Moonlight and stars, the sea below us. It was as if no one else existed, except for Callahan, dead, and Taggart, alive.
'Look,' I whispered. The parachute had been half buried beneath rocks. The wind had blown the exposed section in my face. In another second I would've stepped on it.
'Over here,' Slaine said in the same low voice. A few feet away lay a body.
'Fallschirmjager,' Masters said pointing to the distinctive helmet of a German paratrooper. He checked for a pulse but he didn't need to bother. Two blackened bullet holes were clustered over the heart. No blood was visible; the paratrooper had been dead before he hit the ground. His belt was off, his long smock unbuttoned, and pockets turned inside out. His pistol was still in its holster, and one of the GIs grabbed it, an unexpected souvenir.
'Looks like Taggart searched him after he shot him,' I said.
'For gold,' Slaine said. 'He must've found it.'
'I wonder if he went off course?' Masters said.
'No, I don't think so. I think Taggart signaled them to drop here instead of the flat area below. It would be easier for him if they were dead or injured when they landed.'
'So where is the other man?' Slaine asked. It was a good question.
A sharp crack tore through the night, followed by zing as a bullet hit rock and ricocheted, inches from her head. We dove for cover as a second shot followed from the direction of Slieve Donard.
'Move down, along the wall,' Masters said. 'We're silhouetted up here. Move!'
Firing broke out as we slid our way down, hiding in the gloom along the base of the thick wall. The shooting stopped as we met up with our rear guard, joined by the two GIs Masters had sent up Slieve Donard.
'Dead Kraut up there, about halfway to the top,' one of them told Masters.
'Shot?'
'Nope. Neck broke, I think. His chute was ripped to pieces, looked like the wind dragged him along the ground. We checked him for papers, and look what we found. C'mon, Sweeney, show him.'
'Jeez, some guys have no sense of larceny,' Sweeney said. With a show of reluctance, he lifted a heavily laden bandolier from around his neck, an ammo bandolier, in the same camouflage pattern as the paratrooper's smock. There were six pockets on each side, secured by metal snaps. Sweeney opened one, and even in the dark, by dim moonlight, it glittered, filled with gold coins, the German eagle on one side, Kaiser Wilhelm on the other. Kaiser Bill, my dad would have called him. There were lots of Kaiser Bills, and I understood the look on Sweeney's face.
'Don't worry,' I said to him. 'I knew about the gold. There wasn't a chance you could've gotten away with it.'
'That's a relief, Lieutenant. They're all yours then. Damn things are heavy.' I put on the bandolier and felt the straps dig into my shoulders. That was a big drawback to gold. It was valuable, sure, but in any quantity it was like lugging around a cast-iron stove.
'Anything else?' Masters asked.
'Yeah, sniper rifle,' Sweeney said. He held out a Kar98k, the standard German infantry rifle, fitted with a Zeiss scope.
'The other Kraut must have had one too,' Masters said. 'And Taggart has had us in his sights.'
'Think he got around the rear guard?' I said. Masters looked down into the valley, the dark mountainsides vanishing into murky gloom beneath us. Then he looked to the east, where a thin line of pink light showed at the horizon.
'He knows what he's doing, so, yeah, we should count on his being below us. And dawn isn't far away. We need to hustle after him right now or else stay put. It'll be light enough for him to pick us off in thirty minutes, unless he's hightailing it out of here. What do you think?'
'Taggart won't be able to resist taking another shot at us,' Slaine said. 'Especially since we have half his money.'
I nodded. There were ten of us now but that wouldn't seem like impossible odds to a guy with a sniper rifle hidden in the rocks, a few hundred yards separating us from him. Throw in a touch of derangement, and it would seem like a sure thing.
'OK. Let's go.' Masters led this time, point being the most dangerous spot. We ran in the darkness, against the dawn that would illuminate us, keeping our heads down, watching the ground and risking glances at the terrain ahead, waiting for a shot to find us. We passed the icehouse and went into the trees, hopping from rock to rock in the stream until that became impossible. We caught our breath in the woods off the path, soaked in sweat, gulping in mouthfuls of air.
Pop pop pop. Pop pop. Gunfire sounded below us. It was too far away to be aimed at us, but each of us tightened our shoulders and hunched low. The shots increased; the loud, rapid fire of a BAR stood out.
'The jeeps,' Masters said. 'It's coming from the jeeps, by the bridge.'
'But we didn't leave anyone there,' I said. 'Who's being shot at?'
'I don't know,' Masters said, 'but I'm tired of this bastard running rings around us. If he's caught up in a firefight, we have a chance to take him.'
Masters had a plan. He split his men into two groups, each taking one side of the trail, heading for the jeeps. He took one, Sergeant Farrell the other; one of them was bound to outflank Taggart. Slaine and I were to wait two minutes then go straight down the path. I think we were an afterthought, and Masters simply wanted us out of the way. They vanished into the woods, and I checked my watch. The gunfire continued, small bursts punctuated by single shots, the kind of shooting that goes on when both sides are under cover and no one wants to expose themselves.
'Do you think all will be forgiven if you bring in Taggart?' I asked Slaine.
'Accounts will be settled as far as I'm concerned,' she said. 'Then they can chuck me out of the service or assign me to file papers and make tea, I don't care.'
'But you did care about keeping things in balance.'
'In case you haven't noticed, the world becomes an awful place otherwise. Someone has to do something to maintain order. I did, and ultimately I failed. But I did try.'
A breeze rustled the leaves around us, and I thought of the ghosts of Ireland, all the souls lost in the struggles with the British, and with our own people. Some of those ghosts were my ancestors, and one was Slaine's father, shot dead for ordering armed men to halt as they sought to alter balance. The breeze gusted, turning into a howl, swirling the branches around us. Slaine put her hand out and held onto my arm. Her touch was electric. I took her hand. I kissed her, felt her press against me, and then we broke apart. We stared at each other a moment, the branches still whipping around our faces. We didn't speak as we started down the path, to the place where people were killing each other.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
One of the jeeps was in flames. The smell of burning tires and gasoline drifted into the trees. Rolling black smoke surrounded us, giving us added cover as we slowly crept down the path, trying to puzzle out who was doing the shooting. Occasionally a round zipped through the trees around us or a yell emerged from the chaos below, curses laced with Irish accents between bursts of lead. We edged closer, the emerging sun and the light of the fire revealing at least one body near the burning jeep. It looked like it wore an RUC uniform but in the murky smoke I couldn't be sure.
Rapid bursts came from our left. Slaine tapped my arm and pointed. I could see the muzzle flashes across the small stone bridge, coming from a jumble of boulders on the far side. BARs. Pistols and rifles responded from behind the jeeps, but that group seemed outnumbered and outgunned. Slaine ran ahead to a better vantage point, rose from a crouch, and fired her Sten gun at the BARs, guessing that was Taggart and his gang. She emptied her clip, and as she ducked to reload, both groups aimed their fire in our direction, unsure of who we were, and worried about their flanks. We were showered with leaves and small branches until the firing let up.
'Wait,' I said. 'Wait until Masters opens up. They're too far away. He'll drive them out into the open.' She worked the bolt on her Sten, giving me an icy look. She wanted blood, and she wanted it now.
