Free Sands of Destiny by E.C. Tubb Page A

he was worried about anyway.”
    “He is a good soldier,” said Corville abruptly. “He meant well.”
    “He frightened me,” complained Miss Carson. “He is so rough, so uncouth.” She frowned. “de Corville,” she murmured. “I wonder? Tell me, young man, did you go to school in England?”
    “I did.” Corville was deliberately rude. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to pry into his personal history. Miss Carson nodded.
    “I thought that I recollected the name. A friend of mine, perhaps you know him? Mr. Smithers? No? Well, he sent his son to the same school. At least I think that it was the same. He was telling me of a boy who was there years ago, the son of Lord Trehern.” She frowned again. “Of course it’s so long ago now but it seemed that there was some sort of scandal, I never did know what it was all about and my friend, Mr. Smithers, he had to take his boy away because he lost most of his money in a share deal or something that this Lord Trehern had floated. I did hear that the boy, he was older than my friend’s son, of course, went to live with his mother in France. I....” She broke off at the expression on Corville’s face. “Is anything the matter?”
    “No. You were telling me of this Lord Trehern?”
    “Yes. Well rumour had it that he ran away and hid somewhere.” She tittered; the wine had obviously taken effect. “Some say that he joined the Foreign Legion, but then they always say that, don’t they. It just struck me because of the name de Corville, it’s an unusual name, but it couldn’t be the same one, could it?”
    “Hardly,” said Corville drily. “If my father was an English lord then I should know it.”
    “But your English is so perfect,” insisted Miss Carson. “I knew that you must have been to school in England the moment you spoke.” She tittered again and, as she reached for her glass, managed to spill a few drops of the red wine on the spotless napery. Dick Mason smiled at Corville and shrugged. His sister, sensing the young officer’s feelings, rested her hand with friendly warmth on his arm. Marignay, oblivious to all the byplay, grunted as he reached for a fresh bottle of wine.
    “Come. Let us not be sad or remember the past, or think too deeply of the future. Let us drink to my Villa near Toulon and the wines I shall drink there and the toys, similar to the dagger I mentioned, I shall have to while away my lonely hours.” He poised the bottle over Miss Carson’s glass. “Wine?”
    “I shouldn’t really,” she simpered. “I’m not used to wine and I’m afraid that it’s affecting me a little.” She watched him pour her glass full. “Only a little then and after that I’m off to bed. I always say that there’s nothing like a....” She broke off, her glass half tilted to her mouth, her eyes wide and suddenly strained. “What’s that?”
    “Nothing,” said Marignay. “The wind perhaps?”
    “Silence!” Corville rose from the table, his stomach knotted with apprehension. Thinly through the thick walls, filtered by the embrasures and echoing from the hills around came the sound of the sentry’s harsh challenge.
    “Qui va là?”
    He was answered by a shot, his scream mingling with the sound of gunfire and, as he screamed both shots and cries were drowned in an undulating yell,
    “Allah il Allah! Mohamed ill akbar!”
    The attack had begun.

CHAPTER SIX
    ATTACK
    FOR a moment no one moved then, as the frenzied yelling slashed again through the tropic night, Corville lunged towards the door.
    “What is it?” asked Clarice, her soft brown eyes wide with apprehension. “What is that yelling, and those shots?”
    “An attack.” Corville reached the door just as it burst open and Captain Gerald staggered into the room. He was sober, stone cold sober, and his eyes as they stared at Marignay were wild and flecked with blood. He had lost his kepi and his uniform was stained with an ugly splotch of spreading blood.
    “You,” he