Conviction rises in torment from the stomach until it overwhelms reason. Ansell saw that they would be climbing still when only bones were left, clacking for ever through the meaningless motions of ascent. A sort of madness, he knew, had come.

MacConnachie’s mind grew dim. Should they stop, drink? One moment of carelessness would destroy everything. But what was everything? He laid his face in the dirt and muttered through caked lips, ‘Rest.’

Ansell lay still beside him.

‘Drink in a minute.’

They fell asleep.

When the helicopter, scudding low, woke them, it took MacConnachie a moment or two to work out that they had only just dozed off. They had not become stiff, and the sun was still in the same position in the sky. Ansell, too, he saw, had come awake on the instant.

‘It’s okay. We only went for a minute.’

Ansell’s pale, tortured face broke into a faint smile.

‘Nothing like a good kip to set you up.’

‘That’s right.’

The helicopter had returned to the foot of the ridge, and now set up another of its patient, unending patterns of search, to the right and back across the scar. MacConnachie smiled; it was no holiday for that man either. Ansell said, with quiet calm,

‘We’re really in it, aren’t we?’

‘That we are.’

MacConnachie could see two possible sources of hope, both faint. That the man might run out of fuel, or that his superiors, less intuitive, might order him to search elsewhere if he continued to report no contact. But MacConnachie did not believe that the man would go, or that the Goons, keeping such a dog, would call him off.

He tried to work out how far the River Boys were behind. Not more than five hours, nor less than four, which would put them on the secondary feature by four thirty. That meant Goons, chopper and daylight all at the same time. That was bad, because he must see over the top of the crest before night came; it was the minimum intelligence requirement. He said,

‘Somehow we’ve got to go faster.’

Ansell said,

‘We can’t. And we can’t reach the top by nightfall.’

MacConnachie was startled, but then he said,

‘So what do we do?’

Ansell said,

‘When the River Boys come, why don’t we lie up? As soon as it’s dark, we can move along the ridge to the right. That way, when daylight comes, we’ll be out to the side of our own line of march. It could take them days to find us, and the longer it takes, the wider they have to search. We can march all night if we have to.’

That was the thing. Planning ahead. Using the brain. No good dropping in it, then bullocking your way out like he did. Of course they didn’t know where the Goons were on the other side of the ridge, but when dawn came they would still hold the high ground, and they would see the Goons before the Goons saw them. He’d have thought of it in time – at least, he’d have done it; but to think ahead, that was the trick. Not to feel, to think.