Alistair MacLEAN: The Dark Crusader

Things went well in the first ten minutes, the moon stayed behind the cloud longer than we had any right to hope, but it wasn’t going to stay there all night, eighty per cent of the sky was quite free from cloud and in those latitudes even the starlight was a factor to be reckoned with. I touched Griffiths on the arm.

‘Moon’s coming out any second now. There’s a slight fold in the mountain about a hundred yards farther on. If we hurry, we might make it.’

We made it, just as the moon broke through, bathing the mountain and the plain below in a harsh white glare. But we were safe, for the moment at least, the ridge that blocked us off from the view of the hangar was only three feet high, but it was enough.

Fleck and his two Indians, I could see now, were dressed in clothes that were completely sodden. I looked at him and said: ‘Did you have to take a bath before you came?’

‘Damn guard sat on the pier all night with a rifle in his hands,’ Fleck growled. ‘Checking us, checking to see we didn’t go near the radio. We had to slip over the far side, about one o’clock when the moon went in, and swim for it, maybe a quarter-mile along the beach. Henry and the boy, of course, went the other way.’ I had asked that Henry make straight for the cave, hurry through the chamber that had served as an armoury and bring back amatol blocks, primers, R.D.X., chemical fuses, anything he could find. If they were still there, that was: there would certainly be neither arms nor ammunition left now, and though the explosive would be a poor substitute for arms at least they would be better than nothing.

‘Getting the keys was dicey.’ Fleck went on, ‘and there were only two – the inner and outer blockhouse doors. Then we tried to force the door and window on the armoury to get Miss Hopeman out. It was hopeless.’ He paused. ‘I don’t feel so good about that, Bentall. But we tried, honest to God we tried. But we couldn’t make a noise, you understand that.’

‘It’s not your fault, Fleck. I know you tried.’

‘Well, anyway, we came to the blockhouse just as the moon came out. Lucky for us it did. LeClerc had left a guard. We had to hide there two solid hours waiting till it got dark so we could rush him. I’ve got a pistol, so has Krishna here, but the water got through the wrappings. Couldn’t have used them anyway.’

‘You did damn well, Captain Fleck. And we have a gun. Any good with it?’

‘Haven’t the eyes for it. Want it?’

‘Hell, no. I couldn’t fire a pop-gun tonight.’ I turned and located Griffiths. ‘Any good shots among your men, Captain?’

‘As it happens, I have. Chalmers here–’ he gestured towards the red-haired lieutenant over whose refusal to answer a question a seaman had been shot ‘–is one of the best shots in the Royal Navy. Would you care to have a go at them, Chalmers, if the need arises?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Chalmers said softly. ‘I would like that.’

A cloud was approaching the moon. It wasn’t much of a cloud as clouds go, it wasn’t half as big as I would have liked it to be, but it was going to have to do, there wasn’t another anywhere near the moon.

‘Half a minute, Captain Griffiths.’ I said. ‘Then we’re off.’

‘We’ll have to hurry,’ he said worriedly. ‘Single file is best, I think. Fleck to lead the way, then the women and the scientists, so that they can make a break for the cave if anything happens. My men and I will bring up the rear.’

‘Chalmers and I will do that.’

‘So that you fade away and go down to the armoury when the moment comes, is that it, Bentall?’

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’s time to go.’

We almost made it, but Bentall was around and nothing ever went right with Bentall around. We had safely passed the hangar where the two gantry cranes were slowly lowering the Dark Crusader into its cradle, and were a good two hundred yards clear when one of the women gave a high-pitched cry of pain. We found later that she’d slipped and sprained a wrist. I glanced back, saw every man in the brilliantly illuminated space before the hangar stop what they had been doing and whirl round. Within three seconds as many men started running in our direction while others raced for their parked guns.

‘Run for it,’ Griffiths shouted. ‘Go like hell.’

‘Not you, Chalmers.’ I said.

‘Not me,’ he said softly. ‘No, not me.’ He sank down on one knee, lifted, cocked and fired the rifle all in one smooth motion. I saw a puff of white jump up from the concrete two yards ahead of the nearest Chinese. Chalmers adjusted the sights with one quick turn.

‘Shooting low,’ he said unhurriedly. ‘It won’t be low the next time.’

It wasn’t. With his second shot the leading guard flung his rifle into the air, then pitched forward on his face. A second died, a third rolled over and over like a man in agony, and then suddenly all the lights in front of the hangar went out. Someone had just got on to the fact that they made a perfect target silhouetted against the floodlit concrete.

‘That’s enough.’ Griffiths shouted. ‘Get back. They’ll be fanning out, coming towards us. Get back!’

It was time to get back, nothing surer. A dozen guns, some of them automatic carbines, had opened up on us now. They couldn’t see us, it was too dark for that, but they had us roughly located from Chalmers’ gun-flashes and bullets were beginning to smash into the solid rock all around us, half of them lifting in screaming ricochet. Griffiths and Chalmers turned and ran, and so did I, but in the opposite direction, back the way we’d come. I didn’t see I’d any chance of getting back to the armoury, the moonlight was beginning to filter through the ragged edges of the cloud, but if I did get back the diversion made a perfect cover-up for smashing my way into the armoury. I took four steps, then pitched my length on the rock as something smashed into my knee with tremendous force. Dazed, I pushed myself shakily to my feet, took one step and fell heavily again. I wasn’t conscious of any great pain, it was just that my leg refused to support me.

‘You bloody fool! Oh, you bloody fool!’ Griffiths was by my side, Chalmers close behind him. ‘What’s happened?’

‘My leg. They got my leg.’ I wasn’t thinking about my leg, I wasn’t caring about my leg, all I was caring about was that my last chance to get to the armoury was gone. Marie was there, alone. She was in the armoury, waiting for me. Marie would know I would come for her. She knew Johnny Bentall was every kind of fool there was, but she knew I wouldn’t leave her to LeClerc. I was on my feet again, Griffiths supporting me, but it was no good, the leg was paralysed, completely without power.

‘Are you deaf?’ Griffiths shouted. ‘I’m asking you if you can walk.’

‘No. I’m all right, leave me. I’m going down to the armoury.’ I didn’t know what I was saying, I was too dazed to express the difference between a wish and an intention. ‘I’m really all right. You must hurry.’

‘Oh, God!’ Griffiths took me by one arm, Chalmers by the other and they half-hustled, half-dragged me along the flank of the mountain. The others were already out of sight, but after a minute Brookman and a seaman came hurrying back to see what had happened, and lent a hand with the job of dragging me along. I was a great help to everyone. Jonah Bentall. Come with me and you come a cropper. I wondered vaguely what I’d ever done to deserve luck like this.

We arrived at the cave almost three minutes after the last of the others were safely inside. I was told this, but I don’t remember it, I don’t remember anything about the last half-mile. I was told later that we wouldn’t have made it had the moon not broken through and Chalmers held up the Chinese by picking off two of them as they came over the last ridge. I was told, too, that I talked to myself all the way, and when they begged me to be quiet in case the pursuers caught us I kept on saying: ‘Who? Me? But I wasn’t talking,’ very hurt and indignant. Or so they told me. I don’t remember anything.