Free Knife Edge (2004) by Douglas Reeman

noise. He licked his lips: bone dry. Then he raised the glasses. If Piggott said a single word . . . He pictured the marine who had whispered the warning . . . His name
was
Ellis. Young, keen-eyed. Good record. So why the bullshit?
    He held the glasses absolutely still. The ridge, one of several, was directly ahead, the nearest channel appearing around its lowest edge like a ribbon of black glass. Unmoving as yet. But in a few more minutes . . .
    Just a small movement, like a shadow. The sound came from the same direction. Then Ellis said softly, with surprise and disbelief, “Not goats, Sarge!”
    Piggott snapped, “Do I have to guess?”
    Steve Blackwood panned the glasses slightly from side to side, but the tiny, magnified image remained fixed in his mind.
    He said, “Children. Two, maybe three. Coming down the slope from the ridge.” His voice was unemotional.
    Who were they? Where had they come from? He could feel Piggott fuming. Perhaps he was right after all.
    The sea was much brighter, pale green and shark-blue, the current visible now in the light. The ridge remained hard and dark against the dawn. He tried again, holding his breath. Two small children walking hand in hand, girls or boys he could not tell. A slightly older child, a girl with long, black hair, walked just behind them. Somethingglinted in her hand and he heard the sound again. Like a necklace of seashells. He had seen them in the bazaars. Toys, or indeed for goats, to help their owners find them in a hurry.
    Piggott stood up and said, “I’ll soon put a bloody stop to this nonsense. You can think what you damn well like!”
    He threw his leg over the loose rocks and swung down toward the steep slope.
    A shift of light, tension, instinct; there was no room for thought.
    He shouted, “Get
down
, man!”
    It was all he could do to hold the glasses steady, fixed on the two children. Not laughing or playing but staring ahead. Small, frightened faces.
Staring at me.
And not holding hands. Their wrists were tied together.
    He heard the binoculars hit the ground, then he was up and over the same rocks, leaping and almost falling as he burst from cover.
    He saw a marine staring at him, another dragging back the cocking lever of his automatic rifle. Piggott, taken by surprise, had half turned, lost his balance and sprawled headlong among some boulders.
    None of it seemed important. He saw the two children, their mouths open in unheard screams, pulling away from each other but trapped by the lashing around their wrists. Of the girl with the shells there was no sign.
    There were flashing lights, but not reflected sun. He heard the sudden rattle of gunfire, felt invisible fingers clutching at his clothing as he charged down the slope. Part of his brain recorded that the bullets had ripped past him only inches away.
    He threw himself down, his arms around the children so that they all rolled gasping into a narrow gulley.
    He heard a voice yell, “
Open fire!
” and imagined he heard the rapid fire directly overhead.
    The voice had been his own.
    A marine flopped down beside him, pausing to fire two shots while another ran past, reloading as he ducked halfway down the slope. There was no sign of Piggott.
    Steve Blackwood waited for his breathing to steady, and realized that he had been hugging the children, and that they were quite still, their dark eyes staring up at him, too terrified to move.
    “Near thing, Sarge.” It was Ellis. “How did you know?”
    “Saw something like it once before.” He tried to moisten his lips; they felt like leather. “Used some kids to flush out any opposition. Nearly worked, too.”
    Ellis rolled on his side, his eyes on the ridge, still dark against the first rays of sunlight. “The whole bloody island will know by now!” Surprisingly, he grinned. “Good thing you’re around, Sarge!”
    The channel was alive, still partly in shadow, but the rest was moving. You would get more than your knees wet in it now . . .