Deep Black - Andy McNab [116]
I told him about me being shit at the job of looking after her, totally inconsistent, and how I felt a bit of me died when I signed her over permanently to Josh’s care, convincing myself it was the best thing for her.
Shivering and shaking, Jerry seemed to understand. ‘How do you ever recover from something like that?’
‘She never really—’
I felt a hand touch my shoulder. It must have taken a lot to move it from the warmth of his armpit. ‘I mean you, man. How the fuck do you hold it all together?’
Good question. Fucked if I knew the answer.
We lay there in the rain for maybe another twenty minutes. I checked Baby-G: 16:28. The rain had eased just enough for me to make out the headlights moving down the valley back towards Sarajevo. ‘Not long till last light, mate. Maybe we’ll get a fire going in the barn, even boil up some water. Then it’ll be smiles all round.’
87
My clothes stuck to my freezing wet skin. My hands were so cold, it took for ever to get the key into the old brass padlock and give it a turn. Jerry shivered behind me, waiting until the lock came off and the double corrugated-iron doors creaked open.
It was a little warmer inside than out, but not much. I couldn’t even console myself that we were out of the wet. It had stopped raining just as we got to the bottom of the hill.
‘Go find the wagon,’ I said. I wanted to keep Jerry moving.
I fumbled about for a light switch as he ventured further in, but didn’t find one.
‘Got it! Over here!’
Keys in hand, I stumbled towards the tapping noise he made against the bodywork. I eventually bounced off a high-sided wagon. I felt my way round the left-hand side and got the door open. The interior light came on to reveal a VW van and my vaporizing breath.
The van was one of the newer, squarer models but it was just as rusty and battered as any old surfer’s Combi. The back was full of empty hessian and nylon sacks, lengths of baling twine and handfuls of straw. The cab floor was littered with newspapers, sheets of paper, pens, drinks cans, all the usual shit.
I jumped in and unlocked the passenger door for Jerry, then turned the ignition. The diesel engine fired after a few protesting shudders. I flicked on the headlights. The inside of the barn was high, with a corrugated-iron roof, and the floor would have been big enough to fit a dozen vehicles, if they didn’t mind parking on piles of sacks and bits of old farm gear.
I pressed down on the cigarette lighter, then threw the gear shift into reverse, backing up so the lights covered as much of the place as possible. The fuel gauge showed half full. The cigarette lighter clicked back up. ‘Check it, mate. See if we can get a fire going.’
I left it in neutral, engine running, the exhaust chugging against the concrete block wall. I was beginning to feel more energized as I jumped down on to the hard compacted earth. Fuck carbon monoxide – I just wanted to get the cab warm and be able to see my way around.
Concealed behind piles of cardboard and wooden crates, Salkic had promised, were six cans of diesel. I pulled away the crap until I found them, and lifted each one to check it was full.
Jerry gathered empty polythene sacks and lumps of wood, straw, cardboard, anything that would burn. He made a pile big enough to give us some heat but not so high we torched the place, then ran back to the van. He got some newspaper going in the cab, and brought it over. We were soon warming our hands and faces and inhaling the stink of burning plastic.
I used a rusty old knife to rip arm- and neck-holes in a couple of the sacks and handed him a set. ‘We need to get our clothes a bit drier, mate.’
I’d always hated peeling off wet things and exposing my skin to the cold, but the fibres had to be wrung out so they could do their job and trap a little air.
We ended up looking like Cabbage Patch dolls, but at least the sacking gave us an extra layer against the cold. By the time we’d put our clothes back on top, all the dirt inside