He saw the lorry grinding up the road towards them. As it stopped, soldiers spilled from it and ran towards the edge of the forest.
He tore frantically at his combat jacket and pulled out his pistol. He felt slightly less defenceless now, though he knew that if the Serbs got within range of him it would be of little use against their assault rifles.
Nick’s parachute drifted towards one of the last clumps of trees, then snagged, his harness entangled in the branches. He hung there helplessly, twisting slowly in the wind.
Drew dropped towards the forest canopy and could see no more for a moment. Branches whipped at him, tearing at his clothing. The parachute caught and then ripped free. He crashed on down through the treetops, cannoning off a thicker branch, then was jerked viciously to a halt as the chute caught again.
The silk drooped like a dying flower and, as it tore free again, Drew plummeted towards the ground. He screamed in pain as another jagged branch stopped him dead, ripping through his layers of clothing and gouging his side. Then it snapped and he was falling again, the last twenty feet to the forest floor.
He crashed to the ground, the branch impaling itself alongside his head. He lay there winded for a few moments, then struggled to his feet, tearing at his harness. As he looked up, he could see Nick through a gap in the trees, still dangling thirty feet up as he struggled with something in his combat jacket. There was a flash of pale blue as he waved the UN beret at the Serb soldiers hidden from Drew’s sight by the trees.
His gesture was answered by a burst of gunfire. A high-velocity round hit him just below the knee, blowing off the lower part of his leg in an explosion of blood and bone. Drew stood frozen as he saw Nick’s mouth fall open and heard a chilling, high-pitched scream, the sound of a tortured child torn from the throat of a man.
As the scream at last died away, there was a burst of laughter from the men on the ground. Then the firing began again – single shots – and Drew realised what they were doing. The Serbs were not shooting to kill: they were working their way in from the extremities of Nick’s body, prolonging his agony for their amusement.
Another round blew away part of his other foot. There was another scream, a pause, two shots that missed and a third punched a hole clean through Nick’s left hand.
Drew pulled his own pistol out of his combat jacket and ran towards them, firing twice. The effect on the Serbs was instantaneous. Nick’s body jerked like a puppet as bursts of automatic fire tore tufts of fibres from his clothing. Dark stains spread across his combat jacket. His head suddenly tilted and his screaming stopped.
Drew froze again, his knuckles whitening on the butt of his pistol until the steel bit into his fingers. He saw every detail with a terrible clarity: the face of his friend in its death agony, the contorted body, the blood dripping from the mangled limbs as Nick’s body twisted slowly in the wind.
As he stared, the promise he had made to Sally just a few days before came back to him. Tears misted his eyes as he thought of those suddenly fatherless children.
Fresh bursts of gunfire jerked Drew back to awareness of his own predicament. The Serbs were firing blind into the forest; bullets raked the ground and lashed the foliage around him. As the gunfire stopped he heard a fresh sound: twigs snapped and heavy, booted feet trampled through the undergrowth towards him.
He tore his eyes away from Nick and looked despairingly towards the survival box a few yards down the slope. Then he turned and ran up the hillside, dodging between the tree trunks, his feet floundering in the dense carpet of soft pine needles.
In the panic of his parachute descent, he had forgotten his combat drills and pulled the handle to inflate his life jacket, protecting his neck on impact. The dayglo-orange jacket stood out like a target amongst the trees. He yanked it off as he ran and threw it away. His flying helmet followed. The life jacket contained his locator beacon, but, if he stopped to retrieve it, the Search and Rescue team would only be using it to locate a corpse.
The bruise on his side throbbed agonisingly, but he forced himself on. He blundered deeper and deeper into the forest, gasping for breath, a roaring sound in his ears, sweat cascading from him.
He had no idea of how long he ran, but he kept on running until he tripped over a tree root and crashed to the ground. He slid down a steep bank into a hollow, brambles tearing at his face and body.
