‘Miss Ponsky’s going to have a go with the crossbow,’ he said.
Rohde looked at it with interest. ‘Does it work?’
‘It’s got the range and velocity,’ O’Hara told him. ‘It should work all right.’ He turned his attention to the bridge. Two men had just put in another plank and were retreating. The gap in the bridge was getting very small – soon it would be narrow enough for a determined man to leap. ‘You’d better take the nearest man the next time they come out,’ he said. ‘What would you say the range is?’
Miss Ponsky considered. ‘A little less than the range I’ve been practising at,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I need to practise any more.’ There was a tremor in her voice.
O’Hara regarded her. ‘This has got to be done, Miss Ponsky. Remember what they did to Mrs Coughlin – and what they’ll do to us if they get across the bridge.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ she said in a low voice.
O’Hara nodded in satisfaction. ‘You take Rohde’s place. I’ll be a little way along. Take your time – you needn’t hurry. Regard it as the target practice you’ve just been doing.’
Forester had already cocked the bow and handed it up to Miss Ponsky. She put a bolt in the trough and slid forward on her stomach until she got a good view of the bridge. O’Hara waited until she was settled, then moved a little way farther along the edge of the gorge. He looked back and saw Forester talking to Armstrong, who was lying full-length on the ground, his eyes closed.
He found a good observation post and lay waiting. Presently the same two men appeared again, carrying a plank. They crawled the length of the bridge, pushing the plank before them until they reached the gap – even though none of them had been hit, they weren’t taking unnecessary chances. Once at the gap they got busy, lashing the plank to the two main ropes.
O’Hara found his heart thumping and the wait seemed intolerably long. The nearest man was wearing a leather jacket similar to his own and O’Hara could see quite clearly the flicker of his eyes as he gazed apprehensively at the opposite bank from time to time. O’Hara clenched his fist. ‘Now!’ he whispered. ‘For God’s sake – now!’
He did not hear the twang as the crossbow fired, but he saw the spurt of dust from the man’s jacket as the bolt hit him, and suddenly a shaft of steel sprouted from the man’s back just between the shoulder blades. There was a faint cry above the roar of the river and the man jerked his legs convulsively. He thrust his arms forward, almost in an imploring gesture, then he toppled sideways and rolled off the edge of the bridge, to fall in a spinning tangle of arms and legs into the raging river.
The other man paused uncertainly, then ran back across the bridge to the other side of the gorge. The bridge swayed under his pounding feet and as he ran he looked back fearfully. He joined the group at the end of the bridge and O’Hara saw him indicate his own back and another man shaking his head in disbelief.
Gently he withdrew and ran back to the place from which Miss Ponsky had fired the shot. She was lying on the ground, her body racked with sobs, and Forester was bending over her. ‘It’s all right, Miss Ponsky,’ he was saying. ‘It had to be done.’
‘But I’ve killed a man,’ she wailed. ‘I’ve taken a life.’
Forester got her to her feet and led her away, talking softly to her all the time. O’Hara bent and picked up the crossbow. ‘What a secret weapon!’ he said in admiration. ‘No noise, no flash – just zing.’ He laughed. ‘They still don’t know what happened – not for certain. Armstrong, you’re a bloody genius.’
But Armstrong was asleep.
IV
The enemy made no further attempts to repair the bridge that morning. Instead, they kept up a steady, if slow, light barrage of rifle fire, probing the tumble of rocks at the edge of the gorge in the hope of making hits. O’Hara withdrew everyone to safety, including Rohde. Then he borrowed a small mirror from Benedetta and contrived a makeshift periscope, being careful to keep the glass in the shadow of a rock so that it would not reflect direct sunlight. He fixed it so that an observer could lie on his back in perfect cover, but could still keep an eye on the bridge. Forester took first watch.
O’Hara said, ‘If they come on the bridge again use the gun – just one shot. We’ve got them off-balance now and a bit nervous. They don’t know if that chap fell off the bridge by accident, whether he was shot and they didn’t hear the report, or whether it was something else. We know it was something else and so does the other man who was on the bridge, but I don’t think they believe him. There was a hell of an argument going on the last I saw of it. At any rate, I think they’ll be leery of coming out now, and a shot ought to put them off.’
Forester checked the pistol and looked glumly at the four remaining bullets. ‘I feel a hell of a soldier – firing off twenty-five per cent of the available ammunition at one bang.’
‘It’s best this way,’ said O’Hara. ‘They don’t know the state of our ammunition, the crossbow is our secret weapon, and by God we must make the best use of it. I have ideas about that, but I want to wait for the second crossbow.’ He paused. ‘Have you any idea how many of the bastards
