Southtrap

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Linn spun, reeled, and pitched headlong across the body of the dead woman.

It could have been the ear-splitting concussion of the shot in the confined space which helped crack the ice across Dina's face, or it could have been solely the force of Linn's fall. Whichever it was, the ice splintered across. The mouth pulled open. It gaped teeth. In a split second the frozen half-smile became a cadaver's rictus, a hideous death-grin.

Wegger gave a cry which was more animal than human.

I don't recall clearly either the shot or the cry.

The kill-lust exploded in my brain.

I had to kill Wegger with my own hands.

I drove at him.

I was on him when the second shot went off under my right armpit. I felt the hot sear of cordite. The bullet whanged off a wall. No bullet would have stopped me then.

My first blow into his solar plexus carried all the agony of Linn behind it. I summoned up from my fatigued muscles some reserve I could not guess at.

Wegger's head came forward as the breath went out of him. I couldn't get my right fist clear in time to follow up. I chopped him across the neck with my left.

I heard but did not see the gun go flying.

Wegger lurched past, staggered, and then swung to face me. His breath whistled in his throat. He was very quick, very game, very tough. That first blow must really have hurt him.

He ran in low, baulking me from getting a clean blow to his head. His shoulder took me like a Rugby tackle. At the same time he kneed me in the groin.

I found myself flat on my back, writhing in agony.

He hadn't enough breath left to finish me off. He stood for a moment, trying to suck air. When he came a moment later I was ready for him. Sea-boots first, he tried to kick my head, I grabbed his boot, concentrated all my strength, and up-ended him.

I came back on my feet. My vision was misted with pain and the smoky light.

Wegger's hands were plucking at the strings of his parka, trying to get at the grenade.

I threw myself on him, reaching for his throat. The lacing where his hood joined the body of his weatherproof jacket saved him. It kept my choking fingers from closing his windpipe. Somehow he managed to find power enough to double his knees up and kick me clear. Gravity seemed to triple my weight. I came down with a sickening thump.

Again his left hand, his fighting hand, went to his waist where the grenade was. It came out too quickly to have untied the bomb, although my sense of time was haywire.

It held the knife with the killer whale handle.

He hurled himself at me.

I mule-kicked him in the' chest with my boots as he dived on me but I hadn't the power left to make the kick do what it should have done. It threw him off line only. Then we were both on the ground on all fours, facing one another like animals.

Wegger came back on his feet as agilely as a cat, towering and circling, looking for the coup de grace. He had all the advantages.

My boot knocked against something hard behind me. In a flash I realized what it was. I reached back, snatched up one of the gold ingots, locked it between both hands and jerked upright as Wegger plunged and struck at my throat with the knife.

The bar met his jaw and face in a kind of crude Liverpool Kiss. I heard the crunch of bone and teeth; simultaneously I felt a red-hot line of pain as the knife skidded across my neck and shoulder.

Wegger somersaulted back. I was on top of him as the knife reached out again for me, striking madly with the gold bar, insanely, out of control with the lust to kill, again and again until his knife-hand fell back tiredly and my blows seemed to be striking a skull filled with sawdust instead of bone.

I got up.

There was no sound, no movement, from Wegger. But the rock chamber was filled with my retching gasps, my whooping for breath. The singeing white-hot pain near my ear was nothing to the pain in my mind.

'Linn! Linn darling!'

There was no reply. She lay doubled over, arms outflung over the grinning corpse.

I have no clear recollection of my movements after that. All I knew was that I had one thought — to get her out! Get her out of this death-house! Get her to warmth! Get her to help!

And then, the over-riding thought, like the punch of the heavy bullet itself — she's dead, she's dead, she's beyond help!

The light of day on my eyes at the entrance to the tunnel brought me to my senses. I found myself carrying Linn over my right shoulder. The torch was in my left hand. Her arms were hanging and she was limp. I had no memory of testing to see whether she was breathing. My mind was as dark as the rock passage I had just left behind.

Get her to the fire! Get her warm! See where the bullet went in…

The fire was barely smouldering. I put Linn down on the rounded pebbles of the beach. I cast about, grabbing anything that looked dry enough to burn. The penguins near the water's edge started to squawk. Four elephant seals remained as dormant as giant hibernating slugs.

I returned with an armful of wood, threw it on the fire. The sight of Linn's face drove me. It was a hideous putty-blue. There was a trace of pink spume at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were half-open, unseeing.

