The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

EVANGELINE WALTON They That Have Wings

**

TWENTY-NINTH MAY: BERT Madden, Ronnie Lingard and I are in flight through the White Mountains. What will happen to us, God knows; we have become lost from the others, and there is no hope of succour. Nobody will come to look for us unless it is the Germans; nobody can come to look for us. We have known, ever since the at tempt to retake the Maleme airdrome failed, that Crete was lost.

We could go faster if it were not for Ronnie. He is British, a flier, who was left behind hospitalized when what remained of our wrecked air force (not over a dozen planes, I think) was or dered out of Crete. He is slight, fair-haired, a boy not yet out of his teens, I am sure, though he casually told us that he is twenty. To say that makes him feel more dignified; I know boys. He has a leg wound that causes him to limp, and Bert and I take turns supporting him. Bert tries to do more than his share; he is a huge man, tough and burly, a stockman from western Queensland. But al though I, John Ogilvy, was only a New Guinea schoolmaster before the war, scrawny and civilised and not used to using my muscles, I am as tough as he. As well able to help the lad.

If and while anybody can help him. There is still snow on the White Mountains. The winds cut like knives, and the barren rocks all about us rise to sharp points. Rocks that a man with two good legs can hardly climb. Not since yesterday have we seen any sign of human habitation, of other living beings. At first we did not mind; it was so good to get out of sight and sound of the Stukas, of the bombs and bullets that had been falling among us like a deadly, fiery hail. Little things that in a moment could change a man to a screaming, mutilated lump of flesh. Or leave no man at all; only a silent, bloody carcass.

But now we are beginning to be afraid. We must rest; we have stopped now; that is how, for the first time in days, I happen to be writing in this diary; it is easier to do that than to keep my hands still. But we cannot stay here; there is not an inch of dryness, of shelter, anywhere. Twice already Bert has helped Ronnie move. The boy does not want to; he wants nothing except to lie still. But if he does so for long at a time the warmth of his body (strange to think of warmth in our bodies!) melts the snow upon the rocks.

He is not strong, as Bert and I are. He will catch pneumonia if we stay here. And he must have food; none of us has eaten in more than forty-eight hours. Before too long we must all have food. A man can go only so long without—

A bird has just flown over us. Queer that the sight of a bird, the dark shadow of its wings upon the snow, should have the power to reduce three grown men to gibbering fear. But we all crouched and covered our faces, and Ronnie screamed; I dropped this book. Anything in the air above us still makes us think of a Stuka. And this was a very large, dark bird.

It has come back. It is circling low above us, as if curi ous. For a second, its dark, beady eyes met mine; more intelli gent, more sinister, than I ever thought a bird’s eyes could be. I cannot think what breed it is; I have never seen one like it, either in reality or in photographs. We cannot be frightened now; we know it is no plane; and yet something in the rustling of its wings, in that dark, moving shadow on the snow—

All of a sudden Bert turned over and fired at it, as it wheeled there in the air above us. I saw the revolver flash fire in his hand. The report, reverberating from rocky height to rocky height, was deafening. But the bird did not even seem frightened. It merely turned again, leisurely and lightly, in the air. Not hit; not disturbed.

Bert leaped to his feet, his face was convulsed with rage and fear. “Damn you!” he yelled. “We’ll get you! — not you us!” He emptied his revolver into it, it seemed — I have never known a better shot than Bert.

Yet still the bird wheeled on, calm, graceful there, low in the sky. Not a feather fell.

Ronnie laughed. “If there’s any eating done, it’s going to do it, old man. Not us.”

That is what we are afraid of, of course. Why our shot nerves did not quiet when we realised that there was no plane above us. The ancient danger, older than planes. The fate that, through the ages, has come upon unlucky travellers in deserts and upon men left dying upon battlefields. Rustling wings and tear ing beaks.

I laughed, but it was not a good laugh. I said, “Shut up, Ronnie. It’s not as bad as that, yet. Sit down, Bert.”

Bert sat down. His tanned, leathery face looked queerly pale; a kind of yellowish, mottled grey. He licked his lips.

“I can’t understand,” he said. “I ought to ’ve hit that thing. I ought to have hit it several times over.”

“It must be deaf,” I said, frowning. “I never heard of a bird so tame it wouldn’t run from gun-fire.”

We were all silent a moment, digesting that. The unnatural thing, the thing that has bothered me from the beginning. Then Bert cursed.

“That — thing ain’t no pet!” he said feelingly. “I’d hate to think who’d have it for a pet.”

And somehow, at those last words, we all shuddered; I do not know why.

“It seems to be watching us,” Ronnie said. “Look.”

