THE HEART OF DANGER by Gerald Seymour Page B

they were because he
    saw
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    the bearded man kick hard into the grass and the moan carried up from
    the field and through the trees and reached the summit of the rock
    escarpment. He saw the bearded man swivel, casually, like he played
    kids' football, and kick again. There was a moment of confusion,
    men
    around the bearded man and bending down and two small scrimmages of
    bodies. He heard the orders from the bearded man, curt in the
    sunshine. The two wounded were held upright in front of the bearded
    man, and he punched them, one in the face and one in the pit of the
    stomach and because they were held they could not fall. Then
    bandannas
    from the heads of two of the men who held them were used to blindfold
    the wounded. The knife flashed at the waist of the bearded man. The knife went low, quick, to the groin of the wounded man who had the
    bloodstains at his knee and down his right leg. Ham turned, his first
    movement, and he broke the column of the ants, and he slapped the
    palm
    of his hand across the eyes of the brother of the wounded man. He
    heard the howl of pain, sobbing .. . The tears were running on his
    face, and the vomit was coming. He watched it, each instruction from
    the bearded man, each thrust of the knife. It was worse than the
    dream
    .. . When it was over, when the sport was gone, then the bearded man
    wiped his knife on the grass and replaced it in the sheath at his
    belt,
    and all of them sat in the field, close to where the bodies lay, and
    they drank and they laughed.

    They had no organization and no discipline.

    After they had drunk and told their jokes, they moved off again
    towards
    the tree line, but the heart had gone from the search. They did not
    go
    far into the birch trees that covered the hillside and they did not
    come near to the rock escarpment.

    They went back the way they had come and there were the marks of their
    boots in the wet grass and the trails where the two bodies were
    dragged.

    Ham watched. He wiped his face, furtive, and his tears smeared the
    camouflage cream. His eyes, all the time, held the broad and
    powerful
    back of the bearded man, who walked easily, walked without care.
    Piece
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    of cake, if he had had the Dragunov SVD 7.62mm, not the Kalashnikov,
    piece of cake for a sniper first class.

    Ham murmured, "That's a right bastard .. ."

    The brother of the man who had been castrated whispered, calmly, "That is Milan Stankovic."

    "That right bastard needs sorting .. ."

    "He is Milan Stankovic, he commands the TDF unit at the village of
    Salika. He has grown the beard now because he would think that makes
    him more of the Serb soldier. It is, perhaps, ten kilometres from
    here, his village. He was a clerk. He was a junior clerk in the
    administration of the co-operative at Turanj. All the farmers in
    the
    region came to the co-operative with their produce, and it was
    marketed
    from there. We came, my brother and I, to the co-operative each week
    in the summer. It was the job of Milan Stankovic to check the paper
    we
    brought, to see that we did not cheat, and then to stamp the paper.
    To
    check paper and to stamp it, now he is an important man. He would
    have
    recognized immediately the face of my brother. Often we used to
    bring
    him the best cabbages, or carrots, or a side of meat, some cheese,
    because then he would check our paper and stamp it more quickly. We
    would always look after Milan Stankovic. He knew my brother .. .
    and
    he killed him. That is Milan Stankovic .. ." They were gone into
    the
    trees on the far side of the field. Ham sat. He understood enough
    of
    the war to believe that if the brothers, one dead and one living,
    had
    captured the bearded man who they knew, then another knife would have
    flashed, another knife would have gouged. He said, "Nothing we could have done, if anyone had fired we'd all have been gone .. . It's called
    SERE, guys, that's Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape .. ." They would lie
    up the rest of the day. At dusk