by James Rouch
‘Major?’ Hyde could see where the officer was looking, and knew why. What the hell, he wasn’t going to arrange things especially to make an officer’s love life easier, or his frustration less.
‘Eh, yes.’ Damn, he must be getting tired, his attention had wandered, but then it often did towards Andrea. It was a good job none of the others noticed. ‘We’ve no way of knowing how that shot carried. Sound plays tricks at night. Put a watch on the track, just in case. Put Dooley on it first. He was only up the tree a short time before it got dark, and it’d be as well to get him away from the women.’
Crud, shitty crud. Fucking shitty crud. The shitty bastard. Dooley knew the order originated from the major. Shit. What harm would it have done for him to have stayed back there, trying to chat up the women? With everyone looking he’d have hardly been likely to have got anywhere, but it made a nice change, or would have, to have a bit of feminine company. He didn’t count Andrea. Apart from the fact she went off on her own and squatted when she had a pee, she was just the same as one of the men.
Three months she had hung around him, pumping him for knowledge, learning all there was to know about close-quarters fighting, even getting him to give her Kung-Fu lessons, and what had he got for it? A couple of crafty squeezes at a very nice firm tit, his face up against her arse a couple of other times and one lovely and all too brief grind on top of her before she’d realised what he was doing. He could still feel that hard contact with the tight-closed top of her legs, and then the beautiful slide forward to run his erection up her denim-covered crack. And he could still feel the pain as she had ripped out a handful of his hair in hurling him off, and the kick to his balls with which she had finished that lesson, and nearly his sex-life for good.
The last three weeks, though, she’d hardly come to him at all, she’d learnt all she could and pretty soon she’d be fastening on to someone else. Maybe it’d be Libby, he’d already noticed them together a couple of times, but somehow he didn’t think so. Whatever the reason though, it was getting up Revell’s nose, and in that at least Dooley could find some measure of revenge for the stinking, lousy, crappy numbers the major was pulling at the moment.
Clarence arrived to take over, and very stiffly Dooley vacated the warm soft depression he’d made in the grass. As he’d expected, the sniper chose his own spot and he watched him settle down, after first carefully laying out a groundsheet.
Taking a last look at the track, standing in the pale moonlight like a broad silver stream between the canyon walls of the trees, Dooley started back to the APC. He was tired, but had gone beyond the stage where he could sleep. If they made it back he’d sleep then, probably round the clock, and if they didn’t then he wouldn’t need it.
‘Can I talk to you?’
Coming out of the darkness, without warning, the voice made him jump. A woman stepped in front of him. The one whose eye he had been trying to catch. ‘Please, can I talk to you?’ She held her hands tight-clasped in front of her, crushing a silk scarf between them.
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ He was wary, in case it was a trap. ‘I have three children with me, my daughters.’
Now Dooley was really on his guard. It sounded almost like an offer, but it couldn’t be. He said nothing, waiting to see what came next.
‘They are very pretty; very pretty.’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘I am afraid of what will happen if those Russian animals find them.’
She had leant against him, and he could feel the gentle warmth of her full body. ‘You’ll have to talk to the major, I can’t help you, I’m not in charge.’ ‘Please, he will not listen to me. I have tried, but he says there will be greater danger if we go with you.’
‘He’s right’ Dooley put his arms around her and held her to him, comforting her by stroking her hair. ‘Someone in the Ruskie high command has got it in for us. Wherever we go, all hell breaks loose.’
‘It is not for me. All I have left is my girls. My husband was killed by the Communists when he stopped them from raping our youngest. Greta was only fifteen at the time. They are my life. I have kept them safe, and now I want only for them to reach the West and learn of freedom; freedom from fear and from want. You like me, I know you do. You must help me.’
No one, absolutely no one had ever got through to him like this before. He felt his eyes growing hot and moist as he hugged her close. In her he felt softness, warmth and compassion; all the things he had ever looked for in a woman. And there was nothing he could do, nothing.
‘Your officer says that we must follow some hours behind. Is there nothing else we can do?’
When she looked up at him it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. He kissed her, a kiss that started as a token and finished long afterwards as a passionate joining of two people who had found something they needed.
‘You don’t have to wait ‘til we’re over the hill.’ The embrace had taken his breath away and Dooley had to break and pause before he could speak. ‘He’s not going to shoot you off the road, Christ, we’re not shitty Commies. Soon as you get started, hang in behind us and we’ll lead you through, what can he do?’
This time her mouth sought his, and as they met her tongue forced contact with his. Dooley’s hand closed over her large soft breast and felt for the contours of her body beneath the layers of clothing.
As he fumbled with the fastenings of her clothing he caught the faint whiff of perfume and the thought occurred that perhaps she had engineered this, but he didn’t care. His penis was iron hard, she was ready for him and he wanted her.
He hated clothes, the delay and clumsy fumblings they brought to something that should be so natural and spontaneous, but with her hands reaching for his zip and her tongue snaking into his ear the ritual of disrobing was almost a part of pleasure.
