He held her close. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I am all right. Listen, let us leave this place.’
‘Leave? But . . .’ He looked down at Elena, and then at Ivkov.
‘Oh, bring her,’ Sandrine said. ‘And him, if you wish.’
‘They will come after us, and kill us.’
‘Not if we kill them first.’
‘Sandrine . . .’
‘Give me your hand.’
He obeyed, and realised she had a large bag with her. Now she put his hand into the bag, and he gasped as he fingered a tommy-gun, and more than one spare box of ammunition. And another Luger pistol, with several clips. And . . . his fingers caressed a string of grenades.
‘Where, in the name of God . . .?’
‘They are Pavelic’s.’ She gave a little giggle. ‘Were Pavelic’s.’
Elena woke up. ‘Sandrine? What has happened to you?’
‘Nothing that matters. We are leaving now. Will you come?’
‘But how? We’ll be killed.’
‘We’ll have company.’
Tony drew the tommy-gun from the bag, made sure it was functional. Then he handed Elena two spare magazines for her pistol.
‘Will you take the other pistol?’ he asked Sandrine.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I will take the tommy-gun. I wish to kill people. Lots and lots of people. These people.’
‘Let’s be logical,’ Tony said. ‘We can’t do it all at once.’ But he handed her the tommy-gun, taking the second Luger for himself. Then he nudged Ivkov. ‘Don’t make a sound,’ he said. ‘But prepare to move out.’
Ivkov scratched his head, looked left and right.
‘That way.’ Tony pointed up the hill. The way lay past the parked trucks, where he reckoned the Ustase were most vulnerable. ‘On all fours, now, until I say so.’
They crawled away from the tents. The entire camp seemed to be asleep, save for the sentries.
‘How many?’ Elena whispered.
Tony had checked that out before it had grown dark. ‘Six.’
‘I do not see any.’
‘They’re widely spaced. There’s the first.’
They had reached the first of the trucks, which were parked side by side in an ideally neat row; the two open cars were just beyond them. The sentry was leaning against the bonnet of the first truck, smoking a cigarette.
‘I wish I had a knife,’ Tony said.
‘Here.’ Sandrine pressed a long-bladed knife into his hand.
‘You are a bloody marvel,’ he remarked. ‘Now, all of you, when I say move, move, at your best speed, straight up the hill. Until then, don’t move a muscle.’
He had already slung the grenades round his neck. Now he inched forward, still on his hands and knees. He had done this often enough in training, but never in real life. Also, creeping up on an enemy sentry presupposed that one’s army was advancing, and all his combat experience had been in retreat. In any event, the idea of what he was about to do turned his stomach. He had to force himself to think of the women, of what they had already suffered, and of how much more they would have to suffer if he failed them.
Predictably, Sandrine loomed largest.
He also reminded himself that this man, like all of his comrades, was guilty of the most cold-blooded murders imaginable.
He crawled beside the truck until he reached the bonnet. There he stood up. As he did so, the sentry took a final drag on his cigarette, dropped it on the ground and stamped on it, then turned.
Tony had intended to cut his throat, but, taken by surprise, he opted to thrust the knife straight forward. The sentry reacted instinctively, closing one hand on Tony’s wrist while trying to bring his rifle round with the other. Tony drove on with all his strength, and they fell together, the Croat underneath. As he fell, he fired his rifle. It sounded like a cannon in the stillness. Then Tony stabbed him twice. Neither one was fatal, but the man was left gasping and shrieking.
‘Move!’ Tony shouted. ‘Move, move, move.’
He plucked a grenade from the string, and pulled the pin. The others ran past him while the camp awoke to a roar of bewildered sound. Tony rolled the grenade under the truck, scrambled to his feet, and chased behind the others, but was overtaken by the roar of the exploding truck; the blast threw him headlong and left him for a moment senseless.
