Gordon Stevens - Kara’s Game

The three of them would stay in Tesanj until Jovan recovered, they decided; then they would return to Maglaj but probably lock up the house, find a basement in the new town so they didn’t have to cross the bridge to get to the food. A basement on the far edge of town where they would be marginally safer.

They left the corridor and went back into the ward, hunched together again by Jovan’s bed and waited till he woke.

The shells and mortars were still falling.

Kara watched as Adin knelt by Jovan and talked and laughed with him, saw the moment Adin’s eyes drifted to the children in the other beds and realized how lucky they were as a family, how others had suffered. Jovan’s eyes closed again. They kissed him and began to return to the corridor. In the next bed a younger boy whimpered with pain; Kara stayed with him and held his hand, stroked his face and talked to him until his own mother came, then she went outside and sat with Adin.

The shells were still falling, sometimes far away, other times closer. Once you became accustomed to them, though, it was strange how you almost ignored them, almost lived with them.

‘Tell me again about Jim and Steve and the others,’ he said.

She had already told him once, now she went through it again in more detail. ‘I love you.’ She slipped her arm round him and kissed him. ‘I wish Finn and the others could have met you.’

It was mid-morning; the shells and mortars were closer now, she thought, almost subconsciously.

The Brussels meeting broke at twelve-thirty for a buffet lunch in an adjoining room. Langdon chose smoked salmon and mineral water, then spent fifteen minutes talking with the French Foreign Minister.

‘Update on Maglaj and Tesanj?’ he asked Nicholls as the meeting reconvened.

‘The situation in the Maglaj – Tesanj pocket remains at levels consistent with previous days,’ Nicholls told him wryly.

Langdon understood the UN-speak, and to show that he understood he laughed.

The stomach pains were gripping her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have eaten so much from the food packs, she thought, even though she had rationed it carefully; perhaps, because she was accustomed to the daily diet of beans and dry bread, she should have rationed it even more stringently. She heard the express train, then the sound as the shell landed. Even closer to the hospital this time, she thought.

The front line was bad, Adin told her, but the men were good and brave. They would definitely move to the new town, they decided, definitely find somewhere where they didn’t have to cross the bridge to reach the food kitchen. Love you, she thought again, told him again. They went to the ward and sat again with Jovan; returned to the corridor and sat against the wall. He didn’t know how afraid she had been when she and Jovan were alone and Jovan was falling ill, she told him; he didn’t know how much safer she felt now he was with her.

She heard the noise again and felt the shuddering, the whole world deafening her and the vibrations shaking her, the express trains coming in and the mortars suddenly whining around them.

‘Oh God.’ She heard someone screaming.

‘Oh no.’ Another voice. ‘They’re shelling the hospital.’

Another express train came in, then another, the whine of a mortar. Someone beside her was lying on the floor, pressing himself down to protect himself from the bombs and the debris. Kara was ignoring the noise and the explosion, was on her feet and running, Adin at her side. The smoke and dust billowed from the door of the ward and the sounds of children screaming came from inside. Another shell was coming in. She ignored it, ignored everything, and pushed into the room. The ceiling had collapsed, there were holes in the walls, and the beds and the children in them were buried under a layer of concrete and brick and plaster. She pulled at the rubble, tried to reach Jovan, more people suddenly beside her and more people trying to dig their children out. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, doctors and nurses.

‘Stop.’

She heard Adin’s voice and froze, almost involuntarily, still in shock.

They all stopped, all looked at him.

‘We have to be organized.’ His voice was calm. ‘We have to do this methodically. That’s the only way of saving the children.’ He took the arms of the woman digging in the rubble next to Kara and helped her step back. The woman had been standing on the leg of a child, Kara realized. ‘Doctors and nurses don’t dig,’ Adin ordered. Doctors and nurses are too important, because we can dig but we can’t do what they can once we’ve got our children out. ‘Three columns going in simultaneously. Make sure we don’t make anything collapse, make sure we’ve got the children in the first beds out before we move to the second.’

The doctors and nurses fell back and the men and women took their place, Kara among them. ‘Three lines behind the diggers to remove the rubble and pass the children out as we get them,’ Adin ordered. ‘Don’t worry, my son’s at the other end.’

The doctors and nurses were running, preparing the rooms which now passed as operating theatres, others hurrying from different parts of the hospital as the news spread. Adin took his place at the front of the line which would reach Jovan’s bed and began to dig, carefully and methodically, began to remove the debris and pass it back, began to burrow his way in towards the child on whom the woman had been standing.

You’re a good man, Adin, Kara thought again. You’re a great man. Please be alive, Jovan, please be okay.

‘Reached the first.’ Adin passed the tortured piece of metal that had once been part of a bed to the man behind him, and burrowed a little deeper. ‘She’s okay.’ His face was grimed with sweat and dust. ‘Passing her down now.’

It’s okay, Jovan, he told his son; I’m here, I’m coming for you. Your mother’s waiting to take you in her arms again and the doctors and nurses are waiting to make you better.

Three places down the line a man edged forward and looked at his daughter, followed the doctors and nurses as they rushed her away.

It’s okay, Jovan, Kara willed her son. Your father’s coming for you, your father’s digging his way in to save you.

‘Second coming out.’ From the column on the left of the ward. ‘Injured. Get a doctor.’

It’s okay, Jovan – it was like a drum in Adin’s head. Coming for you, Jovan. Coming to get you.

Perhaps the shells and mortars were still coming in, perhaps not. Nobody cared, even listened.

It’s okay, Jovan. Your father’s coming, your father will get to you.

‘Third child.’ They all knew by the tone of the voice, all watched as the broken remains were passed back.

Almost there, Jovan, almost reached you. Adin worked methodically, telling people what to do, telling them to be careful, telling them what pieces of debris to move and what to leave in place. Telling those digging to change but never leaving his place at the front of his line.

‘Fourth child, okay.’

Fifth and sixth.

Hang on, Jovan, Kara willed her son. You’re all right, you’re bound to be all right. Your father’s coming. Just hang on till he gets to you.

Seventh.

Soon be your turn, Jovan, soon Adin will get you out.

Adin was below the rubble, burrowing deeper, the top layer moving and someone shifting a beam, making sure it didn’t collapse the delicate fretwork below.

‘Eighth.’

Kara heard Adin’s voice.

Okay now, my son. Your father’s reached you as I told you he would, your father’s saved you because he always would.

She could no longer hear the breathing of the diggers or the anxious whispers of the men and women around her, no longer heard anything.