Daughter of the Winds (16 page)

Eddie and Bernie stood facing each other for a long time until Eddie finally broke the icy silence.
“If that’s as good as I’m gonna get, I’ll take it. Now let’s go. If we head round to the right we’ll be covered by the dense shrubs until we’re pretty much on top of them. From there we’ll have the sun at our backs and they’ll be dazzled and effectively blinded as they look to our position. They’re in no hurry to leave so take it steady and wait until we are safely in a strong position before opening fire.”

Bernie nodded curtly and followed in Eddie
’s dusty footprints. Both men were aware that the likelihood of Bernie opening fire was thinner than Eddie’s receding patience. Progress was slow as they tried to move silently through the brittle bushes. The more Bernie tried to move silently through the scrub, the more his trousers got caught on the bushes and his black shoes kicked the loose stones from under his feet.

The dark birds that were circling overhead made no cries to each othe
r and the absence of the usual incessant hum of crickets amplified the stillness. The pall of silence surrounding the bodies was dense. It appeared to have a solid mass of its own making, as if the horror experienced here had to exist in a vacuum so as not to pollute the rest of humankind.

As they neared the voices, Eddie
’s pace quickened and his heart hammered adrenaline through his body. Taking up position on their stomachs on the cracked and scorched ground, Eddie inched forward. Both men set their weapons in front of them, with Bernie putting the spare one at his side. There were fourteen men either walking around the pit or sitting chatting on the side of the embankment. Behind Eddie and Bernie the slope fell away towards the expanse of open fields sheltered on one side by steep mountains.

A distant sound and a dusty haze attracted Bernie
’s attention and he reluctantly took his sights off the milling soldiers. He could see about one hundred people moving swiftly across the field below him, some carrying bags and others carrying children. There were four carts being pulled by donkeys. From somewhere in the distance plumes were starting their ascent to the sky from darkly burning trees. He didn’t have the luxury of wondering where they were heading or why they were doing so, right now he just had to try and stop Eddie getting killed. A trickle of fear edged down his spine as he realised the smoke and the sounds below them would soon be attracting the attention of the soldiers and reveal his and Eddie’s position. If they were going to do anything it was going to have to be soon.

Bernie
’s eyes closed momentarily and his lips moved in silent prayer. Then, with a brief shared look of agreement, both men eased the safety catch off their guns. Eddie paused for a moment and looked over at Bernie with eyes brimming with loss and pain. It tormented Bernie to see the young man he regarded with such fondness with a mask of immovable anger. He barely recognised the granite eyes looking out from the prematurely lined face. He held his breath as Eddie nodded and turned back to the scene in front of him. The soldiers made no reference to the carnage at their feet and acted as though they were catching up with friends after a hard day’s work. Bernie kept his finger away from the trigger and the muzzle of his gun pointed towards the ground. He wanted to use this gun to defend them, nothing else.

The world moved in slow motion as Eddie eased his finger onto the trigger and began to squeeze.
Eddie’s body tensed and, after what felt like an age, there was a loud razor-edged ‘click’. Both men held their breath and one of the Turks jerked his head up in their direction. He scanned the horizon but then looked away again before heading to the assembled men in the shade.

Eddie
lay his body flat. “We’ve been made,” he hissed

“
What happened?”

“
S’jammed. Hand me yours. Quick.”

“
You sure they’ve spotted us?” asked Bernie in a barely audible whisper.

Eddie shrugged then slowly nodded.
“Pass me the other gun”

“
They’re fifty years old. If this thing misfires... We need to get out of here now.”

“
Gun.” Eddie held out his hand, jaws set firmly and teeth gritted. Bernie could see that the group of men were now all squinting in their direction and lifting up their rifles.

“
Shit!”

“
Bernie.” Eddie’s voice held a note of warning in it.

“
No. We need to get clear.”

Eddie snatched the gun and started positioning himself.

“Wait!”

Bernie put his hand on Eddie
’s arm and looked back to the Turkish men who were now on their feet. They weren’t looking directly at them anymore but off to one side. Bernie looked over his shoulder in the direction the men were looking and saw at once what had caught their attention. Eddie had heard the sound and snapped his head around for the briefest of moments and then back to his targets.

“
What’s happening?”

In the sky
a Turkish plane was flying on a direct course to where they lay in the dust.

“
Turkish I think. They can’t have spotted us.”

Bernie pushed himself out from the low lying shrub and part way down the dirty slope catching his trouser pockets on sticks and boulders.
It quickly became apparent what the pilot’s mission was.

The screams preceded the bullets as the plane opened fire and strafed the fields in front of
the scattering crowds of people. The convoy of villagers on the plain below started running in all directions, flinging themselves and their belongings wide as the bullets hit the earth behind them. Some families cowered low to the ground huddled and crying but they were easy targets for the unrelenting bullets. The donkeys bucked their carts and ran back the way they came, creating more confusion and entropy. There was chaos as bodies sank to the dirt. Insentient corpses lay where living breathing people had been walking only moments earlier. Eddie and Bernie gasped in horror as, even from this distance, they could see crimson daubing the cinnamon soil where the men and women lay sprawled.

“
No, no, no,” Eddie murmured and skidded down to where Bernie sat transfixed.

Some of the men had reached the shelter of the ravine now and had un-shouldered their guns firing futile bullets at the metal predator.