And we did. We are. The bird is staying near us. For the last quarter of an hour it has been flying back and forth, back and forth, between the two great, snow-rimed cliffs that tower above us. Sometimes it flies lower, sometimes higher, yet always I have the feeling that it is edging a little nearer to us, a lit tle closer. I do not think it is healthy to watch it; its movements are like a queer kind of dance; they fascinate. And yet, somehow, I do not like to look away. To turn my back.

Soon the sun will be setting. We will not be able to see the creature so well then. To know exactly where it is.

There is already a rim of fire above the western cliffs. And as I noticed that, the bird’s small, beady eyes seemed to catch mine again; jewel-bright, night-black, like tiny corridors of pol ished jet leading down, down, into unfathomable darkness.

Perhaps Bert saw them too, for he caught my arm. “Give me your gun, Johnny! I ain’t got no more bullets. And the light’ll soon be gone!”

But I shook my head. I said slowly, “What’s the use?”

Ronnie spoke dreamily. His eyes have become fixed, staring at the bird. “I wouldn’t try to hurt it. I think maybe it wants to help us. To lead us somewhere, like in the old stories.”

Bert laughed raucously; I was silent. I know the stories Ron nie means, the fairy tales he must have listened to, not so long ago, at his mother’s or his nurse’s knee; the old formula of the Helpful Beast or Bird. But I have never believed in those stories; I don’t now. And this imperturbable creature of darkness is not my idea of a helper.

But it is true that the pattern of its movements is changing. It flies farther and farther toward the north. And then, every time we hope that it is really leaving, it will stop and turn and hang in the air a moment. Then it will fly back toward us, swift and straight as an arrow, and halt, circling low, just above our heads. The last time that happened Bert cried out and ducked, putting his hands over his eyes.

Twilight: It has happened again. And worse this time. The creature hurtled itself upon us almost as a dive-bomber might. Its flapping wings, its sharp, bright beak, almost raked my face and Bert’s. Its beady eyes gleamed red as they glared into ours; demanding, commanding. But it only circled gently above Ronnie’s head. Tenderly.

It has flown off to the north again now. But it will be back. It does want us to follow it. And the light is going. Dare we risk a real attack, in the dark? We cannot stay here anyhow; not unless we want Ronnie to freeze. After all, can the bird lead us to a worse place than this may be if we stay?

5th June: I could laugh now, reading that last entry I made here. What queer tricks nerves can play on men who are starving and sick and unbalanced by the shock of events no man ever ought to see! No doubt there was a bird that had been deafened by the din of the Stukas, or by some natural cause. No doubt its failure to be start led by gunshots startled us and set our diseased imaginations off. Certainly it was blessed chance, no bird, that led us to the peace of this little house on the heights. Indeed, only Ronnie claims that he saw any bird during the last half of that terrible night-journey. Bert and I, sick, stumbling, holding him up as best we might, saw only low-hanging clouds about us; mists through which sometimes gleamed two tiny, luminous red points, like eyes.

But all troubles, real and imagined, seem far from us now. We need not fear that the Germans will ever find us, in this little place above the clouds. It is high enough to be a bird’s nest, guarded by almost impassable slopes of rock and ice. And the two women here are themselves like birds; they have the same light swiftness of motion, the same high, sweet voices, the same bright, dark eyes.

Aretoúla, the younger, has also a face that might have been carved on some ancient Greek coin. Her grandmother has the same delicate profile, grown beaky now, so that it reminds one a little of a bird of prey. Just as the thinness of her brown, wrinkled old hands sometimes makes one think of claws. But forty years ago I imagine that her body moved and curved with the same singing grace as Aretoúla’s.

They are very good to us. They are forever feeding us, con tinually bringing us tempting little trays because they knew that, at first, our shrunken stomachs could not hold much at a time. Forever apologising for the poor quality of what they have. They do not know how good their bread and honey and olives taste after the days of battle and flight and fear. When we try to tell them how good the old woman only shakes her head and says, almost fiercely, “There is no meat!” a hungry gleam in her black eyes.

It is natural, especially at her age, that she should crave, need meat. When I am a little better I will go out and set traps, as I used to do as a boy in New Guinea. We must give her meat; she has done a great deal for us.

Aretoúla never seems hungry. Aretoúla only holds out her lit tle trays and smiles and says softly: “See the sweet honey, kyrie. The honey and the good bread and the strong olives. The kyrios must eat, eat all he can, and grow well and strong again. Well and fat and strong.”

She has smiles enough for all of us; they bring out the dimples around her lovely mouth just as the sun brings out the unfolding petals of a flower. But the smiles in her eyes are warmest and deepest for Ronnie. Sometimes they make her dark eyes truly soft, take the hardness out of their brightness. I never realised, until this last week, that bright eyes are always hard.