At the bottom, buried amongst the brambles and ferns, was a pool of rheumy water and black, stinking mud. Uncaring, he lay there, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. Gradually the pounding of his heart eased and his rasping breath quietened.
He listened. At first there was no sound other than the buzzing of the flies, but gradually he became aware of a rustling noise, which grew louder by the second. There was a sudden crack, not far off – the snap of a twig.
He looked around frantically for better cover. There was none. He wriggled deeper into the foul-smelling mud, coating the back of his body, arms and legs, and rolled his head from side to side, covering his hair and neck. Then he turned onto his front and snaked into the undergrowth.
He looked behind him, but the wet mud and brackish water had already swallowed his trail. His face lay inches from the edge of the undergrowth. It was sparse cover, but it was all there was. Peering out, he could see only a few feet of the forest floor.
He lay there motionless, his heart pounding like a hammer. Another twig snapped and then he heard a rhythmic beating as the searchers marched slowly up the hillside, line abreast, thrashing the bushes with sticks and calling to each other.
Every instinct screamed at Drew to be off and running before it was too late, but he held himself rigid, pressing himself down even further into the mire as the sounds grew louder, his fingers scrabbling into the mud as he tried to hide himself.
He found he was holding his breath and exhaled with a noise that he was sure could be heard fifty yards away. He forced himself to breathe slowly and evenly but his heart still pounded, the pulse beating in his temple like a drum. Flies buzzed around him, settling on his eyelids and lips. He heard rough, guttural shouts as the searchers came nearer. He had never felt more isolated, nor more scared.
The noise of the search reached a crescendo. A stick whistled through the air and beat at the brambles above him. His skin tautened as he waited for the blow or the gunshot that he knew must come.
Then he heard the stick thwacking at the next patch of brambles and the footsteps moved on, scuffling amongst the pine needles. The flies, which had lifted from him as the sticks beat the bushes, returned. He was about to raise his head to peer after the retreating searchers when a scuffed and mud-smeared toecap came to rest six inches from his face. He froze again.
Instead of an explosion, there was a muffled sound he could not identify, and then silence. Suddenly a jet of steaming urine splashed down through the brambles. Drew could feel its warmth on his arm. Tiny droplets spattered onto his face. He watched in horror as the mud was washed from the arm of his flying suit.
He was sure now that he would die. Instead there was an impatient shout from further up the hill and a guttural response. The stream of urine slowed and stopped. The toecap turned away, but the soldier’s other foot came down on Drew’s forearm. The hobnails scoured a path across his arm as the boot slipped off and he stifled a yelp of pain. The soldier gave a muffled curse as he pulled his boot out of the mud, which released its hold with a squelch.
There was another shout and Drew watched through half-closed eyes, as the soldier came into view for a moment, hurrying up the slope, fumbling with his buttons, his assault rifle dangling from his shoulder.
The sounds of the search faded as the patrol disappeared higher up the hillside. For the moment Drew was safe, but still he stayed where he was.
He fingered the radio jammed in his combat jacket, but decided against using it. Calling up on the Guard frequency would undoubtedly have alerted the American Search and Rescue teams that he was alive, but the call could also be overhe
ard by anyone else monitoring the frequency.
He considered his position as objectively as he could. If his luck held, he could lie up until after nightfall and then head south-west over the mountains towards Muslim-held territory. All his combat survival briefs had stressed that there was no such thing as a safe haven in Bosnia and all sides embroiled in the conflict were to be treated as hostile, but he knew that there was a UN monitoring station on the outskirts of Srebanj. It was seventy miles away, but he needed an objective and there was nothing to be gained from staying where he was.
He was haunted by the image of Nick’s shattered body. As if in confirmation, he heard a shot from further up the hillside, then another and another. The searchers were returning, firing into the undergrowth to try to flush out their quarry. Drew heard them calling to each other as they moved through the forest. He tried to burrow deeper into the mud, then froze as two soldiers approached, kicking at the bushes. There was another shot and Drew heard the bullet rip through the brambles just above his head. It hit a stone and ricocheted away.
