Gerald Seymour: Rat Run

He rested his fingers on the dog-tags at his throat.

He saw the light. Riddled with cramp in his stomach, pain in his hips and knees, sand in his throat that he had to endure and not cough out, Malachy saw the light's blast out to sea. Not a brilliant light but one that was misted and confused by cloud and rain, but a clear enough beacon to those watching for it.

It was not aimed at the shore but was directed upwards and bounced back from the cloudbanks and rolled, cavorted, rocked as if its platform were unstable. He thought the trawler on which it was mounted was shaken by the violence of the swell. He realized, from the light on the cloud ceiling, that the boat edged towards the shore where the surf ran.

Near to him, separated from him by the blunt sand summit of a dune, he heard a little yell of excitement

– the voice of Ricky Capel. He had felt, lying twenty paces from him, the fear of the man. The fear had been on Capel's tongue, in the whine of his voice, and it had grown because he had sensed that he was watched. As the hours had passed, Malachy had felt the man's fear tighten. He had known his own fear when he had walked, without a weapon and without a helmet or flak-jacket, down a narrow street in a village with the sun low and scorching his eyes. It had been the fear of the man that had sustained him as he had lain in the sand, among the dune's grasses. He heard, now, a sharp hiss for quiet and the excitement was stifled.

The other man had shown Malachy no sign of fear.

He heard low grunts, from them both, and sensed they stood.

Far away to his left, if he raised his head, Malachy could see the scattered lights of the village, and in the near sea – if he strained and peered between the bent grasses – there were two marker buoys. In the hours he had been in place, he had learned to recognize the sequences of their flashes, one red and one green. But the light further towards the horizon, beyond the surf bursts, had greater strength. There were the lights of the village, the lights of the buoys, the light from the trawler, but the rest of the scope of Malachy's vision showed him nothing more than black darkness. He had thought the world had emptied, that only he and two men existed, and one was beyond the area of his interest.

As he watched the lights, Malachy did not recognize Polly Wilkins's big picture. Neither did he listen, any longer, to the contempt of a host of soldiers and a psychiatrist, and his wife, and a man who ran a business for buying and selling houses… He involved no one, was owned by no one. He flexed his muscles and readied himself. When they moved, he would follow.

He heard, above the wind, the whine, 'Don't we get moving? I knew he'd come. He's a good boy, my Harry is. Shouldn't we shift down there?'

He heard, over the rain's beat, the response: 'Not yet, too early.'

'They won't hang about for us, you know.'

'It is too soon.'

Malachy realized the authority of the second man. He was Polly Wilkins's target. The second man governed the big picture. Malachy heard the authority, spoken softly. Men, he knew it, who had authority rarely found it necessary to raise a voice, never shouted, did not whine. He thought the man, joined at the hip to Ricky Capel, was burdened.

He watched the light, its beam on the clouds, approach the beach.

He was silent, did not dare to speak. Ricky stood in the force of the wind and saw the light come closer…

Then he shuddered, shook. He was Ricky Capel. He ran a part of south-east London. He was the big man and guys backed off from him. He was above grief, too big a man to be given disrespect. He did not snivel, did not cower.

'Yes, I hear you, Dean, and I'm saying it as well – it's not yet, it's too early to move, too soon.'

Watching the light, he shed from his mind the source of the fear that had nagged, eaten at him all the hours they had waited. A man stalked him. A man followed him. Straining into the darkness and seeing the roll of the light up and against the cloud, the thought of the man was wiped from his mind.

Squinting, he saw the light beyond the dim beach expanse, and the cresting lines of the surf… He'd be wading into it, into the force of the waves – that was what Harry had said – into that bloody sea, in bloody darkness… but he was Ricky Capel, and he was a big man. The wind hammered against him and would have pitched him back if he had not held, tight, to the arm beside him.

'Should stay patient – I don't reckon we should move too soon, that's my opinion.'

The light shone out ahead of her, and was away to her right, and she made her calculation on the point of the beach it approached.

Methodically, Polly rolled the sleeping-bag and the sand in it, filled the rucksack and wriggled its straps over her shoulders.

Then she hit the combination of buttons on her mobile for a secure call, and dialled. She heard it ring out twice before an automated voice – not Freddie Gaunt's – informed her that she was being diverted. It was answered. Crisply, without preamble, she was asked to speak.

'It's out there, the light. I can't be exact, it's dark as hell, and I don't know the sea, but I estimate it about a mile offshore. Damn, damn, they've killed the light

… It was there, was coming in. I suppose it was on long enough to alert the target group, b u t… '

There was criticism. She should not 'estimate' or

'suppose'. Facts were required of her. She swore under her breath, soundless. She could not estimate why Gaunt had done it to her, could not suppose why he had quit on her.

'There was a light offshore, on for eight minutes. At the moment it was switched off, the light was one nautical mile from the tideline.'

They wanted bullshit, they would get it. She did not know whether the light had been visible for six minutes or nine minutes; neither did she know the length of a nautical mile nor see the tideline. She imagined them round a table crowded with phones, consoles and screens, with maps dominating their room's walls, and… She was asked for the location of Kitchen.

'Don't know, and that is neither an estimate nor a supposition. I have not the faintest idea where he is.

So as you understand, it is pitch bloody black out here, and it is peeing with rain and blowing a gale. He could be a mile away or ten yards away, and that is a fact. It is also a fact that I have not been issued with night-vision equipment.'

The cold cut through Polly, but they would not have been interested in that. She was asked what were Kitchen's intentions when he left her.

'Can't estimate and can't suppose – not a clue. I will call you on further developments. Out.'

A career gone down the drain? Perhaps. Her teeth rattled as she shivered. Perhaps… Did she give a damn if a career was lost? Maybe… She pocketed the phone. Polly wondered if she now had the status of being a flagged pin on a wall map. She scrambled down off the dune and tumbled to the start of the loose sand that the sea never reached. She was perplexed that she had not seen an answering light from away to her right on a point of high ground, did not understand that, could not reckon how the trawler would be guided in – or the men to be picked up would be floundering in water, would be battered by the surf – and was confused. She went, slowly and carefully, below the dunes and above the beach, stopped to listen, then went on, stopped again… It hurt so bloody much that Freddie Gaunt had quit on her.

'Makes you think, doesn't it? The last chap here – his feet where we are. Wagons out at the front with everything he and his family own, and he's looking around at all that's familiar, then he's going to the door, and going to nail it shut after him, and then he'll be joining his neighbours in flight. And the enemy is over the hill – not quite literally, but the barbarians are at the gates… and this is where he stood for the last time.'