Nine-Raider Ambush in the Valley and Mortar Rescue

The Nine-Raider Ambush in the Valley and Mortar Rescue is a turning point in which Hig’s careful use of the terrain and Bangley’s hidden defensive preparation combine to save him from a larger pursuing group. The encounter makes their partnership tangible under pressure: Hig draws the raiders into an exposed position, while Bangley intervenes from the airport’s tower with a weapon whose intended purpose Hig had not understood.

Background and Pursuit

Bangley alerts Hig that he has company, an unusual note of urgency in their communications. The pursuers are stalking Hig from roughly a quarter mile behind; when Bangley confirms their number, the count is nine. That distance gives Hig a brief opportunity to choose where the confrontation will happen, but it also means he is being followed rather than simply encountering strangers on the trail.

Bangley’s warning comes against the background of a persistent disagreement between the two men. Bangley’s defensive principle is to treat an unknown visitor as a threat, while Hig wants to leave room for a stranger to demonstrate that they are human. Their dispute is not abstract here: nine armed people are closing on Hig, and the choice between caution and trust has become an immediate question of survival. The scene puts Bangley’s suspicion to the test without making Hig’s preference for restraint disappear.

Hig’s Ambush

Bangley directs Hig toward a shallow draw about eighty yards ahead, east of the trail. He tells him to pick up the rope as though he is fatigued, then continue down into the gully. The instructions make the terrain part of the plan: Hig is not asked to outrun the pursuers, but to encourage them to follow him into a confined place where their approach can be anticipated.

The first pursuer comes over the rise cautiously, looking around, then walks down into the draw to inspect the sled’s track in the sand. The next man arrives faster and nearly collides with him. Both carry swords; the first is described as thin, gray-bearded, and tattooed, while the second is large and red-bearded. Their weapons and conduct confirm the danger Bangley had warned about. As more of the group comes over the rise, Hig’s attention shifts from assessing them to acting against them.

The account records Hig and Bangley working as a team, with four attackers struck or brought down during the encounter. Hig’s immediate achievement is not a clean victory: the group is larger than he is, and its members continue to converge. The ambush buys him a moment, but it does not remove the danger. The scene’s balance changes again when Bangley calls Hig back to him and orders him to take the Glock, ammunition, and rifle and run. The urgency of the instruction marks a retreat from the prepared position, not a declaration that the threat has ended.

Bangley’s Mortar and the Escape

Bangley then fires a British 81 mm mortar. Its position is significant: it is mounted at the porch of the tower that Bangley had previously had Hig build. The structure Hig helped construct has a defensive purpose beyond observation, one that becomes clear only when Bangley uses it to support him in the valley. Bangley had kept the mortar for a crisis and had not told Hig what the tower porch was for; he describes the intervention as a surprise intended to save Hig.

The attack breaks apart after the mortar is fired. Bangley reports that the pursuers have scattered and are no longer visible as a group; one appears to remain far behind, and he allows that there may be additional casualties. He then brings Hig’s attention back to practical necessities, telling him to locate his rifle when he is able. The sequence moves from the distant warning, to Hig’s improvised ambush, to Bangley’s intervention, and finally to the recovery of the weapon Hig needs to continue.

Hig finds the rifle under a salt bush about fifteen feet away. Once the immediate pressure has passed, his response is not composed relief: he laughs and cries at the same time, with no clear sense of how long the reaction lasts. That response gives the escape its human consequence without turning the encounter into a simple triumph. Survival has been secured, but only through a close confrontation that leaves Hig overwhelmed.

Partnership and Significance

The rescue reveals how the men’s different instincts can function together even while they remain divided over principle. Hig takes the risk of facing the pursuers directly and follows Bangley’s tactical directions; Bangley supplies warnings, arms, and decisive support from the tower. Their cooperation is effective, but it does not settle their argument about how to treat strangers. The raiders’ actions strengthen Bangley’s case for readiness, while the encounter’s reliance on a planned position and communication also shows that survival is not merely a matter of shooting first.

The tower porch becomes the scene’s central reversal. What Hig had built without knowing its full purpose becomes the means by which Bangley can reach him at a distance. The episode therefore enlarges the meaning of their shared defenses: the perimeter is not only a boundary around their refuge but a system in which preparation by one partner can protect the other beyond the immediate stronghold. Hig’s stunned laughter and tears close the scene on the cost of that protection, while the recovered rifle and scattered pursuers establish that he has made it through the encounter.