Again and again the soldiers combed the area, shouting, beating the bushes and firing into the undergrowth. Again and again they passed Drew’s hiding place without discovering him.
The stagnant water seeped through every layer of Drew’s clothing and chilled him to the bone, but he dared not move. Even when his leg locked in the agony of cramp, he forced himself to lie still, flexing only his toes to ease the pain. He was desperately thirsty, but could not risk moving to get at one of the water sachets in his G-suit.
He lay still, constantly alert, as he watched the shadows lengthen through the afternoon. For an instant, he found himself thinking of home and of Michelle. Only five days before, he had been sitting in a restaurant by an English river, drinking champagne, eating fine food and falling in love.
In the early evening the soldiers made one final sweep, but by then they seemed half convinced that their quarry had already escaped. They hurried down the hillside, searching half-heartedly in the undergrowth. Then they were gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Drew heard engines revving in the distance and gears grinding as the Serb lorries lumbered away down the road. He remained where he was, fearing a trap, soldiers waiting to pounce as he emerged from his hide. When night had fallen and the first stars were pricking the sky, he crawled stiffly out of his lair.
He sorted through his pockets, lining up his survival equipment in front of him, then discarded every inessential. He was left with his water and emergency rations, a foil space blanket, a map doubling as a blanket, a sheet of camouflage netting, spare socks, hat and mittens, his pistol and a hunting knife. He also had a medical kit, a radio and a Global Positioning System receiver.
He turned his GPS on. The tiny screen lit up and within half a minute it had given him his position. The nearest rescue point lay beyond the heaviest concentrations of Serb troops, but the GPS could also be used like a compass, showing him the direction to travel and the distance he had already covered. Drew was oddly comforted by the messages on the tiny green screen.
He tossed the useless items like sunblock and sunglasses into the mud and ground them down with his boot. A thick manual on aircrew survival, its weight exceeding its usefulness, also went in, followed by his G-pants.
He thought wistfully of the survival pack from the Tempest, full of water, food, warm clothing and survival aids. It might still be lying where it had fallen. The thought of water made him rip open a sachet. He drained it and reached for another, but then stopped himself. Without the survival pack, he had only two pints, which might have to last him days; better to wait and drink from a stream as he climbed towards the mountains. He was also ravenously hungry but determined to save his rations for a real emergency.
He hesitated for a moment, unsure what to do. Then he stood up, still stiff and shivering with cold, wincing at the pain from the bruise on his side. Instead of heading up the hillside, he inched his way slowly back down the slope, retracing his route.
The moon was rising behind the clouds, but only a faint light filtered down between the trees. Every few seconds he paused, straining his eyes and ears into the darkness ahead. He struggled on, slipping from tree to tree, his breath coming in ragged bursts as each fresh sound of the forest set his heart racing.
More by luck than good navigation, he eventually reached the clearing. The newly broken end of the branch that had almost impaled him showed white in the moonlight. He saw the survival box a little way down the slope.
He hung back at the edge of the clearing, scanning every tree and every shadow. He was about to move into the open when he caught a faint scent on the breeze. He shrank back as he smelled black tobacco smoke.
He peered out again, straining his eyes to look through, not at, the cover, as his survival instructor had once told him. Directly opposite he could just make out a darker shape in the shadows by the trunk of a thick pine. As he looked there was the faint glint of moonlight on steel and the glow of a freshly inhaled cigarette.
Drew sank silently to the ground and then wormed his way forward. As the soldier took another drag on his cigarette, Drew caught a brief glimpse of his features, demonic in the red light. Then the dot turned cartwheels in the night as the soldier flicked the cigarette away.
