Whether or not the defenders could see us it was impossible to tell, but I guessed not. I reckoned they were just loosing offrounds into the desert to raise their morale. They had plenty to keep them occupied. The blaze started by Pat's distraction charge had died out, but the accommodation block was well alight, with flames spreading along it from the right-hand end. I could see figures running about outside the building, and hear men yelling in high, harsh voices. Vehicles were on the move, headlights sweeping the desert. I tried not to look at the lights or flames because the glare destroyed my night-vision.
The ground was uneven enough to make searching difficult, the hollows containing pools of deeper darkness.
'Spread out,' I called. 'Get a line. It's the only way to find him.'
We fanned out to twenty metres apart in a line end- on to the wire, tripping and falling in the sandy hollows.
Whenever headlights swung in our direction, everyone went down and stayed flat until the beams had passed.
This made progress ercatic, and confused our eyes still more. I was beginning to think we must have gone past Pat when Norm suddenly called, 'Here he is.'
We were round him in a flash. He was lying in a bit' of a dip, on his right side, with his left leg curled up but his right leg straight out beneath it. As we huddled round he didn't speak. With my back to the camp I switched on my torch and immediately saw blood gleaming in the sand.
'Right leg,' I said. 'Turn him over.'
He groaned and blasphemed as we got him on his back. With my knife I cut his trousers and slit upwards.
One look told me that a bullet had gone right through his leg and caught his femur just above the knee. A splinter of bone was protruding from a bloody opening.
I whipped out my shamag and twisted it up into a sausage to make a tourniquet above the wound.
'Get on the radio to Stew,' I ordered. 'Tell him we need the trailer forward, as close behind the OP as he can get it.'
I got the tourniquet in position, broke out two thick wound-dressings from my emergency pack and bound them into place with Norm's shamag, one on either hole. When I shone the torch on Pat's face he looked deathly pale, and his eyes moved slowly. I felt round his neck for the sachet of morphia. It was still in place, so I jerked the cord in half, pulled off the cap and banged the needle into his good thigh.
'He's lost a lot of blood,' I said. 'He needs an IV, fast.'
Suddenly a brighter glare blazed out of the camp, and the beam of a searchlight swept over the desert to our right. 'For fuck's sake!' called Whinger. 'Let's get him into a deeper hole.'
He and Norm took Pat by the arms and began dragging him backwards over the sand, ignoring his protests. I picked up his rifle and went after them. Then I saw the beam of the light swinging fast towards us.
'On the deck!' I snapped. 'Down!'
Down we went, but not quick enough. The light beamed on to us, swung past, then checked and came back. The operator had seen us. A second later rounds came flying down the line of the beam. The air all round my head was suddenly full of vicious snapping and crackling. It was a machine-gun, firing long bursts.
We were pinned down fifty metres short of the dunes and good cover. If we'd all been fit we could maybe have rolled into hollows and got away with it.
But Pat couldn't move on his own. To me his body showed up as big as an elephant's, caught in that lethal beam. If anyone had good binos at the other end, they were bound to see it.
There was only one thing to do. I rolled a couple of metres to my left, came up in a firing position and let drive at the light with my AK-47: one, two, three short bursts, raising my point of aim slightly each time. I was aware of someone else firing too, on my right. At my fourth burst the light vanished, but rounds were still snapping close overhead.
'Keep down!' I yelled. 'Give 'em time to lose their point of aim.'
In a few seconds the firing stopped.
'OK,' I called. 'Let's go.'
Whinger got hold of Pat again, but Norm wasn't with him.
'Norm!' I called. 'Where are you? Norm?'
I scuttled four or five steps to where I'd last seen him, and there he was, flat on his front, slumped face-down over his rifle. Feeling desperately exposed, I knelt with my back to the camp and flicked on my torch. Blood was welling from a hole at the base of his neck. A bullet had gone in on the inner end of the collar bone, killing him instantly. The round must have raked through his chest and-out through his spine.
I found I was shaking. 'Norm's gone,' I said.
'Want me to carry him?' Tony was lying beside me.
Tll manage him. You help drag Pat.'
The volume of incoming fire increased again, green tracer now added to the red. There must have been twenty or thirty guys loosing off from various areas of the camp, and now two machine-guns were firing.
Praise be, the whole lot was going high. Looking back, I saw that the power had been partially restored: a few lights were showing dimly, as though w.orked by emergency generators. More sinister was the fact that vehicles were lining up one behind the other, facing the centre gate, as if a sortie was about to be launched into the desert.
With the air full of lead, everyone's instinct was to stay on the deck and crawl into shelter. But you can't crawl in soft sand dragging a heavy weight. Scary as it was, the only thing to do was to stand up. With Tony's help I got Norm over my shoulder in a fireman's lift, his arms hanging down my back. Even though Tony had taken his Nile, he seemed a hell of a weight. I started taking very short steps, but my feet slid in the sand and I made practically no progress.
Then out of the air came Stew's reassuring voice: 'On the move with the trailer. Can you give me a steer?'
I was panting so hard I could hardly speak. 'Stew,' I gasped, 'we're in the shit. Norm's been topped. Thirty seconds, someone'll be on the back of a dune. Give you two flashes, repeated.'
I struggled on a few more steps. I could feel Norm's warm blood dripping down the backs of my legs. The other two were dragging Pat on, drawing ahead. Tracer was still sailing high over us. Somehow we had to make the back of the first big dune, in dead ground from the camp.
No breath left. I had to put Norm down. I got hold of his limp left hand and started trying to drag him, but in the deep sand his weight and the pouches of his belt- kit made it almost impossible.
Dimly I realised that Tony and Whinger had got Pat over the lip and into a temporary refuge. A second later Whinger was back beside me. He grabbed Norm's other hand, and the two of us got the body moving. By the time we had it in dead ground Tony had started giving Stew double flashes. With incredible relief I heard the engine of his quad, purring towards us. In a moment he was alongside.
'What happened?'
'Norm got one smack in the chest,' I said.
'Instantaneous. Pat's got a gunshot wound to the right leg. He's lost a lot of blood.'
I knew we ought to put more ground between us and the enemy before I started work on the casualty. On the other hand, I didn't think Pat could last very long.
'Get the body in the trailer,' I said. 'And Pat. I've got to give him an IV right away.'
While the others lifted Norm and lowered him into the bottom of the trailer, I broke out the med pack and sorted an IV drip. My hands were shaking so much I had trouble with the packaging.
'Watch that fucking gate for me, Whinger,” I said.
'Tell me if the bastards start out.'
I slit away the sleeve of Pat's shirt and got the needle in his arm, but I had nothing to hang the bag of fluid from, so I handed it to Stew and said, 'Hold that a minute.'
'Watch it, Geordie,' called Whinger, who was observing from up on the mound. 'They're at the gate now.'
'Tell me when they've got it open.'
'Wait out.'