Luke gets his chance to go backpacking around Europe, but a dangerous incident in unfriendly country means he has to make some difficult decisions.

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This story is copyright (c) 2009 Penny Lane. All rights reserved. The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended.

*****

"I think that's about all, Luke. You're looking pretty fit for a twenty-year-old, if I may say so."

"Thank you, Doctor Alice. I've been keeping up my exercises, and I haven't been doing anything silly. Unless you include dropping a heavy box on my foot."

"Ah, you barely noticed that. And you did call us when it happened, so that we could follow your tissue recovery. Well, shall we see you in another six months, then?"

"I wonder, could I put it off for a few more months? I had a call from a couple of school mates, they want me to join them on a backpacking holiday round Europe."

"I don't think that would be a problem, Luke. How long were they planning to go for?"

"Oh, around a year, but you know how elastic these things can get. Is that going to cause any problems, do you think? I'll tell them no if you don't think it's safe, or it's too long."

"You can go as far as I'm concerned. What does your father think?"

"He's okay with it if you are. I can call him every so often from wherever, and he can slip me a code word if you need me back, and I can slip him one if things get tricky. I think we've got all bases covered."

"You go, then, and enjoy yourself. Remember the precautions we told you. And, remember, in parts of Europe they may do things somewhat differently, so be alert if you have to go near anywhere medical. See if you can call us about three or four weeks before you next come here, so that we can prepare properly for your next check-up."

"I'll do that, Doctor Alice. Bye."

*****

"What do you mean, you have to go home? What's happened?"

"Sorry, Luke, it's my dad. They're not sure that it was a heart attack, but they've admitted him to hospital for observation. I need to be there to look after Mum."

"Oh. You'd better go, then. I'm sorry your big trip got cut short. Perhaps we should have another go when your dad's a bit better."

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. You've still got Nick and Petey, and Kurt's still travelling with us. Plenty enough to sample all the bars. You carry on and have yourself some fun."

"Don't worry, I will! Not sure if I can manage to drink your share as well, though. I'll give you a call in a week or so, see how your old man is doing."

*****

"Dad? Just thought I'd let you know I'm still alive."

"Where? No, I'm in Berlin. No, I'm in a hostel. Germany, remember? All clean and efficient. I'm with Nick and Kurt."

"I thought I'd told you about Kurt. We met him in Copenhagen. He's a German from the old east, he offered to come this far with us and be our guide for a while."

"Yeah. You know Andy? He had to cut short his trip because his dad had a suspected heart attack. He did call me once he'd got home, his dad's fine."

"Who? Petey? Yeah, that was unfortunate. We'd just got over the border on the train, and Petey discovered his wallet was gone. We had to sub his ride home between us all."

"Yeah, they pulled a couple of thousand out of his account before he could get the card stopped. Killed his Europe trip stone dead. I'm glad we used a different arrangement."

"Dunno yet. Kurt says I can come back with him to his parent's home in Dresden if I want. After that, haven't decided. Warsaw, maybe. Then Prague, Budapest, dunno, really. I think what I ultimately want to do is get down to Greece. If I can make Athens, I'll see how I feel then and maybe call it a day. How are things back home?"

"Oh, shit. That's bad news. I thought that investment was safe as houses."

"I know. How much did we lose?"

"How much? Can we cover that? Do you want me to come back right away?"

"Trust fund, yeah. If you insist. Tell you the truth, I think I'm learning a great deal on this trip. They call it 'The University of Life' and I understand why, now."

"No, nothing. A couple of scratches, that's all. Don't even think anyone noticed, but I was careful. Look, gotta go, I'll maybe call you in a couple of weeks, okay?"

"Yeah, same to you. Bye, Dad."

*****

"There are three of them." Jeff, the big Australian, lowered the binoculars.

"Three of them, three of us, sounds pretty good odds to me," said Todd, the equally large Texan.

"Not so easy seeing as it was the sunlight glinting off an AK that Luke spotted. All of them are carrying," responded Jeff. "We aren't."

"Is there a way round?" Luke asked. "They don't know we've seen them yet."

