Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

Elin looked tired. She had done a lot of walking over rough ground and a lot of jumping up and down, and her face was drawn. I checked the time, and said, ‘We’ll feel better after we’ve eaten, and hot coffee would go down well. We’ll stop here a while.’

And that was a mistake.

I discovered it was a mistake two and a half hours later. We had rested for an hour and eaten, and then continued for an hour and a half until we came to a river which was brimming full. I pulled up at the water’s edge where the track disappeared into the river, and got out to look at the problem.

I estimated the depth and looked at the dry stones in the banks. ‘It’s still rising, damn it! If we hadn’t stopped we could have crossed an hour ago. Now, I’m not so sure.’

Vatnajökull is well named the ‘Water Glacier’. It dominates the river system of Eastern and Southern Iceland – a great reservoir of frozen water which, in slowly melting, covers the land with a network of rivers. I had been thankful it had been a sunny day, but now I was not so sure because sunny days mean full rivers. The best time to cross a glacier is at dawn when it is low. During the day, especially on a clear, sunny day, the melt water increases and the flow grows to a peak in the late afternoon. This particular river had not yet reached its peak but it was still too damned deep to cross.

Elin consulted the map. ‘Where are you making for? Today, I mean.’

‘I wanted to get to the main Sprengisandur route. That’s more or less a permanent track; once we’re on it getting to Geysir should be easy.’

She measured the distance. ‘Sixty kilometres,’ she said, and paused.

I saw her lips moving. ‘What’s the matter?’

She looked up, ‘I was counting,’ she said. ‘Sixteen rivers to cross in that sixty kilometres before we hit the Sprengisandur track.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ I said. Normally in my travels in Iceland I had never been in a particular hurry to get anywhere. I had never counted the rivers and if an unfordable one had barred my path it was no great hardship to camp for a few hours until the level dropped. But the times were a-changing.

Elin said, ‘We’ll have to camp here.’

I looked at the river and knew I had to make up my mind quickly. ‘I think we’ll try to get over,’ I said.

Elin looked at me blankly. ‘But why? You won’t be able to cross the others until tomorrow.’

I tossed a pebble into the water. If it made any ripples I didn’t see them because they were obliterated by the swift flowing current. I said,’ “By the pricking of my thumbs, something evil this way comes.” ’ I swung around and pointed back along the track. ‘And I think it will come from that direction. If we have to stop I’d rather it was on the other side of this river.’

Elin looked doubtfully at the fast rip in the middle. ‘It will be dangerous.’

‘It might be more dangerous to stay here.’ I had an uneasy feeling which, maybe, was no more than the automatic revulsion against being caught in a position from which it was impossible to run. It was the reason I had left Askja, and it was the reason I wanted to cross this river. Perhaps it was just my tactical sense sharpening up after lying dormant for so long. I said, ‘And it’ll be more dangerous to cross in fifteen minutes, so let’s move it.’

I checked whether, in fact, the place where the track crossed the river was the most practicable. This turned out to be a waste of time but it had to be done. Anywhere upstream or downstream was impossible for various reasons, either deep water or high banks – so I concentrated on the ford and hoped the footing was sound.

Dropping again into the lowest gear possible I drove slowly into the river. The quick water swirled against the wheels and built up into waves which slapped against the side of the cab. Right in midstream the water was deep and any moment I expected to find it flowing under the door. More ominously the force of the water was so great that for one hair-raising second I felt the vehicle shift sideways and there was a curiously lifting lurch preparatory to being swept downstream.

I rammed my foot down and headed for shallower water and the opposite bank. The front wheels bit into the bed of the river but the back of the Land-Rover actually lifted and floated so that we got to the other side broadside on and climbed out awkwardly over a moss-crusted hummock of lava, streaming water like a shaggy dog just come from a swim.

I headed for the track and we bucked and lurched over the lava, and when we were finally on reasonably level ground I switched off the engine and looked at Elin. ‘I don’t think we’ll cross any more rivers today. That one was enough. Thank God for four-wheel drive.’

