Ansell didn’t know whether he lied or told the truth, but he felt better. He got up quickly to demonstrate his fitness, making a great display of jerking his limbs into life, saying briskly,
‘We’d better get going again.’
MacConnachie chuckled.
‘You won’t rest, will you, kid?’
‘I’m a slave-driver.’
But Ansell was cross at his own weakness, and MacConnachie’s easy acceptance of it. When MacConnachie rose with much simulated resignation, Ansell could have kicked him. Then the buzz of the helicopter’s rotor changed in tone.
‘He’s coming back!’
They fell to the ground and lay still. Having taken such pains to keep out of its sight, they were now equally unable to see it, but, to judge from the sound, it was going away from them and not towards them. At length, when the swishing had died to a whisper, MacConnachie muttered, ‘I’m going to see,’ and wriggled away to the nearest high ground. Ansell waited. When the sound had entirely stopped, MacConnachie returned, walking upright once more.
‘He’s gone.’
‘Refuelling?’
‘I don’t know. Would they need to refuel so soon?’
‘I don’t know.’
MacConnachie scowled.
‘We still don’t know whether he spotted us or not.’
‘Mac, I think you were right. I think he did.’
‘So do I.’
There was a silence, then MacConnachie said,
‘Well, he doesn’t know where we are now. Let’s move.’
But he did. They had gone ten yards when Ansell knew something was terribly wrong; and just before it happened, he knew what it was. He screamed out, ‘Mac! The chopper!’
Then a vast, tumultuous swishing closed suddenly over them as the helicopter came in low, sneak-hitting from behind, less than twenty feet above the ground. They were caught without warning in a rushing maelstrom of dust and swirling air and a great beating of sound, and then the machine was past and turning to come back. MacConnachie shouted, ‘Right! Go right!’
Ansell saw him run, crouching, full tilt in that direction. He put his head down and followed, stretching his aching legs to their limit, struggling not to be left too far behind. The canteen crashed repeatedly against his right thigh.
The helicopter had turned along their new path of flight and now came roaring down on them again. MacConnachie shouted, ‘Left!’ and as they changed direction the chopper came about with them, sucking them once more into the roaring vortex of sound and heated air. The whole earth seemed to buck and tilt under the great black shadows of the sweeping blades and Ansell, stunned by the sheer, monstrous weight of the thing, skittered about, losing his sense of direction.
MacConnachie had broken again to a flank and Ansell went after him, skidding down a narrow defile between two low hills, almost crying out with relief as they escaped the clamorous din and raging wind. This was a terror operation, designed to intimidate and panic them.
They had a tighter turning-circle than the aircraft and MacConnachie jinked again, cutting out a new angle of flight, Ansell at his heels. But the pilot knew his job. After each swoop he pulled up to enlarge his field of vision, giving them no chance to cut back and slip him. As he bore down again, MacConnachie broke right, and he and Ansell ran under the aircraft, bullocking their way through the gauntlet of driven air and buffeting sound, breaking then to their right again and running headlong for a gully out to the side of the two hills, where they threw themselves into the undergrowth as the engine roared and the pilot fought to bring his machine hard about.
They were both gasping for breath, heaving and straining, but MacConnachie pushed Ansell brutally along the gully, shouting above the clamour of the engine,
‘Move! Move!’
‘Can’t we shoot it down?’
‘No! Move!’
Ansell scrabbled and floundered through the scrub, trying to escape up the gully, moaning for air, but the helicopter gained height rapidly, pulling back in a wide circle. There was no overhang to hide them, and as soon as they could see the aircraft, they knew the pilot could see them.
They broke from cover once more, scrambling out of the gully and back to the two hills, where they ran down the defile again from the other end, as the helicopter beat over them, momentarily darkening the sun with its flashing arc of steel. Ansell crashed into MacConnachie, as MacConnachie stopped abruptly.
‘Shoot it, Mac!’
‘Not yet! Double back! Move!’