But I am talking like the poet I always wanted to be. The po et very few poor school-teachers get to be. Aretoúla makes a poet of a man. I only hope she is not going to make a lovesick fool of Ronnie. It would be a great pity to repay old Kyra Stamata’s hospi tality with any kind of hurt. Too bad that the women speak so much English; I am the only one of us three who knows Greek. Perhaps young people do not need a common language.

They are very lonely up here. No neighbours ever seem to visit them; which, perhaps, it not too strange, considering at what an almost inaccessible height their little house is perched. Yet it seems a little queer that nobody ever comes.

Bert said so once, to the old woman; I would not have. And she looked down at her hands and said sadly:

“We are considered unlucky. My man died when we were both young, leaving me with but one child, a girl. And Aretoúla’s mother, too, lost Aretoúla’s father early. People are afraid to come, lest our ill-luck reach out to them.”

A strange thought, that. Of ill-luck as a dark, cloaked presence brooding above the house and ready to stretch out long, invisible arms to clutch anybody who may enter. And how cruel, that such a superstition should isolate two women.

Bert and I were both awkwardly sympathetic. We told old Kyra Stamata that when the war was over she ought to take Aretoúla and go down to some town or village. Where both of them could live nearer other women; where Aretoúla could meet young men.

But she shook her head. “No. In this house I was born, and in this house I will die. As my father and mother died, and my four brothers. My four tall, strong brothers. And after them my husband and my daughter’s husband.”

Bert said: “That’s hard on the girl. Never getting any where, never meeting any other young people.”

The old woman smiled. A sudden broad smile, so deeply amused that it lit her dark beady eyes, the few yellow teeth still showing under her jutting, beak-like nose, with a red glow oddly like evil. Like a secret, gloating greed.

“If a young man is meant to come to Aretoúla, one will come.”

6th June: I am afraid that Aretoúla thinks that young man has already come. And so does Ronnie. Tonight I heard them whispering together, out on the mountainside. Traces of snow still showed beneath their feet, but around them — so clear and fragrant that even a dried-up, prosaic codger like myself could catch it — was the breath of spring. Their arms were round each other, and his head was bent close to her dark one. I heard him saying:

“There must be a priest we can get to come up here, Aretoúla. My friends can go for him, even if I can’t, because of this blasted leg; I don’t know why it doesn’t mend.”

It is true that Ronnie’s leg is the only one of our ills that this rest here has not mended. He is lamer now than he was when we wandered on the hills. But no doubt the strength of desperation bore him up then.

Aretoúla’s voice came, tender, velvety as a caressing hand: “Your leg will be well. All of you will be well. Wait, my Ronnie; only wait. With me.”

“I can’t wait much longer, Aretoúla. Not for you. The fel lows’ll be glad to go for a priest. And it’ll be safe. Your Cretans are a good sort — they don’t betray allies.”

She laughed and nuzzled her cheek against his. “Foolish one, my golden love, you do not have to wait! Not for Aretoúla. She is yours. As much so as any priest could make her. We will not ask your comrades to risk their lives among these mountain passes that they do not know. Among, perhaps, the Germans.”

He said stubbornly, very low: “I can’t do that, Aretoúla. What would your granny think? I can’t take advantage of you and her like that; not after all you’ve both done for us.”

She threw back her head then, looked up into his face. Even from where I stood, around the corner of the hut, I could see how the stars shone, reflected in her eyes.

“Listen, my Ronnie. Granny will understand. I see that I must tell you of sad things — things that I had hoped need not yet trouble us. No priest would come here, if your comrades went for him. They hold this place accursed.”

“But why — what—”

“You cannot understand, you who are English and so not superstitious. You do not know how the mother of my grandmother died raving mad, after she had tried to kill my grandmother, whom she called a striga, the murderess of her brothers. For three of them had died indeed, of some wasting sickness, and grief had turned the old woman’s brain, so that she remembered a legend of our people — one that is old, very old, among us. Of how sometimes a girl-child is born with a craving for food that is not meant for man. And with other gifts also — a striga.

“Yes, she would have killed my grandmother, her own child. Her husband and her remaining son had all they could do, strong men though they were, to drag her off her only daughter. And that night she died, raving. And soon they themselves died also, of the same sickness that had taken the others. But the words of the poor mother’s ravings lived, and my grandmother was left alone. None of the neighbours (for we had neighbours then, here on the mountain) would enter this house; none of her kin would take her in. All hated and feared her; all shunned her. Until my grandfather came climbing this way from another village in another valley — tall and strong and laughing, such a man as her brothers had been. And he laughed at the tales and loved her. All might have been different if he had lived — or if my father had lived. But now the curse has settled here, like a black bird brooding above this house forever. No man will ever marry Aretoúla.”

