I do not know why I am afraid, even at night. For Bert knew nothing; he did not wake. And I will never see that happen to Ronnie. They will take me before they will take him, because Aretoula still loves him. And when his turn does come he, too, will know nothing. We will not suffer; men die far worse deaths on the battlefield.
And yet—
I will tear this page out. It is lunacy, madness as great as Aretoula’s great-grandmother’s.
17th Aug: Today Kyra Stamata said that she was feeling ill and sent Ronnie and me out onto the mountain to look for more of a certain herb she wanted to dose herself with. Aretoula, she said, must stay with her. Ronnie and I wandered far afield; we were never able to find any herb to match the sample she had given us.
When we came back there seemed to be tension between the two women. Kyra Stamata looked well enough, but Aretoula was white and her eyes look red, as if from weeping. All evening she has been very quiet. Ronnie is much concerned; he makes more fuss over a cut finger of Aretoula’s than he would if he broke his own arm. All trivial, no doubt; women’s squabbles. The best of them will do it. And yet my nerves respond to any tension now, like race-horses to a cut of the whip. I can feel them tensing; feel fear shooting through them, as electricity shoots through wires.
One good thing: when Kyra Stamata gave me my nightly sleeping-draught, she forgot to look at me. She was staring at Aretoula, who was staring at Ronnie, and I poured the drug quietly into the embers of the fire.
Kyra Stamata remembered me after a moment. She looked at me and smiled. “An empty cup already? Good. You will sleep well, soldier. You must sleep very well and grow strong again; very strong. We have all been worrying about you long enough, soldier. Long enough.”
18th Aug: This may be the last entry I shall ever make in this diary; I think that probably it will be.
I did not sleep last night. I closed my eyes and lay still; I breathed regularly, as I have trained myself to do, when Kyra Stamata bent above me. I could see her through my eyelashes as a shadow, as a black vulture’s shadow, when she bent.
But then perhaps I did fall asleep. For the next thing I knew I heard Aretoula’s voice:
“See, I have the knife, Grandmother. Let us eat; let us eat and drink tonight.”
My eyes opened; saw the flash of the knife in her hand. And shut again; faintness took me. Once more I could not move.
Then I heard the old woman laugh; shrill, cackling laughter.
“As you will, granddaughter. As you will.”
I felt the cold chill of steel as Aretoula set it, ever so gently, against my throat.
“Surely he will be enough for this time, Grandmother. Let us eat of him, let us eat and drink of him tonight. Let me show you how well I can cut his throat. I have never killed before; I have fed — yes, feasted — but I have never killed.”
Kyra Stamata laughed again, more loudly; harsh shrill laughter like the screech of a bird.
“You think that will show me your strength, girl? You think I will feed on that weakling, who cannot grow strong again, no matter how well I nurse him? No! He dies only that we may be rid of him. It is your lover that we will feed on, child. Tonight, or tomorrow night, as you choose.”
There was silence a moment. Then Aretoula said eagerly: “He is not so strong, either. He has been hurt; and he is slight — as slightly built as this one.” She did not move the knife from my throat.
“But young and healthy, girl; healthy enough to please you. You have made him happy, you have made him strong. And we have kept him long enough; I am hungry.”
Aretoula did not answer at once. For a second the knife pressed closer against my throat. Then she lowered it. Slowly, I could tell; reluctantly. Her grandmother’s derisive cackle came again.
“What! Have you lost your taste for your first kill, girl? Will you let him live?”
Aretoula said sullenly: “You have promised me one more night. And if he should see this man dead tomorrow my Ronnie would grieve. He would not think only of me. Tomorrow night, before the dawn comes, I will kill him; I will kill them both, if you wish it. But not tonight.”
She went away then. Back to the inner room that she shares with Ronnie now. Kyra Stamata fell asleep again; I heard her deep, regu lar breathing; I thought of creeping toward her quietly, there where she lay curled on her pallet by the hearth. Of putting my hands a bout her skinny old throat.
What a pity that her father and brother did not let her mother kill her — put out of the world the monstrosity she had brought into it! But they saved her — saved her to be their own destroy er, and now ours! No doubt they thought, poor fools, that they were protecting innocence; no doubt she was young and lovely then, like Aretoula.
Like Aretoula!
Twice I did creep toward the hag. But each time she woke and stirred; each time I dropped back quickly. Her senses have indeed the sharpness of a bird’s.
Through the rest of the night she lay in peaceful sleep, and I lay thinking. Thinking and fearing, hating and shuddering, and trying to plan.
And at last, toward dawn, the idea came. Like white light.
It may not work. I think it very unlikely that it will work. But it may win us death in the open.
At dawn I rose and walked out of the house. I walked on and on. Up the mountain; to its crest and over.
From this high rock where I am writing I can look down upon the little ledge where the hut stands; that vulture’s nest that we all thought was salvation, paradise. It lies there black under the red morning light; still in shadow. Shadow less black than what it holds.
If Ronnie does not follow me I will go back tonight. I will watch and try to surprise them; I will do whatever man may do. But Ronnie will follow me. He will be worried and come in search of me. And then, with my two sound legs, it ought not to be hard for me to keep ahead of him. With luck — incredible luck! — I may lead him on such a chase that we will fall into the Germans’ hands. A prison camp would seem like heaven now.
But will he follow me so far? Or will he turn back — to Aretoula? He would only think me mad if I tried to tell him what I know.
He is coming. I see him clearly, down there in the morning sun. Climbing the mountain, shading his eyes with his hand as he looks about him. For me.
5 p.m.: I am very tired. All day I have played this ghast ly game of hide-and-seek with Ronnie, here in the mountains. With out food, without any more rest than I knew we had to take. For if Ronnie’s leg crumples under him again we are done. This game in which our lives are the stakes will be over.
He must think me mad indeed, the boy. Deranged, after our hardships and my long, low fever; by the shock of Bert’s death. But he keeps after me with a blind, sweet stubbornness; he will not desert a comrade.
He is resting now, on a ledge some three hundred feet below me. He has not the strength, I think, to climb up to this rock where he must know that I am hiding; I moved once and let him see me. I wish, desperately, that I could see some house, some sign of man. But there is nothing. The peaks press close about us, like enemies; dark and implacable now in this failing light. Great masses of spiky, barren rock at best indifferent, alien to man.
What will happen when night falls? But it was not night be fore, when—
God, I dare not think of that! If only we can stay alone, in the darkness and among the rocks, meet no dangers but those that nature planned for these terrible, desolate heights!
The sun is setting. The clouds above the peaks are as red as fire, as red as blood. The sky itself gleams like a vast sheet of white light. No speck of darkness on it anywhere.
No, no! There are two specks, far to the north. Two black specks, blotting the shining red-and-whiteness of the heavens. They are coming closer, growing larger — and my heart is tightening into a knot of terror in my breast!
Birds!
Later: It is over. It all happened very quickly after that. They came and flew low and circled over Ronnie’s head. I was scrambling down toward him as they came. I do not know what I thought I could even try to do; I knew he would believe nothing that I said.
I was in time to see his face as they circled above him. To see its first puzzled look fade and turn into a smile. A very gentle, very boyish and trusting smile.
“Two of you this time, you little beggars! What is it? Do you want me to go back — to her?”
For a little while he lay watching their weird weaving, the pattern that their black wings seemed to be making
