‘Do you have to go at al ?’
I sighed. ‘We’re stuck here, Elin. As long as that joker can keep the
Land-Rover covered we’re stuck. What do you want me to do? Wait here
until Kennikin arrives and then just give myself up?’
‘But you’re not armed?’
I patted the hilt of the knife. ‘I’l make out. Now, just do as I say.’
I escorted her to the cleft and saw her inside. It can’t have been very
comfortable; it was a foot and a half wide by four feet high and so she
had to crouch. But there are worse things than being uncomfortable.
Then I contemplated what I had to do. The ridge was seamed by gullies
cut by water into the soft rock and they offered a feasible way of
climbing without being seen. What I wanted to do was to get above the
place where I had seen the sudden glint. In warfare – and this was war
-he who holds the high ground has the advantage.
I set out, moving to the left and sticking close in to the rocks. There
was a gully twenty yards along which I rejected because I knew it
petered out not far up the ridge. The next one was better because it
went nearly to the top, so I went into it and began to climb.
Back in the days when I was being trained I went to mountain school and
my instructor said something very wise. ‘Never follow a watercourse or a
stream, either uphil or downhil ,’ he said. The reasoning was good.
Water wil take the quickest way down any hil and the quickest way is
usual y the steepest. Normal y one sticks to the bare hil side and
steers clear of ravines. Abnormal y, on the other hand, one scrambles up
a damned steep, slippery, waterworn crack in the rock or one gets one’s
head blown off.
The sides of the ravine at the bottom of the ridge were about ten feet
high, so there was no danger of being seen. But higher up the ravine was
shal ower and towards the end it was only about two feet deep and I was
snaking upwards on my bel y. When I had gone as far as I could I
reckoned I was higher than the sniper, so I cautiously pushed my head
around a pitted chunk of lava and assessed the situation.
Far below me on the track, and looking conspicuously isolated, was the
Land-Rover. About two hundred feet to the right and a hundred feet below
was the place where I thought the sniper was hiding. I couldn’t see him
because of the boulders which jutted through the sandy skin of the
ridge. That suited me; if I couldn’t see him then he couldn’t see me,
and that screen of boulders was just what I needed to get up close.
But I didn’t rush at it. It was in my mind that there might be more than
one man. Hel , there could be a dozen scattered along the top of the
ridge for al I knew! I just stayed very stil and got back my breath,
and did a careful survey of every damned rock within sight.
Nothing moved, so I wormed my way out of cover of the ravine and headed
towards the boulders, stil on my bel y. I got there and rested again,
listening careful y. All I heard was the faraway murmur of the river in
the distance. I moved again, going upwards and around the clump of
boulders, and now I was holding the cosh.
I pushed my head around a rock and saw them, fifty feet below in a
hollow in the hil side. One was lying down with a rifle pushed before
him, the barrel resting on a folded jacket; the other sat farther back
tinkering with a walkie-talkie. He had an unlighted cigarette in his mouth.
I withdrew my head and considered. One man I might have tackled – two
together were going to be tricky, especial y without a gun. I moved
careful y and found a better place from which to observe and where I
would be ‘less conspicuous – two rocks came almost together but not
quite, and I had a peephole an inch across.
The man with the rifle was very stil and very patient. I could imagine
that he was an experienced hunter and had spent many hours on hil sides
like this waiting for his quarry to move within range. The other man was
more fidgety; he eased his buttocks on the rock on which he was sitting,
he scratched, he slapped at an insect which settled on his leg, and he
fiddled with the walkie-talkie.
At the bottom of the ridge I saw something moving and held my breath.
The man with the rifle saw it, too, and I could see the slight tautening
of his muscles as he tensed. It was Elin. She came out of cover from
under the cliff and walked towards the Land-Rover.
I cursed to myself and wondered what the hel she thought she was doing.
The man with the rifle settled the butt firmly into his shoulder and
took aim, following her al the way with his eye glued to the telescopic
sight. If he pulled that trigger I would take my chances and jump the
bastard there and then.
Elin got to the Land-Rover and climbed inside. Within a minute she came
out again and began to walk back towards the cliff. Half-way there she
cal ed out and tossed something into the air. I was too far away to see
what it was but I thought it was a packet of cigarettes. The joker with
the rifle would be sure of what it was because he was equipped with one
of the biggest telescopic sights I had ever seen.
Elin vanished from sight below and I let out my breath. She had
deliberately play-acted to convince these gunmen that I was stil there
below, even if out of sight. And it worked, too. The rifleman visibly
relaxed and turned over and said something to the other man. I couldn’t
hear what was said because he spoke in low tones, but the fidget laughed
loudly.
He was having trouble with the walkie-talkie. He extended the antenna,
clicked switches and turned knobs, and then tossed it aside on to the
moss. He spoke to the rifleman and pointed upwards, and the rifleman
nodded. Then he stood up and turned to climb towards me.
I noted the direction he was taking, then turned my head to find a place
to ambush him. There was a boulder just behind me about three feet high,
so I pulled away from my peephole and dropped behind it in a crouch and
took a firm hold of the cosh. I could hear him coming because he wasn’t
making much attempt to move quietly. His boots crunched on the ground
and once there was a flow of gravel as he slipped and I heard a muttered
curse. Then there was a change in the light as his shadow fel across
me, and I rose up behind him and hit him.
There’s quite a bit of nonsense talked about hitting men on the head.
From some accounts – film and TV script writers ? it’s practical y as
safe as an anaesthetic used in an operating theatre; al that happens is
a brief spel of unconsciousness followed by a headache not worse than a
good hangover. A pity it isn’t so because if it were the hospital
anaesthetists would be able to dispense with the elaborate equipment
with which they are now lumbered in favour of the time-honoured blunt
instrument.
Unconsciousness is achieved by imparting a sharp acceleration to the
skul bone so that it col ides with the contents – the brain. This
results in varying degrees of brain damage ranging from slight
concussion to death, and there is always lasting damage, however slight.
The blow must be quite heavy and, since men vary, a blow that wil make
one man merely dizzy wil kil another. The trouble is that until you’ve
administered the blow you don’t know what you’ve done.
I wasn’t in any mood for messing about so I hit this character hard. His
knees buckled under him and he col apsed, and I caught him before he hit
the ground. I eased him down and turned him so that he lay on his back.
A mangled cigar sagged sideways from his mouth, half bitten through, and
blood trickled from the cigar butt to 1 show he had bitten his tongue.
He was stil breathing.
I patted his pockets and came upon the familiar hard shape, and drew
forth an automatic pistol – a Smith & Wesson .38, the twin to the one I
had taken from Lindholm. I checked the magazine to see if it was ful