Page 65 of The Island

“We’ll learn that Kraut!”

“Come on, Kate, step on it!”

“Whoo-hoo! It’s like the movies, ain’t it?”

“In spades, mate!”

“Hans! Tell us where they are!”

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Where are you going to hide, kiddies?”

“They hide in the grass and we’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll blow their bloody house down, won’t we?”

Olivia was shaking all over. Heather stroked her hair. “It’s going to be OK, baby,” she found herself whispering.

“We can’t stay here forever. They will bring all the other cars. The whole farm will come. They know we are here,” Petra protested.

“Just stay down. We don’t have any choice!” Heather said.

The Toyota was roaring toward them again, across the parallels and meridians in another intersecting curve. Olivia put her hands over her ears as the engine revved like a monster and the pickup jumped the ravine just five yards behind them.

Surely they had been spotted?

Heather waited for a screech of brakes or a gunshot.

But the Toyota kept going.

It headed out onto the scrub, and then—

A crash followed by silence.

Men began yelling. The Toyota had stopped. Engine turning over. Wheels spinning.

“Wait here, kids. I’m going to take a look.”

“I’ll come with you,” Petra said.

Heather climbed out of the hollow and scrambled up the dirt embankment. The Toyota was in a gully three hundred yards to the south, its front wheels in the air. They’d tried to jump the gap but hadn’t made it. The truck had hit the side of the gully in the middle of the front axle and was stuck.

It wouldn’t be too difficult to get the Toyota out. Another vehicle could pull it, that one down at the ferry or the ones back at the farm. But they hadn’t seen that yet and hadn’t realized they were going to need more than manpower. They were trying to rock the Toyota out of the ditch, which would never work.

Matt went around to the front of the car and began untying Hans. If he was still alive, they were going to make him push too.

Heather stared at Matt. She had thought he was going to be the voice of sanity, that he was going to help, but he had made his choice.

“This is our chance to get out of here,” Heather whispered to Petra. “This will keep them busy for half an hour. They’ll need a winch. We should go.”

“Where will we go?”

“It’s going to get hot. I think we should head for the mangrove trees by the water,” Heather said.

The shore was half a mile to the northeast.

“And then what?”

“We’ll worry about the ‘then what’ when we get there.”