Now that it was time to make their way back up to the track he felt too cold, too hungry and too tired to move. He recognized this apathy as the beginning of hypothermia. It would be so easy to curl up and sleep; the night and the ground frost would do the rest.
Jenny’s head lolled against the trunk of the tree, her eyes glassy with fatigue. She staggered getting to her feet, had to support herself against the tree. But she’d make it. She’s a survivor, he thought, like me. It’s in the blood.
Webb looked dead already; his jaw was slack, his skin grey. Poor bloody Spider. He had always admired him for getting out when he did, building a normal life for himself, most of all for doing what he did for Jenny. He still sometimes flirted with the idea of doing the same.
But flirtation was one thing, commitment was another. He’d tried that road once before and it hadn’t worked out.
‘Don’t let him die,’ Jenny said.
‘Spider won’t die while I’m around. He’s too bloody- minded.’ She knelt beside him, checked his pulse and breathing yet again. ‘You really love him, don’t you?’
‘He’s the only father I’ve ever had.’
Ryan thought about that. It surprised him how much that hurt. ‘He was always there for you. I guess that’s what being a father is.’
Their eyes met.
‘Well, at least I can do one thing for you. I can get you out of this.’
She shook her head. ‘I wonder if it was worth it. Jajce, us being there. Are any of my pieces, any of your photographs, going to make any difference?’
‘My photographs,’ he said and gave a short, humorless laugh.
‘Ryan?’
‘I never took any photographs.’
He got to his feet. The cold had come on with sharp and breathtaking ferocity. They had to start moving soon, if they wanted to get off this mountain alive.
‘You didn’t take any photographs?’
He shook his head.
‘None at all?’ When he didn’t answer, she went on: ‘But we were the only Western journalists in Jajce. Everyone is going to want our photographs.’
‘Your photographs.’
She stared at him, unable to comprehend. Of course she could not understand. She was young, this was her first war. ‘Then why did you go there?’
Good question; because it was the place no one else wanted to go. But he hadn’t seen anything there that he had not photographed in some other form before. It had all seemed so futile.
‘Sean?’
‘I don’t know. I just forgot, I guess.’ He crouched down next to Spider. ‘Help me sit him up. Let’s get the hell out of here.’
One thing at a time: he had to get his daughter and his best mate back to Travnik, then maybe he’d sit down and think this through. But he didn’t like the way this was going. Once he thought there was a point to what he was doing. Now he didn’t see the point any more, and that was the only thing he had ever come across in a war that truly scared him.
* * *
Shells whistled overhead, tracers lit the mountainside. A heavy machine gun boomed close by. They had to be close to the front line.
They had stumbled for three hours through the darkness, stopping to rest every few minutes, the cold and fear forcing them on again. Ryan could feel Webb’s blood seeping through his shirt and down his neck. Webb slipped in and out of consciousness, babbling incoherently. For a skinny bloke he weighed enough.
He must be in terrible pain, Ryan thought. That’s about the only consolation to all this.
He kept himself going by watching for small landmarks; stagger towards the looming silhouette of a large tree, promise yourself you will stop there and rest, then count a hundred paces, stop again; next time force yourself to go a hundred and ten.
Keep going.
His shoulder was agony, his neck muscles were cramping. See that burned out house? Let’s see if we can make it to there. The rest, then count out another hundred paces.
‘We can do it,’ Jenny whispered, somewhere behind him. He felt her stumble against him.
He was too exhausted to answer her. What was he doing here? A young man’s game this. I should be in a bar somewhere, telling war stories and whore stories and drinking Bushmills. Go on talk shows like Spider.
Tracers arced through the night sky somewhere behind them, a poisonous green. He half turned to look at them, stumbled on the edge of the track. Jenny rushed forward to take Webb’s weight, but she was too late and he toppled sideways. Webb shrieked as they crashed to the ground.
Ryan lay on his stomach, exhausted. Everything was a screaming agony: his back, his knees, his neck muscles. The wound in his shoulder felt like it had split open like a ripe plum.
