With sweeping blows Dooley hurled three attackers from him, and was about to deliver a stamp of his boot on the face of the nearest, when by the flash of a single shot close by he saw it was a young girl.
Others of the squad had seen similar things, and the fighting stopped abruptly. Cline staggered from the trees, retching loudly and trying with his free hand to ease the knot that bound his other, still holding the imaging device tight into his throat. ‘What the fuck is going on? I’ve just had to clobber an old lady. She was trying to kill me.’
Several of the women were out cold or semi-conscious and had to be dragged to join the others herded together by the APC. An assortment of knives and improvised clubs had been taken from them.
‘You want me to search them?’ Dooley stepped forward, volunteering for the first time ever.
Revell motioned Andrea to do it, and she worked through them briskly and thoroughly, her frisking producing another two knives, a meat cleaver and a hatchet.
‘Not very ladylike are they?’ Hyde toed the collection His back stung where a length of wood had been swung into it by a girl who now nursed a broken wrist, and was crying gently.
There was confusion among the women as they heard English being spoken, a dark-haired middle-aged member of the group took a step forward. ‘You are British?’
‘And American, yes.’
At the answer the woman fell to her knees, clasped Revell around the thighs and, resting her head against him, burst into tears. He tried to push her away, but couldn’t break his hold without using greater force than he wanted to, but she sensed his displeasure and let go.
It took three attempts before she regained control of herself and stood up, wiping her dirt-streaked face with a startlingly white handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry. It is just that we have been through so much. And now we are safe…’
She looked about, and the relief in her face changed to doubt as she took in the unmistakable outline of the Russian vehicle. ‘There are others? You have come to push the Russians back, yes? We saw your helicopters fly over, and heard the fighting. We are safe now, aren’t we?’
There was no way to soften the blow, and Revell watched her face crumple into tears again as he told her the true position. This time they were not tears of joy, and flowed faster.
With Andrea’s help Libby had been checking the women’s injuries. ‘Not too bad, Major. A few cracked ribs, a broken wrist and one bullet wound, a nice clean hole through an arm, hardly bleeding. The rest is just cuts and bruises, and we’ve got nearly as many of those. They fought like damned tigers.’
‘Do what you can to fix them up. I’ll try and sort out what the hell is going on.’
‘Want to swap jobs?’
The offer was made by Dooley, as Libby helped a girl out of her jacket and she whimpered with the pain of her fractured hand. ‘Piss off. Most of this lot are too young for your warped tastes.’
‘What do you reckon they are, a mobile knocking shop, sort of stop-me-and-fuck-one?’ Dooley found the idea attractive, and kept trying to catch the eye of one woman, but she avoided his stare.
‘Leave off. Not every damned woman in the Zone chucks herself on her back at every opportunity. Some of these are only kids. All they’re trying to do is reach the West Think of the state they must have been in to take the risk.’
‘Alright Sir Galahad, point taken, keep your shirt on.’ He couldn’t resist it, Dooley made a last attempt to get some recognition from the woman, then failing again, and being shoved aside by Libby, he moved off.
Having calmed her, Revell had sat the dark-haired woman on a fallen tree and joined her. ‘Why did you attack us? It was a hell of a risk to take, without much chance of success.
‘We were desperate. Some of our people are hurt, and we could not go on. When we saw you arrive we knew you would have something we need, and we had to take the risk, it was our only hope. I do not know the word for it, I will show you. Will you come with me?’
His hesitation was only momentary, then Revell accepted her hand and let her lead him into the trees. They did not go far. She stopped before a great pile of heaped pine branches and began to pull them away.
Revell stepped forward to help, and as he lifted the first armful, heard the distinctive click of a pistol being cocked.
FOURTEEN
‘Nein, nein, American!’
As the woman hissed the urgent announcement the last branches fell away and Revell found himself looking into the open back of a long-wheelbase Land-Rover.
Two heavily bandaged men were laid on the side benches. One was deeply unconscious with blood seeping from the dressings of a head wound. The other, both legs splinted and his bare chest bound with windings of what looked like torn shirts and blouses, held a pistol and was unsteadily waving it in Revell’s direction.
The woman climbed in and gently took it from his hand. As though the effort had been too much, the man fell back and his eyes closed as his breath wheezed in and out from a blood-flecked mouth.
‘They tried to steal from a Russian camp, and were seen. We managed to get them back here, but unless we can repair our transport they cannot go further. It we stay we will die, if we go on we will kill them. And we are not strong, our food ran out two days ago and I do not think we could carry them far.’
‘By the look of them you wouldn’t need to.’ There was a distinctive smell coming from both men, the slightly sickly-sweet smell of the early stage of putrefaction, soon it would turn to a stomach churning stench as gangrene took a hold and an already certain death would come sooner and be more painful for them, and more distressing for those with them. ‘You could leave them.’
She shook her head. ‘They are my brother and his son. I could not do that. And now the others look to me as their leader, and would not go on without me, so…’ She left the sentence hanging.
‘Let me see what the trouble is with this wagon. They’re pretty tough, not much will put them out of action.’
Getting out, and moving round the side of the vehicle, the woman uncovered a large square object on the ground. ‘As I said, we managed to pick them up after the attempt to get food failed, but a Russian sentry did this. We got away, but after we stopped to attend to Helmut and Joseph could not get started again. It was then we discovered the damage.’
There was a hole in the battery. Made by a high-velocity bullet it had passed through without doing much more than starring the casing about the neat entry and exit points, even the plates appeared to have escaped damage, but all of the fluid had drained away save for a half-inch in the bottom.
Revell used matches to check over the rest of the Land-Rover, and discovered no other hits. The only bullet hole had been made by that which had gone on to immobilise the vehicle. ‘I think there’s a chance we can fix this for you, get you on your way again.’
‘You will take us with you? You must It has taken us a week to get this far, travelling only by night. It could take as long again to finish the journey, and that will be too long.’
‘I’m sorry, that’s not possible. The Russians are looking for us, and we would only draw attention to you. Wait until a few hours after we leave, we will have drawn them off by then, and you should make good time. That’s the best I can offer. You must tell the others that, and then I will give you some dressings and send you back with my driver. He should be able to fix the battery. We can give you a tow to start, before we pull out.’
As they walked back to the APC she said nothing. It was as though she had been drained of emotion. She had known every one in the last few days and each more painful, more intense than the previous, they had leeched much of the spirit that had brought her and the others this far.