Suddenly the sound of voices came from the other side of a screen of bushes. Blade dropped fiat on the ground and listened. He heard footsteps, the metallic chink of military equipment, then more voices. One of them had an unmistakable flavor of cockney.

«'E must've 'eaded this way, or, Blooey'd 'ave picked 'im up. «

«Don't know 'bout that,» said the other voice. «If he's running around starkers, he might be a bit off in the head. I'm not going to worry, no matter what Sergeant Bloody Lamb says.»

Blade lay still until both the footsteps and the voices faded away, and for a little longer after that. The hunt was on, that was certain. It sounded as if the army was taking part in it. That made no sense, unless he was in or near some military installation, which didn't seem likely.

In any case, he'd have to turn back, at least for the moment. The bushes and trees ahead made a barrier too thick to push through quickly or quietly. Blade rose to a crouch and began retracing his steps, moving even more quietly than before.

After a hundred yards or so he changed direction again. His new course took him down a gentle slope, heavily overgrown with low shrubs. He was able to keep under cover all the way down the slope, until it suddenly steepened and he found himself standing on the edge of a stream. The stream flowed through a steep-sided gulley nearly eight feet deep. Fifty feet upstream a narrow, whitewashed wooden bridge crossed the gulley.

Crossing the stream looked like a gamble, whichever way he did it. But he didn't seem to have any choice, and he certainly had no time to lose. He carefully scanned every tree and bush and patch of open ground he could see. Then he slipped from the shelter of the last bush and slid down the side of the gulley.

He landed with a faint splash in a slow-moving trickle of cool, muddy water. He crossed it in two steps and began to look for handholds in the bank in front of him. Just one, and he'd be up the bank and back under cover.