She turned away, went out through the door. He heard the key turn. He lay in the darkness and sipped at the hot sweetness of the tea.
With three men to escort him Heinrich Gunter stumbled, tripped through the darkness over the rough ground on the slope of the hillside.
He was handcuffed to one man.
He had been given back his shoes, but they rubbed and calloused his feet and it was more years than he could remember since he had last worn lace up shoes without socks. He had been given back his shoes, but they had retained his shirt and his suit jacket and his trousers. He wore his vest and his underpants that now smelled and over his shoulder was draped a coarse cloth blanket.
Where they had left the car, his photograph had been taken. All very quick, and he had hardly been aware of the process. The hood had been snatched up from over his face, the light had blasted him. Time for him to identify the gun barrel that had been the sharp pain under his chin, and the face mask of the one who held a camera level with his eyes. Two workings of the camera, and the flash, and the hood retrieving the darkness and falling. The taking of his photograph had disturbed him. As if the photograph brought him back towards a world that he understood, a world of ransom demands and bribery, and of newspaper headlines and radio bulletins, and of the government in Bonn, and of the helplessness of the world that he knew. The taking of the photograph had forced his mind to his family, his wife and his children, and his home. Forced him to think of his wife sitting numb in their home and of th dazed confusion of his children.
It was easier for him when he was in their world, not his own, when he lived the existence of his captors Their world was the gun barrel and the handcuffs, taking a hooded hostage across the rough sloping ground below the Jabal al Barouk.
Crane froze.
Holt, behind him, had taken three more steps before he registered Crane's stillness.
Crane held the palm of his hand outstretched, fingers splayed, behind his back, so that Holt could see the warning to stop.
It was the fifth hour of the night march. Holt was dead on his feet. The moon, falling into the last quarter, threw a silver light on them.
Crane, very slowly, sunk to his knees and haunches.
A gentle movement, taking an age to go down.
Holt followed him. The Bergen straps cut into his shoulders. Pure, blessed relief, to sink low and not to have to jar the Bergen on his back.
Crane turned his head, his hand flicked the gesture for Holt to come forward.
Holt sensed the anxiety growing in his body. When Crane had first stopped he had been walking as an automaton, no care other than not to disturb a loose stone or tread on a dried branch. Gone from him, the sole concentration on his footfall. He came forward, he strained his eyes into the grey-black stillness ahead, he saw nothing. He found that his hands were locked tight on the stock of the Model PM and the bloody thing was not even loaded and the flash eliminator at the end of the barrel was still covered with the dirt-stained condom. Hell of a great deal of use young Holt would be in defending the position.. . He was close to Crane, crouched as he moved, close enough for Crane to reach back and with strength force him lower.
Crane had him down, pushed Holt so that he lay full length on the narrow track.
Holt heard the stone roll ahead of them. A terrible quiet was in him, the breath stifled in his throat. A stone was kicked ahead of him. They shared the path. So bloody near to the tent camp, and they shared the track.
Crane was reaching for his belt, hand moving at glacier speed.
They shared the bloody path. All the tracks in south Lebanon, all the trails running on the hill slopes of the west side of the Beqa'a, and they, by God, shared it.
Holt breathed out, tried to control himself, tried not to pant.
He heard the voices, clear, as if they were beside him.
Words that he did not understand, a foreign language, but a message of anger.
He could see nothing, but the voices carried in the night quiet.
A guttural accent, speaking English, seeking communication.
'I cannot see, I cannot know what I hit.'
'More careful.'
'But I cannot see… '
Holt heard the impact of a kick. He heard the gasp, muffled, then the sob.
'I cannot see to walk.'
A noise ahead as if a weight were dragged, and new voices, Arabic, urging greater pace. Holt did not understand the words, knew the meaning.
Crane had the pocket night sight to his eye. He rarely used it. Crane's bible said that reliance on a night sight was dangerous, hard to switch back and forth between a night sight and natural night vision. They were making as much noise ahead as Holt had conjured up on the first of the night march tests in the Occupied Territories – so bloody long ago, back in the time before history books Holt thought the man who complained, who could not see, might be German or Austrian or Swiss German.
There was a stampede of stones away from the path, and the sound of another kicking, and the sound of another whimper. He thought they were moving faster, he thought the noises moved away.
Holt waited on Crane.
He heard the call of a hyena above. He heard the barking of a dog behind and below from among the village lights of Ain Zebde. He waited on Crane.
Methodically, as was his way, Crane replaced the pocket night sight in the pouch on his belt.
'It's a European,' Crane whispered.
'What's a European doing…?'
'God, didn't you learn adding at school? There are three hoods with a European prisoner on our track. A European, with a bag over his head, who cannot see where he's going, with Arabs, that adds to the movement of a hostage.'
'A hostage… ' Holt repeated the word, seemed to be in awe of the word.
'Moving a hostage on my bloody route.' A savageness in Crane's whisper.
'What do we do?'
'Keep going, have to.'
'Why, have to?'
'Because, youngster, we have a schedule. We have an appointment. We have to move behind them, and move at their pace. I don't have the time to lie up. And I'm better keeping them in sight, I'm better knowing where they are.'
'A hostage?'
'That's what I said.'
'Definitely a hostage?'
'He's tied to one of them. He's got a European accent.
He's short of trousers, just a blanket over him. We're in an area of Syrian control, so they move him at night They'll be from Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah, they don't trust the shit Syrians any more than I do… Don't kick any bloody stone, youngster.'
Carefully, with so much care, Holt pushed himself upright. He stood. All the time he could hear the fading sounds of movement ahead. He let Crane move off, get the fifteen paces in front. He struggled to ease the pressure of the straps on his shoulder.
Best foot forward, on a shared path.
He could not help himself. He should have concentrated solely on each footfall. There should have been nothing else in his mind, no chaff, no clutter, nothing other than the weight of the ball of his foot testing for the loose stone, for the dried branch, for the crisped leaf.
The chaff and the clutter in his mind were the thoughts of love and vengeance.
He had told his girl, his Jane Canning who was the personal assistant to the military attache, that he loved her. A long time ago, he had told his girl that he loved her. His girl was ashes, he did not even know where the parents of his girl had scattered her ashes. Too distant from them to know whether they had taken her ashes to a
