I crouched, short of breath, terrified, watching the eastern end of the shed where a flood of rainy light showed where the loading ramp spilled its way out of this death trap. Then I saw a man run across that patch of light and I pulled the trigger, much too late, and heard my bullet ricochet off metal to crack against a ceiling girder.
I ran again, and once again Lisl saw me a second too late. Bullets flicked and shrieked and sang and banged through the shed. I sheltered beside a different kind of machine, one that had a crawlspace beneath it. The dank space was no more than a foot high, but it offered me a chance. Lisl would be watching for me in one place, but the crawl space would let me appear in another.
The crawl space was filthy with rust-colored puddles. I hung my bag with its few precious implements about my neck, took a breath, then wriggled my way under the giant machine. The first few feet were easy enough, though I could feel the stinking water soaking through my trousers, but once I was deep under the great mechanism some bolts on its underside snagged on the rope that I still had wrapped about my torso. I dared not use great force to tear myself free, for any noise might betray my predicament. Instead I slowly edged backward and forward, freeing myself of the obstruction inch by cold inch. I heard voices echoing, the slap of feet again, but my enemies preferred to stalk me rather than rush me, presumably for fear of my rifle. Lisl, worried by my silence or perhaps just trying to flush me out of hiding, fired some shots that rang like bells as they smacked into the iron frame of the machine above me. When she stopped firing I could hear the spent bullets rattle down into the mechanism’s rusting bowels.
I paused, watching the passage into which I would emerge. I could see no one there. I twisted my body till it was sideways onto the passage, rolled out, scrambled to my feet, and ran in panicked desperation toward the ramp. It took my enemies a second or two to see me, and another two or three seconds to react. Then Lisl opened fire and her bullets flicked and smacked and whined about me. I knew I did not have time to hurl myself over the ramp’s lip, so instead I dived into the shelter of a stone wall that hid me from her deadly perch.
“Where is he?” one of the men demanded.
“Last hopper! This side!” Lisl shouted, then her German-accented voice was abruptly filled with panic. “I said this side! This side!”
Her panic was justified, for the man had mistaken her instructions and now stepped into view just paces from me. He was facing a hopper on the hall’s far side and had his back to me, but Lisl’s panicked voice whipped him round and his eyes widened with terror as he saw me. He was a broad-shouldered man with a huge and springy beard of tangled brown hair that blossomed wildly across his broad chest. I felt a sudden, wild hope that the bearded man would have the sense to leap back into hiding, thus saving me the need to shoot him, but instead he raised his hands and I saw he was carrying a submachine gun. I was swinging the rifle toward him. I had never shot at anyone in all my life, but he was beginning to flinch as though he feared the noise his own gun would make, and I knew that I had about one second to live if I did not squeeze my trigger first.
So I squeezed my trigger.
He fired, too.
My shot missed. So did his.
The man was screaming as he fired, not because he was hurt, but to disguise his fear. He had fired too soon and his bullets went to my left and kept going away from me as the recoil of the small gun pounded him around. I worked the Lee-Enfield’s bolt and heard my ejected cartridge tinkle as it clattered across the stone floor. I raised the rifle, taking better aim then before. The bearded man had managed to control the swing of his gun’s shuddering recoil and he was forcing the barrel back toward me. The world was reduced to noise, just noise, a splintering thunder of cartridges and of metal striking stone, and I was probably shouting as loudly as my enemy, then I fired again and the man just leapt backward as though he had been yanked off his feet by a hidden steel cable, and then there was a sudden silence.
Rainwater dripped on the floor. The wind fretted and creaked at a sheet of corrugated iron. The man I had shot took a breath that sounded like the workings of an ancient bellows. I worked the rifle’s bolt. I had fired three bullets, or was it four? I knew I should count the magazine down so as not to be trapped without ammunition. I was sure it was three. My breath was coming in panicked gulps. I could see the bearded man’s legs protruding from behind a wooden hooper. He was wearing a green jerkin, brown corduroy trousers, and old climbing boots with worn vibram soles. One of his legs was jerking spasmodically. His breathing sounded awful, like bubbles and scraping gravel and unimaginable pain. I thought I was going to be sick. I had a sudden vivid memory of the man’s blood pulsing bright in the air as he jerked backward.
“Chris is hit!” Lisl’s voice was shocked.
“Where is he?” another voice shouted.
The man called Chris suddenly screamed. It was a terrible scream.
I moved. I ran out from the wall. I turned and looked up. Lisl was leaning over the balustrade. I brought the rifle up and stared at her through the open battle sight. She was turning her gun toward me, then, seeing me and fearing my shot, she leaped backward like a scalded cat.
I turned and ran the few steps to the great ramp that sloped down to the pier and the sea. Wooden steps ran down beside a huge metal-lined chute that had once carried the crushed lime to the waiting ships and now I hurled myself onto its metal lining and slid down as though it was a giant slide in a childrens’ playground. Except that this slide was rusted, and bolts snagged me, and I part rolled and part slid and sometimes scrambled my way down to the bottom. I heard something break in the bag of supplies that I still carried about my neck.
The man called Chris still screamed behind me. The sound of his agony faded as I escaped, or almost escaped, for a sudden whine and whipcrack told me that I was being fired at. The sound of the gun echoed down the ramp’s tunnel. The bullets missed, then, bruised and bleeding, I spilled over the ramp’s end onto the flagstoned surface of the old quay.
I looked up one side of the chute to see another bearded man running down the steps with a gun in his hand. I aimed, fired, and missed. The man suddenly realized how vulnerable he was and turned. I fired again, but the range was long, I was firing uphill into shadows and the man was running fast. I fired a third time, missed yet again and saw the man make an ungainly leap off the stairs and into cover.
I ran down the quay. The rain bounced to make a fine spray on the flagstones. Beneath me, on a small shingle beach where they were concealed from the sea by a ridge of rocks, were four sea kayaks. Two of the slender craft were single-seaters, while the others had two small cockpits apiece. Six paddles lay alongside the kayaks. I jumped down, painfully turning an ankle as I landed. The slender craft were made of fiberglass. I walked past their sharp prows, firing into their bellies. A bullet apiece was enough to make sure that the kayaks could not be used in a hurry, but I had to change magazines to finish the job and the delay betrayed my whereabouts to my enemies. Suddenly their bullets began whipping at the quay’s edge above me, chipping scraps of stone that dropped around me. I slung the kayak’s six paddles far out into the water, where, with any luck, they would float away.