Ansell was pitched violently into a stumbling run as MacConnachie thrust him off, then sensed rather than heard MacConnachie thudding after him as he ran under the aircraft and back up the defile for the third time. He was almost done. His heart churned and leaped in his rib-cage, terrifying him with the force of its palpitations. He could hardly draw breath. There was no lack of will, but a failure of his body to match MacConnachie’s. Coming out of the defile, he fell. MacConnachie’s boot crunched into his side, which may have been an accident, and MacConnachie raged, ‘Get up! Get up!’
But Ansell couldn’t. He was seized by the left shoulder and dragged round the end of one of the hills, just long enough to get his legs functioning again. MacConnachie was leading them back the way they had come, but this time he was going round the hill instead of along the defile; by the time they had reached its entrance yet again, Ansell was managing to progress under his own power, and the crisis was passing. MacConnachie pressed him down against the side of the hill and shouted in his ear,
‘Where’s the petrol tank on that thing?’
‘What?’
‘The tank—where is it?’
‘Round the back—behind the cabin. You can’t hit it from below.’
The engine was roaring as the pilot pulled the chopper up and round for another sweep. But, despite his condition, Ansell could tell that it was headed for the wrong end of the defile, momentarily out of contact with them, and he realized that this must have been MacConnachie’s intention. MacConnachie shouted,
‘I’ll have to get him from the side. I’ve got to kill him with the first shot, or he’ll go up out of range.’
Ansell could see now that MacConnachie was grey-faced, drawn, and labouring for breath as badly as himself. But the thirty seconds MacConnachie had won were invaluable. With a returning sense of anguish and fury, Ansell looked up at the sky.
‘What the bloody hell’s he playing at, anyway?’
‘He’s showing off!’
‘What?’
‘Showing off!’
And then MacConnachie’s expression broke into one of amused appreciation, and he shook with laughter. Still laughing, he said,
‘Oh God, the clever bastard! He’s coming up this side!’
The helicopter slid in towards them once more, low against the side of the hill. They were up and off, headlong down the defile for the fourth time. It seemed to Ansell that in some horrible way the proportions of their world had been reversed: the tiny speck of dancing metal had swollen to immense, crushing dimensions; they had been reduced to minute, scrabbling dwarfs on an endless landscape. The hide-and-seek went on, destructive and inescapable: out of the defile, across to the gully, back, and along the defile again; and always the pilot was clever enough to judge their pace, guess their direction, and peg them tight. They were being run into the ground.
Once more, when they had slipped the aircraft for a few seconds, they lay against the hillside, panting.
‘No good! Can’t lose him. Got to bring him in just right.’
‘What do I do?’
‘Run for the pimple. See it?’
Following the direction of MacConnachie’s trembling arm, Ansell saw the feature he was indicating.
‘Yes.’
‘Get there! Wait!’ MacConnachie swallowed convulsively. ‘When the chopper comes—run back—across my front. I’ll be here. Right?’
MacConnachie gripped Ansell’s arm, waiting for the moment t
o send him off. Ansell steeled himself to run two hundred yards; it seemed an impossible task. The helicopter thrashed in from their right.
‘Go!’
Ansell ran blindly, with a shocking absence of co-ordination, pitching and staggering over the pitted earth. He seemed hardly to be moving at all, scarcely to grow any closer to his objective from one frenzied glimpse to the next. The more he tried to drive his legs on, the weaker they became. He was on the point of giving up when he ran into the pimple, and lay against it, whimpering. After some moments, he dragged himself round it, to lie hidden from the helicopter.
As soon as Ansell left him, MacConnachie felt stronger, lighter, refreshed by an access of power and confidence. Alone, he could take that chopper. He didn’t need Ansell.
As the helicopter bore in, he slipped round the hill and down the defile, leaving the suitcase at his firing point. The moment he heard the pilot pull up to cross the twin hills, he skidded about and ran back, leaving the defile from the same end, laughing.
I’ve got you. At last I’ve got you cold, you bastard, and you know it.
