missed her altogether — but Percy's pal in Immigration tipped us off, and we gave chase.
They were in a Landrover: the two Bekuvs, Red Bancroft and the driver who had delivered the vehicle. It was that dark hour before dawn that you read about in books, and the windscreen was awash with rain and the car ahead of us no more than a blurred dribble of yellow headlights, with a couple of red dots when the driver stabbed the brakes.
We didn't speak much, the noise of the engine, the heavy rain and the thrash of the wipers made it necessary for Percy to shout. 'This bloke's damned good, and I'll tell you that for nothing!'
We were climbing. The villages were shuttered and silent. As we roared through them, there came the answering bellow of our reflected sound. All the time the rain continued. The tyres were uncertain on the steep, twisting road. Percy clawed at the steering-wheel as each hairpin revealed another hairpin, and soon the windscreen flashed pink with the raw light of dawn.
'We've got him on speed,' said Percy, 'but he's got the better traction. Damn you!' He blasted the horn as a man on a mule swayed out into our path. 'It's like that game that children play — stones, paper and scissors — there's no telling yet what will prove the most important.'
They know we're behind them,' said Mann.
'A driver like that,' said Percy with unconcealed admiration, 'has already calculated our tyre pressures and how much I had to drink last night.'
The sun came up very quickly, its light intermittently extinguished by the black clouds that were racing across the sky, and its almost horizontal rays shafting into our eyes, and twisting with every movement of the car. Percy slammed the sun visor fully down but it didn't help much.
They began to force the pace now, and the road became more difficult. On one side there were steep banks, pine trees and outcrops of vertical rock; on the other a sheer drop over an unmarked edge. And not all the road was hard. More than once, a sudden patch of loose surface hammered the metal underside, sent the car sliding and made the wheels spin.
Percy stared ahead, concentrating on the road's nearside edge, hitting the accelerator as soon as a curve could be seen as nothing more than a kink. He used the camber of the road too, steering up it — at an angle to the road's direction — to get maximum traction and the burst of acceleration that it provided. For one section of the road we were actually leaping into the air from one camber to the next.
'Christ,' said Mann the first time Percy did it, but the jarring crash as the car landed back on the road caused him to bite his tongue and fall sideways across the back seat.
'Hold tight,' said Percy and gave a fruity chuckle. Mann swore through his teeth.
Ahead of us, the Landrover disappeared in a fountain of spray as it hit a rain-filled ridge and was jolted up into the air. Percy pumped the brakes releasing the pressure each time the car's front dipped on its suspension. By the time we reached the ridge our speed was down to forty. The other car had spilled enough of the rainwater for us to see the ragged series of potholes. Percy flicked the steering, to hit it on a curving path and so bring the outer wheels — with the lighter loading — over the deepest hole.
In spite of all his skill we landed with a brain-shattering thump, and a terrible groan of metal. Mann clasped his hands upon his head in an effort to save himself more pain.
But the Landrover was also having problems. There were four of them crowded into it and the big bump must have shaken them up for they had slowed enough for us to be eating their spray.
'Grab her ass,' said Mann. Percy moved-up close and now we could see that Mrs Bekuv was the driver.. For a couple of miles we raced along together.
'It's in the soft sand where they will laugh at us,' said Percy. 'With that four-wheel drive they can crawl off into the desert and come back to the macadam again while we're still digging.'
'You brought sand-mats?' said Mann, all ready for a row.
'What are sand-mats?' said Percy, tilting his head to see Mann's reaction in the mirror. Mann gave a humourless smile and said nothing.
Although the sun was up, the rain cloud obscured it. A few yellow lights high on the road ahead of us fast became a village. The Landrover's horn echoed in the narrow street. Scarcely slowing, we followed them through the twisting alleys. A sudden scream of brakes told us that Mrs Bekuv had seen a huge desert bus, parked in the middle of the road, but the Landrover raced on, its speed scarcely checked. Avoiding a head-on collision by only the narrowest of margins, the Landrover lurched as it climbed on to the footpath and screamed through the narrow gap. Percy followed. Men and women scattered. There was a snowstorm of chicken feathers, as hens broke loose from the roof-rack of the bus, and flailed through the air, and a sickening thump as one of them struck the side of the car. Then we were through, and on the mountain road again. The surface was loose gravel and Percy dropped back as some of it hit our windscreen.
'Just hold them like that,' said Mann and for a few minutes we did. Then, after the straight stretch, with Percy pushing the needle well past a hundred, the road looped suddenly and dropped away in a tangle of hairpins to run along a short luxuriant valley.
'Jesus!' shouted Mann and I heard Percy gasp. Ahead of us the Landrover had slowed. On this straight stretch of road, that meant they were still doing well over fifty. It slid sideways a little, waggled its behind and then picked up speed again as a large piece of it fell into the roadside. Percy's arm came across my chest, as he jammed his foot hard on to the brakes. We shrieked to a halt. Even so, we had to go into reverse in order to find the bundle that they had tossed out of the door.
Mann was out of the car before I was. The rain-soaked grass was high, and the twisted body of a man was tangled into it. We crouched over him and Mann picked up his limp arm and sought his pulse.
'The driver from the Trade Delegation — looks like a Russkie, eh?'
'Poor bastard,' I said. The man groaned and as he opened his mouth, I saw that his teeth were stained with blood. 'They've dumped him to lighten the weight,' I said. The boy vomited. It was mostly blood.
'Looks like it,' said Mann. To the boy he said, 'Which of them did it?' but he got only a whimper in reply.
'What kind of people are we dealing with?' I said. I wiped the boy's face with my handkerchief.
'Got to go,' said Mann getting to his feet.
'We can't just leave him here,' I protested.
'No alternative,' said Mann. 'Jesus, you know that. They are just counting on us being soft-hearted enough to stay with the kid.'
I got to my feet. 'No,' I said 'I think they meant to slow up enough to let him out safely but misjudged things.'
'That's right,' said Mann. 'And there really is a Santa Claus — move your tail, baby.'
There was a growl from the engine as Percy flipped the accelerator pedal The dying boy looked at me pleadingly but I turned away. from him and followed Mann back to the car. Percy pulled away before the doors were closed.
'Catch up!' ordered Mann.
'That's not the problem,' said Percy. The problem is finding them again if they pull off the road and hide.' I realized then that both these men had the sort of honesty and devotion to duty that enabled them to disregard the dying boy. I did not admire it.
'There, there, there!' said Mann.
The dark-green Landrover was no larger than a toy and difficult to see amongst the pine trees, the scrub and mud-spattered rock. But now that Mann had pointed it out, I saw it skittering behind the trees and kicking its heels as it leaped over the hump-backed bridge that marked the bottom of the valley.
Now it was a different sort of driving; steeply downhill in places, with more and more people on the road, and horses too. At one point some soldiers tried to wave us down. Percy blasted the horn and they jumped aside.
'Was that a road block?' asked Mann.
'Hitch-hikers,' said Percy.
'Let's hope you're right,' said Mann.
We could no longer see the Landrover. It must have been a mile or two along the valley by this time. Percy pushed up the speed until we were slipping and sliding in the mud and gravel. Then the road climbed again. It climbed a thousand feet, and here it was dryer, except for the rainwater that spewed across the road from overflowing gullies. We crossed the brow of the next hill to face a bleak sky, glassy like a pink-tinted mirror. Percy screwed up his eyes to see the road that twisted away along the side of a spur. We could no longer see the other