Everyone watched on in trepidation as a man retraced his steps in haste to pick up two children, one wrapped its arms around his neck but he flung the smaller one under his arm. Alongside him a small boy ran to keep up. Eddie and Bernie both watched with impotence as the bullets cut up this man’s footsteps. The plane shot past before circling and coming back but all eyes were on this man and his children. There were thirty feet now to the asylum of the ravine. More people were jumping into the sheltered crevice to claim sanctuary. Twenty feet. The young boy was lagging behind. Fifteen feet. Mentally urging them speed, Eddie sat forward, poised as if to run to them.

“
C’mon. C’mon!” he murmured.

The bullets seemed to be coming faster now and raked up the dried earth creating an orange cloud around those fleeing to safety.
The man and his children were all but obscured by the dust and Eddie strained to see whether any of them were still on their feet. From the mountains a response was heard to answer the plane’s searching bullets as anti-aircraft guns opened fire. This brought renewed screams from those in the ravine and some cheers as some realised the ‘ack-ack’ was a Greek response to the Turkish projectiles.

The jet took evasive action, dipped its wing and turned away. Eddie squinted through the dust as it lost momentum, hovered, then floated to the ground, overlaying the hurried footsteps of those fleeing to safety. There were no bodies where the man and his children had been. Please God that they made it to safety. Eddie had just opened his mouth to speak to Bernie when a scorching flash of light heralded an almighty explosion. Eddie flinched involuntarily and cowered with the noise. He looked up in time to see the Turkish jet spinning into the distant mountain and disintegrating in the explosion.

A cheer went up from some of those who had made it to safety while others rushed across the field to where friends and family lay injured and dying.
Remembering what had initially brought them to this parched hillside, Eddie scrambled back up the incline back to the Turkish soldiers but they were gone.

“
Where’d they go?” he whispered to Bernie

“
Left when the fighting started. Do you want to go after them?”

“
Nah.” Eddie collapsed onto his back and looked up into the cloudless blue. How could the sun still be shining over what had happened here? “I think I’ve lost my stomach for death.”

“
Jesus Eddie, yer a lucky man. I really thought they’d spotted us then. If that gun had backfired… Well, I wouldn’t like to have been the one holding it. Lucky man, I tell ya.”

“
Not feeling like luck is on my side right now” muttered Eddie with some petulance. “We should go and see if we can help down there.” He was looking down onto the few figures who were crawling out into the open now.

“
No.” Bernie’s response surprised Eddie. “They’re shit scared. We blunder in there now and we’ll get shot. They’re on the defensive. There’s nothing we can do anyway.”

“
But we can’t just leave them, pretend like we didn’t see what happened.”

“
We’d only be getting in the way. Let’s get home.”

“
Not yet.”

Gripping his weapon firmly now
, Eddie stood and pushed himself over the edge of the crater to where the dead bodies lay in a heap. The birds and the flies had not yet come to take their meal from the flesh that lay open to their hunger. The sweet cloying scent of blood hung stratus-like in the air. Eddie tried to breathe through his mouth to stop the smell from registering but instead he tasted death upon his tongue.

A moan brought Bernie rushing into the fray.

“
This one’s alive! Shit Ed, he’s alive. Help me!”

Eddie ran over, stumbling against flaccid limbs and dropped to his knees.
There was a lot of blood but it was difficult to see where it stemmed from.

“
Here!” Bernie applied pressure on the immobile man’s upper arm. “I need your shirt.”

Eddie ripped it in two sharp movements and tied it in a tourniquet above the seeping wound.
With what remained of his shirt he dabbed away the blood from the Greek man’s face to reveal a bullet graze on his left temple. It didn’t look deep and the blood had already started clotting.

“
We need to get him out of here.” Eddie said to Bernie. “Help me get him onto my shoulders. There’s a village not far from here.”

“
Can you manage?” asked Bernie as they positioned the limp body of the man across Eddie’s back.

“
Yeah, just about.” Luckily the Greek man was small and slight and weighed less that Eddie did.

Bernie pushed Eddie up out of the crater and they staggered back to where Eddie had left his motorbike.
They tugged at the prone man until they had him sitting astride the vehicle.

“
How the hell are we gonna do this?” asked Bernie.

“
Strap him to my back as well as you can and I’ll ride him down to the village. What about you?”

“
Don’t worry, you’re not the only one with wheels. Mine are stashed further down the track. I’ll follow you.”

Bernie used his own shirt to create strips of material to tie Eddie
’s passenger to him.

“
It’s not brilliant, but it’s the best we can do. You go on and I’ll follow you. Take it easy, his weight can have you off the back of that bike if yer not careful.”

Th
ey came across the Greek village to the south just as the sun started to set. Their arrival was greeted with quiet, strong efficiency as bandages were cut and the man carried away to be treated. No one seemed surprised or upset. There was a job to be done and no one questioned that the women would do it. Eddie and Bernie were taken off to the taverna with thanks and pats on the back. In some regards, it felt that there wasn’t a war going on at all. The village tavernas still had tables outside with bowls full of pitta bread and olives. The only difference was the fact that the radio was on constantly with groups of silver-streaked heads huddled around it waiting for news.

The two weary men were
brought food and drink even though they explained that they had no money but the Greek owner merely shrugged and muttered under his white moustache, “What good will your money do us now?”

Groups of young men from the National Guard arrived by truck down the mountain and were met with cheers and kisses on each cheek by the assembled villagers.
They obviously saw the downing of the Turkish jet as a sign of a small victory and were treated like heroes, even though the fighters barely looked old enough to shave. The scene could have been from any warm evening that summer if it had not been for the glow of the fires still burning in the forests above him. Perhaps Eddie could go home to Pru with his head held high after all.