Free Overkill by James Rouch Page B

and now proceeded to snipe accurately at every move the pair made.
    Not close enough for a shouted explanation to be heard above the continuing throaty pulse of the pump, and unlikely to be believed even if it could be, they had no choice but to make a long detour.
    ‘How do you like being bested by women, Major?’ There was that taunting smile again. Using the mute excuse of pretending preoccupation with the difficulties of negotiating a tangled mass of girders from a fallen crane, Revell didn’t answer, until she persisted by repeating the question.
    ‘It’s not a case of being bested, it just made sense to back off. We couldn’t get through to them, certainly couldn’t kill them, so this was the best course.’
    ‘You felt no annoyance, no anger that two young girls, civilians, should force you to change your plans?’
    ‘Why do you want to know, what does it matter to you?’
    ‘Because I would like to know how your mind works, what it is in a situation that guides you to your decisions.’
    It wasn’t the exertion of threading and climbing through the steel web that made Revell’s pulse and respiration race. Perhaps he’d got it wrong, maybe he’d read too much into her words but he could dare to hope this meant she was going to attach herself to him the way she had to others.
    From Clarence she’d learnt all there was to know about sniping and camouflage and associated skills; from Dooley every aspect of unarmed combat. And before Libby had deserted, it’d seemed she was about to batten on to him to pick his brains of all he knew about demolition and explosives and the larger calibre weapons.
    Now, hopefully, it was Revell’s turn. He was certain that none of the others had ever made it with her. Clarence wouldn’t have said if he had, but he wasn’t the sort to try. Dooley had constantly said he had, and no one had ever believed him.
    If it was his turn, then she had chosen him rather than Hyde from whom to absorb the skills of command. The sergeant’s disfigurement had not been any bar to his being chosen, Andrea had never been bothered by the NCO’s ghastly appearance, and so Revell had always felt that he was in a competition, but a competition in which he was the only one who was really trying.
    He mustn’t blow it, had to keep the thing alive. ‘This isn’t the time or place. We can go over it later, if you like.’ Oh damn, he had to add that last bit. He’d wanted to be positive and encouraging, and he’d succeeded only in sounding lame.
    ‘Yes...’
His hopes soared.
‘...perhaps.’
    And crashed. He’d screwed it, he just knew it, he’d screwed up. Damn, damn, damn ... fuck. That was the first time he’d used the word, even to himself. He disliked swearing, especially the grossly obscene every-other-word type in which Dooley and Burke indulged, allowed himself nothing stronger than an occasional ‘damn’, but now the word seemed appropriate. Fuck ... word and meaning filled his mind ... fuck, fuck, fuck. Savagely hard he kicked a splintered baulk of timber over the edge of the wharf.
    It struck the oil with a smack that hardly raised a splash, only one low ripple that was absorbed back into the glutinous mass within a yard. But the action had an unlooked for result.
    On impact it turned over a bundle of fuel-sodden rags, to reveal them as clothes on a corpse that had been in there a long time. The oil had largely preserved the body, but as it lolled face uppermost it displayed an expanse of teeth made more prominent by the contracting of the soft flesh around them. With lips drawn back the dead man grinned up at Revell and mocked him before turning back to float face down again.
    Sometimes it seemed that even the dead were against him.
    There was a bridge, and it was still intact. They would not have to follow the river upstream to find the oar-powered ferries that had brought the unit across. 
    As they approached, Revell listened for the sound of fighting from the direction of