She was pale. ‘That was an unjustifiable risk,’ she said. ‘We could have been swept downstream.’

‘But we weren’t,’ I said, and switched on the engine again. ‘How far to the next river? We’ll camp there and cross at dawn.’

She consulted the map. ‘About two kilometres.’

So we pushed on and presently came to river number two which was also swollen with sun-melted water from Vatnajökull. I turned the vehicle and headed towards a jumble of rocks behind which I parked, out of sight of both the river and the track – again on good tactical principles.

I was annoyed. It was still not very late and there were several hours of daylight left which we could have used for mileage if it hadn’t been for those damned rivers. But there was nothing for it but to wait until the next day when the flow would drop. I said, ‘You look tired; you’ve had a hard day.’

Elin nodded dispiritedly and got out of the cab. I noticed her favouring her right arm, and said, ‘How is the shoulder?’

She grimaced. ‘Stiff.’

‘I’d better take a look at it.’

I put up the collapsible top of the Land-Rover and set water to boil, and Elin sat on a bunk and tried to take off her sweater. She couldn’t do it because she couldn’t raise her right arm. I helped her take it off but, gentle though I was, she gasped in pain. Reasonably enough, she wasn’t wearing a brassière under the sweater because the shoulder strap would have cut right into the wound.

I took off the pad and looked at her shoulder. The wound was angry and inflamed but there was no sign of any pus which would indicate infection. I said, ‘I told you that you’d begin to feel it. A graze like this can hurt like the devil, so don’t be too stiff-upper-lipped about it – I know how it feels.’

She crossed her arms across her breasts. ‘Has it ever happened to you?’

‘I was grazed across the ribs once,’ I said, as I poured warm water into a cup.

‘So that’s how you got that scar.’

‘Yours is worse because it’s across the trapezius muscle and you keep pulling it. You really should have your arm in a sling – I’ll see what I can find.’ I washed the wound and put on a new medicated dressing from the first-aid box, then helped her put on the sweater. ‘Where’s your scarf – the new woollen one?’

She pointed. ‘In that drawer.’

‘Then that’s your sling.’ I took out the scarf and fitted it to her arm so as to immobilize the shoulder as much as possible. ‘Now, you just sit there and watch me cook supper.’

I thought this was an appropriate time to open the goody box – the small collection of luxuries we kept for special occasions. We both needed cheering up and there’s nothing like a first-class meal under the belt to lift the spirits. I don’t know if Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason are aware of the joy they bring to sojourners in far-flung lands, but after the oyster soup, the whole roast quails and the pears pickled in cognac I felt almost impelled to write them a letter of appreciation.

The colour came back into Elin’s cheeks as she ate. I insisted that she didn’t use her right hand and she didn’t have to – the dark, tender flesh fell away from the quail at the touch of a fork and she managed all right. I made coffee and we accompanied it with brandy which I carried for medicinal purposes.

As she sipped her coffee she sighed. ‘Just like old times, Alan.’

‘Yes,’ I said lazily. I was feeling much better myself. ‘But you’d better sleep. We make an early start tomorrow.’ I calculated it would be light enough to move at three a.m. when the rivers would also be at their lowest. I leaned over and took the binoculars.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘Just to have a look around. You go to bed.’

Her eyes flickered sleepily. ‘I am tired,’ she admitted.

That wasn’t surprising. We’d been on the run for a long time, and bouncing about in the Óbyggdir wasn’t helping – we’d managed to fall into every damned pothole on the track. I said, ‘Get your head down – I won’t be long.’

I hung the lanyard of the binoculars around my neck, opened the back door and dropped to the ground. I was about to walk away when I turned back on impulse, reached into the cab and picked up the carbine. I don’t think Elin saw me do that.

First I inspected the river we had to cross. It was flowing well but exposed wet stones showed that the level was already dropping. By dawn the crossing would be easy, and we should be able to get across all the other rivers that lay between us and Sprengisandur before the increased flow made it impossible.

