Figures in a Landscape

by Barry England

  Fortunately, on this first night, the hills proved soft, and they concentrated simply on maintaining a dull, steady rhythm. At length they reached a height from which, in MacConnachie’s estimation, they would have a reasonable view to front and flanks, and here they rested. MacConnachie was asleep before Ansell.

  *

  MacConnachie came awake quickly as dawn was on the point of breaking, and watched the sun come up. Until the daylight had moved into the low ground, he remained absolutely still, examin­ing every inch of the unfolding landscape. He saw no one, nor did he expect to. Only later would the search begin, and when it did it would be a full-scale operation, involving every device and unit that the Goons could deploy. He and Ansell had killed a guard; they were therefore ‘armed and dangerous’. They had an hour’s grace and must make full use of it.

  Ahead, there was a narrow depression rising to a gentle slope that extended all the way to the crest of the highest feature they had yet faced. To flanks and rear, the foot-hills lay back in mild undulation to the river. Once satisfied that they could not easily be approached from any direction, he woke Ansell.

  ‘We’ll just eat fruit this morning; we had a good meal in the hut last night and I want to save the tins.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘First we shave, then we check our gear, then we go.’

  ‘Right.’

  While Ansell undressed, munching an apple, MacConnachie stropped the razor against his boot. Each in turn then shaved off his own body hair with the dry razor. As they did so, they talked.

  ‘Everything depends on how many units there are this side of the river, between us and the mountains.’

  ‘There’ll be dozens, surely?’

  MacConnachie frowned.

  ‘There’ll be one or two within thirty miles, and a dozen others somewhere in these hills—all within striking distance.’

  ‘You want to use this on your throat?’

  But MacConnachie didn’t smile.

  ‘The most important thing is not to be seen. The choppers will be up soon. The moment they spot us, they’ve got a chance to recapture us. We must keep out of sight.’

  ‘How do you want to play it?’

  ‘If we get warning, hide. Otherwise, freeze.’

  As soon as the shaving was done, MacConnachie set about his inspection in assessment of their readiness to travel. First the canteen. It was of solid construction, decorated with great ele­gance and in perfect condition.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Ansell. ‘Look at that chasing round the neck.’

  ‘It holds water,’ said MacConnachie.

  ‘What is it? Leather-covered brass?’

  ‘Probably. The point is, it won’t reflect sunlight.’

  Then the suitcase.

  ‘I don’t see any way to fix a strap on this. The rope’s too short, and the material’s too crappy.’

  ‘It’s cardboard, I think, with artificial leather on the outside.’

  ‘It’ll have to do. Can you repack it in some sort of order?’

  Ansell did so. First he emptied it entirely. Then he folded the blanket into one long narrow strip. This he laid across the open case, pressing the centre of the material down until it was flush with the bottom and sides of the interior, the blanket ends still protruding to left and right for about a foot. Into this nest he repacked their possessions. He then turned to MacConnachie.

  ‘What do we wear for travelling?’

  ‘The Goon clobber. Pack the jackets and slacks for night time.’

  But the slacks wouldn’t go in, the jackets having filled the remaining space.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said MacConnachie, ‘we’ll tie ’em round our waists.’

  Ansell finished the job by folding the blanket ends over the jackets, shutting the case and tying it tightly with the rope. Now they had only to open the lid and turn back two flaps to get at whatever they wanted.

  Finally MacConnachie inspected their boots, their bodies and the gun.

  Their boots were in reasonable condition. Most of the studs had gone, but neither pair was perforated at sole or heel, and in each case the uppers were firmly attached all round. They were fortunate in that, so long as the Goons had still to march them, they were forced to leave them shod. Without boots now, they would be finished.

  Neither man had been deeply cut during the preceding day’s climb. They used a little water to wash their faces and hands, and trusted to luck in the matter of healing. Ansell, however, insisted on binding one of the torn-off sleeves round MacCon­nachie’s damaged left wrist.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ said MacConnachie.

