car and Percy went faster and faster. For the first time in my life I felt car-sick.
Percy had an amazing technique for hairpins: he went into them at full speed, and, shortly before the bend, turned the wrong way — to lose speed — and then steered the other way. The pendulum effect flicked us round the curve of the hairpin. And Percy was plunging his foot down on the accelerator even before the car had slewed far enough to face the next stretch. We were cannoning forward so fiercely that the seat-back jarred my kidneys. There wasn't room to make
Thin rain continued to fall but it was not enough to wash the mud from the side windows and only just sufficient to lubricate the wipers. The next bend brought a tidal wave of mud and loose grit. Percy wound his window down to provide better visibility and on my side I did the same. The cold wet wind howled through the car.
We were doing one hundred, over a blind hump, when we saw it.
The theory says that if you hit a flock of sheep at that sort of speed, you ride over them like an ice-skater in an abattoir. It isn't true. 'This is it,' shouted Percy. There was no chance of avoiding them; they were all over the road, there must have been hundreds of them, baa-baaing, running or staring at us transfixed by fear.
Percy jabbed the accelerator and steered directly at the rockface. We hit it with a spine-jarring bang that made the car body sing like a tuning-fork. That first impact only sliced off a front wheel. Then a mess of suspension and metalwork sheared away from the rest of the car. The front dropped and chiselled into the road surface, producing a torrent of small stones that took out the windscreen, like the fire from a heavy machine-gun. We were 'rubbing off' speed and, as the car slowed, its back whipped round until we were facing the way we had come.
Percy was doing it all according to the book.. He kept his foot hard down on the gas, and the spinning wheels began to slow us a little, tearing their rubber into shreds, and making a cloud of black smoke that eclipsed the world. But it didn't slow us enough, and with the engine still screaming its protest we raced backwards at seventy miles an hour.
I ripped at the door to open it but couldn't find the catch. My seat snapped, and my head hit the roof as we plunged off the edge of the world. The engine shrieked, and the earth turned askew, and we slid down the precipice with a thunderous bombardment of car components and a green snowstorm. Twice the car was almost halted by trees and scrub and twice it ripped its way through them. But now, with the suspension torn loose and a wheel missing, we were furrowing soft hillside. We slowed, lurched, tipped and finally stopped at a steep angle, embraced by a tangle of thorns, rocks and bushes. I was sprawled back in my broken seat, listening to the gurgle of escaping liquids. The air was filled with the stink of fuel and I would have gagged on it but for the way in which I was being strangled by my seat-belt.
Percy's eyes were closed, and there was a lot of blood on his face. I couldn't turn enough to see where Mann was. I tried to pull my leg free but it was trapped in the mangled metalwork, between the smashed instruments and the steering-wheel. I tugged at my leg. Someone was shouting 'fire' but the voice soon softened to a whisper and drifted away into the darkness. It was cold, very, very cold.
Chapter Twenty-two
A blinding light flashed in my eyes and, as I came more fully conscious, I saw its beam flicker across the ceiling, and backwards and forwards over the brightly coloured Islamic texts that were pinned to the wall. The iron bedstead creaked as I moved under the rough blanket which covered my legs. Only slowly did I focus on the man. He was sitting motionless in the corner, a fat man with an unshaven face and heavy-lidded eyes. Behind him there was a broken clock and a heavily retouched colour lithograph of a uniformed politician.
The fat man spoke without moving a muscle and almost without moving his mouth. 'The man with the hat awakes.' His Arabic was from far to the east of here; Egypt, perhaps, where the man with the hat —
A voice from the next room said, 'It is the will of God,' without endorsing God's decision enthusiastically.
'Get him,' said the fat man.
I heard movements from the next room, and with difficulty I moved my head round until I could see the doorway. Eventually Percy Dempsey arrived. The blinding light met my eyes again, and I saw that it came from a small wall-mirror moved by the draught from the door.
'How do you feel?' said Percy. He had a cup of coffee in his hand.
'Lousy,' I said. I took the coffee he offered. It was strong and black and very sweet.
'Your friend got another crack on the head,' said Percy. 'He's conscious but he's sleeping. You'd better come and look at him. I say! steady on with my coffee.'
I got out of bed and found I was fully dressed except for my shoes. I put them on and, as I bent down, suffered pain in a dozen muscles that I never knew I had. 'You did a good job, Percy,' I said. Thanks.'
'If you've got to hit anything: hit it backwards. My old dad taught me that, and he won the Monte two years running.'
'Well, he should have tried it driving,' I said.
Percy smiled politely and showed me to the little bare room where they had laid Major Mann. Someone had removed his tie and his boots, and folded his jacket to go under his head. His hair was ruffled and his face unshaven, and the bruising from the bullet nick had now turned-one half of his face into a rainbow of blues, pinks and purples.
I leaned over him and shook him. 'Waaaw?' said Mann.
'Coffee, tea, or me?' I said.
'Beat it,' said Mann, without opening his eyes. 'Go away and let me die in peace.'
'Don't be a spoilsport,' I said. 'We want to watch.'
Mann grunted again and looked at his wrist-watch. He moved his arm backwards and forwards, as if to get it into focus. Finally he said, 'We've got to get on the road.'
'Get what on the road?' I asked. 'Our car is wrecked.'
Percy said, 'You want to buy a car? Eighty-five thousand on the clock, one owner. Never raced or rallied.'
'Well, rent another car,' said Mann.
'I did,' said Percy. 'I did it about five hours ago, when you were fast asleep. It should arrive any time at all.'
'Well, don't sit back waiting for a round of applause,' said Mann. 'Get on the phone and hurry them up.'
'Don't fret,' said Percy. 'I've made contact with my chap down in Ghardaia. The Landrover filled up there. He's following, and will leave messages along the route.'
'How?' said Mann.
'This isn't Oxford Street,' explained Percy. 'This is the Trans-Sahara highway. Either they have to go south through In-Salah, or they take the other route down through Adrar, Reggane and eventually to Timbuktu.'
'The way we came last time,' said Mann. He wiped his face with a hand, and touched the puffy bruising of his chin and cheek. Then he heaved himself into a sitting position, and unfolded the jacket that had been under his head. He looked at me. 'You don't look so good,' he told me.
'And I don't feel so good,' I admitted, 'but at least my brain is still ticking over. Do you two think Mrs Bekuv wanted a Landrover because it matches the colour of her earrings? Or because they were discounted this week. I prefer to guess that she radioed Algiers from the plane, and specified that car.'
'Why?' said Mann.
'Ah. Why indeed? Why choose a car that can be outpaced by anything from a housewife's Fiat to a local bus. We've been breathing down their necks as far as this — so why didn't she ask for a tweaked-up car. Keep to the macadam and you could do the trip in a Ferrari, give or take a couples of sand niters and a sump guard.'
'But they couldn't have got past the end of the macadam,' said Percy. 'The made-up road ends at In-Salah on one route, and south of Adrar on the other. After that it's only track.'
'Brilliant,' I said sarcastically, 'You think she's not bright enough to have a desert-worthy vehicle waiting
