The Contract

Johnny grinned. 'A woodman gave them to me…'

'Gave them?'

' I think he did. He left me a nice pile to choose from…'

He saw the tension evaporating, the slow smile of understanding.

'… If he didn't mean them as a gift, he can have them back in the morning.'

The old man laughed, and the girl chuckled.

Johnny felt in his anorak pocket, reached amongst the grenades and the pistol's shoulder stock, and produced a greaseproof paper bag. 'He's a decent chap, the woodman, he gave me these for you… well, he left them for someone when he put his bag down. I scattered the paper and ripped it a bit, the bag they were in… I suppose he'll think he gave them to a fox… generous of him, whether they were for me or a fox or whoever.'

He tossed the package in a gentle arc so that it fell on Erica's lap. Her hands tore at the paper, exposed the rough bread, the protruding meat. She and her father ate ravenously, stopping only to pick at the dropped pieces that spilled to their legs.

Erica looked up sharply at him. 'You have had something, Johnny?'

'He gave me a steak… and some onion rings…'

She sprang to her feet, came fast at Johnny, clasped the sides of his head with her hands, kissed him on the lips. Cold, dry and cracked. Johnny blinked. As fast as she had come she was back on the ground, back beside her father.

Johnny grimaced. 'If that happened more often I'd come here every year.'

Otto Guttmann beamed. Erica dropped her eyes.,

'We have much to thank you for,' the old man said through a mouth full of food.

'Keep the thanks for tomorrow.'

Keep the bloody thanks for tomorrow. For after the Hinterland fence and the vehicle ditch and the ploughed strip, for after the wire that was 3

1/2 metres high. Keep the thanks for tomorrow.

' I'm sorry, I didn't mean that,' said Johnny.

'What do we do now?' Erica asked.

'We have to build the ladder, before it's dark.'

On their hands and knees, as the daylight ran from the woods, they fashioned the ladder from the wire flex and the birch stems and the larch poles.

Chapter Twenty-three

Johnny stood, Erica kneeled.

Otto Guttmann crouched with lowered head and eyes and spoke the words.

'… And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us.. The ladder lay on the ground between Johnny and Erica, two larch poles forming a steep triangle and four birch stems lashed with the flex to them to make the steps. An untidy contraption, but sturdy.

'… And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. .

The two lengths of coiled rope strand were beside the ladder and the third larch pole. They had been measured for length and the knots had been pulled and found strong enough. '… For Thine is the Kingdom, The power and the Glory, For ever and ever 'Amen,' said Johnny.

Time to be moving. Otto Guttmann had wanted the prayer, and Johnny had acquiesced and found something comforting in it.

Now he was anxious to be on the path. He had lectured them on the procedures, made them repeat aloud what he had told them, had drilled the programme for the night into their minds. He would lead, and they would obey his every command instantly. There would be no hesitation, no discussion. Only once had he faltered during his last briefing.

'If anything happens to me… anything at all, and I can't go forward, then you do not try to go on by yourselves. You stand your ground, absolutely still, your hands on your heads. Don't give the bastards the excuse…'

Johnny led them to the path.

He carried the single pole and the rope and the spare flex. Between them Otto Guttmann and Erica must take the ladder frame. They must wait while he went forward and covered the first hundred metres, then he would come back for them. Each hundred metres he would personally clear and vet. The slow way, excruciatingly slow, a painful pace, step by step along the path… but safe, and safety was the jewel. Only Johnny would speak, father and daughter were committed to silence.

Sometimes a twig cracked under his foot, sometimes a dried leaf rustled beneath his boot, sometimes a low branch clutched at his clothing.

Impossible to be truly quiet, to maintain absolute stealth. And all the time the throbbing thought that they would be waiting, listening and concealed, ready to spring, hands on the flashlights, fingers on the rifle triggers. All the time they could be there, and the only way for him was forward.

In the daylight, during his foraging exercise for food and timber, he had rediscovered the trip wire that last night's boy and girl had skirted.

He had paced out the distance between the wire and the hide: 224 paces, and then the diversion into the trees for the bypassing of the danger strand, and Otto Guttmann and Erica followed him blindly and would not know why at this particular place his muffled counting stopped and they must stumble on rough ground for a few yards before returning to the ease of the path.

Johnny ahead of them again, ahead and alone…

There was an explosion of movement not five yards from him.

Johnny froze.