It was a long and straight track, and it went by a well-constructed building that was roofless and abandoned. The track went all the way to the river. Marty saw the flares that lit the skyline, and the flares silhouetted the group at the end of the track. He was leading Mary Braddock towards the group and the jeeps and the Rover car. Below the flares, beyond the group, separated by the width of darkness and silver, Marty saw the winking, on and off, of the light.
'.. If you try to bring your prisoner across, you will be identified by flashlight. We have authority to shoot if you attempt to cross with your prisoner. Release him immediately…'
He had snapped off the torch. The amplified voice bayed across the river. '… You have to take your chance in the river, just you and the German woman. For fuck's sake, Penn, move yourself. Penn, are you coming? We are forbidden to give covering fire… Just you and the German woman, not the prisoner, get into the water… Penn, you don't have time… Do it…' He could let the man go. He could walk away from the man. He could turn the man loose. To turn the man loose, to permit the man to walk away, might save her life, Penn's life… She could hear the voices now, behind her, carried towards the bank by the amplification of the megaphone. He had a hold of Milan Stankovic, and he seemed to look into her face, and she did not challenge him, and she felt no fear. She wriggled clear of the straps of the backpack, let it fall. He pulled Milan Stankovic down the bank and she slithered after them. They splashed into the cold of the water, and she clung to the man and tried to hold the knife blade steady against his beard and his throat. He never turned to her, never asked it of her, just assumed it, that she would follow him. The mud of the river's edge was over her boots, the slime was round her feet. The water was at her waist, the cold groping at her groin. There were three, four, metres of reeds at the side of the river, in mud against the bank. She had her free hand, not the hand with the knife blade against Milan Stankovic's throat, tight on the mouth of the man. They made strong waded steps through the reeds, each step sinking in the mud bed. They were going away from the flares, away from the megaphone that was silenced, away from the closing crash of the pursuit. He was, to her, a simple and decent and ordinary and obstinate man, and she felt a love of him. They went down river, they went with the flow goading them on, and once they foundered and the chill of the water was at her shoulders and the water was in Milan Stankovic's nostrils and the water was over Penn's head. She wanted so much to tell her father of Penn, tell her father how she had known always that he was a man, Penn, of principle… tell her father how they had gone down the river bank, hidden by the first summer growth of the reeds. Low against the water's surface, the power of the current restrained by the reeds, she could see across the full width of the river, and it did not seem possible to her that she could ever get to tell her father of the man she loved. On and on, more mud, more slips, putting further behind them the flares and the shouting and the chasing pack. She wanted so badly to tell her father… if he freed the man, if he left the man, then the chance to cross was theirs, but he would not, and she did not ask it. A long distance gone. There was a cacophony of flapping movement in the trees above. A heron flew across the face of the moon. There was a pallet held by the reeds. Across the river a small light burned. The light was in a window. The pallet was one that would have had stacked on it fertilizer bags, or seed sacks. The pallet of coarse wooden strips must have been discarded in a field, upstream, and taken by the winter's flood water. It was for the principle, and he did not speak to her, made no effort to strengthen her, but she saw that he took in his fingers the man's beard, the hair on his cheek, and he gave the hair a small pull as if to reassure the man, as if to give him his protection. He dragged the pallet out from the reeds and held it against the flow of the current, and he levered the torso of the man up onto the surface of the pallet. He kicked off from the mud bed in which the reeds grew. She swam beside him. They pushed the pallet clear from the bank. The current caught them. Milan Stankovic flailed with his legs and Penn was one side of the pallet and she was the other, and they tried to steer a course against the power. A small light burned in the window that was downstream across the river. They were crouched behind the wheels and body work of the jeeps because the Intelligence Officer had said that from the Serb side they might shoot. And he had the grim dry smile on his face, washed in the moonlight, of a man who enjoys a fucked-up failure. Beside him was the First Secretary, behind him were Marty Jones and Mary Braddock, ahead of him and lying prone were the Special Forces troops.
Marty Jones trembled.
Mary Braddock gazed ahead, without voice, without feeling.
