Gerald Seymour - Heart of Danger

… She'd told him, full of tears, that she hadn't listened to him, had gone back with the pram to the estate agent's, made it as far as the plate-glass window with the bright photographs of properties, and seen Wayne bending over the new girl, and a hand on the shoulder of the new girl's blouse, and she'd turned around and pushed the pram back to the maisonette. And the day after that he had gone to those he thought he believed in, on the high floors of Gower Street, and requested the chance to work on General Intelligence Group… and been betrayed. He lay in the bed. From the street below he sensed the burgeoning quiet of the night of a foreign city… but it had been Dome's place and Dome's war. The ant column had found his hand, a barrier, and busily crossed it. He could feel their unstoppable progress, and he did not dare to move his hand to shake them off. He felt as if he was dead… Ham didn't reckon he could have run another yard, crawled another foot, climbed another inch. The tree line had been the first target and the rock escarpment had been the second, and the final aim had been to reach, running, crawling, climbing, the summit of the escarpment. He felt as if he was dead… he would have been dead if they had had a good dog, or if they had had organization and discipline. He could see them from where he lay. They were below, quartering the field that was beyond the escarpment, down from the tree line of spring-green birches. Ham could hear their shouts and the whistle blasts, but they had no dogs. It was because of the wounded that they had broken off the pace of the search. It was the wounded that had saved him and the three others who had stampeded with him away from the ambush. The light caught the grass of the field, and the sun feathered down through the upper trees and dappled onto the summit of the rock escarpment. They had been hit at first light when the grey smear was settling on the fields and the trees. They had been caught, bunched and too close, on a track that, if the intelligence had been accurate, would have brought them to the rear side of the artillery position. If the ambush had been done properly, as an ambush was taught at Aldershot or out on the ranges above Brecon, then there would have been no survivors, but the ambush had been crap and there hadn't been fire control, and they had made it out and running. All of them running, and hearing the shouting and the chaotic chase behind them, and they had hit the open ground of the field without warning. Shit, bloody bad luck, the open field. It was there that the two of them had been shot. And he had run, too fucking right, and the others who hadn't been shot had run. Looking down, through the thin early foliage, Ham saw the line that advanced, crouching then scurrying, towards the two wounded men. The ants came on across his hand, and he would not move his hand and he would not twist his head. He whispered from the side of his mouth, as if he thought he hazarded his hiding place should his lips move. "Move once, you bastards, move once at all, and I'll break your goddamn necks." He could hear the three of them behind him, all trying to suppress the panting, all sobered by the ambush and by the charge out and by the climb onto the summit of the escarpment, and by the sight of the cordon line closing on the two who were wounded. Shit, no, they hadn't listened to Ham when they had crossed the Kupa river in the inflatable, and they hadn't listened to him when he had told them, swearing, that they should lay off the booze in their water bottles and they hadn't listened to him when they had moved out to get close to the artillery position under the night cover that was now gone. Shit, yes, they listened to him now… And if it hadn't been that the ambush was crap then they would, all six of them, have been on the ground, beyond help, as the cordon line closed. They listened, and struggled to control their breathing, and they were watching as Ham watched. "Nothing you can do, so don't fucking think there is anything." He knew that the brother of one of them behind him was wounded, lying in the field. It was the worst it had ever been for Ham. His throat was dry dust. His gut was knotted tight. His arms, legs, would have been stiffened, clumsy, if he had tried to move. There were tears welling heavy… Too bloody unfair… He had known guys who had been killed in close-quarters fire, and guys who had been wasted when an armoured personnel carrier had been rattled and brewed, and guys who had been mutilated when caught without cover as the rockets from the Organj launcher had come down. He had known guys from the International Brigade who had been in Osijek, in Turanj, outside Sisak, and shipped home in boxes by the embassy but that had been more than a year back, more than a year and a half. He had known guys who had said it was too goddamn dull in Croatia after the cease-fire, and who had hitched on down to Bosnia, but that was a crazy bloody place to get killed… Too bloody unfair… In the days with the Internationals Ham had been classified sniper first class, using the long-barrelled Dragunov, stationary target three shots out of four at 1000 metres. In the days after the Internationals had drifted off scene, or been booted, he had bullshit ted expertise in ordnance. No home to go back to, had to bullshit to stay. Big bullshit if he wasn't to be on the trail down to Bosnia and the crazy bloody war… Too bloody unfair… They had wanted an ordnance man to get across the Kupa river and spy out the artillery position on the high ground, and their own ordnance men would have been too precious

… As an ordnance man he would have been able to identify the type and calibre of the artillery pieces in the position, their stockpiles of ammunition, their threat… Big bloody bullshit, and the bullshit had put him where it was worse than it had ever been for Ham. He did not reckon it safe to use his binoculars. Could have been flash or shine from the lenses against the low-rising sun. He could see enough without the binoculars. He knew what he would see. He knew it because he had dreamed it in the temporary sleeping quarters behind the old police station in Karlovac town. The dream was Ham's agony. Ham knew that the wounded, struggling to keep up with those who were not wounded, would have thrown away their weapons as they had lumbered, hobbled, after those who had run. If they had had their weapons then, sure as Christ, they would have used them. Sure as Christ they would have used their weapons and kept one back for the last. There was no firing. The cordon line reached that part of the field, near to the tree line, where the wounded lay. He could see it clear enough, without binoculars. He should have looked away, and he could not. The stuff of Ham's dreams, the stuff that made him sweat, toss, sometimes scream in the night. There was a bearded man, big and well set, in the centre of the cordon line, and he had a whistle in his mouth, and his was the voice of command. Ham could not see the wounded, lying in the thick spring grass of the field, but he knew where they were because he saw the bearded man kick hard into the grass and the moan carried up from the field and through the trees and reached the summit of the rock escarpment. He saw the bearded man swivel, casually, like he played kids' football, and kick again. There was a moment of confusion, men around the bearded man and bending down and two small scrimmages of bodies. He heard the orders from the bearded man, curt in the sunshine. The two wounded were held upright in front of the bearded man, and he punched them, one in the face and one in the pit of the stomach and because they were held they could not fall. Then bandannas from the heads of two of the men who held them were used to blindfold the wounded. The knife flashed at the waist of the bearded man. The knife went low, quick, to the groin of the wounded man who had the bloodstains at his knee and down his right leg. Ham turned, his first movement, and he broke the column of the ants, and he slapped the palm of his hand across the eyes of the brother of the wounded man. He heard the howl of pain, sobbing… The tears were running on his face, and the vomit was coming. He watched it, each instruction from the bearded man, each thrust of the knife. It was worse than the dream… When it was over, when the sport was gone, then the bearded man wiped his knife on the grass and replaced it in the sheath at his belt, and all of them sat in the field, close to where the bodies lay, and they drank and they laughed.