ADAM HALL - Quiller Salamander

'We cannot go in again,' he called above the noise. 'But I will turn and stand off for a moment in maybe a mile, for you to take more pictures. Do you agree?'

'Sure, let's do that.'

The jungle was booming behind us as they brought their tank guns into the barrage and I saw tracers reflected in the Perspex panel, then the horizon swung again with the moon curving across the darkness as Khay made his turn and vibration came in under the g-load and I started the camera running, the sky threaded with tracers now and the sound of the guns slapping at the cabin and the surface of the jungle down there boiling as the shells ripped through the leaves.

'We go now,' Khay called, then there was something else I couldn't catch because a shell hit the tail of the Sikorsky with a lot of noise and he was nursing the controls as we went into a slow horizontal spin and the horizon began tilting and vibration came in very badly now, shaking the whole cabin as Khay shifted the controls and shouted something in Khmer and I hit the flap on the camera and started taking out the cassette, but the cabin was shuddering now and we were losing height, the Sikorsky spinning faster all the time until the centrifugal force dragged me against the instrument panel and Khay's hands were wrenched away from the controls and his eyes made contact with mine just once as he was flung against the bulkhead with his boots flying up and we went into the trees with the rotor whipping and slashing, the sound volume exploding into a roar as the deceleration forces hurled me away from the instrument panel and across the cabin, saw Khay's face again for an instant as he was flung head-first between the seats towards the storage section, saw just his feet now, his boots, as the roaring blocked out all other sounds and I was aware of the final impact but couldn't analyze it, see or feel details, only knew that we'd crashed and that I was going under.

I looked at Khay's boots.

They didn't move. The feet in them didn't move.

We hadn't been here long: I could hear the gyro still winding down behind the instrument panel. They would look for us.

On this thought I moved, though carefully. It had been a head blow, knocked me out for a minute. Moonlight was in the cabin, but I couldn't see any blood blackening the bulkhead where I was lying. The Sikorsky was on its side, and I could smell fuel, but there was no flame-light anywhere that I could see.

I went on moving, because they would look for us, be here soon; we were within a mile, two miles of the camp.

'Khay?'

Bruise on my shoulder, felt it when I got up, just as far as a crouch, testing for anything broken that might be still blacked-out under the endorphins. Everything articulated well enough, hands, feet, hips, neck.

'Khay?'

The boots didn't move. The feet in the boots didn't move. There wasn't enough space between the two rear seats to let me through, because the Hartmann-Zeiss had come unshipped and was wedged there. I had to climb over it to talk to Khay, find out if he was all right.

'Khay?'

The loading flap at the side of the camera was still hanging open, just as I'd left it. The cassette would have to be salvaged but that didn't have priority.

'Khay?'

I could see his shoulders now, and his head. He was face-down, and his head was at a bad angle from his shoulders, a very bad angle; there wasn't, for instance, any point in calling his name again. I felt for the pulse in his throat and found it still there, but weak, rapid but weak. Blood was caking his skull in the occipital area: that was where his head had smashed into the storage door and broken his neck.

A night bird called, disturbed by the noise the Sikorsky had made coming down through the leaves, its rotor threshing among them; I could hear monkeys, also awakened and alarmed. There were no more shots from the Khmer Rouge camp; they would have seen us going down, heard the impact, would have sent out a search party immediately. It was on its way here now.

There was a holstered gun at Khay's belt but I couldn't use that: they would hear the shot. I used my hands instead, talking to him in my mind, wishing him well, speeding him on his journey, asking Buddha to receive his spirit and be mindful of the honour this man had brought upon himself in giving his life for his people. Then, when there was no pulse any more, I went to pull the cassette out of the Hartmann-Zeiss, but found it was jammed: the camera had been wrenched away from its bracket on impact and the shock had buckled the panels.

I could take the whole thing with me, but it was cumbersome, would slow me down a great deal, critically: if I were going to get clear of this mess I would need to be light on my feet. They should be within gunshot range by now, the people in the search party; all they would need to do was catch sight of me through the trunks of the palm trees, when I left the Sikorsky and began trekking.

A thought came: they might have orders to take any survivors alive, and I didn't want to confront the barking man again, Colonel Choen. This time he would put me through interrogation to the point of attrition.

I went on tugging at the cassette and got it halfway out, but it was jammed worse now because of the angle and I hit it back and started again, listening for voices as the gyro wound down to silence at last. The people in the search party would also be listening, guided by the sharp chittering sounds of the monkeys in the trees above the crash site.

I had to get this bloody thing out and take it with me: there was no choice. Take a letter, Miss Fortescue, to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon. Dear General, the Khmer Rouge base camp is in fact located at 12°3W x 10301 OE, as I have now established personally. A massive artillery barrage was fired as our helicopter twice made a run across the area. I trust this will leave you convinced.

Use the sheath knife on Khay's belt, prize the bloody thing out, come on, for Christ's sake, come on.

I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but this has just come in from a British intelligence agent in Cambodia.

What the hell, he trusts it'll leave me convinced? Who is this guy?

I don't know, sir, but he could have gone loco, you know, jungle fever, it's pretty hot there right now.

Get this fucking thing out you've got one more fucking minute before they're here.

Sure. But there may be something in it. Tell him we gotta have photographs, okay? Tell him to get pictures.

Not coming out so I kicked the side of the camera to stress the frame back to a rectangle, parallelogram now, shit shaped, the sweat running off me because listen, those bastards are close, have to be very close, and I can't — I cannot leave here without this cassette, without the photographs for the general, Khay died to get me this bloody thing, kick, a precision kick and the cassette came out with a rush and I stuffed it inside my jump suit and we have to move rather quickly now, my good friend, do we not, feeling in Khay's pocket for his lighter, not finding it, try the other one, he's — he was left-handed, I should have remembered, wasting so much time, found it now and clambered onto the seats to reach the door above my head but it was stuck, the whole cabin was distorted just like that fucking camera, hit it with your shoulder, harder than that, could see a light, I could see some kind of light through the jungle, firefly, just joking, a soldier with a torch, the first of them, the nearest, hit it and we got it right this time and the door swung open and I clambered through and slid down the outside of the cabin, would need a fuse, the belt of the jump suit was all we had so use that.