A Prospect of Vengeance

concussive bang, a red-winking rocket flared up, trailing a line of bright red smoke as it curved down towards the converging dust-clouds of the retreating Citroen 2-CV and the dther dust-clouds —

'I smashed the passenger's window, in the car, with that first shot.' Mitchell's voice came back almost to the conversational. 'I was only supposed to frighten him . . . But he didn't come up towards us — he went round to take aim over the bonnet — that's when I saw the Voss ... He was going to rest on the bonnet. So the second time I aimed for him.'

The dust-clouds still converged — even as the red smoke-trail descended, to bounce in a final red spark as it hit the field: the spark bounced brightly once, and then the smoke drifted away from the point where it vanished.

'I don't know where that second shot went.' Mitchell paused.

'I aimed . . . left . . . and slightly down ... I might have hit something — you never know ... I couldn't guarantee to hit a tyre, after that first shot, Miss Fielding — do you understand? Not at this distance — ?'

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The further of the two dust-clouds stopped suddenly, the two vehicles which had caused it slewing to the left and right so as to block the passage of the approaching Citroen. One of them was large and black and civilian, the other drab and military-looking: their doors opened even before they had halted, and their occupants tumbled out — Spanish Civil Guards from the military vehicle, in their distinctive black tricornes, and bare-headed civilians from the black car —

Mitchell was still speaking. But she had been so intent on watching the drama in the valley, trying to imprint every detail on her memory — this is something else I never thought I'd see!— that she hadn't taken it in. 'What?'

'I said . . . they took their bloody time.'

The Citroen had also stopped now, but well short of the road block — a hundred yards or more away from the Spanish Police.

'You knew they were coming?' It was a foolish question.

'Too-bloody-right!' He stared at the scene, frowning. 'You don't think we play silly games on our own in other people's countries? Not this sort of game, anyway — Ahh! He's thought better of it, by God!'

'What — ?' Something in his expression chilled her, in spite of the heat. But his words turned her away from him, back to the valley.

The Citroen was moving again, very slowly.

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'His moment-of-truth.' Mitchell murmured the words. 'Just like O'Leary ... it comes to them all sooner or later . . . later or sooner . . . But he's being — no! By God —

As he spoke the sound of the little car's engine changed, suddenly roaring in the great stillness of the yellow- and-red fields as the Citroen accelerated — with a new cloud of red dust, which had settled behind it, swirling up again as its tyres churned the track —

'He's making a run for it — that's my man!' breathed Mitchell.

The Spaniards at the road block were scattering — taking cover behind their vehicles.

'He'll never get through — '

In a tank maybe, thought Jenny. But a 2-CV was too little, too light —

Then the Citroen braked — its little red brake-lights were invisible in the dust and the sunlight, but it bucked and slewed sideways, until it was broadside in the track.

'He's turning round — '

'No he isn't — ' Paul Mitchell cut her off as the distant sound of the revving engine reached them again as the little car threw itself into the wire fence beside the road —

The fence bowed and shivered, and stretched on each side of the car for a moment, before the posts snapped and were pulled away as the car broke through into the corn stubble, throwing up an even greater dust-cloud as it started to climb dummy2

the slope — the same slope down which she'd walked, thought Jenny, suddenly torn between what she knew, and the old instinctive sympathy for any hunted animal with the pack in full-cry behind it — the fox breaking cover out of the spinney into open country, knowing that it had been cornered, but going for its own run-for-freedom nevertheless

—

The burst of gunfire, sharp and reverberating, with the echoes ringing across the valley from the Greater Arapile towards the opposing rocky plateau, changed the image: this was sun-baked Beirut again, with that same knock-knock-knocking —

But the dust-cloud was still moving. 'He's going to get away

— '

'No, he isn't.' Mitchell's voice was matter-of-fact, quite unemotional. 'See there — ?'

Up over the top of the cornfield, out of the dead ground from which the Redcoats had once marched towards the French, another of those malevolent army vehicles loomed up, trailing its own dust-cloud. And this one had its own little turret, like a miniature tank: it stopped suddenly as she watched it, and the turret began to traverse.

The Citroen changed direction, no longer trying to breast the rise, aiming now to escape beween two fires, along the curve of the field —

'Don't look — ' Mitchell caught her arm ' — Miss Fielding — '

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She pulled away from him — pulled away just as the long slender gun in the turret