I couldn't spot any blood. But there wouldn't be yet, through all her thick clothing. The only sign of violence was a small tear from the Luger bullet above her left breast.

I darted to the cliff side and plucked and tore handfuls of the rough tussocky grass for a couch. I arranged it, then laid her gently on it. The fire began picking up.

I plucked at the strings of her parka to examine the wound. My fingers were so stiff and shaking that I could not untie them. I stopped, looking for something to cut with. Like an evil dream the thought came to me; I had no knife, nothing. Wegger had allowed us nothing.

Then I saw his own knife at my waistband. I had no recollection at all of putting it there.

The sight of it pulled me together. There was no point in senselessly slashing her clothing. If she were alive, she would need every scrap of protection she could get.

I took a big grip on myself and set my fingers to untying the parka. Underneath, her jersey was water-damp but unstained by blood. There was only that hideous marker on the left breast. At the sight of it, my hands seemed to lose co-ordination. I pulled at her sweater and my hand struck something hard, metallic. I managed to get her sweater up a little further.

Then I saw the tiny transmitter lodged in the strap of her brassiere. It had a ragged rent in its inner corner.

Two long blue-red bullet welts radiated from it across and up her chest.

One, about six inches long, travelled vertically in the direction of her shoulder-blade.

The second, an ugly blue-black score, had laid open the flesh across her breastbone and then disappeared in an angry ragged hole on her right side. Blood was pouring from both wounds.

I leant down with racing pulses, plucked away the transmitter, and put my ear against her heart.

She was alive!

Then I realized with a stab of unbelievable relief what had happened: Wegger's heavy 9mm Parabellum slug had smashed into the transmitter and splintered. One ragged fragment had shot upwards, making the long superficial wound to her shoulder-blade; the other had ricocheted sideways into her right side, entering her chest against the swell of her breast. That was the dangerous wound.

For the first time I became aware of my own wound when I felt blood dripping from the vicinity of my ear and saw it splashing against her chest. I felt my neck cautiously. The tip of Wegger's knife had torn the lobe of my right ear and then travelled back as far as my hairline. It did not seem more than a flesh wound although it was throbbing painfully. I tried to staunch the blood with my handkerchief.

I sat like that on my haunches, looking into Linn's pain-filled face. Out of reaction, the muscles of my legs and arms started to kick uncontrollably and I began to shake all over like a case of DTs. I crouched close to the fire to warm myself, getting Linn too as near the heat as I could. Cold meant death; the cold would get into her wound and kill her.

I knew I had somehow to stop the bleeding. The flesh wound was pumping freely but it was the other — which was showing also signs of heavy bruising which I feared. I wondered whether, from the pink froth at her lips, the fragment of bullet had entered her right lung. I tested her breathing. There was not the wheezing there would have been from a lung wound. Then, to my relief, I found that the froth was coming from a gash where she had bitten her lip in agony as the bullet had hit her.

I had nothing with which to tend or bandage her wounds. The only thing I had was my woollen shirt, which was wet. Stripping myself of it, drying and tearing it for makeshift bandages; drying my other clothes one by one and replacing Linn's with them so that she was warm and dry; and getting her own things themselves dry was an operation as freezingly breath-catching as diving into the sea itself. When it was all done and she was as comfortable as I could make her, I took stock of my situation.

The afternoon was far gone. The cave's entrance, which faced east, was now almost in full shadow. The penguin colony had been swelled by other individuals which had swum up to the beach. They stood chattering and making tentative sallies towards the fire. The elephant seals were still quiescent. The wind had dropped and I was surprised to see that there were no more whitecaps out to sea. It had the makings of a rare calm evening.

It didn't need a doctor to tell me Linn was a hospital case. The fragment of bullet would have to be removed from her chest. That meant an operating theatre. The nearest hospital was over 2000 kilometres away, on the Cape mainland.

Had the GARP network heard our signals? If it had, how could I communicate further? Marion Island had powerful radio weather transmitters but I had no boat to get there. Nor had the weather station a boat. The channel is so dangerous that all boats are banned.

I ruled out Marion Island.

I found Linn's smashed-transmitter. If it had worked previously, it did so no longer. Its intricate circuitry had been wrecked by the bullet.

The only method I could visualize of getting Linn out was by helicopter. A helicopter-carrying destroyer would take five days to reach Prince Edward from its Cape base. How — if the authorities were immediately made aware of her plight — would I keep Linn alive until then?

She had to have food. I had to have food.

