by Peter Cave
‘It might save time,’ Cyclops confirmed with a nod. ‘If we wait until they get here, we’ll have to make a choice whether to go through the gully or to backtrack. And if there are any guerrillas in there …’
He did not bother to finish, for Hailsham had clearly got the message. The man was right, the major reflected. If they chose to go through the gully, it would be ideal terrain for an ambush. And eight troopers together stood a better chance than four. There was also another consideration. The biting wind sliced along the exposed ridge like an icy razor. Being on the other side of the crag might offer a little more protection – and at least being on the move would help to keep their body temperatures up. Staying still and waiting would only weaken them.
It was this last factor which made up Hailsham’s mind. He clapped Cyclops on the shoulder with one hand. ‘Yes, good thinking, Corporal,’ he said. He looked over at Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who had already consumed their scant meal. ‘Well, if you gentlemen have finished washing up the silverware, we’ll press on,’ he announced.
In truth, both men were grateful for the chance to get moving again, but it would have been out of character to accept the news without a token protest.
‘Aw, boss, I need time to let my dinner go down,’ Tweedledum complained. ‘I’ve got a real delicate digestion, you know?’
‘Yeah, and he’ll fart all the way up the bloody mountain just to prove it,’ Tweedledee put in. ‘Just make sure you’re not the poor bastard behind him.’
Hailsham grinned. ‘That won’t be my problem. It’ll be yours. It’s your turn to be Charlie.’ He turned to Cyclops, nodding up at the climb ahead. ‘Is it worth roping up?’
Cyclops shook his head dismissively. ‘Nah – piece of piss, even for an old man like you, boss.’
‘Cheeky bastard,’ Hailsham grunted, but he was smiling. Nevertheless, he was quite content to let the younger man lead the way. No point in pushing it, he thought. Age and rank still brought some degree of privilege – even in the SAS.
He reached the fissure easily enough, feeling a nice, comforting pressure against both sides of his boot as he jabbed his toes into the crevice and began to edge his way around to the blind side of the crag behind Cyclops. Then, suddenly, he felt a cold knot in his guts as he saw the one little feature of the traverse which Cyclops had neglected to mention. Just ahead of them, a rocky outcrop jutted out from the main body of the pinnacle, forming a two- or three-foot overhang.
‘Shit,’ Hailsham hissed. He braced himself against the almost inevitable feeling of weakness in his legs as he prepared to face his own personal nightmare.
Cyclops still appeared totally confident. Reaching out, he hooked his fingers over the rim of the outcrop and tensed his arms before swinging his body out into space. Rocking himself from side to side, he let himself sway like a pendulum until he could kick out and lock his boot into a firm toehold. Having inched his fingers along the remainder of the overhang until he could shift his body weight into balance, Cyclops pushed himself away and locked both hands over a knobbly, potato-sized projection, pressing himself against the rock face like a gecko. Changing his foothold from right to left, he completed the tricky manoeuvre and began to climb steadily again.
Hailsham let him get well clear before setting out himself. Sucking in a deep, slow breath, he fought to calm his fears. It was stupid to allow himself ever to get into this state, he told himself. It was just a lump of rock, nothing more. He had negotiated worse obstacles than this a hundred times before, and would probably cope with a few more before he finally hung up his boots. Besides, he could not afford to let Tweedledum see his fear. Reaching up to the rim, he dug his fingers into the cold rock and tensed himself to spring clear from the fissure.
As ever, the terrifying certainty that he was going to fall tore at Hailsham’s mind and body for a few seconds. Then he was hanging out over the 200-foot drop below him, his body being buffeted from side to side like a rag doll by the swirling winds. Just one step this side of panic, he kicked out wildly at the main body of the rock face, the toe of his boot scraping against it ineffectually as he tried to locate a firm hold. The weight of his body on his fingers seemed impossible to bear. Every fibre of his being screamed that he was trapped now, and would hang suspended above certain death until those fingers gave up the struggle.
‘Up a bit, boss,’ came Tweedledum’s voice from behind him. ‘You’re reaching too low. Bring your foot up about another nine inches.’
