scouts out there in the jungle with nothing but hats and thin oilskins for protection.
It did not rain this way in Germany. Oh, yes, they got weather, fair and foul, but not this end-of-the-world feeling as a crackling thunderstorm swept over an already fetid jungle, scrubbing all underneath it with a mighty and electrically charged wet hand, leaving ozone in its wake . . .
A summer shower in the Bavarian hills? Yes, one would certainly get wet if caught outdoors, but the promise of a balmy afternoon usually lay past that. And that beautiful, golden, actinic light, right after a rain? Nothing in the world compared to how it was in the Fatherland. Proof that there was a God and He favored Germany above all others.
Ah, home. It was a comforting thought out here in this wet hell, the ideal of it. He would go back in triumph and glory. The war would end, and it would be time to start a family—a sturdy, well-made blond and buxom wife with whom he could produce tall and fair sons and daughters; and since he would be a man of substance, perhaps a mistress or two to keep the fires fanned as he grew older. There had been so little time for that, save a few women he had been with during medical school, local waitresses at the beer gardens, mostly; once, the daughter of a professor, ah, what a sweet and tasty thing she had been. A shame she had moved away, to keep company with a Canadian somewhere in the frozen wastes of North America . . .
Between those images and the schnapps, and with a tarp to keep much of the water off, he could bear up here a bit longer. The end would justify the means.
He heard a noise. It was faint, and he was uncertain of it. There were several fast claps of thunder, far off, and then another sound.
He turned to Schäefer. “Did you hear that?”
“Thunder?”
“No. Something after that.”
“A pig,” Schäefer said.
Gruber listened, but the cry was not repeated—or if it was, he couldn’t catch it. It had not sounded like a pig. As a doctor, he had heard many injured men and women yelling over the years, and that’s what it had sounded like to him.
Not a pig.
Some person screaming in pain.
THIRTEEN
T HE WATCHER seemed slow to take notice of Yamada’s charge, as if the sight of him somehow did not register.
Yamada splashed through the puddles for four meters—five!—gathering speed on the slick ground, and was but two meters away. And still the man had not moved. Dark-skinned he was, with black hair and eyes, wearing no more than a sleeveless shirt that might have once been tan, and dark trousers cut off below the knee, not even any shoes Yamada could see—
His sprint was fast, and the watcher would have to be able to spring like a rabbit to avoid him now, he would knock him silly with his bokken—
—except that Yamada’s speed was too fast—he hit a muddy spot and his foot shot out from under him. He lost his balance, slipped and fell, hit on his back, and skipped like a flat stone thrown at a pond—!
Yamada cursed as he slid to a muddy stop. By the time he managed to get back to his feet, the watcher was gone.
“Chikusho!” he said. A choice word to be employed when in a rage.
A gun went off. Once, twice, three times. Somebody screamed, a sound so horrific it frosted Yamada’s entire body with chilblains.
The sound came from the direction in which the watcher must have gone, and without stopping to consider Yamada ran into the forest.
Somebody had shot his watcher, it seemed.
He didn’t have far to go to see the source of the terrified yell.
It was not the watcher who had screamed.
Lying on the ground where a tree had fallen and beaten down a wide spot in the brush was one of Suzuki’s men. His throat was torn out, blood spraying from the torn vessels in his neck, pumping into the rain and washing onto the soaked ground.
The watcher, who stood over the downed soldier, turned only slightly to regard Yamada, and despite the downpour his teeth and lips were coated
It did not rain this way in Germany. Oh, yes, they got weather, fair and foul, but not this end-of-the-world feeling as a crackling thunderstorm swept over an already fetid jungle, scrubbing all underneath it with a mighty and electrically charged wet hand, leaving ozone in its wake . . .
A summer shower in the Bavarian hills? Yes, one would certainly get wet if caught outdoors, but the promise of a balmy afternoon usually lay past that. And that beautiful, golden, actinic light, right after a rain? Nothing in the world compared to how it was in the Fatherland. Proof that there was a God and He favored Germany above all others.
Ah, home. It was a comforting thought out here in this wet hell, the ideal of it. He would go back in triumph and glory. The war would end, and it would be time to start a family—a sturdy, well-made blond and buxom wife with whom he could produce tall and fair sons and daughters; and since he would be a man of substance, perhaps a mistress or two to keep the fires fanned as he grew older. There had been so little time for that, save a few women he had been with during medical school, local waitresses at the beer gardens, mostly; once, the daughter of a professor, ah, what a sweet and tasty thing she had been. A shame she had moved away, to keep company with a Canadian somewhere in the frozen wastes of North America . . .
Between those images and the schnapps, and with a tarp to keep much of the water off, he could bear up here a bit longer. The end would justify the means.
He heard a noise. It was faint, and he was uncertain of it. There were several fast claps of thunder, far off, and then another sound.
He turned to Schäefer. “Did you hear that?”
“Thunder?”
“No. Something after that.”
“A pig,” Schäefer said.
Gruber listened, but the cry was not repeated—or if it was, he couldn’t catch it. It had not sounded like a pig. As a doctor, he had heard many injured men and women yelling over the years, and that’s what it had sounded like to him.
Not a pig.
Some person screaming in pain.
THIRTEEN
T HE WATCHER seemed slow to take notice of Yamada’s charge, as if the sight of him somehow did not register.
Yamada splashed through the puddles for four meters—five!—gathering speed on the slick ground, and was but two meters away. And still the man had not moved. Dark-skinned he was, with black hair and eyes, wearing no more than a sleeveless shirt that might have once been tan, and dark trousers cut off below the knee, not even any shoes Yamada could see—
His sprint was fast, and the watcher would have to be able to spring like a rabbit to avoid him now, he would knock him silly with his bokken—
—except that Yamada’s speed was too fast—he hit a muddy spot and his foot shot out from under him. He lost his balance, slipped and fell, hit on his back, and skipped like a flat stone thrown at a pond—!
Yamada cursed as he slid to a muddy stop. By the time he managed to get back to his feet, the watcher was gone.
“Chikusho!” he said. A choice word to be employed when in a rage.
A gun went off. Once, twice, three times. Somebody screamed, a sound so horrific it frosted Yamada’s entire body with chilblains.
The sound came from the direction in which the watcher must have gone, and without stopping to consider Yamada ran into the forest.
Somebody had shot his watcher, it seemed.
He didn’t have far to go to see the source of the terrified yell.
It was not the watcher who had screamed.
Lying on the ground where a tree had fallen and beaten down a wide spot in the brush was one of Suzuki’s men. His throat was torn out, blood spraying from the torn vessels in his neck, pumping into the rain and washing onto the soaked ground.
The watcher, who stood over the downed soldier, turned only slightly to regard Yamada, and despite the downpour his teeth and lips were coated
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