Gerald Seymour - Home Run

Mattie was given bread and sweet cheese, and he was allowed to sip from a water bottle before the impatience of the guide overwhelmed the anxious care of the boys. Two of them helped him to his feet and supported him, his arm across their shoulders. Damn good kids. And heavy going for the kids, with Mattie as their burden, and the track was wild, difficult, damn bloody awful. He saw butterflies, beautiful and vivid, beside the path, on flowers that he did not know from England. He saw high above them the winter snow that was still not melted. They passed through thick forest that had taken root where there seemed to be only rock and no soil. They went down into gullies and waded through ice cold torrents, and they climbed razor rocks out of the gullies.

Mattie was no skeleton. They were struggling, all of them, and particularly those two who supported Mattie. The guide didn't help them. The guide was always ahead, scouting the route, sometimes whistling for them to come forward faster.

Without them he would have been finished. Probably would have frozen to death, carrion for beasts of the mountain.

They wanted to know who he was, of course, and at first he had made a joke of it and told them that he was in Iran to sell tickets for the World Cup finals, and then he had said quietly and between the spurts of pain when his feet hit the rocks on the track, that he was like them, that he was a refugee from the regime. Some of them spoke English, some came from the sort of household in Tehran where English could be taught with discretion. They were dodging the draft.

He knew that long before they told him. They were the kids from rich families who couldn't bear to give their offspring up to the butchery in the trenches outside Basra. They'd have paid through the nose for the guide, and some would have more money in belts around their waists for after they had an entry visa to California or Paris from Turkey. They'd learn, Mattie thought. They'd join the wretched flotsam in the refugee camps, and they'd learn the hard way that Turkey didn't want them, that America and France didn't want them.

One thing was pretty damn certain in Mattie's mind. The two boys who had manhandled him up the rock slope, levered him down the track, carried him across the fast streams – he'd do his uttermost to get them visas into the United Kingdom.

They told him, those who carried him, that they were going to make for Hakkari, that they had heard there was a refugee centre at Hakkari administered by the United Nations. They said that once they had reached the camp there they could send telegrams to relatives who were already living in the United States. They thought that their relatives would be able to fix the visas. Had their friend ever been to America?

They came to a ridge. The snow-peaked summit of Mer Dag was away to their right. The guide had stopped, was crouched down. They struggled the last paces to reach him, and Mattie had swung his arms off the shoulders of the two boys.

The sun was crisp in an azure sky above them.

The bandages, mud brown, trailed from Mattie's feet. No pain now in his feet.

The guide pointed below.

There was a path snaking down from the ridge and in the far distance was the sprawl of a small town, and running further away from the town was a twisting road. It was Turkey.

And the guide was gone. He gave them no farewells. There was no hugging, no slapping of hands oh the back of the guide. He was just gone, loping away down the path that they had just climbed. Mattie felt the moistness in his eyes. He had taken his luck, and he was within sight of home. The tears came, rolled on his bearded cheeks. And around him the elation bubbled.

"Wait, wait… wait… " His arms were around the shoulders of two of the boys and they had his weight between them. He spoke slowly, so that he could be translated by those who understood him. Too important, he didn't trust himself in Farsi. "How are you going from here?"

"We are going down the hill."

"We are going to the refugee centre."

Mattie said, "You must, you must absolutely go down the hill by night."

"We have nothing to be worried of, Mister."

Mattie said, "You must wait until nightfall." He tried to summon his authority.

"And you?"

"Different, I'll get down on my own… now be good lads." Mattie said.

"Mister, you cannot even walk."

"I'll roll down if I have to, but you should go by night. Let me go ahead and prepare the people on the other side to expect you – their army patrols."

They were all giggling at him, and they were no longer listening to him. They were the children that he knew so well from his own house, and from the homes of every one of his contemporaries, children who thought their parents were half-witted. He was hoisted up.

"I really do urge you… " But they had no patience for him. They were too happy. They went down the slope. The wind cut at their clothes, deadened their ears. The pain welled in his legs, but he shrugged away the hands that offered to help him. He had started on his own and he would damn well finish on his own. There you are, Major, we made it and we will have a long night's carousing over this adventure, you and I. They were coming down the slope fast. Darling, he thought he heard Harriet cry out. Darling. They were strung out in a line.

"Dur… "

The shout in the clear air.

Mattie saw them.

"Dur…"

He thought they were paratroops. Toughened, hard men.

Weapons that were aimed as if their use was second nature.

He saw five at first, blocking the track down the slope. He knew a little Turkish, and the word to halt would have been clear enough if he had known nothing. He didn't have to be a linguist. There were more of the patrol at the flanks now.

Guns covering them. Mattie raised his hands. His hands were high above his head. His mind was clear. There might be officials of the United Nations at Hakkari, but there would be no officials of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees on the upper slopes of Mer Dag. He looked for the officer.

He pushed his way past a rifle barrel. He had the authority now. He was filthy and he could barely hobble without support, but he had been commissioned in the Coldstream Guards, and for a few weeks in his life he had been a junior commander of the Sovereign's guard at Buckingham Palace.

He knew how to deal with soldiers.

He saw the tabs on the officer's shoulder, the American-style bars. He would understand English if it were spoken slowly and loudly.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant. My name is Furniss. I am an official of the government of Great Britain. I am in flight from Iran, and I ask for your help. Should you wish to confirm my identity then you should radio back to your headquarters and tell them to contact my Embassy in Ankara, Mr Snow…"

He was waved forward. He was trying to walk upright, with dignity. He thought the officer had a good bearing, might have been on a NATO exchange course. He passed each of the young men, the draft dodgers, the refugees, the flotsam.

"Now, most important, any help that you can afford these boys, Lieutenant, my government will be grateful for it.

Without their assistance I would not have been able to cross your frontier. I ask you to treat them with compassion."

The officer looked through him. He gave orders, sharp and clear commands. A corporal was at Mattie's arm, and leading him further down the slope. When he looked back he saw that the boys had been corralled by rifle barrels and were sitting hunched on the track. Mattie was taken forward, whether he wanted to go or not. At the edge of the track, Mattie stopped. He resisted the tug of the corporal's hand on his sleeve.

"What are you going to do with them?"

The officer gestured, in annoyance, to his corporal. Mattie was forced off the track and into thorn scrub. He had been taken from sight. He sat on the earth, and his head was buried between his knees.