‘Need something white,’ he mumbled.
He heard Jenny unscrew the cap of her water bottle, roll him over, hold it to his lips. ‘Need something white,’ he repeated.
‘What?’
‘So they can see us.’
She helped him sit up. After a few moments he got his breath back, recovered a little. He knew he couldn’t lie here too long or his muscles would cramp up and he wouldn’t be able to get up again. It was all about the will. He forced himself to his knees, steadied his weight against her and got back to his feet.
‘This is the tough part,’ he said. ‘We’re walking towards the defenders now. They’ll be jumpy. Nothing friendly about friendly fire.’
‘I don’t have anything white. Wait a minute. My underwear.’
‘Now is no time to be modest,’ he grunted. ‘Besides, we’re all family here.’
They were Gortex thermals, waist to ankle. Jenny tied them to a tree branch.
‘There I was thinking they’d be flimsy, lacy things,’ Ryan said. ‘Spider’s been a bad influence on you.’
‘Now I’m really cold.’
What a sight we must look, he thought, in our ragtag of Western and Moslem clothes. We might not look like Bosnians but at least we sure as hell don’t look like Chetniks. He handed her his pencil light. ‘Shine it on your little flag there, Jenny, and walk in front.’
‘Are we going to make it?’
‘Of course we will. I’ve always been lucky. Trust me.’
Chapter 84
The end, when it came, was an anticlimax. Ryan was concentrating on the next one hundred steps, had counted to sixty three, was focused only on staying on his feet. Suddenly a young man in a vintage combat helmet, the fleur-de-lys emblem of Bosnia on his shoulder flash, came towards them out of the darkness, waving a torch, his Kalashnikov on a strap over his left shoulder.
He greeted them in his own language and was astonished to hear them reply in English.
‘Presna?’ he said.
‘BBC, Lonn-donn!’ Ryan said.
The armija was impressed. He gave them cigarettes and offered them a drink from his hip flask. Lorza brandy. Ryan felt it bum all the way down and smiled.
‘Christ,’ he murmured. ‘We did it.’
The soldier told them, in halting English, that they had not been expecting any refugees along this particular track. They had heard it was crawling with Chetniks. He was sorry but he could not help them more. He and the rest of his squad were on patrol. But he would radio back to the next guardpost and warn the HVO sentries not to shoot at them. It was not much further. About two miles.
‘Two miles!’ Ryan repeated.
Just over that hill and you’ll be in the town, the soldier said. You’re safe now.
Welcome to Travnik!
Ryan lowered Webb gently to the ground. Somehow, now they were back in friendly territory, he seemed much lighter. They refilled their canteens from a cattle trough, after breaking a thin skin of ice.
Jenny held Webb’s head, helped him drink some of the water from her canteen. ‘Almost there,’ she whispered.
Webb’s eyes blinked open but he was in too much pain to answer her.
Ryan’s shirt was soaked from Webb’s blood and his own. ‘Blood brothers now, Spide
r,’ he said.
‘Almost there,’ Jenny repeated. An artillery round further down the valley lit the road for a moment, and the farmland either side. She saw a stone farmhouse and a low walled courtyard, the minarets and domes of Travnik in the distance.
‘It’s beautiful in a strange kind of way, isn’t it?’ Ryan said. ‘You can see why people love wars. Everything else is kind of dull by comparison.’
‘Tell me about that tomorrow. Right now I just want to get out of this.’
‘Don’t worry. We’re okay now. I told you I was lucky, didn’t I?’
* * *
There was a short burst of automatic weapons fire. Jenny threw herself face down on the road.
‘Americanski!’ she screamed, in shock and outrage. They were through the lines, they were supposed to be safe! ‘Americanski!’
There was a brief silence, then she heard heavy boots running down the road towards them. Someone shone a torch in her face. Croat militia.
‘Presna?' he asked.
‘Presna, presna,’ she repeated.
‘We think you are Chetnik!’
‘They said they’d warned you on the radio!’ Her fear evaporated and now she was just angry. She turned around to look for Ryan and Webb.
