Roger had Stephen in front of him
so he grabbed his jacket. He knew Stephen would
be hating
every moment. Not only did he strongly dislike rain forest after being lost in
it years ago but he would have taken his glasses off and would be, for all
practical purposes, blind. Inspector Sharpe groped at Roger’s shoulder and
gripped the epaulet of his field jacket.
Graham began moving
:-
one careful step, feel for the sticks and vines, get
balanced, bring the other foot slowly forward, feel for logs and sticks. Roger
felt terribly vulnerable standing up. At any moment he expected the sub-machine
gun to blast them. He found he was sweating and his breath came in rapid,
shallow gasps. The whole experience seemed to be getting worse- a nightmare
come true. He just wanted it to stop. Then a vine hooked him around the neck.
Swearing silently he unhooked the vine.
Another careful pace.
The group had not gone twenty
five paces before the sub-machine gun stuttered again. Roger flinched and
crouched against a tree. He watched the flicker of the gun flashes and prayed.
Even as he cringed there his mind told him that none of the bullets had come
anywhere near them.
Graham nudged him. “Don’t move or
make a noise,” he whispered. “He is just trying to pin us down and provoke us.”
Roger then remembered that he had
the rifle. He eased it up so he could use it but left the safety catch on and
kept his finger well away from the trigger. The weapon felt cold and heavy. A
whiff of burnt gun oil made him very conscious of reality.
The partisan fired again: single
shots and from further down the track. Roger estimated that the man was at
least 50 metres away and the gun flashes were barely visible through the
jungle. The partisan began to shout.
“Surrender
Peter Dragovitch.
You cannot win. We know your plans. We are arresting all your criminal
accomplices.”
There was silence for a minute.
Some small creature scuttled off but the fugitives remained motionless. After
another minute Graham hissed for them to start moving.
As they began to slowly move the
man shouted again: “Peter Dragovitch! Surrender yourself, you dishonourable
coward. Do not be so selfish as to let other people die to protect you. Give
up. Your plot has failed.”
‘What cruel words,’ Roger
thought. They seemed to strike with physical force. He could imagine the hurt
they would cause the Prince.
The man yelled again but this
time in Serbo-Croat. They ignored this and kept inching down the slope. Graham
murmured: “He is on his own. The other two have gone back to the road. We need
to move before they come back with more of them.”
They continued the slow movement.
Several minutes of silence elapsed before another single gunshot disturbed the
night. Roger did not even see the flash. The bullet came nowhere near them so,
after a collective wince, they continued on. The voice yelled again, fainter
now. “Give up Peter Dragovitch. Your life will be spared and so will your
companions, as long as you promise not to meddle in the affairs of Kosaria.”
“Pig’s bum!” murmured Stephen.
“Spared my foot!”
“He sounds a bit worried and
scared,” Peter added.
“Sssh!”
Graham hissed. “I can hear more
coming.”
There were distant sounds of
movement and the faint flicker of lights. A man further up the ridge began
yelling to the man with the sub-machine gun.
Roger was both anxious and
curious. “Why are they doing that yelling and using torches?” he asked.
Hauptman Ritnik answered: “They
must find each other and they hope we will give away our position by shooting.
It is one of their tactics. They don’t care if they lose some men. The
Kommunisti have no respect for human life, the scum!”
“Be quiet and move faster,”
Graham ordered. “They won’t hear us over the noise of their own movement.”
Roger took a firm grip on
Stephen’s jacket and held the rifle hard against his body so the metal would
not strike a tree. But he seemed to trip or stumble every second step; or a
vine caught his face or neck. After about twenty paces they stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Inspector Sharpe
asked.
“Bloody great
log.
Can’t
get over it,” Graham replied. “I think we can get under it.”
They shuffled forward. It was now
so dark Roger could not see Stephen. He just hung onto him and followed. Then
Stephen crouched and Roger bumped into the log. He was forced to bend lower. In
the process he bumped his face on damp rotten wood. To get under he had to go
right down on his belly and even then he only just scraped under the huge
fallen tree. While doing it in the pitch darkness he had to steel himself to
ignore thoughts of snakes, spiders and scorpions.
Behind him Roger could hear a
distant murmur of conversation. He estimated they had about a hundred metres
lead. Another huge log blocked their path. This one they clambered over. Roger
felt soggy moss and slime as he slid down the other side. The rifle struck a
tree with a ‘thunk’. Roger flushed and could imagine the glares the others were
directing at him.
When all were across they pushed
on, only to run into wait-a-while. This forced them to back up and change
direction. In spite of the cold Roger felt sweat trickle into his eyes. His
stomach contracted in fear as voices began calling out behind them.
Suddenly the night erupted with
gunfire. They all went down. Roger remembered to hold the rifle ready. At least
a dozen weapons were firing but he could barely make out the flashes. He
assumed that the whole partisan squad had opened fire. Terrified he crouched
behind a tree, his heart beating wildly. Then he relaxed and wiped a wet thing
from his face. The shots were not coming near them at all. Most sounded as
though they were whistling through the tree tops.
Peter gave a soft grunt. “Those
buggers have got no idea where we are,” he said.
As the shooting died down yelling
began, mostly in Serbo-Croat.
Hauptman Ritnik whispered: “They
are calling insults, trying to make us angry. Do not react.”
Inspector Sharpe groped his way
past. “We will keep moving. We can’t fight that lot.”
When he reached Graham they rose
and resumed their stumbling march.
As they did a distant yell
made Roger’s blood chill.
“Peter Dragovitch, we have your
cousin, the Princess Mareena. Surrender to us and nothing will happen to her.
