The Sixteen Page 2

  On my second attempt, I tried to throw it higher and further, hoping it would drop down on top of him, but again it was an awkward throw, right-handed, between my body and the cliff face, and once more the rope missed him. Gathering it up again, I decided to give it another go, but this time I’d try it with my left hand.

  ‘What’s that racket? What are you doing, Geordie?’ Dynamo’s urgent whisper came out of the darkness to my right.

  ‘I’m trying to get a rope over to Chalky.’

  ‘Just leave it until it gets a bit lighter, you can’t do anything in the dark.’

  ‘OK. But I’ll just give it one more go.’

  Gathering the rope into extra loops in my left hand, I held on to a rock jutting from the cliff face with my right hand and leaned out further, as far as I dared, in order to swing it higher; this time it seemed to catch on something so I gave it a yank.

  ‘Have you got it, Chalky?’

  ‘Have I hell!’

  Just then, I felt the rope drop and, as it fell past, I made a grab for it. But thrown off balance, I instantly lost my footing, fell over backwards into the dark and began to slide down an embankment on my back towards the edge. Desperately I twisted and struggled, trying to use my right leg to push my body over on to my front, all the while grabbing at anything I could to try to stop my fall – but still I slid downwards. Then suddenly, the back of my right knee hooked on to something and I came to an abrupt halt, upside down with my head and shoulders hanging in space. Immediately I froze solid, too terrified to move a muscle.

  I was breathing heavily and could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I appeared to be caught up on a small bush or shrub, which was all that was preventing me from falling, God knows how far, and I gripped it as hard as I could with my leg. If I hadn’t had my knee bent at that precise moment, or had been just a few inches further over, either way I would have completely missed it and that would have been that!

  Damn, I thought. My first job and already I’m messing it up.

  I was worried but tried to compose myself. Clearly, something was preventing me from falling further so I reasoned that if I could grab on to it I might be able to pull myself back up. I made a desperate attempt to get hold of the bush or shrub but the second I grabbed hold the whole thing bent towards me and my body began to slip. Instantly I froze again. It was obvious that if I tried to move I was going to fall, besides I couldn’t risk dislodging anything. There was nothing else for it, I was going to have to try to attract the attention of Spot and Dynamo and risk whispering as loudly as I dared.

  ‘Dynamo! Spot!’

  Immediately Dynamo’s voice came back to me.

  ‘Keep your voice down, Geordie! What’s up?’

  ‘Come this way, over to your left. I’m down here hanging over the edge, hurry up I don’t think what I’m caught on will hold much longer!’

  I heard them moving nearer to me.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’

  ‘Just a bit further along the ledge. You won’t be able to grab me. I’m too far over; you’ll have to throw a bloody rope, quick!’ I whispered, trying not to sound too panicky.

  My head was hanging into the blackness and although I couldn’t see anything below, I knew it was a long way down and this little bush wasn’t going to hold out forever.

  ‘Where is it?’ Spot asked.

  ‘It’s tied to a bush near the cliff face.’

  I could hear Dynamo and Spot cautiously moving closer towards me, searching around for the rope I’d been using. The next moment it was thrown in my general direction and fell heavily close by me and slightly to my left. Trying to grab it, I reached out as far as I dared but could feel nothing.

  ‘Where are you? Say something so we can get a fix on you,’ Spot called out.

  ‘Down here, you need to be over a bit more to your left!’

  Their next attempt fell right across my chest and immediately I grabbed it, pushed the noose over my shoulders and gave it a sharp tug.

  ‘That’s it, I’ve got it! Pull!’

  Seconds later I was back on the ledge beside them.

  ‘I thought I was a goner there!’ I exclaimed in relief. ‘Sorry about that, I was trying to get the rope across to Chalky and slipped.’

  ‘Forget it, Geordie, forget it. Are you OK?’ Dynamo asked.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine. But what about Chalky?’

  ‘He’ll be OK, he’s been in worse spots than this; he’s as hard as nails and besides if he gets cold he’s got his gear in his bag with him!’

