groped forward. So bloody insensitive, his fingers, because they were cold and bruised from when he had crawled on his hands and knees. His fingers stretched to feel the pattern of the wire mesh. A dark mesh fence against dark ground, and his fingers must do the work for him, and he must lie still and move only the barest minimum in case the bastard on the platform had a night sight or an infra-red or an image intensifier. His fingers traced the diamonds of the wire mesh.
He found the strand that he feared.
His forefinger brushed the single strand that ran along the face of the fence a foot above the ground. He touched the first tumbler wire. If the wire were disturbed an alarm would ring. He noted it, stored it, his fingers moved on and traced the mesh above the tumbler, desperately slow. He dared not look at the luminous hands of his watch, dared not see how much of his precious time he was spending in the search for a second tumbler wire.
God, if he was late…
Bloody stupid, Jack. Had the time he needed. Didn't know whether he had the patience he needed. Jack bloody Curwen, second class businessman from the south of England, paid a second class wage to drum up second class work
… What the hell was he at lying on Magazine Hill searching for a second tumbler wire?
He found the second tumbler wire.
The second tumbler wire was four feet above the ground, four feet above where the mesh was buried in the rough soil.
With the wire cutters he made a square hole between the bottom tumbler wire and the second tumbler wire. He lifted the square mesh clear. He could feel the heave of his breath.
He could hear the radio playing and the stamp of the sentry on his platform. He lifted the metal tube through the hole, and then the shotgun and then his bag. He was half way through the hole, head and shoulders and chest through, when a strand of jagged cut mesh caught at his anorak. His knees were on one side of the wire, his elbows on the other.
He squirmed his trunk to reach with his fingers to free himself.
When he was through he lay on his stomach.
He was gasping.
He took his handkerchief from his pocket and looped it through the mesh immediately above the hole.
It was a risk, but everything was a risk. It was necessary to leave a marker.
Jack gathered up his metal tube and his bag and his shotgun and the wire cutters. So tired. He crawled forward.
He was on his knees and using the hand that held the shotgun for leverage. He dared not let the metal tube buffet the ground. The metal tube was twelve pounds of explosive and two detonators and Cordtex equivalent, the metal tube was a primed bomb, held close against his chest. He was going forward.
He saw the light on his hands. His head started up.
The light from the gable end of a concrete building was thrown from his right, fell on him. He had crawled forward, concentration locked, nursing the shotgun and the tube, and he had not realised that he had reached the summit of the slope of Magazine Hill. He moved fast to his left, shuffling as a crab to reach shadow. He could hear the music clearly, he could hear voices and laughter. He lay on his stomach and he heard the sounds of men who had no care, no suspicion.
Shadow was his security. He stayed with the shadows as he moved away across the top plateau of the hill, towards a line of trees. He crossed paths, he ducked past buildings.
He froze against a wall when a uniformed man came belching out of a doorway to urinate on the edge of a lawn.
High trees coated the skyline ahead of him, and above the trees was an umbrella of hazed white light.
The tube was an agony on the muscles of his left arm. His feet were leaden heavy, but the white light above the trees was a talisman for him, pulling him forward. He came into the trees. Going slowly, because under the conifers' canopy he could see only the white knuckles of his fingers that were tight on the stock of the shotgun.
He broke from the trees.
His path was crossed by a tarmac road. He could see darkened buildings and more trees ahead of him, and the light above the trees were fiercer. He looked right and he looked left. He stood still and he listened. He heard dogs barking. He ran across the road and sagged against the back fence of a garden. He thought, from his map, that he had reached the line of senior officers' homes that were set on the hillside above Beverly Hills. The moon helped him. He saw a narrow track leading between two garden fences, not wide enough for a vehicle. There was another road crossing the far end of the track and he could see street lights. Ahead of him was a great cascade of light, fit to blind him.
He felt the energy surging through him. He was going forward.
A voice… A man talking as to a child. A voice and footsteps. .. A caressing voice as if to quieten a child.
Down flat, squeezing his face, side down, into the dirt of the track. He was in darkness, short of the light thrown from the road ahead. He saw a dog handler with a German Shepherd. The dog handler was cooing soft nonsense to his animal. Jack saw that the dog handler had an automatic rifle resting on the elbow of his right arm. He heard the voice drift away. He waited thirty seconds before he slowly rose to his feet and went on down the track to where the darkness merged with the light. He laid down his tube and his bag and his shotgun. He crawled forward.
He saw the high concrete wall in front of him.
He saw the sentry tower rising above the wall, and above the sentry tower was the bank of floodlights. He could sec low tilted roofs beyond the high concrete wall. He was separated from the wall by a narrow paved road and by a strip of lawn.
Jack Curwen had come a hell of a long way.
He gazed at the outer wall of Beverly Hills, the outer wall of the hanging gaol. If he had shouted then, his father would have heard him. He looked down at the luminous hands of his watch. He had six minutes before the diversion. The wall was brilliantly lit in the wash of light from the close set bulbs ahead of him. The sentry in the tower had his back to him. Jack could see the hunch of his shoulders.
He went back for his metal tube and his bag and his shotgun. He crouched down. He was shaking. He had to will himself to control his fingers. He checked the safety fuse length that was knotted to the Cordtex equivalent.
He checked that the Cordtex equivalent was firm where it disappeared into the readymix block in the metal tube. He opened his bag and ran his fingers, stuttering, over the charge that contained the detonator and over the charge that did not. He felt for the lengths of loose Cordtex equivalent and of safety fuse. He found the rope that was lashed to the cold bent iron. He eased the safety catch off the shotgun, he had eight cartridges in the magazine. He emptied the remaining cartridges from the carton into his pocket. He touched the smooth weight of the wire cutters.
It was all a matter of belief… and arrogance.
The wall that he faced was of no use to him. The wall fronted onto B section and onto the hanging shed. He had to be against the wall that fell away down the hillside to his right, down towards the glitter lights of Pretoria.
Arrogance and now courage.
He rose to his feet.
There was a softness in his knees, there was a wetness in his belly, because he must now walk in the light along the paved road, in front of the homes of the senior officers, under the watch tower, walk for a hundred yards to the corner of the wall.
Cheek, too, because he must walk as though he belonged.
He looked at his watch. He had a minute and a half. He had the metal tube under his arm, and the bag on his back.
He cocked the shot gun. He must walk. No running, no stopping.
He came off the track.
He ducked his head as the light found him, so that the smear marks of mud on his forehead and cheeks could not be seen from the watchtower. In the middle of the road he walked at a steady pace. He waited for the rasp of a