If you do not, we will prepare her for the Special Interrogator. Think about
it, but don’t take too long. If you do not give yourself up we will do terrible
things to her- and enjoy it.”
There was a sob in the darkness.
Prince Peter spoke quietly: “I must go back and give myself up.”
“No your Royal Highness,” hissed
Hauptman Ritnik in a distressed voice. “It is a trick. They will not let the
princess go, even if you surrender. They will kill you both.”
“But I must do something!” cried
Prince Peter in an anguished voice. “We must try to rescue her.”
“We do not know where she is
being held. She might already be dead,” Hauptman Ritnik replied harshly, anger
and strong emotion obvious even in the blackness.
Inspector Sharpe cut in. “Be
quiet! You are both my prisoners; and nobody is giving up, or going back. Now
move!”
They resumed their slow progress.
The shouting went on behind them, punctuated by occasional shots.
“They aren’t getting any closer,”
Graham observed.
“I think they are just standing
along that old timber track,” Peter replied.
Roger thought about that. He knew
he would be terrified if it was him. Only a lunatic, or a fanatic, would walk
forward in the dark knowing that their first warning would be a gunshot at
point-blank range. ‘Perhaps we do have a chance to get clear,’ he thought
hopefully.
Graham stopped and whispered, “We
have come four hundred paces sir, about two hundred metres. If we get over this
next log and I use my torch we can plan the next leg.”
One after another they clambered
over another fallen tree. On the other side they crouched in a tight group.
Graham knelt and put his map on his knee and flicked on his carefully shielded
pencil torch. To Roger even that weak glow was like a lighthouse.
Graham explained as he worked.
“If we go on five degrees, that’s Grid, so, add, no subtract seven degrees,
that’s 358 degrees Magnetic, we will run down this spur for about half its
length. Let’s see....hmmm…” He used the side of the compass as a ruler.
“About seven hundred metres.
We’d better double that for
downhill and in the dark, say fifteen hundred paces.”
“Yes, alright.
Do that,” Inspector Sharpe
approved.
Once more the group moved in
single file, changing direction from West to North. Within 50 paces the ground
began to drop. Roger had never imagined it could be so dark! There were muffled
curses from the front and the sound of ripping cloth and plastic.
“Bloody
wait-a-while!”
Graham muttered.
Roger shielded his face by
lowering his head. The wait-a-while snagged at his hat and pulled it back off
his head. The chinstrap pulled at his throat. A tendril caught his cheek and he
halted. He let go of Stephen who was swearing and squirming.
After a minute of wrestling
Stephen called quietly. “This is hopeless. We are hooked up in the bloody
stuff. We’ve got to stop.”
Inspector Sharpe replied: “No. We
must not. We are still too close. They will soon catch us when daylight comes.
Back up and we will try to find a way around it.”
They shuffled back. There were
more muffled cries of pain and tearing sounds. Roger felt blood trickling down
his cheek. The scratches stung. He could feel something crawling inside his
shirt. He scratched at it. Graham went right for twenty paces and tried again.
Once more they encountered wait-a-while and came to a sweating, swearing stop.
To Roger it was like the worst of nightmares. He wanted to run but he was
enmeshed in a tangle of thorns.
Inspector Sharpe hissed. “Stop
for a while. We will have a rest for a few minutes, then back up and try
again,” he ordered.
They stood in silence. Roger felt
sore and miserable. His stomach grumbled audibly and he licked dry lips. He
seemed to be one mass of frightened aches and pains.
“Listen! They are moving our
way!” Peter said.
Roger felt water move in his
bowels. Peter was right. There were voices and sounds of people crashing
through the undergrowth; and definitely moving in their direction.
“We must move. I’ll use a torch
and my secateurs,” Graham said.
“Won’t they see it?” Stephen
cried.
“Maybe, but I doubt it. I think
we are far enough away. Anyway, if they come down that ridge in extended line
they will find us for sure. It is a risk we have to take,” Graham replied.
“But what if we run into more of
them coming the other way?” Stephen said.
“Calm down Steve. It is a
kilometre or more to the next road in the direction we are going, even if they
have the men, which I doubt. There can’t be that many of the mongrels,” Graham
said.
Peter agreed. “Besides, if they
are moving we will see their torches and they won’t know who we are till we are
close,” he added.
“Kirk’s right,” Inspector Sharpe
said. “Use a torch but don’t shine it towards them. If they see it and shoot in
our direction turn it off.”
“But the risk!”
Stephen cried.
“It is a risk either way. It is
my decision. Do it!” Inspector Sharpe snapped.
Graham clicked on his pencil
torch. The dull yellow beam lit up a wall of seemingly impenetrable
wait-a-while. He turned left, away from their pursuers, and began walking.
Roger tensed but there were no shots or shouts from the partisans. Looking back
he could not see any of their torches although he could hear the partisans
clearly. They were yelling and cursing loudly as they blundered through the
jungle.
Graham led to the right. His
small secateurs went up. Snip! A tendril dropped. He advanced a pace. Snip!
Snip! They were past that bush. There was still some scratching and tearing but
they had gained ten metres and the slope steepened downwards appreciably.
On down they went at a slow walk,
clinging to each other in a human centipede. Roger stopped sweating and licked
dry lips. Now he felt hot and exhausted. He itched and chafed and his muscles
ached. He just wanted to lie down but fear made him cling on tightly.
In ten minutes they moved about a
hundred metres. Now they were down on the side of the mountain and only
occasionally heard sounds of the pursuit. Inspector Sharpe refused to let them
stop. They struggled on downwards, slipping and stumbling but making definite
progress by the light of the torch. He kept them at it for another half an hour
until he was satisfied they had come three or four hundred metres down the
spur.