Everybody was up early in the dim light before dawn.  I breakfasted with the crew, standing in line at the mess tent.  The food was washed down with hot, strong, sweet, milky tea which tasted coppery and which they called "gunfire."

" 'Gunfire?'" I asked.

"That's what it's called in the British Army.  The Army fights on this stuff, or so I've been told."

I grinned. "If they can stomach this garbage, they'd be ready to face anything."

"It's better than bloody Coca-Cola," someone said, and everybody laughed.

After breakfast there was a great deal of activity.  I went in search of Captain Checnecaiel, and sure enough, I found him sitting in his command car wearing headphones.  He saw me approaching and held up his hand in warning as he scribbled on a notepad that he balanced on one knee.  Then he called to a sergeant who came trotting over.  Checnecaiel took off the headphones and handed them to the sergeant.  Only then did he come around the car to meet me. "Boama ra'lliys, Mr. Drake."

(Chencnecaiel explained to me afterward that 'boama ra'lliys' was Zarmarian for "good morning.")

"And a good morning to you, too, Captain.  Sorry I was in a hurry last night.  Any problems? Mr. Giles says he's very thankful for all your help."

He smiled at that.  "No problems at all, sir," he said, but it was a brushoff.   He looked deeply troubled and abstracted.

The sun was just now rising as I heard the deep whine of Starduster's engines firing up.  A small crowd of curious onlookers had materialized from nowhere and were being pushed back by Checnecaiel's men.  Small boys skylarked about and evaded the soldiers with ease.

I indicated the crowd.  "These people are up early.  Do you have much of this kind of thing?"

"The people, they are always with us." 

I wondered for a moment whether that was an intended parody of a biblical quotation.  He pointed.  "These come from a small village about a mile over there.  They are mere peasants."

One of the military trucks fired up its engine and I watched it pull out.  Mounted on the back was a gun, one of those recoilless types.  The range of those things wasn't particularly great, but they packed a hell of a wallop and could be fired from a light vehicle.  One thing you had to remember was not to stand behind when they fired.  "Nice piece of artillery," I said. "Afghan War surplus?"

Checnecaiel smiled noncommittally. I sensed that he was itching for me to be off.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Captain?"  I wanted to see how far he'd let me go before he pulled rank on me or tried to.  But outside influences had their say instead. 

"Nothing at all, Mr...."

His words were drowned out as 3 jets streaked overhead, making us both start. They were flying low and vanished to the south.  I turned to Checnecaiel and raised my eyebrows.  "They yours?"

"I...do not know," he said.  He tried to play part of the naive innocent, but neither of us were fooled.

I thanked him and walked away, then turned my head to see him already putting on the earphones again.  Maybe he liked hi-fi.

I wanted to relieve myself, so I pushed a little way into a green meadow by the roadside.  It was quite thick, but I came across a kind of channel in the undergrowth and was able to push along quite easily.  What scared me was that it was quite straight. Then I damn near fell down a hole, teetered for a moment on the edge and recovered by catching hold of a branch and running a thorn into my hand. I cursed, then looked at the hole with interest.  It had been newly dug and at the bottom there were marks in the soil.  The spoil from the hole had been piled up around it and then covered with scrub.  If you had to have a hole at all this was one of the more interesting kinds, one I hadn't seen since I was in the army.

I dropped into it and looked back the way I'd come.  The channel I had come along was clearly defined right up to the road edge, where it was screened by the lightest of cover, easy to see through from the shady side.  Captain Checnecaiel was clearly on the ball, a true professional.  This was a hidden machine gun pit with a prepared field of fire which commanded a half-mile length of road.  

Out of curiosity I drummed up what I'd been taught when Uncle Sam tried to make me into a soldier and figured out where Checnecaiel would have put his mortars.  After a few minutes of plunging about in the dirt I came across the emplacement and stared at it thoughtfully.  I didn't know if it was such a good idea because it made Checnecaiel to be a textbook soldier, working by the book.  That's all right, providing the Shamaris haven't read the same book.

When I got back to the Starduster Giles hailed me with some impatience, shading into curiosity.  I was dusty and scratched, and already sweating.

"We're ready move out," he said. "You might want to consider riding with the Starduster's crew.  I'm not your personal chauffeur, sorry to say."

Well, I could hardly blame him for not wanting me to ride with him. He'd have enough to do without answering questions from nosy firemen.

