Escape From Desire

Ahead of her Tamara saw the guide stop. They had reached a small clearing where a fallen tree had created a tiny space.

With groans of relief the small party came to a standstill, with the exception of the guide, who for some reason appeared to be slightly nervous. Tamara watched him as his eyes darted round the clearing as though looking for something. Zach wandered over to her side.

‘Something wrong?’

He too was watching the guide, and although he hid it well Tamara thought she glimpsed a certain disquiet in his eyes, before he veiled them and said smoothly, ‘Ready for the return journey? I—’

He broke off suddenly as the clearing was invaded by half a dozen men carrying machine guns and dressed in camouflage fatigues.

At her side Tamara heard Zach swear under his breath, and then they were being herded together like so many cattle, the muzzle of one gun pressing icily against Tamara’s throat as she stumbled over an exposed tree root.

‘Just what the hell is all this about?’ Zach addressed the question to the man who was obviously in charge of the small group, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to take command; none of the other men challenged his right to do so, and Tamara suspected they were all, like her, too dazed, to think of asking the question ‘why’.

Motioning to them to keep still with his gun, the man came forward while two of his men menaced them with raised guns.

‘You are to be held hostage until our Government releases the men it wrongly imprisoned six months ago,’ they were told in excellent English. ‘It is time the rest of the world knew what is happening here in the Caribbean. We are tired of incompetent capitalism, governments who allow us to starve, who refused to educate children above the age of fourteen, who condemn their own people to a life of poverty and degradation.’

‘Holding us hostage would not alter anything,’ Zach told him. ‘But if you release us without harm now, I promise you that we will make sure that you are allowed to put your view to your Government.’

None of them moved a muscle. They were all looking to Zach to provide a lead they could follow. Tamara couldn’t believe it was actually happening. She looked round for their guide, but he was nowhere to be seen. Dot was clutching George’s arm, her face pale and strained. The two honeymooners were in each other’s arms, while Sue and Heather moved a little closer to their husbands. Only she had no one to turn to.

‘Yes, and then they would throw us in prison with our comrades,’ the guerrilla sneered. ‘No, my friend, we need you too much to release you. Without you our Government will never set our comrades free; they will be shot. Come …’ he ordered roughly, ‘we have four hours’ march ahead of us. It will be at least that time before your hotel raises the alert, and by then they will have no chance of finding you. Very few people know this forest as well as Kennedy here does,’ he told them, with a jerk of his gun in the direction of a grim-faced islander, one of the two who was standing over them with a gun.

Out of the corner of her eye Tamara saw Heather sway towards Chris, her face paper-white.

‘Oh, God help us, Chris,’ she moaned softly. ‘What are we going to do?’

Her words seemed to release a wave of panic over all of them. Tamara herself shivered uncontrollably despite the clammy heat; only Zach remaining cool and controlled in the face of their predicament.

‘Come,’ the leader of the guerrillas commanded. ‘It is time to leave.’

‘You can’t get away with this!’ Alex Browne protested in a tight voice. ‘The English Government …’

‘Is many thousands of miles away, my friend,’ the guerrilla mocked him, ‘and the time when nations were prepared to risk any confrontation for the sake of their subjects is long past. Your Government will do nothing for you …’

‘And neither will yours for you!’ George burst out. His skin had an unhealthy purplish tinge and Tamara saw Dot reach out towards him, shaking her head warningly.

‘It’s his blood pressure,’ she murmured to Tamara, adding in terror, ‘Oh, my God, what’s going to happen to us?’

‘You cannot expect us to walk as fast as your men,’ Zach pointed out to the guerrilla. ‘If you intend to take us all hostage you will have to keep us alive—your Government will never hand over your comrades in return for lifeless bodies, and if you want to keep us alive you will have to make allowances …’

The islander frowned, appearing to consider Zach’s statement, and then turned and said something in a rapid patois to one of his companions, who shrugged and grimaced.

‘We cannot afford to waste time,’ he told Zach.

