The Looking Glass War (27 page)

‘In the outfit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Four years.’

‘How old were you then?’

‘Twenty-eight. It’s the youngest they take you.’

‘You told me you were thirty-four.’

‘They’re waiting for us,’ Avery said.

In the hall they had the rucksack and the suitcase, green canvas with leather corners. He tried the rucksack on, adjusting the straps until it sat high on his back, like a German schoolboy’s satchel. He lifted the suitcase and felt the weight of the two things together.

‘Not too bad,’ he muttered.

‘It’s the minimum,’ Leclerc said. They had begun to whisper, though no one could hear. One by one they got into the car.

A hurried handshake and he walked away towards the hill. There were no fine words; not even from Leclerc. It was as if they had all taken leave of Leiser long ago. The last they saw of him was the rucksack gently bobbing as he disappeared into the darkness. There had always been a rhythm about the way he walked.

Leiser lay in the bracken on the spur of the hill, stared at the luminous dial of his watch. Ten minutes to wait. The key chain was swinging from his belt. He put the keys back in his pocket, and as he drew his hand away he felt the links slip between his thumb and finger like the beads of a rosary. For a moment he let them linger there; there was comfort in their touch; they were where his childhood was. St Christopher and all his angels, please preserve us from road accidents.

Ahead of him the ground descended sharply, then evened out. He had seen it; he knew. But now, as he looked down, he could make out nothing in the darkness below him. Suppose it were marshland down there? There had been rain; the water had drained into the valley. He saw himself struggling through mud to his waist, carrying the suitcase above his head, the bullets splashing round him.

He tried to discern the tower on the opposite hill, but if it was there it was lost against the blackness of the trees.

Seven minutes. Don’t worry about the noise, they said, the wind will carry it south. They’ll hear nothing in a wind like this. Run beside the path, on the south side, that means to the right, keep on the new trail through the bracken, it’s narrow but clear. If you meet anyone, use your knife, but for the love of Heaven don’t go near the path.

His rucksack was heavy. Too heavy. So was the case. He’d quarrelled about it with Jack. He didn’t care for Jack. ‘Better be on the safe side, Fred,’ Jack had explained. ‘These little sets are sensitive as virgins: all right for fifty miles, dead as mutton on sixty. Better to have the margin, Fred, then we know where we are. They’re experts, real experts where this one comes from.’

One minute to go. They’d set his watch by Avery’s clock.

He was frightened. Suddenly he couldn’t keep his mind from it any more. Perhaps he was too old, too tired, perhaps he’d done enough. Perhaps the training had worn him out. He felt his heart pounding in his chest. His body wouldn’t stand any more; he hadn’t the strength. He lay there, talking to Haldane: Christ, Captain, can’t you see I’m past it? The old body’s cracking up. That’s what he’d tell them; he would stay there when the minute hand came up, he would stay there too heavy to move. ‘It’s my heart, it’s packed in,’ he’d tell them. ‘I’ve had a heart attack, skipper, didn’t tell you about my dickie heart, did I? It just came over me as I lay here in the bracken.’

He stood up. Let the dog see the rabbit.

Run down the hill, they’d said; in this wind they won’t hear a thing; run down the hill, because that’s where they may spot you, they’ll be looking at that hillside hoping for a silhouette. Run fast through the moving bracken, keep low and you’ll be safe. When you reach level ground, lie up and get your breath back, then begin the crawl.

He was running like a madman. He tripped and the rucksack brought him down, he felt his knee against his chin and the pain as he bit his tongue, then he was up again and the suitcase swung him round. He half fell into the path and waited for the flash of a bursting mine. He was running down the slope, the ground gave way beneath his heels, the suitcase rattling like an old car. Why wouldn’t they let him take the gun? The pain rose in his chest like fire, spreading under the bone, burning the lungs: he counted each step, he could feel the thump of each footfall and the slowing drag of the case and rucksack. Avery had lied. Lied all the way. Better watch that cough, Captain; better see a doctor, it’s like barbed wire in your guts. The ground levelled out; he fell again and lay still, panting like an animal, feeling nothing but fear and the sweat that drenched his woollen shirt.

He pressed his face to the ground. Arching his body, he slid his hand beneath his belly and tightened the belt of his rucksack.

