But for one unfortunate development, the first half of the morning was trouble free. They progressed with steady caution along defiles, up gullies, and through thickets of scrub. Twice they took cover at false alarms, once, they saw a species of creature neither could identify. But, despite a careful watch for observation posts in the high ground, they saw no sign of the enemy, nor did they find evidence of his passing. Apart from the persistent buzz of the helicopter, itself distant, they might have been forgotten

Then, about ten o’clock, the unfortunate development occurred. Ansell suddenly stopped, and crouched.

‘Mac! I’ve got the squitters!’

MacConnachie turned back and roared with laughter.

‘Oh, no!’

Ansell’s face contracted as a spasm passed through him and relief came.

‘It isn’t funny!’

‘It is, you know. I’ve been holding ’em in for half an hour.’

Suddenly MacConnachie too crouched.

‘Oh God!’

His first spasm passed, meeting Ansell’s second.

‘It was that bloody fruit!’

‘I know.’

MacConnachie couldn’t stop laughing. Ansell looked about in alarm, and moaned,

‘Oh God, this is hopeless!’

But then he too started to laugh. Their situation was so ridiculous. They squatted opposite one another, completely unprotected, the skirts of their native coats around their waists, gaining relief at one end, and then, through laughter, at the other, alternately. At least they had been without underwear since their capture, and their slacks were tied about their waists. Otherwise the damage would have been intolerable.

In time, the worst excesses of laughter and diarrhoea passed, and they were able to progress again. But they had to stop repeatedly for one or the other to crouch, and it wasn’t until nearly midday that they finally regained control of their tender stomachs. During one of their latter halts, MacConnachie grinned down at the squatting Ansell and said, solemnly,

‘I suppose you realize you’re leaving a trail.’

Ansell said,

‘I hope the Goons take it in the spirit in which it is offered.’

Midday. They were approximately halfway between Big and Little Ridges, when Ansell saw tiny figures on Little Ridge, their day’s objective, near the peak. For the first time they were surrounded. The way ahead was blocked.

MacConnachie moved at once, crouching, to the nearest rising feature, where he lay looking up at the enemy. Ansell joined him.

‘What do we do?’

‘Keep moving. We must. The River Boys will soon hit the top of Big Ridge. We’re in broken ground, that helps.’

‘Which way?’

‘Straight ahead. Why not?’

For the next hour they wormed their way closer and closer to Little Ridge, MacConnachie leading, Ansell maintaining distance. But it took only a fraction of that time for the breaking strain to close over them again. Time after time they thought they had been spotted and tensed to run – but they hadn’t been. They sought frustratedly a clear view of their enemy. Each open area became something to crawl across: gullies had to be walked, never upright, as though strewn with eggs, so urgent was the need to prevent drifting dust; defiles were cracks in the earth up which they slunk. In seconds only, the deportment of a man became the stealth of an animal.