But we werent, I said, and switched on the engine again. How far to the next river? Well camp there and cross at dawn.
She consulted the map. About two kilometres.
So we pushed on and presently came to river number two which was also swollen with sun-melted water from Vatnajökull. I turned the vehicle and headed towards a jumble of rocks behind which I parked, out of sight of both the river and the track again on good tactical principles.
I was annoyed. It was still not very late and there were several hours of daylight left which we could have used for mileage if it hadnt been for those damned rivers. But there was nothing for it but to wait until the next day when the flow would drop. I said, You look tired; youve had a hard day.
Elin nodded dispiritedly and got out of the cab. I noticed her favouring her right arm, and said, How is the shoulder?
She grimaced. Stiff.
Id better take a look at it.
I put up the collapsible top of the Land-Rover and set water to boil, and Elin sat on a bunk and tried to take off her sweater. She couldnt do it because she couldnt raise her right arm. I helped her take it off but, gentle though I was, she gasped in pain. Reasonably enough, she wasnt wearing a brassière under the sweater because the shoulder strap would have cut right into the wound.
I took off the pad and looked at her shoulder. The wound was angry and inflamed but there was no sign of any pus which would indicate infection. I said, I told you that youd begin to feel it. A graze like this can hurt like the devil, so dont be too stiff-upper-lipped about it I know how it feels.
She crossed her arms across her breasts. Has it ever happened to you?
I was grazed across the ribs once, I said, as I poured warm water into a cup.
So thats how you got that scar.
Yours is worse because its across the trapezius muscle and you keep pulling it. You really should have your arm in a sling Ill see what I can find. I washed the wound and put on a new medicated dressing from the first-aid box, then helped her put on the sweater. Wheres your scarf the new woollen one?
She pointed. In that drawer.
Then thats your sling. I took out the scarf and fitted it to her arm so as to immobilize the shoulder as much as possible. Now, you just sit there and watch me cook supper.
I thought this was an appropriate time to open the goody box the small collection of luxuries we kept for special occasions. We both needed cheering up and theres nothing like a first-class meal under the belt to lift the spirits. I dont know if Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason are aware of the joy they bring to sojourners in far-flung lands, but after the oyster soup, the whole roast quails and the pears pickled in cognac I felt almost impelled to write them a letter of appreciation.
The colour came back into Elins cheeks as she ate. I insisted that she didnt use her right hand and she didnt have to the dark, tender flesh fell away from the quail at the touch of a fork and she managed all right. I made coffee and we accompanied it with brandy which I carried for medicinal purposes.
As she sipped her coffee she sighed. Just like old times, Alan.
Yes, I said lazily. I was feeling much better myself. But youd better sleep. We make an early start tomorrow. I calculated it would be light enough to move at three a.m. when the rivers would also be at their lowest. I leaned over and took the binoculars.
Where are you going? she asked.
Just to have a look around. You go to bed.
Her eyes flickered sleepily. I am tired, she admitted.
That wasnt surprising. Wed been on the run for a long time, and bouncing about in the Óbyggdir wasnt helping wed managed to fall into every damned pothole on the track. I said, Get your head down I wont be long.
I hung the lanyard of the binoculars around my neck, opened the back door and dropped to the ground. I was about to walk away when I turned back on impulse, reached into the cab and picked up the carbine. I dont think Elin saw me do that.
First I inspected the river we had to cross. It was flowing well but exposed wet stones showed that the level was already dropping. By dawn the crossing would be easy, and we should be able to get across all the other rivers that lay between us and Sprengisandur before the increased flow made it impossible.
I slung the carbine over my shoulder and walked back along the track towards the river we had crossed which lay a little over a mile away. I approached cautiously but everything was peaceful. The river flowed and chuckled and there was nothing in sight to cause alarm. I checked the distant view with the binoculars, then sat down with my back against a mossy boulder, lit a cigarette and started to think.