  Spot put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, Chalky will have to stay there until we can see him. Let’s just hope no one else spots him before we do!’

  ‘Get the CTCs out, Geordie, and come over here, I want to show you something,’ Dynamo said, and moved off.

  Deeply embarrassed, I followed them back along the ledge to where our bags lay and pulled out our camouflage topcoats (CTCs).

  I always hated using these. They were cumbersome things made out of hessian and coated with a sticky glue-like substance on one side that had to be pulled apart before they could be put on. This sticky gel was used to pick up extra camouflage from the ground such as dust, dirt, small stones, leaves, pine needles, twigs etc. or whatever happened to be in the near vicinity. The ‘coat’ itself was very long and dragged along the ground behind for about two feet. Two straps, one just below each knee, fastened around your legs and a large hood covered your head. A cape-like flap was attached to the sleeves and the back of the hood. Once the hood was up, by lying in a small dip or hollow with your arms outstretched beyond your head, it would cover the body’s outline completely and be flush with the ground. With all of the bits of twigs and gravel picked up by the sticky substance, it enabled us to blend into any surrounding area and become virtually impossible to see.

  The three of us crouched closely together and pulled one of these coats over our heads. Dynamo turned on a small flashlight and shone it on the map he held.

  ‘Judging by the shape of this cliff face, we’ve come down in the right place, which probably means that these guys can’t be more than eighty yards or so away. There’s nothing more we can do now so we might as well find ourselves a cubbyhole somewhere and rest up until daylight.’

  ‘Don’t forget to remove your sash, Geordie, and try not to fall asleep. We don’t want you ‘dropping off’ in the night, now do we?’ Spot teased.

  I crawled around for a few minutes until I found a small hollow in the ground, and using the flat of my hand, tried to clear it of as many small stones as possible. I released the safety catch on my sash (I’ll explain what this special ‘tool of the trade’ is later on) and lay it on the ground beside me before lying down flat out on my stomach. Then, pulling my CTC over my head and around me, I settled down to wait for daybreak.

  I was desperate not to make another blunder and so kept as still as I possibly could despite the numerous small, sharp stones which were already beginning to dig into me. At least the discomfort prevented me from dozing off and accidentally knocking any loose stones over the edge. Some of these rocks and stones were the size of house bricks and would have made quite a racket tumbling down the cliff into the valley below, which would probably have alerted the nearby terrorists.

  For over an hour we lay on the narrow mountain ledge, hidden under cover and waiting for first light. My limbs were beginning to go numb and clenching my right fist, I tried to flex the aching muscles of my arm without moving around too much. I managed to wriggle about a little bit to change to a slightly more comfortable position but the straps holding my MK1 to my right thigh were digging into my flesh and starting to cut off the blood supply to my lower leg. God knows how Chalky must be feeling right now, I thought.

  Hearing a slight noise nearby, I cautiously raised the edge of my cover an inch or so and peered out. A thin watery light filtered through the heavy night clouds and the air was damp with early morning mist; it was almost dawn. Peering through the gloom, I coul
d barely make out the dark bulk of Chalky’s silhouette, hanging from his rope like a bauble on a Christmas tree. He was barely visible, as he’d managed to get his CTC out of his holdall and pulled it on. If I hadn’t known where to look I simply wouldn’t have been aware that he was there at all.

  He was suspended in mid-air about fifteen feet to the left of me and roughly six feet or so higher up, just around a slight bend in the cliff face. A couple of small shrubs protruded from where the rock wall curved near to him and I realised just why I’d been unable to get the rope to him in the dark: these bushes were in the way. No doubt one of them was what the rope had snagged on just before I’d fallen. I realised that it was lucky Chalky hadn’t attempted to drop down in the dark, as directly below him the ledge on which we’d landed totally disappeared and he was hanging over a sheer drop of at least two hundred feet!

