Cry Wolf

Her chin came up, and new colour flooded into her cheeks her hand shook

as she pointed up between the peaks.

"Yes," she cried. "Yes, I've got a better idea. Look! Oh, won't "you

look!" The tiny blue aircraft caught the sun as it banked in steeply,

turning in under the rearing granite cliffs, and it flashed like a

dragonfly in flight.

"Italian?" Gareth stared up at it.

"No! No! Vicky shook her head. "It's Lij Mikhael's plane.

I recognize it. It came to fetch him here before." She was laughing

almost hysterically, her eyes shining. "He said he would send it,

that's what he was trying to tell me before he was cut off."

"Where will it land?" Gareth demanded, and Vicky scrambled down into

the driver's compartment to direct him towards the polo field beyond

the burned and still smoking town.

They watched anxiously, all of them except Gregorius, standing on the

edge of the open field close beside the bulk of the car, all their

heads craning to watch the little blue aircraft circle.

"What the hell is he doing? "Jake demanded angrily. "The Eyeties will

be here before he makes up his mind."

"He's nervous," Gareth guessed. "He doesn't know what the hell is

going on down here. From where he is, he can see the town has been

destroyed, and he can probably see the tanks and the trucks following

us down from the gorge." Vicky turned from them and ran back to the

car; she climbed up on to the turret and stood high, waving both arms

above her head.

On the next circuit the little blue Puss Moth dropped lower, and they

could see the pilot's face in the side window of the cockpit peering

down at them. He banked steeply over the smoking remains of the town,

with the lower wing pointing directly at the earth and then he came

back at them, this time only ten feet above the field.

He was staring at Vicky, and with a lift of her heart she recognized

the same young white pilot as had flown Lij Mikhael. He recognized her

at the same instant, and she saw him grin and lift a hand in salute as

he flashed past.

As he came out of his next turn, he was lined up on the field for his

landing and he touched down and taxied tail-up to where they stood.

As the light aircraft rolled to a halt, they crowded up to the cabin

door. The wash of the propeller buffeted them savagely and the pilot

slid back the pane of his window and shouted above the noise of his

engine.

"I can take three small ones or two big ones." Jake and Gareth

exchanged a single brief glance and then Jake jerked the cabin door and

roughly they thrust the two girls into the tiny cramped cabin.

"Hold it," Gareth shouted into the pilot's ear. "We've got another

small one for you." They carried Gregorius between them, trying to be

as gentle as haste would allow. The pilot was already turning the

machine into the wind and they staggered after it lifting the boy's

body into the open door as it was moving.

"Jake-"Vicky shouted, and her eyes were wild with grief.

"Don't worry," Jake shouted back, as they tumbled Greg.

onus across the girls" laps. "We'll get out just remember I

love you."

"I love you, too," Vicky called back, and her eyes swam with bright

tears. "Oh Jake-" He was struggling to close the cabin door,

ru

take-off, but one of Gregorius's feet was holding it open. Jake

stopped to free the foot, and rifle-fire snapped past his head, and

twanged into the canvas fabric of the fuselage.

He looked up in time to see the next shot star the side window of the

cockpit and then go on to strike the young pilot in the temple,

killing him instantly, and knocking his body sideways so that it hung

drunkenly out of the seat, held only by the shoulder straps.

The aircraft slewed sideways at the loss of control, and Jake saw

Vicky reach over the pilot's body and close the throttle, but he was

turning away and ru

More rifle-fire kicked up spurts of dust around them as they ran.

"Where are they? "he shouted at Gareth.

"On the left." Jake twisted his head and glimpsed the Italians in the

scrub and grass two hundred yards away on the edge of the field.

Beyond them was parked the transport that had carried them ahead of the

lumbering tank formation.

Priscilla's engine was still ru

for the riflemen in the grass. Above him, a qUIC Gareth fired the

Vickers and the Italians jumped up and ran like rabbits.

One quick pass scattered them and a burst of Vickers fire exploded the

transport in a dragon's breath of flame, and then Jake swung the car

back to where the little blue aircraft stood forlornly on the edge of

the field. He parked the tall steel hull close beside her to screen

her from Italian snipers.

Sara and Vicky between them had dragged the pilot's body out of the

cockpit. He was a big man, heavy in the shoulder and belly, and the

blood oozed from the bullet hole in his temple into the thick mop of

his hair as he lay on his back in the short grass under the wing.

Vicky turned away from him and scrambled up into the cockpit settling

herself behind the controls.

"Jesus!" said Jake, relief shining on his face. "She said she could

fly." A . rifle bullet spranged against Priscilla's hull and went

wailing away over their heads.

Gareth glanced down at the pilot's body. "He was a big one, poor

beggar."

"There's room for one more now," Vicky shouted from the cockpit; "with

both of you we'd never make it over the mountains," and they saw what

torture the words caused her.

Another bullet clanged against steel. "We can take only one more."

"Spin you for it." Gareth had the silver Maria Theresa on his thumb

and he gri

"Heads," said Jake and it spun silver in the sunlight and Gareth caught

it in the palm of his good hand and glanced at Jake..

"It had to come your turn at last." Gareth's grin lifted the corners

of his mouth. "Well done, old son. off you go." But Jake caught the

wrist, and twisted it. He glanced at the coin.

"Tails," he snapped. "I always knew you were a cheat, you bastard,"

and he turned away towards Vicky. "I'll cover the take-off,

Vicky, I'll keep Priscilla between you and the Eyeties as long as I

can." Behind him, Gareth stooped and picked up a stone the size of a

gull's egg out of the grass.

"Sorry, old son," he drawled. "But I owe you two already," and

tenderly he tapped Jake above the right ear with the stone held in the

cup of his hand, and then dropped the stone and caught him under the

armpits as his legs sagged and he began to collapse.

He put his knee under Jake's backside and with a heave boosted him

headfirst and unconscious through the cabin door. Then he put his foot

on Jake's protruding posterior and thrust him farther into the cramped

cabin until he could slam and lock the door.

Rifle-fire pounded and crashed against the screening hull of

Priscilla. Gareth reached into his inside pocket and pulled out the

pigskin wallet. He dropped it through the side window into Vicky's lap