Lawrence Durrell - White Eagles Over Serbia

At their first resting-place Black Peter came in search of Methuen, full of excitement. “You see now?” he said. “We have not seen a soul, and once we reach the top there is a narrow stone path above the Black Lake which will carry us over to the next mountain. Impossible to ambush us there. It will be like swinging from tree to tree, eh? From mountain-top to mountain-top while the troops walk up and down the valleys.” He was tremendously excited. For his own part Methuen did not like it at all; he thought it ominous that so far they had encountered no trace of enemy opposition. But there seemed little point in saying so.

Besides, another and more serious question was beginning to gnaw at him. He must soon make a bid for it if he was to reach the road in time to contact Porson. It was already a long walk as far as he could judge, and a daylight escape would be virtually impossible. He had already experimented with the rope round his arm and found that he could undo it easily enough and tether it to a mule without Branko noticing. But how and when could he slip out of the column and disappear? He would wait, he thought, until dawn when the men were tired.

They trudged on up the mountain for several hours until they reached a large ravine at the top and here, at a bend in the path, an involuntary hoarse cry broke from the throats of the men as they saw the glittering expanse of the Black Lake lying below them. They knew that once they had skirted it the worst part of the journey would be over.

They halted for half an hour and re-formed before entering the gulley which was to lead them by a narrow path along the sides of the lake. The path was of a decent width, allowing two mules to walk abreast for the most part; only in certain spots did it narrow enough to become dangerous. The view from here was indescribably lovely, for they looked down upon the polished surface of the Black Lake from the position of eagles.

Methuen hoped that by dawn they would have finished with this narrow path and emerge into more open country, for his chances of escape were nil under present conditions. Two mules walked ahead of him and two behind, and left no room for someone to squeeze past. The only way out would have been to jump into the Black Lake itself, and that he did not fancy.

Nevertheless he tied Branko to one of the mules without the old man noticing anything and waited for his chance to come. At one of the halts on this rocky staircase Black Peter came back to see if everything was going well. “I am so happy,” he said. “I know in my heart that we will get through now. They have missed us.”

Who could know the nature of the ambush into which they were walking?

Whenever he thought of the ambush in later years Methuen always recalled the suddenness of it with a shudder. The long march had made them confident of evading capture by the enemy, and their spirits were high as they knew that the path would lead them out on to the crest of a remote mountain-top near Durmitor — far from roads and rivers. Each man felt his spirits rise as he heard his own tramping feet echo against the rocks in a silence punctuated only by the creaking of girths, the occasional snort of a mule, or the faint clink of a weapon touching a coat of coin. Below them slept the lake.

Dawn was already beginning to break, and Methuen was in a fever of impatience to make his bid for freedom. The men marched on in exhausted silence, and as far as he could judge Branko was all but asleep on his feet. At any rate he had not noticed that the rope-end he held was tied to the saddle of a mule.

The path widened now into a rocky defile which gave some space for manoeuvre and the press behind grew greater as the leading mule-section halted — perhaps to tighten a loose girth. All at once there came a rapid rattle of sound from over the rocky hillock — like the sound of a stick being dragged across iron railings. That was all. And in the following silence a flock of geese rose off the surface of the lake and circled nervously a thousand feet below. A man coughed loudly, and there came the sound of running feet. Then once more came that ominous rattle, and this time it swelled into a roar, being echoed from three or four different points of the compass. A group of scouts came running, bent double across the rocky corridors and among them Methuen recognized Black Peter waving a tommy-gun. His face was contorted with rage. He shouted a sharp order and the supports surged forward, leaving the mules with only their guards; they clustered round him as he shouted and then loped off to the end of the defile and were lost to sight. Rapid fire now sounded from the entrance and whitish chips of rock began to peel off and fly into the air. It was as if a dozen pneumatic drills had suddenly started up in competition.

Methuen sprang forward and grasped Peter by the arm. “What has happened?” he said and Black Peter suddenly burst into tears of rage as he answered: “They are over the path. We must fight our way out.” The rocky cliff prevented any serious estimate of the situation and Methuen shouted: “Come up the cliff and let us see.” Black Peter was already giving orders to line up the mules under cover of the cliff. A rush of guerillas swept past them towards the firing-point, shouting hoarsely. “Come,” said Methuen in an agony of impatience and seizing Black Peter’s arm he pulled him towards the cliff.

Even though the guerilla leader was cumbered by a heavy automatic weapon he climbed like a goat and Methuen had a job to keep up with him. They climbed to the highest spur and cautiously edged themselves between two great rocks from which point they could look down over the crown of the hill. Methuen gave a groan for it was clear that in another five minutes the path would have led them out into the open, on to a wooded promontory. And it was here that he saw, squinting through his glasses, the long ominous grey line of squatting infantry. “Machine-guns,” he said gloomily, “and by God!” There was a faint crash and a puff of smoke which sailed languidly into the air while over to the left of their position, on the rocky crown of the next hill, came a jarrying spout of stone and gravel which whizzed about their ears like a choir of gnats. “Mortars!” said Methuen.

“Mortars!” echoed Black Peter. “We must fight our way through. God’s death! It’s getting light. We must give the word for a general advance.”

They rejoined the guerillas on the ledge below. There was considerable confusion of men coming back and others going forward. Several were wounded.

Methuen rushed across the path and into the defile in order to see for himself what things were like at the point of action. As he turned the corner the air swished and whooped about him and he flopped to his stomach and began to crawl. The path debouched on to the crown of a hill and here he saw the scrambling kicking bundle of wounded men and mules. The advance guard were returning the fire of the troops over this barrier but it was quite clear that there was little chance of a break out of the narrow entrance where the noise of the firing was simply deafening. Some of the guerillas had climbed the sides of the gorge to take up firing positions and the noise of their tommy-guns was like the noise of giant woodpeckers at work. Fragments of stone were flying everywhere.

As he lay, pressed against the side of the cliff, he heard the ragged roar of the supports coming up. They surged over him like a wave and burst out of the opening towards the crest where the troops were entrenched. A blinding smoke hung over everything and the noise redoubled in volume. It was impossible to see, but Methuen could imagine the line of charging figures racing down the slope towards the machine guns, shouting and firing as they ran. “What a party to be caught in,” he kept muttering to himself as the seconds ticked away.