The Tuzla Run

by Robert Davidson

  “Back to the trucks, Rath. Now!”

  Rath nodded. Both men made for the stairs.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Closed skies and dense dark clouds pressed down on the forest. The temperature had dropped and the cold was pervasive. Greyness surrounded them, and the moisture-filled air muffled the noise of the engines. The rain dripped from the ubiquitous pines, rattling down onto cab roofs. Huge puddles disintegrated and slashed upwards from deep scars in the track to drum against the metal bottoms of the trucks.

  The water ran in sheets down windscreens, impeding visibility. It swamped the slow-moving arm of the wipers as they struggled to control the torrent flooding over the glass. No vehicle had a functional heater, and the dampness in the cabs, distilled by the body warmth of the driver, formed grey condensation that coated the windscreen. Diesel fumes corrupted the surrounding scent of pines, producing a heavy miasma that cloyed in their nostrils.

  The huge, white vehicles bounced and swayed up the twisting incline in an elephantine conga. The climb, due to the limited distance of view, appeared endless, but Calum, close behind Crowther, dreaded the impending nightmare of descent that he knew would confront them on reaching the gorge.

  He hated heights, and his nerves were already in tatters. The roughing-up at the hands of the Serbs before Grabovica and the sight of the murdered villagers had destroyed any equilibrium he may have had. This raw violence was all too real and immediate. The crumpled bodies had looked so broken. He could not chase the faces—slack, loose-jawed and staring—from his mind. White, pale limbs were impossibly juxtaposed and intertwined, nether regions obscenely exposed, dignity and humanity stripped away.

  One old peasant woman had been a dead ringer for his own grandmother for Chrissakes!

  The images of the dead vanished from his mind.

  Crowther’s vehicle had disappeared!

  Calum’s right foot stabbed instinctively at the pedal. The mammoth slewed as the brakes bit, and it slid to a halt. The curtain of rain pulled aside, and he looked down. The vast void of a threatening, bottomless abyss lay before him. The skin on the back of his neck prickled, and his head itched uncomfortably under the helmet; sweat trickled coldly between his shoulder blades beneath the flak jacket.

  A sense of foreboding filled him. He shivered. He yawned nervously, stretching the muscles of his jaw against the tension of the chinstrap of the helmet, and gripped the steering wheel with whitened knuckles.

  A sharp tapping on the window beside him startled him. He looked down to see Kurt gesticulating angrily. His eyes followed the direction in which the other driver was pointing. It dawned on him that the track turned sharply away to the left. A high wall of scarred rock bordered one side of the way forward. On the other, the ravine waited, implacably.

  To Calum, it looked as if a gigantic cleaver had split the mountain crudely and unevenly. A planet away across the divide, but in reality less than fifty yards, the other wall of the ravine rose, blocking out the light. Deep, black and endlessly open, the maw of the abyss waited for the unwary.

  He rolled his window down. “OK, Kurt, no panic. I’ve got it now,” he lied.

  The other shook his head in exasperation, then turned back to his own vehicle. Calum pressed down on the accelerator and gripped the steering wheel as the engine took hold and the truck rolled forward.

  In the narrowest part of the gorge, the track left no more than eighteen inches clearance on either side of the vehicles. Calum concentrated on keeping the rock face on his left, as close to the side of his vehicle as possible without grazing the stone, but the road negated most of his efforts.

  The track surface was broken, with deep ruts, and the gouges held the wheels and dictated direction. It was like travelling on rails with little or no deviation possible, and the pull of the furrows nullified any attempt to manoeuvre.

  He tried to ignore the abyss on his right and forced himself not to look.

  At every bend, and there were too many for comfort, the drag of the drop, with an irresistible magnetism, wrenched at his unwilling eyes. The rushing wind, heavy with rain and soaking him through the opened side window, helped to keep his vertigo from spiralling but the high walls of granite acted as sounding boards and the noise of the river thrashing and roaring in the ravine bottom, reverberating and mingling with the screams of the engines, tore at his already shredded nerves.