I slung the carbine over my shoulder and walked back along the track towards the river we had crossed which lay a little over a mile away. I approached cautiously but everything was peaceful. The river flowed and chuckled and there was nothing in sight to cause alarm. I checked the distant view with the binoculars, then sat down with my back against a mossy boulder, lit a cigarette and started to think.

I was worried about Elin’s shoulder; not that there was anything particularly alarming about its condition, but a doctor would do a better job than I could, and this bouncing about the wilderness wasn’t helping. It might be difficult explaining to a doctor how Elin had come by an unmistakable gunshot wound, but accidents do happen and I thought I could get away with it by talking fast.

I stayed there for a couple of hours, smoking and thinking and looking at the river, and at the end of that time I had come up with nothing new despite my brain beating. The added factor of the American helicopter was a piece of the jigsaw that wouldn’t fit anywhere. I looked at my watch and found it was after nine o’clock, so I buried all the cigarette stubs, picked up the carbine and prepared to go back.

As I stood up I saw something that made me tense – a plume of dust in the far distance across the river. I laid down the carbine and lifted the glasses and saw the little dot of a vehicle at the head of that feather of dust like a high-flying jet at the head of a contrail. I looked around – there was no cover near the river but about two hundred yards back a spasm of long gone energy had heaved up the lava into a ridge which I could hide behind. I ran for it.

The vehicle proved to be a Willys jeep – as good for this country in its way as my Land-Rover. It slowed as it came to the river, nosed forward and came to a stop at the water’s edge. The night was quiet and I heard the click of the door handle as a man got out and walked forward to look at the water. He turned and said something to the driver and, although I could not hear the words, I knew he was speaking neither Icelandic nor English.

He spoke Russian.

The driver got out, looked at the water and shook his head. Presently there were four of them standing there, and they seemed to be having an argument. Another jeep came up behind and more men got out to study the problem until there were eight in all – two jeeps full. One of them, the one who made the decisive gestures and who seemed to be the boss, I thought I recognized.

I lifted the glasses and his face sprang into full view in the dimming light. Elin had been wrong; crossing the river had not been an unjustifiable risk, and the justification lay in the face I now saw. The scar was still there, running from the end of the right eyebrow to the corner of the mouth, and the eyes were still grey and hard as stones. The only change in him was that his close-cropped hair was no longer black but a grizzled grey and his face was puffier with incipient wattles forming on his neck.

Kennikin and I were both four years older but I think I may have worn better than he had.

FIVE

I put my hand out to the carbine and then paused. The light was bad and getting worse, the gun was strange and it hadn’t the barrel to reach out and knock a man down at a distance. I estimated the range at a shade under three hundred yards and I knew that if I hit anyone at that range and in that light it would be by chance and not by intention.

If I had my own gun I could have dropped Kennikin as easily as dropping a deer. I have put a soft-nosed bullet into a deer and it has run for half a mile before dropping dead, and that with an exit wound big enough to put your fist in. A man can’t do that – his nervous system is too delicate and can’t stand the shock.

But I hadn’t my own rifle, and there was no percentage in opening fire at random. That would only tell Kennikin I was close, and it might be better if he didn’t know. So I let my fingers relax from the carbine and concentrated on watching what was going to happen next.

The arguing had stopped with Kennikin’s arrival, and I knew why, having worked with him. He had no time for futile blathering; he would accept your facts – and God help you if they were wrong – and then he would make the decisions. He was busily engaged in making one now.

I smiled as I saw someone point out the tracks of the Land-Rover entering the water and then indicate the other bank of the river. There were no tracks where we had left the water because we had been swept sideways a little, and that must have been puzzling to anyone who hadn’t seen it happen.

The man waved downstream eloquently but Kennikin shook his head. He wasn’t buying that one. Instead he said something, snapping his fingers impatiently, and someone else rushed up with a map. He studied it and then pointed off to the right and four of the men got into a jeep, reversed up the track, and then took off across country in a bumpy ride.