Hailsham did as he was told, making what felt to him like his last desperate kick out for salvation. His boot scraped against smooth rock for a few more seconds, then caught on something. Feeling like sobbing with relief, he turned his foot, digging his toe deep into the welcome crevice and taking the strain off his arms.
Weak but triumphant, he followed Cyclops up the remaining hundred feet of the rock face and finally collapsed beside him on another small plateau.
‘All right, boss?’ Cyclops asked, grinning.
It took a lot of doing, but Hailsham managed to fix an idiotic grin on his face as he looked up. ‘Piece of piss,’ he said breathlessly, not quite sure whether Cyclops believed him or not.
As Tweedledum and Tweedledee finally joined them, Hailsham scrambled to his feet and brought his binoculars up to his eyes. Cyclops pointed to the other patrol’s position with his finger.
Hailsham had to concur with the corporal’s initial assessment. The path they were following certainly seemed to be a regular passageway through the lower hills of the mountain range, probably following a fault line. But there were definite areas where it was clear that natural features had been modified or adapted for the passage of human feet. Places where piles of small boulders had been rolled or dragged aside and the natural line of the path widened were dead giveaways.
Having identified Andrew’s patrol, who were making good progress up a particularly steep and winding section of the path, Hailsham swung the binoculars slowly to the left, picking up the fork which Cyclops had mentioned. Again, he could not fault the man’s reading of the situation. It definitely appeared to be a secondary track which carved a circuitous but accessible route around the side of another small peak. The general direction was certainly right. It would appear to be their best route forward, just as Cyclops had surmised.
Hailsham lowered the binoculars, nodding thoughtfully. ‘We’ll intercept them at the fork,’ he announced. ‘Anyone have a better idea?’
The others shook their heads. ‘We’re with you, boss,’ Tweedledee said. ‘You’re the sherpa.’
It sounded like a good, democratic decision. Hailsham took the lead, stepping out on a downward course which would take them into the other patrol’s line of vision within a few minutes. Although he trusted his men implicitly, Hailsham firmly believed in a modicum of caution. With potentially hostile forces known to be somewhere in the surrounding hills, the sooner they were seen and identified the better, just in case anyone below them was feeling a bit jumpy. As an extra precaution, he unstrapped his SA-80 and held it out in both arms across his chest to signal non-hostile intent.
‘We got company, boss,’ the Thinker announced, as Hailsham and his patrol came into view over the top of a ridge. The big Mancunian was already dropping to his belly even as he spoke, his hands swinging the Enfield into a businesslike position.
Andrew hit the ground a split second behind him, bringing his binoculars up and training them on the advancing quartet. He began to scramble to his feet again. ‘Relax, fellers,’ he called out softly. ‘It looks like the old man’s coming down to meet us.’
‘Maybe he wants to offer one of us a piggyback,’ Jimmy suggested hopefully. ‘Or perhaps he’s just pissed off with the whole thing and has decided it’s time to pack up and go home.’
‘I keep telling you, Trooper – you’re too much of a bloody optimist for this game,’ Andrew said, grinning.
Jimmy shrugged. ‘I’m just a naturally lucky bastard. It started the day me mam decided
to breast-feed me.’
The sudden, sharp crack of a rifle shot echoed around the sides of the enclosing hills. His instincts honed by the finest and most intensive combat training in the world, Andrew dropped back to the ground like a stone, his head whipping sideways to check his men.
‘Anybody hit?’ he screamed.
With equally fast reactions, Jimmy, the Thinker and Barry all barked out a denial. Andrew swung his binoculars back to his eyes, training them on the other patrol’s position.
Hailsham, Tweedledee and Cyclops were already down on the ground in defensive positions, having rolled into whatever scant cover they could find. Only Tweedledum remained on his feet, his face twisted into a mask of pain and shock and his left hand clasped tightly around his throat from where blood spurted out through his fingers. For perhaps three full seconds, he continued to stand stock-still until he lurched slightly sideways like a drunken man, his legs seeming to buckle under him. Almost as if in slow motion, he dropped to his knees and then toppled sideways. His body rolled down the rocky side of the hill for several yards before finally coming to a stop against a large boulder.
