A shatteringclang, the Mitchell wrenched and swerving wildly, and then racing away a few feet above the grass, filled with a terrible tearing shudder that wouldn't go away. We just lifted over the line of palms at the edge of the field.

Luiz was shouting, but so was I. The airspeed was down to 100 – or something: the needles on every instrument were shaking wildly with the shudder. Whatever it was, it was the Mitchell's death-rattle.

I over-rode Luiz's voice. 'Get out of the nose! '

We skimmed a small rise and then the ground fell away and ahead was the grey glitter of the sea. Luiz appeared at my elbow, scrambled into the co-pilot seat and plugged in his headset.

'What happened?' he yelled.

'Bust or bent the port prop – hit the Vamp or something. Come off the wing in a moment. Strap yourself in. What happened to the Vamp?'

'It ran through the boundary fence.'

I was fighting the shuddering controls, and should have cut the port engine by now – but with the starboard engine likely to cut itself at any time… Then we were over the sea and out to starboard, half a mile away, a long white beach.

Holding my breath, I edged into a turn, and we didn't quite fall out of the sky. Then pushed down full flap, cut the throttles and ignition, and held her off as long as possible -and she flopped on the beach in a long tearing hiss of flying sand.

'SHE did all right, in the end,' I said. And I patted the silver paint below the cockpit window which hid the faded Beautiful Dreamer. Perhaps I should have painted that on again before the raid. She might have liked it.

She would never fly again. She lay on – and in – the sand at the end of a 100-yard trench she'd dug for herself. The propellers were folded right back over the engines, and buried to the hubs in the sand they'd piled up in front. The bomb doors had torn off and lay halfway back down the trench, and for the first time I discovered I'd lost the port wingtip. It must have hit the ground when the prop hit the Vampire.

But she looked oddly restful lying there. Without the hunched, alert look she had had sitting on her wheels. An old lady who had finally got her feet up.

I looked round for Luiz. He was standing beside the nose and lighting a cigarette with hands that shivered just a little. He caught my eye and said: 'You professionals play rough.'

'Aren't you the man who talked about dumping us both in the sea?'

'Ah, I was younger then.'

I started to work out where we were. About six or seven miles west of Santo Bartolomeo, I guessed, with the air base just a little way inland. The beach itself was about six hundred yards long, littered along the tideline with logs and planks tossed up by the waves behind Hurricane Clara. Above, were low, broken cliffs topped by an uncombed tangle of bushes and palms. No buildings in sight.

Luiz asked: 'How far are we from the air base?'

'Couple of miles.'

'Will they come looking for us?'

'They don't necessarily know we're down. They just saw us going away low. We'd have done that anyway.'

'If they get an aeroplane up, they will see us.'

True: we were probably on one of the approaches to theairfield, and the Mitchell would stand out like a coffin at a cocktail party on that white sand.

Luiz said: 'So we had better move.'

'Yes.' I was watching the sky. We'd been down nearly five minutes. A wide-awake base – and that one certainly was, by now – should have had a flight of Vamps up already. If any were still serviceable.

Or was I fooling myself? Should we take the BAR and park just outside at the end of the runway in case anything tried to take off? Or was there a better way still, now I was on the ground?

'The Hotel Colombo,' I said firmly. "Then the civil airport.'

Luiz thought about it, then nodded. 'But of course, we are on the wrong side of town. Jiminez is in the old town, the east.'

'So let's get started.'

'Yes. You see now what I mean about being respectably dressed? We do not look like rebel airmen, I think.' Then he spoiled it by adding: 'But I will take the rifle – just in case the disguise does not work.'

He yanked off the emergency escape hatch in the side of the nose and climbed in for the Browning. I patted the side again – then took out a pencil and scrawled ten quick little aeroplane symbols just below the cockpit. If she hadn't got all ten, it had been my fault, not hers. She'd done all right.

Then we walked away from her.

By six, when the sun finally rose above the clouds over the eastern hills, we'd come perhaps a mile and a half. Along the beach, up the cliffs, then threading through overgrown palm plantations. It was heavy going, still soaked from the rain and scattered with uprooted bushes and blown-down palm fronds. By now we were probably out of danger from any ground patrols sent out from the base, and I hadn't heard any aircraft. But we weren't making much progress.

'At this rate we won't be in town until about nine,' I said.

Luiz stopped, and delicately patted his brow with a handkerchief. He'd taken the hurried going over rough ground well – he must have been nearly fifty, after all – but from now onthe day was going to start hotting up, and he was humping a 15-pound automatic rifle. I had the snake pistol; I had it in my hand, too, but only for snakes.

He said: 'What do you suggest, my friend? That we run?'

'We can go up to the road, or back down to the beach; walking on sand'll be easier than this.'

He looked reproachful. 'Another plot to get my feet wet. On the beach we will be a little obvious – and with no retreat.'

'All right: the road.'

'There, we may be able to borrow a car.' He hefted the Browning expectantly.

'That's not exactly helping the formal dress image,' I growled. 'Throw the damn thing away.'

He frowned. 'When we reach the road, perhaps. But Jiminez could use it,'

'If you're expecting to walk down theavenidasof the west town withthat-'

'It would be quite fashionable, today.'

'One day a year, pheasants suddenly get fashionable, too.'

It took us about a quarter of an hour to zigzag inland and find a road: a straightish, narrowish, newish concrete affair.

I looked up and down it, saw nothing, and asked: 'D'you know where this road leadsthat way?' I nodded west, away from the city.

Luiz just shrugged.

I said: 'It's your country, isn't it?'

'I do not remember every road, my friend. Anyway' – he tapped a neat brown Chelsea boot on the concrete – 'it is new.'

I scowled at the road, then the map. But air maps don't bother much with roads: they aren't usually much use navi-gationally. 'If it's the usual route from the air base to town,' I said, 'it's not going to be healthy for us. But if it's just the coast road…'

He shrugged again. 'We can sit behind a bush and see.'

'We aren't making much progress sitting behind a bush.'

'Quite true.' He lit a cigarette and waited for me to make a decision.

'Ah, hell,' I decided finally, 'we'll risk walking. Throw away that blasted field gun.' I offered him the snake pistol.

Reluctantly, he laid the Browning and two spare magazines down behind a tree, studied the place carefully, then took the pistol and shoved it in his hip pocket. We started walking.

For five minutes nothing happened. Then a car appeared, coming from the city. We hopped behind a bush, but it went past like a scared rabbit. All I could see was the orange roof that labelled it a taxi.

Luiz said thoughtfully: 'The taxi-riding classes are leaving town. That is a good sign.'

We walked on. Ten minutes later I heard another car, coming slower, behind us.

Luiz looked at me. 'Shall we try to beg a ride? Or borrow the car?'