He began crawling up the hill, dragging himself forward with his elbows and his hands, pushing the suitcase in front of him, conscious all the time of the hump on his back rising above the undergrowth. The water was seeping through his clothes; soon it ran freely over his thighs and knees. The stink of leaf mould filled his nostrils; twigs tugged at his hair. It was as if all nature conspired to hold him back. He looked up the slope and caught sight of the observation tower against the line of black trees on the horizon. There was no light on the tower.

He lay still. It was too far: he could never crawl so far. It was quarter to three by his watch. The relief guard would be coming from the north. He unbuckled his rucksack, stood up, holding it under his arm like a child. Taking the suitcase in his other hand he began walking cautiously up the rise, keeping the trodden path to his left, his eyes fixed upon the skeleton outline of the tower. Suddenly it rose before him like the dark bones of a monster.

The wind clattered over the brow of the hill. From directly above him he could hear the slats of old timber banging, and the long creak of a casement. It was not a single apron but double; when he pulled, it came away from the staves. He stepped across, reattached the wire and stared into the forest ahead. He felt even in that moment of unspeakable terror while the sweat blinded him and the throbbing of his temples drowned the rustling of the wind, a full, confiding gratitude towards Avery and Haldane, as if he knew they had deceived him for his own good.

Then he saw the sentry, like the silhouette in the range, not ten yards from him, back turned, standing on the old path, his rifle slung over his shoulder, his bulky body swaying from left to right as he stamped his feet on the sodden ground to keep them from freezing. Leiser could smell tobacco – it was past him in a second – and coffee warm like a blanket. He put down the rucksack and suitcase and moved instinctively towards him; he might have been in the gymnasium at Headington. He felt the haft sharp in his hand, cross-hatched to prevent slip. The sentry was quite a young boy under his greatcoat; Leiser was surprised how young. He killed him hurriedly, one blow, as a fleeing man might shoot into a crowd; shortly; not to destroy but to preserve; impatiently, for he had to get along; indifferently because it was a fixture.

‘Can you see anything?’ Haldane repeated.

‘No.’ Avery handed him the glasses. ‘He just went into the dark.’

‘Can you see a light from the watch-tower? They’d shine a light if they heard him.’

‘No, I was looking for Leiser,’ Avery answered.

‘You should have called him Mayfly,’ Leclerc objected from behind. ‘Johnson knows his name now.’

‘I’ll forget it, sir.’

‘He’s over, anyway,’ Leclerc said and walked back to the car.

They drove home in silence.

As they entered the house Avery felt a friendly touch upon his shoulder and turned, expecting to see Johnson; instead he found himself looking into the hollow face of Haldane, but so altered, so manifestly at peace, that it seemed to possess the youthful calm of a man who has survived a long illness; the last pain had gone out of him.

‘I am not given to eulogies,’ Haldane said.

‘Do you think he’s safely over?’

‘You did well.’ He was smiling.

‘We’d have heard, wouldn’t we? Heard the shots or seen the lights?’

‘He’s out of our care. Well done.’ He yawned. ‘I propose we go early to bed. There is nothing more for us to do. Until tomorrow night, of course.’ At the door he stopped, and without turning his head he remarked, ‘You know, it doesn’t seem real. In the war, there was no question. They went or they refused. Why did he go, Avery? Jane Austen said money or love, those were the only two things in the world. Leiser didn’t go for money.’

‘You said one could never know. You said so the night he telephoned.’

‘He told me it was hate. Hatred for the Germans; and I didn’t believe him.’

‘He went anyway. I thought that was all that mattered to you, you said you didn’t trust motive.’

‘He wouldn’t do it for hatred, we know that. What is he, then? We never knew him, did we? He’s near the mark, you know; he’s on his deathbed. What does he think of? If he dies now, tonight, what will be in his mind?’

‘You shouldn’t speak like that.’

‘Ah.’ At last he turned and looked at Avery and the peace had not left his face. ‘When we met him he was a man without love. Do you know what love is? I’ll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray. We ourselves live without it in our profession. We don’t force people to do things for us. We let them discover love. And, of course, Leiser did, didn’t he? He married us for money, so to speak, and left us for love. He took his second vow. I wonder when.’