His arms were grasped by Ivkov to pull him up, and they staggered up to the women, who were crouching in the shelter of some rocks. Behind them the other two trucks and then the command cars also exploded. The noise was tremendous, the shock waves deafening, and the blazing petrol turned the night into day.
For the moment the Ustase were entirely concerned with the destruction of their transport. Quite a few were firing their tommy-guns, under the impression that they were being attacked; from the shouts and curses, they seemed to be hitting each other. And they lacked command, at least for the moment.
‘Let’s go,’ Tony said, and led his little band further up the slope. Soon they ran out of breath, and had to pause and look back down the hill. The flames were dying down, and the encampment was again plunged into darkness; there was a great deal of activity, but still, so far as Tony could make out, entirely uncoordinated.
‘Come on,’ he urged them on again, and they climbed, panting and gasping – as much, he reckoned, from the emotion of the escape as from exertion. Tony kept them going, with only brief pauses for rest, until the first light. Then they collapsed on their bellies for several minutes.
He was first up, and surveyed their situation. The encampment was out of sight; there was not even any smoke to be seen.
Sandrine stood beside him. ‘You are all bloody,’ she said. ‘Where is the pain?’
‘There is no pain. The blood is that sentry’s.’
Elena joined them. ‘Why are they not following?’
‘Maybe they have too much on their minds.’
‘Yes,’ Sandrine said. ‘Pavelic.’
‘What happened to him?’ Elena asked. ‘What did you do to him?’
‘I hit him on the head while he slept.’
Tony licked his lips. ‘After . . .’
‘After. I had to wait for him to go to sleep. Then I bundled up all his weapons, put them in that bag, and left. I should have killed him, I know. But . . . I could not.’ She looked up at Tony. ‘Did I do wrong?’
Tony put his arm round her shoulders to hug her. ‘Sweetheart, you did everything just as right as was possible.’
Chapter Eight – Death
‘Will they come after us, when Pavelic has recovered?’ Elena asked.
‘I don’t think they will, right this minute,’ Tony said. ‘They know we have a head start, and they know that we’re pretty well armed. They also know they are in hostile country – which will become more hostile when the facts of what happened at Divitsar become known, as they will, soon enough – and without transport they could be in a dangerous situation. My bet is they’ll head back to Belgrade, or Uzice, and aim to deal with us later. However, the one thing we need to do is never get caught up with them again. What Pavelic would like to do to us, and to you in particular, Sandrine, doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘I should have killed him,’ Sandrine said. ‘Oh, what a fool I was.’
‘Yes,’ Elena said.
Sandrine glared at her.
Tony sighed, and looked at Ivkov. But the bath-keeper merely looked at him ingratiatingly. He had developed a supreme faith in the English captain’s ability to sustain them.
As had the women. ‘What are we going to do now?’ Elena asked.
‘Needs consideration,’ he said. ‘There appear to be four forces operating in this vicinity, all of whom hate each other, and all of whom hate us. So, we have the Germans, who will shoot us on sight. If we’re lucky. Then there’s the Ustase, ditto. Then there’s Mihailovic’s lot, about whom we can also say ditto – at least regarding you, Elena. Then there are the Communists . . . Are there any other Communist
enclaves in these hills, Boris?’
‘I think so. But—’
‘Oh, quite. As the only survivors of Divitsar they’re not likely to love us either.’
‘There is another group,’ Sandrine said.
‘Such as?’
‘The Muslims.’
‘Muslims?’
‘There is a large Muslim minority in Yugoslavia. We did a feature on them last year.’
Tony recalled that he had seen quite a few obvious Muslims in Belgrade from time to time, without paying them much attention. ‘And you think there may be some in these hills?’
‘I know there are Muslim villages in these hills.’
‘But whose side will they be on?’ Elena asked.
‘I think mainly they do not like the Serbs, or the government, because they are treated as inferiors.’
‘In other words they will be supporting the Germans.’
‘I suppose so,’ Sandrine said.
