The Sons of Adam (73 page)

‘It’s terribly important!’ she cried. ‘It’s Alan Montague in there, from the Petroleum Board. You’ve got to –’

But even as she spoke, the flames inside the front of the car grew higher. The American’s face was lit up in red, with sudden eerie flashes where paintwork from the bonnet flared up in green and purple. The American wore a look of horror, violently disturbed by something Lottie had said.

She turned to the car, about to beg for help again, but the sight closed her mouth. The flame was turning into a blaze. It would be insanity to enter the car now. Instinctively, Lottie drew away.

She glanced at the American, to see what he was doing. And she saw it. He was doing what anyone would do. He was running, fast. Not towards the car, but away from it.

All she could think was:
that man is leaving my husband to die.

Tom ran.

Not towards the car, but away from it, knowing that Alan Montague was inside.

He ran
because
Alan was inside.

He ran to a little stream that trickled under the road some thirty yards down the hill. He tore off his coat and shirt and doused them in the water.

And then he ran again –
really
ran – ran like the wind uphill to the car. Using a fallen roadside log, he smashed away at the front of the bonnet, until it cannoned upwards, releasing a torrent of flame and burning air. Tom stood back as the rush of flame died back, then flung his sodden clothes on the engine. The flames sputtered but didn’t die.

Tom saw the British woman – Alan’s wife! – do as he had been doing, running down to the stream with her coat. Tom found a couple of blankets in the back of the Austin. He took the wet clothes from Mrs Montague and gave her the blankets. He approached the engine and arranged the sodden coat.

The flames were still dangerously active. There was plenty of petrol in the tank. Tom knew, and Lottie knew, that they were playing a game of chance with a loaded bomb. Tom gave Lottie quick two-word instructions that she obeyed instantly. They both worked until they had done as much as they could.

Tom piled sopping wet clothes over the engine. Here and there, little flares of scarlet reminded them that the game of chance was still being played out. They still didn’t know if the man inside the car was alive or dead.

‘Come away,’ said Lottie.

Tom shook his head. His hand rested on the front wing of the Bentley, as though to claim the privilege of death if the car exploded.

‘Come away,’ said Lottie again, but when Tom shook his head a second time, she joined him and the two of them watched together. The flames flickered, surged, flickered again, then died.

‘You know who I am?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘But whoever you are –’

‘I’m Tom. Tom Calloway. I’m –’

‘Ah!’ She gaped open-mouthed at the news. ‘Then, yes, I know who you are.’

They looked at each other and Tom grinned. For some reason, in the madness of the moment, the grin seemed perfectly natural, as though the two of them had just shared some colossal joke. They were both soaked, half-clothed, oil-stained and muddy. Lottie thought – how odd the things one thinks! – how handsome Calloway looked, nevertheless: his brilliant smile, his reckless daring.

Then Tom went to work on the car. He threw himself at it, wrenching away the tangled coachwork, brushing aside the shattered glass.

‘Alan!’ he shouted. ‘Are you there? Alan! Alan!’

Lottie joined in: ‘Alan? My love? Alan? Are you there?’

There was no answer. Lottie began to cry.

‘Alan! Alan! It’s me, it’s Tom.’

Silence. Just the dripping of water from the sodden engine.

And then a voice from inside the car, alive but weak.

‘Bloody Americans. Always shouting.’

‘Alan!’

‘Tom!’

As Tom’s eyes adjusted to the interior of the car, he could see a pale face crushed sideways against the steering wheel. It was a moment like no other in his life. All the hatred, all the bitterness, all the fury of their long rivalry was swallowed up and made meaningless. The only thing that mattered now was to make Alan safe.

‘Don’t die on me now, brother.’

‘I wasn’t planning to.’

Tom fought to get to Alan. Alan’s legs were crushed by the engine casing. The rest of him appeared to be bloody and bruised but otherwise OK. But the legs were bleeding.

Bleeding heavily.

Every time Tom withdrew his hands from the wreckage they came out covered in blood. Lottie tore off her scarf and handed it to Tom, who used it as a tourniquet to tie over the one leg he could reach. Alan managed to get some of the cloth and jam it up against his other thigh in an effort to stanch the bleeding. The two men worked perfectly together, the way they had always done as kids.

Lottie watched them, Tom especially. It was strange to be meeting this man about whom she had heard so much. Strange and terrible to be meeting him under such circumstances. Finally they had done the best they could.

There are people coming,’ said Tom. ‘We’ll cut you out of there before long.’

‘Yes … Is Lottie there?’

‘Here.’

‘Not too badly hurt?’

‘Not a scratch.’

Lottie was at the other window of the car. The side door was smashed in, so that Lottie could reach across and put her hand to her husband’s cheek. Alan caught her hand and held it.

‘
PLUTO
?’ he asked. ‘Everything all right?’

Tom nodded. ‘All set and ready to go.’

‘Good.’

There was silence again. Lottie was crying and her hand communicated oceans to her husband. Alan wriggled in his seat, turning his face towards Tom. His mouth fought to form words.

