“The swine,” whispers Le Clerq, “if they have blasted the gates open, we are in real trouble.”
He shivers again as he remembers El Dota’s warning. “Not one life will be spared in Dini Salam,” which fills the old colonel with a new determination. He has seen so much blood in his life. He becomes upset when he notices that the top sandbags are starting to glide downwards through the opening where the one gate was destroyed. Still, nobody can get through yet, because there is still a formidable obstruction of high sandbags. He sees how the six men Vermeer had sent are busy crawling up the sandbags, hand grenades ready. Then Le Clerq becomes aware that the machine gun next to him has grown quiet.
“What is happening?” he asks sharply.
“Too hot, mon Colonel,” signals one of the men.
mon Col
