Алистер Маклин - The Last Frontier

Reynolds winced and looked at Jansci, but it was too dark to see the expression on his face, he could only hear him murmuring something over and over again to himself, but Reynolds could not distinguish the words, they must have been Ukranian. And there was not time to wonder, even at that very moment Colonel Hidas might be stooping over the man whom he had thought to be Professor Jennings …

Sandor had reached the two women now, had an arm around each of them, and was plunging back through the frozen-crusted snow towards the river bank as if he had been leading two fleet-footed runners by the hand instead of virtually carrying them, which he was. Reynolds wheeled round, to find the Cossack standing just behind him.

‘There’s going to be trouble,’ Reynolds said quickly. ‘Get up to the house, stick the submachine-gun through the window and when Sandor drops below the level of the river bank …’ But the Cossack was already on his way, his feet churning up the gravel as he raced for the house.

Reynolds turned round again, the fists by his side clenching and unclenching in his anxiety, his frustration at their helplessness. Thirty yards to go now, twenty-five, twenty, still a strange absence of all sound and activity from the woods in the background and Reynolds was just beginning to hope against hope when he heard the excited shouts from the trees, a barked command and at once an automatic carbine opened up with its harsh staccato cough, the very first shells whistling by only inches from Reynolds’ head: he dropped to the ground like a stone, dragging Jansci with him, and lay there with his open hand beating at the pebbles in his impotence while the bullets whined harmlessly overhead, but even at that moment he found time to wonder why only the one man was firing – one would have expected Hidas to bring his entire arsenal to bear.

Then, muffled though the sound was by the thick snow, there suddenly came to his ears the thud, thud of pounding feet and a moment later, in a waist-high flurry of flying snow, Sandor came over the top of the far bank like a charging bull, literally lifting Julia and her mother clear off their feet, and landed with a grating, sliding crunch on the pebbles at least ten feet beyond and below, and even while he was still stumbling, still recovering his balance on that treacherous footing, a machine-gun with a different cyclic rate had opened up – the Cossack had timed it without the loss of a second. It was doubtful whether he could see anybody against the dark background of trees, but the AVO machine-gun was pointing directly at him and must have betrayed its position, flash-cover or not, by the red fire streaking from the mouth of the barrel. In any event, the firing from the wood stopped almost immediately.

Sandor had reached the boat now, and was lifting somebody into it. A moment later he helped the second person inside, dragged the heavily-laden boat off the gravel with one mighty heave and was overarming himself so powerfully across the river that the gurgling water at the forefoot piled high into a bow-wave that gleamed whitely even in the darkness of the night.

Jansci and Reynolds, on their feet again, were at the water’s edge, waiting, hands reached out ready to grab the boat and drag it ashore, when all at once there came a hiss, a soft crack and a blinding white light burst into life not a hundred feet above their heads, and, almost on the instant, a machine-gun and several rifles opened up, again, still from the trees, but much farther to the south, where the wood curved in to meet the river.

‘Shoot the flare down!’ Reynolds shouted to the Cossack. ‘Never mind the AVO. Shoot that damned flare down!’ Blinded by the glare, he plunged into the river just as he heard Jansci doing the same thing, swore softly as the side of the boat struck painfully against the kneecap, grabbed the gunwale, jerked the boat up on the shelving pebbled beach, staggered as someone who had incautiously stood up in the boat pitched forward against him, recovered and caught her up in his arms just as the flare above the river died as suddenly as it had come to life. The Cossack was proving himself that night. But the guns from the wood across the river still coughed and chattered, the men behind them were firing from memory, and bullets were still whistling and ricocheting all around them.

There was no doubt who Reynolds had in his arms, it must have been Jansci’s wife, she was too frail, too light altogether for Julia. Guided now only by the slope of the pebbled shore – the darkness, after the blinding whiteness of the flare, was now quite impenetrable – Reynolds took a step forward and all but collapsed to the ground as the pain in his momentarily paralyzed knee struck at him. He freed one hand, grabbed at the tautened rope to steady himself, heard a thud as if someone had fallen heavily, felt someone else brush by him and heard steps running up towards the bank, clenched his teeth against the pain and limped up the shingles as quickly as he could. He felt a bullet pluck at the sleeve of his coat, the three-foot bank that he had to scale with his aching leg and the woman in his arms loomed as an unsurmountable obstacle in his mind, then a great pair of hands caught him from behind and he was standing on top of the bank, still clutching the woman before he had more than dimly realized what was happening.

The oblong of pale light that was the door of the ferryman’s cottage was before him now, not ten feet away, and, even as he saw it, even as he heard bullets smashing against the stonework of the cottage and whining away into the darkness, Jansci, who had been first to reach the house, reappeared in the doorway, suicidally silhouetted against the light behind him. Reynolds made to shout a warning, changed his mind – it was too late now if any marksman had drawn a bead, and it was only two seconds away – moved forwards, heard the woman in his arms say something, knew instinctively, without understanding the words, what she wanted and set her gently on her feet. She took two or three faltering steps forward then flung herself into the outstretched arms of the waiting man, murmuring, ‘Alex! Alex! Alex!’ then she seemed to shudder, leaned heavily against him as if she had been struck from behind, but that was all Reynolds saw: Sandor had bundled them all into the lobby and crashed the door shut behind him.

Julia was half-sitting, half-lying at the far end of the corridor, supported by an anxious-looking Dr Jennings. Reynolds reached her in two strides and fell on his knees beside her. Her eyes were shut, her face very pale, there was the beginning of a bruise high upon her forehead, but she was breathing, shallowly but evenly.

‘What’s happened to her?’ Reynolds asked huskily. ‘Has she been – has she been–’

‘She’ll be all right.’ Sandor’s voice behind him was deep and reassuring. He stooped and lifted her in his arms, and turned towards the living-room. ‘She fell getting out of the boat, and she must have struck her head on the stones. I’ll take her in to the couch here.’

Reynolds watched the giant, the water dripping steadily from his soaking clothes, carry her through the door as if she had been a child, rose slowly to his feet and almost bumped into the Cossack. The youngster’s face was alive with exultation.

‘You should be at your window,’ Reynolds said quietly.

‘No need.’ The Cossack’s grin stretched from ear to ear. ‘They’ve stopped firing and gone now back to the trucks – I can hear their voices in the woods. I got two of them, Mr Reynolds, two of them! I saw them fall in the light of the flare, just before you shouted at me to shoot the flare out.’

‘And you did that too,’ Reynolds acknowledged. That accounted, he realized, for the lack of any more of the pistol flares: a double-edged weapon, it had turned disastrously in Hidas’ hand. ‘You’ve saved us all tonight.’ He clapped the proud boy on his shoulder, turned to look at Jansci and then stood very still.