THE COVENANTER
bayoneting a hole in the tank. They soaked bayonet ...” And bayonet it had been. He
the car and the stuffing in petrol. had been stabbed three times through the
chest, once through the small of the back.
A whistle blew and they closed in, clustering The last thrust had penetrated his lung. At
round me. There were about twentyfive or the time I thought his back was broken. I
thirty of them. The impact of shock was still pulled him close into the shelter of the log,
mercifully numbing my brain and I hardly on the far side from the glowing car. Charles
realised what the next horror was to be. did not die. He thought he was dying, and
I was carried roughly to the car, thrown on with his face in the shadow of the log fought
to the road., and kicked under the petrol to give me messages for his parents. We lay
tank. If I had been lucky five minutes before, there together. The heat and fumes of the
there was no play-act escape now. I was burning car hurt my eyes. The smell of its
going to be burned alive. I wished they had burning and the sickly smell of our blood
shot me. I wished I had made a break for was heavy in the damp air. But the blood
my carbine before they had found me. From made no sound and the car crackled like
under the car I watched them light the trail breaking bones. The other sound was the
of stuffing, run off up the road in a group, sound of the jungle. For the jungle is never
towards the cutting we had driven through still. We could see it lighted all round us,
ten minutes earlier. With my last strength I fern-fanged and frightening, disturbed and
rolled from beneath the petrol tank and, as I beautiful: the violent jungle.
scrambled into the softly sheltering lallang,
the searing heat blasted from the exploding Later Charles told me about it. He was
car, knocking the wind from me and singeing running up the road from the car when he
my hair. For a moment I lay still. stumbled, a bullet knicking the inside of his
Then there were shouts from up the road. thigh. He had managed to run on for another
They had seen me move in the light of the twenty yards despite the flesh-wound,
flames and they were coming back. In a before diving under a bush. It was a jagged
queerly cool terror I crawled away from the clutching bush that caught and punctured
burning car. his body till they found him. They had seen
Its oil-fed flames showed up the log and his white shirt. One crawled under the bush
the grass and the road. The inferno roared and looped my black lanyard round his
in my ears as I squirmed up the bank, heart neck. When they dragged him out he had
pounding, leg dragging. At last I reached lain as dead. They pulled him from the bush
the cover of some dank scrub that brushed to the road, still choking his windpipe with
clammy on my hot sweating nakedness. I the lanyard noose. To see if he was dead
crouched there. I could hear nothing. No they kicked him in the face. Charles didn’t
terrorists were in sight. My leg had gone pass that test. He groaned. A terrorist fixed a
numb again but I was still losing blood. I bayonet to his rifle, walked back five paces,
was beginning to think, and to shiver with and lunged, face leering grotesquely.
reaction. As the bayonet pierced him Charles had
moved a shade, and the point passed
I stood it for three or four minutes, then my through the right side of his chest. A second
straining heart double-thumped as I heard time the man lunged and again Charles
a groan. Charles! It had to be Charles! I forced moved, the bayonet stabbing him in the
myself to leave the shelter of the bushes 100 shoulder above the heart. And the third time
and crawled back towards the car. I found he moved again and the point went high.
that if I grasped my wounded leg above the almost through the centre of his chest. As
knee I could hobble slowly, The car was still the bayonet was withdrawn, Charles rose
burning. I crossed the log and limped along with it each time, screaming, to fall back on
the road. Ten yards from the log I saw lying the ground as though the thrust had killed
in the roadway what had been a white shirt, him.
Charles’ white shirt. It was steeped in gore, a
soaked rag of red, clinging to his body. But they were not satisfied. They had
turned him on to his stab-sieved chest, and
Charles lay face down. Blood rivulets seeped bayoneted him again in the back. And again
and coursed from the corner of his mouth, Charles moved, rising with arched back and
dripping on to the harsh black tarmac. scream of death to collapse on his face in
He was in shocking pain. His voice was his own blood--pool. Only then had they
glutmuted as he whispered: “Bayonet ... left him for dead. The car was still burning
60
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