‘Another hour,’ Brohm said cheerfully, ‘and no more war. Warm sheets and clean American women. And you, Leutnant Matt, you will return to your home and your family?’ I didn’t answer. How could I tell him I no longer had a home or a family?
XXXVI
THE AIR SANG with shards of jagged rock and ricocheting fragments of 9mm ammunition as the first burst struck within yards of Jamie’s back. Something hit his rucksack a glancing blow and he staggered over the boulders.
‘Keep going.’ Sarah turned to look back at him, but she didn’t hesitate and he loved her for it. The only chance they had was if one of them drew the sniper’s fire. It had been a short burst, just three or four rounds out of a thirty-round magazine. His back tensed for the strike of the next volley. Now. He threw himself left, praying his timing was right, and was rewarded with a second symphony of sharp-edged metal and stone. This time the shots struck further away and he felt a tiny sliver of hope. Maybe the machine-gunner wasn’t as good as he thought he was. The first burst on the clifftop had been high. The latest two had been a little behind. The angle was against him and he seemed to be overcompensating for the height of his position.
A loud shout from behind confirmed that the sound of the ricocheting bullets had alerted their pursuers and Jamie charged on, bent low and praying that the curve of the gorge wall would be enough to protect him from the next volley. As his feet raced over the rocks, somewhere in his head a little worm wriggled; a niggling irritation that worked on a level beyond the fear and the adrenalin. He saw that Sarah had slowed and he waved her on. No more bullets now, but he could hear the sound of the followers shouting encouragement to each other, and he knew the man with the silenced automatic was moving through the trees above, reloading and looking for a better shot. Or was he?
He’d fired three bursts, short and controlled. Those bursts said he was a man who knew what he was doing. An amateur would have put the selector to automatic and blazed off a full clip. Yet he hadn’t made any attempt to adjust his aim. In his position Jamie would have put the second volley ahead of his target and the third would have shredded it. Throw that into the pot with the pursuers who were doing everything they could to advertise their presence and what did you get?
‘They’re herding us,’ he gasped.
Sarah turned to stare at him, her dark eyes full of questions.
‘We need to cross the river.’
He saw the disbelief on her face. The fearful glance towards the right where the Oder swirled and eddied.
‘Somewhere downstream there are more of them. Every step south takes us deeper into a trap.’
‘He’ll slaughter us.’
‘No. He’s . . . aiming to . . . miss.’
He could tell that every instinct was warning her that to trust him was to die. But he’d made his pitch. He couldn’t drag her across. And what if he was wrong. It didn’t matter. One way or another they were finished. A long moment of decision before she nodded. ‘OK, where?’
Jamie led the way back to the spot where they’d made their leap from the clifftop. A fallen tree lay in the water on the opposite bank close to the outlet of a small stream. The tallest branches reached out almost halfway across the river. A slim lifeline, but if they could reach the first of them they could use their support for the rest of the crossing. No time to think about it.
‘Give me your backpack.’
She pulled it off and retrieved something from inside before throwing it to him.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Just one more thing. They’re too close. We need to slow them down.’ She raised the little pistol she’d taken from the dead man at Wewelsburg and aimed it into the undergrowth upstream. The sharp crack of two shots echoed from the valley walls. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Now we can go.’
From the cliff above, Gustav frowned at the sound of the shots and the deeper bark of the Sig Sauer automatics replying. The firing didn’t trouble him as long as his men retrieved the Englishman’s rucksack and the journal. All Saintclair had done was shorten his life by an hour. He moved towards the cliff edge where he would get a clear view.
Jamie grabbed Sarah’s hand and drew her down to the river’s edge. He held the two rucksacks above his head and within two strides the water reached his thighs. Already he could feel the tug of the current against his legs and his boots fought for purchase on the slippery boulders of the river bottom.
‘Hold on to my waist and don’t let go.’
He felt her arms close around him and a fleeting moment of warmth. Every step took him deeper into the river’s power. A buzz of disturbed air, as if a bee had flown close to his right ear, and the dark surface in front of him exploded in a line of white waterspouts. He felt a moment of liquid weakness; the horrible vulnerability of a man waiting for the headsman’s axe. But there was no turning back now. He ploughed on through the current, dragging Sarah with him, into the space where the burst had landed. Another line of shots, closer this time, but still ahead. They were trying stop him, but they weren’t prepared to kill him. At least not deliberately. Now his only thought was to move forward. The water reached his lower ribs and with every step the current forced him a little further downstream, but the outermost branch of the fallen tree was almost in reach. They were going to make it.