entering the water and then indicate the other bank of the river. There
were no tracks where we had left the water because we had been swept
sideways a little, and that must have been puzzling to anyone who hadn’t
seen it happen.
The man waved downstream eloquently but Kennikin shook his head. He
wasn’t buying that one. Instead he said something, snapping his fingers
impatiently, and someone else rushed up with a map. He studied it and
then pointed off to the right and four of the men got into a jeep,
reversed up the track, and then took off across country in a bumpy ride.
That made me wrinkle my brows until I remembered there was a smal group
of lakes over in that direction cal ed Gaesavotn. If Kennikin expected
me to be camping at Gaesavotn he’d draw a blank, but it showed how
thorough and careful he was.
The crew from the other jeep got busy erecting a camp just off the
track, putting up tents rather inexpertly. One of them went to Kennikin
with a vacuum flask and poured out a cup of steaming hot coffee which he
offered obsequiously. Kennikin took it and sipped it while stil
standing at the water’s edge looking across the impassable river. He
seemed to be staring right into my eyes.
I lowered the glasses and withdrew slowly and cautiously, being careful
to make no sound. I climbed down from the lava ridge and then slung the
carbine and headed back to the Land-Rover at a fast clip, and checked to
make sure there were no tyre marks to show where we had left the track.
I didn’t think Kennikin would have a man swim the river – he could lose
a lot of men that way – but it was best to make sure we weren’t stumbled
over too easily.
Elin was asleep. She lay on her left side, buried in her sleeping bag,
and I was thankful that she always slept quietly and with no blowing or
snoring. I let her sleep; there was no reason to disturb her and ruin
her night. We weren’t going anywhere, and neither was Kennikin. I
switched on my pocket torch, shading it with my hand to avoid waking
her, and rummaged in a drawer until I found the housewife, from which I
took a reel of black thread.
I went back to the track and stretched a line of thread right across it
about a foot from the ground, anchoring each end by lumps of loose lava.
If Kennikin came through during the night I wanted to know it, no matter
how stealthily he went about it. I didn’t want to cross the river in the
morning only to run into him on the other side.
Then I went down to the river and looked at it. The water level was
stil dropping and it might have been barely feasible to cross there and
then had the light been better. But I wouldn’t risk it without using the
headlights and I couldn’t do that because they’d certainly show in the
sky. Kennikin’s mob wasn’t al that far away.
I dropped into my berth ful y clothed. I didn’t expect to sleep under
the circumstances but nevertheless I set the alarm on my wrist watch for
two a.m. And that was the last thing I remember until it buzzed like a
demented mosquito and woke me up.
Chapter II
We were ready to move at two-fifteen. As soon as the alarm buzzed I woke
Elin, ruthlessly disregarding her sleepy protests. As soon as she knew
how close Kennikin was she moved fast. I said, ‘Get dressed quickly. I’m
going to have a look around.’
The black thread was stil in place which meant that no vehicle had gone
through. Any jeep moving at night would /have/ to stick in the track; it
was flatly impossible to cross the lava beds in the darkness. True,
someone on foot might have gone through, but I discounted that.
The water in the river was nice and low and it would be easy to cross.
As I went back I looked in the sky towards the east; already the short
northern night was nearly over and I was determined to cross the river
at the earliest opportunity and get as far ahead of Kennikin as I could.
Elin had different ideas. ‘Why not stay here and let him get ahead? Just
let him go past. He’d have to go a long way before he discovered he’s
chasing nothing.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We know he has two jeeps, but we don’t know if he has
more. It could happen that, if we let him get ahead, we could be the
meat in a sandwich and that might be uncomfortable. We cross now.’
Starting an engine quietly is not easy. I stuffed blankets around the
generator in an attempt to muffle that unmistakable rasp, the engine
caught and purred sweetly, and I took the blankets away. And I was very
light-footed on the accelerator as we drove towards the river. We got
across easily, although making more noise than I cared for, and away we
went towards the next river.
I told Elin to keep a sharp eye to the rear while I concentrated on
moving as fast as possible compatible with quietness. In the next four
kilometres we crossed two more rivers and then there was a long stretch
where the track swung north temporarily, and I opened up. We were now
far enough away from Kennikin to make speed more important than silence.
Sixteen rivers in sixty kilometres. Elin had said. Not counting the time
spent in crossing rivers we were now averaging a bone-jarring
twenty-five kilometres an hour -too fast for comfort in this country –
and I estimated we would get to the main Sprengisandur track in about
four hours. It actual y took six hours because some of the rivers were
bastards.
In reaching the Sprengisandur track we had crossed the watershed and al
the rivers from now on would be flowing south and west instead of north
and east. We hit the track at eight-thirty, and I said, ‘Breakfast.
Climb in the back and get something ready.’
‘You’re not stopping?’
‘Christ, no! Kennikin wil have been on the move for hours. There’s no
way of knowing how close he is and I’ve no urgent inclination to find
out the hard way. Bread and cheese and beer wil do fine.’
So we ate on the move and stopped only once, at ten o’clock, to fil up
the tank from the last ful jerrycan. While we were doing that up popped
our friend of the previous day, the US Navy helicopter. It came from the
north this time, not very low, and floated over us without appearing to
pay us much attention.
I watched it fly south, and Elin said, ‘I’m puzzled about that.’
‘So am I,’ I said.
‘Not in the same way that I am,’ she said. ‘American military aircraft
don’t usual y overfly the country.’ She was frowning.
‘Now you come to mention it, that /is/ odd.’ There’s a certain amount of
tension in Iceland about the continuing American military presence at
Keflavik. A lot of Icelanders take the view that it’s an imposition and
who can blame them? The American authorities are quite aware of this
tension and try to minimize it, and the American Navy in Iceland tries
to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Flaunting military aircraft in
Icelandic skies was certainly out of character.
I shrugged and dismissed the problem, concentrating on getting the last
drop out of the jerrycan, and then we carried on with not a sign of
anything on our tail. We were now on the last lap, running down the
straight, if rough, track between the River Thjorsa and the ridge of
Budarhals with the main roads only seventy kilometres ahead, inasmuch as
any roads in Iceland can be so described.
But even a lousy Icelandic road would be perfection when compared with
the tracks of the /Obyggdir,/ especial y when we ran into trouble with
mud. This is one of the problems of June when the frozen earth of winter
melts into a gelatinous car trap. Because we were in a Land-Rover it
didn’t stop us but it slowed us down considerably, and the only
consolation I had was that Kennikin would be equal y hampered when he
hit the stuff.
At eleven o’clock the worst happened ? a tyre blew. It was a front tyre
and I fought the wheel as we jolted to a stop. ‘Let’s make this fast,’ I
said, and grabbed the wheel brace.
If we had to have a puncture it wasn’t a bad place to have it. The
footing was level enough to take the jack without slipping and there was
no mud at that point. I jacked up the front of the Land-Rover and got
busy on the wheel with the brace. Because of Elin’s shoulder she wasn’t