He reached for her hand, found it, and pulled her forward, his mind reconstructing the chamber and locating the shaft. He found it with his hand, reached up for the rungs, and pulled her behind him.
“We have to get up!” he yelled, and then he felt her find her feet and they climbed up the ladder to the next chamber. They had to get up and out quickly or they would be buried alive.
A slow, suffocating death in the dark.
“Nicholai…”
“We’re all right,” he said. “We’re all right. Stay with me.”
He pulled her up into the next chamber. It was pitch dark now, a tight cloying blackness as he forced himself to remember the layout. It was difficult in the noise of the explosions above them, the falling dirt, the concussive force of the blasts.
You have been here many times before, he told himself, in many caves, in tighter spots than this, so
“Come on,” he said. “We’re going to be fine.”
He led them into the entrance and they started back.
Diamond spat the dirt out of his mouth and rubbed it from his eyes.
God damn the Frogs, he thought. Didn’t they know he was down here? Or did they know and didn’t care?
“Come on,” he said to the soldier behind him.
There was no answer.
The man was dead.
He plunged ahead.
The tunnel was fast coming in around them as Nicholai pulled Solange along. They came to one false wall after another, but Nicholai had the route firmly in his head and he crawled quickly, encouraging Solange all the way.
“Almost there.”
“That’s good.”
“Oh, that’s very good.”
Diamond heard voices.
Speaking French.
He stopped, lay flat, and held the pistol out in front of him.
Nicholai’s proximity sense warned him.
Someone was around the sharp right angle in front of them.
He stopped.
“What-”
“Ssshh.”
A bomb blast rattled the walls. Dirt slid, narrowing the tunnel. His ears ringing, Nicholai couldn’t hear. He slid forward on his stomach, and then a muzzle flash lit the tunnel and he saw Diamond.
Diamond crawled forward, shooting in front of him.
Nicholai reached his right hand as far as it would go, clutched at the air, and grabbed Diamond’s wrist. “Solange, your knife!”
Diamond ripped his arm backward and freed his hand.
He lowered the pistol again, toward Nicholai’s face.
Nicholai felt the powder blast burn his cheek.
He reached again in the dark, lunging out with a punch. “Your knife!”
Solange coiled as much as she could in the narrowing confine of the tunnel. She pushed out with her long legs and squeezed past Nicholai, her knife in front of her.
Diamond pulled the trigger.
The muzzle flash blinded Nicholai. He crawled past Solange, and heard Diamond crawling away. He started to go after him, but then he heard Solange moan.
Diamond would have to wait.
He stopped and turned to Solange.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
But then he felt the warm stickiness of her blood.
She was bleeding badly from the side. He couldn’t see in the stygian darkness but he could feel.
So could she. “Please don’t let me die down here.”
“I won’t let you die anywhere,” he said.
Another blast rocked the tunnel. Dirt fell into their faces, their eyes, their noses, their mouths. He felt for her face, brushed the dirt away, then turned onto his back and started to pull himself along the tunnel shaft, pulling her behind him.
It was excruciatingly slow and he knew she was losing blood fast. The tunnel was collapsing, they were half buried, and he could only feel his way along, turn his head, and try to smell the way to open air.
He had to do it. He couldn’t let her die.
After an eternity he turned, saw a faint beam of sunlight, and sensed a fleeting breath of fresh air. He pulled until they reached the bottom of the tunnel entrance.
“We’re there,” he gasped.
Now he clawed his way up the shaft with one hand and pulled her with the other. He climbed and fell four times before his hand gripped the surface with enough purchase to pull her weight up behind him.
He collapsed on the surface and pulled her into his arms.
“We’re here, my love,” he said. “We made it.”
But Solange was still.
Limp and lifeless in his arms. He wiped a strand of her golden hair from her green eyes, and closed them.
Then the next bomb hit.
164
HE AWOKE in a bed.
Clean, crisp sheets tight around his legs.
Haverford looked down at him.
“Good morning.”
“Where…”
“You’re in a Saigon hospital,” Haverford said. “A Foreign Legion patrol found you staggering around out in the delta. You were severely concussed, had some second-degree burns, shrapnel wounds, and three broken ribs.”
“Solange?”
“I’m sorry,” Haverford said.
Then Nicholai remembered.
A deep sorrow came over him.
“Why aren’t I in a cell?” he asked, looking around the room. It was impossibly white and clean.
“Ah,” Haverford said. “Your name is Rene Dazin. You’re a French merchant that the Viet Minh kidnapped. You were very lucky that the bombing raid happened to set you free, my friend, the same bombing raid that killed Michel Guibert.”
“Who made up that story?”
“I did, of course,” Haverford said. “But you might want to get out of the country as soon as you can walk.”
“Which should be when?”
“Might be another month or so,” Haverford answered. “I have a clean passport for you. You recuperate, then you disappear.”