  The convoy continued to travel at speed despite the difficult passage. The steering bucked and leapt in his hands. His upper arms and back ached with the strain of holding the vehicle on its path. At certain places, rock falls and scree formed uneven heaps of debris that the front wheels would mount, causing the truck to teeter and lean precariously close to the edge.

  When it happened, it was with a nightmarish immediacy.

  The furrows in the track became deeper. Crowther, driving the vehicle in front, was fighting his wheels as strenuously as Calum. The track narrowed, as it entered another of the prolific left turns, and as Crowther tried to avoid the drop to his right, the rock face buffeted his vehicle. The truck wobbled violently from side to side and the screech of scraped metal cut through the pounding noise of the gorge.

  Close on Crowther’s tail, Calum attempted to stay clear of the rock face and pulled his steering wheel to the right. The truck in front negotiated the bend, the heavy rubber of its spinning rear wheels at last biting fiercely into the ground. Calum feverishly pumped his brakes as a huge mass of road surface ahead vomited into the abyss but there was no returning pressure under his foot.

  The pedal reached the floor but had no effect whatsoever on the wheels that continued to spin in the thin mountain air. His brakes had gone!

  On both sides of him, the landscape disappeared and the emptiness held the truck a split second before hurling it out and down into the void.

  * * * * *

  Spider braked viciously as the short-range radio erupted in an excited babble of voices. Something drastic had happened. What, he did not know, but it would be pointless trying to gain control of the channel to find out. The track was too narrow to turn around at this point, and by now, the convoy blocked the way.

  Cursing under his breath, he jumped down and ran back up the slope towards the other vehicles. He overtook Crowther as he ran toward the cluster of drivers looking down into the ravine. Kurt and Rusty were close to the brink; the others, more apprehensive of the height, were further back but nevertheless straining their necks to see over.

  The absence of Calum’s slender figure was obvious as he approached but despite that, he asked automatically, “Who is it?”

  “Calum,” several replied at once. Huddled together, they were blocking his way. He pushed his way through to the edge to look down.

  His eyes rapidly assessed the scene. The sides of the ravine at this point were very steep but no longer sheer or perpendicular. The truck’s cargo, pallets loaded with sacks of flour, spread drunkenly over a wide area of the descent to the river. Ripped sacks and swathes of flour littered the intervening spaces.

  About a hundred and fifty feet below the road, the truck lay on its side, with the high flood of the river rushing and gurgling around and through it. The tarpaulin, secured only to the upper side of the cargo bed, flapped silently near the surface of the water as it streamed out the length of the truck. The cab was twisted and damaged. The driver’s feet, the left one bootless, hung out of the passenger’s window.

  “Listen up, everyone! Move quickly when I tell you.” Spider broke through the subdued murmur of voices. “Kurt, Crowther, get your first aid kits. Now!”

  The two turned and ran in separate directions to their vehicles. “The rest of you, get all the chains and any ropes that you’ve got and bring them here. Make a lifeline. Move it!”

  “Rath,” he shouted at the Irishman’s back as the man ran to his vehicle, “make sure they tie it together well.”

  He snatched the medical aid holdall from Crowther, who was the first to reach him. He noted
that the buckles were intact with plastic strip. As it was still sealed, it would be complete. Putting his right arm and head through the strap, he settled the pack in the small of his back and turned to the ravine. There was no time to lose if they were to do anything for Calum: he could not wait for the rope.

  He could get to the truck by making his way from pallet to pallet, if they would support his weight. However, would they? Or would they plunge to the bottom of the ravine, taking him with them? There was only one way to find out. He lined up with the nearest pallet, turned, crouched on all fours then lowered himself over the edge.

  Taking a deep breath, he let go.

  His feet slammed into the flour bags, and then he fell forward. Shock waves jarred and throbbed up his legs. The pallet lurched, started to slide, gained momentum and was away. It dropped, increasing in speed, then, with a sickening abruptness, stopped, coming to rest against another pallet.