“I will — some day.” Ronnie’s young face was exalted. “I’ll take you away from here. To England, where people are civilised and don’t do things like this to women. We’ll always be together.”

His arms tightened around her, and his head bent to hers. Her mouth plastered itself on his. She pressed herself against him, seemed almost to press herself into him, as if her body might melt, cloud-like, into his.

I came forward then. I said, “Good evening,” casually, before I came round the corner, and Ronnie jumped back, out of her arms. I stayed with them until she went in, and later, after he was asleep, I got Bert out of the house and talked with him:

“We’ll have to leave, Bert. Things are getting too thick here; the kids are falling in love.”

I told him everything; everything, that is, except those fantastic nightmares of old Kyra Stamata’s mother’s. Bert, like many Queenslanders, has seen a good deal of the aborigines; and although he pretends to scoff at their dark beliefs and practices, they have left their mark upon his mind. I was afraid he might be too much impressed.

As it was, he was not enough impressed. He laughed.

“Me, I’d let the kids have their fun, Johnny. This is wartime; it may be all they’ll ever have. But that’s the schoolmaster of it, I suppose; you’ve got to have everything proper and respectable. And maybe it would be just as well to clear out. The longer we stay the less chance we’ll have of getting picked up by our own boats; they may be all gone already.”

I was so surprised that I was startled into an undiplomatic honesty. Undiplomatic since I wanted, suddenly and desperately, to get away.

“You know very well there’s no chance of that, Bert. Any Englishmen that are left on this island are stranded — without a dog’s chance of getting out, unless it’s on a Cretan fishing-boat.”

Bert looked sheepish. “I know. But, nice as they’ve been to us here and all, I’d just as soon get out, Johnny. The old lady makes me feel funny; I can’t help it. She looks like somebody — or something — I’ve seen somewhere else. And how do she and the girl both come to know English so well when they’ve never either one been down off this mountain, and when there’s not a book — not even a Greek bible — in the house?”

I said testily: “That’s nonsense, Bert. You sound as if you suspected them of something. You know Aretoúla’s father had been to America — was educated and progressive, quite different from the superstitious peasants around here. Kyra Stamata has talked about that. He must have taught her English.”

He said doggedly: “Maybe. But it’s queer she learned it so well — and remembered it so well all these years. And it’s queer how she knew every last thing that was going on in the war up until we came here — and now she never hears a thing. Nobody ever comes up here; nobody’s supposed to have come up here in a long time. How did she get her news then — and what made it stop? If it did stop. I’m not accusing her of anything; I just don’t like the whole layout. It’s too queer.”

I laughed at him; there can be no doubt of these good wom en’s friendliness. But some of his points were shrewd and well made. More shrewd than I would have expected of Bert. I am more glad than ever that I did not tell him the wild parts of that story of Aretoúla’s. In the morning we will ask her grandmother about the mountain passes; about the best way to leave.

7th June: They were hurt and grieved, as I was afraid they would be; our two hostesses. They say that Ronnie’s leg is not well enough for any journey — too much truth in that, I fear. They ask us if we are not happy with them — safe? If they have not done everything they can for us? They have; the trouble is that I am afraid that if we stay Aretoúla will do too much. Perhaps I can find a chance to talk with Kyra Stamata before the day is over; warn her of that danger. We cannot leave till tomorrow anyway; that is clear.

Midnight: I have had horrible dreams; I could almost think that I am going mad. Perhaps it was my failure to get a chance for private talk with Kyra Stamata that made me restless, unable to sleep soundly. Yet I was very sleepy when we went to bed; we all were, for, in honour of our last night, Kyra Stamata had brought out her last bottle of wine, one that she had brewed with her own hands, according to an ancient recipe of her family. A strange wine, tasting of honey. And of something else, something to which I cannot put a name.

It went to all our heads, and we were glad to go to bed early; I remember thinking hazily that that would be better, anyway, when we men were to start out early in the morning. But in the dead of night I woke; in a sudden sweat of fear, though I did not know what had roused me.

And then I heard it again: the creak of a door, the door of the inner room, where the women slept. They were coming out, into the room where we lay, and as I realised that my heart leapt with relief — and then stood still.

For Aretoúla was carrying a torch, and in her grandmother’s hand was a knife. A long, thin knife. The torchlight shone brightly on the blade and redly in both women’s eager eyes.

Aretoúla said softly: “All is well, Grandmother. They sleep.”

