Jack Higgins - A Fine Night for Dying

Safely in their shelter, he turned and looked back. The two Chinese men were already in the dinghy and casting off, the Alsatian howling like a wolf. Chavasse started to push through the reeds, half-swimming, half-wading. And then another sound rent the morning: the engine of L’Alouette as she got underway.

HE came to a waterway so deep that his feet failed to touch bottom. He swam across to a gray-green wall of palm grass and forced his way through. He paused after a few minutes, treading water. The sound of L’Alouette ’s engine was fading. Presumably it was returning to Hellgate, but the outboard motor of the dinghy was popping away in the vicinity and the Alsatian’s mournful howl echoed eerily through the rain like a voice from the grave.

He started to swim again, pushing his way through the reeds, and suddenly, the sound of the outboard motor ceased abruptly and the dog stopped barking. Which wasn’t good, whichever way you looked at it, because now he didn’t have the slightest idea where they were.

His feet touched bottom, and he plowed through thick black mud and moved out of reeds and grass to relatively firm ground. The compass still hung around his neck, enabling him to check his direction, and he concentrated hard, trying to recapture a pictorial image of the map. It was an old trick and surprisingly effective. The island would be the only one of any size in the vicinity of L’Alouette ’s anchorage, a couple of hundred yards in diameter and a quarter of a mile southwest of Hellgate.

He started to run, then came to a dead stop as a bull loomed out of the mist to confront him. The animal held its head high and stared him right in the eye. Steam drifted from its nostrils and Chavasse backed away slowly. There was a movement to his right as another bull appeared like a dark shadow, flanks glistening. It pawed the ground nervously, its head dipped, the great curving horns gleaming viciously, and then another appeared beyond the first and yet another, six or seven of the great beasts in all, fighting bulls reared for their courage and heart, bred to fight in the ring.

He took a deep breath and walked through them very slowly, passing so close between two of the outer circle that he could reach out and touch them. He kept on going, stumbling through tussocks of marsh grass, and emerged on a sandy shore. There was a sharp cry, followed by two shots close together, and sand fountained into the air on his right.

The dinghy drifted out of the mist perhaps twenty yards away. In a single frozen moment of time, he saw clearly that the Alsatian was muzzled, but not for long. The AK assault rifle cracked again, and as Chavasse turned to run, the Alsatian took to the water.

He didn’t have long-a minute or a minute and a half at the most before it ran him down. He tugged feverishly at his belt as he stumbled on. There was a technique for handling big dogs, but its successful application depended entirely on keeping calm and having a hell of a lot of luck in the first few seconds of attack.

The belt came free, he looped it around each hand, then turned and waited, holding his hands straight out in front of him, the belt taut.

The Alsatian came out of the mist on the run and skidded briefly to a halt. In almost the same moment, he moved in, mouth wide. Chavasse pushed the belt at him and the old trick worked like a charm. The Alsatian grabbed at it, teeth tearing at the leather. Chavasse jerked with all his strength, bringing the dog up on its hind legs and kicked it savagely in the loins.

The Alsatian rolled over and he kicked it again in the ribs and the head. It howled terribly, writhing in the mud, and he turned and moved on as the two Chinese men arrived.

Another shot followed him, and from somewhere near at hand there was a roar of pain. The bulls . In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten about the bulls. There was a sudden trampling and one of them appeared, blood streaming from a wound in the shoulder.

Chavasse dived for the shelter of a clump of reeds and dropped on his face as heavy bodies crashed through the mud. There was a cry of dismay, a shot was fired and someone screamed. When he raised his head, he saw an old bull lurch out of the rain, one of the Chinese men hanging across his head, impaled on the right horn. The bull shook the man free and started to trample him.

There were two more shots somewhere in the mist and then a terrible cry. Chavasse had heard enough. He moved out of the reeds quickly and took to the water. A few moments later, he reached another patch of dry land, checked his compass and started to move southwest toward Hellgate.

IT took him the best part of an hour to reach the vantage point from which he and Darcy had viewed the house that morning. He crouched in the reeds and peered across the lagoon. If anything, the mist had thickened and everything was indistinct, ghostlike, more than ever a sad Russian landscape.

By now L’Alouette would be tied up at the landing stage on the other side of the island at the rear of the house, and if anything was to be done, it would have to be from here.

To his left, reeds marched out into the gray water, providing plenty of cover for perhaps half of the distance. The final approach would be in the open-no other way.

He was still wearing the nylon waders Malik had provided, and now he sat down and pulled them off. Underneath he was wearing a pair of slacks so wet that they clung to him like a second skin. He moved round toward the line of reeds and waded into the water, crouching low. For the first time since his jump for freedom on L’Alouette , he felt cold-really cold-and shivered uncontrollably as the water rose higher. And then his feet lost touch with the bottom and he started to swim.

He paused at the extreme end of the reeds and trod water. There were about fifty yards of clear water left to cover. He took a couple of deep breaths, sank under the surface and started to swim. When he sounded for air, he was halfway there. He surfaced as gently as possible, turned on his back to rest for a brief moment, then went under again.

In a very short time, his body scraped the black mud off the bottom as he neared the island. He came to the surface and floundered ashore into the shelter of a line of bushes.

He crouched there in the rain, sobbing for breath, then got to his feet and moved on cautiously through the derelict garden to the house. There was no sound, not a sign of life-nothing, and a strange kind of panic touched him. What if they had left? What if Rossiter had decided to get out while the going was good? And then Famia Nadeem appeared at the end of the overgrown path he was following.

SHE wore rubber boots to the knees and an old naval duffle coat, the hood pulled up. She was the same and yet not the same, in some strange way a different person. She walked on, hands thrust into the pockets of her duffle coat, face serious. Chavasse waited till she was abreast of him, then reached out from the bushes and touched her shoulder.

Her expression was something to see. The eyes widened, the mouth opened as if she would cry out, and then she took a deep shuddering breath.

“I couldn’t believe it when Rossiter said you were alive.”

“He’s here? You’ve seen him?”

She nodded. “They came back in the other boat about an hour ago with Mr. Jones, though he isn’t Mr. Jones anymore, is he?”

Chavasse put a hand on her shoulder. “How bad has it been?”

“Bad?” She seemed almost surprised. “That’s a relative term, I guess. But we mustn’t stand here talking like this. You’ll get pneumonia. Through those trees is a derelict summer house. Wait there. I’ll bring some dry clothes, and then we’ll decide what’s to be done.”

She faded like a ghost and he stood, watching her through the quiet rain, conscious of the stillness, drained of all strength. God knew what Rossiter had done to her, but she had been used harshly, must have been for such a profound change to have occurred so quickly.