‘And neither can you afford to take risks with our lives,’ Zach reiterated smoothly. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to just take one of us hostage, while allowing the rest to go free? Especially if we were to guarantee that your story was printed in the British newspapers; that way your cause would receive far greater publicity than it would simply by holding us to ransom. Your own Government is hardly likely to make public the knowledge that people cannot holiday safely on St Stephen’s.’

Tamara held her breath while the guerrilla leader consulted with his companions. Would he accept Zach’s suggestion? She had no doubt that if he did, Zach intended to be the one to volunteer to remain behind, and she wondered if she had been mistaken after all, and he was in some way connected with the Army. It wasn’t a question she could ask.

The sun was dropping swiftly towards the horizon, fear an almost tangible emotion in the small clearing as they waited for the guerrillas’ decision.

‘You,’ their leader commanded roughly, turning back to Zach, ‘do you give your word that what we want will receive publicity?’

‘Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword knew what life was all about,’ Zach muttered sardonically under his breath to Tamara, as he inclined his head, and then looked across at George.

‘Mr Partington will inform the British Consul of what has happened and of our bargain—the freedom of my companions in return for publicising your cause.’

‘Our Government has no wish to quarrel with Britain and is sure to release our comrades once it is known that we hold a British hostage.’

Tamara wasn’t so sure. There had been several cases in the Press recently where lone Britons had been kidnapped and held for many months without the Government doing anything to negotiate their freedom. Or at least that was the way it seemed on the surface.

‘Very well then,’ the guerrilla leader pronounced. ‘Your companions may go free.’ He shouted a command to one of his men, who came forward, machine gun at the ready, and indicated that they were to follow him.

Tamara went last, unable to resist one backward glance at Zach. He was standing with his back to them. What was he thinking? she wondered. Was he afraid? Surely he must be.

‘Wait!’

The curt command halted her, as the guerrilla leader stepped forward and grasped her arm. She had been walking alone at the rear of the small column and she shivered under the cold assessment of eyes that seemed to strip her clothes from her body.

‘You will stay.’ Turning to Zach, he added grimly, ‘Alone you might just be foolish enough to try to escape—you have the look of that sort of man about you, my friend, but now that we have your woman you will stay. And if you try to leave we will kill her.’

From a distance Tamara heard Dot’s brief protest, before George silenced her, unaware of the look of helpless appeal in her eyes as they clung to Zach’s rigid back.

It seemed an aeon before he turned, pivoting round slowly, no expression at all in his eyes.

‘Do not argue with me,’ the guerrilla leader told him, ‘otherwise they shall all stay.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Tamara wanted to protest. ‘I’m not his woman,’ but the words stuck in her throat. She couldn’t bear to look at the others as they stumbled out of the clearing, her last hope that the guerrillas might relent and allow her to leave fading as she heard their footsteps die away.

‘Come,’ the guerrilla leader ordered. ‘It is time we left. You were right,’ he told Zach, ‘the others would have held us up. If you try to delay us by falling deliberately behind I shall give your woman to my men. It is many weeks since they have had a woman. Our camp is remote, and our life there too spartan to attract women like yours.’

Tamara, who had gone ice-cold when she heard his threat, refused to look at Zach, too mortified by the guerrilla’s assumption to meet his eyes. Why didn’t he tell the other man the truth? That they were little more than strangers.

She knew the answer several seconds later, when, under the pretext of helping her up a steep incline, Zach muttered softly to her, ‘I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t the time for petty conventions. If I told them the truth I’d be condemning you to gang-rape. As long as they think you’re my woman they won’t touch you. Even among mercenaries there’s a certain code of ethics, and besides, they probably think that if any of them tried to touch you I’d react in the same way that they would in similar circumstances—kill with my bare hands,’ he elucidated grimly, ‘and none of them would want to be the one I took with me before they cut me in half with those neat little Russian toys they’re carrying!’