Previous Prince Edward Island survivors — including Wegger — had kept themselves going on elephant seals; their meat for sustenance, their blubber for fuel, their hides for boots and even to patch boats. They were the readiest source of food in addition to birds, birds' eggs and the native vegetable, Kerguelen cabbage.

I eyed the group of elephant seals on the beach in front of me and made up my mind immediately. I'd never killed an elephant seal, but I knew how it was done. I hurried to the sleeping group and picked up a large stone. It was over in a moment. I was glad that the brute hadn't opened his saucer-like limpid eyes before the stone crashed home on his protruding snout. I dragged the carcase back to the fire and set to work with Wegger's knife, first slicing off the thick layer of blubber and setting it aside for burning.

Then I realized that I had nothing to cook with.

There was the litter of broken pots and tins inside the cave entrance. Most of the stuff was so rusty as to be useless. The big sealers' pots were designed for whole carcasses and moreover had holes rusted through them. I earmarked a couple of beer-cans for blubber lamps. I sloshed over to the spring to wash them out and have a drink of water myself. My foot touched something else solid in the water. It was a 15cm shell-case, brass, unrusted. British? German? I picked it out of the water — it would make an ideal cooking-vessel. There was no time to puzzle how it came there. I hurried back to the fire.

'John! John!'

Linn's eyes were conscious but they were glazed with pain. Her voice was so faint that for a moment I wondered whether I'd imagined her call.

I dropped the shell-case and went down on my knees by her couch.

She tried to lift herself and fell back as the agony of the wound gripped her.

'John! Darling! It's dark — where am I? It's warm — my chest — '

I took her shoulders and held her gently so that she would not attempt to move again. I leaned down and put my lips to hers.

'Everything's fine, Linn, my darling. You're going to be all right. There's nothing more to worry about.'

Her shock returned with her consciousness.

'He — he shot me — my chest…'

I stroked her hair and noticed that she was warmer than I had anticipated. I feared it might be feverishness.

'You've got a bullet in you — only part of a bullet, my darling. You're still on Prince Edward. I'll get you out safely.'

Fear started into her shadowed eyes. 'Where are we, John? Where on Prince Edward? Where is her 'We're at the cave entrance, Linn. Forget Wegger. He won't worry us any more.'

There was a note of despair in her whispered question, 'John — please — I don't understand — the shot, the gold, Dina…'

I sat and told her as the sun disappeared but the long light remained over the sea and on the golden bastions over our heads.

When I had done, she said, 'Did the bullet finish the transmitter, John?'

'Yes, Linn. I'm afraid so. It's useless now. But it saved your life.'

'So nobody knows where we are?'

I had tried earlier to talk myself out of that one: now Linn's urgency placed the problem squarely in front of me.

The GARP communications set-up has had days and nights to plot our position and follow our course. I'm sure that the search is on at this moment. They'll come — soon, Linn.'

'You won't let them take me without you, my love, will you?'

'Never, Linn.'

The flames crackled, the remaining elephant seals started shifting and grunting, and the penguins moved closer, standing their distance like well-dressed undertakers' assistants.

After a while she said, 'I'm dying, aren't I, John?'

Her question sent the cold fear sweeping across my heart. I tried to sound reassuring.

'No, Linn. The bullet was a soft-nosed one. It splintered. I don't think the fragment is deep. If it were in your lung you wouldn't be able to breathe properly or speak. A doctor with a probe would have it out in no time.'

She moved and then cried out in pain. It was her answer.

Later, she seemed to sleep after I had fed her the unappetizing mixture I'd brewed in the shell-case. I had some myself. It tasted oily and fishy. You get used to it, Wegger had said. I was still in my Prince Edward Island apprenticeship.

Night came, the half-dark of the Antarctic summer night.

I built a second fire just inside the cave entrance where it was dry and laid another bed in shelter for Linn as well as one for myself next to it. She did not fully wake but squirmed in agony when I carried her to it. I tried cushioning her head in my arms but she could not get comfortable, so I went and sat guard on my own heap of bed-grass.

I must have slept, for it was darker when I woke. It felt like half an hour but it was, in fact, nearly four hours. I went to the water's edge for more wood. It was a night as beautiful as Captain Prestrud's dream. The same pale opalescent blue was on the water and over the sea. Far out, a white iceberg seemed to hang like a star in space.

It was also fine enough to be able to see the all-night electric lights of Marion's weather station if I went up to higher ground.

I checked Linn. She was still asleep, breathing faster and more shallowly.