MacConnachie could hear the pilot’s fury in the roar of the engine as, blind for the first time, he fought to heave his machine tight about. In those seconds of dead visibility, MacConnachie ran across and down into the gully.
Now what are you going to do, bastard? You’ve got to traverse the defile and the hills first; thirty wasted seconds. Then you’ve got to get up and round to sweep the gully, and as you run dead off the hills, I’ll get back among them again. That’s another wasted circuit. Then when you come back to the hills, you’ve got to go left or right; and whichever you choose, I’ll choose the other. You’re cobblered, my friend. You won’t catch me in this lot. And comes the time you have to go after Ansell, I’ve got you.
Exactly as MacConnachie predicted, the helicopter flew its course. By the time he was back in the hills, the pilot was over the gully, and MacConnachie knew he was worried. It would have been strictly against orders to buzz them, but he needed contact with the enemy, this man, he needed the release that comes from pursuit and kill. MacConnachie knew him as he knew himself, and this made him strong.
Oh, but he was a clever bastard, though. He made his run to the left of the hills coming off the gully, then, halfway up, crossed over to the right. MacConnachie had seen it coming and, laughing with appreciation, he readjusted his own position to maintain a dead location. Everything the man did appealed to him, satisfied his sense of tactical rightness. The tighter the conflict became, the more MacConnachie’s admiration for his adversary grew.
Now the pilot pulled out to go after Ansell, but MacConnachie sat tight, grinning. Sure enough, the manoeuvre turned into a hard about-face, and the man came roaring back for one last very low run across the hills. MacConnachie applauded with delight.
This time, he knew, the pilot had gone in earnest, committing himself to the attempt to locate Ansell. He moved quickly to his prearranged firing position. The question was, could Ansell lure that man, under pressure, to leave himself open long enough for just one shot? Throughout the entire battle so far, with all its manoeuvrings, the pilot had not given him one clear look at the tank; his skill was prodigious. If he made a mistake now, it would be just the one. There would be no second chance. The man was too good for that.
So was MacConnachie.
At first Ansell had lain, with a sudden and terrible sense of isolation, watching the helicopter swoop back and forth across the hills, wracked by his inability to intervene, his legs jerking and clenching with every twist of MacConnachie’s flight, as he imagined it to be. Then, free for the moment of MacConnachie’s bullying, he had started to think. The plan could be improved.
To run the chopper on to MacConnachie’s gun was simple and direct, just the sort of improvisation he would expect of MacConnachie. But if he moved now to a flank, he could lead the helicopter in across MacConnachie’s field of fire and, by angling towards MacConnachie at the right moment, cause it also to dip, thus exposing what might prove to be the vital extra inches of tank. He was convinced also that if the aircraft found him already out to one flank, it would be more likely to follow the path he cut out.
First, he rid himself of the canteen, burying it deeply in a crack near the pimple, and covering it with hastily yanked handfuls of scrub. The observer in the helicopter would be armed and, given a chance at the unprotected canteen, could deprive them of water and reduce their fighting effectiveness by ninety per cent at a single stroke.
Then he selected his route, and slipped away.
MacConnachie was furious and baffled. The helicopter had reached the pimple and clearly had not sighted Ansell. It began to search in wider and wider arcs of flight.
‘What are you playing at, you stupid little bastard?’
But nothing happened, and MacConnachie raged. Had he seen Ansell’s manoeuvre, he would have admired it. But had he looked, he would not have seen it; light made little difference to Ansell’s gift of invisibility.
‘Oh, goddammit, run—run!’
It suddenly dawned on Ansell that he was clean away. He had only to keep going, and they would never find him. But it wasn’t true, he knew. He was free now because MacConnachie had freed him. Once it got tough again, he would need MacConnachie’s blundering resolution to save him. All the same, he felt an enormous flush of satisfaction.
As soon as the chopper came near, he showed himself. He ran a little to the left, stumbled, turned back and ran to the right. When he was sure he had created a convincing impression of panic, he set out across MacConnachie’s front, aiming for a point between MacConnachie’s firing position on his left and the pimple on his right. Without the canteen, he ran much more easily.