The cold night air was suddenly on the lower half of his body and at the same moment he found the waistband of her knickers and began to ease them down over the wide swell of her hips.
Her momentary resistance was also a part of the ritual, and then the tip of his penis was pushing against the soft-backed bush of hair between her legs and he felt a moment’s cool dampness before he began to slide into her. He penetrated a little, then felt a barring roughness.
‘Not here. Please, let me lie down.’ Pulling her impaled body from him she waited for his next move.
Dooley had been through this before. Taking off his jacket he laid it on the ground, took her by the hands and gentle lowered her on to it. Experience told him there was no point in trying to re-enter immediately, and with the cold creeping into the lower half of his body, and reducing his massive erection to a flaccid shadow of its former self, he worked again through the process of kissing and touching.
She responded, for whatever reason he didn’t care, she responded and her fingers closed about his wet-tipped penis and jerked on it to work it to new hardness.
Threading through her many layers of clothing his hand found a nipple, and rolling and teasing it between his fingers he brought it erect, then moving from her lips sought it with his mouth and began to suck and lick at it.
He had to free a hand from behind her to seek her mouth and lay a warning finger across her lips as she involuntarily gave vent to loud moans and gasps.
For an instant he thought she was pushing him away, then realised she was trying to engineer a change of position. He eased back from her and she turned half on to her stomach so that his erection was prodding the twin crescents of her backside. An exploratory prod was met by muscle-clenching resistance.
Not sure what she wanted, he let his hand roam over her buttock and thigh and around to her front where it slid through the luxuriant tangle of her pubic hair and into her moist opening.
Now she responded with force, ramming her bottom back into his lap, and pulling upwards so that his tip ran down the tight groove of her bottom to the deep indent at the top of her legs. And then he knew what she wanted. While with practised touch he worked on her with
his fingers from the front, his penis sought her body from behind and when it found it entered with well-lubricated ease.
It was the best he had ever had. Her hand guided his, pressing him to the soft yielding places between her tight-clenched thighs while he strove to make every second count as he thrust and withdrew and thrust again to use every available inch in her body.
When he came he lost control, pumping first deep inside her, then pulling out and feeling the release as he finished on the backs of her legs.
Expecting her to make a fuss, complain at what he had done, as he pulled away he sought for a piece of rag or handkerchief to offer. But she didn’t, turning on her back and pulling up her underclothes and then smoothing down her skirt. ‘You were good. You made no demands.’
It was the first time a woman had ever said that to him, Dooley didn’t know quite how to take it. In part it was certainly a compliment, but the rest? To hell with it. He’d had a good one, a fucking good one, and so had she, she’d said so, as good as.
And now reaction set in. There was no strength left in him. It would have been good to lay with her, exploring her body with hands and tongue while she did the same for him, until they were ready to do it again, but he was too tired.
‘Now it is my turn.’
He didn’t believe what he’d heard. ‘You’ve got to be joking. You’ve just sucked the life out of me.’
‘And it was good for you, I was pleased you did it the way I wanted, but this time you do it just for me. It does not matter whether you come or not.’ She put her hand up her skirt and did something to herself. ‘Some of what you did is on my clothes, if I scream who would your officer believe?’
‘You cow. Just don’t blame me if I’m no good.’
‘Oh, I will help you.’ Going down on her knees she unfastened Dooley. ‘See, already it is almost possible, just a little more...’
Her hands were at him, rubbing, kneading, pulling. It occurred to him that this is what it must be like for a woman, being used. He couldn’t help himself, he was going hard.
‘Good, now you are ready. Oh, come on, join in, you will enjoy it.’ Backing him against a tree she ground against his body, hoisting her skirt to feel the tip of his penis against her wet underwear.
She wasn’t pulling them down, just aside, and as she guided him in the lace- trimmed hem cut into the base of his erection. His shoulders ached as she gripped him, pulling herself up and down, going faster and faster as she strove for her climax. As it reached a stage where he really thought he could take no more she changed to short deliberate strokes and the intolerable roughness of the action was replaced by flooding damp as she achieved her orgasm.
It took an age, as she drew out the sensation, almost pulling off him then sliding down once more and gasping and groaning as other spasms of pleasure coursed through her.
Finishing at last, she pulled away, straightened her clothes, and without another word or sign walked off to rejoin the others.
Dooley tucked himself back in, finding the stickiness left by her body distasteful, rubbing himself on his clothing to remove it.
He’d done it so many times himself, and now something like it had happened to him, and he didn’t like it. But at least the woman had let him come. A lot of times with his women he’d only satisfied himself, taking no account of their needs, not even considering them, not even thinking of them. Under other circumstances he would have strolled back, getting ready to boast of yet another conquest, but this time he didn’t feel he could... didn’t want to.
What had happened was not of his doing. He had just been an instrument, an animated vibrator and he did not enjoy thinking of himself in that way.
So what the hell, he’d just forget it, push it to the back of his mind. But when he bent to pick up his rifle the cold damp tackiness in his pants and the aching soreness told him it would not be that easy.
