‘Yes.’ Her voice was faint and she sniffled through a nose blocked with tears.
Kasha’s eyes flickered and he winced. He put out his hand and took the gun from her, then shifted himself to a more upright position. He let out a stifled cry of pain as he did so; the morphine was wearing off, but with the pain came a greater, clearer consciousness.
Grainger held up a hand. ‘Okay, listen,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘I’m going to turn the oil lamps down – it’ll make us less of a target.’ He moved across to the window to take up a position. There was a crashing thump against the door and it budged a fraction as the table slid back. ‘They’re back,’ he called to the others and, picking up the hunting rifle, fired the last three rounds at the door. The bullets ripped through the timber and someone on the other side yelled in pain, then cursed angrily.
Grainger ran to the window and fired randomly along the veranda. As he did so a volley of return fire smashed into the door; splinters of timber showered the room, ricocheting metal zipped and whined as the shots kicked up from the floor. There was a lull. ‘First clip gone,’ Grainger shouted and began to reload the magazine.
In the kitchen he heard the sound of glass being smashed; they were trying to break in through the back. He moved to respond and at the same moment saw a shadow move across the window. He fired through it and onto the veranda, then ran to the kitchen and sprayed it indiscriminately with fire until the breech snapped open; he was out of ammunition. He tossed the now useless weapon on the floor and listened; everything had gone quiet again. In the salon he moved through the gloom of the dimly lit room until he reached Evangeline and crouched down next to her. She reached out a hand and brushed it lightly across his cheek. ‘I need to tell you I love you,’ she whispered, ‘because I don’t think there is much time left for us.’
He leaned over and kissed her, then the world exploded in another hail of gunfire. The door was being shredded; at any moment it would go. It swung crazily on its hinge but got jammed against the table, which had collapsed at one end and with an extraordinary gift of fate had wedged itself into an uneven joint in the floor tiles. A face appeared at the window; simultaneously Kasha and Grainger unleashed a volley of shots. Another shadow flitted by the gap in the door frame; Kasha fired four times. ‘I’m out,’ he shouted. There was more movement behind the door. Grainger took a chance and fired his last rounds at where he judged someone must be standing. A blanket of silence descended, leaving only a faint whistling sound in their ears as they recovered from the percussive shock waves of the explosions. He moved tight up to Evangeline. ‘What about you?’
She handed him the Colt. ‘Two left. I’ve been careful – I’ve counted every shot.’ It was quiet again. In the low light they could hear Kasha’s heavy laboured breathing and a small whimpering sound that they knew was Cigale, but that aside there was no other sound.
‘Maybe we’ve scared them off,’ Grainger whispered, but no sooner had he said it than the door started to move and the table began to creak. A face appeared in the half-open aperture; it was too good to miss and Grainger fired twice. A short strangled cry told him he had found the mark; the door ceased moving and silence descended once more.
Grainger sat down and leaned against the wall. He looked at the now empty clip that he had slipped out of the butt of the Colt. He looked at Evangeline who had shuffled up next to him; he put his hand in hers and gently squeezed it. He put the clip back in the Colt and gave it to her. ‘Could try the bluff we pulled at the tower – they won’t know it isn’t loaded. You should take it. Go and hide upstairs; it’s me and Kasha they want.’ She shook her head and he could see she was shedding a silent tear.
‘Did you mean what you said just now?’
‘What, that I love you?’
He nodded, ‘Uh-huh.’
‘Of course. Why else would I say it?’ They sat holding hands and saying nothing, then she said, ‘Do you think it will be painful dying?’
‘We’re not going to die,’ he said confidently, but as he did so he heard the table creak and saw the door start to move. They were trying again and this time there was little he could do. ‘Damn.’ He frantically felt in his pockets in the vain hope of finding a spare round but there were none. He cast around frantically. He needed a weapon of some sort, any weapon. Evangeline sat there motionless, transfixed by the sight of the door as it inched open. ‘GO UPSTAIRS,’ he yelled at her, ‘NOW!’
