For Valour Read Online Free
then hoisted Koureh out of his seat and into the boot. I opened the driver’s door and tried the forked stick for size in the foot-well. Then I got in behind the wheel, shifted into neutral and switched on the engine.
About fifty metres back along the track there was a turning to the right, which led through the trees to a clearing where we’d left our Danish Merc. By the time I got there it was nearly dark o’clock.
I parked up and walked to the end of the rocky outcrop, which stood like a diving platform above the edge of the lake. One or two lights glimmered on the far shore.
When we’d arrived there at midday the water had been crystal clear to a depth of ten metres, yet I still couldn’t see the bottom. It looked like oil now. It seemed a good place for my version of a Viking funeral. Koureh was going to have to do without the flaming longboat and the drinking horns, but he didn’t deserve any of that shit anyway.
I turned the Saab’s engine on again and reversed about twenty metres. These wagons were front-wheel drive and weighed over a ton, so I needed a bit of a run-up before hitting the launch pad. I put it into second and, keeping my left foot on the clutch and my right on the brake, wedged down the accelerator pedal an inch or two with my stick. Then I lifted both feet, gripped the top of the steering wheel, lifted my arse and stepped back onto the nice soft leather.
The Saab gave a brief shudder and moved forward, gathering speed. I kept the wheel in place. As soon as I was sure it was going fast enough and wasn’t going to stall, I vaulted sideways over the driver’s door, hit the dirt and rolled. Just not as well as I’d hoped. I’d have a couple of bruises of my own in the morning.
9
The exhaust system grated against the rock and the engine whined as the front wheels left the ground and spun freely in the air, but the wagon already had enough momentum to complete its journey.
I scrambled up in time to see it hit the water, wallow for what seemed like a lifetime in the pale moonlight, then plunge nose first to its grave. Thank fuck Koureh hadn’t gone for the Monte Carlo yellow paintwork option that was all the rage with Saab freaks this year. Steel grey would match the lake bed nicely.
I kicked over the tyre marks with my Timberlands and rubbed fistfuls of dirt into the scars left by the undercarriage on the rock edge. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do, and we’d be long gone before the local polisen sent in their divers.
I fired up the Merc and headed back the way I’d come. I stopped short of the house to pick up my daysack. I’d already checked that our scrape was sterile. It wasn’t complicated – we hadn’t even been there long enough to take a shit.
Before going on round the front to pick Harry up, I folded down the rear seats to leave him as much space as possible. My plan was to put some distance between us and the lake, then get Trev on the net and tell him that Harry needed to be casevaced. I didn’t care what strings the colonel was going to have to pull, or how far I’d have to drive, I just knew that if we put Harry Callard in the care of a Swedish medic our cover would be blown, and if we didn’t, he would never see his son again.
But for the second time that day, it appeared that Harry had a different plan.
As I shut the tailgate, there was a lightning flash – the kind that seared white spots on your retinas – followed by the world’s biggest thunderclap, and a pressure wave that blew me off my feet.
10
Iraqi troops had set fire to seven hundred oil wells as part of their scorched-earth policy during their retreat from Kuwait in January 1991. We’d seen all that shit happen as our Chinook ferried us across the Iraqi border – pillars of flame reaching into the night sky. Now I knew what it was like to see one up close.
The heat was already too intense to take the direct route, so I skirted the blaze until I could get a clear view of the
About fifty metres back along the track there was a turning to the right, which led through the trees to a clearing where we’d left our Danish Merc. By the time I got there it was nearly dark o’clock.
I parked up and walked to the end of the rocky outcrop, which stood like a diving platform above the edge of the lake. One or two lights glimmered on the far shore.
When we’d arrived there at midday the water had been crystal clear to a depth of ten metres, yet I still couldn’t see the bottom. It looked like oil now. It seemed a good place for my version of a Viking funeral. Koureh was going to have to do without the flaming longboat and the drinking horns, but he didn’t deserve any of that shit anyway.
I turned the Saab’s engine on again and reversed about twenty metres. These wagons were front-wheel drive and weighed over a ton, so I needed a bit of a run-up before hitting the launch pad. I put it into second and, keeping my left foot on the clutch and my right on the brake, wedged down the accelerator pedal an inch or two with my stick. Then I lifted both feet, gripped the top of the steering wheel, lifted my arse and stepped back onto the nice soft leather.
The Saab gave a brief shudder and moved forward, gathering speed. I kept the wheel in place. As soon as I was sure it was going fast enough and wasn’t going to stall, I vaulted sideways over the driver’s door, hit the dirt and rolled. Just not as well as I’d hoped. I’d have a couple of bruises of my own in the morning.
9
The exhaust system grated against the rock and the engine whined as the front wheels left the ground and spun freely in the air, but the wagon already had enough momentum to complete its journey.
I scrambled up in time to see it hit the water, wallow for what seemed like a lifetime in the pale moonlight, then plunge nose first to its grave. Thank fuck Koureh hadn’t gone for the Monte Carlo yellow paintwork option that was all the rage with Saab freaks this year. Steel grey would match the lake bed nicely.
I kicked over the tyre marks with my Timberlands and rubbed fistfuls of dirt into the scars left by the undercarriage on the rock edge. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do, and we’d be long gone before the local polisen sent in their divers.
I fired up the Merc and headed back the way I’d come. I stopped short of the house to pick up my daysack. I’d already checked that our scrape was sterile. It wasn’t complicated – we hadn’t even been there long enough to take a shit.
Before going on round the front to pick Harry up, I folded down the rear seats to leave him as much space as possible. My plan was to put some distance between us and the lake, then get Trev on the net and tell him that Harry needed to be casevaced. I didn’t care what strings the colonel was going to have to pull, or how far I’d have to drive, I just knew that if we put Harry Callard in the care of a Swedish medic our cover would be blown, and if we didn’t, he would never see his son again.
But for the second time that day, it appeared that Harry had a different plan.
As I shut the tailgate, there was a lightning flash – the kind that seared white spots on your retinas – followed by the world’s biggest thunderclap, and a pressure wave that blew me off my feet.
10
Iraqi troops had set fire to seven hundred oil wells as part of their scorched-earth policy during their retreat from Kuwait in January 1991. We’d seen all that shit happen as our Chinook ferried us across the Iraqi border – pillars of flame reaching into the night sky. Now I knew what it was like to see one up close.
The heat was already too intense to take the direct route, so I skirted the blaze until I could get a clear view of the
Readers choose
Robert J. Randisi
Lucy Wood
Michelle Cuevas
Mike Stewart
Emma Bull
C.M. Stunich
Theodora Taylor
Alexander Kent
Gretchen Powell
Nicholas Evans