  I could see why he’d had a problem coming down. Between our belay point and his, the cliff rose by approximately ten to fifteen feet, which accounted for his rope appearing to be too short to reach the ledge. Obviously, there was no way he’d been able to see that in the dark.

  A movement to my right caught my eye and I saw that Dynamo and Spot were now on their feet and taking off their CTCs, so I quickly followed suit, relieved to be moving again and glad to be able to get rid of the damn thing.

  We didn’t have any time to waste so we quickly set about getting Chalky down. Dynamo expertly threw a rope up to him, which Chalky pulled over his shoulders and fastened around his chest. Then the three of us began to slowly and carefully pull him towards us on the ledge, trying to prevent his rope from dislodging any of the rocks above, until we reached a point where we couldn’t get him any closer. Chalky was still a few feet away and had no other option but to release his rope from the top by pulling on his light line. He immediately dropped when he did so and just managed to grab on to the ledge as his heavy rope, still attached to his waist, rushed noisily past him and disappeared into the blackness below. As he fell, we pulled on the rope around his shoulders and dragged him back on to the ledge, hoping and praying that nobody had heard us.

  Chalky tried to stand but his legs instantly gave out. He sat down and began to rub them vigorously.

  ‘Sorry, guys, but my pins aren’t working properly yet. That bloody harness has cut off the circulation and I can’t feel them. In fact, I can’t feel much below the waist, I don’t think anything’s going to work for quite some time!’ he whispered ruefully.

  ‘You prat! You should have come down the same rope as us,’ Spot told him.

  ‘Well, I’d found a good, solid belay point up there,’ Chalky explained.

  He had been stuck in his harness for well over an hour, gradually losing the feeling in his legs, which must have been agonising, and until now, I hadn’t really appreciated just what he must have been going through.

  He tried to stand again, but couldn’t straighten up.

  ‘Listen, stay where you are for a while, until we check things out,’ Dynamo told him.

  We could see an opening about twenty feet away and the three of us began to make our way cautiously along the ledge towards it, me in the lead with Dynamo and Spot following closely behind.

  The cave ‘mouth’ was little more than a niche in the limestone but it appeared to go a lot deeper into the hill. From inside came the sound of dripping water but I was convinced I could also make out something else and decided to investigate. The opening was very narrow, but with some difficulty, I eventually managed to squeeze my way in.

  Although the cave interior was dark, by now it was gradually becoming lighter outside and through a series of holes in the roof several pale shafts of daylight filtered through and lit up the top of a huge pile of rubble that filled most of the cave. Over the years it must have been washed down from the roof to form the mound in front of me, which reached almost to the top of the cave, leaving a gap of no more than a few feet between it and the roof.

  Sprays of water cascaded from the cave roof on to the top of the pile of rubble and ran in rivulets down its sides, as beams of early-morning light filtering through the holes in the roof produced a rainbow effect on the mist that the spray created.

  Although I had a torch with me, I didn’t want to use it in case it was spotted so, peering through the gloom, I cautiously made my way further towards the back of the cave, but coming up against a solid wall and finding nothing further to explore I turned back.

  As I edged along towards the entrance, a fine mist from the spray settled on my face and I paused briefly to wipe it away with my hands. A faint noise from above caught my attention and I looked upwards just as, over the top of the mound, appeared the largest and whitest dog I had ever seen. It paused for a moment, then suddenly came hurtling towards me down the slope, half-running, half-slipping, its huge feet slithering and scrabbling to obtain purchase on the wet scree.

  The dog’s lips were drawn back in a ferocious snarl, its enormous jaws wide apart, teeth bared.

  Instinctively I dropped on to my right knee and offered up my left forearm while simultaneously pulling out my boot-knife with my right hand, which I then extended but kept concealed beneath my left arm.

  The massive dog accelerated down the slope and leapt at me. As it did so, I pulled my left forearm back against my chest and pushed the knife in my right hand forward. It entered the animal’s chest between its front legs, killing it instantly, but the weight of the dog knocked me on to my back. Stunned for a moment by the sheer ferocity of the attack, I lay against the cave wall with the dog’s warm, heavy body across my legs, preventing me from getting up. I was sorry that I’d had to kill the dog, but it had been either it or me at the time.

