"Guy N. Smith - The Wood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

When the bloody hell did they think you were going to sleep? Fire-watching,
that was a bleedin' laugh.

Until tonight. Jesus Christ, he'd watched some fires, like a gigantic Guy
Fawkes' Night and still going on. The Jerries came in drove after drove, the
entire Luftwaffe, surely, concentrated on one target. The railway network
first, roads and bridges, then they just let all fuck loose on the city.
Victor saw the munitions factory go up, there was no mistaking it. Puny
retaliatory fire, the Jerries were having a field day. But they got one, oh
Christ, they got one big bugger! Good for our lads!

Vie saw the bomber coming his way, wondered what the hell they were up to. All
the others turned back once they had jettisoned their loads. But this one was
hit, losing height and then bursting into flames. Victor Amery saw it
nosedive, explode in a field of cut hay and catch fire, burning debris
everywhere setting the hay alight. Smoke billowed up, hung in the still
atmosphere like those fogs that came in from the sea at times. Had you
coughing, your eyes smarting.
Fire-watching.

And then he saw the parachutist out of the corner of his eye. At first he
thought it was a bird, so big and graceful, but eventually made out the shape
of a man, gliding. Heading towards the Droy Wood.

Victor cocked the hammers of his shotgun. A Boche, an enemy. A killer. Look
what the bastards had done to the city, an inferno that was even now cremating
its dead, hundreds, maybe thousands more trapped by the flames. He swung the
gun to his shoulder, his forefinger brushing the trigger. Too far; three,
maybe four hundred yards. Not even a WD-loaded SG would reach that distance.
Regretfully he lowered his gun, narrowed his smarting eyes. The bastard was
going to hit the wood all right, no doubt about that.

Victor Amery saw the parachutist clear a tall oak, then dip from sight,
swallowed up by the dark shape that was the outline of Droy Wood. Rather you
than me, mate. He shuddered, didn't want to think too much about the wood at
night. There were too many stories, going back far too long. Half of 'em were
probably fiction, village gossip. But there was no smoke without fire. He
coughed, wiped his smarting eyes.

Then he was hurrying back towards the village, his shout ready for when he got
within earshot,

'There's a Boche in the wood!'

The cordon was thrown around Droy Wood with an hour still to go to daylight, a
makeshift village posse. A dozen Home Guard, some youths who were on the verge
of being called up, and one or two old stagers who would act as lookouts .
Twenty in all, a sparse force when one viewed the wood from the hills above,
five hundred or so acres of swampy woodland. Patches of dense reed beds which
had infiltrated from the adjacent marsh like stonecrop spreading from a garden