He turned it off. Alexander got behind the wheel and feverishly tugged at the gearshift.
It did not move, and the muscles in McAuliff's stomach tensed; he felt his hands trembling.
From out of a boyhood past, long, long forgotten, came the recall. There was an old car in an old garage; the gears were always sticking.
Start the motor for only an instant.
Off - on. Off - on.
Until the gear teeth unlocked.
He did so. How many times, he would never remember. He would only remember the cold, calm eyes of R. C. Holcroft watching him.
The Pontiac lurched. First into the mound of earth; then, as Alex jammed the stick into R, backward - wheels spinning furiously - over the grass.
They were mobile.
McAuliff whipped the steering wheel into a full circle, pointing the car towards the cement drive. He pressed the accelerator, and the Pontiac gathered speed on the soft grass in preparation for its jarring leap over the kerb.
Four seconds later they sped through the stone gates.
And Alexander turned right. East. Back towards Miranda Hill.
He knew Holcroft was stunned; that did not matter. There was still no time for explanations, and the Englishman seemed to understand. He said nothing.
Several minutes later, at the first intersecting road, McAuliff jumped the light and swung left. North. The sign read 'CORNICHE ANNEX.'
Holcroft spoke.
'You're heading towards the shore road?'
'Yes. It's called Gloucester: It goes through Montego and becomes Route One.'
'So you're behind the Dunstone car... the Mercedes.'
'Yes.'
'And may I presume that since the last word' - here Holcroft held up the transistorized walkie-talkie - 'any of them received was from that park, there's a more direct way back to it? A faster way?'
'Yes. Two. Queen's Drive and Corniche Road. They branch off from Gloucester.'
'Which, of course, would be the routes they would take.'
'They'd better.'
'And naturally, they would search the park.'
'I hope so.'
R. C. Holcroft pressed his back into the seat. It was a gesture of temporary relaxation. Not without a certain trace of admiration.
'You are a very apt student, Mr McAuliff.'
'To repeat myself, it's a rotten school,' said Alexander.
They waited in the darkness, in the overgrowth at the edge of the field. The crickets hammered out the passing seconds. They had left the Pontiac miles away on a deserted back road in Catherine Mount and walked to the farm on the outskirts of Unity Hall. They had waited until nightfall before making the last few miles of the trip. Cautiously, shelter to shelter; when on the road, as far out of sight as possible. Finally using the tracks of the Jamaica Railway as their guideline.
There had been a road map in the glove compartment of the automobile, and they studied it. It was maddening. Most of the streets west of Montego proper were unmarked, lines without names, and always there were the alleys without lines. They passed through a number of ghetto settlements, aware that the inhabitants had to be sizing them up - two white men without conceivable business in the area. There was profit in an assault on such men.
Holcroft had insisted that they both carry their jackets, their weapons very much in evidence in their belts.
Subalterns crossing through hostile colonial territory, letting the nigger natives know they carried the magic firesticks that spat death. Ludicrous.
But there was no assault.
They crossed the Montego River at Westgate; a half-mile away were the railroad tracks. They ran into an itinerant tramp enclave - a hobo camp, Jamaica-style - and Holcroft did the talking.
They were insurance inspectors for the company; they had no objections to the filthy campsite so long as there was no interference with the line. But should there be interference the penalties would be stiff indeed.
Ludicrous.
Yet no one bothered them, although the surrounding black eyes were filled with hatred.
There was a tiny freight pickup at Unity Hall. A single platform with two wire-encased light bulbs illuminating the barren site. Inside the weather-beaten rain shelter was an old man drunk on cheap rum. Painstakingly they elicited enough information from him for McAuliff to get his bearings. Vague, to be sure, but enough to determine the related distances from the highway, which veered inland at Parish Wharf, to the farm district in the southwest section.
By 9.30 they had reached the field.
Now, Alex looked at his watch. It was 10.30.
He was not sure he had made the right decision. He was only sure that he could not think of any other. He had recalled the lone farmhouse on the property, remembered seeing a light on inside. There