colours of the Beqa'a. At dawn, at a few minutes before »tx o'clock, the valley was a place of quiet beauty. The sun caught the clean geometric lines of the irrigation channels, it flowed over the delicate green shades of the early growth of barley and wheat, it bathed the rough strength of the grey yellow rock outcrops, it glinted on the red tile roofs of Khirbet Qanafar, it shone on the corrugated iron roofs of a commando camp. The sun laced onto the windscreen of a travelling car. The sun pushed down long shadows from the bodies of a flock of sheep driven by a child towards the uplands of the valley to the plateau where it would be cooler when the sun was high. The sun burnished the scrubbed whiteness of a flag that carried in its centre an outline of the Zionist state that was overpainted with crossed rifles with fixed bayonets.
And the sun, striking out, gave a shape to the conical tents of the camp.
The camp was no surprise, it was familiar from the aerial photographs.
There was the wire perimeter. There was the anti-tank ditch. There was the cluster of large sleeping tents.
There was the latrine screen. There were the holes in the ground of the air raid pits, and of the armoury.
There was the tent of the commander, set aside. There was the roof above the cooking area.
The generator had been switched off at the first surge of daylight, as if light were only needed as a protection against the dangers of the night. A complete silence at the tent camp. The only movement was the turn and wheel and casual stamp of the sentry at the entrance to the camp, and the hustling of the cook as he revived the fire after the night, and the drift towards the sun orb of the wavering smoke column, and the flag fluttering out the emblem of the Popular Front.
Above the camp, at a place where the steeper sides of the valley wall flattened out to offer a more gentle slope to the floor of the Beqa'a, the ancient ice age movements had left a gouged-out overhang of rock. The space under the lip of the protruding rock was shallow, not more than three feet deep, but the overhang ran some ten feet in length. The overhang was unremarkable. In the half mile or so to either side of this particular formation there were another nine similar devastations of the general line of the ground fall.
The overhang of rock was the place chosen by Crane for the final lying up position.
Crane asleep.
Holt on watch.
The sun lifted clear of the Jabal Aarbi on the east side of the Beqa'a. It was extraordinary for Holt how fast the cleanness of the light began to diffuse into haze. The sun was climbing. He tugged his watch out from under his tunic top, checked the time. Crane was sleeping well, like he needed to sleep. He would liked to have left Crane to sleep longer, to have the chance to rest the eye and to bring back strength into his muscles and calm into his mind. The watch was the taskmaster. He would be chewed out if he allowed Crane to sleep beyond his allotted time. He touched Crane's shoulder. Since they had reached the lying up position he had slept for an hour, and Crane had slept for an hour. But the sun was now up, and the camp was stirring. He could not think when they would next sleep.
Crane awoke.
God, and did he do it easily? For Holt it was a miracle of the world, Crane waking. A fast rub of the eye, half of a stifled yawn, a vicious scratch at the armpit, a scowl and a grin, and Crane was awake.
There were small figures moving from the tents, there was the first tinkle of a transistor radio playing music and travelling against the wind.
'Did you sleep all right?'
'I slept fine… what's moving?'
'Starting to be shit-shower-shave time down there.
You know, Mr Crane, it's fantastic, us being here, them being there. I mean, it's what you said would happen, but until I was here perhaps I didn't ever quite believe it.'
'You think too much, youngster, that's the problem of education.'
'How's the eye?'
'Worry about yourself.'
Holt heard the pitch of Crane's voice drop, he saw him turn away. Crane's tongue was rolling inside his cheeks, like he was cleaning his teeth with his tongue, like the action was a toothpaste substitute.
'What else is moving?'
'A boy over there with sheep, there… ' Holt pointed to his right, through the scrim net that masked them.
'Bit of traffic on the road. Nothing else. When do I start looking?'
The binoculars were in Crane's Bergen. Crane shook his head. 'Think about it, youngster. Where's the sun?
The sun's straight into us. You put the glasses up and you'll risk burning your eyes out, and you'll risk a lens flash. Neither's clever. You don't do any looking till the sun's a hell of a lot higher. Patience, youngster.'
'Mr Crane… '
'Yeah.'
'Mr Crane, what happened to the hostage?'
There was a tremor of annoyance across Crane' mouth. 'What's it to you?'
'I just wanted to know.'
'Are you going to make a thing about it, are you going to puke over me?'
'What happened to him?'
Crane whispered, 'There's a cave a quarter of a mile back, that's where they went. We passed about hundred yards higher. I'd say it's where they're going to hold him. Sometimes it's Beirut where they hold them, sometimes it's out in the Beqa'
… would be better in Beirut, won't be a hotel out here.'
'Mr Crane… '
'Yeah.'
'When we've sniped, when we're heading back… '
'No.'
'Nothing we can do?'
'You want to get home, or you want to die? I you want to go home you walk right past* the cave, 1 you want to die you call for tea and scones… Sorry youngster.'
Holt hung his head, his words were a murmur, the wind in the scrim netting. 'Seems dreadful to leave him.'
'Heh, Alexander the Great came through here Nebuchadnezzar was here, the Romans had a go at it There were the Crusaders and the Turks and the Frenc and the Yanks and the Syrians, and my people had a try at it. Everyone's had a go at civilising this place, and Lebanon saw them all off. That's just fact, that's not education. And it's fact that you can't change things Holt, not on your little educated own. You can't change a damned thing… forget him.'
'It's rotten to turn our backs on him.'
Crane looked for a moment keenly at Holt, didn't speak. He untied the laces of his boots, then pulled the laces tighter through the eyes and made a double bow.
From a pouch in the Bergen he took a strip of chewing gum. He lifted the Armalite onto his lap. Holt watched him. Crane had his face against the netting and his eyes roved across the vista in front, down towards the camp.
Crane's hand settled on Holt's shoulder.
'You'll be all right, youngster.'
Holt gagged. 'What are you doing?'
'Scouting, going to find myself a hide further down.'
'You said that where we'd be lying up would be 1,000 yards.'
'I want six hundred,' Crane said.
'Is it the eye?'
'I just want six hundred.'
'Can't you do it at a thousand?'
