Free Narrow Escape (A Spider Shepherd short story) by Stephen Leather Page A

ahead of him.
    He felt no concern at that; they had been sent off at fifteen-minute intervals to prevent anyone playing ‘follow my leader’ and tracking a more able candidate ahead of them, and Shepherd had been one of the last to set off. The other man reached the checkpoint and began to shrug off his bergen, but the instructors waiting there shook their heads and pointed along the ridge to another summit a mile or so away. There was a burst of swearing from the candidate and Shepherd heard his words carried to him on the wind: ‘No, this is the fucking finishing line. I’ve done what I was tasked to do. That’s it!’ After a further angry exchange, the candidate dropped his bergen in the dirt and stormed off down the hill, following a track towards the distant road, a ribbon of tarmac in an ocean of rock and rough moorland.
     The instructors, deadpan, moved the bergen to one side, then stood watching Shepherd as he toiled up the last slope. He was close to exhaustion, fighting to keep his legs moving, but he kept his expression neutral, registering neither surprise nor disappointment as they checked him off on a list and then pointed him towards the next peak. Leaden-legged, his muscles burning with the effort, he plodded on, but had gone only another fifty yards when he heard footsteps running after him. ‘Okay,’ an instructor said. ‘That’s your lot.’ It had been a test, Shepherd realised. Or a dirty trick, depending on your point of view.  ‘There’s a truck waiting in a lay-by at the second grid reference we gave you,’ said the instructor. ‘Do you remember it?’
    Shepherd nodded. He had kept quiet about his near-photographic memory, but even if he hadn’t remembered the grid reference he wouldn’t have admitted it, for forgetting it would have meant an automatic RTU - Return To Unit, thrown off the Selection course. He hesitated for a moment, uncertain if he had passed or failed, but there was no answer to be read in the instructor’s inscrutable expression - he merely turned and jogged back up to the top to await the next candidate toiling up the slope.
    Shepherd checked his map and then moved off the summit plateau, beginning the long descent following a sheep trail winding away down the hillside. He reached the road almost an hour later and found a truck parked up. There was no sign of the other man, who had either ignored the RV or had already been whisked away.
    Shepherd shrugged his bergen off his shoulders and used the last of his strength to hoist it into the back of the truck. He hauled himself up after it, lay down at the front and, with the soldier’s ingrained knack of grabbing rest at any opportunity, he was asleep almost at once.
    Over the next couple of hours, the remaining candidates appeared, or those of them still standing, anyway. Three more men were missing. They had gone through all the other stages, but had failed at this final hurdle, either dropping out themselves or being thrown out by the instructors. Those who had survived the test clambered into the truck one by one and slumped down, most of them too exhausted to speak. McKay worked his way to the front of the truck and sat down alongside Shepherd. ‘What do you reckon?’ he said. He’d lived in England since he was five, but his accent still carried a hint of Northern Irish brogue. ‘Have we passed or what?’
     ‘No idea,’ Shepherd said. ‘As far as I know, I did nothing wrong, but they sometimes seem to chuck blokes off for no apparent reason, so I’m not counting on anything just yet.’ He fell silent as one of the instructors appeared at the tailgate of the truck. ‘You’re done,’ said the instructor, a sergeant in his mid-forties. ‘You’ll find out tomorrow whether you’re in or on your way to Platform 4.’  All of them now knew that it was an SAS in-joke, shorthand for being RTU’d. Although there still was a Platform 4 at Hereford Station, no trains had departed from it for years, but