"Hold up," I said. "I noticed Captain Checnecaiel seems to be glued to his radio.  How long has that been going on?"

Giles face darkened with annoyance. "I don't know.  Go ask him, goddamnit!  It's none of my bloody business.  He does his job, I do mine."

"Don't you sense that he's uneasy?" I asked with concern.  Thank God it's not every day I mean a man so deaf to the world around him as Giles. "I don't suppose could tell me anything about those planes?"

"I don't know a goddamn bloody thing about that either!"  Giles annoyance became outright rage.  "Look, Sam, I have to be getting on.  We'll talk some other time---if I feel like it!"   He waved to Spalding, who drove up in the Land Rover, and they were off in a small cloud of beige dust.

During my absence the Starduster, in addition to my car, had moved off, so I accompanied the mess tent cooks to the approach to the bridge where some of the other crewmembers were grouped around.

It was a fascinating scene. The scene was fascinating. Starduster had extended her built-in airlift skirts, the air being rammed into them by her powerful turbines.  They made her look rather funny, taking away the brute masculinity of the thing and giving it the incongruous air of one of those beskirted Greek soldiers you see on guard in Athens (though no doubt Giles, who had been outraged by the bunting in Dunin, saw nothing odd about it).  The skirts practically lifted the Starduster off the pavement, and, if all went according to plan, she would appear to "glide" across the poorly made bridge. All four of her massive wheels would just barely spin.

If Giles was nervous, he gave no indication of it.  He had told the crew what they were to do and how they were to do it.  He was sparing of words but most of this team had worked with him before and needed no instruction.  The Irishman, Duddy, and Nick Spalding and himself were aboard Starduster, so there was no doubt among the others that things were being done right.

"None of the rest of the crew is to be on the bridge until she's clear across," he said.  "And make sure the air doesn't stop flowing into those skirts.  We can't fall on our asses halfway across."  It brought a slight ripple of amusement.

Duddy fired up the turbines and there came a roar from the Starduster as the giant rig started up.  A cloud of dust erupted from beneath her as the loose debris was blown aside by the air blast.  I knew enough not to expect Starduster to become airborne, but she did seem to rise very slightly on her titanium springs as the weight was taken up from the axles and distributed evenly.

The noise was tremendous, and I saw Giles with a microphone close to his lips.  Starduster moved, at first infinitesimally, so that one wasn't sure that she had moved at all, then a very little faster.  Giles was a superb driver: I doubt that many people could have judged so nicely the exact pressure to put on an accelerator in order to shift a four hundred and thirty load so smoothly.

The front wheels of Starduster crossed the bitumen expansion joint which marked the start of the bridge proper.  Giles moved fast from one side of the control cab to the other, looking forwards and backwards to check that the rig's gears were in perfect alignment.

I estimated that Starduster was moving at most a quarter of a mile an hour; it took about six minutes before her whole length was entirely supported by the bridge.  If you were nervous now was the time to hold your breath.  I held mine.

Then above the uproar of the airlift engines and the rush of air I heard a faint yell, and someone tugged at my arm.  I turned and saw Checnecaiel's sergeant, his face distorted as he shouted something at me.  At my lack of comprehension, he pulled my arm again and pointed back along the road leading up to the bridge.  I turned and saw a column of vehicles coming up:  jeeps and motorcycles at the front and the looming, ugly snouted silhouettes of tanks behind them.

I ran towards them with the sergeant alongside me.  As soon as the volume of noise dropped enough to speak and be heard I pulled up and snapped, "Where's Captain Checnecaiel?"

The sergeant threw out his hand towards the river. "On the other side."

"Christ!  Go and get him---fast!"

The sergeant looked dismayed.  "How can I do that?'

"On your feet.  Run! There's room for you to pass.  Wait!  If Mister Giles, if the trail boss sees you, he might stop.  You signal him to carry on.  Like this." I windmilled my arm, pointing forwards, and saw that the sergeant understood what to do.  "Now get the goddamn lead out!"

He turned and ran back towards the bridge.  I carried on towards the armored column, my heartbeat noticeably quicker.  It's not given to many men to stop an army single-handedly, but I'd been given so little time to think out the implications that I acted without thinking it over.  A leading command car braked to a halt, enveloping me in a thick cloud of dust, and an angry voice shouted something in Zarmaraian, or so I thought.  I waved the dust away and shouted, "I'm sorry, I don't understand.  Can you please speak English?"