At first he thought she was too petrified to move, but she got up off the floor; she went swiftly over to Cigale and, taking her firmly by the hand, ran up the stairs. The door started to move again; this time the person on the other side was battering on it. Kasha was trying to get up. He had the gun Grainger had given him and half lifted it towards the door; he squeezed on the trigger but there was only a click as the pin snapped onto an empty breech. In his delirium he had forgotten that all his ammunition had been used up.
Grainger vaulted across the sofa, went to Kasha and grabbed the gun out of his hand. Loosening his grip on the weapon Kasha slumped back in the chair – like the ammo he was now also totally spent. The thought crossed Grainger’s mind that maybe he too could bluff his way through it with an empty gun; his mind could come up with nothing else. The table was now beginning to give ground. Slowly the beaded edge splintered off as it grated its way across the floor; then with loud bang that sounded like a shot the remaining legs came off and it was flung across the room. The door came off its last hinge and fell, throwing up a cloud of dust as it came to rest flat on the floor. In the doorway he clearly saw the silhouette of Edith – huge, angry and snorting like a goaded bull.
As she advanced, Grainger raised the pistol and pointed it at her head. She was close and he could smell the acrid odour of sweat on her huge body. She hesitated for a moment, then simply snatched the gun out of his hand. He let it go and jumped sideways to avoid a blow to the head as she swung at him, using the gun as a club. He tripped and fell on one of the legs that had been torn off the table. She let go a wheezing laugh and pointed the pistol at him. He heard the click and saw from her expression she was playing with him. Another figure entered the room and Edith turned to look. As she did so Grainger grabbed the table leg and, getting to his feet, swung it like a baseball bat, bringing it down on the back of her neck as hard as he could, but the leg rebounded and she swatted it away with a force so violent it sent the piece of timber whirling through the air. As it bounced and clattered on the floor she turned her back on him to confront Kasha.
‘Edith!’ the figure in the doorway shouted at her. ‘No killing! I want them alive – both of them. They’re worth nothing dead.’ Edith hesitated for a moment, then made another move towards Kasha.
‘Don’t touch him,’ another voice commanded, but it was not Bonny. Evangeline stood at the foot of the stairs pointing the Colt directly at Edith’s head. ‘Arrêtez, Madame.’ Her voice was clear and steady. Edith turned and looked. Bonny, still in the doorway, didn’t even bother to raise the weapon he was carrying; he just shook his head, dismissing the bluff.
‘I had to try, Richard,’ she said in a calm voice that had a hint of resignation in it. ‘I could not leave you to face it alone.’
Edith moved towards her, a malicious grin on her face.
Evangeline stood her ground. ‘No closer or I will shoot you.’
‘Go on, Edith,’ Bonny guffawed, ‘if you must kill someone make it her.’
Grainger ran at Edith and aimed a kick at the back of her leg just behind the knee with a force that would have floored a grown man, but she hardly flinched and, swinging an arm at him, swatted him away like a bundle of rags. Bonny just stood watching and laughing. He would enjoy watching Edith kill this feeble girl.
‘Now your turn, mademoiselle,’ she grunted at Evangeline and she stuck out her tongue and rubbed it around her twisted mouth.
‘If you’re going to shoot her,’ Bonny taunted, ‘now is the time. There won’t be another chance,’ and he burst i
nto convulsive laughter.
Evangeline squeezed on the trigger. There were two quick successive reports: the first bullet smashed out Edith’s top row of teeth and the second went through her forehead, flipping the top plate off her skull. Bonny stood open-mouthed but before he could do anything Evangeline turned the gun on him, sending a round slamming into the door frame. He turned tail and ran, bounding down the steps and heading into the dark.
‘Bravo,’ a voice croaked from the corner. Kasha had regained consciousness and was trying to clap his hands together. ‘I always thought you were made of strong stuff.’