The old woman did not answer at once. She came a little farther into the room, her head thrust forward, slightly bent. Like a bird’s, when it hunts food. Her neck looked long; longer than a woman’s neck should be; her jutting nose was like a beak, her beady eyes blazed with greed. And in that instant I knew her! Knew her for the bird that had flown above us in the mountains, the bird that had danced and menaced us as the sun set!

She came and stood looking down at us. And though I strained every muscle to rise, though my throat swelled with a shriek, I could not! I lay as if paralysed; even my lips were locked.

Aretoúla said nervously: “You will not touch the young one, Grandmother? You had Grandfather awhile before you ate out his vi tals; Mother had Father awhile before you and she ate his out. I, too, want my time of love.”

The old woman grunted. “You shall have it, little one; never fear. We will take the big one first; he should be the richest and most savoury. Give me the dish now.”

Aretoúla bent and lifted it from its place beside the hearth. A pot that I had often seen them cook in; a fine old copper pot. It gleamed now as the torchlight touched it.

Kyra Stamata came a step nearer; stood squarely above us. Above Bert.

I tried to cry out; I tried, as hard as any man ever tried to move. But I might as well have tried to lift a stone wall as my own body.

I saw the knife flash, swift and bright as lightning, as the old woman’s arm shot down. I saw it rip Bert’s whole chest open; heard him groan and saw his body lift convulsively and then stiffen. There was another hollow groan. And then he lay very still, with a bright red ribbon seeming to stretch between his throat and chest.

But not for long. The old woman still bent over him. She thrust the knife back into the wound, turned it. thrust in her whole hand. I think I must have swooned.

After that I had only brief glimpses. I saw her straightening up again, with Bert’s heart in her hand; Bert’s heart, red and dripping. I heard her telling Aretoúla to stir the embers of the fire. Once after that, I was roused from another spell of unconsciousness by the smell of burning flesh.

But I will not tell what I saw after that. I cannot. Only one thing: once Ronnie stirred and moaned in his sleep, and Aretoúla came across to him and laid her hand gently on his face, her own face as tender as a young mother’s.

“Sleep, my golden one,” she murmured in her soft, singing voice. “Sleep.”

And he did sleep. Thank God, he is still asleep.

Before they went back into the inner room they came and leaned over Bert again. They ran their slim hands gently over his body. And they laughed; their sweet, shrill, birdlike laughter.

“Beware! Beware, O squeezed sponge, of running water!”

And then again, I seemed to swoon. And when I awoke, a little while ago, Bert was breathing peacefully. There was no sign of any wound upon his chest. But I dare not try to sleep again; I dare not dream again. I will sit up for what is left of this night.

8th June: I will steal a few minutes to write in this journal before we leave. To write something sane and sensible in it, after last night’s vagaries. It was a dream; all a horrible, fantastic dream.

And yet Bert seems a little pale this morning; not quite his hearty, vigorous self. He has not joined in the laughter and talk about the breakfast table as he usually does. And I wish Kyra Stamata were not polishing her copper pot. Polishing it carefully, as if it had been used. And I wonder why Aretoúla is so gay and laughing; I had thought she would be sad for Ronnie’s going.

But they are calling me now; Bert himself is calling me. We must start.

Night again: We are back in Kyra Stamata’s cottage. That is, two of us are back. Bert is dead.

We walked all morning, down the steep mountain roads that Kyra Stamata had told us of. And he complained of hunger, of a queer feeling of emptiness. “Like as if I was hollow inside,” he said once. He, the strong man, was as ready as Ronnie to rest, when we sat down at noon.

We did not dare eat much; we did not know how long the food Kyra Stamata had given us might have to last. And Bert was ravenous. After he had eaten he rose and walked over toward a little mountain stream that foamed about a hundred yards from us.

“Water ain’t my choice of a drink, but maybe it’ll fill me up some. I don’t know what ails me, anyway. The old lady’s wine must have given me a funny kind of hangover.”

He drank. I was beside him; I saw his throat move as the wa ter went down. And then I heard him gasp; saw the red ribbon spring out again, across his chest. He fell forward, with his face in the torrent. Ronnie and I pulled him out together.

Ronnie thinks it must have been a haemorrhage; some lesion caused by all the fatigue of our wanderings, begun again too soon. There was a little blood on his mouth; Ronnie thinks it must have fallen from there to his chest, that shows no wound. But there was not much blood anywhere. I cannot help thinking of a sponge that has been squeezed.

And while we were dragging the body up the bank Ronnie’s leg crumpled under him. I had to go back to the cottage and get the women to come and help me. With Ronnie; with Bert’s body. So we are back here — back, I had almost said, where it all happened.

But there is no danger. There can be no danger. What I saw last night was a dream. Bert’s illness and death were a coincidence. I will not insult, even in thought, women who have been kind to me; who have risked their lives to help me, as all Cretans risk their lives when they help Allied soldiers now. I will not let myself go mad.

