The Charioteer (14 page)

“Yes,” said Laurie. “I know.” He felt sure the bootmaker’s man had meant well.

Out in the corridor he clumped stiffly up and down: it felt heavy and seemed to shift the weight to a different muscle which was unused to it; but it was pleasant to walk again without a sideways lurch. It was going to be a bit tiring at first, but this was an adaptation he would have every day of a lifetime to make. In a few years it would be like spectacles to a myope, he would only notice its absence. He walked on, toward the ward, getting ready the bit of clowning which would ease him over his entrance. One might as well learn to laugh it off, because this was not transitional like the crutch or the stick. This, henceforward, was Laurie Odell.

He walked in, ostentatiously not using the stick, twirling it like a drum major.

For the day of this event he had a firm date with Reg of several weeks’ standing. He could in fact have applied for a cinema pass before, but the airplane splint had made Reg as awkward in crowds as an antlered stag, and Laurie had waited with little enough impatience; he and Andrew took it for granted now that they would meet every evening unless something prevented it.

The bus got them into town just at opening time, a party of six. Reg and Laurie stood drinks, in honor of their emancipation. Then a civilian, who was several drinks ahead, insisted on standing pints all round, and on the strength of it decided to make a speech. He had a fine carrying voice, which reached to every corner of the bar.

“What do our lads ask?” he demanded, repeating it several times, and then pausing to savor the respectful silence. “Not a medal. Lads like these two here”—he made a large expanded gesture at Laurie and Reg—“they don’t ask to go up to Bucknam Palace and shake King George by the hand. They don’t want no disabled badge to wear, they don’t need it. Anyone only got to look at these two lads, he can see for himself. And what do they ask, that’s what I ask you? What do they ask? Only a square deal, a square deal for rich and poor alike. …”

He turned to harangue the crowd on his other side. Laurie pulled at Reg’s sleeve. Reg gave a swift repining glance at the froth halfway up his mug, and nodded. They slipped out. The pale street of sky above the blacked-out shops reflected a dim glimmer on the oily wet street below.

“Got away before the collection,” Reg said.

“That’s right.”

“Funny, how some chap’ll get stinking in a pub, and if he carries on in that certain voice, no one don’t listen no more than if he was talking Dutch.”

“I suppose not.”

“Know how I look at it, Spud? Got to get used to people. Sometime we all got to. Mean to say, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Take some other chap, say. Got trouble at home, maybe. Silly muggers sticking their oar in, only making it worse. See what I mean?”

“Yes, I know, Reg.”

“Well, then. What I mean, they say put yourself in the other chap’s place. But what I reckon, it’s more of a knack, see, and not many people got it. Now you got it, Spud. You got it more than anyone I know. So stands to reason, you expect it back, that’s human nature. Well, you’re out of luck, Spud, that’s all. That’s life and you got to face it, may as well face it first as last. See what I mean?”

“Ah, cut it out, Reg, it was just for laughs. Let’s drop in somewhere and have the other half.”

“Over the road’s a nice one. Quiet.”

As they stepped onto the opposite curb, a cloud of warm scent steamed over them, mixed with the smell of cheap fur.

“Hiya, fellers.” The voice was fake Hollywood, spread thinly over urban Wessex. “Where’s the big hurry? Remember us?”

“Ah?” said Reg noncommittally. He peered into the gloom. Laurie felt a swift nudge and realized that the pause had been for appraisal rather than identification. He knew that Reg’s marriage vow was, on his side, intact; what this meant to his conscience was unknown, but Laurie had a good idea of what it meant to his self-respect, and as a talking-point. All this Reg was prepared to offer up in the cause of taking Laurie out of himself. He suspected that the sacrifice wasn’t looking to Reg absolutely intolerable. Embarrassment robbed him momentarily of all presence of mind.

“You guys still fond of dancing?” the girl said.

Reg took a step backward. “Pardon me,” he said formally. “You’re making a mistake, Miss. Me and my friend haven’t had the pleasure. Got to be going now. Good night.”

“Ooh! La-di-dah!” The second girl emerged from the shadows. She was very young, seventeen at most. “Don’t be soppy. No need to dance for a good time.” She giggled.

It wasn’t fair, Laurie thought reluctantly, to leave it all to Reg. “Sorry, girls,” he said. “We’re on our way to a date.”

