The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller by Peter May (learn to read books .TXT) 📕

bullets. The need to conserve ammunition. Slattery crossed himself. An instinct from a long-forgotten past. But neither he nor the others spoke, and they moved on in silence.

They were almost two-thirds of the way across when Slattery slipped, the soft earth of the path falling away under his feet, and tumbled into the mud below the film of brackish water. He cursed under his breath and spat out a mouthful of sludge. Elliot and McCue reached out hands to pull him out. But something had snagged on his backpack. He turned to shake himself free and saw a half-decayed hand clutching his shoulder. He let out an involuntary yell and thrashed about to try and get away, bumping into arms and legs and bloated heads, decaying skulls grinning in the mud.

‘Get me outa here for Chrissake!’

The others grabbed him and pulled him free. He scrambled to his feet on the path, shaking, eyes wide, jaw chattering almost uncontrollably. It was not cold that made him shiver. It was naked fear.

‘Jesus,’ he panted. ‘Jesus, did you see that!’

Elliot’s voice was calm. ‘We’d better move.’

But Slattery couldn’t bring himself to put one foot in front of the other. ‘Jesus Christ, this whole fucking place is one mass grave! There must be hundreds of them in there. All around us. Jesus, I wanna wash!’

McCue’s face moved close to his, hot breath on his skin. ‘If you don’t move, Slattery, I’ll cut your throat and chuck you in there with them.’

Slattery stared at him, the words slowly filtering through the film of fear that fogged his mind. Then he blinked several times and glanced at Elliot. Fear gave way to shame. He said, ‘Sure, sure. Let’s get the hell out of here.’ And they moved on quickly, but careful not to risk another fall.

A sense of horror had gripped them all, turning the hot night cold, fear closing like icy fingers around their hearts. Fear of what? Elliot wondered. The dead? The dead couldn’t hurt you. But they filled your mind, touching your soul, a reminder that you too were only flesh and blood and would one day return to the earth. Dust to dust.

It was with relief that they reached the dark safety of the trees and followed the ground upwards again over a ridge. For nearly two hours they hacked their way through tangled undergrowth, compelled by the urge to put as much distance as possible between them and the paddy fields.

Sweating and breathless, Elliot finally called a halt and they dumped their backpacks and slumped to the ground, leaning back against the trees. They sat, recovering breath, each with his own thoughts, not a word passing between them for fifteen minutes or more. The mud on Slattery’s face and outer clothing had dried and caked. He checked and cleaned his pistol and automatic and looked grimly at the others, giving voice for the first time to their unspoken thoughts. They had not come across a living soul or sign of life in more than three hours.

‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘Is there anyone left alive in this goddam country?’

CHAPTER TWENTY

The truck bumped and rattled through the night over the shell-pitted road from the airport to the city. No one had bothered to repair the road after the fierce fighting for the airport and the capital four years earlier.

Hau sat in the back of the truck with a dozen other boy soldiers and their commanding officer, Ksor Koh, a small, ugly man of about thirty who enforced a sadistic discipline. Though it remained unspoken, the boys both feared and hated him. He worked them long hard hours and saw to it that they received only minimum rations. Tears, or the least display of childhood vulnerability, were mercilessly ridiculed.

There was one exception. Yos Oan, a burly, sullen boy, older than the others. Ksor’s lieutenant, he saw to it that they followed their commanding officer’s instructions to the letter. He carried a short, stinging cane with which he beat the others without pity if they so much as looked at him the wrong way. They had all suffered at his hand, and often watched with hate in their eyes and dark thoughts in their hearts as he wolfed down almost double their rations. Though he too had been brutally beaten by Ksor on many occasions, he had accepted his fate with the philosophical forbearance of one who knows that there is always a price to be paid.

Since being trucked into the airfield at Pochentong, they had been worked from first light until well after dark, digging and repairing defences around the perimeter. Bone-weary, hungry and aching for sleep, they had been told by Yos that they were being taken south. And within an hour they had been herded into a truck and were heading for Phnom Penh. The rumour had spread quickly, in whispers among the boys, that from there they were to be sent south to Takeo to join in the fighting to repel the Vietnamese invader. There was fear in all their hearts, for they had heard rumours that the Kampuchean armed forces were suffering heavy defeats and that the Vietnamese army was making steady progress north. Why else would they have been building defences around the airfield?

Hau had been waiting and watching for a chance to escape. But not a single opportunity had presented itself. They were watched at all times. And now, as they approached the city of his birth, he knew that time was running out for him. He had told no one of his plan to run away, keeping his silence and his secret safe in a heart still with fear. He saw that Yos was staring at him – a long penetrating stare – and for a moment he wondered if it was possible that his heart had spoken aloud and that Yos had been listening. Or perhaps it could be read in his face. A surge of hatred welled up inside him, even greater than the fear