Turn. Keep turning.
Of course this wasn't the only dune in the Sahara and I got off it and tried another one because a kind of madness was setting in and although I knew about it I decided to ignore it because the organism had taken over a long time ago but it was going to be hard work: it was saying if we don't find the wreck and finish this job they won't ever pull us out and we'll die here so we're going to climb every dune in the desert till we see it, come on.
Climbed one of them twice, found my own tracks still there, getting rather dodgy, four times down there for a drink of water, not very slaking because it was warm.
The sands flowing like opaque flood-water through the vision-field, the gaps dipping like the lines on an electrocardiograph.
Turn. Keep turning.
Stop.
21°.
Now go down, go down and drink. And open up.
Tango.
Tango receiving.
I want to confirm that I am in fact in the target area.
You've seen the plane?
No. But I've sighted a rock. It should be the shale outcrop. According to the RAF people there's no other rock visible within seven miles of the objective and even on dead-reckoning Chirac couldn't have dropped me so wide.
He considered.
I would agree. How far away are you?
It's difficult to tell because the air's so clear. I'd say about two miles: it looks like one but I've doubled it.
What bearing is it?
Twenty-one degrees.
He was looking at the photograph and its annotations.
Then you should find the aeroplane almost directly in your path when you head for the outcrop. Its bearing from there is two hundred degrees.
I'll make my heading twenty. Change frequency?
Yes, to 7 MHz. Please repeat.
I repeated and asked for twin-synchro and we ended.
Then I did what I knew I would do: I went to the top of the dune and put up the Zeiss and looked again at the distant tip of rock. My life had depended on sighting this single landmark, and I wanted to be sure I hadn't dreamed up a mirage.
Their mass had been thrust upwards from the earth's crust to leave them standing reared and angular against the sky, their strata sloping at twenty or so degrees from the horizontal and their base littered with brittle fragments that had broken off. In several places a whole shoulder of rock had foundered, making an angled arch and giving shade, and under one of these I made my camp.
The flooring was the canopy of the supply 'chute and the roof was provided by my own, propped and draped with the help of the telescopic tubing that was part of the survival gear.
Lizards had run from the area of shade, skittering so fast across the sand that they seemed to float on its surface. I watched them, encouraged by the evidence of life in this region where I'd thought that nothing could hope to live.
For an hour I slept, in the heat of the noon. The distance had been nearer two miles than one and I'd had to make two trips, each time bringing a parachute and half the gear and provisions: four hours' work including rests in the shade of the rocks before I set up camp. Earlier, even when it had been cooler, this degree of effort would have been beyond me: it had been the sight of the tip of rock, the knowledge that it was there, that had given me the strength.
At 12.34 hours I made a signal.
He had to be told, before I decided what kind of effort was needed. Effort used up water and it used it up very fast. He had to be told, although there wasn't much he could do about it. The first thing was to get him to believe it.
Can I have that bearing again, from the rocks to the freighter?
Two hundred.
I checked the compass. The bearing was lined up directly with the tracks I'd left.
What's the distance from the rocks to the plane?
Four hundred and eighty-five yards.
He wasn't going to like it.
Loman, I'm at the rock outcrop now. I've pitched camp.
I had to wait for him to re-check the annotations on the hotograph. No change of tone.
Your heading was twenty degrees?
Yes.
You must have passed close to the aeroplane.
Not close enough to see it.
Then the poor bastard shut up for a bit.
I looked across the blazing sands to the point where my tracks vanished. There were big areas between the dunes and they didn't have the regular formation I'd seen at the point of drop: the rocks would deflect the wind here, setting up turbulence. But I had a clear view for more than five hundred yards and the bearing was correct and I ought to be looking straight at the wreck of the freighter. I was looking at an unbroken waste of sand.
Loman came in.
Quiller.
Hear you.
Do these rocks show any signs of ferrous oxidization?
He was dead scared but he didn't show it in his voice. He showed it in his thinking: he'd got the blown-up photograph m front of him with the distances marked and he should have worked this one out for himself and instead of that he was panicking. I told him:
No. And it wouldn't make any difference, Loman. The compass could be affected up to fifteen degrees and I'd still be able to see a twin-engined freighter less than five hundred yards away.Pause.
You are quite sure.
Christ, d'you think I'm just guessing?
I was bloody annoyed because they'd said it was a picture of a plane that had crash-landed at Longitude 8°3′ by Latitude 30°4′ and now I was here on the spot and I couldn't help thinking how much effort we'd all made just to prove they were wrong.
Even Loman was thrown.
I don't understand.
Join the club.
After a while he said: How was the drop?
Routine.
I knew what he was driving at but I wasn't in the mood to give him any help: let him stay on this tack and I'd blast his head off, that was all.
Did you bring all your provisions with you from the point of drop?
Yes.
And both parachutes?
Yes.
It was exhausting work.
A bit thirst-making.
There's been no kind of accident? No water-spillage?
No.
He saw I wasn't going to co-operate so he just put it on the line, didn't like having to do it, wasn't his way.
How would you describe your general condition, physical and mental?
Not too bad. Bit of sunburn.
His tone went dulclass="underline" over-correction.
I would appreciate a more precise answer.
So I thought he ought to have one.
Listen, Loman, the drop was a right bastard and I've just shifted a hundred and seventy kilos through two miles of soft sand in the direct sun but if you think I'm too far gone to be able to see a whole bloody aeroplane against a neutral background at five hundred yards you're wasting your time. Who was the executive you were running last — Dewhurst or someone?
Quite a long time went by. I don't think he was sulking or anything: he'd got a damn sight too much on his plate and he was going to have a lot more unless he could do something about it and that didn't leave any time for making mental notes to the Bureau to the effect that certain executives appeared to require supplementary refresher courses in Norfolk.