  Spider peered over, with still a hundred plus feet to go. Another pallet clung to the rocky slope about twenty-five feet below and to his right. Bracing his legs, he jumped. Surprise more than panic filled him on knowing that he had misjudged the leap and was going to fall short of his target. His body swept past the pallet, but his outstretched arms struck the flour bags.

  The contact broke his fall but his clawing fingers could find no purchase on the smooth sacks. However, the break in momentum slowed his plummeting descent. He fell again and hurtled past the last pallet. The angry, dark green water of the river rushed up towards him, and the last image he had was of a huge grey stingray waiting to swallow him.

  The icy cold water engulfed him but, despite the force of his fall, he had not slammed into the riverbed. As he had fallen, his major concern was the lack of depth knowing that the river was only a few feet deep here because the topside of the truck was showing above the surface. As his head cleared the water, it dawned on him that he had landed on the tarpaulin.

  He grabbed at the thick material as the wild current battered him and tugged his body back and forth.

  He managed to pull himself slowly, strenuously, towards the truck. His fingers made contact with the front wheel, and he hauled himself clear of the water until he was crouching on the vehicle’s door. The driver was upside down, and only his lower legs appeared above the water.

  Spider reached forward to hold the youth’s ankles as he tried to open the cab door. The door-catch was up but still it would not open.

  It was jammed solid.

  While holding the boy’s legs, encircled in his left arm, he pulled his knife from his belt and, using the butt of the hilt, knocked out the remaining shards of glass from the window.

  He replaced the knife in his belt, took a firmer grip on Calum’s legs, and spreading his feet, braced his back for the heave. Fortunately, the body supported by the water came free relatively easily. Spider placed him face up on the door and felt for signs of life.

  Nothing.

  He held his fingers in position against the boy’s neck for a few seconds more.

  Nothing, but then—imperceptibly—he felt a movement, a soft, indistinct tremor, once, then twice against his fingertips.

  A pulse!

  He undid the chinstrap of the helmet and pulled Calum’s mouth open, inserting his fingers to clear his tongue. Cupping the lower jaw with his right hand, he pinched the unconscious nostrils with his left and leaned forward to breathe life into his throat.

  Spider heard the gurgle of water and felt Calum’s neck muscles strain. He moved just in time as the Irishman regurgitated what appeared to be several pints of water. The water was discoloured with blood, and pale pink bubbles clustered at the corners of his mouth. Calum fell back but his eyes had opened.

  “It’s okay, easy now, easy. Everything’s fine,” Spider consoled him as he saw the confusion and panic. “You’ve had a fall but you’re OK now. I am just going to check you out. Help me. Let me know if I touch anything too tender. OK?”

  Calum swallowed then moved his head in confirmation. Spider reached down and started by feeling and gently squeezing the injured boy’s ankles.

  Several minutes later, Spider completed the check. The helmet and crushed flak jacket had provided some protection. However, the deep indentation, together with the blood he had thrown up, indicated that Calum’s wounds were serious. His right femur was broken, and there appeared to be damage in his pelvic region, the extent of which Spider could not be sure. His right hand was crushed and his nose broken.

  Spider had opened the medical pack and cleaned up the gashes and cuts, but he would need a splint for Calum’s leg. He left the injured man and started to search for a suitable support. After a few minutes, he found part of a pallet caught in the rear wheels of the truck and locked in place by the rushing water. He pulled the pallet apart and returned with two slats. A short time later, and after several grunts and grimaces of pain from Calum, the splint was in place.

  A shout from the cliff top reached him. The others had fashioned a rope, with chains and towropes; it was snaking down the rock face. Spider was relieved that it was relatively easy to catch the end of it, which he secured to the side of the truck. He would need a sling to get them up to the road. He edged along the truck side and reached for the few ties that still held the tarpaulin in place. Gripping the side of the tarpaulin in both hands, he tensed and then tried to pull it on to the truck. It would not move; the pull of the water rushing downstream was too strong. He pulled again but to no avail. He eyes fell on the lowered rope.

  He untied the end and, threading it through one of the metal eyeholes of the sheeting, made it fast. It took far longer, however, to make the men up top understand, over the roar of the river, that they should pull the tarp out of the water.