I hurried up the landslide pathway from our beach to the flat plateau above the cave. From its southern extremity I could detect a luminescence in the sky where I knew Marion must lie. But my direct view was hidden by a highland on the shore facing the channel. I dared not go further and leave Linn.

I hurried back to her.

She opened her eyes when I approached.

Her voice was so far gone that I had to bend right down to hear.

'John darling — our time together was so short, wasn't it?'

'It was a lifetime to me, my dearest.'

She shut her eyes and tried to smile, but the pain twisted her mouth. She drew in her breath sharply.

'I want you to promise me something, John.'

'Anything, Linn.'

'I want you to bury me in the Southern Ocean, here at Prince Edward. I want you to conduct the service.'

'No need to talk like that, my darling. You'll pull through, never fear.'

'I know I'm dying.'

In my heart I dreaded she was right. Her fever had been growing all the time. Her pulse was fluttering like a bird and her breathing was worse.

She took my hand. I was appalled at how hot it was.

'I'll love you always, John.'

Her eyes closed and cut short my reply. She didn't speak again.

I sat with her hand in mine, staring into the fire. After a while my thoughts switched from Linn to the grim chamber of death at our backs — and the gold. How, I asked myself, could the authorities have remained in ignorance of the hoard and have informed the three skippers that it was in safe-keeping in the vaults of the Federal Bank in the United States? I turned over every aspect, thinking back to try and find the answer. I tried to recall everything Captain Prestrud and Jacobsen had said in my attempt to throw light on the mystery.

Then I sat upright, wide awake, remembering something in Captain Jacobsen's letter to me. The Allied Commission had informed the skippers that the gold had been in transit via the port of Bergen. I racked my brains for his exact words — 'this was obviously a mistake since we knew it was Narvik!'

Bergen! That was the key to the mystery! Bergen is 1000 kilometres from Narvik. The Free Norwegian Fleet had seized the gold in Narvik and had made off to the Antarctic with it. Later it had been hidden in the great cave. Wegger had said that the British cruiser's boat had never landed, and I had seen for myself that the gold hoard had remained undisturbed. The fact that the Nazis had sent a raider and a pocket battleship to Antarctica proved that the gold had come from Narvik, not Bergen.

Yet the Allied Commission had ten million dollars in Danzig gold still in its safe-keeping. The only possible solution was that there had been two shipments of Danzig gold of equal size, one consignment via Narvik and the other via Bergen.

I reasoned further that such confusion could be due to the destruction of records during the Nazi Blitzkrieg on Poland and to wartime conditions in general. And, after all, the Allied Commission could point to a gold hoard of similar value in its own possession. Theirs, I knew now, was the Bergen shipment; the Narvik shipment still lay in a pyramid behind me in the darkness, guarded by the bodies of Wegger and the enigmatic Dina.

I must have fallen asleep from mental as well as physical exhaustion after working it out, for I was jerked awake by a roaring noise. As I surfaced I thought the sea had risen and was thundering on the beach.

But it wasn't in the sea.

It was in the air.

It was a plane., The rocks themselves seemed to shake as it passed over the cave at zero feet.

I jumped up and stumbled to the water's edge but I was too late to see anything beyond a big double tail disappearing behind McAll Kop as it travelled northwards.

I could have wept. The look-outs aboard the plane must have concluded that the cave was deserted. I cursed myself for having fallen asleep.

The fire — surely an alert crew would have spotted the fire even though it had burned low?

I sprinted back to it, gathering more wood on my way. I deliberately chose some which was wet in order to make smoke.

I threw armfuls on to the embers and blew it up. The time was a little past seven o'clock. The sun was already showing in the east over the horizon — it looked like becoming that rarest of things, a fine day on Prince Edward.

The smoke started to swirl skywards. I hastily checked Linn. Her drawn face was dreadful in the new light but her pulse was still going. I could scarcely bear to hear her gasping for breath.

To signal the plane and make myself visible as well I would have to get myself on the plateau above the cave. I could hear the sound of its engines in the direction we had made our nightmare march. I guessed it was casing the coastline for survivors.

My eye fell on the smashed transmitter lying near the fire. The ruse had worked! I found myself taking the plane's arrival almost for granted. It had worked!

I blessed the bashed little box, snatched up a burning faggot and an armful of wood, and sprinted for the plateau.

The sky was empty,' there was no engine sound any more.

