Crane had two maps on the table in front of him. The one he marked, bold lines for the route, decisive crosses for the stop positions, the other he left clean.
The Intelligence officer gathered up the photographs.
Noah Crane folded the map that was not marked. He spoke from the side of his mouth to Holt, staccato, as if it were obvious.
"See the way I fold it. The way I fold it doesn't show which section interests me, it concertinas out. And I never put my fingers on it. When we're out there, when we're using it, we will always use a pointer, like a stick, to indicate. We never leave marks on the map, finger marks."
"So that if we are captured they don't know what our target was?"
Crane said, matter of fact, "We don't talk about capture. Capture is not thinkable. It is in case we lose the map."
He saw the youngster look away.
He led Holt to the kit room, the room beside his own.
He was a loner. For years, as a sniper, he had taken responsibility for himself, for his own skin. Noah Crane had never gone after promotion, he had shunned taking novice soldiers under his wing. He didn't bloody well know how to raise the spirits of the youngster, didn't bloody know. He could see the youngster was scared witless, standing close to him, walking c lose to him, but he didn't bloody well know how to breathe confidence into the youngster. And it worried him. He needed the youngster to begin well .. and how? How to get the youngster doing it right. That was an agony to Noah Crane, a second agony to the pain behind the tiredness of his shooting eye.
Holt was young enough to be Noah Crane's son, and he had never fathered a son, never brought up a son.
'Course he didn't know how to communicate with the youngster.
He had laid the kit out in the same way he always did.
Two Bergen packs nearest the door, the kit stretching away.
"You'll know him, won't you?"
"I'll know him."
"I'd skin you, if we went that far and at the end you didn't know him."
"Mr Crane, I see him just about every hour of my waking life. I see his face, I see his movement, I see him running. There's no chance, if he's there, that I won't know him."
"Not personal, I just had to be sure."
"Mr Crane, has it ever crossed your mind that I might not be sure of you?"
"You cheeky brat, you know about nothing."
"I know about plenty. About the things normal people know. I'm just weak about going into other folks' back yards and killing people They don't do degree courses in that."
"Everything I do you copy. You do everything I say, and we'll make it back."
"I hear you, Mr Crane, and is there something I can say?"
"What is it?"
"It would be great to see you smile, and to hear you laugh would be quite marvellous."
Crane scowled.
"We're taking more than we had on the warm up hike. We're taking what I can carry, which means you have to manage with the same. We are taking five days' water, which is 50 lbs weight. We are taking rations for five days. We will have first aid and survival gear. We will have a sniper rifle with day vision and night vision sights, and we will have an Armalite rifle with six magazines. Watch the way I pack your kit, I won't pack it for you again It's not easy for me, you know, having a green arse."
"I'll do my best, Mr Crane."
"Too right you will, 'cos I kick hard."
When the Bergens were packed, and the weapons had been cleaned one more time, Crane dressed in olive green military trousers and shirt..He saw that Holt watched the way he pulled the sleeves down and buttoned them, hid the forearm skin. He saw the way Holt copied him as he threaded the hessian lengths of brown and yellow and black material into the rubber straps sewn into the uniform, to break down the body's outlines. He saw that Holt imitated him as he smeared the insect repellent cream on his face and throat, but not on his forehead. He could have explained that creams were never put on the forehead, because the sweat would carry it into the eyes, but he saw no point in explaining. The youngster just had to watch, copy, imitate. When Holt was dressed, he hoisted the Bergen pack onto Holt's shoulders, told him to walk around, told him to get the feel of the pack that was half as heavy again as the one that Holt had struggled with in the Occupied Territories. Six times round the room, and then the adjustments that were necessary on the straps.
More adjustments for the waist belt. And adjustments lor the sling strap of the Armalite.
Holt said, "Why haven't you given me a practice with the Armalite?"
"Because if our lives depend on you with the Armalite, then they're not worth much."
"I have to be able to fire it."
"If it has to be fired then it'll be me that's firing it.
You're just there to carry it."
Crane reached out. He took the wrist watch off Holt's arm. For a moment he read the inscription on the back.
"Our dearest son, 21st birthday, Mum and Dad". He felt a vandal. He tore off the strap. He looped a length of parachute cord through the slots, knotted the ends.
With adhesive tape he fastened two morphine ampoules to the cord, one each side of the watch. He hooked the cord over Holt's neck, saw the watch sink with the ampoules down under Holt's shirt front.
Like he was dressing a kid for a party, he tied a dull green netted cloth around Holt's forehead. He stood back, he looked Holt up and down.
"You won't get any better," Crane said. He punched Holt in the shoulder, he made a rueful grin.
"If they ever audition for the lead in the Great Communicator, you'd be a certainty, Mr Crane. You might even end with an Oscar."
"Let's move."
He thought the youngster was great, and he did not know how to tell him. He thought that he was not alone.
He had seen the way Percy Martins looked at Holt, when Holt didn't see him. He thought they were both trying to reach the youngster, and both failing, both too bloody old.
Crane said, "You won't have noticed, Holt, but there is no magazine on the Model PM Long Range. It's one shot only. You don't get a chance to reload. You have one chance, one shot. I have to get into a five-inch circle at, around a thousand yards with a first shot, an only shot ''
He saw the sincerity in Holt's eyes. "That's why they had to dig out the best man, Mr Crane. Thank God they found him."
They went through the door.
Holt's own clothes and Crane's were left folded in separate plastic bags, each with a name-tag.
Loaded down by the Bergens they walked down the j corridor, out to the transport.
Percy Martins was talking to him, pacing alongside Holt. He was following Crane out into the sunshine and towards the mine-proofed Safari truck.
"I'll be here, Holt, I'll be at Kiryat Shmona, and via Tel Aviv I'll have secure communications with London.
Everything that I can humanly do for you will be done, rest assured on that… "
He saw the girl standing on the verandah of the officers' canteen. She wore scarlet this morning. He would like to have gone to her, kissed her his thanks for what she had given to him. She looked straight through him, as though he were a stranger.
"You're going to help to make the world a better and a safer place for decent folk, young Holt. Go in after that bastard and blow him away. Let them know that there are no safe havens, no bolt holes, that we can see them and reach them even when they're the other side of the hill. I'll be waiting for you."
"Great, Mr Martins."
He followed Crane into the back of the Safari, the major gave him a hand up, pulled him over the tail board.