The slope fell away shallowly to the end of the runway where the two little huts had stood. Robert’s plane leaned, blazing and broken, beside the hut which had been filled with aviation fuel, and both were brightly ablaze. The fire gave light enough to show the details of the ground for quite a way around, certainly bright enough for them all to see the threads of smoke rising from the roof of the second hut as it smouldered up towards its own flashpoint. Even here they could feel the heat on their foreheads, and when Ann put the camera to her eyes for the first time, the brightness in the telescopic lens came near to blinding her.
She was an imaginative person and, although of extremely peaceful nature, had seen enough war films, empathised with enough tough warriors to have a good idea what to do first. Prompted by what she had seen today and perhaps by the snug coolness of the gun into accepting a role she had mistrusted since early maturity with all her fierce intellectual strength, she mentally split up the ground below into a grid and used the close-up pictures in her viewfinder to sweep across the quadrants until she knew no area had been left unchecked and was certain there was no one down there.
‘All clear,’ she whispered to Harry.
She felt the slightest stir of movement and he was gone. At once Robert slid closer to her and side by side they peered over the hillcrest, searching the stark brightness below for any sign of their friend — or of any enemies. The heat and stench of the destruction eddied around them, the roaring of the flames overwhelmed them, keeping the rest of the vast night at bay. Robert looked over his shoulder from time to time — it would have been all too easy for someone to creep up behind them with his presence masked by what was going on at the bottom of the slope. Ann concentrated on the scene before her, however, scouring the brightness for movement and checking the shadows with her telescopic lens.
Harry appeared after ten minutes or so. His first movement in the corner of her eye nearly gave her a heart attack, but her lens soon showed the top of his bush hat and she breathed a little more easily. She nudged Robert to make sure that he had seen too. The hunter moved from shadow to shadow, like a lizard. He moved swiftly when he had to move and was absolutely still when at rest. Once or twice she looked away when he moved and had trouble focusing in on his absolutely still outline crouching in a new location. When at rest, his rough, dusty bush clothing blended perfectly with his surroundings. When he crouched flat on the ground, even his shadow gave little away.
He scouted all the way round the blazing wreckage. Then, satisfied that he had covered the area fully, he pulled himself to his feet and dashed towards the smaller, smouldering shed in a weaving, crouching run. When he arrived, he stood up straight-backed to his full height, looking around for one last time, then he tried the door handle. The door opened infinitesimally. He swung it open and jumped back all in one motion. The door slammed wide and bounced closed, all in silence, its noise buried beneath the roaring of the flames from the Cessna and her flaming fuel. At last, satisfied that there was no one nearby and that the little hut was also safe, Harry began to wave slowly, facing up the hill towards them.
‘Right, let’s go,’ said Robert and pulled himself to his feet.
Harry dived out of sight into the shed.
As she prepared to pull herself to her feet, Ann realised she hadn’t taken any pictures of the heroic little figure after all. She paused and focused on the distant door. ‘You go on and start up the Land Rover,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there.’
‘Hurry,’ yelled Robert.
‘Don’t wait for me!’
Harry emerged, hauling a pair of jerry cans which were obviously full of petrol. Ann focused in on him, waiting for a good photograph.
‘Hurry!’ yelled Robert, more distantly.
‘Don’t wait for me!’
Harry staggered free of the heat between the buildings with a can swinging from each hand. She had him solidly framed. The shutter clicked.
Later she would swear she saw the shot but it must have been her imagination that drew the thread-thin black line which was there and gone, streaking across the picture as Harry suddenly stopped.
THUD, went her heart.
A stream of petrol arced brightly out of each can, looking ridiculously like urine in the yellow light. Just as she was sure she had seen the bullet going through them, she was certain the curves of petrol from the cans hung lingeringly in the air, falling elegantly out and down from the level of his hips.
THUD, went her heart.
Sharp and clear as the breaking of a bone in her own body came the sound of a single shot. It was only then that she started screaming, ‘NO! NO! NO!’
When the very first drop of the orange liquid touched the smouldering grass, it ignited and the cans exploded, with Harry still standing stricken between them. His slight frame was wreathed with fierce yellow flames in an instant. He toppled forward onto the ground and a sea of flame swept out across the grass towards the second hut.
Still screaming, unaware that her rigid finger was holding the button down, she swung the lens wildly around until the viewfinder picked up a group of men who had appeared out of nowhere. There seemed to be several of them standing on the grass at the edge of the shadow, with two in violent argument, gesturing as though they were yelling at each other.
THUD, went her heart.
The second hut exploded, ignited by Harry’s funeral pyre, and the light flashed across the smouldering grass to the tiny group just in time for Ann to see one of the arguing men pull out a pistol. He put it to his opponent’s chest, across which was held a smoking rifle, and pulled the trigger. The second man fell down, flat on his back, with his rifle still held tight across his chest.
Then the man with the pistol was screaming at the others, pointing at the burning hut, and gesturing towards the hilltop, apparently right at Ann herself. He was a tall man, cadaverously thin, and his hawk-like face was burned deep into her memory. Unlike the other soldiers, he was white.
Exactly ten seconds after Robert had turned away to go and get the Land Rover, Ann tore herself up off the ground. She had been screaming for five seconds but the first agonised cries of ‘No!’ had been lost beneath the noise — the suddenly louder noise. In the three seconds which had elapsed since he realised that there was something wrong, Robert had stopped, frowned and turned. He still had five metres to go before he reached the Land Rover. The sight of Ann running pell-mell towards him made him turn and break into a sprint too but, even so, they reached the vehicle side by side. ‘Drive!’ she screamed, and he was far too wise to hesitate, question or argue.
Fortunately, he was a frequent visitor here and was no stranger to Harry’s Land Rover. He chucked the Remington into the back seat and slammed the rear door while she clambered into the front and paused to pull Harry’s pistol out of her waistband. Robert had the elderly vehicle in first gear while Ann was still settling in the seat at his side and was rolling forwards almost as soon as Harry would have been.
‘Which way?’ he yelled.
She pointed out across the bush and he took her at her word, slamming up through the gears and keeping his right foot hard on the floor — very hard, for the seat was set in Harry’s driving position and Robert’s legs were half a metre longer.
Ann swung round, searching the shadowed slope with wild eyes. The flame-etched rim was still so close. What had Harry said about the Remington? It would kill at a kilometre! What sort of guns would these people have? She could see the shape of the rifle clutched across the dead soldier’s chest, with its strange butt and long, curving magazine, but she didn’t know enough about guns to identify it; certainly not enough to assess its killing range. She put the camera to her eye and everything swam out of focus at once. Horror gripped her. The camera was broken! She was going blind! She lowered the camera and wiped her face, rubbing her eyes fiercely with the back of a trembling hand. She was crying.