Free French Leave by Elizabeth Darrell Page A

loss of the best mate I ever had.’
    Max understood his outrage. ‘How did you react to that?’
    Suddenly recalling who Max was, Mason said sharply, ‘I never laid a finger on him. I chucked his gifts on the floor and stamped on them, told him never to come near me again.’ He took a deep breath. ‘All right, I grabbed him by his T-shirt and slammed him against the wall while I told him. That’s all .’
    â€˜Did he get the message then?’
    Mason nodded. ‘He tried it on with others after that. Giving them stuff; hanging around listening to private conversations, then passing on what he heard to others. He was a real creepy bastard.’
    â€˜Disliked by everyone in the platoon?’
    â€˜Just about.’
    â€˜No one was upset by his disappearance, then?’
    â€˜I guess not.’
    â€˜So no one looked too hard for him when Lieutenant Farley mounted a search.’
    Recognizing the trap at the last minute, Mason said, ‘The Redcaps haven’t found him, even with dogs. He wasn’t out there, sir. He’d legged it at the start of the assault. None of us had any doubts.’
    Dan Farley had fully equipped himself for the job. Loose, light-coloured clothes, plenty of bottled water, fleshy fruit and energy bars, a compass, a map, his state-of-the-art mobile phone and a survival pack. Finally, not least in importance, a sun hat. Now he was actively doing something he felt much better.
    Trish’s call yesterday had boosted his confidence; restored his natural ability to be decisive, take action, seek a resolution. She had abruptly ended the conversation on hearing about Afghanistan, but when they met he would banish her fears. She wanted him enough to make the call and plead for a resumption of their heady affair. Making up would be stimulating and memorable, he knew, and it would happen as soon as he could organize leave. First, he must satisfy himself that he had done all he could to find John Smith.
    The man who’d brought the quad bike on a trailer had been waiting for him, and had agreed to Dan’s request that he return for it on receiving a phone call from him. Having driven these vehicles over wild ground for fun with friends, Dan was familiar with what they could do and set off as soon as he had secured his equipment to it.
    It was now five hours into the search and the heat was getting to him. Not bothering to cover the ground over which the last assault had been made, Dan had marked his map of the entire military exercise ground into six squares and began tackling each in turn. His watch, in addition to the position of the sun, told him it was noon. The hottest time of the day. He had only covered two of the squares so far, but he knew he must take another break. The ground appeared to be moving as in a mirage, and his command over the vehicle was growing erratic.
    Beneath his small, three-cornered tent he drank water, then poured some slowly over his head. Then he ate several energy bars, some dates and two oranges. With another slurp of water he swallowed salt tablets. He then set the alarm on his watch for an hour hence, lay back, and closed his eyes. Rest during the height of the day; move when it’s cooler . Both his father and grandfather had instilled that piece of wisdom in him from boyhood. An hour’s rest now would be worth two of activity later in the day. He dozed.
    There was a deafening crash; the earth shook. Dan shot upright, pulse racing. His first thought was that night had fallen. His second that he was liable to lose his small shelter, which was flapping wildly and tugging at the pegs he had only pushed by hand into the dry, dusty earth. It took just seconds to identify a major storm, and act.
    Scrambling from the tent he swiftly pushed everything beneath it, then took a mallet from his pack and hammered at the tent pegs. It was a race against time, because the wind was growing more and more ferocious and the gusts