Holt woke when Crane shook his shoulder.
There was the moment when he did not know where he was. There were the few seconds of slow understanding. Not in his bed in the doctor's house on Exmoor, not in his bed in the London flat, not in his bed in the Moscow apartment, not in his bed in the Tel Aviv hotel. Crane's hand was relentless on his shoulder, urging him awake.
Because they were trapped under the scrim net, the fumes of the hexamine solid fuel cubes permeated to his nostrils. The fumes told Holt where he was. The first time in the hike in the Occupied Territories that he had known the hexamine stench under the scrim netting he had nearly gagged. He heard the bubbling of the water.
"Time for a brew up, youngster."
He saw the two tea bags cavorting in the boiling water.
"How long have I been out?"
"I let you have two hours, you looked like you needed two hours."
"I can do the same as you."
"No chance," Crane dismissed him.
They spoke in low whispers. Each time Crane spoke Holt had to lean towards him to understand what he said.
Crane passed him the canteen and began to anoint himself with the mosquito cream. Holt drank fast from the scorching tea, burned the soft tissue on the inside of his mouth, gulped. While he was smearing the cream on to his skin surfaces Crane was tracking with his binoculars backwards and forwards searching over the ground below them, around them.
"Clear?"
"So far."
Holt handed back the canteen. "I want to pee, where do I go?"
"You don't just go for a walk."
"Where?"
"You roll on your side, you undo your flies, and you piss. Simple."
"Then I have to sleep on it, and sit on it."
"Then you get to learn to piss when it's dark, before we settle and before we move off. That's when you piss and that's when you crap, like I showed you… and wake me in an hour, and don't do anything stupid. Just do what I've told you."
"If I've had two hours' sleep you can have two."
"You think I'll sleep two hours knowing you're watching my back?"
Crane was gone. Blanket over his head, curled into a ball, breathing regular, the low growl of a snore.
God, and it was blessed uncomfortable in the cleft.
He must have been dead tired to be able to sleep on those rocks, and a separate ache was in every inch of his side, in his shoulder and in his ribs and in his hip and in his thigh.
Before, before he had known what it was to walk through a night and to get to a lying up position for the day, he would have thought that night was the enemy and daytime was the ally. Not any more. Night was the friend, darkness was the accomplice. At night and in darkness he could melt into the shadows, he was on his feet and able to move. Daylight was the bastard, in daylight he was trapped down into the cleft of two rocks and he couldn't stand and he couldn't walk. The cover was waist high, and if he stood or he walked then he would be seen. For a long time he looked across the few inches at Crane. Christ, wouldn't he have liked to have woken him, talked to him? Not half a chance of that.
Just time for a few words in the moments between sleeping and sentry duty, and another few words before moving off, and another few words before lying up for duylight. It was a bastard… and he watched the calm heave of Crane's breathing.
First job of the day. Crane's bible. Holt laid out the six magazines for the Armalite which were carried between them. Only five were loaded. Holt's job was to change the thirty rounds of ammunition from one magazine to another, so that each time he carried out the manoeuvre a different magazine would be left empty.
Crane's bible said that magazines left full led to the weakening of the spring. Crane's text said that most firing failures were in fact magazine failures. The first time in the Occupied Territories it had taken Holt close to an hour to reload the 150 rounds; now he was going at twice that pace.
Second job of the day. Clean with dry cloth and graphite grease the outside surfaces of the Armalite and the Model PM. Crane's text said that cleaning oil should never be used because it would leave a smoke signature of burned off oil in the firing heat. He checked that the condoms were tightly fastened over the barrels of the two weapons.
He was painfully hungry. Might have sold his mother for a bar of chocolate, well, pawned her for sure. Crane's bible said no sweets to suck, because when you sucked sweets you also bit them, and when you bit them you made such a noise in your head that you knocked out your hearing, no boiled sweets. He had had a biscuit and a piece of cream cheese before going to sleep.
They would have their main meal at the end of the afternoon, Crane had said. The old goat had said it would be a proper bloody feast. Crane had said that it was a good thing to be hungry, that hunger bred alertness.
He heard them a long way off. He thought he could hear the aircraft from a hell of a long way off because he was so hungry.
Through the squares of the scrim net he thought he could see the silver shapes leading the run of the vapour trails, flying south to north. It was strangely dis-concerting to him to know that Israeli aircraft were overhead, flying free, while young Holt was down on his backside in the cleft in the rock. He watched the trails until they were gone from sight.
He had the binoculars. He looked down on the village of Yohmor. He could see the men moving listlessly between the houses and the coffee shop in the centre of the village. He could see children scampering down to the Litani river to swim and dive. Between the rock cleft and the river he could see a lad herding sheep, tough little blighters and sure-footed, scrambling towards a small plateau where water must be held, or where there must be a spring, because there was green on the handkerchief of level ground.
Beyond Yohmor, higher up the far valley, was the winding road. It was the dirt cloud that he noticed first, and then the rumble of the engines travelled across the valley to him. Six tank transporters, each loaded, and a couple of lorries and a couple of jeeps. Through the glasses he studied the tanks. With the glasses he could see the unit markings on the turrets. He had never seen tanks before, not the 6o-ton main battle tank jobs. He saw the long lean barrels of the tanks. Holt seemed to crush himself down against the rock base of the cleft.
Over the battlefield had flown two pairs of multi million pound strike aircraft, across the battlefield were being hauled six tank monsters. They were the bloody currency of the battlefield. Holt wasn't. Holt was just ordinary. Holt didn't even know how to fire a damned Armalite… Crane slept. Holt hadn't known anyone who could sleep as easily as Crane before. Right, the man kicked, and he stirred. Right, the man snored. But he slept.
Crane coughed, guttural. He turned from his side to Ins back and then shook himself, coughed again. Holt would speak to him about that. Crane moved onto his other side. Have to speak to the prophet Crane about making so much noise coughing. Holt would enjoy that.
He'd enjoy it, because he could pull a suitably aggrieved lace and say in all seriousness that Crane's coughing was putting the mission in jeopardy…
So still.
Holt not moving. Holt grabbing to halt his breathing.
Not daring to move, not daring to breathe.
Crane's heel had moved the stones.
Holt watched the snake emerge from its disturbed hole.
Crane had been lying on the stones, and hidden under the stones had been the snake.
Holt had a knife in his belt, he had the binoculars in his hand.
Crane's body rolled.
If Crane sagged again on to his back then he would lie on the snake.
Holt had had all the books when he was a kid. Holt knew his snakes. There were snakes on Exmoor, kids always knew about snakes.