  ‘Give me a hand then,’ I whispered urgently to Spot, who by now had also squeezed through the opening into the cave.

  ‘Jeesus! This is some size isn’t it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where the hell did this thing come from? I take it there’s no way in through here.’

  He began dragging the dog off me, trying not to make too much noise. For all we knew it might be a guard dog belonging to the nearby terrorists.

  ‘No, it’s a good job I killed it, there’s only that one entrance. You could say it’s a “dead” end,’ I whispered back, giggling. Spot grinned and turned to go but I grabbed his arm to stop him.

  ‘Ssh, listen, listen,’ I said urgently. We stood very still, our ears straining to catch any sounds. A very slight, muffled noise, barely audible, was coming from over the mound. I carefully tried to get to the top of the rubble without dislodging too much of it but it was wet and loose and I slipped back down.

  ‘Watch it, Geordie, there could be another one up there.’

  We stood for a moment listening.

  ‘Just leave it, Geordie, I can’t hear anything, it’s probably just the water coming through the roof,’ Spot whispered and turned to leave.

  But I could definitely hear something, and continued to scramble up the pile of rubble until I reached the top. Suddenly the reason for the dog’s ferocity became clear. Hidden behind a smaller pile of rocks were two snow-white puppies curled together into a tiny mewling heap, their eyes only just open. It made me feel worse about the dog’s death but I had no time to dwell on it. We had a job to do and I had to get on with it.

  I took a quick look around but it was obvious that there was nothing else in the cave; we’d have to look elsewhere. Joining the others, we continued our search. The next two openings were little more than clefts in the rock face and took no time to explore. A fourth initially appeared to be the same, but something caught my attention and made me squeeze just a little further into the gap than first appeared possible – it was the unmistakeable smell of woodsmoke!

  Swiftly, I signalled to the others to hang back while I investigated further.

  ‘OK,’ Dynamo whispered. ‘But don’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  Cautiously, I made my way into the crevice and after an initial tight squeeze, I found that it opene
d out into quite a wide passage. The air was now filled with the strong smell of smoke and I quietly made my way towards it.

  The passage was damp and filled with the sound of dripping. Water poured down the walls from the roof to form large pools that spread across the uneven floor and I trod as carefully as I could to avoid splashing. Following the tunnel for a little way, I eventually emerged into a large cave where the way ahead was barred by a rockfall, similar to the one where I’d killed the dog. Once again, the mound almost reached to the roof with only a narrow gap at the top, but this time I could clearly see the dull red glow of flickering firelight on the cave roof beyond, and hear the sound of burning firewood spitting and cracking in the flames. This had to be them!

  As I stealthily approached the rockfall, I began to hear the low murmur of voices coming from the other side, barely audible but unmistakeable.

  ‘I hope to God there isn’t another flaming great dog at the top of this one!’ I thought, as I cautiously began to climb up the incline of the mound towards a small gap between it and the cave roof.

  The slope of the rockfall wasn’t too steep but I had to move very carefully so as not to disturb any of the loose rocks and stones. The voices grew louder as I neared the narrow gap at the top and crept forward to look over the ridge into the cave beyond.

  From what I could see, it appeared to be a moderately large cave but the majority of it was in darkness. Light rays, penetrating through tiny gaps in the rocks to form a criss-cross pattern of thin beams, did little to brighten the scene below and the main source of light came from the ruddy glow of a small fire around which were grouped four men who were partly dressed like soldiers, with Sten guns slung over their shoulders. I couldn’t see if there were any others in the shadows, but as there was a large entrance on the wall opposite to the mound, I knew that there could be more of them outside.

  Quietly retracing my steps, I swiftly made my way back to the cave entrance and silently indicated to Dynamo and Spot that we should go back along the ledge to where we’d left Chalky before I filled them in with what I’d discovered.