I was worried about Elins shoulder; not that there was anything particularly alarming about its condition, but a doctor would do a better job than I could, and this bouncing about the wilderness wasnt helping. It might be difficult explaining to a doctor how Elin had come by an unmistakable gunshot wound, but accidents do happen and I thought I could get away with it by talking fast.
I stayed there for a couple of hours, smoking and thinking and looking at the river, and at the end of that time I had come up with nothing new despite my brain beating. The added factor of the American helicopter was a piece of the jigsaw that wouldnt fit anywhere. I looked at my watch and found it was after nine oclock, so I buried all the cigarette stubs, picked up the carbine and prepared to go back.
As I stood up I saw something that made me tense a plume of dust in the far distance across the river. I laid down the carbine and lifted the glasses and saw the little dot of a vehicle at the head of that feather of dust like a high-flying jet at the head of a contrail. I looked around there was no cover near the river but about two hundred yards back a spasm of long gone energy had heaved up the lava into a ridge which I could hide behind. I ran for it.
The vehicle proved to be a Willys jeep as good for this country in its way as my Land-Rover. It slowed as it came to the river, nosed forward and came to a stop at the waters edge. The night was quiet and I heard the click of the door handle as a man got out and walked forward to look at the water. He turned and said something to the driver and, although I could not hear the words, I knew he was speaking neither Icelandic nor English.
He spoke Russian.
The driver got out, looked at the water and shook his head. Presently there were four of them standing there, and they seemed to be having an argument. Another jeep came up behind and more men got out to study the problem until there were eight in all two jeeps full. One of them, the one who made the decisive gestures and who seemed to be the boss, I thought I recognized.
I lifted the glasses and his face sprang into full view in the dimming light. Elin had been wrong; crossing the river had not been an unjustifiable risk, and the justification lay in the face I now saw. The scar was still there, running from the end of the right eyebrow to the corner of the mouth, and the eyes were still grey and hard as stones. The only change in him was that his close-cropped hair was no longer black but a grizzled grey and his face was puffier with incipient wattles forming on his neck.
Kennikin and I were both four years older but I think I may have worn better than he had.
FIVE
I put my hand out to the carbine and then paused. The light was bad and getting worse, the gun was strange and it hadnt the barrel to reach out and knock a man down at a distance. I estimated the range at a shade under three hundred yards and I knew that if I hit anyone at that range and in that light it would be by chance and not by intention.
If I had my own gun I could have dropped Kennikin as easily as dropping a deer. I have put a soft-nosed bullet into a deer and it has run for half a mile before dropping dead, and that with an exit wound big enough to put your fist in. A man cant do that his nervous system is too delicate and cant stand the shock.
But I hadnt my own rifle, and there was no percentage in opening fire at random. That would only tell Kennikin I was close, and it might be better if he didnt know. So I let my fingers relax from the carbine and concentrated on watching what was going to happen next.
The arguing had stopped with Kennikins arrival, and I knew why, having worked with him. He had no time for futile blathering; he would accept your facts and God help you if they were wrong and then he would make the decisions. He was busily engaged in making one now.
I smiled as I saw someone point out the tracks of the Land-Rover entering the water and then indicate the other bank of the river. There were no tracks where we had left the water because we had been swept sideways a little, and that must have been puzzling to anyone who hadnt seen it happen.
The man waved downstream eloquently but Kennikin shook his head. He wasnt buying that one. Instead he said something, snapping his fingers impatiently, and someone else rushed up with a map. He studied it and then pointed off to the right and four of the men got into a jeep, reversed up the track, and then took off across country in a bumpy ride.
That made me wrinkle my brows until I remembered there was a small group of lakes over in that direction called Gaesavötn. If Kennikin expected me to be camping at Gaesavötn hed draw a blank, but it showed how thorough and careful he was.
The crew from the other jeep got busy erecting a camp just off the track, putting up tents rather inexpertly. One of them went to Kennikin with a vacuum flask and poured out a cup of steaming hot coffee which he offered obsequiously. Kennikin took it and sipped it while still standing at the waters edge looking across the impassable river. He seemed to be staring right into my eyes.