They watched the torch beams cavort on the far bank, up into the trees, onto the path, down among the reeds, and out across the darkness and silver lines of the river.
Far down the river bank, way too far, the First Secretary saw a single light, steady like a beacon.
He fought to drive the pallet forward.
He no longer felt the cold of the water.
He seemed to hear Dome's mocking and Dome's laughter.
The man no longer kicked with his legs as if the weight of his river-logged boots was too great. Penn thought that Milan Stankovic had surrendered to the power of the river. He no longer had the support of Ulrike, knew that she was beaten by the pressure of the current. They were lower in the water than they had first been, and the level of the water was above his shoulders and washed over the wood strips of the pallet, and the water lapped on the hips of Milan Stankovic.
They were not halfway across.
He could see the small, constant light ahead.
Beneath them was the great dark depth of the river, pulling at them, tugging at them to take them down. If they were no longer able to drive the pallet forward, if they drifted, then the river would take them down. They went slower, and the current was greater, and the small light ahead did not seem closer. He kicked harder, kicked from the last of his strength, and when he tried to drag the night air into his lungs then he was sucking in the foulness of the river. Her body was beside him, but she could only paddle her feet, could not kick.
Penn spluttered, Tell them that we tried… Tell them someone had to try…'
He had a hold of her hand. It was not difficult for Penn to break her grip on the pallet. He seemed to show her the small light that did not waver. He did it quickly. He broke her grip on the pallet, and he pushed her away from him, from the sinking pallet, from the motionless weight of Milan Stankovic. He saw that she was clear in the water. He saw the whiteness of her face and the brightness of her eyes and the slicked hair of her head. The man was sliding back from the pallet. She had tried to teach him to be cruel, and she had failed. He held the man as best he could, and he kicked. The power of the current hacked at his strength. Penn did not see her again. The water was rising around him. Penn did not see the light again. 'It was what I saw from my window. Because it was a full moon I saw them very easily. I saw them from the time that they made the heron fly, when they came out of the reed bed with their raft thing. They made good speed at first, and they would have felt that it was possible, but if you think that you find weakness in the great Mother that is the Kupa river, then you fool yourself. The river plays the game of tricking you, there is no weakness. The river brings you on, away from the safety of the bank, then tricks you…' He sat in his chair of stained oak beside the window and the oil lamp threw a feeble light across the room. He spoke gently, but with respect, as if he had a fear of giving offence to the great Mother. 'I could see them all of the time. Good speed at first, but that is the way of the great Mother because from the south bank, from their bank, the river bed is more shallow and the current is less strong. When you come further into the flow of the river then you will find the true strength of the great Mother… Of course it is possible to cross if you have a good boat, if you have oars and you have been God-given good muscles, of course it is easy if you have the engine for the boat… but the river watches for your weakness, and if you are weak then the river will punish you…' The woman sat bowed on the bare boards. She was in front of the stove, with the pistol close to her feet. She wore a faded old dressing gown tight around her, borrowed from the farmer's wife, who had bought it in the market at Karlovac thirty-one years before, and draped over the dressing gown was the farmer's greatcoat. She did not speak. Her clothes, sodden from the river, were across a chair beside her.
'The strength of the great Mother, where she finds your weakness, is when you come to the centre where the current is most powerful. At the centre, coming from the far side, is where the drag pulls at you. When they were coming, the year before the last year, the Partizan bastards, there were deer that ran ahead of their gunfire. I saw a deer come into the water, running in fear, a big stag, a good head on it, and it could swim until it reached the centre of the river… I can only say what I saw. It was at the centre that he pushed the woman away. I heard his voice, but I do not know what he said because it was foreign and because the river makes its own sound, the voice of the great Mother is never silenced. I think that he pushed her away so that she could swim free. She was so lucky… perhaps the attention of the great Mother was on him and his friend, perhaps the great Mother ignored the woman, swimming free. I could see it from my window, the man and his friend taken down the river…'
They listened. They were crowded into the room. The mud fell onto the board floor from the boots of the