At the sound of his voice the first girl diverted, suddenly, her attention from Reg to him. He was enabled to see in the gloom the pancake make-up on her bad skin, and the large generous mouth painted over the little mean one. Their eyes met. Then she swung around on her three-inch heel.

“Oh, come on, Doreen, what you waiting for? Sorry, boys, I’m sure.
You’re
all right, so long as you got each other.” She tittered shrilly. “Bye-bye, both. Enjoy yourselves.”

Slowly, as he steadied his mind, Laurie became aware that Reg was swearing. He was making a speech to the vanishing girls on the lines of “state the alternative preferred, with reasons for your choice.”

“Steady on, Reg,” he said. He managed to keep his voice even, but knew he could not look at Reg even in the blackout, so didn’t try.

“Lost me temper.” Reg fell into step beside him. He, too, looked ahead. “Dirty-minded little cats. Make you sick. Well, we missed a lovely evening with those little bits of sunshine.
And
how. Lucky you made up your mind quick, Spud. I reckon you’re a better picker than what I am.”

The film of the evening was all singing, all dancing, and in Technicolor; so Reg had taken for granted from the first that there was no other possible film to see. The rest of the hospital contingent was all there too. Laurie was glad to get inside; in the queue his leg suddenly started to ache very badly. It must be the boot, because the pain was in a different place. He supposed it would settle down in a few days. Meanwhile he tried to forget it by attending to the film. The star was young, and highly groomed to resemble in face, figure, and range of expression a pin-up in
Esquire.
Laurie could feel the men around him soaking her up through the pores. She was the perennial
eidolon,
the clean pampered harlot, the upper-class luxury article, reduced in some magic bargain-basement to a price within each man’s means. The music had occasional moments of narcotic charm; it was relaxing, when not too loud, like a warm bath with colored bath-salts. Laurie’s mind withdrew, after a time, to a middle distance behind his eyes, where he thought about Andrew. He solved no problems, nor attempted it; he made no plans. He was twenty-three: he received infinite consolation and joy merely from the contemplation of Andrew’s being.

They were about halfway back when the first of the sirens went. First came a single deep moan; then the mounting, ragged chorus of inhuman howls and wails. The bus was old and noisy, and one could not hear whether planes were about; the usual lugubrious voice announced that one was following them home. Shortly after this, when they were nearly there, a new sound began: the tinny warble of the Imminent Danger siren, which always sounded different after dark.

Laurie shoved at the bus with his will, urging it on. Every minute he waited to see fire spring up beyond the hedges: he imagined the bus arriving to find a rescue squad at work, a covered stretcher passing. “All the men okay. Only one casualty. The night orderly, Raynes. …” They reached the gates without incident, two or three minutes later.

As they walked up the covered way, shrapnel rattled like flung stones on the iron roof above them. Something emerged from the background of night noises, a kind of throbbing in the air, a sensation more than a sound at first, then the rhythmic bumbling of a bomber’s engines, getting nearer. A small isolated battery, not far off, began to cough and bark; a searchlight fumbled about among the stars, fingering patches of cloud and dropping them and fidgeting off again.

A couple of nurses whom he knew were on the bus; though he was good for little more than moral support, it seemed kind to escort them back to their hut. As he returned toward the ward he saw that two more searchlights were flicking around. The plane was buzzing now like a fly caught on a windowpane; the guns kept swatting at it. A big lump of shrapnel came rattling and scraping down a nearby roof, and fell just beyond him; he stepped back under cover again. Suddenly a tiny silver cross glittered in one of the beams overhead. At once all the others swooped over and closed in. The pursued mote made for another bit of cloud, like a bird for a bush; they lost it again, but the guns banged more eagerly. It was then, as he looked down for a moment to rest the back of his neck, that he saw Andrew standing out in the grass, unsheltered, looking up.

“Hello, there,” Laurie said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Hello,” said Andrew. He walked toward Laurie, but didn’t come under the roof. Laurie limped angrily over the rough grass toward him.

“For the Lord’s sake, come in out of there.”

“I will in a minute. I couldn’t see properly.” Laurie could see his face now. He was smiling. His fair hair, in the glimmer of moonlight, had a faint pale shine. He glowed dimly like a memory or a ghost.

