by Tim Pears
Jovan looks around the group. ‘What would you do?’ he asks. He looks from Franjo to his son Nikola; to Stipe, Marija, Tom; to Marko and Pero, to Francika, to Sid Dixon, for whom Tom translates what Jovan says.
‘Some of the Montenegrin peasant leaders who fought with us against the occupiers demanded that we let them go, to forestall Italian reprisals. Others demanded immediate revenge for the peasants who had died.’
‘So?’ Marko asks. ‘Did you shoot them?’
Jovan shakes his head. ‘We agreed to let the soldiers go. But what of the officers? It seemed that we could not avoid shooting them. It had to be done. It was the right thing to do.’
‘Did they beg to be released?’ Marko asks.
‘No,’ Jovan says, shaking his head slowly at the memory. ‘The officers retained their dignity. They looked shocked, but they did not cry.’ He lights a cigarette. ‘I still do not know if we made the correct decision. Only when this war is over will we be able to say, Yes, it was the right, or the wrong, thing to do.’ He takes a drag, and exhales the smoke. ‘And perhaps not even then.’
They stretch out their oilskins by the ruins of an old building. Despite his fatigue, Tom does not fall asleep, even as the day grows brighter. Did Christ come, he wonders, to remind men that they have free will, or that they do not? And if they do is it worth it, this freedom, for the acts of evil they commit? What God would think so?
July 9
THEY WAKE IN the afternoon.
Somewhere in the valley below a man is slowly cutting wood, and his axe, muffled by the trees and the distance, thumps slowly, suggesting he is very old.
Marko and Nikola have caught another animal: four more small carcasses roast. Sid does not eat, saying he’s not hungry. They wait to see what Tom will make of it, what his guess might be. It tastes good, though the meat is tough.
‘Rabbit?’ he asks.
Nikola nods. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Almost.’
‘Nothing like,’ Marko disagrees. ‘This is hare.’
Sid Dixon makes his sked. There will be another drop in two days’ time. ‘Don’t feel too good, sir,’ he tells Tom.
‘You reckon it was that rat we ate yesterday?’ Tom says. ‘Try not to think about it.’
‘I’ve drunk enough cider out a vats where rats got in and drowned, that never bothered me. Don’t see why it should now.’
Jovan is always anxious after radio communication: the Germans can pick up their signals and use triangular direction finding, will be tracking their zigzag movement around these mountains, and be close behind them.
They set off as soon as it is dark. Sid scurries off the track to relieve himself. Word ripples up the line to pause. Half an hour later, the same again.
‘We don’t stop like this,’ Jovan tells Tom. ‘We can’t.’
‘It’s dysentery,’ Tom says. ‘It must be.’
Sid tries to walk but cannot put one foot in front of the other: he stops dead, standing. They make a stretcher out of branches and oilskin, and Stipe and Nikola carry him. They reach a peasant farmhouse. The old woman, whom they’ve woken, gives Dixon rakija, and some milk. Then she encourages them to leave.
‘We have to stay,’ Jovan decides. ‘I’m sorry,’ he tells the old woman. ‘We shall leave as soon as we can.’
The woman shakes her head, mutters to herself, as if merely irritated; as if Jovan were her son who’s invited a few drunken pals to stay the night.
Marko takes first watch. The rest sleep squashed all together on straw in the small byre.
So, Tom sees, do they impose themselves on families, forbid them to leave, take their food. Some are glad to see them, salute the Partisans who fight to liberate their country; others are indifferent or hostile to their aims. But all are frightened, and eager for them to go. Everywhere they stop they become guests who overstay their welcome, or their presence brings down upon their hosts the wrath of the enemy. They are pariahs. Following in their wake are soldiers, dogs, the Black Hand. The risk becomes too great. Soon they prefer to live apart from society, outcasts in the forest: they bivouac free as tramps back in England, ragged gentlemen of the woods. But it rains, and they grow hungry, or ill, and resentful of those who make no sacrifice; they long for food and shelter, and in the early morning will knock on a door.
