Gerald Seymour - Heart of Danger

… If the flare had not been fired, if there had not been the light.. . Penn thought the man realized he was at the edge of freedom. One more kick, one more blow from the boot at her head, and she would loose him. It was the last moment before the flare fell. He could hear the shouts and the whistles closing. In the last moment of the light of the flare, the last moment before the final kick that would free the man, Penn tried to learn to be cruel. With the heel of his hand he hit at the back of Milan Stankov-ic's neck. Penn hit with his bitten hand, and the man fell, and they writhed in the coming darkness. He punched at Milan Stankovic, as an animal at war. Penn beat at Milan Stankovic and he seemed not to hear her voice in the night's blackness, and she was calling to him that he had hit enough. She had the knife.

They took the prisoner, sullen quiet, on towards the bank of the Kupa river.

The knife's blade was back at his throat.

Penn led the charge, and his bitten hand dragged the man forward. He had needed to be cruel to have hit so hard with the heel of his hand. He did not hate the man. There were flares, all the time, bursting high behind them… He had respect for the man… He knew of the deep and raw courage that was required to make a break. He felt that the man was in his care. He did not think about Mary Braddock, nor about Katica Dub-elj, and he did not think about Dorrie Mowat. The man was in his care, and he owed Milan Stankovic his protection. The man would not fight again… it was finished for Milan Stankovic, he had fought and failed, but respect was won. When the flares died, when they fell back doused, then there was the full moon's light, and the fast-going clouds had moved on. They ran, stumbled, charged, pulled and pushed the weight of Milan Stankovic, down the path that ran beside the single length of barbed wire that marked the minefield. He could not judge how far behind the chasing pack were, but all caution was gone…

Ahead, through the trees, he saw the dark mass of the Kupa river.

There were silver trellis lines on the darkness where the force of the current swirled.

They burst the last cover of the trees. They came onto the narrow path that ran along the upper bank of the great river. She was tugging at his coat, pecking at him for his attention. The cover of the trees was behind him. The reeds nestled along the bank ahead of him. The shouting and the whistle blasts were behind him. The river and the silver network of lines were ahead of him.

There was a killing flatness in her voice.

"We came too early. We are an hour ahead of the rendezvous. You said we should lie up, but we cannot… We came too early for Ham, for the rendezvous, for the boat. Did you not know that…?"

She was at his back, the barrier was ahead of him.

Another flare soared high behind him, and he saw the far width of the river ahead of him. Milan Stankovic rocked with muffled laughter, and he would not have understood what she said, only the tone of despair. Penn turned. Eyes going past the babbled laughter of the man who croaked under the gag, and he was trying to speak as he laughed, as if now the knife at his beard and his throat no longer terrorized him.

She destroyed him because he had not thought it through when he had led the stampede flight towards the Kupa river.

He rifled at her pockets, felt first the weight of the pistol, then the bulk of the torch. He stood on the path above the deep flow of the river and he shaded with the palm of his hand the beam of the torch.

He made the signal. He flicked the button of the torch, on and off, on and off, waited for the answering light, on and off, on and off, waited to see the boat dragged down the far-away bank, on and off, on and off.

The voice carried by the loud-hailer echoed sharply across the river width.

"Penn, you have no boat. There is not going to be a boat…"

'… You should abandon your prisoner. Penn, you and the woman, Schmidt, should take your chance in the water. Penn, Hamilton is not here, there is no boat. You should immediately release your prisoner …"

It was a long and straight track, and it went by a well-constructed building that was roofless and abandoned. The track went all the way to the river. Marty saw the flares that lit the skyline, and the flares silhouetted the group at the end of the track. He was leading Mary Braddock towards the group and the jeeps and the Rover car. Below the flares, beyond the group, separated by the width of darkness and silver, Marty saw the winking, on and off, of the light.

'.. If you try to bring your prisoner across, you will be identified by flashlight. We have authority to shoot if you attempt to cross with your prisoner. Release him immediately…"

He had snapped off the torch. The amplified voice bayed across the river. '… You have to take your chance in the river, just you and the German woman. For fuck's sake, Penn, move yourself. Penn, are you coming? We are forbidden to give covering fire… Just you and the German woman, not the prisoner, get into the water… Penn, you don't have time… Do it…" He could let the man go. He could walk away from the man. He could turn the man loose. To turn the man loose, to permit the man to walk away, might save her life, Penn's life… She could hear the voices now, behind her, carried towards the bank by the amplification of the megaphone. He had a hold of Milan Stankovic, and he seemed to look into her face, and she did not challenge him, and she felt no fear. She wriggled clear of the straps of the backpack, let it fall. He pulled Milan Stankovic down the bank and she slithered after them. They splashed into the cold of the water, and she clung to the man and tried to hold the knife blade steady against his beard and his throat. He never turned to her, never asked it of her, just assumed it, that she would follow him. The mud of the river's edge was over her boots, the slime was round her feet. The water was at her waist, the cold groping at her groin. There were three, four, metres of reeds at the side of the river, in mud against the bank. She had her free hand, not the hand with the knife blade against Milan Stankovic's throat, tight on the mouth of the man. They made strong waded steps through the reeds, each step sinking in the mud bed. They were going away from the flares, away from the megaphone that was silenced, away from the closing crash of the pursuit. He was, to her, a simple and decent and ordinary and obstinate man, and she felt a love of him. They went down river, they went with the flow goading them on, and once they foundered and the chill of the water was at her shoulders and the water was in Milan Stankovic's nostrils and the water was over Penn's head. She wanted so much to tell her father of Penn, tell her father how she had known always that he was a man, Penn, of principle… tell her father how they had gone down the river bank, hidden by the first summer growth of the reeds. Low against the water's surface, the power of the current restrained by the reeds, she could see across the full width of the river, and it did not seem possible to her that she could ever get to tell her father of the man she loved. On and on, more mud, more slips, putting further behind them the flares and the shouting and the chasing pack. She wanted so badly to tell her father… if he freed the man, if he left the man, then the chance to cross was theirs, but he would not, and she did not ask it. A long distance gone. There was a cacophony of flapping movement in the trees above. A heron flew across the face of the moon. There was a pallet held by the reeds. Across the river a small light burned. The light was in a window. The pallet was one that would have had stacked on it fertilizer bags, or seed sacks. The pallet of coarse wooden strips must have been discarded in a field, upstream, and taken by the winter's flood water. It was for the principle, and he did not speak to her, made no effort to strengthen her, but she saw that he took in his fingers the man's beard, the hair on his cheek, and he gave the hair a small pull as if to reassure the man, as if to give him his protection. He dragged the pallet out from the reeds and held it against the flow of the current, and he levered the torso of the man up onto the surface of the pallet. He kicked off from the mud bed in which the reeds grew. She swam beside him. They pushed the pallet clear from the bank. The current caught them. Milan Stankovic flailed with his legs and Penn was one side of the pallet and she was the other, and they tried to steer a course against the power. A small light burned in the window that was downstream across the river. They were crouched behind the wheels and body work of the jeeps because the Intelligence Officer had said that from the Serb side they might shoot. And he had the grim dry smile on his face, washed in the moonlight, of a man who enjoys a fucked-up failure. Beside him was the First Secretary, behind him were Marty Jones and Mary Braddock, ahead of him and lying prone were the Special Forces troops.