Andrew’s teeth were clenched tightly together as he slowly lowered the binoculars to the ground.
‘Oh, shit!’ he groaned. ‘Holy fucking shit!’
Chapter 14
With his face pressed close against the rocky ground, Hailsham watched Tweedledum’s body roll away down the slope in front of him. Raising his head slightly, he tried to pinpoint the source of the single shot, but there was nothing to give any sort of a clue. He could only assume that it had come from somewhere higher in the hills to the left of them.
He glanced to either side of him, locating the other men and making a candid assessment of their position. It was not good. Only Tweedledee had found anything which could be described as cover, having rolled into a shallow depression in which a few stalky tufts of grass had found a tenuous foothold. Both he and Cyclops were laying on bare and open ground, with no more than a few fist-sized rocks scattered between them and the foot of the hill.
Hailsham’s heart was pounding in his chest as the seconds seemed to tick away a slow eternity. Why was there no more fire? he wondered. Even a lone sniper, or a rear-guard lookout must see that they were totally exposed. So why was he not even now just casually picking them off like fish in a barrel?
The question immediately begged another. If his guess as to the gunman’s position was anywhere near correct, then he must also have had the other patrol in clear view for some considerable time. Why then had he not shot at them? It made no sense. Unless …
A wild thought came into Hailsham’s head; wild – but in this bizarre situation the only one which provided a rational explanation. Could it possibly be that the sniper had been protecting Winston and his men? That he had perceived the approach of Hailsham’s patrol as an attack, and only now had started to doubt that judgement? Hailsham looked down the hill again, to where Tweedledum’s body lay huddled against the boulder.
He glanced over his shoulder at Cyclops. ‘Listen – I’m going down,’ he announced curtly. ‘Be ready to give me covering fire if you have to, but don’t open fire unless you’re fired at first. Got that?’
‘You got it, boss,’ Cyclops hissed back. ‘But what the fuck’s going on?’
Hailsham did not bother to try to answer him at that point. He was not even sure if he had an answer, although the next few minutes might conceivably provide one. Rolling on to his back, he slipped the catch of his SA-80 into the safe position and cradled the weapon tightly against his belly and chest. Then, taking a deep breath, he threw himself down the hill towards Tweedledum’s position. Rocks and stones tore at his body as he rolled over and over down the slope with increasing speed, but Hailsham hardly noticed. His brain was more concerned with the sudden and sharper agony of a bullet tearing into his flesh. Compared with that, a few bruises were nothing. Finally, miraculously, he was lying beside the stricken man in the welcome cover of the large boulder.
Tweedledum was unconscious, but still breathing. Judging from the position of his head against the boulder, Hailsham reckoned, he had probably knocked himself out on impact. The first task was to ensure that the airway was open and clear. Hailsham slipped his fingers cautiously around the sides of Tweedledum’s head, probing gently for any tell-tale signs of sponginess which might indicate a skull fracture. The cranium seemed solid enough, Hailsham thought with a sense of relief, and there were no signs of fluid or blood seeping from his nose or ears to suggest internal brain damage. He could only hope that there was no damage to the neck or spine. Not that it really mattered, he reflected on noticing the amount of blood which had already soaked into the ground. If he could not manage to get to the wound and staunch the bleeding, then Tweedledum’s clock would run out soon enough anyway. Gently, Hailsham turned the wounded man’s face to the side in the normal recovery position and pulled an emergency field dressing pack from his escape belt.
Once exposed, the wound looked better than he could have dared to hope. The bullet appeared to have entered the side of the throat, just under the jaw. Miraculously, it had missed the jugular by centimetres, ploughing on in a downward path until it encountered the firmer tissue of the shoulder muscles. There was no sign of an exit wound, so it was probably still lodged there.
Hailsham wiped away as much blood as he could and pressed the dressing into position over the wound, wedging it in place with a couple of handy stones. It was all he could do for the moment. From now on, Hailsham reflected, Tweedledum’s life depended on their all surviving the next few minutes.