Ryan lay on his side ten paces behind her. In the harsh light of the torch she saw the neat holes in the front of his fisherman’s warmer.
She just stared; couldn’t believe it, just couldn’t believe it.
‘I am sorry,’ the Croat soldier said. ‘It was a mistake. I will call on the radio for an ambulance.’
Epilogue
McSorley’s Old Alehouse, New York
Webb looked at his watch. Almost midnight. The others had drifted home in taxis, and now there was only him and Wendy Doyle. ‘Look at the time,’ he said.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘My flight leaves JFK at eight in the morning, for Christ’s sake. I’d better find a cab. I haven’t even packed.’
‘It’s been nice meeting you, Miss Doyle.’
‘The pleasure was mine. I’ve read all of your books.’ She held out her hand. ‘It’s been a hell of an evening.’ She finished her drink. ‘I suppose it’s the last time your old gang will be together. Do you think they’ll have a fifty-year reunion?’
‘I don’t plan to come back for that one.’
Webb reached into his case, unsnapped the lock and took out an empty bottle of Bushmills. She squinted, focusing with difficulty on the faded ink lines that had been pasted on to the back of the bottle.
I courted the dark angel,
her faithful devotee,
saw her lay her hand on others;
yet she always held her touch from me.
I courted the dark angel
and followed her, as lovers will,
she was my fascination;
and yet she spurned me still.
Each day she wore some new disguise
yet with the same pale skin and staring eyes,
so I knew her all the same,
through every move of her deadly game.
I courted the dark angel
in the casual ways of youth,
a furtive smile, a wink of eye,
and yet she always passed me by.
But she won’t turn from me forever,
for I have a certain charm,
even for one as cold as she;
one day she will come back for me.
I do not fear her cold, cold lips
or the icy touch of her fingertips,
for I found her secret in the chase.
As we lie together in the dark, in the consummate embrace
of our earthy, bridal bed —
she whispers: fear the living, not the dead.
‘When did he give you this?’
‘The last time he was in New York, when he came out to the house with Mickey. He knew he was going to Yugoslavia. He told me to drink a toast to him with it if he didn’t come back.’
She handed him back the bottle ‘Did he write that?’
‘He probably stole it from somewhere. Knowing Ryan.’ He called for the bar tab. ‘I’ll get it. I got a big advance for the book.’
As they walked out into the street, Doyle noticed his limp for the first time. She wondered if it was the wound, or something else, that had finally driven him back to Long Island. But that was not her business.
She said: ‘What do you think he meant by the last line?’
‘Well, if he wrote it, and that’s a big if, he could have meant that there’s no need to be afraid of dying when this world’s such a shit of a place. And like us, he’s seen the world at its very worst. Or perhaps it was more personal.’
‘Personal?’
‘Well, he didn’t like people very much.’
‘Ryan was the most gregarious man I’ve ever met. He hated being alone.’
‘I didn’t say he didn’t like drinking and getting laid. I said he didn’t like people. Getting close one on one. You don’t have to do that in a crowd.’
‘You’re pretty hard on the fellow.’
Webb took a letter from his jacket pocket. ‘You’re going back to Sarajevo?’
‘It’s where the big stories are right now.’
‘Will you give this to Jenny when you see her?’
She took the envelope. ‘Of course.’
A chill wind snaked through the streets. Doyle flagged down a passing cab. ‘Want to share a ride?’
Webb shook his head. ‘I’m heading in the other direction. Have a good flight.’
She jumped in, wound down the window. ‘By the way, you never finished the story. What happened to Mickey?’
‘She’s doing okay.’
‘Do you ever see her?’
‘Every morning at breakfast,’ he said. ‘We got married last fall.’
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Find Colin Falconer at: https://colinfalconer.wordpress.com
or on Twitter at @colin_falconer
Born in north London, Colin Falconer worked for many years in TV and radio and freelanced for many of Australia's leading newspapers and magazines. He has been a novelist for the last twenty years, with his work published widely in the UK, US and Europe. His books have been translated into seventeen languages.
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