  ‘I don’t want you losing your left hand,’ said Ansell. ‘Someone’s got to carry the case and I don’t fancy it.’

  ‘Get on with it, then, don’t yatter!’

  For a third time, MacConnachie stripped the gun and satisfied himself that it was thoroughly oiled and fully operative. An unreliable gun was, to MacConnachie, the equivalent of a missing limb. He emptied the magazine and refilled it.

  ‘Twenty-five rounds. I’m setting the gun on single-shot. It’s your job to check it night and morning; see it stays that way.’

  ‘Right.’

  MacConnachie rose.

  ‘We travel one up, one down, as before. You’re in charge of the canteen and the knife. I carry the gun and the suitcase. We each have one mouthful of water before we start.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘We eat tonight, and once each dawn and dusk. Water at mid­day, if we need it, but we’ll try to do without.’

  Ansell unscrewed and withdrew the stopper, which was attached to the neck of the canteen by a fine chain. Each man savoured and drank one mouthful of water, then Ansell re­stoppered the canteen and hung it over his shoulder. They were ready to move. MacConnachie said,

  ‘Watch for planes. I’m relying on you.’

  ‘Right.’

  MacConnachie estimated the distance to the mountains at seven days’ march. It was here, in the hills, that the greatest danger lay; and here, logically, that the Goons would most like to encounter them.

  Coming down from the hills, they should find a valley. MacConnachie believed it would be watered, and therefore inhabited, and it was at that point that he planned to replenish their stores before tackling the mountains.

  There was one small danger at their backs: the Goons from whom they had escaped would send a force across the river in pursuit, and thus the rear would always be closed to them. But he believed they could remain permanently ahead of this party and, shutting his mind to further thought, he sent his instinctual scouts to probe the territory before him.

  The first plane came without warning. They were just short of the initial crest when there was a whoosh, a flash of shadow, and it was gone, scudding away beyond the ridge. They hadn’t time even to pause in their stride. MacConnachie said,

  ‘That was chance. They wouldn’t send jets after us. Too fast, too little visibility.’

  ‘Ignore it, then?’

  ‘Yes. Keep going.’

  Beyond the crest, the ground fell away over half a mile into an area of hillocks, pimples and scrub, rising gradually thereafter for nearly two miles to what appeared to be the main spine of the entire hill range. MacConnachie did not believe it. It simply didn’t tie in with his estimated distance to the mountains. He knew at once that there must be two main spines to the range, both running across their front, and roughly parallel to one another. This meant, in effect, that he and Ansell would have to scale the range twice. It didn’t double the distance, but it doubled the effort. He glanced back at Ansell, then swore softly to himself.

  It was when they were down low, in the worst possible posi­tion from the point of view of visibility, still pushing their way through the pimples and scrub, that Ansell thought he heard the second plane. He stopped and called, ‘Listen!’

  MacConnachie, too, stopped, and both concentrated all of their sensory perception into their ears. After a moment
or two, they heard the unmistakable swishing cut of helicopter blades.

  ‘Chopper!’

  ‘Yes. About a mile away.’

  ‘Could be less. Damn.’

  ‘Do we hide, or press on?’

  ‘I don’t like being stuck down here.’

  They were enclosed on all sides, most severely to the front and left. MacConnachie pointed to a scar that ran up the main feature just right of their line of march.

  ‘We’ll go up that,’ he said, and set out. Ansell followed. He could see that the scar was well grown with brush, and would provide some cover when the time came. He said,

  ‘The chopper’ll be doing a box search, going back almost as far as it comes forward. We should get a fair way up.’

  ‘He’ll be well ahead of the infantry, too. They’ll try to spot us first, then fly the Goons in to catch us.’

