The Iron Tiger - Jack Higgins [44]
'You look worried.'
'I'm thinking about tomorrow. We swing very close to the river again. If the Chinese have moved fast along the other side in their troop carriers and get a few patrols across, we could run into trouble. The bridge across the Sokim Ravine, for example - if that was destroyed, we would be on foot.'
'We can worry about that in the morning,' Drummond said. 'I'm only interested in one thing at the moment - food.'
Ahmed passed plates of stewed meat and beans across, and as they started to eat Father Kerrigan climbed up, followed by Hamid.
'Will you see that Mr. Brackenhurst gets something to eat,' the priest said to Ahmed and frowned at Drummond. 'Weren't you a little hard on him back there? Any man's nerve can go for a while in a situation like this.'
'He never had any in the first place,' Drummond said flatly.
The old priest frowned, glancing from one to the other, aware that there was something here that he did not understand. Drummond jumped over the tailboard and went round to the cab.
He sat in the warm darkness smoking and Ahmed brought him a mug of strong, scalding tea. A little later Sher Dil opened the door.
'I've worked out a guard rota. I'd like you to take over from Amal up on the road at ten. You'll also be on guard down here for an hour from 4 a.m. I want everyone up at five. We've got a long day ahead of us.'
He vanished into the darkness and Drummond pulled the fur-lined hood of his parka over his head. Ten o'clock. That left time for a couple of hours sleep. He settled into the corner and closed his eyes.
He was running down a long, dark road and somewhere ahead of him was Janet. She was calling to him and he knew that something terrible was close behind. He ran faster and then the surface of the road changed to mud and his feet began to stick in it, ankle-deep. Clouds of rain blew across his path, blotting her from sight, and only the sound of her voice told him she was still there. It became fainter and fainter and then he felt terribly afraid and the thing behind him, the nameless evil that made him so afraid, grabbed him violently by the shoulder.
He awakened suddenly to the cold night and realised that somebody was shaking him. He groaned and sat up. Ahmed said from the darkness. 'You were having a bad dream, I think, sahib.'
'Is it time?'
'Yes, sahib.'
Drummond breathed deeply a couple of times to steady himself, then pulled on his mittens. He picked up his sub-machine gun, opened the door and jumped down into the mud.
The rain rushed steadily through the darkness and the mist still blanketed the wet ground as he moved through the pine trees to the road.
After a while, he paused and called in a low voice, 'Amal, where are you?'
The Bengali moved out of the night to join him. 'Drummond sahib?'
'Anything doing?'
'Nothing, only the rain and yet more rain. Soon it will be snow. I have known it happen before this early in the year.'
'Let's hope not,' Drummond said and the Bengali faded into the darkness.
He found a fallen tree and sat on it, arms folded, sub-machine gun across his knee, but the cold ate into his bones and from time to time he stood up and walked around a little, stamping his feet to restore the circulation. Finally, with a complete disregard for caution, he lit a cheroot. It tasted terrible, but the glowing end somehow comforted him. When he had finished it, he lit another.
He became aware of the noise very gradually. He straightened up and listened carefully. He could hear the sound of feet squelching through the mud from the direction of the camp. There was silence for a moment as if the person approaching was momentarily at a loss and then the steps sounded again, this time much more cautiously.
Very carefully, Drummond placed his still burning cheroot in a branch of the fallen tree, then slipped quietly into the darkness.
He worked his way round in a wide circle until he was certain he was behind