Avery said quickly, ‘What do you mean, for money?’

‘I mean whatever we gave to him. Love is what he gave to us. I see you have his watch, incidentally.’

‘I’m keeping it for him.’

‘Ah. Goodnight. Or good morning, I suppose.’ A little laugh. ‘How quickly one loses one’s sense of time.’ Then he commented, as if to himself: ‘And the Circus helped us all the way. It’s most strange. I wonder why.’

Very carefully Leiser rinsed the knife. The knife was dirty and must be washed. In the boathouse, he ate the food and drank the brandy in the flask. ‘After that,’ Haldane had said, ‘you live off the land; you can’t run around with tinned meat and French brandy.’ He opened the door and stepped outside to wash his hands and face in the lake.

The water was quite still in the darkness. Its unruffled surface was like a perfect skin shrouded with floating veils of grey mist. He could see the reeds along the bank; the wind, subdued by the approach of dawn, touched them as it moved across the water. Beyond the lake hung the shadow of low hills. He felt rested and at peace. Until the memory of the boy passed over him like a shudder.

He threw the empty meat can and the brandy bottle far out, and as they hit the water a heron rose languidly from the reeds. Stooping, he picked up a stone and sent it skimming across the lake. He heard it bounce three times before it sank. He threw another but he couldn’t beat three. Returning to the hut he fetched his rucksack and suitcase. His right arm was aching painfully, it must have been from the weight of the case. From somewhere came the bellow of cattle.

He began walking east, along the track which skirted the lake. He wanted to get as far as he could before morning came.

He must have walked through half a dozen villages. Each was empty of life, quieter than the open road because they gave a moment’s shelter from the rising wind. There were no signposts and no new buildings, it suddenly occurred to him. That was where the peace came from, it was the peace of no innovation – it might have been fifty years ago, a hundred. There were no street lights, no gaudy signs on the pubs or shops. It was the darkness of indifference, and it comforted him. He walked into it like a tired man breasting the sea; it cooled and revived him like the wind; until he remembered the boy. He passed a farmhouse. A long drive led to it from the road. He stopped. Half-way up the drive stood a motorbike, an old mackintosh thrown over the saddle. There was no one in sight.

The oven smoked gently.

‘When did you say his first schedule was?’ Avery asked. He had asked already.

‘Johnson said twenty-two twenty. We start scanning an hour before.’

‘I thought he was on a fixed frequency,’ Leclerc muttered, but without much interest.

‘He may start with the wrong crystal. It’s the kind of thing that happens under strain. It’s safest for base to scan with so many crystals.’

‘He must be on the road by now.’

‘Where’s Haldane?’

‘Asleep.’

‘How can anyone sleep at a time like this?’

‘It’ll be daylight soon.’

‘Can’t you do something about that fire?’ Leclerc asked. ‘It shouldn’t smoke like that, I’m sure.’ He shook his head, suddenly, as if shaking off water and said, ‘John, there’s a most interesting report from Fielden. Troop movements in Budapest. Perhaps when you get back to London …’ He lost the thread of his sentence and frowned.

‘You mentioned it,’ Avery said softly.

‘Yes, well, you must take a look at it.’

‘I’d like to. It sounds very interesting.’

‘It does, doesn’t it?’

‘Very.’

‘You know,’ he said – he seemed to be reminiscing – ‘they
still
won’t give that wretched woman her pension.’

He sat very straight on the motorbike, elbows in as if he were at table. It made a terrible noise; it seemed to fill the dawn with sound, echoing across the frosted fields and stirring the roosting poultry. The mackintosh had leather pieces on the shoulders; as he bounced along the unmade road its skirts fluttered behind, rattling against the spokes of the rear wheel. Daylight came.

Soon he would have to eat. He couldn’t understand why he was so hungry. Perhaps it was the exercise. Yes, it must be the exercise. He would eat, but not in a town, not yet. Not in a café where strangers came. Not in a café where the boy had been.

He drove on. His hunger taunted him. He could think of nothing else. His hand held down the throttle and drove his ravening body forward. He turned on to a farm track and stopped.

The house was old, falling with neglect; the drive overgrown with grass, pitted with cart tracks. The fences were broken. There was a terraced garden once partly under plough, now left as if it were beyond all use.