‘Just as long as you didn’t hang about here for my benefit. I don’t need any favours.’

There was silence, then the voice came back.

‘I do nothing for your benefit that isn’t for my benefit too.’

‘Right.’

‘Right.’

MacConnachie brushed past to take up the lead.

‘Stay close. When it gets lighter we’ll move up on to the ridge.’

‘We’ll show on the skyline.’

‘Not till dawn.’

‘Give me the gun.’

‘What?’

Ansell took it, fiddled with it, and handed it back.

‘It’s still on single-shot.’

‘Thank you.’

MacConnachie started to move, then turned back.

‘Tomorrow will be better.’

It was already tomorrow.

As they worked their way cautiously along to the right, mounting steadily closer to the peak, their spirits rose in the cool night air, and their pace quickened. Within an hour they were walking upright, taking no more than normal precautions.

Ansell knew that the first physical and psychological barriers had been surmounted for, although his body ached still, he found that with each moment he marched more strongly and easily.

MacConnachie, it was clear, possessed the gift, invaluable in the circumstances, of surrender without inhibition to his animal instincts: if it rained, he took shelter; if he was hungry, he ate; if in danger, he killed. And he could sleep, if tired, even in the cannon’s mouth, when there was nothing to be gained by moving.

To think too much, Ansell decided, is to undo yourself. You scheme, you worry, you try to take everything into account, and you become inhibited. You fail to act. Action is the key to survival. Emulate MacConnachie.

By five, in MacConnachie’s estimation, they had travelled fifteen miles, and contact was decisively broken. That was the key to survival. If they could remain out of contact for three days, they had a chance.

There are times when it’s better to do nothing, but I’m no thinker. The kid’ll have to do my thinking for me.

‘Sleep now. We’ve done well.’

Ansell checked the gun and they slept.

MacConnachie woke with dawn on the fourth day. He had chosen well. They lay in a small depression on the forward slope of the main ridge, just below the skyline, where they could not be approached, under cover, from any direction. Savouring a sense of harmony with his surroundings, he followed the progress of light down into the low ground, until he could see the entire area ahead.

Immediately to his front, a day’s march away, was a smaller ridge that formed the false horizon. This he christened Little Ridge, and designated in his mind their day’s objective. Beyond, he could see the peaks of the mountains against a colourless sky, and stirred with excitement to have them so close.

Between Little Ridge and Big Ridge, the name he gave to the crest on which they lay, there was a stretch of terrain so fragmented that it might have been smashed by a giant hammer, and so heavily grown with scrub that it could only indicate a big river system between the hills and the mountains. It was territory fraught with danger for them, since it offered innumerable hiding-places to their enemies, and no clear view forward to themselves.