But was anybody still up there? I rather thought there was. Who in his right mind would shoot a hole in the tyre of a car and then just walk away? So he was still up there, waiting and watching. But if he was still there why hadn’t he nailed me? It didn’t make much sense – unless he was just supposed to immobilize me.
I stared unseeingly at Elin who was topping up a jar with sugar. If that was so, then Kennikin had men coming in from both sides. It wouldn’t be too hard to arrange if he knew where I was – radio communication is a wonderful thing. That character up on the ridge would have been instructed to stop me so that Kennikin could catch up; and that meant he wanted me alive.
I wondered what would happen if I got into the driving seat and took off again. The odds were that another bullet would rip open another tyre. It would be easier this time on a sitting target. I didn’t take the trouble to find out – there was a limit to the number of spare tyres I carried, and the limit had already been reached.
Hoping that my chain of reasoning was not too shaky I began to make arrangements to get out from under that gun. I took Lindholm’s cosh from under the mattress where I had concealed it and put it into my pocket, then I said, ‘Let’s go and … ’ My voice came out as a hoarse croak and I cleared my throat. ‘Let’s have coffee outside.’
Elin looked up in surprise. ‘I thought we were in a hurry.’
‘We’ve been making good time,’ I said. ‘I reckon we’re far enough ahead to earn a break. I’ll take the coffee pot and the sugar; you bring the cups.’ I would have dearly loved to have taken the carbine but that would have been too obvious; an unsuspecting man doesn’t drink his coffee fully armed.
I jumped out of the rear door and Elin handed out the coffee pot and the sugar jar which I set on the rear bumper before helping her down. Her right arm was still in the sling but she could carry the cups and spoons in her left hand. I picked up the coffee pot and waved it in the general direction of the ridge. ‘Let’s go over there at the foot of the rocks.’ I made off in that direction without giving her time to argue.
We trudged over the open ground towards the ridge. I had the coffee pot in one hand and the sugar jar in the other, the picture of innocence. I also had the sgian dubh tucked into my left stocking and a cosh in my pocket, but those didn’t show. As we got nearer the ridge a miniature cliff reared up and I thought our friend up on top might be getting worried. Any moment from now he would be losing sight of us, and he might just lean forward a little to keep us in view.
I turned as though to speak to Elin and then turned back quickly, glancing upwards as I did so. There was no one to be seen but I was rewarded by the glint of something – a reflection that flickered into nothing. It might have been the sun reflecting off a surface of glassy lava, but I didn’t think so. Lava doesn’t jump around when left to its own devices – not after it has cooled off, that is.
I marked the spot and went on, not looking up again, and we came to the base of the cliff which was about twenty feet high. There was a straggly growth of birch; gnarled trees all of a foot high. In Iceland bonsai grow naturally and I’m surprised the Icelanders don’t work up an export trade to Japan. I found a clear space, set down the coffee pot and the sugar jar, then sat down and pulled up my trouser leg to extract the knife.
Elin came up. ‘What are you doing?’
I said, ‘Now don’t jump out of your pants, but there’s a character on the ridge behind us who just shot a hole in that tyre.’
Elin stared at me wordlessly. I said, ‘He can’t see us here, but I don’t think he’s worried very much about that. All he wants to do is to stop us until Kennikin arrives – and he’s doing it very well. As long as he can see the Land-Rover he knows we aren’t far away.’ I tucked the knife into the waistband of my trousers – it’s designed for a fast draw only when wearing a kilt.
Elin sank to her knees. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m positive. You don’t get a natural puncture like that in the side wall of a new tyre.’ I stood up and looked along the ridge. ‘I’m going to winkle out that bastard; I think I know where he is.’ I pointed to a crevice at the end of the cliff, a four-foot high crack in the rock. ‘I want you to get in there and wait. Don’t move until you hear me call – and make bloody sure it is me.’
‘And what if you don’t come back?’ she said bleakly.
She was a realist. I looked at her set face and said deliberately, ‘In that case, if nothing else happens, you stay where you are until dark, then make a break for the Land-Rover and get the hell out of here. On the other hand, if Kennikin pitches up, try to keep out of his way – and do that by keeping out of sight.’ I shrugged. ‘But I’ll try to get back.’
‘Do you have to go at all?’
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’ll 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 uphill or downhill,’ he said. The reasoning was good. Water will take the quickest way down any hill and the quickest way is usually the steepest. Normally one sticks to the bare hillside and steers clear of ravines. Abnormally, 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 shallower and towards the end it was only about two feet deep and I was snaking upwards on my belly. 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. Hell, there could be a dozen scattered along the top of the ridge for all I knew! I just stayed very still 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, still on my belly. I got there and rested again, listening carefully. 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