I will not remember blood running down the sides of a copper pot.

15th Aug: I have let the weeks pass by as in a trance; I have not even written in this journal. I was ill for awhile, and Kyra Stamata nursed me as tenderly as if she had been my mother. And sometimes Ronnie and Aretoúla would tiptoe in, hand in hand, and smile down at me. They are happy. Perhaps Bert was right, and one should never try to prevent happiness. It may indeed be all that these war-united youngsters will ever have.

I do not sleep well. Kyra Stamata has noticed it, and has brewed potions of herbs for me to drink. I try to throw them out when she is not looking, for somehow at night I am afraid to sleep. Full of fancies; not sane and reasonable as I am by day.

But she watches me too closely; it is becoming harder and harder to get chances to empty the stuff out. I suppose she thinks I do not like the taste of it, and has a womanly determina tion to help me against my will. So often I have to fall into sleep as a man might fall over a precipice; passing blindly, in blind terror, into oblivion.

16th Aug: Morning again, the good, bright morning, wholesome as fresh bread. It shows one how foolish are night terrors, the grisly shadows childhood leaves in every man’s brain. Ronnie and Aretoúla are laughing outside the window; young wholesome laugh ter. Her laugh is as tender as any woman’s could be, and yet it never loses that shrill sweet note that is a little wild; the note that sounds like a bird.

There! He has caught her, and they are kissing. Their lips are too busy for laughter now. Too sweetly busy. Her arms are tight about his neck, with that hungry, enfolding tightness they seem to have at times. She loves him.

I do not know why I am afraid, even at night. For Bert knew nothing; he did not wake. And I will never see that happen to Ronnie. They will take me before they will take him, because Aretoúla still loves him. And when his turn does come he, too, will know nothing. We will not suffer; men die far worse deaths on the battlefield.

And yet—

I will tear this page out. It is lunacy, madness as great as Aretoúla’s great-grandmother’s.

17th Aug: Today Kyra Stamata said that she was feeling ill and sent Ronnie and me out onto the mountain to look for more of a certain herb she wanted to dose herself with. Aretoúla, she said, must stay with her. Ronnie and I wandered far afield; we were never able to find any herb to match the sample she had given us.

When we came back there seemed to be tension between the two women. Kyra Stamata looked well enough, but Aretoúla was white and her eyes look red, as if from weeping. All evening she has been very quiet. Ronnie is much concerned; he makes more fuss over a cut finger of Aretoúla’s than he would if he broke his own arm. All trivial, no doubt; women’s squabbles. The best of them will do it. And yet my nerves respond to any tension now, like race-horses to a cut of the whip. I can feel them tensing; feel fear shooting through them, as electricity shoots through wires.

One good thing: when Kyra Stamata gave me my nightly sleeping-draught, she forgot to look at me. She was staring at Aretoúla, who was staring at Ronnie, and I poured the drug quietly into the embers of the fire.

Kyra Stamata remembered me after a moment. She looked at me and smiled. “An empty cup already? Good. You will sleep well, soldier. You must sleep very well and grow strong again; very strong. We have all been worrying about you long enough, soldier. Long enough.”

18th Aug: This may be the last entry I shall ever make in this diary; I think that probably it will be.

I did not sleep last night. I closed my eyes and lay still; I breathed regularly, as I have trained myself to do, when Kyra Stamata bent above me. I could see her through my eyelashes as a shadow, as a black vulture’s shadow, when she bent.

But then perhaps I did fall asleep. For the next thing I knew I heard Aretoúla’s voice:

“See, I have the knife, Grandmother. Let us eat; let us eat and drink tonight.”

My eyes opened; saw the flash of the knife in her hand. And shut again; faintness took me. Once more I could not move.

Then I heard the old woman laugh; shrill, cackling laughter.

“As you will, granddaughter. As you will.”

I felt the cold chill of steel as Aretoúla set it, ever so gently, against my throat.

“Surely he will be enough for this time, Grandmother. Let us eat of him, let us eat and drink of him tonight. Let me show you how well I can cut his throat. I have never killed before; I have fed — yes, feasted — but I have never killed.”

Kyra Stamata laughed again, more loudly; harsh shrill laughter like the screech of a bird.

“You think that will show me your strength, girl? You think I will feed on that weakling, who cannot grow strong again, no matter how well I nurse him? No! He dies only that we may be rid of him. It is your lover that we will feed on, child. Tonight, or tomorrow night, as you choose.”

There was silence a moment. Then Aretoúla said eagerly: “He is not so strong, either. He has been hurt; and he is slight — as slightly built as this one.” She did not move the knife from my throat.

