Figures in a Landscape by Barry England

Author:Barry England [England, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2014-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

The sixth day. The dawn failed to wake MacConnachie, but the helicopter did.

He opened his eyes, not otherwise moving. He could see nothing but sky. He rotated his eyes to take in the fullest possible field of view, but still he saw nothing but sky and the upper rim of the depression in which they lay. Moving with great care, he raised himself until he could look out: the chopper was a little below, and two or three hundred yards to the right, searching the forward slopes of the mountain.

Of course the pilot would know they had escaped the valley. MacConnachie expected that: he knew the pilot did not be­lieve them dead. But he needed to see whether search parties were coming up, or whether it was still the pilot alone who held this conviction. He wriggled to the precipice and peered down.

There was plenty of activity. The fire was out, and across the stalk fields there spread a large brown stain, smoky with mist. But throughout the rest of the valley soldiers were milling about in abundance, conducting a hut-to-hut and thicket-to-thicket search. None of them had so far mounted the slopes below, so there was no immediate threat. But one thing was clear. The boy had talked. They were known to be alive.

With a sigh, he settled back and tried to make a proper mili­tary appreciation of their situation.

At the moment they held the high ground and the initiative. Above, slope mounted upon precipitous slope until the peak was lost from view. Below, the faces of rock were equally vertical; they could not be taken by surprise. And all over the face of the mountain were many thousands of jagged cuts and scars, in one of which they now lay. Even from the helicopter it would be im­possible to spot them. A man three feet away could pass by unaware.

The Goons had failed to recapture them where they most needed to succeed, and now the odds lay with MacConnachie and Ansell. The pilot was the one remaining hope of encompass­ing their defeat, and he would know it. But there was one major flaw. And this, too, the pilot knew. And so, therefore, did the Goons.

They had to return to the valley. They had no choice. Without food they could never cross the mountains. And once up there in the high country, they would find nothing to help them: no animals, human or otherwise; no vegetation; nothing that lived. MacConnachie had always thought of it as the territory that Nature had forgotten, and it chilled him. Whatever they were to eat they must take with them, or in that alien environment they would die.

So for one whole day they had to linger in the lower slopes, and for one more night they must commit themselves to an order of battle that favoured the enemy. Having seized the initiative they would have, in effect, deliberately to relinquish it.

Fretting, MacConnachie kept watch, waiting for Ansell to wake. Perhaps Ansell would have some other suggestion.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.