The Longest Winter (17 page)

‘Considering everything, you both look very good to me. Sophie, was I a little rough with you? I’m sorry.’ He put an arm around her shoulders as he went to the opening, giving her a squeeze that asked her to forgive him. He felt her quiver. ‘Sophie?’

‘Oh, I am sorry too,’ she said huskily.

‘We’ll manage,’ said James. He put his head out and looked around. Everything seemed ominously quiet. The sun was on the river, the foam a frothy white around wet boulders. He licked dry lips. A quick dash down over the rocks and he would reach water. And be a clear target. No, they must wait before they ventured to the river, they must edge out of the cave and make their way along the foothills, using the mounds of strewn rock for cover. He glanced to the right and saw his pants and Sophie’s petticoat laid out in the sun. The garments looked dry. A stiff morning breeze suddenly gusted, ruffling his hair and tickling the petticoat. It flirted with the lace hem and lifted it.

High above them Avriarches rose to his feet. He had been patient long enough. His eyes made their final search. They glinted. Far below, where the hillside rose from the sloping riverbank, he discerned the tiny flutter of something white.

He smiled.

‘Wait here,’ he said to Lazar, ‘and when my men come show them the way I’ve gone. How long you’ll have to wait will depend on how long it takes them to fill their bellies. They don’t breakfast on goat’s milk.’

He began to make his way down the ridged, precipitous hill. He was light for all his girth. He carried his rifle and hummed a song as he descended. The fluttering white had gone. But he knew where they were now.

James did not bother with his pants. He drowned them in the pool while Sophie put on her petticoat. Then they all emerged quietly and carefully and began to edge their way around the curving face of the hillside. Progress was slow, the jumbled piles of stone and the huge boulders as obstructive as they were protective. Feet scraped, slithered and slipped over layers of broken stone. The light was starkly bright after the darkness of the cave and Anne, heart in her mouth, felt they were as vulnerable as beetles exposed under lifted timber. Sophie was taut with nerves and James full of anxieties. But at least they were no longer cold. At times during the night they had all thought they would never be wholly warm again, but their scrambling urgency in the morning sunshine chased away all chills, and perspiration was soon wet on heated bodies. Gnawing hunger was for the most part strangled by knots of fear, but dry mouths became drier, their thirst made worse by the sight and sound of the river.

But James would not let them descend to the river, not yet. He could not see the course of the valley in front, for they were negotiating a long, sweeping bend of river and hillside. The vegetation thickened on the far bank. On this side the bank was a mass of fallen stone that spilled into the water. Footholds became precarious as the incline steepened, the girls leaning against the hillside and clamping to it at times. James urged them on. His sense of uneasiness made him sweat. Rocks and boulders lessened as the
sloping bank shelved even more sharply. If any of them slipped they would tumble or slide all the way down to the river.

Anne kept gasping, ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear.’ But she went on and Sophie moved with her, face pale, teeth clenched, her pointed shoes a pain to her feet. Bodies were hot, the morning sun a hard brilliance on smooth stone. As long as they kept close to the hillside they could not be seen from the rear, the curve of the valley hid them. James breathed with relief as the slope became kinder. Spewed boulders again offered solid cover. The curve was straightening out, he could see more of the river ahead, the woodlands widening on the other side. He spotted a point where they might risk going down to the water. And at that point the river was so littered that there was a negotiable causeway of stone. There they could cross and take to the woods again and then, if all went well, climb the far slope up to the road, which lay a little distance back but which roughly paralleled the line of the valley.

‘There,’ he said, pointing to where the rock piles were like tumuli and would give them cover, ‘we’ll go down to the river there.’

‘Water? Water?’ said Anne, eyes showing dark rings. ‘Oh, lead on, dear James.’

He took them down the slope between the high tumuli and they reached the river. They knew that at the water’s edge they had no cover, but it was a risk they had to take. Anne and Sophie sank to their knees, cupped their hands and drew the water up to their parched mouths.
James lay on his stomach and dipped his mouth in. He knelt up and washed his face clean, taking the dried blood from his forehead. He looked back. He saw the curving line of the ridged hill and the heights above. They were harshly bright. Ledges and shelves were sharp. The briefest flash of reflected light leapt to his eyes as the sun ran along the polished barrel of Avriarches’ rifle. James went cold. There was someone up there on those precipitous slopes. He strained his eyes but the flash did not recur.

