For some moments MacConnachie was puzzled by its behaviour, for, far from pegging them tight, it began to describe a circle too wide to give any but an approximate idea of their position to the pursuers on the ground. Then he saw another glowing fireball shoot down from the aircraft to bury itself in the field to their right, and he understood. The pilot intended to surround them with a ring of fire.

By now they were running flat out, swishing through the stalks as fast as their legs would carry them, the field having become for them both a series of blurred impressions rushing past on either side and instantly snatched away. The blood roared in their ears, drowning all but the most penetrating sounds, as of a sudden outbreak of unexplained shooting to their right.

When he saw the second light fall MacConnachie jinked left, Ansell stumbling after him. The helicopter curled round behind them and, coming up to pass over their left-hand quarter, discharged another flare into the dried-out stalks. This one was closer and as they ran on they heard the flames begin to crackle and bite. MacConnachie continued his bias to the left but the pilot, completing his manoeuvre, flew across their front, and the observer laid his fourth incendiary directly in their path, thirty yards ahead.

MacConnachie ran straight at it, extending his legs even farther, conscious of Ansell gasping and thudding to his rear. He knew that their best chance to escape the first ring of fire was to pass this flare before it could take and spread to the flares on his right. Already, from that direction, he could see smoke and flames reaching fiercely into the sky.

As he approached it, the ground yawing and pitching in his field of vision, he saw that the flames had crossed the natural path down which they fled, and were already hungrily devouring the file of stalks to his right. But the fire came rushing to meet him so rapidly that, without thought, he lowered his head and plunged through it. In an instant they were on the other side, with barely time to suffer the intense heat before they had left it. At their backs, the flames soared up in a sudden gust of wind to seal the gap through which they had escaped, towering over them, leaning like a building about to fall and crush them.