They were both gasping for breath, heaving and straining, but MacConnachie pushed Ansell brutally along the gully, shouting above the clamour of the engine,

‘Move! Move!’

‘Can’t we shoot it down?’

‘No! Move!’

Ansell scrabbled and floundered through the scrub, trying to escape up the gully, moaning for air, but the helicopter gained height rapidly, pulling back in a wide circle. There was no overhang to hide them, and as soon as they could see the aircraft, they knew the pilot could see them.

They broke from cover once more, scrambling out of the gully and back to the two hills, where they ran down the defile again from the other end, as the helicopter beat over them, momentarily darkening the sun with its flashing arc of steel. Ansell crashed into MacConnachie, as MacConnachie stopped abruptly.

‘Shoot it, Mac!’

‘Not yet! Double back! Move!’

Ansell was pitched violently into a stumbling run as MacConnachie thrust him off, then sensed rather than heard MacConnachie thudding after him as he ran under the aircraft and back up the defile for the third time. He was almost done. His heart churned and leaped in his rib-cage, terrifying him with the force of its palpitations. He could hardly draw breath. There was no lack of will, but a failure of his body to match MacConnachie’s. Coming out of the defile, he fell. MacConnachie’s boot crunched into his side, which may have been an accident, and MacConnachie raged, ‘Get up! Get up!’

But Ansell couldn’t. He was seized by the left shoulder and dragged round the end of one of the hills, just long enough to get his legs functioning again. MacConnachie was leading them back the way they had come, but this time he was going round the hill instead of along the defile; by the time they had reached its entrance yet again, Ansell was managing to progress under his own power, and the crisis was passing. MacConnachie pressed him down against the side of the hill and shouted in his ear,

‘Where’s the petrol tank on that thing?’

‘What?’

‘The tank – where is it?’

‘Round the back – behind the cabin. You can’t hit it from below.’

The engine was roaring as the pilot pulled the chopper up and round for another sweep. But, despite his condition, Ansell could tell that it was headed for the wrong end of the defile, momentarily out of contact with them, and he realized that this must have been MacConnachie’s intention. MacConnachie shouted,

‘I’ll have to get him from the side. I’ve got to kill him with the first shot, or he’ll go up out of range.’

Ansell could see now that MacConnachie was grey-faced, drawn, and labouring for breath as badly as himself. But the thirty seconds MacConnachie had won were invaluable. With a returning sense of anguish and fury, Ansell looked up at the sky.

‘What the bloody hell’s he playing at, anyway?’

‘He’s showing off !’

‘What?’

‘Showing off !’

And then MacConnachie’s expression broke into one of amused appreciation, and he shook with laughter. Still laughing, he said,