They surveyed the valley to either side of the road. The vegetation in this part of the Balkans was dense scrub, so it would have been possible, theoretically, to go off into the bushes and find a way round the ambush and regain the road further along.

"If we try scrambling through those rocks over there, we'd be exposed. The other side takes us down by the river, I don't know if that's any better, I don't think so," said Todd.

"Not to mention, we can see three, but there might be more of them hiding up nearby. We might do better with a frontal attack," added Jeff.

"Against AK-47's? What are you smoking?"

Jeff grinned and opened his pack. He rummaged around inside and pulled out an enormous knife, not unlike a Bowie knife.

"Jesus! How long have you had that in your pack?"

"He bought it in the Czech Republic as a souvenir," explained Luke. "Couple of times we had to camp out, he cut up the evening meal with it."

"What did you eat? Rhinoceros?"

"Deer. Was a good-sized buck, too. Fed us for four days."

"Can you use that thing?" asked Todd. "You some kind of 'Crocodile Dundee' or something?"

"No, just a city slicker with some outback experience. I can use this, yes. Haven't used a knife on a human before, though."

"So, what's the plan, then, guys? Walk down the road, all innocent, then?" asked Luke.

Jeff closed his pack and reslung it on his back, carefully sliding the knife between the webbing. "More or less," said Jeff. "Todd, Luke, this is what I want you to do."

*****

The three travellers had allowed themselves to be stopped by their captors and herded off the road into the brush. Jeff's grandparents had been from Yugoslavia, and he spoke a little Serbo-Croat, which was the only reason that Luke had travelled this way. Ten metres or so from the road, the three stopped and turned.

Their captors were three men of about the same age as themselves. They were all dressed in what at one time had obviously been uniforms of some army or other, now so worn and torn that it was impossible to tell which. They all had roughly shaved typical Slav faces. One had a bandolier across each shoulder, although half the clips were empty, the other two had army satchels slung diagonally across their chests. The clinking sounds from the bags indicated ammunition clips, and possibly grenades. They each had a Kalashnikov, although two had lowered theirs towards the ground before the group stopped.

The man in the centre spoke, and Jeff answered, haltingly. The man gestured with his gun, and Jeff shrugged.

"Guess they want our packs, mates. Better let them have them."

Todd unshouldered his pack, and as he did so, Jeff reached up to his left shoulder strap with his right hand, as if to shift it from his shoulder. Before anyone could blink, his knife had been pulled, thrown, and buried itself in the man's chest. There was a second of surprised look in the man's eyes, and then he sank to the ground, dead before he reached it.

The action distracted the man nearest Todd, and he threw his pack at him, catching him full in the chest. He fell over backwards, his gun spontaneously going off with a brief brrrap! that fortunately injured nobody. Todd jumped on him, and laid him out with a meaty fist to the jaw.

Luke had been slightly slower, and not able to get his pack off in time. So, when Jeff's knife was thrown, he leapt at the man nearest him, hoping that the weight of himself plus pack would be enough to knock the man down. He was halfway to his target when the man shot him.

He felt as if he had been punched in the chest. His pack bounced off his back, and then his determination carried him forward onto his opponent. He pulled the weapon from the surprised man's hand and used the butt to knock him out. Then he fell to his knees as the reaction caught up with him.

"You okay, Luke?" asked Jeff.

"No. I've been shot." Luke coughed, and spat up some blood. "Right chest. Shit." Then he fell over.

"Christ, no!" said Todd. "What do we do now?"

"We make sure of these fellows first," replied Jeff. "Then we can look at Luke in peace."

"Kill them?" said Todd, still shaken from the death of the first bandit.

"Nah, we'll tie 'em up and sling 'em in the bush. Come on."

By the time they had dragged the trussed bandits away into the bushes Luke had managed to get up into a sitting position, supported by the pack still strapped to his back. His whole face had turned grey. He had placed his right hand over the entry wound to reduce the bleeding, but he knew it wasn't as simple as that. Jeff squatted down in front of him, concern on his face.