‘Come along, my pets,’ he said lightly, ‘we don’t want thunder and lightning to strike. This way.’

Sophie and Anne stared at the causeway of jumbled stone. Foam and spray played around it in places.

‘Are you sure, James?’ said Sophie.

‘It’s better than getting wet.’

‘Well, I still have faith,’ said Sophie, ‘and I promise you I shall not break my neck.’ She smiled at him. ‘I am not such an idiot as that.’

‘Sophie, you’re beautiful,’ said James. He mounted the first stone and helped each girl up in turn. He led and they followed. The causeway was broken, uneven and slippery. Sophie took her shoes off, Anne followed suit. James took the shoes, carrying all four by their straps, and they moved from stone to stone. The spray showered skirts, rained around feet. Anne teetered and swayed, the river a foaming, angry rush on either side. Sophie steadied her, James looked back, turned and steadied them both.

The river wind whipped at them, warm and
brisk. It tossed the fair hair of Anne and wound it around her face. It took hold of the rich chestnut tresses of Sophie’s hair and whirled them about her head. They stepped down, they stepped up, their stockinged feet clinging, James leading them the easiest way he could devise, and although their teeth were set and the rushing waters frightening they did not falter. He jumped into the shallows from the last rock. He carried Anne clear of the water to the bank and returned for Sophie. She let herself down into his arms. She was warm, flushed, and almost exhilarated. She put her arms around his neck.

‘James, no one could say this is dull, could they?’ she said.

‘No one could say you are,’ he said and carried her to the bank. He set her down. She and Anne slipped their shoes on and James hurried them up the bank into the shelter of the pines.

If he wondered about that flash of light in the hills, the girls did not. They had not seen it and he made no mention of it. Sophie felt a sense of comparative security in the woods, Anne a simple sense of relief that they could not be seen. They hastened over the carpets of dry needles. James veered to the right, wanting to see if the ascent to the road was negotiable. It was not. The pitted, craggy slope, marked by tufts of dry grass and stunted bush, was far too steep for the girls to climb. They had to go on. They went on. The trees and undergrowth became thick and lush, creating a humidity that made perspiration run. They flew on urgent feet whenever they
could and fought their way through hampering undergrowth whenever they had to. Sophie kept losing a shoe, James kept retrieving it. Its heel began to separate from the sole. He hammered it against a tree.

‘Thank you, James. I am responsibility enough without a silly shoe making it worse.’

They stood for a moment, breathing hard. Sophie, seeing how dishevelled Anne was, how the perspiration darkened her fair hair around her forehead and stained her apple-green dress under her arms, felt that she herself must look awful. Her garments were sticking to her body and heat that was clammy had her in its embrace. James would never sketch her again except as an object.

James, with his chin bristly, his dark, tanned face lined with sweat, said with a faint smile, ‘What a bright, brave pair you are, I love you both. One day we’ll climb a mountain together, all three of us, and stand on top of the world.’

‘James, now you are thinking in very impractical terms,’ said Sophie.

‘Come on,’ said James.

They resumed their flight. The sun climbed, a blinding brilliance in the blue sky. It made an oven of the woods. The strap of Anne’s right shoe suddenly flapped loose, the button torn off. She stumbled. James caught her.

Breathlessly Anne said, ‘Thank you, James, you are always there, aren’t you?’

Sophie, seeing him with his arm around her sister and the smile on Anne’s face, thought oh,
this is terrible, I am beginning to be as jealous as a female Iago, and what did he mean, he loves both of us? He must love one of us more than the other, unless he meant he only loved us for our bravery. But I don’t feel at all brave and if I were brave I should want to be admired for it, not loved. I should want to be loved for my weaknesses as well as my virtues. Oh, I don’t know what I want except that I am all terrible nerves when he is close to me.

James knelt, using his handkerchief to bind Anne’s shoe to her foot, running it like a twist of rope under the sole and tying it tightly around her instep.

‘That will do very nicely,’ said Anne, ‘and do you think we’re safe now? I mean, we haven’t run into anybody, have we?’