CHAPTER THREE

DARKNESS fell with the swiftness of a cloak, enveloping the forest in a heavy blackness that threatened to stifle Tamara. Its only mercy was that it obliterated the sight of the men guarding them, their guns never moving a fraction from their threatening positions.

With the fall of night came the rain; not rain such as she was used to at home, but an actual curtain of water which started without warning, and ceased fifteen minutes later, leaving them with their clothes plastered to their backs, and the track beneath their feet slimy with thick mud.

Tamara lost count of the number of times she stumbled; she had long ago lost track of time. At first she had tried to keep her spirits up by telling herself that soon the others would be back at the hotel; the alarm would be raised and they would be rescued, but she knew she was living in a fantasy world. It would take the others at least four hours to get back to the hotel, by which time they could be anywhere. The jungle seemed to press down upon her, tautening her nerves until she was ready to scream and run, heedless of what might happen.

As though he sensed how close she was to losing control, Zach grasped her arm. An hour or so before she would have bitterly resented the familiarity, but now she was helplessly grateful for it and its reminder that she was not completely alone.

‘Faster!’

The gun was cold against her flesh and she shuddered, almost losing her footing as she tried to hurry. At her side Zach increased his pace, the grip of his fingers biting into her arm, and she remembered that he was recovering from an accident and that George had told her that he limped slightly. The pace the guerrillas were setting was gruelling; Tamara ached in every muscle, even a simple activity like breathing was excruciatingly painful, but at her side Zach seemed to be completely unaffected—he wasn’t even breathing faster—unlike her.

She stumbled again as the path started to rise, sprawling almost full length, despite Zach’s attempts to save her. Above her she heard the unkind laughter of their captors, and weak tears flooded her eyes.

‘Get up!’

It was Zach speaking, his voice iron-hard and inflexible, cutting through her self-pity.

‘I can’t go any further,’ she protested wearily.

‘Oh yes, you can,’ he replied grimly, ‘and will—unless you want to be left here to die. These guys aren’t playing games, and they don’t make allowances. Now get up. I value my life even if you don’t value yours.’

He had spoken so quietly that Tamara had had difficulty in hearing him, his voice deliberately flattened to prevent the words from carrying, and once again she remembered his profession.

‘It’s all right for you,’ she protested bitterly. ‘I suppose you’re used to this. You …’ Her breath was cut off savagely as she was hauled to her feet and held against him, while his mouth came down on hers, almost depriving her of breath. Again she heard the men laughing, but this time in a different way.

It was only seconds before Zach released her from what hadn’t been a kiss at all really, more a harsh punishment, her lips bruised from the abrasive pressure of his, her nostrils full of the musky male scent of him. Just before he stepped away from her, he gritted furiously, ‘You little fool! Any more cracks like that and we’ll both be dead, understand?’

Too late, she did, all too well, and as she walked on on shaky legs, couldn’t stop herself from visualising what might have happened had any of the guerrillas guessed what she was going to say. The information that Zach was connected with the British Army, in no matter how nebulous a fashion, was bound to provoke an unpleasant reaction.

Half blinded by tears, sick and shaking, Tamara forced herself to go on, not knowing who she hated the most, Zachary Fletcher or the guerrillas.

How long they walked along that narrow winding track which she felt sure must be circling the mountains instead of climbing them Tamara didn’t know; she only knew that the physical effort of simply putting one foot in front of the other was a greater ordeal than anything she had experienced in her life; there was no room for thought, or even fear, only the sheer physical necessity of keeping going.

The sporadic downpours of rain were something she had become accustomed to, like the soaking clothes plastered to her skin and the discomfort of walking in wet shoes. As they brushed past trees and through dense undergrowth, so thick in places that it almost obscured the trail, Tamara felt as though she had strayed into a horrendous nightmare of the sort where, during her childhood, she had been forced into headlong flight, pursued through the gnarled and tangled blackness of a forest by some nameless but terrifying oppressor.

