Hell's Legionnaire Read Online Free PDF Page A

.”
    â€œYou are impertinent,” crackled Duprey. “Take a Caudron and make immediate reconnaissance. Land somewhere in the vicinity of . . . of .
. .”
    â€œGo ahead,” smiled Harvey. “I’m listening.”
    Duprey struck the desk with his fist. The head jumped
toward the edge, teetered there for an instant and then fell to the concrete
floor.
    Harvey winced. The jaw had
fallen slack, displaying a blackened tongue and broken teeth. Duprey rounded
the edge of the desk and scooped the thing up, putting it back in place. But as
he did so something caught his eye.
    Reaching into the mouth, he dragged forth a folded slip
of yellow paper, damp with blood.
    Unfolding the slip, he read it quickly. “Thoughtful of
Grauer. Very thoughtful of him. He might know we would want this information.”
    To Harvey came the cold realization that Grauer must
have known his fate long before it was meted out. He had written that message
in his stolid German way, while he waited for his execution. And that Grauer
had been told that his head would be shipped back to Fez.
    â€œKirzigh,” said Duprey, “is about a hundred and fifty
miles due south. He’s holing in for a siege, putting up barricades about his
towns, intending to attack and then retreat, leading our troops into ambush. He
is now at village 8-G.”
    Harvey was staring at the place
the head had been dented by the fall.
    â€œCapitaine,” crackled
Duprey. “You will go out to the drome immediately and take off. Do not fail to
be back by morning with the required intelligence.”
    Harvey climbed to his feet. His
long body was as lithe as a strip of whalebone. His sun-narrowed eyes seemed to
sink into his long face. He swung a small stick back and forth. For a moment it
appeared that he was about to object. Then he shrugged and went out of the
office toward a waiting motorcycle.
    Duprey
was rubbing his hands, looking at the head. “The barbarians. I’ll show them they
can’t insult la Légion ! I’ll show them, the filthy rabble!”
    A t the drome, with the heat waves rolling up from the hard-packed
plain like dry steam, Harvey stopped before the hangars and beckoned to a
sergeant.
    â€œRubio,” said Harvey, listlessly, “tell them to run out
a Caudron and gas her up.”
    Rubio’s Spanish face gleamed. His bright, hard eyes
glistened. “A patrol this time of day? Sí, Capitaine. ”
    â€œAnd Rubio,” said Harvey, calling the man back, “are you
doing anything tonight? Anything important?”
    â€œWell, no, Capitaine. ”
    â€œAll right, Rubio. You’re going with me.”
    â€œBut, Capitaine . . . ”
    â€œI said you were going with me,” stated Harvey, swinging his small stick. He smiled wryly. “This, Rubio, is for France.”
    â€œTo be sure, Capitaine. For France!”
    The Caudron came forth, looming hugely before the
hangar. The 450 hp Moraine-Ditrich motor thundered into uproarious life and the
biplane quivered under the stress of cold cylinders. Looking at it, feeling the
hot, dry sun against his shoulders, Harvey thought to himself that those frail
wings alone would keep his head on his shoulders. A cigarette drooped from his
lips and he squinted his eyes to see through the smoke.
    The prop wash was a fog of tan, stinging particles which
rose up to coat the world a drab monotone, matching the uniforms and faces of
the men. Far, far off, almost against the feet of the looming High Atlas , there
lay one patch of green. An olive orchard and vineyard. Harvey always circled it
before he landed, thankful for a splash of color in a brown world. Morocco had little in common with Georgia. It was even more lifeless than those desert stretches of
the Texas border where the customs patrol . . .
    Rubio was climbing into the rear pit, swiveling the
machine guns, making certain that the ordnance officer had been on the job.
Rubio’s