That made me wrinkle my brows until I remembered there was a small group of lakes over in that direction called Gaesavötn. If Kennikin expected me to be camping at Gaesavötn he’d draw a blank, but it showed how thorough and careful he was.

The crew from the other jeep got busy erecting a camp just off the track, putting up tents rather inexpertly. One of them went to Kennikin with a vacuum flask and poured out a cup of steaming hot coffee which he offered obsequiously. Kennikin took it and sipped it while still standing at the water’s edge looking across the impassable river. He seemed to be staring right into my eyes.

I lowered the glasses and withdrew slowly and cautiously, being careful to make no sound. I climbed down from the lava ridge and then slung the carbine and headed back to the Land-Rover at a fast clip, and checked to make sure there were no tyre marks to show where we had left the track. I didn’t think Kennikin would have a man swim the river – he could lose a lot of men that way – but it was best to make sure we weren’t stumbled over too easily.

Elin was asleep. She lay on her left side, buried in her sleeping bag, and I was thankful that she always slept quietly and with no blowing or snoring. I let her sleep; there was no reason to disturb her and ruin her night. We weren’t going anywhere, and neither was Kennikin. I switched on my pocket torch shading it with my hand to avoid waking her, and rummaged in a drawer until I found the housewife, from which I took a reel of black thread.

I went back to the track and stretched a line of thread right across it about a foot from the ground, anchoring each end by lumps of loose lava. If Kennikin came through during the night I wanted to know it, no matter how stealthily he went about it. I didn’t want to cross the river in the morning only to run into him on the other side.

Then I went down to the river and looked at it. The water level was still dropping and it might have been barely feasible to cross there and then had the light been better. But I wouldn’t risk it without using the headlights and I couldn’t do that because they’d certainly show in the sky. Kennikin’s mob wasn’t all that far away.

I dropped into my berth fully clothed. I didn’t expect to sleep under the circumstances but nevertheless I set the alarm on my wrist watch for two a.m. And that was the last thing I remember until it buzzed like a demented mosquito and woke me up.

II

We were ready to move at two-fifteen. As soon as the alarm buzzed I woke Elin, ruthlessly disregarding her sleepy protests. As soon as she knew how close Kennikin was she moved fast. I said, ‘Get dressed quickly. I’m going to have a look around.’

The black thread was still in place which meant that no vehicle had gone through. Any jeep moving at night would have to stick to the track; it was flatly impossible to cross the lava beds in the darkness. True, someone on foot might have gone through, but I discounted that.

The water in the river was nice and low and it would be easy to cross. As I went back I looked in the sky towards the east; already the short northern night was nearly over and I was determined to cross the river at the earliest opportunity and get as far ahead of Kennikin as I could.

Elin had different ideas. ‘Why not stay here and let him get ahead? Just let him go past. He’d have to go a long way before he discovered he’s chasing nothing.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We know he has two jeeps, but we don’t know if he has more. It could happen that, if we let him get ahead, we could be the meat in a sandwich and that might be uncomfortable. We cross now.’

Starting an engine quietly is not easy. I stuffed blankets around the generator in an attempt to muffle that unmistakable rasp, the engine caught and purred sweetly, and I took the blankets away. And I was very light-footed on the accelerator as we drove towards the river. We got across easily, although making more noise than I cared for, and away we went towards the next river.

I told Elin to keep a sharp eye to the rear while I concentrated on moving as fast as possible compatible with quietness. In the next four kilometres we crossed two more rivers and then there was a long stretch where the track swung north temporarily, and I opened up. We were now far enough away from Kennikin to make speed more important than silence.

Sixteen rivers in sixty kilometres, Elin had said. Not counting the time spent in crossing rivers we were now averaging a bone-jarring twenty-five kilometres an hour – too fast for comfort in this country – and I estimated we would get to the main Sprengisandur track in about four hours. It actually took six hours because some of the rivers were bastards.

In reaching the Sprengisandur track we had crossed the watershed and all the rivers from now on would be flowing south and west instead of north and east. We hit the track at eight-thirty, and I said, ‘Breakfast. Climb in the back and get something ready.’

