A single-seater Air Force jet is plunging towards the clouds. The pilot gives up hope of regaining control. He ejects. His parachute opens and he descends in comparative silence.
He lands on the moor. Visibility is about twenty yards. A couple of small, bulbous-bellied ponies move away from him. A few sheep look across without curiosity and then return to their grazing. He releases his harness, removes his helmet. He tries to activate his homing-beacon, finds that it is unserviceable.
A number of people materialise single-file from the mist. They come straight towards him and yet when they arrive they don't address him directly but carry on talking among themselves in a language of which not one word or even intonation is familiar. They're all fairly young, fairly dirty; dressed in greens, browns and blacks – military-mediaeval fashion. They fold up his parachute. They beckon him to follow them. He asks who they are. They smile in a friendly way but don't reply.
They move with lithe, springy steps. He hobbles along behind, his back sore from the ejection, his ankles sore from the landing. Towards the bottom of the slope a door – covered with tufts of grass and therefore previously invisible – is pulled open. Before he has time to react he is grabbed and pushed inside. The door is slammed in his face and barred. He hammers and hollers, unhinged by what has happened. After ten minutes or so he slumps to the floor.
There is a little light squeezing in between the grass-shutters covering the window, enough for him to now realise that he isn't alone. He crawls over to the corner, ignites his lighter, reveals a frightened face surrounded by a mass of sheepskins and hair.
"Hello," he says.
No response.
"What's going on here?"
She shakes her head.
There are candles by her side. He lights one. He feels in his flying-suit and brings out a bar of bitter-dark chocolate (part of his survival kit). He offers her a chunk. She accepts and eats.
"Don't worry," he says. "A bunch of miserable peasants like these aren't going to hold us for long."
He unzips more pockets, producing maps, a compass, a multipurpose knife etc. These he hides beneath the sheepskins.
"Tonight," he says. "We'll wait until they're asleep and then we'll get out."
She shakes her head again.
"Why not?"
She reveals her ankles, encased in mud-casts.
"Broken?"
She nods.
The door opens and a couple of the troupe (one male, one female) enter. They carry dried grass, peat blocks, a bowl of steaming meat. They address her in their tongue. She answers with apparent fluency. For about five minutes the pilot looks on in amazement. Then he makes a run for the door. The female casually reaches out, grabs his wrist and turns him through the air onto his back. he lies there groaning with pain and humiliation. She kneels above him, smiling and shrugging as if to say that she hadn't meant to hurt him. They go out. The door is barred again.
The woman asks him if he's alright. This is the first time she has spoken in English.
"I'll live," he replies, dourly. "… How come you're speaking now?"
"They've given me permission."
"That's very good of them."
"They saved my life."
"Well, they didn't save mine. I could have been home by now."
"You'd never have made it. You'd just have walked round and round in circles until you were exhausted."
He laughs incredulously:
"Not with a compass, I wouldn't."
"Your compass won't help you if you don't know where you are in the first place."
"Of course it can. You just decide on a course and then follow it. The moor isn't that big."
She shrugs:
"Try it if you like."
"Don't worry, I will… But what about you? Are you a prisoner here, or what?"
She thinks for a while:
"I'm a prisoner in that I couldn't go back if I wanted to. I'm not a prisoner in that I don't want to go back."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's a long story."
"Tell me. I've got plenty of time. It's not even dark yet."
