I got my elbows over the edge of the wall, where his jacket had padded the spikes on the wire, and hauled myself up. The pursuers were on the terrace, baying like a pack of wolves or a bunch of US congressmen debating the latest Washington scandal.
‘All right,’ John said, as I balanced precariously on the edge of the wall. His voice was almost calm now. ‘Take it slowly. The wire doesn’t quite cover the entire surface; there is a good two inches free on either side. Step over. No, not there, a little to your left. Good. It’s about eight feet down. The ground is higher on the other side. Lower yourself by your hands and drop.’
His hand on my elbow steadied me as I stepped high over the barrier of wire. I was concentrating so hard on avoiding the barbs that I was only dimly aware of the brouhaha going on in the background, not ten yards away. The searchers had gathered in a gesticulating group on the terrace. Several of them had flashlights, but at that moment they had succumbed to one of the weaknesses to which the engaging Latin temperament is susceptible. They were arguing about what to do next. Some of them wanted to go right, some left; one cool-headed character suggested they split up, but he was shouted down by the others, who were enjoying the argument too much to settle it sensibly. They were waving their flashlights around as they talked – no real Italian can converse without using his hands – and the beams reminded me of old World War II movies, with the anti-aircraft beacons crisscrossing the dark sky.
Sooner or later one of those beams was bound to find us. It was pure bad luck that it happened about sixty seconds too soon.
I was hanging by my hands, but my toes were dug into a crack in the outer surface of the wall. I couldn’t quite bring myself to let go. John said it was eight feet down, but what did he know? There might be a bottomless abyss under my feet. It was dark down there.
John was bending over me. My right hand still clutched his wrist. He must have been squatting on the barbed wire, because his admonitions to me were interspersed with profane comments. All of a sudden his ruffled hair lit up like a pop-art halo, and light focused on his face. His eyes widened and his lips parted, but I didn’t hear what he said. It was drowned out by the sound of the shot.
I let go of the wall, but I did not let go of John. I dragged him with me as I fell, and if he yelled when the barbed wire raked across his body I didn’t hear it; the crowd on the terrace was shooting up a storm. If I hadn’t known better, I could have sworn they had an automatic rifle or a machine gun.
It was about nine feet down, as a matter of fact – three feet below the soles of my shoes. I landed with scarcely a jar, then John fell on top of me. We went down in a confused tangle and continued to roll. The slope must have been almost 45 degrees, and every rock on it left a bruise on my aching body. There was a stream at the bottom of the hill. Naturally, we rolled into it. If there was a natural obstacle on that hillside that we missed, I would be surprised.
I had been holding on to John, probably out of some vicious urge to use him as a buffer, so we ended up in the same place. In the stream. I don’t mean to disparage the stream. It was a nice stream. Shallow, with a soft, muddy bed, and quite warm. I lay there with the water rippling gently across my bruised body till I got my breath back. Off in the distance there were lights, and people yelling. Somebody’s head was pressing down on my diaphragm.
‘John?’ I said.
No answer.
‘I hope it’s you down there,’ I said. ‘Because if it isn’t, who is it?’
The head moved feebly. Then a disembodied voice said,
‘Water. More water. It must have some deeper meaning. In Freudian terms – ’
‘Freud be damned. It’s a stream. We’re in it. John, we made it; we escaped from the estate.’
‘That’s nice.’ The weight on my diaphragm increased.
‘We got out, but we’re still in danger. I think we had better move on.’
We had come a long way down. The moving lights at the top of the hill looked far away, the voices sounded like insects buzzing. But I was not deceived.
‘John,’ I said. ‘Some of those men have guns.’
‘Too true.’ John sat up. ‘You weren’t joking, were you? We really are in a stream. I have never seen such a damp country. The English climate is considered wet, but this – ’
‘It was the dog,’ I said. ‘We could have avoided some of the water if it hadn’t been for the dog. John, I am worried about Caesar. That Bruno is no fit keeper. Once we get out of this – ’
‘Thanks for reminding me.’ John got slowly to his feet. ‘So long as we’re in the stream we may as well stick to it, in case they fetch Caesar.’
‘We couldn’t be much wetter,’ I said.
John made no reply to this cheerful speech except for a grunt.
We went downhill, walking in the stream. Gradually the banks rose on either side until we were splashing through a miniature ravine, with trees leaning down from above and roots reaching out of the muddy sides like gnarled arms. To judge from the cries of inquiry and alarm behind us, the search had not been abandoned, but I began to relax. The dog couldn’t track us through the water, and the human pursuers couldn’t see us unless they shone lights straight down on us. In some places the banks were severely concave; the stream must run high and fast at certain seasons in order to have cut out so much dirt. The only difficulty was that it was hard to see where we were going. The steepness of the sides and the branches overhead cut out most of the moonlight. I reached out and caught John’s sleeve. It was very wet – soggy, in fact. He stopped when I touched him, and his breath came out in a sharp gasp.
‘Don’t be such a scaredy-cat,’ I hissed. ‘I can’t see. I just wanted to – ’
The truth began to dawn on me then; not all at once, but a little bit at a time. The first thing to strike me was the strange feel of the fabric I was touching. It was wet, all right – wet and sticky. Before my feeble brain could go on to the next step, John collapsed into the water with a splash that sent water sloshing up my shins.
The water was only three or four inches deep, but that’s deep enough if you are face down in it, which he was. I don’t suppose it took me more than a few seconds to turn him over, but it seemed a lot longer. He didn’t help any. For the second time in a few hours he was out cold, and I must admit that I didn’t draw a deep breath until his breath came out with a watery gurgle, and I knew he was alive.
The water was trickling up around his face, so I dragged him out onto the bank, which was deeply undercut at that point. He was so wet I had a hard time figuring out where he was hurt. I couldn’t see anything except the faintest glimmer of fair hair, since even his shirt was muddied and dark. But I finally decided that the major damage was a bullet hole in his arm. He must have lost quite a bit of blood; it was still flowing freely.
It never rains but it pours. I was plucking frantically at my scanty attire, trying to figure out what I could spare for a tourniquet and bandage, and wondering how I was going to do the job in absolute darkness, when something above my head snapped and dirt dribbled down into the water. One of the searchers must have heard the splash and decided to investigate. He had been walking in darkness; now he switched on his light and shone it down into the ravine.
Luckily for us he was on the same side of the stream. I had pulled John completely out of the water, so I could check him over, and we were pressed up against the undercut side of the bank. The flashlight beam illumined the opposite bank, and a good part of the stream itself.