‘You’re not stopping?’

‘Christ, no! Kennikin will have been on the move for hours. There’s no way of knowing how close he is and I’ve no urgent inclination to find out the hard way. Bread and cheese and beer will do fine.’

So we ate on the move and stopped only once, at ten o’clock, to fill up the tank from the last full jerrycan. While we were doing that up popped our friend of the previous day, the US Navy helicopter. It came from the north this time, not very low, and floated over us without appearing to pay us much attention.

I watched it fly south, and Elin said, ‘I’m puzzled about that.’

‘So am I,’ I said.

‘Not in the same way that I am,’ she said. ‘American military aircraft don’t usually overfly the country.’ She was frowning.

‘Now you come to mention it, that is odd.’ There’s a certain amount of tension in Iceland about the continuing American military presence at Keflavik. A lot of Icelanders take the view that it’s an imposition and who can blame them? The American authorities are quite aware of this tension and try to minimize it, and the American Navy in Iceland tries to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Flaunting military aircraft in Icelandic skies was certainly out of character.

I shrugged and dismissed the problem, concentrating on getting the last drop out of the jerrycan, and then we carried on with not a sign of anything on our tail. We were now on the last lap, running down the straight, if rough, track between the River Thjórsá and the ridge of Búdarháls with the main roads only seventy kilometres ahead, inasmuch as any roads in Iceland can be so described.

But even a lousy Icelandic road would be perfection when compared with the tracks of the Óbyggdir, especially when we ran into trouble with mud. This is one of the problems of June when the frozen earth of winter melts into a gelatinous car trap. Because we were in a Land-Rover it didn’t stop us but it slowed us down considerably, and the only consolation I had was that Kennikin would be equally hampered when he hit the stuff.

At eleven o’clock the worst happened – a tyre blew. It was a front tyre and I fought the wheel as we jolted to a stop. ‘Let’s make this fast,’ I said, and grabbed the wheel brace.

If we had to have a puncture it wasn’t a bad place to have it. The footing was level enough to take the jack without slipping and there was no mud at that point. I jacked up the front of the Land-Rover and got busy on the wheel with the brace. Because of Elin’s shoulder she wasn’t of much use in this kind of job. so I said. ‘What about making coffee – we could do with something hot.’

I took the wheel off, rolled it away and replaced it with the spare. The whole operation took a little under ten minutes, time we couldn’t afford – not there and then. Once we were farther south we could lose ourselves on a more-or-less complex road network, but these wilderness tracks were too restricted for my liking.

I tightened the last wheel nut and then looked to see what had caused a blowout and to put the wheel back into its rack. What I saw made my blood run cold. I fingered the jagged hole in the thick tyre and looked up at the Búdarháls ridge which dominated the track.

There was only one thing that could make a hole like that – a bullet. And somewhere up on the ridge, hidden in some crevice, was a sniper – and even then I was probably in his sights.

III

How in hell did Kennikin get ahead of me? That was my first bitter thought. But idle thoughts were no use and action was necessary.

I heaved up the wheel with its ruined tyre on to the bonnet and screwed it down securely. While I rotated the wheel brace I glanced covertly at the ridge. There was a lot of open ground before the ridge heaved itself into the air – at least two hundred yards – and the closest a sniper could have been was possibly four hundred yards and probably more.

Any man who could put a bullet into a tyre at over four hundred yards – a quarter mile – was a hell of a good shot. So good that he could put a bullet into me any time he liked – so why the devil hadn’t he? I was in plain view, a perfect target, and yet no bullets had come my way. I tightened down the last nut and turned my back to the ridge, and felt a prickling feeling between my shoulder blades – that was where the bullet would hit me if it came.

I jumped to the ground and put away the brace and jack, concentrating on doing the natural thing. The palms of my hands were slippery with sweat. I went to the back of the Land-Rover and looked in at the open door. ‘How’s the coffee coming?’