I tried to tell myself that the great central highland and its craters was enough to shut it off. I revolved a full circle, searching. I had no eyes for the noble sight of the Golden Gate, its twin bastions of yellow strata soaring from their base of grey lava, or for the palette of colours — greys, blacks, greens, yellows, blues, opals — which the sun had drawn from the grim little island.

Now the smoke from my new fire was also rising in the still air.

Then the plane came in unexpectedly from the south, from the Marion Island side.

The great heavy Shackleton maritime reconnaissance aircraft skimmed the seaward bluffs and came towards me, manoeuvring to pass at mast-level between two nearby craters. Slung under the plane's belly was a sea-rescue lifeboat; the nose bristled with radio and radar antennae.

It came so low over me that the thunder of the four big propellers and the blast from the open exhausts beat like a drum on my chest. Simultaneously, a small parachute exploded in the slipstream and came spiralling into the tussocky grass which fronted the Golden Gate's bastions.

The plane dodged between the craters and disappeared.

I sprinted to the parachute package. The canister was bigger than I had at first thought. It was marked, in bold letters on four sides, 'Emergency survival package. Open here'.

I tore it open. There were blankets, tins of soup and food, matches, a solid-fuel stove, and what looked like medical supplies.

There was also a small walkie-talkie. There was a tag attached to it which read. 'To operate…'

I didn't need to be told how. I got it going and clapped the receiver to my ear.

The voice, unnaturally loud, was chanting in the way radio operators have. 'Shackleton S for Skua, Shackleton S for Skua! Do you hear me? I repeat, do you hear me? Reply, reply…'

I had to steady my voice out of its first husky wobble.

'I hear you, S for Skua, I hear you.'

The operator's excited voice called out, presumably in the aircraft's cockpit, 'I got him, skipper! I got him!'

I heard the roar of the aircraft's engines relayed over the instrument and a chatter of talk. Then a different voice. It was formal, tentative. I realized why. He could have been talking to a hijacker.

'Captain, aircraft S for Skua speaking. Please identify yourself.'

'John Shotton, captain, cruise ship Quest.'

The voice said something aside and I heard the surge of other voices. Maybe the crew were all crowding round him.

The pilot's voice came back to me, relaxed, but filled with wonderment.

'Shotton! You must be indestructible, fellah!'

Then it hardened. 'Where are the hijackers?'

'Dead.'

There was a long whistle. 'All of them?'

'Yes.'

'The ringleader too?'

'I killed him myself.'

The pilot's voice sounded incredulous. 'How?'

'With my hands.'

The voice came back in rapid-fire. 'Listen, Shotton, they wanted me to load up the media boys in this crate when I took off but I wouldn't, because we're practically sitting up to the ears in fuel. If only those pen-pushing sons of bitches knew the story they're missing…'

'See here,' I interrupted. 'Forget the news story. I've got an emergency here. Life or death.'

The flier's voice levelled off. I'm making a circuit of the island. I'll be over you again shortly. Keep talking. What emergency?'

'I have a woman with a bullet in her. Linn Prestrud. She's dying. I've got to get her out. She's bad. A hospital case.'

There was silence. I broke it anxiously. 'Are you still with me, S for Skua? I repeat, I have an emergency case…'

None of the pilot's earlier excitement was audible in his reply. In its flatness I could detect the anxieties of that eight-hour maximum range flight from the Cape over the wildest ocean in the world, the skilled astro-navigation to pinpoint Prince Edward, the superb achievement of having found us.

'I hear you,' he said. 'You've got to realize, Shotton, that I can't land. I can't fly her out. There are medical supplies in the canister we dropped. I'll drop you more. Everything I have.'

The big machine lumbered into sight again. This time it turned and started to circle over the sea in range of Cave Bay. Dead despair closed over my heart. The Shackleton might have been a ship in outer space for all the good it could do Linn.

I said equally flatly, 'Medical supplies by themselves are no good. It's skilled attention she needs. A doctor. And a hospital. Immediately. She'll be dead by this evening.'

The pilot must have heard the desperation in my voice. 'See here, Shotton. I've also got a doctor on board and he can give you advice what to do. He's got his kit with him. I'll parachute that to you. There's also a destroyer on her way here from the Cape — I passed her five hundred kilometres out. She'll be here in a few days. She's carrying a helicopter. Don't despair. They'll get her out.', I nerved myself to repeat, 'I want you to understand. She's dying.'