‘So that is another of your shitty ideas,’ Elena remarked.
‘Now look here, you two,’ Tony said. ‘This bickering has got to stop, now. Whoever starts the next one is going to be put across my knee and have her backside tanned.’
The women exchanged glances, and he realised he might have made a mistake.
But there were more important things on Sandrine’s mind than being spanked by a lover. ‘When do we eat?’ she asked.
‘You mean, again, what do we eat?’ Elena corrected.
Tony knew that was the most pressing problem. Food and shelter. Otherwise they would die, or at least become very weak and vulnerable from exposure and malnutrition. The solution to the problem was utterly simple, but it was a solution which made his stomach roll with distaste.
He looked from face to face. ‘We go back to Divitsar.’
‘There?’ Elena was aghast. ‘But—’
‘I know. It’s not going to be nice. But there is food there. And shelter. And it is extremely unlikely that either the Nazis or the Ustase are going to return.’
‘But . . .’ Sandrine was looking sick. ‘The smell—’
‘Will be bad. But only for the next twenty-four hours or so. And we have no alternative, if we are to survive.’
*
There was no real argument, if only because they were all extremely hungry. It was now mid-morning, and there was still no sign of pursuit. As Tony had estimated, Pavelic was probably accepting the realities of his situation. He would also be supposing that his escaped captives were hardly going to survive, and that if they did, they could easily be rounded up on his next marauding expedition, when he would again have transport.
They picked their way down the hillside and back towards the road. The going was slow, both because they were all exhausted and because the women continued to be hampered by their heavy skirts.
‘We would do better if we took these off,’ Elena suggested.
But at that moment it began to rain, which made the idea less attractive, even if the now soaked skirts became heavier yet.
‘What do you think happened to those girls?’ Sandrine asked, moving up to walk beside Tony while Elena and Ivkov trailed behind.
‘It’s not something I really wish to think about.’
‘I would like you to tell me what is likely to happen to them.’
‘Are you that ghoulish?’
‘You do not understand. When the war is over – or this part of the war – I will need to re-establish myself as a journalist. So I must write about the war in Yugoslavia. About what happened here.’
‘You can think about that, now?’
‘Would you prefer that I went mad?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I would not prefer that. There are only two possible fates for those girls. One is that they will be taken into Belgrade and put into army brothels. The other is that they will be shot out of hand as unnecessary baggage. If that was going to happen, it probably already has.’
‘How can men be such brutes?’
‘Because, when the chips are down, men are only beasts in the field, like any other animal. So are women, you know. And their bestiality is enhanced by two other factors. One is the ability they have developed over the centuries of being able to think, to reason, to analyse, which leads them to plan and develop ever more atrocious ways of treating their fellows. The other is that streak of sadism which demands that we should dominate, or attempt to dominate, our fellows, whether mentally or physically.’
‘You are a very thoughtful man,’ Sandrine remarked. ‘I would like you to collaborate on my book.’
‘Let’s get to the end of the War, first,’ he suggested.
‘And then you will marry Elena.’
‘We are betrothed,’ he reminded her carefully.
*
It rained for the rest of the day, sometimes quite heavily. This was chilling and uncomfortable, even though it meant that they need only open their mouths to slake their thirsts. But Tony reckoned the weather was a fortunate development, as it virtually prohibited pursuit, washed out their tracks, and might make things slightly more salubrious where they were going. But not that much.
It was noon when they regained the road; they stopped to rest, and saw several goats peering at them.
‘There is food,’ Ivkov said.
‘Not immediately,’ Tony pointed out. He wasn’t sure he was in the mood for shooting an inoffensive goat, and even less cutting its throat. In any event, lacking matches and in the pouring rain there was no means of lighting a fire, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood for eating raw goat meat.
The weather didn’t tempt them to rest for more than was absolutely necessary. Tony was intent on regaining the village before nightfall, and he reckoned they still had several miles to go. They plodded on through the afternoon, and stopped in their tracks at about four.