‘Oh, you clever little perisher,’ murmured MacConnachie, chuckling, ‘you fly bastard.’
He brought the gun up and checked the sights. Less than two hundred yards, open-sight firing. That meant three snap shots, close together, correcting on each shot. Four seconds shooting, one chopper to bag. You’re joking, of course.
Ansell was going like the clappers, stretching out like a lover with a shot-gun up his tail. No canteen. Check that after. The helicopter came round, falling in behind him.
MacConnachie was sure the pilot would be raging by now, determined to buzz Ansell savagely. There was no doubt he was coming in far too low. Carelessly low. Beautifully low.
MacConnachie held the gun gently until it was part of him, taking a long, slow breath. Fifty yards to come.
Ansell was tiring rapidly, gulping air, driving himself to maintain pace. His cheeks seemed to have swollen to the size of balloons, and as he bounced up and down they flapped in and out of his lower field of vision like white dewlaps of blubber. The demoralizing illusion came to him again that he was getting nowhere, and the terror, far from being pretended, was now real. The chopper was low. Too low. It was going to hit him. The swishing, chilling whine paralysed him. He was going to be hit. Hit. There’s the pimple. Go left. Turn. Stumble. Ankles crack together. Stay upright. Stay upright.
Perfect. Coming in just right. The kid still fifteen feet ahead, not flagging. He’ll have to go like the devil when that thing explodes.
Vaguely aware somebody leaning out of the cab. Must be the observer. Pilot on the other side. Could get a shot in now. Wait. Wait.
Breaking in towards me. Lovely. Well done. Here comes the chopper. Dip, you bastard. Dip. That’s better. Bit more. Bit more . . .
Where’s the tank, then? Where’s the bloody tank, for Christ’s sake?
Doesn’t matter! Shoot it high, in the neck, just behind the head.
MacConnachie rose, stepped out, whipped up the gun, and took aim down the narrow corridor below the flashing blades of steel.
Then he saw Ansell was down.
Get up. In God’s name, get up!
Ansell had crashed down with such force that he was winded. He had no idea what was happening. The roaring, swishing horror closed over hi
m.
Doesn’t matter. Take a chance. Shoot.
And then . . .
Oh, no. Oh, sweet Jesus, no. He’s shooting at him. The bloody man’s leaning out of the cab and he’s shooting at the boy. Ludicrously, MacConnachie took another step forward, protesting at this breach of orders.
‘That’s not right! It can’t be!’
Then he aimed at the head, and put in three shots, tight and neat. The figure slumped, and the gun tumbled down like a twig in a high wind.
Realign. Too late. Too late.
He got off two shots, but missed by a mile as the helicopter swept up, gaining altitude rapidly. Furious and frustrated, he took careful aim at the perspex frontage, and fired three more spaced shots. But he was wasting his time. On the side blind to the pilot, and at this range, he might just as well throw stones.
Ansell was staggering up, holding his head. MacConnachie ran to him.
Ansell shouted,
‘What happened?’
‘I missed.’
‘You what?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘You missed?’
‘Yes.’
‘You stupid bastard!’
MacConnachie ran to the fallen gun and picked it up.
‘Take this!’
‘Where the hell did that come from?’
‘Come on!’
MacConnachie ran back to the hill. Ansell screamed after him,
‘You stupid bastard!’
They had achieved nothing but to exhaust themselves. The helicopter sat above, comfortably out of range, waiting. They sat below, not bothering to hide. It was a grotesque situation, and bitterness wriggled between them like worms.
‘How the hell did you come to miss him?’
‘It wasn’t an easy lay, you know!’
‘I brought him in just right—I know I did!’
‘And you fell!’
‘I wasn’t in your bloody light, was I?’
‘He was shooting at you!’
‘Who was?’
‘The observer!’
‘So?’
‘I saved your life!’
‘It was your job to kill that thing, not look after me!’
‘You ungrateful bastard!’
Figures in a Landscape Page 5