A Long Way to Shiloh (12 page)

‘Ready now?’

‘Not quite.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I feel sick,’ I said truthfully.

‘Come back inside. You’ll be better seated. There is a breeze there.’

A sympathetic but firm grip. We went back inside, on hands and knees, myself in the middle. Bits of debris and builder’s rubble were scattered in the entrance. My hand closed on a half brick, and let it go again. What use was half a brick? Half a brigade of Guards, maybe.

I manoeuvred back into the foetal position and tried to think. My head was hurting so horribly, this was not easy.
Where
the
hell
were
we
? I hadn’t the faintest idea, except south. But wait. How did I even know south?

Think
. I knew it because – of what? Because of the
King 
David
, that was it. We’d passed the King David, going south, and I’d expected to see the railway station which was farther south still. Also the bus. It was a number seven bus – the Ramat Rahel bus, I realized suddenly. You couldn’t go any farther south than Ramat Rahel: the border looped round there,
enclosing
the Jerusalem enclave. And we hadn’t got that far. I was sure of it I had a sudden flash of the Studebaker at the
entrance
to a lane, and of ourselves getting out A muddy
potholed
lane, going downhill. Houses in the lane, terraces of fruit trees …

I suddenly knew where we were; could place it precisely. You could see it from the hill at Ramat Rahel, in line with the flag I’d spotted: the flag of the United Nations post. A lane ran down into a valley, to the old truce line. There was a shell crater at the bottom, with a cluster of blasted olive trees. All along the lane, right down to the crater, were smallholders’ cottages and their fruit gardens.

Plenty of cottages, plenty of people. It was simply a matter of getting there, across the crater, up the slope … pursued by two men with guns, rather faster on their feet than I was, in present form; men who wouldn’t hesitate to use the guns, who’d have used them in the Jaffa Road this morning, with far more people about.

But wait, I thought. There were important differences
between
this mud-bound crater and the Jaffa Road. They’d had a car in the Jaffa Road. They’d have run to the car and got away in it. They didn’t have a car here. There wouldn’t be a car till it was dark. And there was nowhere to run till then: any
shooting
would bring a U.N. jeep down the track before they’d got a couple of hundred yards. So there’d be no shooting. There’d been no shooting in the flat this morning. I suddenly
remembered
the man cleaning his knife in the bathroom. The guns were more in the nature of protection – possibly for laying me out again if I made a disturbance. But if I put a few yards between us – if I did it quickly, without warning?

This appraisal of the situation, and the realization that I’d have to have a try within the next couple of hours threw me into such a shaking panic one of the men actually put up his hand to hold me.

‘Try and relax,’ he said. ‘It won’t be long now. We’ll go early.’

‘Eh?’

‘The rain is making it dark. We’ll have the signal before an hour.’

I was sick, in his lap. He edged away, swearing.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I have to go outside again,’ I said, weakly.

They looked at each other again, and the one I’d been sick on lumbered off. Presently his head was in the entrance again. ‘All right.’

I thought,
Oh
God
,
this
is
it
, and found myself mindlessly on hands and knees padding up the tunnel. I seemed to be
slavering
as I padded, like some big tired dog, limbs rubbery, stomach heaving, the other man butting me from behind. Just as I got to the entrance, I was sick again. I’d put my hand down on the half brick. Then the man outside, hissing a bit in sympathy, was bending down to help me up. He had big round eyes in a big round face, and I was looking up into it, vision blurred by tears of sickness, and willing myself to do it. Then I did it.

His expression didn’t seem to alter much. His mouth, circled with mud and brick dust, merely described a tight pursed O and he went backwards, eyes apologetic almost, flat on his backside. Then I was stumbling round, and the other man, his view cut off, was up on his knees in the tunnel entrance, arms outstretched to steady me. ‘Easy now – easy,’ he said. ‘Get your balance.’ And I paused a moment and got it, and drew one foot back and let him have it, hard, horribly low, and his face went gently meditative. He said breathily, ‘Ah,’ and held himself, and gave a profound bow, on his knees, and then I was running, running like hell.

The fallacy about action is that once you’re in it apprehension goes and you concentrate calmly on the job in hand. Nothing like that happened to me. I ran in blind panic, concentrating on one simple thought:
God
help
me
if
they
lay
hands
on
me
. About half a minute later, I saw this was very likely. I was running the wrong way.

I’d come belting out of the trees, making for the slope, when I saw over to the left the black line of a cinder track. It
disappeared
into the trees. I suddenly remembered that we’d come down this track. In the mud it was the only sensible way down – or up. I turned and ran towards it right away, and as I turned saw the man I’d hit with the brick also running towards it; and realized he’d be at it rather sooner than I would. The other man was also on the move; not running exactly. He was stumbling along and clutching himself, a very unpleasant look on his face.

I thought
Oh
Jesus
Christ
and without pause swerved
frenziedly
back in the original direction. The slope was still nearer to me than to them. If I could only keep going I’d get there first. I had to get there first. I felt myself practically flying, leaping over obstacles, sickness gone, headache gone, breath gone too. I made the slope, thick red mud sucking at my shoes, and started up it, and almost at once began slipping back down again. I clutched frantically, at rocks, debris, was on my knees, and off them again, breath sobbing as I scrambled.

About half-way up I stopped, limbs leaden, lungs choked, because I’d suddenly seen I wasn’t going anywhere. Rocks had been gouged from the earth immediately under the top. Several were still lying around. The effect was to create an overhang that you couldn’t see till you were close up to it. Without
assistance
from above it wasn’t possible to get up this way at all. The assistance was already there. The first man was standing watching me, not even breathing very deeply. As I looked the second joined him. They didn’t say anything. They simply looked at me, from fifteen feet above. They looked at me fairly enjoyably.