Grainger got up from where Edith had flung him. He hugged and kissed Evangeline and for a moment forgot about everything except that she was there and alive. ‘Take this,’ she said, giving him the Colt. ‘There are three rounds left – in case they come back. I don’t really want to have to kill someone again. It’s an awful feeling.’
He took the gun from her and gave it a slightly puzzled look. ‘Where did you get the ammo? I was certain we’d used it all.’
‘It’s what I took from Father Guillaume in the sacristy. I suddenly remembered I had kept the bullets. They were upstairs in my knapsack.’
He hugged her again and kissed her head. ‘Oh, you sweetie,’ he said, elated by the moment. ‘I could make love to you right now.’
‘Well,’ she replied with a little shrug and an impish glance, ‘there is a bed upstairs.’
Cigale, who had heard the shots and could now hear them laughing, ventured cautiously downstairs. Seeing Kasha safe her face lit up and she all but threw herself on him. Grainger held up a hand for quiet. There was the sound of a footfall on the veranda. He moved quickly, pistol in hand into the lee of the doorway as a man entered the room. ‘José,’ he said, relief in his voice.
‘One of them has run off. The other one is in the garage; he has a bad wound – I do not think he will live.’
CHAPTER 23
Last goodbyes
Grainger went to the gaping hole where the door had once hung and gingerly looked out into the dark. ‘We have to get out of here. If they come back we’re sitting ducks.’
José nodded his agreement. Without replying he went out through the back door and made his way to the garage. He grabbed a handful of the donkey’s mane and pulled the animal back to the kitchen.
‘The wounded one is dead,’ he said without emotion when he got back ‘Take his rifle, it will be useful.’ He passed it to Grainger with a half full box of shells. They strapped Kasha to a kitchen chair and carried him out to the back of the house where they lifted him up onto the donkey’s back. Cigale had crushed the last of the morphine into his arm and they were ready to leave. As she followed Evangeline outside Cigale stopped. ‘What about the gold? We can’t leave it – not after all this.’ She waved a hand over the wreckage they were leaving behind – the now truly dead Edith, the wrecked house, and what about Kasha with a hole in his side? Was it all for nothing?
Grainger had already started to tug on the head harness, coaxing the unwilling beast to move. ‘Leave it, can’t carry it – not and him,’ he shouted, pointing up to where Kasha sat perched on his makeshift saddle. ‘It’s safe where it is for now. You can come back for it later if you want to take the risk.’
They set off with José leading the way, breaking through the rough scrub, using the garrigue for cover until they were clear of the house. There could be no question of going to Las Illas for help. The gunfire was bound to have caused a buzz in the village; it would only be time before someone brought the gendarmes.
By the time the first blush of the sun washed across the mountains behind them they had made it south of Las Illas and back onto the track that climbed up and over the last of the ridges between them and sanctuary. The straggling band moved slowly, painfully, up the track, clambering across gullies where they had been washed out by flash floods, stumbling over boulders strewn across their path by rock falls.
The two women walked either side to ease and steady the chair, but as the donkey picked and jolted its way over the broken terrain the punishment on Kasha was beginning to tell. The morphine was finished. Every hour Grainger called a halt to give what relief they could, each time sending José to scout the terrain ahead of them, looking for any signs of interception. They were near the summit of the last ridge when José returned to say there was a stone hut a little further on where they could rest.
The hut showed all the signs that it had been abandoned. There was a hole in the roof but at least the walls gave some shelter from the wind, which had been getting steadily more forceful the higher they went. There was no snow but the clear skies drew all of the heat away into space and it endowed even the smallest breeze with a razor-sharp edge that stung their exposed faces. They lifted Kasha down and laid him out on the blanket, taking off his coat and covering him with it. He was shivering uncontrollably. Cigale removed her cloak and the sheepskin then, after spreading them on him, she slipped in underneath to try and warm him with her body. The other three sat propped up with their backs against the cold stone wall.
‘We can’t just sit here,’ Grainger said after they had rested for a while in silence. ‘We need to move him out. Much more of this and he’s a dead man.’
