Saw-scaled viper, Echis carinatus. Vicious, a killer, common all over North Africa, the Middle East, across to the sub-continent.
The snake slithered slowly over the rock at the small of Crane's back.
God, don't let him roll. God, don't let the old goat cough.
The snake was a little less than two feet long. It was sandy brown with pale blotches and mahogany brown markings.
Holt saw the flicker of the snake's mouth.
He thought Crane slept deeply. He thought that if he called to him to wake that he would start in a sudden movement. He couldn't lean across to him, couldn't hold him as he woke him, because to lean forward would mean to cover the snake with his body.
The damn thing settled. The bloody thing stopped moving. Sunshine filtering through the scrim net. Two warm stones for the snake. Holt thought the snake's head, the snake's mouth, were four or perhaps five inches from the small of Crane's back.
Couldn't go for his knife. To go for his knife was to twist his body, to unhook the clasp that secured the knife handle, to draw the knife out of the canvas sheath.
Three movements before the critical movement, the strike against the neck of the snake. Couldn't use his knife.
Crane grunted. Holt saw the muscle tighten under the light fabric of Crane's trousers. The old goat readying himself to roll, the prophet winding himself up to change position.
The bible according to Crane. When you've got something to do, do it. When you've got to act, stop pissing about.
Holt looked at his hand. Quite surprised him. His hand was steady. Shouldn't have been, should have been shaking. His hand was firm.
Do it, stop pissing about.
The snake's head was over a stone. He marked the spot in his mind. The spot was an inch from the snake's head.
One chance for Holt. Like the one chance that Crane would have when he fired.
His hand was a blur.
The binoculars were a haze of movement.
He felt the bridge of the binoculars bite against the inch thick body of the snake.
All the power he had in him, driving against the thickness of the snake at a point an inch behind the snake's head. The body and the tail of the snake were thrashing against his arm, curling on his wrist, cold and smoothed dry. The mouth of the snake was striking against the plastic covering of the binocular lenses. He saw the spittle fluid on the plastic.
When the movements had lessened, when the body and the tail no longer coiled his arm, he took his knife from his belt and sawed off the head of the snake at the place where it was held against the stone by the bridge of the binoculars.
The head fell away. With his knife blade Holt urged the head down between the stones.
He was trembling. He saw the blade flash in front of his eyes. He could not hold the blade still. His hands were beginning to shake.
His eyes were misted.
Holt heard the growl whisper.
"Can I move now?"
"You can move."
"What was it?"
"Saw-scaled viper."
"I can move?"
"You can get into a dance routine if you want to."
Crane's head emerged from under the blanket. Steadily he looked around him. Holt saw that when Crane focused on the snake's body, sawn to a stump, that he bit at his lip.
Holt moved the stones with the tip of his knife blade, exposed the snake's head, and the bite on Crane's lip was tighter.
"Do you fancy a brew, youngster?"
Holt nodded.
"Youngster, don't let anyone ever tell you that you aren't all right."
15
When they had eaten, when they had wiped clean their canteens and stowed them again in their belt pouches, Crane talked.
His voice was always a whisper, low pitched. There were times that Holt interjected his questions and in the excitement of the communication he lost control of the pitch in his chords and then Crane would silently wag a finger to show his disapproval. But the disapproval was no longer the put down. It was as if young Holt had proved himself in Crane's eyes.
They sat back to back. With the food eaten the daytime sleeping was finished. Their heads were close, mouth to ear in close proximity. The debris of the food wrapping had been collected by Holt and put into the plastic bag reserved for rubbish. It would be dark in an hour, when it was dark they would wait a further hour to acclimatise their eyes and ears to the night, then they would move off.
Crane faced down into the gorge, and watched the main road leading into the Beqa'a. At their next lying up position they would be overlooking the valley. Holt's attention was on the steep slopes above and to the west, looking into the sun that would soon clip the summits on the Jabal Niha and the Jabal el Barouk that were six thousand feet above sea level.
They were for Holt moments of deep happiness.
Mostly he listened, mostly Crane talked, whispered.
Crane talked of sniper skills, and survival skills, and of map reading skills and of evasion skills? He took Holt through the route of the coming night march, his finger hovering over but never touching the map. He showed him the next LUP, and he showed him then the track they would follow for the third of the night marches, and where they would make the final LUP on the ground above the tent camp. He showed him by which way they would skirt the high village above the valley of Khirbet Qanafar, how they would be sandwiched between Khirbet Qanafar and the twin village of Kafraiya, he showed him where, above them on the Jabal el Barouk, was positioned the sensitive Syrian listening and radar post. He showed Holt, on the map, from where he would shoot, with the sun behind him, with the sun in the eyes of those in the camp.
Happiness for Holt, because he had won acceptance.
He was trusted.
"And you want him dead, Mr Crane?"
"Just a soldier, being paid to do what I'm told."
"Being paid a hell of a lot."
"A chicken shit price for what I'm doing."
"I'm not being paid," Holt said.
"Your problem, youngster."
"I saw your room back at base camp, I couldn't see what you'd spend your money on."
Crane smiled, expressionless, but there was a sharp glint in his eyes. "Too long to tell you about."
A curtain fell in that moment, then Crane's face moved. Holt saw the flicker of regret. He thought a scalpel had nudged a root nerve.
"Have you ever been paid before, to kill a man?"
"Just taken my army pay."
"Have you killed many men, Mr Crane?"
"Youngster, I don't notch them up… I do what I'm paid to do, I try to be good at what I'm paid for doing."
"Is it a few men, is it a lot of men, that you've killed?"
"Sort of between the two, youngster."
Holt watched him, watched the way he casually cleaned the dirt out from behind his nails, then abandoned that, began to use a toothpick in his mouth.
"Is it different, killing a man in battlefield conditions to killing a man that you've stalked, marked out?"
"To me, no."
"Do you think about the man you're going to kill at long range? Do you wonder about him, about whether he's guilty or he's innocent?"
"Not a lot."
"It would worry me sick."
"Let's hope you never have to worry yourself. Look at you, you're privileged, you're educated, you're smart, people like you don't get involved in this sort of dirt."
"This time I have."
"… most times people like you pay jerks to get these things done. Got me?"
"But don't you feel anything?"
"I kind of cover my feelings, that way they don't get to spit in your face."
"What's your future, Mr Crane?"
Again the quiet smile. "What's yours, youngster?"
Holt was watching a bird like an eagle soar towards the summits above him. A beautiful, magnificent bird.