The Iron Tiger - Jack Higgins [51]
The road curved around a great outcrop of black rock and he followed it, hugging the side, turning the corner to where an apron of brown and white water flooded the road, rushing down from the mountain above and cascading into space.
As he started across, the front wheels dipped and the surface of the road dissolved beneath him, washed out in a great sliding scoop, and the truck slewed towards the edge.
For a moment, it seemed to halt and Drummond tugged frantically at the handbrake, but it was not enough. The truck lurched and one of the front wheels dipped over the edge.
'Jump for it!' he cried to Ahmed.
He got the door open and went out head first, landing on his hands and knees, slipping in the thick mud as the truck slid past him and went over the edge.
It hung there for a split second, and Ahmed, whose door had jammed, got it open a second too late. The truck went over with a chorus of screams from the wretches imprisoned inside. There were three terrible, metal-wrenching crashes as it bounced its way down the valley, a brief moment of silence and then a tremendous explosion.
Drummond moved cautiously to the side and looked down at the bright, orange tongue of flames and turned away, his body heaving in a great, uncontrollable spasm that emptied his stomach.
He leaned against the rock for a while and then scrambled across the washed out portion of the road and walked on into the rain.
For half a mile the road dropped steeply into the valley and he caught a brief glimpse of the river, winding through the mist below. The rain became colder and darkness started to fall.
There was only one way to go, though God knew where it would take him. He wasn't even armed. His sub-machine gun had gone over the edge with the truck.
Something brushed his face. He raised a gloved hand and saw that it was covered with large melting snowflakes. He looked up and all around him, snow fell intermingled with the rain.
From further along the road came the rattle of small arms fire and he paused for a moment, the snow gently covering him. Who was it? Hamid or Brackenhurst? But there was no means of knowing and he started to walk again.
Darkness increased and the snow gradually took the place of the rain until it was falling all about him, covering the muddy road with a white mantle. Again there came the rattle of small arms fire, much nearer this time.
The situation was beginning to look desperate. If he stayed on the road, he was bound to run into trouble sooner or later to judge from the sound of that firing. Without shelter, he would freeze to death on a night like this.
Trees had now begun to cover the valley bottom and he moved into their shelter and stumbled along, parallel with the road, his gloved hands tucked into his armpits against the intense cold.
Somewhere up the road, there was the clatter of a hoof against stone, and a horse snickered softly. Drummond dropped behind a tree and waited.
There was a soft drubbing of hooves muffled by snow and half a dozen horsemen cantered by. They wore the typical rough sheepskin coat of the hillmen, but the red stars in the peaked caps, the Burp guns slung across their backs, told him what they were.
'What do I do now?' he said softly as the hoofbeats faded into the night.
There was a quiet chuckle almost in his ear and Ali Hamid said, 'Exactly what I was wondering.'
12
The Long Night
'WHEN I first heard you coming, I thought it meant trouble. I was about to become most unpleasant.' Hamid smiled, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. 'A good thing those soldiers rode by. The moment you took cover, I knew you were on the right side.'
It was impossible to see his face in the darkness and Drummond reached out to touch him in sheer relief. 'Ali, you old bastard. What happened?'
'You tell me. We were waiting for you to come back with news of Brackenhurst and you went by as if half the Chinese Army was on your tail.'
'That was Brackenhurst, not me,' Drummond said and explained quickly what