July 10
IN THE AFTERNOON they wake. The day is hot. The old woman gives them bread, and then she sends a child of the family to show them where they can find food. While Sid Dixon rests, watched by Francika, the child leads the others through the forest. Pines grow as nature has seeded them, not close together in dark regimented plantations but many yards apart, so that the ground around the trees is alpine wild-flower meadow. Here the child stops and spreads her hands. Tom looks down and sees at their feet green leaves dotted with blue-purple spots. Crawling over the springy plants, they stuff themselves with bilberries.
Back at the farmhouse they take turns on guard, or sit and lie on the grass outside, replete, dozy despite the long sleep of the night before. There is danger, yet they snooze in the sunshine. Wheeling in the blue sky, black crows caw; a sound, Tom remarks to Sid, who has been helped outside, like football rattles.
‘Never ’eard one a them, sir.’
‘Have you not been to a match?’
‘Exeter City, that’s a good ten mile away from us. Only been t’Exeter couple a times in my life. ’Fore the war, that is.’
It strikes Tom how novel this experience is for his corporal, from his narrow Devon farming valley, no less than for himself and his pre-war life of cloistered study.
Jovan and Pero are talking. Jovan is angry. It seems Pero does not know this area, they are reliant on couriers, but where is their next one? They have no contact. They have to keep moving, and hope to pick up a courier’s trail and reattach themselves to the shifting, hidden network.
They sleep outside, for it is warm. Ants crawl over them and bite them where they lie. They wake, rub and shake themselves, crawl to a new spot a few yards away.
‘Father,’ Nikola says, ‘show the Englishman your bullet.’
Franjo shrugs, reaches his thick peasant’s fingers into his chest pocket and withdraws a small lump of dark metal. He gives it to his son, who passes it to Tom. The metal has no shape. Only its surprisingly heavy weight suggests its erstwhile function.
‘Tell him, Father,’ Nikola says. Franjo shakes his head, and looks away. Tom wonders if the old man is mute and this request is a formality, it cannot be granted but has to be made nevertheless.
‘My father is shy,’ Nikola says. ‘I will tell you. It is a French bullet, from a long rifle, but shot by an Austrian. In the Great War.’
Franjo, still looking away, as if he has no interest in the conversation, mutters something under his breath that Tom can’t hear.
‘Maybe by a Hungarian,’ Nikola says.
‘Maybe a Muhammadan,’ Marko interrupts. ‘A Cossack. Or a Viking. We are peasants. Who knows who kills us?’
‘A British doctor treated him. But when he came home, to his father’s vineyard, my father said, “The bullet is still here. The surgeon forgot to take it out.” People told him he was mad. But he said, “I can feel it inside me, moving around, it’s still after me.”’
Tom nods. ‘But tell me, Nikola,’ he says, ‘how come the bullet is no longer inside your father but in my hand?’
‘One day it changed its mind,’ Nikola says, ‘and turned around. It began to work its way out. After one year it pushed against the skin.’ Nikola looks at his father with pride. Franjo gazes into the distance. Tom cannot help being reminded of his family Labrador, who always knew when they were talking about her and would look shyly away.
‘His friend,’ Nikola says, ‘gave him much plum brandy, while he sharpened his knife. And here it is.’
‘He carries it with him?’
‘When we left, my mother told him to bring it. She said it would protect him, that God would not let him be shot twice, in two great
wars.’
‘Does he believe this?’ Tom asks.
Nikola turns to his father, who bows his head, and shrugs once again.
‘He carries it for my mother, not for himself,’ Nikola explains. ‘She believes it.’
As they slump lazily on the dry grass, something changes: Pero looks from side to side. Marija stands up. Jovan gazes at the sky. Stipe shields his eyes and stares into the forest. Tom pricks up his ears. A sound. A far-off drumming noise. It seems to be coming from the earth: a natural occurrence perhaps, some Balkan phenomenon – earthquake, volcano. But then he notices that all the others are now gazing up into the sky. There comes that curious rough throbbing characteristic of Liberators’ engines. They appear, and are followed by others.
Wave after wave, an armada of Allied bombers darken the sky. Tom is able with Jovan’s binoculars to differentiate Fortresses from Liberators. When he puts them down he sees that the Partisans are waving and cheering, their voices all but lost in the overpowering drone. All they have seen of military might since the spring of 1941 has been Teutonic. Perhaps they did not really believe the Allies could match it.
