Kara’s Game. Gordon Stevens

is fine. She dipped the flannel into the water again and cooled his face again.

      Adin – it came out of the darkness, out of the black. Adin was outside. Adin had left the front line and was coming home. Adin was hurt, was trying to reach her and Jovan even though he was wounded.

      Not Adin, it couldn’t be Adin, because Adin wouldn’t come that way. But could she take the risk …

      She smiled at the boy and kissed him. ‘I’m going to get something.’ She wiped his forehead again. ‘I’ll be back in two minutes to tell you a story.’

      She pulled on her coat and laced her boots. Made sure Jovan was comfortable and opened the door, slipped through it and closed it quickly so as not to let the cold in. Crouched in the dark and listened for the sound, listened for her husband.

      ‘Sorry, Janner.’ Max’s voice shuddered as his body was shuddering.

      ‘All right, Max. No probs. Almost there.’ The shells were coming in again, falling on the old town, falling near them. He was hardly moving now. One hand, the hand with the gun, trying to reach out and the other holding Max’s wrist and trying to pull him. The night sights were getting in the way, but he and Max needed them to see where they were going. Fuck me, part of his mind was saying, the places you take me. Ten green bottles, part of his brain was singing as he had sung with his wife during the last stages of labour when their first child had been born. Ten green bottles hanging on the wall, and if one green bottle should accidentally fall. You’re losing it, Janner; stop thinking about Jude, stop thinking about the kids. Because if you do you’re finished, you’re on the way out. The shrapnel was cutting through his chest now and the shells were bursting round him, his head was down and his face was scraping on the ice. You’re making it, he told himself. Just keep it up, just keep going.

      The shell was coming in. He heard it explode. Heard the other explosion which it detonated. Oh Christ, he thought. Oh Jesus bloody Christ. I’m in a minefield.

      Kara heard Adin, saw Adin. Dark and black against the snow and the ice. The shells and the noise and the hell pounding down on him, pounding down on them both. She was lying on the ground, wriggling forward trying to protect herself from the bombs and the guns. Adin, she whispered, no noise coming out. It’s me, Adin; please move, Adin. Don’t be dead, Adin. The shell was coming in, close to them. She ignored it, ignored everything.

      Saw him.

      Christ the pain in his head and his legs and his chest. Forget the pain, pain only exists when you acknowledge it. Got to get to the lads, can’t let the lads down after all they did so you could get this far, can’t let Max down. Christ the bloody awful fucking pain. Don’t give up, don’t give up now, don’t ever give up. Because you’re regiment, because you’re a Cornishman. Almost there now, Max. Almost made it.

      He saw her.

      Oh God – she felt the fresh fear. Not Adin, not anyone she knew. Not even a man. The shape in front of her was black and red, no face, especially no eyes. Just the face of something from another world staring at her.

      Christ – he was reacting automatically, instinctively. Heckler coming up and finger on trigger.

      The fear still froze her. Froze her body and her mind. Why no face, the panic screamed at her; why no eyes?

      Janner’s finger was easing on the trigger, mind and body functioning instinctively.

      She understood why she couldn’t see a face, why she couldn’t see the eyes. She had seen someone like this before, seen four men like this before. Except then they had been helping her, then they had been disappearing into the woods at night, then the planes had flown over and the food had parachuted down.

      ‘Ian …’ she remembered the leader’s name. ‘English?’ she asked. ‘Aid,’ she said. ‘Food drops?’

      Except that it wasn’t Ian. Except that the man two metres from her was wounded and in pain. And the man behind him, the man he was carrying, was even more badly injured.

      ‘English?’ she asked again, her voice almost lost in the fear.

      The eyes looking at him were wide with fright and the face framed green in the PNG was a woman’s.

      ‘English?’ Janner heard the words again. ‘Food drop?’

      Ian Morris took a patrol in to organize a food drop – part of his brain pulled out of the numbness. Ian Morris had an interpreter – he remembered the briefing. A woman, not sure where she lived because she met them at their operating base.

      ‘English,’ he said. ‘Friend of Ian’s. Help me.’ The voice seemed distant, as if it was no longer his. ‘Two of us. Can’t move any more.’ It was as if the night was still and silent, as if the rounds were not falling round and on them. Got to trust her, got to trust someone. He took the pressure off the trigger and stretched out his hand towards her.

      Their fingers touched, palms sliding across each other. Hers cold with ice and fear, his red and slimed in blood. She held his wrist, he hers, grip clamped like a vice. He tried to help, tried to pull himself and Max forward.

      ‘Minefield,’ he told her.

      Oh God – she remembered what Adin had said, remembered the different explosions as she had left the house, as if the shells had detonated something else in the woods.

      She let go his hand and he knew she was going to leave him. Can’t blame her, a distant part of his brain told him. On her own and she might make it back; her and one of them and the chances were falling; her and two and they were all dead.

      Another shell landed thirty metres away.

      ‘You have a knife?’ she asked. What am I doing, she thought. Why am I doing it?

      What the hell did she want a knife for? Janner let go Max’s arm, felt in his belt, and gave her the knife. ‘Don’t move,’ she told him. Christ – he understood why she wanted the knife and what she was going to do.

      Slowly, carefully, she eased the tip of the knife into the ground, pressed it through the ice. Repeated the procedure. Made sure the area between her and Janner was clear. Then she turned and edged up the track made by her knees and hands.

      There were no mines, she began to think; perhaps Adin was wrong; perhaps they hadn’t been laid. There were no mines, part of Janner’s brain told him; he’d been wrong about the different explosion. He saw the moment she froze. Sensed – split second before – the metallic contact as the tip of the knife struck something. Leave us, part of him wanted to tell her, save yourself. Except save herself and he was finished. Why was she doing this, she wondered; why was she risking her life when Jovan was sick less than a hundred metres away? She marked the location of the contact with her scarf and moved past it, suddenly rigid with fear and almost unable to move. Came to the place where the animal tracks were all along the route, and therefore where she was safe. Except that animals were lighter than men. She turned and crept back to the two men.

      ‘Can’t move both of you.’ She ducked as another round came in. ‘I’ll take you, come back for the other.’

      Can’t abandon Max, Janner thought. And if she takes one, no way she’s coming back for a second. ‘Can’t leave Max,’ he told her.

      ‘I’ll take Max and come back for you.’

      No way she would come back, he understood, but no way he could get Max out by himself. No way he and Max would get out without her. And if she got Max out then he might just make it by himself.

      ‘Okay.’

      She crawled round him, half-dragged half-carried Max along the track to the point marked by the handkerchief. Don’t touch it, she told herself, make sure he doesn’t. Another shell came in. She eased him round the scarf, made sure his trailing leg didn’t touch it, hauled him clear of the woods and across the neck of open ground to the house. God he was heavy, God she could barely pull him. She opened the door, lifted him inside, and laid him on the floor.

      Okay,