Then he heard someone coming, the crunch of feet on gravel. He reached for the gun, found the empty holster, noticed suddenly with a sharp sensation in the pit of his stomach that his coat was gone.
Someone squatted beside him, spoke: “How d’you feel?” It was Borg. Kells could see the thick outline of his head and shoulders.
Kells said: “Terrible. Where the hell’s my coat?”
“God! Me saving his life an’ he wants his coat!” Borg giggled softly.
“What happened?”
“Everything.” Borg sighed, sat down in the gravel with his mouth close to Kells’ ear. “After you an’ the navigator went ashore I went on the wharf and laid down for a while. Then in a couple minutes somebody came out an’ I thought it was you till I seen there was four of them. I ducked behind some ropes and stuff that was laying there and they came out and saw the boat an’ jawed awhile in some spick language. Then they lit out for some place an’ I got up and tailed them and run into the navigator.”
There was the sound of a shot suddenly, some place below and to Kells’ left.
Borg said: “That’s him now — what a boy!”
Kells sat up.
Borg went on: “He was carrying on about smelling trouble up at some kind of barn an’ he wanted a gun. I wouldn’t give him mine, so he said he was going back to the boat an’ bust open a locker or something where he thought there was one. He—”