July 11
THEY ARE ASLEEP, save for Nikola on sentry duty, when a courier finds them in the early afternoon: a boy who has been looking for them for three days. He saw a German SS patrol with dogs two hours ago. Jovan decides to set off immediately, but still Sid can hardly walk and they carry him. Despite the summer warmth he shivers beneath a blanket on the stretcher. He is not the only one affected by the diet. After nothing but wild meat for days, Tom suffers griping abdominal pains, and constipation. He is even more tired than usual; his gums are swollen, and bleeding.
Marija is not surprised at Tom’s condition. ‘Me, too,’ she tells him. ‘It is mild scurvy, I suppose.’
At another peasant house Francika procures bacon fat and rakija for Sid, but Jovan will not let them tarry. When at dawn they stop, Marko says, ‘We are passing not far from my village. I will go and get food.’
‘Do not force them,’ Jovan says, which seems to Tom a strange thing to say.
‘They are my people,’ Marko says. Stipe goes with him.
Francika feeds Sid the bacon fat and rakija, which seems to fix Sid’s insides at last. Jovan sends the courier on ahead, after he has given Pero directions.
Marko and Stipe return empty-handed. Jovan asks Marko to take over sentry duty from Marija. When he has left the clearing, Stipe says, ‘We could take nothing, even from his relatives. They were like a village of beggars. They said the domobranstvo have plundered all their stores. There was nothing, Jovan. Not even salt.’
Francika gathers blades of grass and the ends of spruce firs, their young green tender tips. She stews them in a thin soup. It is palatable, and even as he drinks it Tom can sense that it will do him good.
Franjo and Nikola produce meat, three small carcasses already caught and skinned. Francika roasts them and the pauperish companions eat their meagre portions with ravenous gratitude. There is no fat on the meat, its texture is firm but soft, and salty, and with a faint mineral taste reminiscent of gammon. But otherwise it is unlike anything Tom has ever tasted.
‘Lisica,’ Marko tells him. Fox.
Sid recovers well enough to operate the radio. British and Canadian troops have captured Caen. Sid makes contact with Italy and requests a drop tonight. The fourth unit is hiding deep in the mountains.
‘We do not know them,’ Jovan confides in Tom. ‘Our only contact has been through the couriers. I have sent a message, told them to expect us, and supplies; ordered them to prepare an action. For some reason I am nervous.’
‘A trap?’ Tom asks. ‘Could there be an ambush awaiting us?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Jovan says, though he looks unconvinced. He is responsible for more than their small group of ten soldiers, for it is vital they keep the supplies coming, the sabotage repeated. Tom finds himself wondering about the nature of their mission. Catapulted from one Partisan unit to another hiding out in the forest, they march deep into enemy territory that will be hard to withdraw from. Perhaps they are not really expected to come back: it was hoped merely that they would light fires in this southern area of the Reich, for as long as they last, and they are expendable.
Tom remembers Jack Farwell telling him, ‘It is nothing for you to worry about.’ What did that mean? Are they simply a decoy? Did it mean precisely that there was something to worry about? Jovan carries, in addition, the burden of leadership, for he alone must make decisions. Tom is struck by his loneliness.
‘Do you have a wife, Jovan?’ he asks suddenly. ‘Children?’
Jovan looks askance at him. ‘You are not a man who walks around the house looking for the back door, Tom,’ he says. ‘My wife was killed in the spring of nineteen forty-two. We had no children.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Tom says. He didn’t know he was going to ask Jovan such a question. It flew from his mouth. He had no right to.
‘A mortar attack,’ Jovan says quietly. ‘She too was a Partisan. They told me she was in great pain. Then the pain left her, and she hummed a tune no one recognised. A simple melody, they said, though none of them could recall it for me. And then she died.’
Tom says nothing, lets Jovan lapse into his memories. But then Jovan nods to himself, as if deciding, Enough, and looks up. ‘What of you, Tom?’ he asks. ‘You have a wife?’
Tom shakes his head. ‘I was still a student when this war began. The day after they invaded Poland I volunteered.’
