Kara’s Game. Gordon Stevens

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ At least they were able to join the queue, at least she had a ration card which entitled her and Adin and Jovan to the food.

      The queue shuffled slowly, someone occasionally pushing, but most of the men and women too exhausted to do anything other than wait. God it was cold – she shuffled forward another two paces and stamped her feet in a vain attempt to shake the numbness from her toes.

      ‘You okay?’ She tucked her head against the boy and smiled at him again.

      ‘Okay.’

      They reached the first corner, seemed to stand an eternity before they reached the next, even longer before they turned along the front wall and edged towards the steps and door into the school.

      There had been no midday shells so far, so perhaps the Chetniks were letting them off today, perhaps there really was a ceasefire, perhaps the peace talks in Vienna really were achieving something.

      They were inside at last, along the lime-green corridor and into the room at the other end. The wooden tables were on the left, the vats of soup on them and the helpers behind them, one woman checking the ration cards and stamping the backs with the date so no one would get double rations, and the others ladling the liquid and cutting the bread. The room seemed packed and cold, people milling with their soup cans, a few seeking a space to eat but most leaving. The floor was running wet and the smell of the beans hung in the air.

      She felt in her coat pocket, pulled out the three ration cards, and showed them to the first woman.

      Kadira Isak – the woman read her name. Adin and Jovan Isak. ‘Where’s your husband?’ she asked.

      ‘At the front,’ Kara explained. ‘He’s due back this afternoon.’

      ‘So you didn’t get his food yesterday?’ The woman checked the back of the card.

      ‘No, because he was on the front line yesterday.’ And therefore, although the boy and I could have done with his share, it would have deprived someone else.

      The woman nodded, stamped the three cards to indicate they had received their food for that day, and nodded for them to move forward.

      The beans were bubbling in the vat. Another woman ladled her two helpings, and the third passed her two slices of rough white bread.

      ‘Three helpings,’ she told them. ‘My husband’s back from the front today.’

      The beans were white, without taste. She smiled her thanks, jammed the lid firmly on, put the bread in the plastic bag she’d carried in her pocket, and left. Outside it was snowing slightly more heavily. Thank God there was no sniper today, thank God she wouldn’t have to run across the bridge.

      MacFarlane saw her coming. It was funny how you remembered certain people, certain faces. Perhaps it was the child she was carrying or the way she was carrying him, perhaps the way she’d run across the bridge earlier. He smiled at her as she passed and watched as she approached the bridge.

      Any more snow and he’d begin losing visibility, Valeschov thought. Christ it was cold. He held the Dragunov carefully, so it did not touch his face. A couple of hours to go, then he’d be off to the village two kilometres away for forty-eight hours’ R and R. He peered down the sights and picked up the bridge. There were two places where the targets were soft and easy: the first was the bridge and the second was the street running from the school into the new town, parallel to the river and some hundred metres from it. Sniper Alley the locals would call it, and if they didn’t they should.

      No midday shelling today, so something was up. Not that they’d tell him, he’d be the last to know. Probably leave him up here to freeze his balls off unless he made sure they remembered him. The snow was heavier and the darkness was closing in, even though it was still early afternoon. He flicked the safety on and blew the snowflakes away from the sights. Christ it was even colder. He settled again and picked up the bridge. Someone was about to cross – it was strange how you could pick it up, almost smell the fear. Which direction, though, old town to new, or new town to old? Probably the latter.

      New town to old – he saw the figure. Go for the first and not get lined up properly, or wait and hope there was a second? Perhaps just let off a few rounds and laugh at the way the bastards danced.

      Thank God there was no sniper, Kara thought, thank God she didn’t have to risk spilling the soup. She called it soup because it sounded better; when she and Jovan got home perhaps she’d add a few herbs she’d saved from the summer, make it taste better, at least make it taste of something. God she was cold, God how little Jovan’s face was white and stiff. Please may Adin be okay, please may he make it home tonight.

      Somebody didn’t know he was there – Valeschov flicked off the safety. Somebody was walking rather than running across the bridge. Somebody liked playing Russian roulette. Perhaps he’d take them in one, perhaps he’d put a shot near them first, scare the shit out of them before he finished them off.

      The river below her was grey and the sky above was lost in the snow. Why wasn’t she running, she suddenly thought; why hadn’t she waited to cross the bridge with a group? At least Jovan was on her right, away from where the snipers normally were. Run, she told herself. Don’t run, because if you do you’ll lose your nerve for ever. What the hell are you talking about – she came back at herself. You’re on the bridge and even though there’s no sniper you’re in the open and exposed.

      Take them now, Valeschov decided, it was too cold to be frigging about.

      The swirl of snow closed round her, so she could no longer see even the end of the bridge. On the hillside above, Valeschov heard the crunch of footsteps behind him and turned.

      ‘We’re pulling out.’ The sergeant was wrapped against the cold, his face barely visible. ‘They’re sending up the big stuff.’

      ‘Thank Christ for that.’ Valeschov flicked on the safety and eased himself up. ‘Another hour and I’d have been a bloody snowman.’

      

      Something was wrong. There had been no shells at midday, and no small-arms rounds that afternoon.

      It was ten minutes to the time the Serbs on the hills above Maglaj began their late afternoon barrage – thirty rounds over a one-hour period, then more or less silence for the night.

      MacFarlane swung the Nissan in a tight circle, drove to the dilapidated building next to the bank midway between the radio station and the school, and went to the ground floor of the block where the UNMO team had established its base.

      The room was six metres by five, low ceiling and sparse furniture. The sleeping bags and American camp cots were against one wall, food and cooking items against a second, and a table and chairs in the centre. The windows were boarded against shrapnel, and the radio handset was on the table, coaxial wires running to the HF set mounted in the vehicle so they didn’t have to go outside to speak to Vitez.

      Umbegi brewed a tea and they waited.

      

      Jovan’s hands and face were cold. Kara closed the door, lit the candle, sat him by the stove and rubbed a semblance of warmth back into him. The semi-basement in which they now lived was crowded: the stove in the centre of the rear wall, the double bed to the right, which they also used as a sofa, and Jovan’s smaller bed – which he no longer slept in – to the left, the table in the middle with the wooden chairs round it, and the СКАЧАТЬ