Tom felt a sudden chill descend. He knew that the moment had finally approached: the moment when they would have to face the past. Tom bent his head.

‘What was it? I knew everything else. But not that.’ Alan’s words were faint. He paused for breath after every sentence.

‘What was what?’ Tom’s old suspicious anger returned. His head jerked backwards.

‘What made you leave? We never knew.’

‘You ask me that? You ask me that
now?
’

Alan’s question had gone a good way towards shattering Tom’s mood of reconciliation. It was an insult for Alan to pretend he didn’t understand. He’d had his hand on Alan’s shoulder but he withdrew it now, angry and ready to take offence.

Alan spoke again. ‘For God’s sake, the quarrel … we always quarrelled. I was three-quarters gone. Shell-shock. You must have known.’

His voice was small. He sounded distant instead of just eighteen inches away. Tom could hear the drip of blood on the roadside grass. Tom’s anger subsided. Alan was injured, maybe dying. What was the use of being angry with a dying man?

‘It wasn’t the quarrel,’ he said. ‘It was the mission that night. You tried to have me killed. You put my name forward. The machine guns, for heaven’s sake! You knew it was lunacy, murderous lunacy. I couldn’t forgive that.’

Tom ran on too long. Alan was shaking his head, trying to interrupt.

‘Not me.’

‘I
know
it was you.’

‘Not me. Guy.’

Tom’s head swam. He had played this encounter in his mind a thousand times over the years. He had never envisaged this response. Alan was either a vicious liar now, or else …

‘A chap called Captain Morgan told me. Lieutenant Montague. I checked with him a dozen times. He was regular army, not the sort to confuse a major’s uniform with a lieutenant’s.’

Once again Tom had spoken too long.

‘Tunic. He took my …’ Alan’s last word was inaudible.

‘He was wearing your coat? But Guy was wounded. I know that because I … I …’

‘Shot him.’ Alan nodded to indicate he already knew.

‘Well, how did he come to be sitting round with the brigadier? That wasn’t like Guy.’

‘Brig thought he was making bloody fuss … Told him to sit down, shut up.’ Alan smiled feebly. It was so stupid. A lifetime apart because of one stupid case of mistaken identity.

‘You … you didn’t … Jesus Christ! So it wasn’t you? I can’t believe it.’

Tom spoke in a daze. The last thing he said wasn’t even true: he
did
believe it. He had believed it already before Alan had finished explaining. What he found hard to believe was that all those years of anger had been for nothing. Tom didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, except that he wanted to do both.

‘Not your fault,’ said Alan in a whisper.

Tom shook his head – uselessly, since Alan couldn’t see him do it. ‘It
was
my fault. I should have known, no matter how many Captain Morgans I’d run into.’

And he spoke the truth. For the past thirty years, he’d lived his life according to one gigantic error. And what made it worse was that he should have known. It was impossible that his brother could have tried to kill him. Impossible, no matter if two dozen Sandhurst captains had been there to witness it. For the first time, Tom saw Alan’s love for what it was. Alan’s love, and his own idiot pride.

‘I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry!’

Alan made a little shrug of dismissal. ‘Never mind. It’s done with now.’

Tom put his hand to the bottom of the door, and found the blood still dripping. He did what he could to tighten the tourniquet.

‘Do hold on, darling,’ said Lottie. ‘Tom here – your brother –’ she stumbled over the unfamiliar word – ‘has got half the village out fetching doctors and tackle to get you out of there. You’ll be right in no time.’

Alan squeezed her hand. ‘I’ve got you. All right now.’

Above them, the wind gusted strongly, humming loudly through the oak tree. Both Tom and Alan thought of the English Channel and the invasion fleet that had to cross it. Paratroopers and glider troops would already be in France now, snatching control of vital bridges from German hands, desperate to hold on for just long enough to meet the relieving armies. Even now, with Alan bleeding, possibly to death, both men thought of
PLUTO.

‘Came looking for you,’ said Alan, after a pause. ‘Then Guy told me about shooting … Shooting Guy … Didn’t want to see man who did that … Bloody fool … Me, I mean. Should have come and found you anyway … but … but …’

‘Why did I shoot Guy? My God! That’s what stopped you from coming?’

Alan didn’t answer, but the twin-communication was working at full strength now.

‘Boy! Am I pleased I wasn’t the only one to screw up. Guy never told you what happened?’

Alan shook his head a fraction of an inch. ‘His version.’

Tom took a deep, juddering breath, raising his face to the sky so that the wind could blow over it, the same wind that was raising waves on the Channel …

‘He was a good soldier, Guy,’ he said. ‘A first-rate staff officer. There should have been more like him. But as an infantryman? In the front line?’

There was a long pause. The two men stared at each other. Lottie caught herself wondering why Tom didn’t just say whatever it was he had to say.

Then: ‘Ah! I’m a bloody fool,’ whispered Alan.

‘What is it?’ asked Lottie. ‘What are you talking about?’