His face was pale. 'Wyvern has a contract. You can't do that.'

'Can't I? Go ahead and sue the company; you'll be stripped naked in public. Christ, man, the transformer is worth ten times as much as the rig and yet I'm prepared to drop it like hot coal if it hinders getting the men out alive. I can order you to leave the rig and I'm doing it. In writing, if you like. I take full responsibility.'

He couldn't find words for a moment. He was outraged, but perhaps at himself as much as at me. He had seen the chasm under his feet: the moment when a man puts property before life is a crisis point, and as a normally ethical man he had realized it.

'Come on, Basil.' I softened. 'I do understand, but you've got to see reason. Damn it, British Electric will have to make good if you abandon your rig on my say-so. You'd have your money back in spades one day.'

'Of course the chaps' lives come first – my own too. It's just that I… I can't get used to the idea of -'

'Leaving it to rot? Of course not. But war does funny things to men and equipment alike, assuming there is going to be a war. And we dare not assume otherwise. Think again.'

He sat silent, pale and shaken. Then at last he said, 'All right, if we have to do it, we will. But not unless we absolutely must, you hear me?'

'Of course not. And in any case, you don't have to throw it off a mountain top, you know. Just park it in some nice layby and you can come and pick it up when the shooting's over.'

He gave me a wan smile.

'I'd like to drive back to the rig,' he said. 'I want a word with Ben. And we could do with something to eat.' It was a truce offering, and I accepted.

The rig was crawling along into the growing heat of the day, moving so slowly that it disturbed relatively little dust. Strung out ahead and behind were the rest of the convoy and the military vehicles. There was a timeless, almost lulling atmosphere to the whole scene, but I wondered how much of it I could take. The rig drivers must be specially trained in patience and endurance.

Kemp signalled the chuck wagon out of line and Bishop started a brew up and a dispensing of doorstep sandwiches. My hired car had suddenly come into its own as a delivery wagon, to Kemp's pleasure freeing the Land Rover from that chore. 'We'll keep this car on,' he said. 'We should have had an extra one all along.'

'I'm sure Avis will be delighted.'

Sadiq reported that he had sent scouts ahead to find out how things were on the Kodowa road. He had stationed a similar escort well behind the convoy lest anything else should come up from the direction of the bridge. He was working hard and doing quite well in spite of the unexpected pressures.

Over tea and sandwiches Hammond and Kemp had a long conversation which seemed to be entirely technical, something to do with the rig's performance since the air bags had been removed. It wasn't a major problem but one of those small hitches which enthrall the minds of technicians everywhere. Presently Kemp said that he wanted to drive alongside the rig for a while, to watch her in action, and invited me to join him.

Just as we were starting we heard a whisper from the air and looked up to see the contrails of jets flying northwards high up. There were several of them, not an unusual sight, and nobody mentioned it. But our eyes followed them thoughtfully as they vanished from sight.

The rest of that morning moved as slowly as though the mainspring of time itself had weakened. We were entering the foothills of the escarpment which separated the scrubland from the arid regions ahead, and there were a series of transverse ridges to cross so that the road rose and dipped like a giant roller coaster. We would crawl up a rise to find a shallow valley with the next rise higher than the last. At the crest of every rise the dim, blue-grey wall of the escarpment would become just that little more distinct. Kemp now had three tractors coupled up to haul on the hills and control the speed on the down slopes. When he got to the escarpment proper he would need all four.

Curiously enough the vegetation was a little lusher here and the country seemed more populous. There was a village every mile or so and a scattering of single huts in between. The huts were made of grass thatched with palm leaves, or double walls of woven withies filled with dried mud. If one burnt down or blew over it could be replaced in a day.

The villagers grew corn, which the British called maize, and sweet potatoes, and scrawny chickens pecked among the huts. They herded little scraggy goats and cows not much bigger, and thin ribby dogs hung about looking for scraps. The people were thin too, but cleanly clothed and with a certain grave dignity. They lined the route to watch us go by, clearly awed and fascinated but not in a holiday mood. In one village a delegation took Sadiq away to talk to their headman, and the men of the village seemed a little threatening towards the troops. No women or children were to be seen which was unusual.

Sadiq came back with bad news. 'Hussein's battalion went through here very fast and a child was killed. Nobody stopped and the people are all very angry.'

'My God, that's awful.' Suddenly Kemp looked much more as though he believed in our talk of civil war. I thought of what Napoleon had said about eggs and omelettes, but people weren't eggs to be smashed. If there were much of this sort of thing going on there would be scant support from the rural populace for either side, not that the local people had any say in what went on.

Kemp asked if we could do anything to help, but was told that it would be best to keep going. 'They know it wasn't you,' Sadiq said. 'They do not want you here but they have no quarrel with you. You cannot help their grief.'

We moved out again to catch up with the rig and I asked to ride with Sadiq. I had some more questions to ask him, and this seemed like a good moment. As we pulled away I began with an innocuous question. 'How come there are so many people living here? There seem to be more than at the coast.'

'It is healthier country; less fever, less heat. And the land is good, when the rains come.'

Then the radio squawked and Sadiq snatched up the earphones and turned up the gain. He listened intently, replied and then said to me, 'Something is happening up the road. Not so good. I'm going to see. Do you want to come?'

'I'd like to.' I hadn't the slightest desire to go hurtling into trouble, but the more I could learn the better.

He eased out of the line and barrelled up the read-Behind us his sergeant crouched over the earphones though I doubt that he could have heard anything. Several miles ahead of the place where Kemp and I had previously stopped and turned I back we came across one of Sadiq's troop trucks parked just below the top of a rise; the motorcyclists were there too. The corporal who headed the detachment pointed along the road, towards a haze of smoke that came from the next valley or the one beyond.

'A bush fire, perhaps?' I asked. But I didn't think so. 'Perhaps. My corporal said he heard thunder in the hills an hour ago. He is a fool, he said he thought the rains were coming early.'

'No clouds.'

'He has never heard gunfire.'

'I have. Have you?' I asked. He nodded.

'I hope it is not Kodowa,' he said softly. 'I think it is too near for that. We shall go and see.' He didn't mention the planes we'd all seen earlier.

We went off fast with the cyclists about a mile ahead and the truck rattling along behind. There was nothing abnormal in the next valley but as we climbed the hill a cyclist came roaring back. Sadiq heard what he had to say and then stopped below the crest of the hill. He went back to the truck and the men bailed out, fanning into a line.

He signalled to me and I followed him as he angled off the road, running through the thick scrub. At the top of the ridge he bent double and then dropped flat on his belly. As I joined him I asked, 'What is it?'