A day in the hills.

Chapter Three.

The cold night air was suddenly alive with a colourful flow of swear words.

"What's happened?" I asked, letting go of my end of the box, aware that Bodie was on the ground and hearing the sound of the chain again.

"Got my foot trapped in …. something." he gasped and I heard him grit his teeth against the pain.

"What?" Dropping down beside him my hands found his legs and travelled down until I touched two metal bars with toothed edges biting deeply into his ankle,trapping him. It seemed to be attached to a length of chain that disappeared into the ground. Bodie writhed around in agony and I felt the wetness of warm blood on my cold fingers.

"Get it…..out!"

"Keep still." Trying to find a way to release him I pulled uselessly at the trap to no avail.

"Listen, mate, I'm going to go down to the van and see if there are any tools I can use as a lever. Alright?"

There was a barely audible grunt and then I sped off down the field hardly noticing that the rain had stopped. Nearing the van I paused to listen but the night was cloaked in silence and, encouraged, I moved on only to almost fall over one of the bodies of the gunmen. A couple of fingers against his neck confirmed he was dead and as I rounded the back of the van I found the second man, also dead.

The van may have seen better days but it was one of a small fleet of vehicles that C.I.5 used, and as such was well maintained and, luckily for me, fairly well equipped. On finding a torch inside I was able to quickly lay my hands on several tools and a crowbar. Adding to these with a small hand towel from my overnight bag fear for Cowley and Bodie drove me back up the field, my leg muscles beginning to complain.

I let out a silent prayer of thanks for the torch as its beam picked out the prone figure of Bodie faster than I could have alone.

"Mate? You okay?"

He stirred slowly and sat up. "Get this thing off me!" he growled. The amount of blood was alarming but from what I could see I didn't think he had severed an artery. I pushed the torch into his hands.

"Hold this steady and then be ready to pull your foot out, okay?"

The beam of light danced around as Bodie fought unconsciousness and, selecting the crowbar, I wedged it between the two metal bars of the trap. It took all my strength to lever them apart with enough room for Bodie to pull his foot free and when he did he sank back in the grass clawing it in agony as the trap snapped shut again.

"What the hell…" he gasped.

"I dunno, some kind of animal snare I think." I replied, wrapping the towel around the deep raw open wound hoping it would help to stem the flow of blood.

"Does it look ...bad?" Bodie tried to peer down at his foot.

"Yeah, pretty awful actually."

"Thanks for breaking it to me gently." He attempted to summon a smile and I smiled back at him.

"Can you walk if I help you?"

"Leave me…. here, go and see….to Cowley."

"I'm not leaving you here, for one thing I haven't the energy to keep going up and down between the pair of you. Now get up."

A few more choice expletives and Bodie struggled to his feet in obvious pain. I put an arm around his waist and he leaned into me for support, unable to put any weight on his foot and we began the slow arduous climb up the hill.

After what seemed hours later we eventually arrived at the house.

"Mr. Cowley?" I called out anxiously when I pushed the door open.

"D….Doyle?" he replied weakly.

"Yes, Sir. How are you?" I helped set Bodie down on the floor against the wall beside him.

"What's happened?" Cowley blinked up at me and I felt the coldness of his hand as it brushed against mine.

"We had a bit of an accident." I moved across with the torch and opened up his coat and unbuttoned his blood soaked shirt. Hiding my concern for him I did up his clothing again and took a look at Bodie's ankle. The towel was soaked in blood but I thought the bleeding had stopped though the wound was deep.

I glanced across at Bodie. "I'm going to see if I can get the rifles up here and then go down for help." I said quietly. Bodie's eyes held mine and what passed unspoken between us was complete understanding of our somewhat dire situation. And with this I read his regret that he'd added to it and his frustration that he was now unable to help Cowley, unable to recover the rifles, unable to do what we had come here to do. I could only smile in sympathy and squeezed his arm reassuringly.

"You killed two gunmen and we are still alive because of it." I told him. "Now, sit tight and I'll be as quick as I can."

Familiar with the route now I made quick work of following the wall and descending the hill into the field. The torchlight picked out the wooden box of Klemer rifles but after only a few yards of struggling to drag it by a handle I considered leaving it as Cowley had suggested earlier. There were now lives at stake, lives of people I didn't want to lose, people that were depending on me for their very survival. I needed to forget about the weapons and focus on getting help. But, stupidly, I couldn't do that. It went against the grain to give up without at least trying to do what we had set out to. The rifles were too valuable and, as an attempt to get them had already been made, I wasn't about to let them fall into the wrong hands that easily. I put my head down and began dragging the box uphill again. By the time I reached the house I was incapable of speech. Sweat ran down my face and my leg and arm muscles complained bitterly. I sank to the floor inside for several minutes utterly exhausted before summoning the energy to heave the box into the next room. I made a futile attempt to hide it under a pile of old musty smelling newspapers that, in the inky black night, my frantically searching hands had found and then I slumped against it in exhaustion.

A faint moan from either Cowley or Bodie forced me on my feet again though I would have given anything just to sit there for a few moments longer. Time was a luxury I just didn't have.

Out into the chill of the night again I half ran half stumbled across the grass noting its crispness under foot as the beginnings of frost began to form. And then suddenly I heard a sound; someone whistling in the lane below. It rose on the silent night air sharp and clear. I could hear approaching footsteps now on the rough gravelled track, a farmer making a last check on his livestock for the night.

"Hello?" I called out when I reached the open gateway that we had driven the van through earlier.

"Hello there?" a voice came back as the torch picked out the dark outline of a man looming out of the night.

"Am I glad to see you! I need help. Is there a phone nearby that I can use?"

"Help? Why, what's happened?"

"There's been an accident." I explained quickly, my white breath drifting on the freezing air. "My friends need urgent medical help."

"Where are they?"

"Sheltering in an old house up on the hill." I indicated roughly with a sweep of my arm and as I did so my sixth sense came into play telling me something wasn't quite right but it came too late. I swung round belatedly at a sound behind me and then felt a hard blow to the back of my head. A darkness engulfed me and as I went down there was just the vaguest recollection of hard gravel against my cheek.