An officer stood up in the passenger seat of the open command car, leaning over the windshield and looking down at the bridge with unbelieving eyes.  When he turned his gaze on me his eyes were flint hart and his voice gravelly. "Yes, I speak English.  What is going on there?"

"We're taking our unmanned space vehicle across that bridge.  Our destination is the designated launch site in Shamajar."

"Get it off there!"

"That's what we're doing," I said equably.

"I mean move it faster," he shouted again, convulsed with anger.  "We have no time to lose."

"It's moving as fast as it's safe."

"Safe!?" He looked back at his column, then again at me.  "You don't know what that word means, Mister Englishman."  He shouted a string of orders to a motorcyclist who wheeled his bike around and went roaring back up the road.  I watched it stop at the leading tank and saw the tank commander lean down from the turret to listen.  The tank cut out of the column and ground to a rattling halt alongside the command car.  The officer shouted a command and I saw the turret swivel and the barrel of the gun drop slightly.

I was sweating harder now, and drier in the mouth, and I wished to God Checnecaiel would show up.   I looked around hopefully, but of Checnecaiel or any of his military crowd there was no sign.

"Hey, Captain," I shouted, giving him as flattering a rank as possible without knowing for sure.  "What are you doing?  There are four hundred and thirty tons on that bridge."

His face cracked into a sarcastic smiled.  "I will get it to go faster."

I sized him up.  He was obviously immune to reason, so I would have to counter his threat with a bigger one. "Captain, if you put a shell even near Starduster you'll be likely to lose it and the whole bridge with it.  What's more, the Shamaris will accuse your country of breaking the ceasefire, to say nothing of the money your superiors will lose if you destroy that rig.  And, since Major General Ecnacshaiel is personally handling Starduster's wellbeing, I wonder if you'll still even be a soldier when he hears about what you've done."

He looked baffled and then came back with a countermove of his own.  "I will not fire on the bridge. I will fire into the Starduster and the men on the riverbank if that thing does not go faster.  You tell them."

His arm was upraised, and I knew that if he dropped it fast the tank would fire.  I said, "Starduster's in airlift mode.  You'll only make things worse."

"I do not understand 'airlift,' Mr. Englishman."

"Airlift refers to a kind of hovercraft."  Would he understand that?  No matter: at least I could try to blind him with science.  "It's the only way of getting Starduster across the bridge.  You damage her or do anything at all to stop our operation and you'll be stuck here permanently instead of only for the next half-hour.  Unless you've brought your own bridge with you."

His arm wavered uncertainly, and I pressed on. "I think you'd better consult your superior about this. If you lose the bridge, you won't be popular."

He glared at me and then at last his arm came down slowly.  He dropped into his seat and grabbed the microphone in front of him.  The little hairs on the back of my neck lay down as I turned to see what was happening at the bridge.

Checnecaiel's troops had materialized behind our men, but in a loose and nonthreatening order.  They were after all not supposed to protect us from their own side.  Beyond them Starduster still inched her way painfully along as Giles stuck to the job at hand.  Checnecaiel was standing on the running board of one of his own trucks and it roared up the road towards us, smothering me in yet another dust bath on its arrival.  Before it had stopped Checnecaiel had jumped down and made straight for the officer in the command car.

Captain Whoosit was spoiling for a fight and Checnecaiel didn't outrank him, but before a row could develop another command car arrived and from it stepped a man who could only have been the battalion commander, complete with canvas belt and green buckle in the Soviet tradition.

He looked bleakly around him, studied the bridge through binoculars, and then conferred with Checnecaiel, who was standing rigidly at attention.  At one point Mr. Big-stuff asked a question and jabbed a finger towards me.  I approached uninvited as Checnecaiel was starting to explain my presence.  "I can speak for myself, Captain.  Good morning, Colonel.  I'm Sam Drake, for British Aerospace.  That's our rig, Starduster, down there."

He asked no further questions.  I thought that he already knew all about us, as any good commander should. "You must get it out of our way quickly," he said.

"It's moving all the time," I said reasonably.

The Colonel asked, "Does the driver have a radio?"

"Yes, sir," said Checnecaiel.  A pity: I might have said the opposite.

"Talk to him.  Tell him to move faster. Use my radio."

He indicated his own command car, but as Checnecaiel moved to comply I said, "Let me talk to him, Colonel.  He'll accept my instructions easier."

"As you wish, Mr. Drake.  However, I must insist upon listening."

