Claussen looked back at him levelly. ‘Back to do what?’
Despite all they had been through, Reinhardt was not sure he could say it. He was not even sure himself what he was going to do, and it was only now that the implications of what had happened in that forest clearing, of the course he had set himself, were catching up. ‘I can’t… I can’t pretend anymore, Sergeant. I can’t pretend this is not my war, and just hope it passes me by.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means… I have a decision to make. And despite all we’ve been through – or maybe even because of it – the less you know about what I’m thinking, what I might be doing, the better.’ Claussen’s face twisted, and he made to speak, but Reinhardt held up a hand. ‘Please, understand. It’s not about trust. But if you know nothing, you can’t say anything. If… you know…’
Claussen nodded, shifting the MP 40. ‘Everyone talks.’
‘Everyone talks.’
They paused at the door. ‘Car’s over there,’ pointed Claussen, back across the clearing to where the track emerged from the forest. An explosion ripped through one of the mortar crews, strewing them about like skittles. A band of Partisans erupted from the forest, washing over the second mortar. More of them poured from the trees, men in uniforms of dun and brown, blanket rolls folded across their shoulders like Russians, flowing across the clearing.
Hopping and stumbling, Claussen and Reinhardt reached some cover behind a stack of chopped logs. They ducked their heads as the wood splintered from bullet strikes. A nearby grenade burst showered them with clods of earth. He fired a quick burst at the Partisans around the mortars, then crouched back down. ‘Try to make for the trees by the car. Go. I’ll cover you.’
Claussen surged up and ran, firing as he went, but with the MP 40 in one hand, most of the shots went wild and high. He reached cover, sliding down behind a big rock, and beckoned Reinhardt over. Firing a long burst himself, Reinhardt began his run, pushing himself through the tearing pain in his knee and flopping down next to the sergeant, his breath raw in his throat. Don’t stop, he remembered. Stop and you’re dead. ‘Over to the car,’ he panted.
‘You first, this time.’ Wincing, Claussen laid his wounded arm on top of his MP 40 and fired a long burst across the clearing. Stooping over, Reinhardt ran for the kubelwagen, crouching into cover next to it. Claussen made his run as Reinhardt opened up in turn, but dust kicked up around the sergeant’s feet, there was a sudden burst of red, and he gave an agonised cry and fell. Spinning around, Reinhardt glimpsed dun-coloured shapes sliding through the trees behind him. He fired until the magazine clicked empty, then scuttled out and grabbed Claussen and pulled him into cover. The sergeant groaned as Reinhardt dragged him up against a tree, barely conscious, his legs in bloody tatters.
This had to be the end, Reinhardt realised, as he changed magazines, trying to look everywhere at once. The air was full of the stench and blast of war. Smoke gusted up around the clearing, explosions blooming orange that curled into black. ‘Captain,’ whispered Claussen. He held a key out in a trembling hand.
Reinhardt grabbed it, then hauled Claussen over to the kubelwagen. Straining everything he had, he managed to get the sergeant into the passenger seat, where he collapsed in on himself, his body folding around the hard edges of the car. As Reinhardt limped around to the driver’s side, a bullet clapped past his ears, then another. He saw a band of Partisans racing through the woods towards him. He leaned his elbows on the kubelwagen’s hood and fired. Bullets struck spurts of dust and blood high on one’s shoulder; the others dropped into cover.
Reinhardt flung the MP 40 into the car and fumbled the key into the ignition. Hunched low, he floored the accelerator, spinning the kubelwagen in a tight circle and aiming it back down the track. There were stabs of flame and smoke from the forest, and the trees around him splintered and shattered as Partisans fired, bullets thudding metallically into the body of the kubelwagen.
An explosion in front of the car blinded him in a shower of dirt and earth. There was another one, right underneath, and the rear of the kubelwagen flared up into the air. It twisted around and crashed off the track with an eruption of splintered wood. Reinhardt felt a tremendous blow to his head as he was flung out across the hard ground. The car rolled onto its side, teetered as if undecided, then slumped onto its back. A wheel spun itself down, a length of ripped rubber flapping slower and slower on the car’s chassis.
Groping blindly through the pain in his head, Reinhardt’s hand closed around the Williamson and dragged it up to his mouth. Its metal shine dulled under the dusty heat of his breath, and from far away he remembered another place, hacked from the grudging earth.
Father, Father, it hurts.
Part Four
44
FRIDAY
Reinhardt’s eyes fluttered open and he stared upward, confused by what he saw, until he realised it was the light shifting through the tracery of branches in the trees above him. His vision steadied and it all came back in a rush of memory, and with it the pain in his leg, and another in his head.
He was lying on a thick bed of grass, his knee heavily bandaged. Lifting his hand, he felt another around his head, lumped over his right ear, and he ached everywhere, his fingers throbbing heavily. Sounds began to filter in. He could hear an aircraft, somewhere, the sounds of men talking, and a steady murmur like the lap of water along its banks. Pushing himself up, he saw movement through the trees. Lines of men moving steadily through the dim light of the forest. Men dressed in uniforms from a half dozen armies, red-starred caps and blanket rolls, shouldered rifles. Partisans. Off to one side, a group of men knelt around something on the ground, their backs and shoulders all rounded and taut, and on the other side of him, he now saw, were more wounded, all Partisans, and the realisation began to sink in that he was a prisoner.
Reinhardt’s eyes shifted upward as the noise of the aircraft suddenly increased. All around, the forest went still, the marching lines of Partisans melting into cover. There was a blur across the forest’s canopy as the aircraft passed above. No one moved, and then came a ripping sound, like fabric tearing, as an artillery barrage tore overhead and somewhere, not so far away, came a long tremble of explosions. There was silence again, then a ripple of movement as the Partisans resumed their march.
One of the kneeling men stood up. He was wearing, of all things, what looked like a white sleeveless waistcoat, with thick coloured stripes around the deep V of its neck. He assumed a stern expression as he plucked a pipe from his mouth and spread his hands to either side.
‘Wiiiide,’ he said, and Reinhardt froze. The others laughed. Someone threw a pine cone. The man grinned, saw Reinhardt, and gestured at him with his pipe stem. The others straightened and looked around. One rose to his feet and walked over to him. He was a tall man, his face and arms deeply tanned, and his hair a wavy blond. He wore a khaki uniform with a major’s insignia on the shoulders. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up high past his elbows, and a big pistol with a lanyard in the butt was holstered on his left hip.
He was British.
He knelt on one knee next to Reinhardt, looking at him with clear hazel eyes. ‘How are you feeling?’
Reinhardt swallowed against a thick, dry mouth and nodded. ‘Thank you, I am well.’
The British officer nodded. ‘Glad to hear it, although it’s no thanks to me and my chaps.’ His German was slow, quite heavily accented. ‘Here’s the doc that put you back together.’ There was a rustle of grass, and Dr Begovic knelt on Reinhardt’s other side. ‘Understand you two know each other?’