Kells interrupted: “Didn’t I have my coat?”
“Hell, no! You was lucky to have pants the way those guys was working you over. We tried to carry you between us but we couldn’t make any headway that way — it was so dark and foggy we kept falling down. So the navigator fanned tail for the boat and I drug you through a lot of brush and we got up here after a while. A half a dozen more guys went by on the way to the house — the island’s lousy with ’em. If it hadn’t been for the fog...”
Kells asked: “Bernie’s at the boat, now?”
“Sure — and a swell spot. The fog’s not quite so heavy down there and he can pick ’em off as soon as they show at the head of the wharf. Only I thought he’d shove off before this...”
“He’s waiting for us, sap.” Kells rose to his knees.
“Oh yeah? Maybe you can figure out a way for us to get there.”
Kells asked: “Which direction should the side of the cove be?”
“I haven’t the slightest.”
Kells got shakily to his feet, rubbed his head, started down a shale bank to his left. He said: “Come on — we’ll have to take a chance.”
Borg got up and they went down the bank to a shallow draw. An occasional shot sounded on the far side of a low ridge to their right. The fog wasn’t quite so thick at the bottom of the draw; they went on, came out in a little while-on to a narrow beach. There was a jagged spit of rock running out across the sand from one side of the draw. The fog was thinning.