I'm bored, so I'm posting a quote.

[nuranar]

I've posted it before, too, but it was *checks* FOUR years ago. So enjoy anyway!

This is an excerpt from a spy story by Alistair MacLean (When Eight Bells Toll). It's the middle of the night, and the protagonist is on a short grass landing strip, near the enemy base (a private castle on a Scottish island).

The strip was smooth and flat and I made good time without having to use the big rubber torch I had with me. I didn't dare use it anyway, not so close to the castle. There was no light to be seen from there but that was no guarantee that the ungodly weren't maintaining a sleepless watch on the battlements. If I were the ungodly, I'd have been maintaining a sleepless watch on the battlements. I stumbled over something warm and soft and alive and hit the ground hard.

My nerves weren't what they had been forty-eight hours ago and my reactions were comparatively fast. I had the knife in my hand and was on him before he could get to his feet. To his four feet. He had about him the pungent aroma of a refugee from Tim Hutchinson's flensing shed. Well might they say why stinks the goat on yonder hill who seems to dote on chlorophyll. I said a few conciliatory words to our four-footed friend and it seemed to work for he kept his horns to himself. I went on my way.

This humiliating sort of encounter, I'd noticed, never happened to the Errol Flynns of this world. Moreover, if Errol Flynn had been carrying a torch a little fall like that would not have smashed it. Had he been carrying only a candle it would still have kept burning brightly in the darkness. But not my torch. Not my rubber encased, rubber mounted bulb, plexiglass guaranteed unbreakable torch. It was kaput. I fished out the little pencil torch and tried it inside my jacket. I could have spared myself the caution, a glowworm would have sneered at it. I stuck it back in my pocket and kept going.

I didn't know how far I was from the precipitous end of the cliff and I'd no intention of finding out the hard way. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled forward, the glowworm leading the way. I reached the cliff edge in five minutes and found what I was looking for almost at once...

I heard a slight noise behind me. A moderately fit five-year-old grabbing me by the ankles could have had me over the edge with nothing I could do to prevent it. Or maybe it was Billy the Kid back to wreak vengeance for the rude interruption of his night's sleep. I swung around with torch and gun at the ready. It was Billy the Kid, his yellow eyes staring balefully out of the night. But his eyes belied him, he was just curious or friendly or both. I moved back slowly till I was out of butting range, patted him weakly on the head and left. At this rate I'd die of heart failure before the night was out.

Comments

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

This is obviously completely brilliant. Alistair MacLean is firmly placed upon my reading list per your previous rec and this - Errol Flynn! - bit of his writing. I am currently on final approach to a vacation in Edinburgh where I am hoping to find brilliant second hand book stores and come home much heavier than I left. I am definitely doing so with a list of authors which I've gleaned from your journal.

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

This is obviously completely brilliant.

Just what I've been preaching for years. Obviously! :D What an awesome vacation that will be. MacLean was a Scot born and bred, so I hope there's plenty of his work to be found. (There certainly is in the USBs here.) DO focus on the early ones, though. They're not *quite* as common to find (particularly Navarone and Where Eagles Dare), but totally worth it.

I can't wait to hear what you find, and then what you think of it all! :D

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

I've cheated just a little bit as I've just been to my USB and they had a copy of the same book you quoted from yesterday. The coincidence was too much for me and I bought it. So, on my way sooner than I thought.

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Heh, fun! I won't prejudice you any more if you haven't read my review.

[suededsilk.livejournal.com]

*glee* Great excerpt! Thanks for sharing it.

(Also: the...ungodly? My interest is now piqued.)

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm glad you like it!

(Hehehe... this isn't the only place MacLean uses that phrasing. I'm not sure it's a direct Saint tribute, but it could very well have gotten into his vocabulary that way.)

[bienegold.livejournal.com]

That's awesome.

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

:D