"You're lucky that bastard didn't cut you in half," he remarked. "One bullet?"

"Think so," replied Luke, weakly. "Back's wet, so it went through. Have a look?"

Jeff gently pulled Luke's pack away and looked at the mess on his back. He grunted.

"Looks like the bullet went into the pack. That might have saved you, if the pack hadn't been there, you'd have had an enormous exit wound. How the hell are we going to do anything about this?"

"Get my groundsheet out of the pack and cut a couple of squares out of it, about two inches or so," Luke instructed. "Put one over each wound and bind them on. Tear up my clothes for bandages if you have to."

"Two inches?"

"Five centimetres, if you prefer."

"What good's that going to do? You're bleeding internally, for certain. Probably your lung, if nothing else. How are we supposed to save you way out here?"

"Takes a lot to kill off a Renshaw." Luke coughed and spat again. "Get me to the road, we might get lucky with a lift."

Todd looked at Jeff, and Jeff looked at Todd.

"I've seen my share of gunshot wounds," Todd said, "specially coming from my neck of the woods. You need an Emergency Room, now, not a lift in an ancient truck to the next village."

"Look," said Luke weakly, "if we don't get back to the road, we won't get anything, will we?"

Under protest, the two men cleaned up Luke's chest and wrapped him up as he suggested. They helped him to stand, and, supported by Jeff, he staggered back to the edge of the road. Todd carried Luke's pack, and once they had settled Luke with his back to a tree he unpacked it to survey the damage.

"Here's the slug," he said eventually. "It's taken out your socks, a water bottle, a map, and most of your groundsheet. A lot of the wet you felt was water from the bottle. Some of your papers are soaked, hope there was nothing important. Want me to keep the slug as a souvenir?"

"If you wish." Luke felt as though there was a rock embedded in the bottom of his right lung. I'll survive, he thought. If I can theoretically regrow an arm or a leg, I can survive this. All I have to do is not die first.

A truck came along the road about fifteen minutes later. Despite Todd and Jeff waving their arms and shouting, it didn't stop, but just kept on along the road, throwing up clouds of dust.

"Well, shit!" Todd exploded. "Ain't they just friendly round these parts!"

"Could have thought we were the bait for an ambush," said Jeff. "Can't say I blame them, really. We don't exactly look like respectable folks no more, do we?"

It was true, the three of them were covered with dust in the heat of the afternoon. They set to work making themselves more presentable, but the next truck paid them no more attention than the first.

"Just why are we out here, anyway?" Todd grumbled as the dust settled again.

"Because that misbegotten pile of scrap iron somebody laughingly called a truck broke down, that's what."

"They left us in a village. Why didn't we stay there, then? Oh, I remember, because it's only five K's to Piljoca. It's a nice day, why not walk? Now we know why we shouldn't have walked."

"Guys," Luke protested weakly. "Don't argue. We might have been held up if we'd got another lift instead of being on foot. What's done is done, anyway. We have to try and get a lift, somehow. We're all in this together."

"Yeah. It's just a pity we're almost exactly halfway between the two villages."

Just as they were beginning to despair, and Luke's bandage had started to ooze blood, a dust cloud appeared over the hill promising more than one vehicle. Shortly afterwards, a strange convoy began to pass them, consisting of a mixture of horse-drawn carts and very old flatbed trucks. These were piled high with packages baled in scraps of tarpaulin, and there were men, women and children of all ages perched anywhere they could find a place to sit. These passengers examined the three travellers attentively, but said not a word, even when Jeff and Todd shouted at them from close range.

At the tail end of the convoy was a small vehicle which looked like it had once been the Soviet version of a Jeep, with three men in it. The moment the driver spotted the travellers, he swung off the road just beyond them, and the occupants dismounted. They each carried Kalashnikovs.

"Shit. Frying pan to fire," muttered Jeff.

The driver of the Jeep called something to some women who were seated on the back of the last truck, and one waved an acknowledgement as the convoy disappeared into the distance. He then turned, and asked the travellers a question. Jeff replied, and a halting conversation was started. Jeff explained to Luke and Todd.