The pilot cut in, more formally still, 'Captain Shot-ton, you understand the logistics of the situation I'm faced with. I'm flying on the limit of my fuel. I left the Cape in a storm and a gale has been chasing my tail for 2300 kilometres. I've got to fly into that headwind all the way home. I might even have to ditch this crate before I reach base if I go on circling and using fuel as I am. I appreciate your position. I'm handing you over to Doctor Lawson. We'll do everything to help, but you must understand there is a limit.'

'I understand.' My voice was stone dead.

A new voice came over the walkie-talkie. 'Doctor Lawson speaking.'

'Doctor,' I said, trying to control my words. 'She's dying. She's got a bullet in her chest…'

'Not so fast, Captain Shotton. I must have details, if I am to help.'

The bullet split in two…' I pulled my thoughts together and outlined how Linn was wounded.

When I had finished, he said, 'Hold on. I'll come back to you.'

The radio operator came through in his place. 'Captain Shotton? The doctor is consulting with the captain. The skipper asked me to tell you we rescued your ship.'

The Quest?'

'Sure. This is our second flight to the ice in four days. The ground crews have nicknamed the Shack Antarctic Archie. That cruise ship was quite a proposition. A destroyer went to tow her in after we'd located her. But the skipper — a young guy called Peterson — did a wonderful job. He'd rigged a kind of sail and was keeping her away from the icebergs…'

'Petersen wasn't the skipper,' I said. 'I left McKinley in command.'

'McKinley hit his bunk and a bottle, so they told us,' he replied. Then he added admiringly: That was quite a brainwave of yours about the transmitters, Captain.'

I couldn't go on listening. The thought of that shattered transmitter which had deflected the bullet from Linn's heart was too agonizing.

My voice was hoarse. 'Listen! For Pete's sake — tell the doctor to come back! What the devil does he have to consult the pilot about! It's me he has to consult…'

The pilot's voice, rattled and uncompromising, came on. 'Captain Shotton, Doctor Lawson has been arguing with me. He says he intends to make a parachute jump to try and save Miss Prestrud…'

'Parachute jump!' It came out in a sort of croak.

'Yes. In my opinion it's plain suicide. He'll kill himself on this terrain. But he's determined to try. He's getting into harness right now. I'm prepared to give him one chance — only one run, do you understand? No dummy approaches. One — for real. I can't spare the fuel. Where's the best place here?'

My mind couldn't absorb the news. I replied dazedly. 'Where I'm standing — it's pretty soft, right here in front of the Golden Gate.'

The pilot's voice remained distant, matter-of-fact. 'My fuel's so low I also intend to jettison my lifeboat. That will reduce wind drag on the way home. It's equipped with survival gear, engine, sails. Is it any use to you?'

My mind leapt ahead. If the doctor could help Linn, I could use the lifeboat with its special equipment to get her across the channel to Marion with its met. station, communications, sick-bay, warmth, food…

'Yes, I have a use for it,' I answered tightly. 'Drop it in the water near the mouth of the cave. It will drift ashore of its own accord.'

'Roger. I'm coming in.'

I watched the big machine straighten, aim for the cave. The words of the dropping drill came over the walkie-talkie.

Turning on target — running in — doors open — distributor set — all switches on — camera on.' There was a moment's pause. Then: 'Lifeboat going — now, now, now.'

I didn't need to hear the finale: 'Lifeboat gone — in target area' because the lifeboat dropped from the machine's belly like a whale calving, its parachute billowed, and it landed spot-on 50 metres from the cave's entrance.

The machine swung round to the channel approach.

Now.

The walkie-talkie went silent.

I watched with my heart in my mouth. The plane headed out over the channel, turned, started its run-in. It was higher than before. Then it was over me. I didn't see the parachute burst from the door opposite me. The plane was gone, the parachute hung in the air.

The pilot's aim had been as sure the second time as it had the first. The doctor dropped cleanly in the grass between the two massive bastions as if he'd jumped off the top of one of them.

I raced across to him. Together we undipped the harness as he got up. He held a small case of instruments. He was young, sunburned. He had the grip of a weight-lifter and the eyes of a saint.

He didn't waste words. 'Where is she?'

I led him down to the cave and took him to Linn.

She was unconscious, muttering from the fever. We drew up the thick sweater and removed my rough bandages, which were caked with blood. The entire side of her right breast was purple and swollen.

The doctor ran his probe along the path the bullet had taken, then felt the ragged place where it had entered her chest.

He took his eyes from the wound and fixed me.

I looked the question I dared not ask.

'I think she might make it,' he said.