‘No fiancée?’
‘I haven’t met the right woman,’ Tom says. ‘I’m still waiting. Perhaps one will appear, and when she does I will know.’
‘The Platonic ideal,’ Jovan says in a tone of voice that manages to suggest both agreement with and dismissal of the notion.
‘Yes, perhaps my other half exists,’ Tom nods, mock apologetic. ‘If only we can meet, she will make me – we will make each other – whole.’
‘A true romantic,’ Jovan laughs. ‘I had heard that Englishmen had ice where their hearts should be. Here we have one who is waiting for his Juliet.’
‘When I was at Oxford,’ Tom tells him, ‘there were other chaps who propositioned every woman they met. It used to astonish me. And of course in the army, in wartime, even more so. Men drawn to any woman. Every woman. Womankind. Thin, fat. Tall, short. Fair, plain. Bright, dim. The only thing they have in common? What every woman has, you know? I found this very strange.’ He shakes his head, and shrugs. ‘I don’t who is more odd: such men or myself.’
‘You are not odd, Tom,’ Jovan reassures him. ‘You have taste. Discernment.’ He laughs. ‘The curse of civilisation.’
Tom wants to tell Jovan that he was not drawn to women at all. He looks at Jovan. Their eyes meet. What can Jovan see in his eyes?
July 12
THEY WALK THROUGH the night. Tom wonders how on earth Pero is able to lead them in the darkness, following instructions from a boy, using small-scale maps, without a compass of his own. It is no wonder they get lost. Perhaps they are now. From a ridge they hear a train, then they see it, though every window is blacked-out; all that is visible are sparks, on the rails and in the plume of smoke rising from the engine.
‘I want no trains to run on that track tomorrow,’ Jovan tells Tom. They walk higher into the mountains. At dawn they see a milky layer of fog below them, peaks poke out like shipwrecks. Mid-morning they are met by the boy. Pero turns and bows, grinning, to those behind him, and waits for each to shake his hand.
‘They are not my people,’ the boy tells Jovan, very seriously, before he leads them to the fourth unit: a ragged crew more destitute and forlorn than themselves.
‘Like twenty Markos, sir,’ Dixon says. They do not greet Jovan’s odred as friends but give a desultory clenched-fist salute. Unwilling comrades. One has a wounded hand wrapped in a dirty bandage, clearly swollen beneath the dressing; another sees out of only one eye; a third is lame. They have no food but roots and n
uts. Their clothes are tattered and torn. Marooned in the woods, forsaken, they have few weapons: old hunting rifles, one .303-calibre Lee-Enfield. Other units have been convivial, sat down with Pero, Marko and the others to swap stories of their exploits, work out if they had mutual relatives or acquaintances. These shrink from contact. It is as if they have been tracked down by Jovan’s odred.
Jovan tells Tom he does not trust their guards, and posts Stipe and Nikola to keep watch. Fires are reluctantly laid. They wait for the drop that night but though there is little cloud nothing comes, no plane, no parachutes. The isolated, starveling unit are confirmed in their suspicion of the newcomers.
Tom is furious. ‘They think it’s a bloody picnic, Dixon. We could be on Salisbury Plain for all they know.’
‘It’s too bad, sir.’
‘Where is your plane, Tom?’ Jovan demands. ‘Don’t they know we are always on the move? The drop must come at the correct time and place. We cannot stay.’
‘I know,’ Tom tells him. ‘I’m sorry.’
Sid sets up the radio. A message comes through. The drop was scrubbed due to poor weather in Italy.
They sleep in the clearing where the unit have made their camp. Tom would not be surprised to find them gone when he awakes, slunk off into the forest. Instead he is woken by voices: Jovan is arguing with their leader. Tom lies and listens.
‘We are safe here.’
‘You are hiding here. You have to fight.’
‘We fight. One month ago we greased and soaped the track on a gradient north of here, shot up the train. Three of our men were wounded, as you see.’
‘One month?’ Jovan asks.
The man stares at the forest floor.
‘The single-track line running north from Celje, up between the Pohorje and the Karavanken Alps – this is all you have to think about.’