  At last, they understood and the rope tightened as they took the strain. At first, nothing happened, and then the canopy reluctantly rose from the water like massive, green, dripping tripe. Spider, balancing precariously on a sideboard of the truck, stretched for the end and swung it towards him. As soon as the end was over the truck, he signalled for slack in the rope.

  Before the canvas was lowered, Spider had pulled out his knife and was cutting through the material. After wrapping the young Irishman in the canvas then binding it tightly in place with strips from the remaining tarpaulin, he fashioned a large loop that he tied to the end of the rescue rope.

  Using more pieces of canvas, he then tied Calum in his improvised papoose to the rope above the makeshift stirrup. Spider turned on his side, and lying down alongside Calum, he placed his foot in the noose, and then gave the signal to the party on the cliff top.

  Swinging and bouncing against the rock, with Spider trying to insert his body as a protective cushion for Calum, they moved jerkily up the cliff. Calum’s eyes were wide, but whether from panic or pain, Spider could not tell. The injured man’s face was inches from his own, and Spider’s muttered words of encouragement seemed to do little to soothe the apprehension the youth obviously felt. Ready and eager hands pulled them to safety.

  Spider stood as the others carried Calum from the edge, and he then made his way to the jeep and switched on the long-range CODAN. The set crackled as it searched for the pre-programmed frequency. The crackling did not abate as the search continued—fruitlessly. After ten minutes of trying, Spider cursed, then threw the microphone onto the seat. Slamming the door to the vehicle in a barely controlled rage, he ran along the convoy to the group gathered around the supine Calum.

  “We’re going to have to detour to Zemor for the UNPROFOR medical unit. The CODAN is not hacking it. Get Calum into the back of the jeep.”

  The men crowding round the wounded man shuffled back widening the circle as Rath rose from his knees. He pushed his way out of the ring.

  “There’s no rush,” Rath said, grabbing the convoy leader firmly but gently by the shoulders, as Spider threw himself forward to break through the cordon.

  “Calum’s gone. There’s nothing more you can do, Spider, you’
ve done more than anyone could rightfully ask.”

  * * * * *

  Paroski sat bolt upright in the chair, and stared stony-faced at the wall map. Anger and frustration raged through him, but the only outward indication was his narrowed eyes and the small tic that flickered under his right eye. He resisted an overpowering urge to pound the desktop, and his hands remained in his lap.

  How in God’s name could that convoy still be on course for Tuzla?

  There was a swathe of dead and wounded Serbs in its wake! What was that bumbling imbecile Kalosowich playing at? Was there some other agenda in progress that the Croats were not to know about? He fought against the suspicion.

  In two hours’ time, he was due to report to Radovic, and heaven help him if he could not report progress of some kind. Think, Paroski, think. However, what could he report?

  “Sir, the Serbs shelled the convoy and destroyed a truck. No, sir. Yes, sir, that’s correct; the weapons were not on the truck destroyed. What action did I take? I sent a detachment of White Eagles to intercept them. And? Well, unfortunately, these men have not reported yet. However, we made contact with the convoy in Grabovica. No, sir, I didn’t say the convoy was halted; I just said that contact was made—with heavy losses to the Serbs...”

  Paroski stopped his inane imaginings. Think, man, think.

  He stood and walked over to the map. With his finger, he traced the progress of the convoy. Mostar, Grabovica heading for Jablonica. His finger stopped.

  A germ of an idea started to grow.

  * * * * *

  Visibility was minimal; the natural gloom of the forest added to the premature darkness caused by the heavy clouds pressing down on the treetops. Dampness was perceptible, and the cool moisture clung in the mountain air. The first rounded globules splattered on the trucks, noisily followed by more, which within seconds became a teeming deluge.

  The ceiling of pine branches did little to ameliorate the increasing force and effect of the rain. Unimpeded, the downpour whipped at the narrow track rapidly beating the wet surface into liquid mud. This filled the deep ruts and sucked at each oncoming wheel, then, failing to hold it fast, reached with unabated voracity for the next.