I lowered the glasses and withdrew slowly and cautiously, being careful to make no sound. I climbed down from the lava ridge and then slung the carbine and headed back to the Land-Rover at a fast clip, and checked to make sure there were no tyre marks to show where we had left the track. I didnt think Kennikin would have a man swim the river he could lose a lot of men that way but it was best to make sure we werent stumbled over too easily.
Elin was asleep. She lay on her left side, buried in her sleeping bag, and I was thankful that she always slept quietly and with no blowing or snoring. I let her sleep; there was no reason to disturb her and ruin her night. We werent going anywhere, and neither was Kennikin. I switched on my pocket torch shading it with my hand to avoid waking her, and rummaged in a drawer until I found the housewife, from which I took a reel of black thread.
I went back to the track and stretched a line of thread right across it about a foot from the ground, anchoring each end by lumps of loose lava. If Kennikin came through during the night I wanted to know it, no matter how stealthily he went about it. I didnt want to cross the river in the morning only to run into him on the other side.
Then I went down to the river and looked at it. The water level was still dropping and it might have been barely feasible to cross there and then had the light been better. But I wouldnt risk it without using the headlights and I couldnt do that because theyd certainly show in the sky. Kennikins mob wasnt all that far away.
I dropped into my berth fully clothed. I didnt expect to sleep under the circumstances but nevertheless I set the alarm on my wrist watch for two a.m. And that was the last thing I remember until it buzzed like a demented mosquito and woke me up.
II
We were ready to move at two-fifteen. As soon as the alarm buzzed I woke Elin, ruthlessly disregarding her sleepy protests. As soon as she knew how close Kennikin was she moved fast. I said, Get dressed quickly. Im going to have a look around.
The black thread was still in place which meant that no vehicle had gone through. Any jeep moving at night would have to stick to the track; it was flatly impossible to cross the lava beds in the darkness. True, someone on foot might have gone through, but I discounted that.
The water in the river was nice and low and it would be easy to cross. As I went back I looked in the sky towards the east; already the short northern night was nearly over and I was determined to cross the river at the earliest opportunity and get as far ahead of Kennikin as I could.
Elin had different ideas. Why not stay here and let him get ahead? Just let him go past. Hed have to go a long way before he discovered hes chasing nothing.
No, I said. We know he has two jeeps, but we dont know if he has more. It could happen that, if we let him get ahead, we could be the meat in a sandwich and that might be uncomfortable. We cross now.
Starting an engine quietly is not easy. I stuffed blankets around the generator in an attempt to muffle that unmistakable rasp, the engine caught and purred sweetly, and I took the blankets away. And I was very light-footed on the accelerator as we drove towards the river. We got across easily, although making more noise than I cared for, and away we went towards the next river.
I told Elin to keep a sharp eye to the rear while I concentrated on moving as fast as possible compatible with quietness. In the next four kilometres we crossed two more rivers and then there was a long stretch where the track swung north temporarily, and I opened up. We were now far enough away from Kennikin to make speed more important than silence.
Sixteen rivers in sixty kilometres, Elin had said. Not counting the time spent in crossing rivers we were now averaging a bone-jarring twenty-five kilometres an hour too fast for comfort in this country and I estimated we would get to the main Sprengisandur track in about four hours. It actually took six hours because some of the rivers were bastards.
In reaching the Sprengisandur track we had crossed the watershed and all the rivers from now on would be flowing south and west instead of north and east. We hit the track at eight-thirty, and I said, Breakfast. Climb in the back and get something ready.
Youre not stopping?
Christ, no! Kennikin will have been on the move for hours. Theres no way of knowing how close he is and Ive no urgent inclination to find out the hard way. Bread and cheese and beer will do fine.
So we ate on the move and stopped only once, at ten oclock, to fill up the tank from the last full jerrycan. While we were doing that up popped our friend of the previous day, the US Navy helicopter. It came from the north this time, not very low, and floated over us without appearing to pay us much attention.