Gordon Stevens - Kara’s Game

Going in one, the man at the front said. The stubble on his face was grey and his coat was torn.

Go with him, she decided, but make sure she was to his left, use him as protection. Except that was why he was counting, because he was hoping someone would go with him, and if they did he would run to the left so that whoever went with him had to go to the right, between him and the sniper.

‘Now.’ He launched himself forward.

She was moving, the boy clasped tight to her left side and the pan in her right hand. She was past the others and alongside the man, then suddenly clear of the protection of the building, suddenly on the bridge.

To her right the man froze in fear.

Time for it, MacFarlane thought.

MacFarlane didn’t like it here. Okay, so the position gave them a good view across the bridge to Maglaj old town, and the building against which they’d parked was on the north side of the street and therefore protected them from incoming fire. But two, three times a day, sometimes more, it crucified MacFarlane to see the people crossing the bridge and being taken out by a sniper.

He pulled the parka tight against his light blue United Nations helmet, and checked the time. Eleven hundred hours, so everything should be quiet for the next four, except for the two or three shells they’d throw over round midday to keep everyone on their toes. The standard thirty artillery rounds this morning – he’d reported in as usual half an hour ago. Plus, he assumed, the usual thirty-five to forty this afternoon.

The jeep, parked in the lee of the houses, was white, with the letters UN distinctive on both sides as well as the bonnet, plus the words VOYNI PASMATRACI, Military Observer, on the front and back of the vehicle. There were four of them in the team: MacFarlane himself from Canada, Umbegi from Nigeria, Anderssen from Norway, and Belan from Belgium. They’d come in two days ago, when the various factions had agreed the ceasefire, been delayed slightly because the two sides had taken their time clearing the minefields from the road. Because Maglaj and Tesanj, fifteen kilometres away, were a so-called Muslim pocket isolated like an island in the Serb-held area to the north of the main front line. The sort of area the Serbs would seek to overrun prior to any final agreement.

And because there was a possibility of an agreement, there was another round of so-called peace negotiations under way in Vienna, and to give those negotiations a chance the two sides had declared a ceasefire. And as their contribution to the sham the United Nations was putting out its usual UN-speak. The situation in Maglaj remains at levels consistent with previous days. Except Maglaj was still under fire, but that was par for the course.

Perhaps the politicians were right, though. Perhaps another clutch of dead this morning didn’t matter any more, perhaps another handful of women and kids in the makeshift morgue this afternoon really was insignificant in the greater order of things.

Goddamn Bosnia.

In front of him the bridge stretched in a curve to the shattered remains of the old town; above him the sky cleared slightly. Christ it was cold, fifteen under and every sign of falling.

‘Cigarette?’ The Nigerian offered him a Winston.

‘Here goes.’ It was Anderssen, the Norwegian.

MacFarlane saw the figure on the bridge, the head first as the figure came up the slight curve, then the shoulders, then the body.

The woman was tucked low and running hard, the scarf round her head was coming loose and the food can was flapping in her right hand. Her feet were sliding slightly on the ice, so that she was off balance, and her left arm was clutched round something. ‘Christ.’ It was meant to be a thought but came out as an exclamation. ‘She’s carrying a kid.’ In her left arm, so that she was protecting it with her body. Sniper in position up to fifteen minutes ago, he remembered, please God may the bastard be taking a drink or moving position. Sometimes the men in the hills sprayed a machine gun arc across the bridge, sometimes a haphazard burst of rifle fire. Sometimes, if the man on duty was a pro, one single well-aimed shot. Then the figure would crumple and the bastard would wait to see if anyone came to help them, if anyone tried to pull them to safety. And then the bastards in the hills would play their little game, just as everyone played their games in the Balkans. Sometimes allow the body to be hauled away, sometimes use it as a bait to take out those brave or foolish enough to help.

Don’t slip, he willed the woman, just don’t slow down.

She was halfway across, her breath rasping and her legs beginning to slow. No sniper shot so far, thank God, no single sharp sound, no body stumbling and collapsing. She was three-quarters of the way over. He could see her face and make out her age. Late twenties, black hair and good-looking, the child a boy, probably four years old.

Thirty metres behind her another group appeared like puppets.

Time to get them later, Valeschov decided, time to wait for them to come back with their little saucepans of food. Because then they’d be moving slower, because then they’d be terrified of spilling anything.

The woman came off the bridge and slowed by the jeep.

Her lungs were screaming and her head was pounding. Thank God there’d been no sniper today, thank God she and Jovan had made it. She glanced at the soldiers by the UN vehicle and hurried up the street, keeping to the right for the protection the buildings offered. Before the war this had been the main area of Maglaj, now the shop fronts were boarded and the buildings around and behind them were pockmarked with holes.

The street was almost empty, only a few like herself scuttling for the food kitchen, and it was beginning to snow again, the first flakes settling like feathers. She glanced up at the sky, unsure whether she was looking at the snow or searching for incoming shells, then hurried across and disappeared into the side streets on the southern side.

The food itself – by which she meant the boiled beans and bread which was now their staple diet – was prepared in a kitchen beneath the radio station, and served in the school fifty metres away which the local Red Cross had taken over.

She turned the last corner, between the ruins of the houses. The line of people was five deep, the inside layer pressed against the wall and the outer layers packed against them, either for warmth or protection or both. She followed the queue round the corner, and round the next, then back along the third wall till she was almost at the front again. Today it would take hours, she understood, today she might not get the boy back across the bridge before the shells the Chetniks threw over at midday. She joined the end of the line, making sure she stood in the middle, and held the boy tight, smiling at him and whispering him a story. At least they were able to join the queue, at least she had a ration card which entitled her and Adin and Jovan to the food.

The queue shuffled slowly, someone occasionally pushing, but most of the men and women too exhausted to do anything other than wait. God it was cold – she shuffled forward another two paces and stamped her feet in a vain attempt to shake the numbness from her toes.

‘You okay?’ She tucked her head against the boy and smiled at him again.

‘Okay.’

They reached the first corner, seemed to stand an eternity before they reached the next, even longer before they turned along the front wall and edged towards the steps and door into the school.

There had been no midday shells so far, so perhaps the Chetniks were letting them off today, perhaps there really was a ceasefire, perhaps the peace talks in Vienna really were achieving something.

They were inside at last, along the lime-green corridor and into the room at the other end. The wooden tables were on the left, the vats of soup on them and the helpers behind them, one woman checking the ration cards and stamping the backs with the date so no one would get double rations, and the others ladling the liquid and cutting the bread. The room seemed packed and cold, people milling with their soup cans, a few seeking a space to eat but most leaving. The floor was running wet and the smell of the beans hung in the air.