Evangeline got up and stretched; her limbs were stiff with cold and she stamped her feet trying to bring some life back into them.
‘We should at least make a fire,’ she said. ‘He’ll have a better chance if he’s warm.’
Grainger hauled himself upright, looking around the room for something to burn but there was nothing. He went outside, followed closely by José; the forage was thin but they managed to gather up the roots and twigs of the dead shrubs that clung to the thin stony ground and made a pile of them inside the hut. There was no hearth so Evangeline set them under the spot where the roof had failed; that would have to serve as the chimney. At least the material was dry and quickly caught fire without too much smoke but, apart from the psychological boost of seeing the flames, there was little heat coming off it.
‘I could go to the other side of the ridge,’ José suggested. The trees grew higher up on the south face and they needed something heavier if they were to get any heat out of the fire.
Twenty minutes later he was back, hauling two thick branches of scrub oak, dead and dried out. He leant them against the wall at a right angle and, using his boot, he stamped down hard, breaking them into smaller pieces. Almost immediately they felt the heat as the dry oak caught and burned. José went out again, this time with Grainger; there was more to be collected and they would need a lot if they were going to stay any time in the hut. Coming back over the crest of the ridge, José stopped. He dropped one of the branches he was dragging and squinted down to where he could see the track disappearing into the horizon of rock and stunted trees. He put out a hand and tapped Grainger’s arm, then pointed deep into the valley. ‘Look – there is someone on the trail.’
The sun was against them and it was difficult to make it out. ‘Looks like horses,’ Grainger suggested. They both stared hard into the distance; whatever it was, it was definitely moving towards them. José pulled out a pocket watch that dangled on a chain looped through a buttonhole on his jacket. He measured the passage of a minute on the dial.
‘Not more than one hour – then they will reach here.’
Back inside the hut Grainger told Cigale and Evangeline what they had seen. He went over to where Kasha lay, crouched down and drew back the coats that covered him; his face was like grey putty and his breathing so shallow it was barely detectable. He placed a hand on Kasha’s forehead; it was wet with sweat and in spite of his pallid complexion he was ragingly hot. He looked at the two women; the position was hopeless. ‘If we move him he’ll die.’ He got up and thought for a moment, then called José over from where he had been feeding the fire. ‘How far is it to the rendezvous with the Americans at La Vajol?’
José rubbed his hand across his mouth as he considered the route.
The first kilometre or two he knew were rough, like the ascent they had just made but after that there was a good road. He furrowed his brow and sniffed noisily. ‘With the donkey and carrying him,’ he pointed to where Kasha was stretched out, ‘the rough ground will take two hours. After that the road is good and there are some hamlets where we might get some help – but …,’ he shook his head solemnly and took off his beret, ‘…he would never survive. Just to put him back on the donkey will probably kill him. I have seen men wounded like this before. He will die, that is for sure.’
Cigale threw a scared look at the two men and started to sob. ‘He can’t die, I won’t let him die,’ she whimpered, then broke into a full flood of tears and although Evangeline tried to comfort her it was useless. She put her arm around Cigale and held her close. This, Grainger thought, was the strange and unfathomable thing about women. Two days ago they would have been scratching each other’s eyes out; now they clung together, one to give comfort and the other to receive it.
Grainger had made up his mind: there was no mileage in standing around waiting to see what happened; those who could get out should go. ‘José, I want you to take les demoiselles and get them across the border; then look for help.’
Evangeline let go of Cigale. ‘No, Richard,’ she insisted, ‘I will stay here with you.’ But he stood his ground. ‘You must go.’ He said it softly though he was equally insistent; why waste her life needlessly? ‘There is nothing you can do to help here, you should go.’
He turned back to José. ‘Get help from the first hamlet if you can or get it from the Americans – I don’t care where. I’ll stay here with Kasha – try to hold them off. We need some men and a stretcher. I don’t know who those people are down there but it looks like more of the same.’
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