Land Beyond the Map

The fuel gauge needle still confidently showed that half a gallon or so should be in the tank. But without a sigh or a cough the engine stopped and the car ran gently forward and gradually slowed to a stop.

Even as Crane cursed and jumped out, the leading tank breasted a distant rise behind them. There was one last, desperate, seemingly hopeless chance.

“We can’t run for it!” Polly shouted. “It’s too far! They’d be on us…” For the first time she sounded really scared. Their situation was enough to make the toughest of tough characters drool in fear.

“Come on,” Crane said, and started running for the wrecked truck.

Their footfalls battered the road and their breathing gasped raggedly in straining throats. The gasoline can he remembered seeing lashed to the back of the truck’s side, alongside the suitcases stuffed with diamonds, beckoned. If the heat that had burned the diamonds had not touched the can… He panted up to the truck, wiped his forehead, took a couple of quick breaths, then unlashed the can. He shook it.

“Empty!”

“Oh, Rolley — what can we do? What can we do?”

The clanking monsters bore on remorselessly, nearer.

There was no time for finesse. Crane snatched out his big pocket knife, opened the spike, and, crawling under the truck, found the gas tank. He jabbed savagely with the spike. After half a dozen frenzied blows it went through.

Gasoline spurted out, raw and red and beautiful.

“Black market stuff,” he said. “I might have known.”

He shoved the can under the flow. When it was full he stumbled out, scrabbling on the road, not worrying about the gasoline splashing away to waste. He sprinted back to the car.

“Stay there!” Polly, running behind him, checked at once. Then she went back to the wreck.

Running, he realized with detached amusement that this was the first time she’d heard his parade-ground voice.

His trembling fingers made a hash of opening the Austin’s gas tank cap, then the divine splash of gasoline gurgling into an empty tank reached him. His hands shook and gasoline splashed over the side of the car, rilled to the edge of the mudguard, dripped to the road. He stuck it until half the two-gallon can had been emptied, then raced to the driving seat, propping the can against the passenger seat, and switched off. Hood up, priming pump, thump up and down, the clank of treads in his ears like the trump of doom, race back to the driving seat, switch on, starter…

The starter whirred. Whirred again. The engine caught — and died… Starter again, whirr, whirr, whirr… Then the engine caught and held and he slammed into gear and moved forward. The mirror showed him the leading monster a scant twenty yards away. The tires spun.

He slithered to a stop beside Polly.

“Jump!” he shouted. They were racing forward again. “This petrol by rights should have evaporated in the years the truck’s been here. You must be right. Time doesn’t function here.”

“Hurry, Rolley! Hurry!”

He hurled the car along the road, the accelerator banged to the floorboards and the clangor of the tracks behind began to fade. Yes, he began to think with tremulous hope, yes, they’d make it. He even began to look ahead, such was the elation of relief filling his brain, to the stories they might or might not tell about this mad escapade. And, there were always the gems…

A light outrivaling the sun grew in the air. Shadows wavered and then fleeted all together away from a blinding spot somewhere above the car. Polly shouted. Crane twisted to see but the car roof obscured his vision — a part of his mind recognized his luck — light of that intensity would blind him.

“Don’t look up!” he shouted.

The car lurched and careened from side to side, tires screeching. He was flung cruelly against the door, his wrists cracking hard on the wheel. More pieces of glass dislodged and fell with a tinkle lost in the bedlam. A tire blew. The car slewed right around with a sickening sensation of loss of control, skidded backwards, vibrating, then toppled in a clangorous crunch into the ditch. The hood pointed at the sky. One wheel still revolved.

And Crane and Polly, unhurt, cowered in their seats as the fiery glow smote upon them. For a heartbeat that might have lasted an eternity nothing happened. Crane risked cracking one eyelid. The light still beat strongly, still coruscated powerfully so that his eyes watered; but he could see enough to chance a quick slither to the road. He hunkered in the shadow of the wrecked car. In quick lurid glimpses he tried to make out what was happening. The first and most important was the sight of the leading tank bearing down on him with arms outstretched, its vermilion hide glistening in the glow. Big grapnel-like jaws swung purposefully. He reached for a grenade, feeling the heat of the metal, and tossed it as well as he could.

The blast fell short of the charging tank.

Panic clawed at Crane. He had to get out of here, fast. “Polly! You can risk half-opening your eyes now. Come on. We’ve got to run for it.”