‘And how far is Whicham from theie?’ ‘Nine or ten miles.’
‘And Marsh-End is only a couple of miles from theie up the coast.’ He nodded and folded the map. ‘A lonely sort of road, would you say?’
‘You probably wouldn’t see a soul during the entire run. Not at this time of the year. Mind you, it could be hard going in bad weather over Wrynose. You’d need a good vehicle, especially if you had a load on. Uncle Paddy’s old cattle truck would never make it.’
‘I wouldn’t be using it, not in the sort of situation I’ve been going over in my mind.’ He lit a cigarette and put one foot on a boulder, resting an elbow on his knee. ‘Scardale would be one hell of a place to be caught in with that one road out. It seems to me that in an emergency Brendan’s Long Cut would provide a very adequate back door and that jeep would be more than handy.’
‘Are you thinking of dropping the idea of using the cattle truck?’
He shook his head. ‘Not unless I have to. Does your ‘ uncle know about the Long Cut?’
She nodded. ‘He’s never been through, though. As far as I know, he doesn’t think it’s possible.’
‘So Morgan and Fletcher don’t know about it either?’ Rogan nodded, a slight smile on his face. ‘We’ll keep it that way. What happens now?’
Hannah looked up through the rain at the top of Scardale Fell, low cloud and mist draped across it. ‘We could climb up to the top. There’s a climbers’ hut we could eat in. Brendan could take the boat back through the tunnel and climb up the other side to meet us.’
The boy nodded eagerly, turned and ran back through the trees towards the old landing stage, and Rogan and the girl took a winding track that slanted up the side of the fell between rain-soaked, decaying bracken.
After a while, the track narrowed and Hannah went in front to lead the way. Rogan watched her as she bent to the slope of the hill, and when she paused and smiled back at him over her shoulder realized with a sense of wonder that she was beautiful. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Never mind about me/ he said. ‘We’ve a thousand feet or more to go yet.’
He plodded on through the heavy rain and as the mountain lifted before him he was filled with a strange feeling that all this had happened before. What was it the psychologists called it-dejd vu7Previously seen? And then in one quick moment of complete recall he remembered.
September 1943. Out of France through the Pyrenees into Spain with papers that had to be in Gibraltar within a week. It had rained like hell and to make matters worse, a company of German mountain troops had got their scent.
He remembered how it had been on just such a hillside as this, his guide, a brown-skinned Basque mountaineer, a couple of yards in front. And then the rifle shot, flat, curiously muffled by the rain. The man had spun round, a dark hole between his eyes, surprise on his face and Rogan had jumped into the bracken and run for his life.
He came back to the present with a start, realizing that Hannah was calling to him. When he looked up, she was standing beside a low hut constructed of great slabs of stone and concrete about fifty feet above him on the edge of a small plateau.
‘Any sign of Brendan?’ he said as he joined her.
She shook her head. ‘It’ll take him another twenty minutes at least. Harder going on that side of the mountain.’
Inside the hut there were wooden bendies, a table and kindling for a fire. They sat at the table and Rogan took off the knapsack. Hannah produced several packets of sandwiches, some fruit and a large vacuum flask. ‘Shall we start or do you want to wait for Brendan?’
‘We’ll have a coffee and wait.’
He lit a cigarette and they sat there in companionable silence. After a while, she said hesitatingly, ‘Is it going to work, Sean?”