  The scar proved a much different proposition close to. The scrub was tight-knit, difficult to climb through, and the earth, more powdery than Ansell had suspected, threw up choking billows of dust. With the blazing sun well up in the sky now, and heat coming back at them from the ground, they began to sweat profusely as they scrabbled upwards, bent double, clutching at the rough growth for leverage. Ansell, glimpsing MacConnachie, saw that progress was doubly difficult for him, since he had the case as well as the gun to deal with. The solution he had arrived at was to tuck the case under his gun arm, leaving the other free to claw with; but this sent him constantly floundering to knees or stomach as his boots skidded over the brush and support failed him. Ansell’s own discomfort was compounded by the need to look constantly over his shoulder for a sight of the helicopter. After twenty minutes, he saw it.

  ‘Freeze!’

  He knew from the immediate silence that MacConnachie was holding himself rigidly in whatever position the order had caught him. Ansell himself watched the chopper’s manoeuvring, peering through the heat and dust, trying to shield any glare from his face with a hunched shoulder.

  The helicopter slid lazily to left and right across their line of march, an insect tasting the air for a scent of its prey. At the moment it was also moving forward but he knew that if he waited it would dance back to complete the box it was engaged on, before advancing again into the next square pattern. He could hear no other rotors, which suggested that the Goons were short of air power and, unable to work overlapping boxes of search, were spreading the net as wide as they could until they unearthed a specific trail. How right MacConnachie had been to say that invisibility was everything.

  At length the helicopter fell back below the last crest, and Ansell shouted up to MacConnachie,

  ‘All clear! Let’s hide!’

  ‘Left! Go left!’ MacConnachie called back, starting to wriggle in that direction. Ansell could see that just above them the scrub grew thicker to that side, and he burrowed after MacConnachie deep into the crackling brush. They settled face down, hidden from one another but only three feet apart, waiting for the chopper to return. With the baked earth so close to his cheeks, and the brush packed tight about him, Ansell began to feel acutely claustrophobic in the heat, tormented by the dust that caught at his throat and prickled in his nostrils. With infinite caution, he re­adjusted his position so that he would be able to look at the sky. He had discovered months before that, so long as he was able to make tiny movements of this kind, he could hold back the build-up of pressure out of all proportion to the size of the movement itself. Somewhat comforted, he waited.

  The helicopter came back, and the swishing sounds cut deep into the shallows around them. For far too long the search went on, the machine floating above them, slipping sideways, floating again, passing over and above and below their position a dozen times, never leaving their field of vision, persistently a danger to them. Ansell could hear MacConnachie cursing and shifting restively. He knew why. So long as they were trapped here, unable to move, the force that must already have crossed the river in pursuit of them would close the net ever tighter to their rear. At last the helicopter, maintaining its pattern of search, disappeared from view over the ridge above; but the sound of its blades came back, cutting and vicious, a probable companion for the rest of the day. MacConnachie rose at once.

  ‘Let’s get on, for God’s sake! We’ve lost an hour!’

  He tried to increase their pace, but the terrain wouldn’t co­operate. Beyond a certain point, their boots found no pur­chase in the scrub: they fell into an angry, flurried labour up the scarp. All the time the sounds of the helicopter tormented them, suddenly increasing in volume so that they thought it had turned back, and then diminishing as they unlocked painfully from the conditioned stillness into which they had frozen. At one point, MacConnachie lost his grip on the suitcase, and it was only by chance that it fell at the feet of Ansell who, without looking, trapped it automatically. Otherwise, they would have had the entire feature to climb again.

  Thirty feet below the crest, the angle of ascent increased so drastically that they were forced to crawl. By the time they reached the summit, they were hot, dirty and exhausted, and had lost even more time.

  MacConnachie had been right. This was the first of two main spinal ridges. The second lay directly ahead, right across their front, fifteen to twenty miles away.

  Between the two was a wasteland of smaller hills, scarps, gullies, shelves and scrub. This was the first area of maximum danger. During the next twenty-four hours, the odds would always favour recapture rather than escape.