"You know I don't speak Serbo-Croat that well, don't you? Well, neither does this guy. I don't think he wants much to do with us, but I don't know why. I can't even get him to agree to tell someone in the next village that we're here, and that Luke's injured."

"Are they bandits?" asked Todd.

"Don't think so. They might be Gypsies, or Romany, or something like that. You know, every man's hand is against them, so they don't want contact with outsiders. Shit."

The driver shrugged his shoulders and started climbing back into the Jeep along with his men. Luke had an idea, but it was very much a last throw of the dice, and it broke just about every rule he had been made to understand just couldn't be broken.

"Tell him," he wheezed, painfully, "tell him I'm looking for the daughters."

"What?" asked Jeff, thrown by the unexpected request. "Tell him what?"

"Quickly! Before he goes! Tell him I'm looking for the daughters."

Jeff called out to the man as he was closing his door, and the door stopped halfway. The man got out and called back. Jeff answered him, gesturing to Luke.

"He wants to know what you mean. He asks if you are of the People, whatever that means. Luke, what the hell are you talking about? What's going on?"

Luke feebly waved an arm to dismiss the questions, and considered exactly how he was going to play this encounter. He had to be very careful. The man still carried his machine gun, and until he knew he was on safe ground, he had to answer the questions with great care.

"Tell him," he finally said, "Tell him that my mother was of the People."

Jeff looked at him as though he was mad, but relayed the information. The effect was immediate. The man called to his companions, and the three of them came closer to the travellers, still with their guns at the ready. The driver, who appeared to be the leader of the group, came up in front of Luke and squatted down. He spoke.

"He wants to see the wound," Jeff said to Luke. "I'm not sure I want to take that bandage off, it'll start you bleeding again."

"It's okay," said Luke. "It probably could do with a clean, by now." He coughed, and spat blood on the ground. The man's eyes widened.

With Todd helping, Jeff lifted Luke away from the tree, and they unwound the bandage. The man examined the entry and exit wounds carefully, and then looked at Luke with respect. He stood up, and called to his men. They immediately faced about, and began guarding the group from outside dangers. Todd looked at Jeff, and Jeff looked at Todd. The man spoke again.

"He wants Todd to go with one of his men, to show him where we dumped those bandits. I would go, but he wants me here to translate for Luke, if need be."

At the leader's urging, Jeff began cleaning Luke's wounds again with some of their spare water, but was told to leave the wound open for the moment. After a while, Todd and the other man reappeared from the brush. Todd's face was pale, he had the two satchels over his shoulder and was carrying one of the bandits' machine guns in each hand. The other man had the third gun in one hand, the bandoliers over his shoulder, and his own gun in his other hand. He muttered something to the leader, who nodded.

"He slit their throats," Todd said in a shaky voice. "While they were still tied up. Then he ransacked their bodies." His face turned green. "I thought Texans were bloodthirsty, but he seemed so matter-of-fact about it."

Jeff said, "It's good practice. Leave no enemy behind you. We should have taken the weapons, anyway, leaving them was stupid. The societies we live in have got too soft."

Todd lurched into the brush and was noisily sick. The man with the bandoliers had put down his finds beside those that Todd had been carrying and now squatted down beside the pile. He opened the satchels and emptied the contents onto the ground. The leader called his other man over and gave him some instructions, and the man went off into the bush, while the leader took over as sentry.

The squatting man stripped the remaining rounds from the bandoliers and slung the empty belts into the trees, then examined all the magazines either from the satchel or in the weapons. After ensuring all the magazines were full, he divided the remaining rounds into equal piles on the ground, putting one pile into each satchel with some of the magazines. A further pile went into his pockets, a fourth was given to his leader.

The other man came back from his errand holding a bunch of reeds he'd obviously cut from the riverbank. Taking one of the reeds, he approached Luke. He bent down, and, putting it to his mouth began sucking the blood from Luke's chest wound and expelling it onto the ground. The other man took a reed and joined his mate at Luke's side. As they sucked, Luke gradually began to feel the weight on his lung lessen. Finally, the leader decided that they had done enough, and he asked Jeff a question, which was relayed to Luke.