Shit, the fucking woman had turned his world upside down, he would never be just the hunter again. In future it would always be in his mind that he might be the prey, and even when he could be sure of the relative relationships, when he had a woman over whom he had total domination, then what it was like for her would still be creeping into the back of his mind, and he would not be doing it just for himself.
He sat with his back to a tree in sight of their transport. It was possible to make out the huddled forms of the women, most of whom had stayed here, rather than going back to their Land-Rover.
Perhaps they didn’t trust Revell, or more likely they were just scared. It would have taken a lot of courage in the first place to put the abandoned vehicle back into working order and provision it for their escape to the West That would have taken weeks, months, perhaps a year or more, while they tried to acquire spare parts without raising suspicion and, putting a little of their meagre ration aside each week, accumulated a supply that might last them the journey.
To anyone who had not been in the Zone it was impossible to visualise the difficulties of travel within it, especially for those without permission to do so.
The refugees were ruled with an iron rod by the Russians, had to stay put, fend as best they could within the prescribed area about their camp. For the Communists the civilians were simply another form of camouflage, to be moved and rearranged as the need arose.
And for those who did make the break, who tried to reach the West, simply evading the Russian patrols was just the start. Minefields, ground surveillance radar linked to machine guns firing on fixed lines; areas where persistent toxic chemicals still lingered and territory heavily irradiated by atomic air bursts, all those had to be avoided, with movement limited to the hours of darkness. The wonder was not that some made it to the West, but that any ever tried.
The group they had met up with, they would have been through all that already, and now after days of hunger and constant fear they were near the limit of their endurance. Their abortive attack on what they’d thought to be a Russian patrol had been their last fling.
What would his last fling be? Dooley had never given it a thought before. Maybe he’d just had it. When the repairs were completed they would be off again, driving fast towards whatever nastiness the Russians had in store for them next.
His eyes felt heavy, and his head dropped forward on to his chest. He knew he was falling asleep, could feel it stealing up on him, and didn’t resist. Letting his mind drift it came back time and time again to the recent experience with the woman. She had used him ... that worried him ... he didn’t want that to be his last fling...
‘Fat stiff.’ Burke had seen Dooley follow the woman from the trees, and now as he reassembled the water pump saw him nodding off. He felt like throwing something. ‘How come everything always goes his way? Look at him, he doesn’t have a bloody care in the world. Christ, you wouldn’t think he was in the ruddy Zone would you?’
‘I expect he has problems, worries.’ At last Libby was satisfied with the strength of the belting he had made.
‘Him, never. Eating, fucking and fighting, that’s all he thinks about. His only problem is getting enough of them. He’s forgotten that woman already.’
‘Maybe not.’ Libby gave the belt a final test, and it passed. ‘Maybe not.’
HEADQUARTERS.
AIR DEFENCE COMMAND.
CENTRAL SECTOR. ZONE.
The telephone kept slipping in General Pakovski’s moist grip. He could feel sweat trickling down inside his uniform, soaking the back of his jacket. ‘... Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General, they are the only ones who have broken out ... Yes, every effort... I understand Comrade Lieutenant General, you have given Moscow assurances on the strength of those I gave you ... Three more hours, thank you, Comrade Lieutenant General...’
Before he finished speaking, Pakovski heard the line go dead, but he completed the sentence for the sake of appearance; the colonel was in the room. ‘Where are they now?’
On the wall map the colonel circled a patch of forest on the western border of the Harz
nature park. ‘They are here, Comrade General. The local commander says the ground is too difficult for armour, but he has managed to move two battalions of light infantry into the area, and they are attempting an encirclement. He says it will be difficult to take them alive if they should fight...’
‘They are getting too close to their own lines, now I want them dead.’ Pakovski could tell there was something else.
His snap made it no easier for the colonel to broach the subject. ‘Well, what is it?’
‘Eh, it is just that the infantry commander has questioned the authority of your orders, as have the air units you have ordered to join the search...’
‘Say what ever you have to, threaten, promise, bribe: I must have the group destroyed. That is all that matters. I will deal with the other problems afterwards.’
As the colonel went out, the general took his pistol from its polished holster and laid it on the desk in front of him. He had intended to use it on the survivors of the NATO group. Now, unless they could be wiped out, it would have to serve another purpose.
FIFTEEN
They were about to give the Land-Rover a tow start behind the APC when the first star shell ignited with a loud ‘crack’ several thousand feet above the tree tops.
Night was washed from the forest by the harsh glare and replaced by searing white light in which the boundaries of shadows were marked with knife-edged precision.
‘Russian infantry, bloody thousands of them. All around us.’ Cline was out of breath, and the fast passage he had made down the hillside to be sure of being the first to report had marked his face and hands with long livid cuts from whipping spike-tipped branches.
Standing half-out of a roof hatch, Revell sensed rather than saw the quality of the light diminish as the flare sank lower, and looked up in time to see it replaced by another high overhead. ‘How long before they reach us?’ ‘Five minutes. They’re just coming on like a load of zombies.’ ‘OK, pull the sentries back. We’ll have to try and crash out of here.’