'Fly? He is half-bird,'Nicholas told him.
They moved down the valley to check the placement of the flares and the
markers, The markers consisted of crosses of quartz stones laid out down
the centre of the valley floor, and they would be highly visible from
the air.
Sapper was up at the head of the valley. They could see him there on the
skyline as he moved around, setting out his smoke flares to mark the
approach to the drop zone.
When Nicholas turned around and looked in the opposite direction, he
could see the two women sitting on a rock together at the far end of the
valley. Sapper had already helped them to set up their flares. These
would mark the far limit of the zone, and give Jannie a mark for his
climb out of the valley.
Nicholas then turned his attention back to Mek's men as they finished
laying out the stark white quartz markers.
Once these were all in place, Mek ordered the area to be cleared. Then,
lugging the radio, they climbed up to join Sapper on the high ground at
the head of the valley. Mek helped Nicholas string out the aerial. Then
Nicholas switched on and adjusted the gain carefully before he thumbed
the microphone.
'Big Dolly. Come in, Big Dolly!'Nicholas invited, but the static hummed
and whined.
'They must be running late.' Nicholas tried not to let his disquiet
show. Jannie will be coming straight in from Malta on this run. After
the first drop he will go back to your base at Roseires and pick up the
second load. With luck, both loads should all be dropped before noon
tomorrow.
'If the fat man comes at all,' Mek remarked.
Jannie is a pro,' Nicholas grunted. 'He will come.' He held the
microphone to his lips, 'Big Dolly. Do you read?
Over.'
Every ten minutes he called -out into the empty echoing silence. Each
time his call went unanswered he had visions of Sudanese MiG
interceptors racing in with their missiles cocked and locked, and the
old Hercules plunging earthwards in flames.
'Come in, Big Dolly!' he pleaded, and at last a thin, scratchy voice
floated into his headset. 'Pharaoh. This is Big Dolly. ETA forty-five
minutes. Standing by.' Jannie's transmission was terse. He was too much
of an old hand at the smuggling game to give a hostile listener time to
fix his position.
'Big Dolly. Understand four five. Pharaoh standing by.' Nicholas grinned
at Mek. 'Looks like we are in business after all.'
Mek heard it first. His ear was battle-tuned. In this i land, if you
wanted to go on living it paid to pick up any aircraft long before it
arrived. Nicholas was out of training, so it was almost five minutes
later that he picked up the distinctive drone of the multi-props echoing
weirdly off the Cliffs of the gorge. It was impossible to be certain of
the direction, but they shaded their eyes and stared into the west.
'There she is.' Nicholas redeemed himself as he spotted the tiny dark
speck, so low as almost to blend into the background of the escarpment
