Twice he fell back to relieve Ansell, the second time keeping the body, for Ansell had begun to labour badly. He retained the gun also, seeing that Ansell was in no condition to use it. He settled for the watch on their rear that Ansell could still provide.

Three times they struggled up the last slopes of a crest, only to find that the land had deceived them, and they were forced to move on again. MacConnachie said,

‘It’ll be like this. We might as well get used to it.’

On the last occasion Ansell nodded, hunched his shoulders and, with drooping head, trudged across to take up the corpse once more. MacConnachie remained silent; he was himself weary, and to express surprise or admiration was alien to him. They moved on. The sun was low in the sky now and every feature cast a long shadow. The tension of their escape had left them. Whatever they did hurt.

At the next crest they were lucky. They looked down into a gully broad enough to constitute a defensible position. While Ansell sank to his knees, letting the corpse roll off his back, MacConnachie went forward to examine the terrain.

The gully was sixty feet across, its floor split by fissures seven or eight feet deep. Beyond its farther side the hill rose up sharply to a feature so high it could only be the first crest of the range proper. From MacConnachie’s left, a single spar of sunlight pierced a saddle to paint its upper edges in gold. While daylight lingered in the high country it was night already in the valleys, and where he stood the heavy shadows gathered fast. He crossed to one of the fissures and peered down into it.

‘All right, we can chuck him in this one.’

Ansell, who had been staring at the dead face as though to reanimate it, rose, seized the corpse by the heels, and dragged it down to where MacConnachie stood. He was about to topple it over when MacConnachie said, ‘Wait a minute.’

With every appearance of embarrassment MacConnachie fumbled the beak out of the pouch, stooped, and wrapped the lifeless fingers round it.

‘That’s our luck,’ he growled. ‘Not his. Ours!’

And he sent the body over with a short heave. Ansell said,

‘You’re whistling in the dark.’

MacConnachie said,

‘Get stuffed.’

Ansell wandered over to the next crack, and relieved himself. MacConnachie, apparently satisfied that the corpse was sufficiently hidden, did the same.

They settled into a small depression just below the skyline. MacConnachie stripped the gun down and did his best to clean it. After a moment, he said,

‘We must find something to oil this damned thing with, or it’ll rust to hell.’

But Ansell was preoccupied and failed to reply. The night closed slowly about them. Later, Ansell said,

‘It was incredible how long he took to die.’

MacConnachie grunted, his attention fixed on the breechblock. Ansell continued,

‘You get used to killing from farther away. You forget.’