"Do you think you're well enough to travel, he asks. He'll take us to a point where the People can be contacted."

Luke considered for a while. He didn't want to get his friends involved any more than was necessary, what they knew already could be fatal.

"Guys," he said, "I'm going to ask you a big favour. I need to do this on my own." There was an immediate protest. "No, listen. What's going on is very dangerous, and I've let you find out too much already. Promise me you'll never, ever, mention what happened today to anyone else, ever."

"What are you talking about, Luke? We've said nothing, heard nothing. We can't leave you go off on your own, not in that condition." Jeff said.

"It could mean your lives," Luke said. "all you need to know is that these men here will take me to a village nearby where I can get help for my wounds. I want you to carry on to Piljoca which is where we were going anyway, and wait for me there for a week. If I haven't appeared then, carry on travelling. I'll be okay. Just don't tell anyone what happened here, or where I've gone. I'll get in touch with you when I can, using the Internet, or my phone if I can. Now, will you both promise to keep your mouths shut?"

After some guarded explanation, Todd and Jeff both promised, and the leader told of their decision. They were rewarded with the presentation of a Kalashnikov each, with a satchel full of ammunition. The third gun was reserved for Luke along with four magazines.

"Now firearms I can deal with," said Todd with satisfaction, hefting his gun. "I've never used one of these, but a cousin brought one back from Desert Storm, so I'm sort-of familiar with them." He examined the weapon with an expert eye in a way that did not go unnoticed by the three men.

"You'll have to give me a quick run-through," said Jeff. "I've used a hunting rifle, out on the uncle's farm, but mostly I've used shotguns."

"No problem," said Todd. "This lever is the safety, up is safe, then it's single-shot, and down here is pray-and-spray. They're not designed to be accurate any distance. Just let them get close enough, and remember the other guy probably can't shoot straight either."

The leader got into the Jeep with Todd and Jeff and their packs, and Luke said goodbye to them before they drove off in the direction of the convoy. The two remaining men carefully but expertly rewound the dressings around Luke's chest before standing guard over him, protecting him where he half-sat under the edge of the brush. Presently the Jeep came back with only the leader in it. They carefully wedged Luke in the back, with his pack, and the three men squeezed into the front. Then, weapons at the ready, they set off.

Luke had expected them to travel just a few kilometres, but he guessed that they had done more than thirty before the Jeep turned off the minor road they had been on and began to travel along a track that led into some woods. The injuries plus the travelling had worn him down, and he was only partly aware of what was going on. One of the men had offered him a water bottle every so often, but he was beginning to feel hungry.

Eventually, they reached a clearing where several tracks met and stopped. Luke was carefully lifted out and sat against a tree at the side of the clearing. The men began gathering wood, and soon had a small fire going. One of the men walked off and returned shortly with a double handful of green material gathered from the verge, which was fed onto the fire until it smoked white. Once the smoke had been going for a minute or two, the leader unslung his gun, made sure it was set to single shot, and fired into the sky.

Meanwhile the other man pulled a battered loaf out of a pouch and began offering torn-off chunks to Luke. He managed to get some of this down accompanied by water, but his strength was fading. The light was fading, too, by the time another vehicle could be heard approaching through the woods. When it arrived, it turned out to be another ersatz Jeep, with two men in it, both armed as usual with Kalashnikovs. They stopped at the edge of the clearing, and the driver called.

The driver of his Jeep bowed deeply, and the two men approached. A conversation began, punctuated by gestures in Luke's direction. They were not speaking Serbo-Croat, or any language Luke had ever heard before. The driver of the other vehicle squatted down in front of Luke, and asked the driver of Luke's Jeep about his injury, which the other described in great detail and with much hand-waving. Finally, the man nodded, the two drivers shook hands, and his escort piled into their Jeep and drove off back the way they came.

Luke was carried by one of the men over to the second Jeep and settled into the back, together with his pack and his newly-acquired weapon. The Jeep set off into the gathering darkness, but Luke's conciousness had faded long before the sun actually set.