A damp tangle of leaves brushed her skin and she felt a momentary sharp pain, but her brain was too weary, too involved in the process of simply walking, to register more than faint surprise. It was only later when yet another of the huge moths which seemed to infest the forest flew in front of her face and Tamara raised her arm that she realised what had happened, her whole body stiffening in primeval fear and horror so that Zach, who had been walking behind her, cannoned straight into her.

His ‘What’s the matter?’ turned into a small sound of understanding as his fingers circled her wrist with hard warmth and found the alien body of the huge leech which had attached itself to Tamara’s soft flesh.

Her scream was suppressed instinctively, her eyes closing in childish reaction to blot out the sight of the pulsing body of the leech as it clung to her arm.

‘Move!’

This time Zach ignored the harsh command, forcing the guerrilla leader to drop back to see why they had stopped.

‘Your flesh is tender and more to their liking than ours,’ he commented when he saw what had happened. ‘Here.’ He tossed Zach a box of matches and asked laconically, ‘Do you know what to do?’

‘I think so.’ Calmly Zach struck one of the matches and applied the flame to the body of the leech. Tamara watched in dazed horror as the bloodsucker shrivelled and dropped to the ground. Her body was trembling so much she could barely stand, shock waves of reaction flooding over her, drowning out everything but her revulsion for what had just happened.

‘Walk!’

The gun thrust into her side reminded her of her surroundings, and obediently she started to move slowly along the trail. They must have come miles. What time was it? She wasn’t wearing a watch and found it impossible to calculate the length of time that had passed since their capture.

The higher they climbed the less dense the vegetation became; although it was still thick enough to provide a thick scree to cover the steep slope they were ascending. Tamara could remember reading in her holiday brochure that because of the climate even the tops of the mountains were covered in heavy foliage, and the more time went on the more she came to realise the implausibility of them being rescued quickly.

At last the guerrilla leader called a halt, although Tamara could see nothing in their surroundings to distinguish it from anywhere else on their trek.

‘That way,’ he instructed, motioning them towards a sheer-sided mass of shiny black rock. ‘Hurry!’

It was only when they drew nearer that Tamara realised that what she had mistaken for a narrow cleft in the volcanic rock face was, in actual fact, the entrance to a much deeper fissure.

‘I discovered this place when I was a boy,’ the guerrilla leader told them, adding boastfully, ‘I doubt there are half a dozen people on St Stephen’s who know of its existence, and certainly no one who would be able to lead anyone here.’

Tamara could well believe him. She shrank back instinctively from the almost Stygian darkness that seemed to reach out greedily for her as they approached the fissure, and this time it was Zachary Fletcher who urged her on, his face unreadable and remote, as though his thoughts were elsewhere.

The fissure was so narrow that they could only walk through it in single file, and Tamara, who had always had a horror of being underground, felt her skin crawling with a terror remembered from a childhood visit to the caves at Inglewhite, many years before. But this time there were no understanding parents to hurry her out to the welcome fresh air, and she bit down so hard on her lower lip to prevent herself from protesting that she could taste the blood.

At last, when she felt she could not stand another second trapped in that narrow passage, it opened out into what was obviously a series of caves. The first one was empty, and despite the number of openings leading off from it, the guerrillas seemed to have no difficulty in selecting one of them, and herding their prisoners into it.

This time the tunnel was mercifully short and it opened into a large cavern, well lit by Calor gas lamps which threw eerily reflected shadows over the shiny rock face. Furniture of the type used on camping holidays—folding canvas chairs, a table, a cooker next to a container of gaz with a fridge on the other side of it was scattered incongruously inside the cavern, and as though he sensed her surprise, the guerrilla leader laughed at Tamara.

‘Even men such as we need our “home comforts”, but do not be deceived, we are quite capable of living off the jungle if need be.

‘Kennedy,’ he addressed one of the men over his shoulder, ‘make us some food, while I show our guests to their quarters. You will be very comfortable,’ he threw over his shoulder to Tamara. ‘I shall give you the honeymoon suite.’

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