‘Jesus!’ Sandrine fell to her knees.
The smell of decaying flesh was all around them.
‘You two stay here,’ Tony said. ‘Boris, you’ll come with me.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Elena asked.
‘See what needs to be done, first.’
‘But you will come back?’
‘I’ll fire a shot when I want you to come in.’
‘But you will be careful.’
‘Sweetheart, there are only dead bodies in there. I have never been able to believe in ghosts.’
She crossed herself. ‘These will be vengeful ghosts.’
‘If they blame me for what happened, they’re not as bright as ghosts are supposed to be. Now remember, wait for my shot. But just in case you need us back, for any reason, fire your own gun.’
‘I think you should take the tommy-gun.’
Sandrine hugged the weapon to her breast; Tony reckoned that at that moment it was her most precious possession.
‘Ghosts,’ he said. ‘I’m not aiming to shoot any of them. Come on, Boris.’
Ivkov crossed himself, but, like Sandrine with regards to food, he had a one-track mind. ‘I should have a weapon,’ he complained. ‘It is not right for the women to be armed, and not me.’
‘You have no one to shoot, Boris. The women may need to defend themselves.’
‘No one to shoot? All of those people—’
‘Are already dead. Pull yourself together.’
The houses came into sight. It was now just twenty-four hours since the massacre, and quite a few of the bodies were still in rigor mortis. But enough had begun to disintegrate, and the stench was appalling. The rain had helped, in that much of the blood had been washed away, but the long row of corpses was still an acutely depressing sight, especially as the dogs had returned and were tearing at the bodies, only stopping to snarl at the intruders who they suspected would interrupt their feast.
‘My God, sir,’ Ivkov whispered. ‘We cannot use this place.’
‘We must,’ Tony told him. ‘There is nowhere else.’
‘But these people . . . we cannot bury them all.’
‘No, we can’t. But we can get them off the street.’
‘Where, sir?’
Tony had been considering that, and had already made a decision. ‘We put them in the tavern.’
‘The tavern, sir?’
‘It’s the only place that’s big enough, apart from the town hall, and that has steps. The tavern is on ground level. We drag the bodies in there.’
Ivkov was holding his hand across his face. ‘One hundred people, sir?’
‘Let’s get started. That way we’ll finish sooner.’
He drew his pistol and fired several shots in the air. The dogs growled and barked, but slunk off. Then Tony led the way, beginning with Mrs Ivkov, holding her wrists and dragging her across the cobbles and then across the floor of the tavern to rest against the counter. Ivkov did the same for his brother. After putting Petar beside his wife, he went behind the bar, took down a bottle of brandy, and drank from the neck. Before long, Tony was doing the same.
Back and forth they went, while the last light faded, and their empty stomachs rolled. Suddenly Tony’s heart nearly jumped straight out of his throat when he looked back along the road and saw someone standing there. Then her hair fluttered in the breeze and he realised that it was Sandrine.
‘I told you to wait for my signal.’
‘You did signal. Was it not you who fired those shots?’
‘Damnation.’ He had forgotten that. ‘Well, you had better go off again for an hour or so.’
‘I have come to help you.’
‘This isn’t woman’s work.’
‘Are there not women here? And children?’
Soon they were joined by Elena, and it wasn’t long before the women were also drinking brandy. When the tavern’s stock was finished, they switched to wine. None of them got drunk, or even tight. By nine o’clock the last body had been dragged in. Ivkov carried several bottles of wine out on to the street, while Tony hunted in the larder and found some bread and some smoked meat, which he also carried outside.
‘You cannot possibly mean to eat that,’ Elena protested. Although slightly cleaner now, the air still smelled heavily of death.
‘We may have to.’ He made sure all the tavern’s windows were shut, then closed and locked the door. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘shall we see what else we can find in the way of food?’ It was twenty-four hours since they had last eaten.
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