“But young and healthy, girl; healthy enough to please you. You have made him happy, you have made him strong. And we have kept him long enough; I am hungry.”

Aretoúla did not answer at once. For a second the knife pressed closer against my throat. Then she lowered it. Slowly, I could tell; reluctantly. Her grandmother’s derisive cackle came again.

“What! Have you lost your taste for your first kill, girl? Will you let him live?”

Aretoúla said sullenly: “You have promised me one more night. And if he should see this man dead tomorrow my Ronnie would grieve. He would not think only of me. Tomorrow night, before the dawn comes, I will kill him; I will kill them both, if you wish it. But not tonight.”

She went away then. Back to the inner room that she shares with Ronnie now. Kyra Stamata fell asleep again; I heard her deep, regu lar breathing; I thought of creeping toward her quietly, there where she lay curled on her pallet by the hearth. Of putting my hands a bout her skinny old throat.

What a pity that her father and brother did not let her mother kill her — put out of the world the monstrosity she had brought into it! But they saved her — saved her to be their own destroy er, and now ours! No doubt they thought, poor fools, that they were protecting innocence; no doubt she was young and lovely then, like Aretoúla.

Like Aretoúla!

Twice I did creep toward the hag. But each time she woke and stirred; each time I dropped back quickly. Her senses have indeed the sharpness of a bird’s.

Through the rest of the night she lay in peaceful sleep, and I lay thinking. Thinking and fearing, hating and shuddering, and trying to plan.

And at last, toward dawn, the idea came. Like white light.

It may not work. I think it very unlikely that it will work. But it may win us death in the open.

At dawn I rose and walked out of the house. I walked on and on. Up the mountain; to its crest and over.

From this high rock where I am writing I can look down upon the little ledge where the hut stands; that vulture’s nest that we all thought was salvation, paradise. It lies there black under the red morning light; still in shadow. Shadow less black than what it holds.

If Ronnie does not follow me I will go back tonight. I will watch and try to surprise them; I will do whatever man may do. But Ronnie will follow me. He will be worried and come in search of me. And then, with my two sound legs, it ought not to be hard for me to keep ahead of him. With luck — incredible luck! — I may lead him on such a chase that we will fall into the Germans’ hands. A prison camp would seem like heaven now.

But will he follow me so far? Or will he turn back — to Aretoúla? He would only think me mad if I tried to tell him what I know.

He is coming. I see him clearly, down there in the morning sun. Climbing the mountain, shading his eyes with his hand as he looks about him. For me.

5 p.m.: I am very tired. All day I have played this ghast ly game of hide-and-seek with Ronnie, here in the mountains. With out food, without any more rest than I knew we had to take. For if Ronnie’s leg crumples under him again we are done. This game in which our lives are the stakes will be over.

He must think me mad indeed, the boy. Deranged, after our hardships and my long, low fever; by the shock of Bert’s death. But he keeps after me with a blind, sweet stubbornness; he will not desert a comrade.

He is resting now, on a ledge some three hundred feet below me. He has not the strength, I think, to climb up to this rock where he must know that I am hiding; I moved once and let him see me. I wish, desperately, that I could see some house, some sign of man. But there is nothing. The peaks press close about us, like enemies; dark and implacable now in this failing light. Great masses of spiky, barren rock at best indifferent, alien to man.

What will happen when night falls? But it was not night be fore, when—

God, I dare not think of that! If only we can stay alone, in the darkness and among the rocks, meet no dangers but those that nature planned for these terrible, desolate heights!

The sun is setting. The clouds above the peaks are as red as fire, as red as blood. The sky itself gleams like a vast sheet of white light. No speck of darkness on it anywhere.

No, no! There are two specks, far to the north. Two black specks, blotting the shining red-and-whiteness of the heavens. They are coming closer, growing larger — and my heart is tightening into a knot of terror in my breast!

Birds!

Later: It is over. It all happened very quickly after that. They came and flew low and circled over Ronnie’s head. I was scrambling down toward him as they came. I do not know what I thought I could even try to do; I knew he would believe nothing that I said.

I was in time to see his face as they circled above him. To see its first puzzled look fade and turn into a smile. A very gentle, very boyish and trusting smile.

“Two of you this time, you little beggars! What is it? Do you want me to go back — to her?”

For a little while he lay watching their weird weaving, the pattern that their black wings seemed to be making in the air above him. And then slowly, his eyes still fixed upon them, he rose — like a man entranced, not moving by his own volition.

He turned back — back the way we had come.

I showed myself then. I sprang up and called to him — loudly, desperately, in anguish.

“Ronnie! Ronnie!”