‘No, we haven’t, not yet,’ said James, ‘but we’ll go on.’

He continued to hurry them. He had not lost his feeling of uneasiness since they began their flight. The girls were desperately hot, their clothes sticky and hampering, their breathing noisy, and it was an effort to duck under every low branch. James kept forging ahead to make quick surveys of what lay in front, frequently bearing to the right to explore the possibilities of ascending to the road. Always the climb was too risky to attempt. Sophie thought they had lost him after a while and a little spasm of panic attacked her.

‘Anne, quickly, we must catch him up.’

‘Sophie—’

‘Quickly!’

But James was suddenly before them, his face glistening with sweat. The girls stopped.

‘Quietly now,’ he said, ‘there’s a break in the trees farther up and a place where I think we can make our way up to the road. We can’t go on like this for ever.’

They followed him as silently as they could. Sophie, despite the heat, kept shivering. Anne took her hand, wondering about Sophie’s nerves. It was unpleasant for all of them, this feeling that those men must be somewhere about, but it was not like Sophie to give way to emotion. James would get them out of this.

The trees thinned and the sun poured through. There on the right was the ascent to the top and not far from the top was the road. It was easy enough for all of them to climb. But James suddenly froze. He leaned back on the girls to bring them to a halt. At the top of the slope on their right stood a man. It was Dobrovic, his face and head swathed in bandages and a rifle under his arm. He was moving, turning this way and that, alternately watching the road and surveying the valley. His thick bandages gave him a mummified look, but there was nothing of embalmed peacefulness about him. His movements were quick, restless, angry, and James sensed the man was savage with desire for revenge.

Sophie and Anne, glimpsing the figure, stopped breathing. Dobrovic glanced across the valley and signalled with his rifle. James
construed it as a negative message. It was full of angry frustration. But it brought a response in the form of a shout, which sang through space. Dobrovic acknowledged it with a brief flourish of his rifle. He was not, apparently, able to do any shouting himself.

Under his breath James swore at the green-eyed gods of fate. Sophie fought sick disappointment and Anne sighed. They retreated to thicker cover.

‘James, they know we’re here,’ whispered Sophie.

‘No, they only hope we are,’ he said, ‘there’s one man across the river so they can’t even be sure which side we’re on. It’s damn bad luck having that character with the flattened face up there.’

They heard another shout. It was fainter but they felt its message boded them little good. A snapping twig froze them. It came from the river side of them. James pushed at the girls and they fled into the area close to the slope. Anne caught her foot, tumbled and fell. Sophie turned, James turned. He rushed at Anne, Sophie with him. Anne looked up as James helped her to her knees. She brushed dirt from her face.

‘Ah, so.’ It was a bold, amused voice. Anne and Sophie froze again. Avriarches, rifle in his hands, regarded them with a smile. They had never seen so huge a man. He seemed as wide as he was tall, so that although he did not command any more height than James he seemed ten times bigger. His large teeth gleamed amid red lips
and black beard. His grey eyes were like polished stones. ‘Dirty, yes,’ he said, speaking German, ‘even unwashed. But quite up to expectations. Sometimes people exaggerate, yes?’

Anne was in horror, Sophie in rigid fright and James in despair. One shout from this fat giant would bring Ferenac and his men racing to the spot. This, he felt sure, was the man Avriarches, whom Ferenac had mentioned. He slid his hand inside his jacket and shirt as Avriarches, in vast self-confidence, took time to study the rounded fairness of Anne and the aristocratic promise of Sophie. Being a man of boundless experience he could appreciate what lay beneath the dust and exhaustion of the cornered prey. Yes, they were a fine pair and he would lay odds that neither of them would be a disappointment. They might need a little fussing and coddling to bring them to sweet moods, but they would do, they would do very nicely. What was that pipsqueak of a man fumbling about for?

Avriarches grinned as he found himself looking at the blue snout of James’s revolver.

‘Drop your rifle,’ said James quietly, ‘and keep your mouth shut.’

Anne’s blood rushed in wild hope. Sophie stared at James with eyes huge. Avriarches laughed. The noise came rumbling up from his belly and spilled in deep chuckles from his full lips.