  The helicopter was about a mile ahead, below their present height, continuing to execute its neat, untiring patterns. Ansell said, reaching for breath,

  ‘Shall we take a chance and keep moving?’

  ‘We’ve got to. How well can they see out the back of those things?’

  ‘Not well. It’s an early model. Boxed-in. They have to stick their heads out to look back.’

  ‘They won’t do much of that. Let’s move.’

  The first stretch was downhill to a gully. As he led the way, MacConnachie called back over his shoulder,

  ‘You see the main ridge on the horizon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a secondary height, two thirds of the way there. Got that?’

  ‘It’s got two pimples on the top.’

  ‘That’s the one. Well, that’s our objective for today.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ansell. ‘Right.’

  It looked a hell of a long way.

  For three hours they laboured in silence, following in the wake of the dancing aircraft, crossing gullies, ascending slopes, descending them with greater care for they were then exposed, always trying to maintain an all-round watch and an even pace. The sun rose steadily to its height, and the heat grew more oppres­sive; sweat ran from them without pause. The suspicion grew in MacConnachie’s mind that they had been spotted.

  Although the helicopter never altered its intricate pattern, gradually drawing farther away from them, something about its disposition caused him to feel, with increasing certainty, that they were being trailed from in front.

  A well-trained soldier would consider no other course of action. To turn back would be to warn them; to stay in forma­tion and talk the infantry in by radio might well be to deceive them.

  After five more minutes, MacConnachie could ignore his instinct no longer. They had to act. The sense of a trap jangled all around him.

  The moment they descended into ground dead to the aircraft, behind a slight rise, he called,

  ‘Go right.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I think we’ve been spotted.’

  They ran, crouching low, along to their right, keeping behind the rise. After two hundred yards they came to a gully into which they dropped. By working their way along it through the scrub tangled in its floor, they were able to emerge behind a second feature higher than the first. Hauling themselves out, they wormed their way to the top.

  ‘He’s still in formation,’ said Ansell. ‘Where does that get us?�
�

  ‘Wait and see.’

  But in the next fifteen minutes, the helicopter made no devia­tion whatever from its pre-set pattern. MacConnachie swore.

  ‘Christ! He’s better than I thought.’

  ‘He may not have seen us.’

  ‘That’s the trouble, we don’t know.’

  Again they waited, but nothing happened. Ansell said,

  ‘So what do we do?’

  MacConnachie scowled in frustration.

  ‘We stay in dead ground.’

  ‘We’ll lose a lot of time.’

  ‘We haven’t any choice. If he did spot us, he’s lost us now. Let’s keep it that way.’

  ‘But if he did spot us, the Goons will be coming up behind like the clappers.’

  ‘I know that!’ shouted MacConnachie, suddenly furious.

  They were both tired, and badly in need of their midday break, but they kept going, always in the worst conditions, driven once more into the low ground that they hated, floundering on, struggling up gullies, creeping from dip to dip, for ever searching ahead for the next patch of dead ground. At times they were forced to detour by as much as four hundred yards, but never once did the helicopter make any move to come after them. At last, sweaty and maddened, MacConnachie halted.

  ‘He’s not that good, for Christ’s sake!’

  But Ansell said nothing, watching MacConnachie struggle with years of training that told him to move on, not to stop, to get into higher ground before he rested. At length, gracelessly, MacConnachie said,

  ‘Five minutes. But keep watch! We won’t drink yet, we’ll see if we need it at the end of the rest.’

  Ansell sat opposite him, and closed his eyes. Then he heard MacConnachie say, ‘Here, take a pull at this,’ and felt the neck of the canteen at his mouth, and then the water splashing sharply into his throat. He gulped quickly and pushed the canteen away.

  ‘Um. Fine. Fine.’

  MacConnachie screwed the stopper back on. Ansell said,

  ‘Have yours.’

  ‘I have. You were half asleep.’