I threw back my head and yelled ‘Help!’ It came out as a falsetto bleat in the wind, and the only effect was that the man I’d kicked bent down and picked up a rock and threw it at me.

He couldn’t miss at that range, and he didn’t. It caught me a fearful bloody thump on the shoulder. I got my head down fast as I saw the other man bending. I stayed down,
spread-eagled
on the slope, protecting my head, too shocked to move as both of the bastards began stoning me. After a witless minute or two it occurred to me they were trying to drive me down, and what was good for them was bad for me, so I started wriggling up, not able to see where I was going, just protecting my head and collecting a barrage of appalling bloody thuds on the back till I made the shelter of the overhang and crouched there, moaning slightly and trying to think what the hell to do now.

The situation was so uniquely horrible it hardly bore
thinking
about. All I’d done besides getting the wits stoned out of me was to ensure I’d pick up a bloody good hiding in the
bargain
. I’d pick that up now whatever I did. It was simply a matter of waiting for it. The only advantage of this refuge was that they couldn’t get at me immediately. They’d have to get me down first, or manoeuvre in some way round the side of the overhang.

Which side? The left side. On the right there was no slope at all, merely a drop. On the left there was plenty of slope, littered with debris and boulders. A very large boulder, immediately under the overhang, at present cut me off from this slope. I saw suddenly that it was possible for them to get round its offside without my seeing.

I edged towards it and tried to find a vantage point to look round. There wasn’t one. The thing stood upright like an egg, bottom sunk in the hill, broader parts concealing the view. I couldn’t get below it without exposing myself again. I tried to get above it.

I dug my shoes in the greasy red mud and edged higher, under the overhang. It smelt damp and musty like a grave. There was a gap of about a foot between the top of the boulder and the overhang. I couldn’t squeeze into it I couldn’t see through it. Mud blocked the other side.

A faint pattering of earth fell on the slope. I twisted round and looked down. More earth fell there. Someone coming down.

I edged out as far as I could and tried to see round the rock. I couldn’t see round it. I shook the bloody thing.

It moved.

I shook it again. It moved again. Earth fell out of the gap as it moved. I could suddenly see through. I could see a foot, moving down very slowly, then another one, and then legs, and then the rest of him. It was the man who’d copped the brick. He still carried the mark on his mouth and there was blood on his chin. He stopped suddenly and looked at me. He couldn’t see me through the gap; I was in heavy shade. I could see him very clearly, not five yards away, at the other side of the rock.

He stayed like that a moment, then looked up and waved. He didn’t wave immediately above my head. He waved over to the right, a long way over. They’d separated, then. Why? I racked tired brains and tried to work it out. While I did so, he sat down. He just sat on the slope and waited.

There seemed to be only one answer. He’d come down to bottle me up. If I broke and ran I wasn’t going to get past him. I could only get below him. Then I’d have to run to the other side of the crater and try to get up there. The other man would be waiting there.

If I didn’t do anything, he wouldn’t either. He’d just wait there till it was dark and come round the boulder with his gun. No need to frig about throwing rocks then. If I ran he’d simply shoot, in the right place.

It was getting dark now. It didn’t take long to do it here. One minute it looked a bit dark and the next it
was
. The choice seemed to be to run now and chance it, or run later with the near certainty of a bullet in the backside. I was a bit scrambled
today
, but not that scrambled. I started moving down from the rock. My foot slipped. I hung on to the rock. The rock lurched. It lurched quite strongly.

Something here; definitely something here. The thing was loose, ready to roll if I had the strength to make it.

If the bastard at the other side could only be encouraged to shift himself to a point just below it …

I looked down. An old toilet cistern, lidless, was half bedded in the slope. I picked up a stone and tossed it down. It clanged into the cistern and bounced out. I threw another. Then I picked up more and climbed up to the top of the boulder again and looked through the gap.

His mouth was open and he was looking earnestly down the slope. He hadn’t moved. I leaned out as far as I could and pitched a couple more stones out. I sent them arcing up, and they hit the overhang first, breaking a bit off it. Then I looked through the gap again.

He still hadn’t moved, but his big plain face was creased in thought as he looked down and then up, trying to follow the line of the falling earth and stones. He twisted round and tried to see the top of the overhang above me. He couldn’t see it, so he stood up and tried again. He still couldn’t see it. He turned and looked at the boulder hard, and I saw the succession of simple thoughts passing through his head. It was always
possible
that I’d found some way of getting up. I might have
dislodged
the earth and stones as I moved. Was I still under the overhang? I glared at him through the gap, silently urging him to shift himself down where he could see. Presently he did. He began to move down the slope, very cautiously. I watched him for a moment, then got in position behind the boulder.

It wasn’t till I was there that I realized I couldn’t see him now. I’d have to guess when he got in position. Also there was nothing to hold on to here. When the boulder went, if it went, I’d go with it. If I’d guessed wrongly, he wouldn’t cop the boulder. He’d cop me.

I attuned to his remembered rate of progress, heart thudding powerfully. I gave him about a quarter of a minute, counted ten slowly, drew a breath, and shoved.

The thing sucked earth, tottered, went. I clutched on nothing and went with it. I saw him, not quite below, just a little to one side, but with his body angled round to peer under the
overhang
. He couldn’t quite get out of the way in time, got a hefty nudge under the shoulder, dropped his gun, reared up and started pattering down the slope backwards, still on his feet. I was pattering down frontwards, still on mine. I took about twenty tiny skittering steps, unable to stop, the pair of us facing each other about twenty yards apart as though giving some fancy and high-speed demonstration of the rhumba. Then I got my foot in the lavatory cistern, sat momentarily, watched him still pattering with fury backwards down the slope, and was up and out of it.