I waited while Checnecaiel got on net with Giles and then took the mike.  "Cliff, this is Sam Drake here.  Do you copy?  Over."

"I copy, Sam.  What the hell's going on back there?  Over."

"Listen and don't speak.  There's an army detachment here which needs to use the bridge urgently.  I assume you're moving at the designated speed.  It'll be necessary for you to increase to the...."

The Colonel interrupted me.  "What is this designated speed?"

"Hold it.  Over. It works out to about one mile per hour, Colonel."  I ignored his stricken face and went on into the mike, "Cliff?  Increase if necessary.  How long do you estimate as of now? Over?"

"Fifteen or twenty minutes.  Over."

Taking his cue, Giles was giving answers only.  He could pick up clues pretty smartly.  There was no such thing as a designated speed and Giles knew this. I went on, "Get it down to no more than fifteen, ten if you can.  Over."

I was praying for an interruption and for once I got lucky.  Checnecaiel's military unit had got restless and several vehicles, including those carrying the guns, started down the road towards us.  The commander turned alertly to see what was going on.  In that moment, with nobody listening except the Colonel's driver, I said with haste, "Giles, if you don't get the hell off that bridge, we'll have shells coming up our ass.  These guys are trigger-happy.  Go man go!  Acknowledge formally.  Over."

It was all I had time for, but it was enough.  The Colonel was back, looking more irritated than ever, just in time to hear Giles's voice saying, "Message received, Sam, and will be acted on.  Going faster.  Out."

I handed the microphone back to the driver and said, "That's it, Colonel.  He'll do the best he can.  You should be on your way in a quarter of an hour.  I'll arrange to hold all the rest of our stuff until you're through."

The muscles around his jaw bunched up and he nodded stiffly, casting a fast glance skywards, and then started snapping orders to his Captain who got busy on the radio.  All down the line there was a stir of activity, and with interest and some alarm I noted that machine guns were sprouting from turret tops, all pointing skywards.  I remembered the jets that had gone over and wondered what the Shamari Minister of the Air Force (or whatever his title might be) Couombelrai was doing just at that moment.  Away in the distance I saw the four barrels of a 70-millimeter AA quickfire rotating.

I said, "Has a new war broken out, Colonel?"

The bastard jumped down my throat.  "I cannot answer that, Mr. Drake.  Go away!  Now!"

It was a severe dismissal, but I wasn't unhappy to get it.  I joined Checnecaiel and we drove back to our ranks.  I passed the word for everyone to remain clear of the bridge and to let the army through, once Starduster was safely on the other side and out of airlift mode.  Everyone was bursting with curiosity and the tension caused by the rig's river passage had noticeably increased, which wasn't surprising.  But I had little to tell them and presently everyone fell quiet, just watching and waiting.

Seventeen minutes later Starduster was clear of the bridge and safe on firm land again.   Things are comparative, and after the bridge even the most friable and potholed road would seem like a doddle, at least for a time.  Starduster's airlift gear automatically retracted and was stowed away in her chassis.  The Colonel came towards us in his staff car.

"Thank you," he said abruptly.  Graciousness was not a quality often found out here and this was the nearest we'd get to it.  He spoke into the mike and is leading motorcycles roared off across the bridge.

I said, "Mind a bit of advice, Colonel?"

He speared me with dark eyes.  "I'm listening."

"That bridge really isn't too safe:  it's been poorly made. I'd space out my tanks crossing it, i f I were you."

He nodded shortly.  "If it will ease your anxiety, Mr. Drake...."

"It will."264Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoDHjGId1X1

He peered at me uncertainly and then signaled to his driver to proceed.  As he drove off already talking into his microphone, I sighed for the days of the mythical Indian smoke signals.  The battalion that followed was mostly armor, tanks and a battery of self-propelling guns, with a few truckloads of infantry for close defense work.  Even as small a unit as a battalion takes up an awful lot of road space and it was twenty dusty minutes before the rearguard had crossed.  I watched them climb the hill on the other side of the river and then said, "Right, you guys.  Let's go and join Starduster, shall we?"

As the crew started crossing the bridge, I turned to Checnecaiel. "And then, Captain, please be good enough to find out from your driver---and then tell me---what the hell is going on out here.  And don't deny that you've had him radio-eavesdropping right from the start.264Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi4ACTtFFdQ

And then for some reason we both glanced quickly skywards.264Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQKDb3JOks8