Of all that Laurie felt there was nothing he could release but anger. He gripped the handle of his stick and pushed it viciously into the earth. “You bloody fool. Do you want a chunk of shrapnel in your brain? If you have one? Christ, are you deaf, you can hear it now.”

Andrew said, good-humoredly, “You go on to bed, or Nurse Sims’ll be after you. I’ll come in a minute and tuck you up.” There was something different about him, elated and defiant, like a schoolboy breaking bounds.

In a controlled voice Laurie said, “Don’t they issue you with tin hats?”

“There’s a couple hanging up somewhere. Don’t they you?”

“Why should they? We’ve got sense enough to take cover.”

“What are you doing messing about here, then?” said Andrew gaily.

The guns bickered again, but the shrapnel went somewhere else. Then they heard the bomber coming back. It sounded lower, and one of the engines was cutting, Laurie thought.

“That plane’s been hit,” he said. “Listen to it. It’s just about due to unload everything it’s got left. Are you half-witted or what?”

“I don’t suppose that roof would keep out much of a bomb, do you?”

The faint light from the sky caught the outlines of his face, his loose, thin boyish shoulders. He looked intolerably vulnerable and unsecured. Laurie’s tension suddenly snapped. “Oh, don’t be so bloody pleased with yourself. If you’d ever been under fire you wouldn’t think it so funny.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said. He walked past Laurie onto the covered way. Laurie swung around on his stick and limped after him. “Good night,” said Andrew. He began to walk off.

“Come back,” said Laurie breathlessly. He reached out, almost losing his balance, and gripped Andrew’s shoulder. They faced each other in the almost black shadow beside the deserted office hut.

“For God’s sake, Andrew. What do you take me for? You know damn well I didn’t mean it like that.”

“The more fool you,” said Andrew in a flat strained voice. “You ought to have.”

“I was in a hurry to get in, that’s all. We’re a bit of a jittery lot, you know.”

Andrew looked around at him. “You can afford that. I shouldn’t bother.”

“Oh, hell. Look here—”

A bright moving illumination had fallen on the huts, around each tuft of grass wheeled a black swinging shadow. Andrew ran out, and paused; Laurie checked a stumble with a hand on his shoulder. They looked up. A streaming torch was crossing the sky above them, in a steep path like a comet’s. It passed out of sight beyond the roofs. There was an instant when the light went out in perfect stillness; the ground under their feet shook with a heavy jar; last came the detonation. The plane must have had most of its bomb-load still on board.

Laurie let go of Andrew and said, “Well, that’s that.” Doors began to open in the wards; nurses and patients peered out. Now, finding nothing (the guns had stopped, the searchlights dispersed), they all went in again. “Not bad,” said Laurie, “for a little popgun like that.”

Andrew didn’t reply for a moment or two. Then he said, “How many men do those bombers carry?”

“I don’t know. I suppose six or eight.” There was silence again. This division was a reminder to him of all separation. Blindly he resisted it. “Hell, that was self-defense if anything could be. If they hadn’t been stopped, they might have wiped out a block of working-men’s flats by now, or the children’s ward at the City Hospital. Wouldn’t you have been sorrier about that?”

Andrew turned around and looked at him, mutely and painfully, searching for words. At last he said, “They were dying up there. If they had innocent blood on their hands it was worse for them to die. I ought to have—I was just thinking about myself.”

“It’s a filthy business,” said Laurie awkwardly. “I don’t say it isn’t.”

“You showed me up to myself,” said Andrew slowly. “You’ve got the decency of your own convictions. And you’ve the courage of your convictions, too.”

“Oh, come off it, relax. So’ve you, we all know that.”

“No,” said Andrew looking away. “I haven’t the courage of mine, not always. I thought so. But I didn’t know then what it meant.”

“Andrew. Andrew, look here. If you only knew what I really—”

There was the sound of a door opening. “Odell! Are you out there? Odell!”

“Coming, Nurse. Shan’t be a minute. If there’s anyone who ought to be—”

“Do come along at once, Odell,
please.
I’m trying to get the ward settled.”

“Sorry, Nurse, I’m on my way. Look, Andrew my dear—”

“I must go in too. I shouldn’t be here. I’ll walk with you.”

“She’s only fussing; no one’ll settle till the All Clear. Silly bitch. All this is my fault, you’d have been all right on your own.”