Free Knife Edge (2004) by Douglas Reeman Page B

then curving down toward the edge of the land.
    Irwin was shouting at him, punching his arm, pointing.
    “It’s them!”
    Two figures, one kneeling by some rocks, his beret catching the strengthening sun, the automatic rifle bucking into his shoulder with each carefully aimed shot. The second figure was half submerged, wading into deeper water, into nowhere, staring at the fast-moving boat and the mounting bow wave which must certainly sweep him away, into oblivion.
    The launch was turning slightly, leaning over, the hull gleaming, almost gold now, light glinting on a low cockpit.
    The wading figure had stopped, the sea up to his chest, one hand raised as if he was waving. The second figure stood upright by the rocks, then very slowly pitched forward on to his face. He did not move even as the broken bow wave swept across him, and tossed him aside like a rag doll.
    The man in the water had fallen, and was being swept into the shadows. Perhaps he was also dead.
    Sergeant Boyes was here, his face almost touching, eyes and mouth wide, yelling, the words making no sense.
    “He done it, sir!” He was shaking Ross’s arm. “Lobbed one of his toys right into them!”
    It was not much of an explosion. More like a cough, a sensation. Like the barrel organ in Belfast . . . But there was a growing plume of black smoke, covering the little channel, rising and spreading so that even the sun was blotted out.
    Ross imagined that he felt the launch hit the last spur of rock, the screws churning and thrashing impotently as the hull began to turn turtle, striking the bottom again. And again.
    They were all running, wading into the shallows,ducking as something exploded and hurled pieces of the hull above and among them.
    “Easy now. Easy.” Ross dashed the spray and smoke from his eyes and shielded the sodden figure while they dragged and carried him to safety.
    He was on his knees; held his hand and watched him fighting back. Some one said, “Nothing broken by the looks of it, sir.”
    Another was saying, “The mad, brave bastard!”
    He had known it was Steve Blackwood as soon as he had seen him wading toward the launch. Somebody had produced a clean handkerchief. Ross took it and dabbed away the stains and the vomit around his mouth.
    He realized then that his eyes were open, staring up at him, grappling with shock, memory, recognition.
    He whispered, “Where’s young Ellis?”
    Irwin was here, and gave a quick shake of the head.
    “He was covering me. Wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”
    His head fell back again. Irwin said, “You did well.” He looked around and saw some marines coming down the opposite slope. One was carrying a child in his arms, another was leading a second child by the hand. It was unreal. “You all did.”
    He looked toward the launch, lying half submerged, with only a few wisps of smoke still rising from the battered hull, the twin screws motionless.
    He said, “A job for the divers. They should get the evidence everybody was so mad about.”
    He glanced at the dead marine’s body, covered by a strip of canvas.
    “At a price.”
    He was able to say it without emotion or anger. That could wait.
    Ross stared at the open sea. It had changed colour yet again. Some of the marines were moving along the water’s edge; most of them looked at Ellis’s body as they passed. One paused as if he was going to reach down and touch it, but another pulled him away.
    Ross turned; some one had patted his shoulder as he went down the slope. It could have been any one of them.
    He saw Piggott for the first time. Some of the marines parted to let him through. He could have been invisible.
    Something made him shade his eyes and look toward the sea again. And there was
Taunton
, sharp and pale against the horizon, as if she had never moved, the tiny, diamond-bright wink of her signal lamp as close as the hand patting his shoulder.
    She was probably calling up her sister ship, invisible around the next headland.
    He