Over the battlefield had flown two pairs of multi million pound strike aircraft, across the battlefield were being hauled six tank monsters. They were the bloody currency of the battlefield. Holt wasn't. Holt was just ordinary. Holt didn't even know how to fire a damned Armalite… Crane slept. Holt hadn't known anyone who could sleep as easily as Crane before. Right, the man kicked, and he stirred. Right, the man snored. But he slept.
Crane coughed, guttural. He turned from his side to Ins back and then shook himself, coughed again. Holt would speak to him about that. Crane moved onto his other side. Have to speak to the prophet Crane about making so much noise coughing. Holt would enjoy that.
He'd enjoy it, because he could pull a suitably aggrieved lace and say in all seriousness that Crane's coughing was putting the mission in jeopardy…
So still.
Holt not moving. Holt grabbing to halt his breathing.
Not daring to move, not daring to breathe.
Crane's heel had moved the stones.
Holt watched the snake emerge from its disturbed hole.
Crane had been lying on the stones, and hidden under the stones had been the snake.
Holt had a knife in his belt, he had the binoculars in his hand.
Crane's body rolled.
If Crane sagged again on to his back then he would lie on the snake.
Holt had had all the books when he was a kid. Holt knew his snakes. There were snakes on Exmoor, kids always knew about snakes.
Saw-scaled viper, Echis carinatus. Vicious, a killer, common all over North Africa, the Middle East, across to the sub-continent.
The snake slithered slowly over the rock at the small of Crane's back.
God, don't let him roll. God, don't let the old goat cough.
The snake was a little less than two feet long. It was sandy brown with pale blotches and mahogany brown markings.
Holt saw the flicker of the snake's mouth.
He thought Crane slept deeply. He thought that if he called to him to wake that he would start in a sudden movement. He couldn't lean across to him, couldn't hold him as he woke him, because to lean forward would mean to cover the snake with his body.
The damn thing settled. The bloody thing stopped moving. Sunshine filtering through the scrim net. Two warm stones for the snake. Holt thought the snake's head, the snake's mouth, were four or perhaps five inches from the small of Crane's back.
Couldn't go for his knife. To go for his knife was to twist his body, to unhook the clasp that secured the knife handle, to draw the knife out of the canvas sheath.
Three movements before the critical movement, the strike against the neck of the snake. Couldn't use his knife.
Crane grunted. Holt saw the muscle tighten under the light fabric of Crane's trousers. The old goat readying himself to roll, the prophet winding himself up to change position.
The bible according to Crane. When you've got something to do, do it. When you've got to act, stop pissing about.
Holt looked at his hand. Quite surprised him. His hand was steady. Shouldn't have been, should have been shaking. His hand was firm.
Do it, stop pissing about.
The snake's head was over a stone. He marked the spot in his mind. The spot was an inch from the snake's head.
One chance for Holt. Like the one chance that Crane would have when he fired.
His hand was a blur.
The binoculars were a haze of movement.
He felt the bridge of the binoculars bite against the inch thick body of the snake.
All the power he had in him, driving against the thickness of the snake at a point an inch behind the snake's head. The body and the tail of the snake were thrashing against his arm, curling on his wrist, cold and smoothed dry. The mouth of the snake was striking against the plastic covering of the binocular lenses. He saw the spittle fluid on the plastic.
When the movements had lessened, when the body and the tail no longer coiled his arm, he took his knife from his belt and sawed off the head of the snake at the place where it was held against the stone by the bridge of the binoculars.
The head fell away. With his knife blade Holt urged the head down between the stones.
He was trembling. He saw the blade flash in front of his eyes. He could not hold the blade still. His hands were beginning to shake.
His eyes were misted.
Holt heard the growl whisper.
'Can I move now?'
'You can move.'
'What was it?'
'Saw-scaled viper.'
'I can move?'
'You can get into a dance routine if you want to.'
Crane's head emerged from under the blanket. Steadily he looked around him. Holt saw that when Crane focused on the snake's body, sawn to a stump, that he bit at his lip.
Holt moved the stones with the tip of his knife blade, exposed the snake's head, and the bite on Crane's lip was tighter.
'Do you fancy a brew, youngster?'
Holt nodded.
'Youngster, don't let anyone ever tell you that you aren't all right.'
15
When they had eaten, when they had wiped clean their canteens and stowed them again in their belt pouches, Crane talked.
His voice was always a whisper, low pitched. There were times that Holt interjected his questions and in the excitement of the communication he lost control of the pitch in his chords and then Crane would silently wag a finger to show his disapproval. But the disapproval was no longer the put down. It was as if young Holt had proved himself in Crane's eyes.
They sat back to back. With the food eaten the daytime sleeping was finished. Their heads were close, mouth to ear in close proximity. The debris of the food wrapping had been collected by Holt and put into the plastic bag reserved for rubbish. It would be dark in an hour, when it was dark they would wait a further hour to acclimatise their eyes and ears to the night, then they would move off.
Crane faced down into the gorge, and watched the main road leading into the Beqa'a. At their next lying up position they would be overlooking the valley. Holt's attention was on the steep slopes above and to the west, looking into the sun that would soon clip the summits on the Jabal Niha and the Jabal el Barouk that were six thousand feet above sea level.
They were for Holt moments of deep happiness.
Mostly he listened, mostly Crane talked, whispered.
Crane talked of sniper skills, and survival skills, and of map reading skills and of evasion skills? He took Holt through the route of the coming night march, his finger hovering over but never touching the map. He showed him the next LUP, and he showed him then the track they would follow for the third of the night marches, and where
