O'er his white banes, when they are bare,

cracking roar of the flames. "Incendiaries, boss," he announced. "What did you think they were using?" Mallory asked shortly. "Matches? They're trying to smoke us out, to burn us out, get us in the open. High explosive's not so good among trees. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred this would have worked." He coughed as the acrid smoke bit into his lungs, peered up with watering eyes through the tree-tops. "But not this time, not if we're lucky. Not if they hold off another half-minute or so. Just look at that smoke!" Miller looked. Thick, convoluted, shot through with fiery sparks, the rolling cloud was already a third of the way across the gap between grove and cliff, borne uphill by the wandering catspaws from the sea. It was the complete, the perfect smoke-screen. Miller nodded. "Gonna make a break for it, huh, boss?" "There's no choicewe either go, or we stay and get friedor blown into very little bits. Probably both." He raised his voice. "Anybody see what's happening up top?" "Queuing up for another go at us, sir." Brown said lugubriously. "The first bloke's still circling around." "Waiting to see how we break cover. They won't wait long. This is where we take off." He peered uphill through the rolling smoke, but it was too thick, laced his watering eyes until everything was blurred through a misted sheen of tears. There was no saying how far uphill the smoke-bank had reached, and they couldn't afford to wait until they were sure. Stuka pilots had never been renowned for their patience. "Right, everybody!" he shouted. "Fifteen yards along the tree-line to that wash, then straight up into the gorge. Don't stop till you're at least a hundred yards inside. Andrea, you lead the way. Off you go!" He peered through the blinding smoke. "Where's Panayis?" There was no reply. "Panayis!" Mallory called. "Panayis!" "Perhaps he went back for somethin'." Miller had stopped half-turned. "Shall I go " "Get on your way!" Mallory said savagely. "And if anything happens to young Stevens I'll hold you . . ." But Miller, wisely, was already gone, Andrea stumbling and coughing by his side. For a couple of seconds Mallory stood irresolute, then plunged back downhill towards the centre of the grove. Maybe Panayis had gone back for something and he couldn't understand English. kodak dcs 420 digital camera specs Mallory had hardly gone five yards when he was forced to halt and fling his arm up before his face: the heat was searing. Panayis couldn't be down there; no one could have been down there, could have lived for seconds in that furnace. Gasping for air, hair singeing and clothes smouldering with fire, Mallory clawed his way back up the slope, colliding with trees, slipping, falling, then stumbling desperately to his feet again. He ran along to the east end of the wood. No one there. Back to the other end again, towards the wash, almost completely blind now, the super-heated air searing viciously through throat and lungs till he was suffocating, till his breath was. coming in great, whooping, agonised breaths. No sense in waiting longer, nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do except save himself. There was a noise in his ears, the roaring of the flames, the roaring of his own bloodand the screaming, heart-stopping roar of a Stuka in a power-dive. Desperately he flung himself forward over the sliding scree, tumbled and pitched headlong down to the floor of the wash. Hurt or not, he did not know and her did not care. Sobbing aloud for breath, he rose to his feet, forced his aching legs to drive him somehow up the bill. The air was full of the thunder of engines, he knew the entire squadron was coming in to the attack, and then he had flung himself uncaringly to the ground as the first of the high explosive bombs erupted in its concussive blast of smoke and flameerupted not forty yards away, to his left and ahead of him. Ahead of him! Even as he struggled upright again, lurched forward and upward once more, Mallory cursed himself again and again and again. You mad-man, he thought bitterly, confusedly, you damned crazy mad-man. Sending the others out to be killed. He should have thought of itoh, God, he should have thought of it, a five-year-old could have thought of it. Of course Jerry wasn't going to bomb the grove: they had seen the obvious, the inevitable, as quickly as he had, were dive-bombing the pall of smoke between the grove and the cliff! A five-year-old-the earth exploded beneath his feet, a giant hand plucked him up and smashed him to the ground and the darkness closed over him. CHAPTER 12 16001800 Once, twice, half a dozen times, Mallory struggled up from the depths of a black, trance-like stupor and momentarily touched the surface of consciousness only to slide back into the