Chapter 20 #4
Worse I couldn’t track them with my arrow because they’d hear me moving this close up.
Worse than that, I heard them trying the driver’s hatch on the front of the tank.
They might be unaware I was there, but they were trying to get in.
Luckily the driver’s hatch has never opened, corroded shut since for ever.
I tried to make myself feel better with that knowledge as I watched them kick at it and try to free it.
Then I squirmed back slowly into the shadows of the cockpit as they gave up and stuck their face up really close to the front slit, squinting in on the dark interior.
Fortunately, I had the seat back between us and they didn’t see enough to spot me or the arrow which I had now managed to aim at their eye, and then they moved and let the light back in.
Which, again, was worse, because I heard boots on top of the turret above my head.
I heard them heave on the top hatch. I heard the light clunk of the locking lever catching, and holding, against the rim.
Bear Shirt must have heard it too, because it encouraged more tugging.
The driver’s hatch had had no give in it at all, but that this one had a fraction was encouraging, a hint they might manage to get in if they tried hard enough.
My eyes, accustomed to the dark, were fixed on the lever every time it got yanked.
Because I hadn’t dogged it fully tight, it moved a tiny bit.
And every tiny bit that it moved brought it closer to springing open.
I felt like a snail in its shell, sort of protected, but actually stuck and unable to move and save myself, vulnerable to whatever wanted to reach in and pluck me out into the sunlight.
I put my bow down as quietly as I could and without taking my eyes off the tongue on the lock slowly getting closer and closer to the point where the lever would spring open and reveal my hiding place.
Then, without daring to even breathe, I reached up and quietly grabbed the locking lever in between tugs, and then tried to stop it moving.
It was tricky because I didn’t want to reveal my presence by jamming it locked again, so I had to sort of jam it a little bit every time they yanked it and then with very small movements inch it in the opposite direction to stop its progress.
My muscles ached and sweat stung my eyes as I hung on to the inside of the hatch as Bear Shirt pulled and kicked away at it on the outside.
It went on so long that at first I was sure they must have known I was in there, and then I heard grunting and swearing almost like sobbing that was more than frustration at a rusty hatch that wouldn’t open.
And though I didn’t ease up one bit on resisting, something in me relaxed, because I realised they weren’t really trying to get into the tank to find me: they just wanted something to fight, something they could take that deep, broken sadness that I heard in their voice out on.
I had the strongest sense that they didn’t want to get into the tank as much as let something out of themselves.
And hanging there in the dark, on the other side of that thick metal hatch I listened to the sadness and the anger and all the loneliness in the world pouring out as Bear Shirt beat against the tank’s armour.
Maybe it was the hoarseness in the voice that reminded me of Cat, but there was a part of me that wanted to let go of the lever and let it open so I could tell them they weren’t alone.
But then I remembered I’d killed their friend who might be called Jip, and so nothing good would come of it. So I held on, torn in this odd feeling somehow both wanting to let go but holding on for my, and maybe Cat’s and the girls’ and the babies’ lives.
And then as quickly as it began, it stopped.
I heard Bear Shirt jump off the tank and hit the ground in a splashy crunch.
I heard them swear one last time. And then I had a last glimpse of the bear in the hat looking back at me, and then all I could see was a back view as they turned and lifted the pack on one shoulder, put the bow on the other and walked away.
As they did so I heard them whistle, not a tune, but the kind of whistle Cat and I did to each other when we wanted to get the other’s attention. And the last I heard of their voice was it calling out that name again, like it was trying to summon someone who was lost.
Jip! they shouted. Jip! Come on, good boy, where are you?
I watched until they were out of sight and as I hung there I decided that Jip might not be a person.
I thought he might be a dog, Digger’s friend, and I tried to figure out why I felt almost as sad to see Bear Shirt go as I felt relieved.
Because it didn’t quite feel as if something entirely bad had left.
Cat told me that night, when I tried to explain it all to her, that though I’d done the right thing it felt sad, because I had always hoped when and if we ever found strangers who were safe to mix with that they would be our friends.
So the sadness was seeing my optimism die a bit she said.
Maybe she was right about that. Maybe not.
All I know is that I watched Bear Shirt walk away for maybe five minutes and only realised I was still pulling the hatch down when I let go once they disappeared. And then I felt even sadder.
You were mourning a possibility, said Cat. A might have been. They might have been a friend. But they might also have been a death, instead.
They were a death, said Freya who’d been listening in the shadows, feeding the babies and looking as exhausted as she was angry. If they were a Russian, or a friend of the Russian bastard, they were death.
So you did the right thing, said Cat.
He shouldn’t have been out there in the first place, said Freya. Mooning around, being soft.
He was keeping lookout, said Storm.
Cat looked at me and started to say something to Freya but I shook my head.
It’s OK, I said. Leave it. I’m going to see the dogs.
I knew they’d be happy to see me.
I’ll come too, said Cat.