Drew remained motionless, adrenalin pumping. Suddenly there was a rasping sound and the white flare of a match no more than five metres to his right. As he flattened himself against the ground, he heard a second soldier draw on his cigarette, cough, hawk and spit. There was a metallic click and the man called to his companion.
Both stepped out from the shadows and stood in the centre of the clearing, muttering to each other as they smoked their cigarettes. Then they slung their weapons over their shoulders and, carrying the survival box between them, headed down the hillside.
Drew crawled out of his hiding place and watched them pick their way through the trees. They paused for a moment at the edge of the forest. Drew saw them gazing up and heard them laugh. Then they walked on down the sloping field to the road. Drew stayed hidden in the shadows until the murmur of their voices faded away.
He heard a dull thump and the bang of a door, then an engine roared into life and two headlights stabbed into the darkness as a lorry disappeared into the night.
Drew moved swiftly to the point where the men had paused. Long before he saw the dark shape twisting slowly above him, he knew what they had been looking at. He stepped away from the base of the tree and listened for a moment, but the only sounds were the breeze through the treetops and the faint creaking of the parachute harness.
Every instinct told him that he must use the remaining hours of darkness to get far away from this place, but he could not leave his friend hanging there.
He peered upwards, measuring the distance to the first branch, then sprang. His outstretched fingers caught and held and he hauled himself up. Panting with effort, he swung a leg over the branch and then pulled himself upright against the trunk. He paused and then began to scale the tree.
Finally he stood on a broken branch, just above Nick’s body. He inched out along it, his hands thrashing the air as he struggled to hold his balance. The branch creaked ominously and he felt himself starting to fall. He threw himself forward into space. His fingers clutched at the parachute webbing and he gasped as his bruised side banged into Nick’s corpse.
The chute swung crazily to and fro. As the motion slowed, he slid down. Avoiding looking at Nick’s face, he reached around for the quick-release harness, recoiling as his fingers found the catch, sticky with blood. He forced himself to press and turn it but a Serb round had jammed it shut.
He dragged himself painfully back up the harness and then, anchored by one hand, he reached into his jacket for his knife and began to saw through the strands. It took him twenty minutes, the muscles in his left arm screaming in protest as they took his weight.
The last strands of the harness parted and Nick’s lifeless body
dropped to the ground. Drew grabbed for the harness with his other hand. Then he lowered himself until his arms were fully extended and let himself drop.
He landed alongside Nick’s body and, as he pulled himself to his feet, a gap in the clouds allowed him to see Nick’s face illuminated in the moonlight.
Averting his gaze, Drew leaned down and tugged at the thin leather thong around Nick’s neck. It was slippery with blood. He let it slip through his fingers until he felt cold metal in the palm of his hand. Then he jerked it free and slipped it into his pocket.
He dragged the body a few yards into the forest, tears streaming down his face, then began ripping with his knife at the soft earth between the trees. Throwing the knife aside in frustration, he scrabbled at the soil with his bare hands, scraping pine needles and forest debris aside, his fingers tearing at the network of fine tree roots just below the surface.
Without a spade, he could dig no more than a few inches down, but he made the hole as large as he could, then dragged Nick’s corpse towards it, the stumps of his legs scraping twin furrows in the earth.
He scraped the soil, leaves and forest litter back over the body, covering it as well as he could. Then he snapped a branch under his boot and plunged it into the earth at the head of the shallow grave. Nick’s UN beret had caught in a patch of brambles. Drew retrieved it and hung it from the branch. He knelt motionless by the grave, not knowing how to pray or what to say. Then he turned and began to move away up the slope.
He was torn between the need for caution and speed. At first he advanced stealthily, pausing every few paces to look and listen for danger, but he quickly realised that hypothermia could be as great a threat to him as the Serbs and increased his pace. He had to get warm, using his body heat to dry his clothes, before he came out through the treeline on to the barren, rocky ridges high above him. If not, he could be dead of exposure before morning.
Point of Impact Page 21