Gerald Seymour: The Contract

There's no bloody time.

The ropes were looped over the upper two of the three firing wires, the knots tied with leaping, fumbling fingers. johnny turned, played out the twin ropes, stumbled back, plunged into the ditch, fell on Otto Guttmann's legs. He looked at his watch, found the second hand. Give it a little while, darling, let the jeep run to its extremity.

Carter had surged to his knees.

Charlie Davies's fist was embedded in Carter's coat, wrenching him down.

'Someone was there… at the fence.'

'Get down.'

'It'll be Johnny…'

'Or the aufklarer, or the NVA… or Johnny.'

Carter fell back. 'It has to be Johnny.'

'And if it is, how do you help him? I told you before there's nothing The twin explosions raked the night. Two sheets of flame streaming from the separated posts. A fraction of time before the third detonation.

The singing howl of the shrapnel in the air, the whine of ricochets from the fence. Brilliant, echoing noise cascading through the trees.

Johnny jumped from the cover of the ditch, slid at its rim, scrabbled for support, found it, felt the stench of the explosive charge at his nostrils, twisted back with his arm outstretched. He grappled for a hand to seize, found none, swept his fingers through the darkness. He touched the coat of Otto Guttmann, pulled it, dragged it. God, he was heavy. And stiff too, rigid, unhelping, an old man and disorientated and confused, cringing back from the smoke and the noise.

A Very light burst in the sky, showered the tree tops with slow falling stars.

Can't move him, Johnny, can you? Can't lift him if he won't help. He has to help, the bloody fool, he has to help if he's to go over. It's four feet above your eye level, the top of the wire. He has to respond. He has to want to climb.

'Erica… you have to help me…' Johnny desperate, Johnny in panic.

All of them stumbling in the darkness and the chaos rampant and contagious.

The howl of the first siren. The powered roar of a jeep engine. Closing on you, Johnny, and the sand's running, the time's spilling. The second hand's spinning on the watch face. The jeep's eating the yards.

Johnny circled his arm round Otto Guttmann's waist. Gently, darling.

Cut the fluster. Gently because that's the only way, because otherwise it's catastrophe.

'All the guns have gone, Doctor,' Johnny said quietly. 'There's only the fence now. As I lift you, put your hands on the top and pull yourself and roll off the top and let yourself drop…' He'll have no hands left, they'll be shredded, they'll be slashed. 'I'm going to lift you now, Doctor He forced Otto Guttmann up and his feet kicked and slipped on the smoothness of the mesh, and the old man's hands reached up, naked and white, for the top of the wire and grasped at it, and he screamed and the blood drops spattered on Johnny's head.

'You have to go over,' Johnny shouted. 'You have to find the courage..'

The jeep lights broke on the fence, dawn with day running behind, clearing the blur of movement from the shadow edges, sharpening the images of confusion. Johnny on his toes and stretching, and the strength was fleeing him. He thrust Otto Guttmann's legs onto the summit of the wire, saw a shoe balance at the top, an ankle catch, he heard the tearing of the clothing.

'Help me, Erica…'

'I can't… I can't reach him.'

'We have to.'

'I can't. I can't… I can't reach him.'

There was a long, rippling burst of automatic fire.

Above Johnny's head, Otto Guttmann lurched and rolled and gasped as the bullets struck home.

The crack of the gun, the thud of the impact. Sounds that were together and inseparable. Only the clothing held him, and the hand that was bloodied and had gripped the wire. One single shot to follow and Otto Guttmann toppled back from the wire, shaken clear by the force of the blow, landing at Johnny's feet.

Erica on the ground beside him, Erica with the keening cry and the hands that were loving at her father's face. Johnny spun away from the wire.

The jeep on the patrol road with its lights turned on them, and in front of the lights the outline of the soldier.

Johnny dropped, reached for the Stechkin, rolled and aimed. The range at Aldershot, just as the Para sergeant had told him. Half a clip he fired.

Three shots to fell the rifleman. Three shots to stagger, twist and drop him. Three shots for the windscreen of the jeep, the cry of fear, the pain.

New Very lights in the sky, more sirens in the wind.

'We have to go, Erica,' said Johnny.

'I won't leave him.'

Johnny's arm was round her, he felt the convulsions of her misery. 'You can't help him… we must go now.'

'There is nothing for me there.'

'You have to come, Erica.'

She looked into his face. He saw the sorrow and the obstinate calm. 'If I were to come, then who would bury him?… You go, Johnny. You have done what you were sent to do.'

She turned away and pulled her father's head closer to her, she rocked him, a mother that has a lullaby for her child. He did not see her face again.

'Go, Johnny,' he heard her murmur.

Johnny flung the Stechkin out towards the jeep, the dismissal of Excalibur, heard it clatter on the concrete, then threw the grenades, unarmed, after the pistol.

The engines of the jeeps were closing in, the sirens bleating through his mind. He tugged his hands into the cuffs of his anorak and launched himself at the top of the wire. His hands gripped and clasped, and he bit at the pain, and swung his body easily over and dropped to the ground on the far side.

Charlie Davies held Carter's arm, restrained him, and they waited for Johnny to reach them.

They could not see his face under the shadow of the trees, and he never turned to look back at the jeeps and their parade of lights, and the men in uniform who sprinted towards the wire, and the old man who must be buried, and the girl who stood tall and heroic with her hands held high.

Charlie Davies and Johnny ran, bent double through the trees, out of range, and Carter trailed behind them until they slowed to a walk when they were close to the car.

'Take me home, please,'Johnny said.