A COFFIN FROM HONG KONG

I rolled into the thick grass on the side of the path as yet another rifle shot cracked in the still air. This time he nearly nailed me. The bullet zipped past my head alarmingly close.

Sweating, my heart thumping, I kept moving, rolling over, trying to dig myself into the hard ground. I finally came up against a large rock, and with speed, close to panic, I slid around it and lay flat and waited.

Nothing happened and I began to calm down a little. Whoever was shooting at me was up on the hill. He was probably using a telescopic sight. From the sound of the rifle shot, he was a good quarter of a mile away.

I cursed myself for not bringing my .38, but I was wearing a short sleeved shirt and a pair of slacks: no outfit for carrying a gun. He knew where I was. All he had to do was to wait for me to show. Very cautiously, I lifted my head to look behind me to plan an escape route. A rifle cracked and a bullet flicked past my face. I flatttened out.

There were two of them! The last shot had come immediately behind me. The sniper was closer than the other one . . . too damn close!

They must know by the clothes I was wearing I wasn’t armed There was nothing to stop them now they knew they had missed me with their opening shots to come down and make sure they didn’t miss.

I looked at my strap watch. The time was twenty minutes past five. Would Stella come to meet me when I didn’t show at the pier? Suppose she walked into these two? Would they kill her as they were trying to kill me?

I started a slow crawl away from the rock. My combat training was still alive in my mind. I slid through the long grass, snakelike, moving downhill. After five minutes of careful manoeuvring.

I was a hundred feet from where I had been. Then, inch by inch, I lifted my head to try to see where I was.

The hiss of the bullet by my face and then the crack of the rifle made me flatten into the ground. These two were either smarter than I thought they were or I was a lot less good as an infantry man.

I slowly shifted my position. It was as well that I did. Another shot cracked the silence and a bullet zunked into the earth just where I had been lying. I told myself it was a lucky shot. The guy had fired at where he imagined I was, but it was far too close for comfort.

I moved farther to my right, then I saw the long grass ceased to exist. Another four feet ahead of me would bring me to barren rocky ground which dipped sharply to a slope, probably to the side of the hill, running down into a valley.

I lay listening and waiting. I heard nothing. Without raising my head, I could see nothing.

I did the Indian trick of putting my ear down on the ground and listening intently. For several minutes I still heard nothing, then I heard him. I guessed he was about fifty yards to my right. He was crawling towards me, hidden in the long grass and he would be on me pretty soon if I didn’t do something about it.

I tried to judge just where he was, but that wasn’t possible. At least I knew from which direction he was coming. I waited a minute longer, then feeling naked and pretty scared, I rose out of the grass with a quick jinking movement, jumping first right, then left to throw the other joker’s aim off. I was aware of a distant crack of a rifle shot. The bullet went wide by yards. I saw a movement in the grass six yards from me and I started for it.

A Chinese, wearing a blue coat and trousers with a baggy black cap rose out of the grass and grinned at me. He was small, thin and wiry. The sun flashed on the knife he held in his hand. I didn’t give him a chance to get set. I dived for him, my right hand groping for the knife hand, my left hand for his throat.

I hit him in the chest with my shoulder and we went down into the high grass with a bone shaking impact. I had his wrist and him by the throat. He tried to get his fingers into my eyes, but I slammed the top of my head into his face. I heard him grunt. He didn’t stand a chance. He was half my weight and half my strength. I got the knife away from him, then I fastened both hands around his throat. He squirmed under me, but not for long. I squeezed into his skinny throat until I saw his eves roll up and felt him go limp. Panting a little, I heaved myself off him, keeping flat, wondering if the other joker was on his way down.

I waited some minutes until the Chinese began to move. I crawled around him and sat him up by shoving against his shoulder blades, but keeping flat myself. His cap had fallen off in the struggle. From where the sniper lay my man could have been me and that’s what the sniper thought or maybe he didn’t care. A rifle cracked and suddenly my man’s face was a mask of blood. It was good shooting. I let the limp body drop back into the grass, then I crawled backwards until I was about fifteen yards from the body.