He hesitated. He turned again, and looked at me, and in his eyes there was a strange struggle — bewilderment and friendliness and recognition, all fighting with a strange charm that moved him as if he had been an automaton, no longer in control of his own limbs.

I called him again: “Ronnie — Ronnie!”

He took an uncertain step toward me; then another and another. He said, “Johnny — old John!”

And then the birds swooped. With a terrible, shrill cry of rage one of them leapt at me, her long bright beak aiming at my eyes. I saw hers as she came, and knew them, for all their red fierceness — the eyes of Aretoúla!

Then my hands were over my face, and I could feel her sav age beak tearing them, biting through muscle and flesh and bone. Could feel her claws slashing at my chest like knives, while her great wings beat my shoulders and head.

I heard Ronnie give a cry of horror — and then another cry, a long-drawn, horrible cry of pain. And knew that the other bird’s swoop had taken him.

I forgot my own danger. I lowered one hand and looked.

She had him by the chest and throat. Her long claws held him by his shirt-front, and by the flesh beneath it, and her beak was in his throat. He was reeling, staggering, trying to fight her off, but that beak was sawing ever deeper.

And then I heard another shriek, the most terrible of all. The fiercest sound of rage and hate, surely, that ever came out of any throat, human or beast’s or demon’s.

The bird that had been attacking me had left me. Had launched herself through the air, a black, whirling missile, straight for the other’s throat!

Her beak closed just beneath that other beak, which was set in Ronnie’s throat; sank deep into the black feathers just below that savage, red-eyed little head. And the bird let go of Ronnie. He staggered back, blood streaming from his throat and chest, and fell.

I ran to him. I worked to staunch his wounds while the battle raged above us.

And not only above us. Over the ledge and over the heights above it they fought, sometimes breaking apart and staring at each other, red-eyed, and then springing back upon each other, with mad, savage cries. Sometimes they fought almost over our heads, so that bloody feathers fell on us and I covered Ronnie’s face and my own eyes; and sometimes they flew so far away, a whirling, battling black ball of awful, self-destroying oneness, that we lost sight of them, and hoped that they were gone.

But always they came back. Always we heard those shrill, deadly cries again, saw the beating of those black, threshing wings.

They whirled in battle above the depths below the ledge, shrieking and biting, clawing and tearing, pounding each other with their wings.

And there one of them fell. Sank down slowly, softly, like a dropped ball of down, into the depths below.

The other staggered in the air, then turned and flew back toward us, its wide wings black against the shining heavens.

I crouched over Ronnie, shielding his head with my body, peeping through the fingers that I held before my own face.

Which had won — which?

The bird reached the ledge. Swung in the air six feet above us. I could see its head quite clearly against the darkness of the great, outspread wings. And the reddish-black little eyes were glazed and queerly glassy; no longer menacing. Its beak was red — red as the wounds that covered its body.

It looked down once, as if seeking something it could not find — Ronnie’s face, that my body hid. And then its eyes closed and it fell.

But as it struck the earth it trembled and spread out as water spreads. It quivered and changed and grew in a strange, transforming convulsion. And then, where the dying sun had glistened in a bird’s black feathers, it glistened on a woman’s black hair. Aretoúla lay there, pale and torn and bloody, her mouth redder than the wounds that disfigured her lovely face.

With a great cry Ronnie tore himself away from me. He ran to her. And as he came she lifted slim, dripping fingers and tried to wipe the blood away from her mouth. She seemed ashamed.

When he dropped to his knees beside her she smiled at him, and once again her mouth was lovely and tender, a woman’s mouth.

“I — loved you, Ronnie. I could not let her kill you — when the moment came. I was — more woman than striga.”

He could only gasp, “Aretoúla — Aretoúla!” and hold her close. He could not understand.

I came to them, and she looked up at me. “Is — my mouth all right now, Johnny? Not — ugly? I would like him to remember me as — beautiful. As beautiful as — any of your English girls.”

I knelt and wiped the last of her grandmother’s blood from her mouth. Ronnie kissed her, sobbing. His grief-stricken eyes were dazed.

She said gently, explaining, “My grandmother would have killed you, Ronnie. She did kill Bert. And now I have killed her — for you. And I — am dying. But there is a village — yonder — beyond that peak — to the west.” She tried to raise her hand, but could not. I had to raise it; with a great effort she pointed the shaking fingers.

“They will — hide you there. From the Germans. They are — clean. No strigas — there. And no — woman who will love you as much as — I—” And then the words stopped, and the breath rattled in her throat. She never spoke again.

She has been dead since moonrise. Ronnie and I have dug her grave. We will not go down into the abyss and try to find the other; the birds of prey, her kin, may clean her bones. We will rest here tonight, and in the morning we will go on. To the village. To another day.