Kevin Sullivan - The Longest Winter

‘Do they have documents?’ the soldier asked.

Brad nodded to Terry. She produced her letter from the UNHCR and handed it over. She smiled at the sergeant and he looked back at her stony-faced. He glanced at the letter without reading it and said, ‘You need a pass authorising you to enter the aerodrome.’

‘They have permission to fly,’ Brad said. ‘They can’t fly if they can’t enter the airport.’

The man shrugged. ‘They can’t enter the airport without the proper documentation. Please reverse your vehicle and turn at the passing place.’ He pointed to an area where the track broadened, about thirty yards away.

‘This child requires immediate medical treatment,’ Terry said. ‘He must be put on the next plane.’

The soldier ignored her and moved back round the side of the Land Rover. ‘Without the proper papers you can’t come in,’ he told Brad. ‘Come back when you have authorisation.’

Brad climbed into the Land Rover.

‘It’s ten to twelve,’ Anna said. ‘They have to get in.’

Their path was blocked by solid steel. Brad began to feel the first stirring of rage. He’d promised to get them to the airport. Now the best he could do was to take them into the city, where they might wait for weeks. He hit the steering wheel and shouted, ‘Fuck!’

Then the unimaginable happened.

The APC began to move. It shuddered, and its huge tyres ground into the ice and then it started to ease off the track onto a space beside the hut. A truck was coming out of the compound, a long white truck with a high canvas roof. The APC had reversed to let it pass.

‘Fuck!’ Brad said again. But this time he was elated.

He revved the engine and drove forward. The truck had stopped while the APC moved out of the way. It was just beginning to move again. Brad drove straight at it and swerved at the last second. He went off the track and felt the tyres rolling over frozen ruts. Then he swung round the truck and back onto the flat stretch of open ground inside the compound.

‘Fuck!’ Anna said, and he was pleased that they agreed.

In the rear-view mirror he could see the truck moving along the track and the APC reversing back into its original position blocking the entrance. The French sergeant had come out of his hut and skipped a few steps after the Land Rover before going inside to radio ahead. Brad accelerated past the warehouses at the northern end of the compound. Seconds later they pulled up outside the terminal building.

Brad and Anna jumped out. They ran to the back of the Land Rover. Brad opened the door and helped Terry and Mrs Pejanović to lift the cot out. Three people were walking from the terminal towards an RAF Hercules C-160, fifty yards away on the airstrip. It was four minutes to twelve.

He knew that that plane was the last, and he knew he would do whatever was necessary to get Miro on it. He thought about Zlatko and about Wikram. He wasn’t going to let Miro share that fate.

They lifted the cot down and moved towards the plane. ‘Let’s go!’ he shouted as Terry and Mrs Pejanović began to follow.

Brad looked down at Miro. The child blinked.

‘They’re coming!’ Anna said.

A jeep moved towards them from the other side of the terminal building. When it reached the spot where they were carrying Miro, twenty yards from the plane, the sergeant shouted at them to stop.

It would have been comical, Brad thought, in different circumstances. It was like something from a Marx Brothers movie. The jeep moved alongside and the sergeant shouted, ‘ Arrêtez !’ as they continued towards the plane.

Then the man barked an order to his driver and the jeep veered dangerously in front of them.

Brad swore. ‘Take it round!’ he told Anna.

They started to move past the front of the jeep.

The plane’s propellers roared. The passengers had already climbed in, and the two forklifts that had been loading boxes on board had withdrawn. The rear entrance was closing. A crewman at the side door bent down to pull up the steps. He looked at the small party with the cot walking towards the plane and hesitated.

The sergeant jumped out of his jeep and strode up to Brad and said, ‘ Monsieur , stop immediately.’

‘Put him down,’ Brad told Anna. Mrs Pejanović moved forward and crouched down to hold her son’s hand. The sergeant began speaking but Brad walked past him and shouted up to the crewman standing at the back of the plane.

‘We have an invalid child and his mother,’ he yelled, over the noise of the propellers. ‘The boy requires urgent medical treatment. He has permission to travel on the first available UNHCR flight. He’s accompanied by a British doctor. I’m bringing them on now.’

The crewman looked doubtful, but he released the chain and let the steps drop back onto the ground. He disappeared inside the plane.

Brad returned to where the others stood. ‘Give me the letter,’ he said to Terry. She handed it to him. A second jeep with three French soldiers pulled up beside them.

The French sergeant shouted to the soldiers and they moved towards the cot.

‘You are going back to the terminal building,’ the sergeant told the group assembled around Miro.

A figure climbed down from the plane and walked towards them. Behind him two crewmen watched from the entrance.

‘What’s up?’ the flight officer asked. He was a young man, late twenties. He had a clipped moustache and a thin face. He looked curious more than concerned.

‘We have an invalid child and his mother,’ Brad repeated. He handed the officer Terry’s letter. ‘The boy is being taken to London for urgent medical treatment. He’s accompanied by a British doctor.’ He pointed to Terry. ‘And they have permission to fly on the first available UNHCR flight.’

The officer glanced at the letter and said, ‘No problem. Bring them on.’

The French sergeant snapped an order and his soldiers lifted Miro and began moving away from the plane.

‘Whoa!’ the officer shouted. ‘What’s going on?’

‘These people do not have permission to enter the airport terminal,’ the sergeant said. ‘They must go back.’

The soldiers began to carry Miro back towards the jeep. The pilot turned and made a small signal to the two crewmen at the door of the plane. They jumped out. Brad walked between the French soldiers and the jeep. They began to walk around him. Mrs Pejanović and Terry both stepped forward and got hold of the cot. The French soldiers tried to restrain them. The British airmen moved quickly and in seconds the cot was surrounded by six men and two women. Anna photographed the scene.

‘These people are travelling with me,’ the flight officer told the sergeant. ‘If you do not order your men to desist, my crew will engage weapons.’

Anna’s camera clicked and clicked again.

The sergeant looked at the pilot in consternation. ‘ Monsieur , this is absurd!’

Two more airmen emerged from the plane. The sergeant stood back. The cot had been placed on the tarmac between the jeep and the Hercules. The flight officer marched forward and shouted at the sergeant, ‘Order them to desist!’

The sergeant froze for several seconds and then he shrugged and jerked his head away from the cot, signalling the French soldiers to move back.

They let go of the cot and allowed the airmen to lift it and carry it to the plane.

The sergeant walked up to Brad and jabbed his index finger in his chest. ‘You will be punished for this!’ he said.

Then he got into his jeep and drove off.

Baring strode into the Movement Control Office and saw Jim Danby standing in a far corner of the room. Danby was speaking on the telephone.