SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. by Francis Selwyn

voices
getting closer.
    'Ten-eight,
sir! . . . Six-five, Mr Patterson! . . . Seven-seven, sir! . . . Six-three!'
    The dust in the lower part of the stone-yard seemed
thick as smoke, rising from the fractured rock at the hammer blows of the men.
Joe O'Meara choked suddenly as he drew a lungful of it. Dust was the only cover
he would ever have, enough to make it worth the chance. He would run and run.
Of course they would fire at him but they might miss. If not, he would as soon
die here and now as suffer what lay ahead of him.
    He had
nerved himself for the dash across the quarry, up the rock-face and over the
turf beyond. Then he heard MacBride's 'Seven-six, sir!' not two yards behind
him. And even in his desperation, Joe held himself in check.
    Once
the chief officer had made his rounds, MacBride and his two subordinates
relaxed. There would not be another check upon them before five o'clock. One of
the warders went off behind a corner of the quarry to relieve himself. The
other subordinate was far away, not looking in Joe's direction. But MacBride
was at his back. Then, to Joe's astonishment, MacBride spoke to him, very
gently.
    'You, O'Meara! Lay your hammer down and step to me!'
    Joe
propped the long-handled hammer against the rock and turned about. MacBride
stood over him, dark whiskers clipped short, the pale blue eyes watching keenly
under the polished cap-peak.
    'Obedience!'
said MacBride softly. 'Obedience to those put in authority over you. Y’ have
have that lesson by heart, have you!'
    The
voice was that of the Celt, overlaid by the intonation of an industrial slum.
MacBride laid down his carbine, as if to tighten the belt of his tunic. Joe
stared back at him, not daring to believe that the most savage of all his
guards could be Sealskin Kite's man.
    'Don't
mess me about y' focker!' A bitter resentment of O'Meara and his own complicity
sharpened the tone of the words.
    'No,
sir!' Joe's heart beat faster, his eyes measuring the distance to the
rock-face. He knew that he could climb fifty feet of it in less time than it
would take some men to go up a flight of stairs. MacBride's voice grew softer.
    'Hit me, Stunning
Joe!' he said. 'Hit me, and run!'
    In a
few seconds more the warder who was relieving himself behind the rock would
reappear. MacBride's other subordinate might turn round at any moment. With his
hands hanging beside him, MacBride faced the little spider-man impassively. Joe
locked his hands together, as if in a gesture of indecision. Hardly raising his
head, he brought his double grip up, like a rock from a catapult, to connect
with the angle of MacBride's throat and jaw. It was not at all what the warder
had expected. With a long choking sound he stumbled forward, going down on
hands and knees. Joe's locked fists smashed downward on the exposed nape and
MacBride lay still.
    For a
split second, Stunning Joe thought of the carbine, but he knew it would impede
him. If they got close enough for him to use it, he would be taken anyway.
Already he was racing across the quarry, through the clouds of hot dust and the
glare of the white Portland stone. The wind roared at his ears and the scarred
face of the quarry was twenty yards ahead of him, rising to the open turf
above. He glanced back once, long enough to see MacBride still lying motionless
and the other warder unslinging his carbine. Joe ducked his head and began
weaving across the remainder of the quarry. A single twing-g-g-g , sang past him like an insect
and he saw the bullet smack into the rock-face ahead of him with a spurt of
pale dust. It was no easy matter to hit a man at this range, a target moving as
quickly and erratically as he had done. On the rock-face itself it would be a
different matter.
    The
broken wall of limestone came under his fingers, and he began to pull himself
up, the deft little hands and feet finding their crevices as easily as a
monkey. Behind and below him the shouting had begun, the warders holding their
carbines over their