Edging his way around the boulder, he called down to Andrew: ‘Listen, Winston – I got a theory that these guys think they’re on your team.’
Andrew’s voice came back immediately. ‘Yeah, I’d thought of that myself, boss. They could have taken a pop at us anytime for the last five minutes or so. So what do you reckon?’
‘Feel like putting it to the test?’
This time there was just a momentary hesitation before Andrew replied. ‘I’m willing if you are, boss. So far it’s been looking like a good week for me,’ he called back.
‘Then let’s do it,’ Hailsham shouted. He began to rise slowly to his feet, stepping out from behind the safety of the boulder. His heart in his mouth, he started to walk slowly down the rest of the hill as Andrew likewise left his cover and stood waiting to meet him.
The 300 yards which still separated them seemed like as many miles. Hailsham continued to walk down the hill at a steady, apparently casual pace, even though every instinct in his highly trained mind told him it was against all the rules of survival. Oddly, he found himself thinking of an old black and white film he had once seen, called The Long Walk. That particular walk had been the route of a condemned man from his cell to the gallows. Or had it been the electric chair? Hailsham could not exactly remember which, but his present situation was chillingly similar.
Seconds dragged into minutes, and still no sound came down from the high ground above him other than the roaring of the wind through the gullies between the hills. Then suddenly it was over and Hailsham was standing at Andrew’s side, once more daring to hope that he had been right.
The sergeant’s face betrayed his own tension, but he managed to raise a faint smile. ‘Looks like we might have guessed this one right, boss. Either that, or our chummy up there is taking a fucking long time to reload.’
Hailsham let out a nervous, tension-relieving laugh – almost a giggle. ‘The only problem is I didn’t work out the next move yet. What do we do now – stand here like a couple of bloody lemons until the Seventh Cavalry gets here?’
‘I got news for you. They ain’t coming,’ Andrew said gravely. ‘Seems like they had a previous engagement or something. What say we show these guys what a friendly pair of bastards we are?’
As he spoke, the sergeant was unhitching his SA-80 very gingerly. Bending down extremely slowly, he laid the weapon out on the ground in
front of him and stepped back a couple of paces. It seemed like a sensible gesture, Hailsham thought, following suit.
The two men stood together in silence for several moments, both scanning the hills above them for the faintest sign of movement. Finally, Andrew had to voice the question which had been struggling to surface for the past five minutes.
‘What about Tweedledum, boss?’
Hailsham bit at his lower lip and sighed. ‘He could make it,’ he said quietly. ‘But he needs better medical attention than we can give him out here in the open.’
‘Bandit,’ Andrew hissed suddenly. ‘Top of the second ridge, about two o’clock.’
Hailsham’s eyes had been scanning the left side of the hills above them. They flicked quickly to the right.
‘Yeah, got him,’ he confirmed, quickly picking out the turbaned head which had just become visible above a small outcrop of rocks. Even as he looked, two or three more figures appeared out of nowhere.
‘These guys are good,’ Andrew muttered in grudging admiration.
Hailsham shrugged faintly. ‘Well it is their turf,’ he said almost defensively, although he too was quite impressed. From the top of the hill he had just come down, he would have sworn that the area was clear.
Eventually, some half a dozen people were in plain view, staring down expectantly at the two men. It seemed that they too were unsure of the next move. There was only one way to end the stand-off, Hailsham decided.
‘I’m going up,’ he announced quietly. ‘Let’s hope my Russian is up to the local dialect. Otherwise it’s sign language.’
‘Want me to come with you, boss?’ Andrew asked.
Hailsham shook his head. ‘No sense in both of us putting our heads in the noose. They’ve seen that we’re friends now. Let’s hope that’s enough to convince them.’
‘Hearts and minds, boss?’
Hailsham grinned. ‘This one’s more like balls and arses. Ours,’ he said as he moved forwards, beginning the steep climb up to the rebel position. Andrew’s eyes were on him every step of the way, until he reached the first of the waiting figures, paused briefly and then melted out of vision.