Lawrence Durrell - White Eagles Over Serbia

He had crossed the whole range by now and the sun was rapidly westering. He had come to familiar country, the soft shallow hills whose limestone curves foretold the passage of a dozen mountain rivers towards the Ebar gorge. He was replete with the excitement of a mission accomplished and the knowledge that he would be in time for the rendezvous at dawn. The path he followed hugged the banks of a stream rising and falling along the curvature of the hillside like a swallow and he walked swiftly and decisively along it, hoping that it would not be too dark by the time he reached the cave to recover and reassemble his cherished fishing-rod. The rushing river below him deadened the sound of his feet on the flinty path. He rested for a few moments on the bank to drink and bathe his face, and made a half-hearted attempt to put his boots on, but his feet were by now too swollen and too painful. It was obvious that he would have to carry on barefoot. He was meditating upon this unlucky chance when a shout from somewhere behind him sent his heart into his mouth. He stood up and turned a dazed face towards the cliff.

A young soldier stood on a spur of rock above him covering him with a carbine. He did not look unduly menacing, and a cigarette hung from the corner of his lip. He waved his hand and shouted: “You there! Come here for questioning.” Methuen put his hand to his ear as if he did not hear very well and pointed to the river. “What do you say?” He was thinking rapidly as he moved slowly away from the bank. If there were more troops on the hill behind he was finished. “What cursed luck,” he exclaimed involuntarily as he obeyed.

The soldier stood nonchalantly with his back to the sun, smoking, in an attitude that suggested lazy indecision. Methuen’s eyes took in the grey uniform, the mud-spattered gaiters and ugly boots: the flat cap with its lack-lustre star: and lastly the short repeating carbine of Russian pattern which he held at the hip. “What is it comrade?” he called in a whining tone. The soldier waved the muzzle of his weapon languidly and shouted: “Come here!” in a more imperious tone. His black eyes had a stupid arrogant expression.

It was clear that he was some peasant conscript from a remote country village rejoicing in the possession of a gun. Methuen nodded and said: “I come, comrade, I come,” and started to climb the cliff slowly and wearily. His eyes darted hither and thither, attempting to see whether there were other soldiers about; but as far as he could judge this one was quite alone. What should he do? He was almost within pistol-range now. The wisest move would be perhaps to be quite passive and to come in close under the muzzle of the carbine. If he were asked for his identity papers, as he most certainly would be, he could put his hand inside his coat and draw his pistol with one hand while he grabbed the carbine-muzzle with the other. He climbed with an exaggerated slowness up the slope.

When he was half-way up he saw an expression of resolute savagery cross the face of the soldier. His mouth depressed itself in a savage grin as, raising the carbine to shoulder-level, he fired at Methuen at almost point-blank range. Even as the latter felt the hot whistle of the bullet pluck the lapel of his coat he leapt sideways and in less time than it takes to tell, was cowering under the protection of a rock, swearing volubly in a mixture of languages. He was absolutely furious at this dumb treachery.

The earth began to jump and spatter around the rock as the soldier opened up on him, and Methuen with his pistol in hand cowered back against the smooth stone with murder in his heart. He began to feel sorry for the nonchalant young man who was so liberally peppering the landscape with lead. “You wait, you brute,” muttered Methuen through clenched teeth, and in his mind’s eye he had a sudden picture of Vida.

An interval of silence followed while the soldier smartly changed the clip on his carbine. He was obviously under the impression that his prey was unarmed. In the first gust of firing Methuen had felt a sharp stab of pain in the calf of his left leg and for a moment he had explored this feeling of pain with concern, for he could not afford to be incapacitated at this late stage of the game. Now in the silence he cautiously stretched his leg and was relieved to find that it responded normally enough, though it hurt him considerably.

A second burst of firing followed and Methuen tossed his fur hat down the slope as a distraction before worming himself away to the left to where a clump of bushes afforded excellent cover. Here he drew his breath for a moment before climbing gently up the slope at an angle. The soldier was still staring at the rock behind which Methuen had disappeared, attentively smiling. He had thrown his cigarette away now and had the butt of his carbine pressed to his shoulder.

Methuen took him softly on the sights of his pistol — the ugly backless shaven skull surmounted by the blue cap — and pressed the trigger. There was a loud sniff and the figure lurched out of sight, its disappearance being followed by a ragged bumping and scrambling noise. He had fallen down the cliff and rolled down to the bottom. In the silence that followed the noise of the river welled up once more, and Methuen could hear, above the sound his own laboured breathing, birds singing in the trees across the valley.

He waited for a long moment before he set off running across the now familiar valley towards the cave. The path was sheltered here and he raced along it, pausing from time to time to listen for sounds of pursuit. But the valley had returned to its silent beauty. Once he thought he heard the barking of dogs in the forest, but that was all. His leg was extremely painful now but he did not dare to stop and examine his wound, for he knew from experience that wounds are apt to seem worse than they really are if once one sets eyes on them. That it could not be anything vital he knew for, despite the pain which made him limp grotesquely, the limb could still be used normally enough.

Twilight was already upon him when he struck the main branch of the Studenitsa river and followed its silver windings and meanderings through the mulberry orchards and across the slopes beyond the monastery and sawmill. He was almost blind with exhaustion now and he forded the river with difficulty, staggering as he felt the sucking pull of the water around his ankles. Nevertheless he had enough presence of mind to wait for a full quarter of an hour on the hill opposite the cave, watching the entrance, before he climbed the slope to enter it.

It was extraordinary the feeling of affection he felt for this fox’s burrow which had sheltered him from his enemies; it was almost like arriving home once more after a perilous journey. Nothing had changed. The snake was not visible, but then it always retired at dusk. The barrier of greenery which he had placed at the mouth was undisturbed. Methuen entered the musty precincts and groped along the stone edges of the sill for the matches which he had placed in a convenient place together with his candle-stump. He lit up and the warm rosy light flickered once more over the veined walls which glimmered like the marbled endpapers of a Victorian ledger.

The dead man still lay on his rude couch of leaves. Methuen hardly gave him a glance as he busied himself in the collection of his possessions. The bed-roll must be sacrificed, but he was not going to lose the other things. He filled his pockets with the most vital of his possessions, and buried the rest in the earth floor. It was too dark and his leg was too painful now to enable him to hunt for his cherished rod. That too would have to be sacrificed, he realized with a pang. He ate a hasty and scrappy meal as he walked up and down. He did not dare to sit down for fear either that he would fall asleep or that his leg would stiffen and prevent him from undertaking the last lap of the journey into the Ebar valley.