Tapestry of Spies Part 18

It was was odd; the wait affected each differently. Florry felt sleepy with dread; he could not force himself to think about what lay ahead. Julian, on the other hand, could not think of anything else. odd; the wait affected each differently. Florry felt sleepy with dread; he could not force himself to think about what lay ahead. Julian, on the other hand, could not think of anything else.

"Gad, I wonder which will be worse. The machine guns or the wire. In France, the men hated the wire. It would snare them and they'd be hung up like department-store mannequins. The more one struggled, the more one was sucked in. My poor father at the Somme ran into a bit of the stuff. Ghastly, eh?"

"I know about your father. Can't you recite some poetry or something?" Florry said.

"Ah, poetry. Yes, poetry before battle. How English English. And I'm supposed to be rather good at poetry, aren't I? How about, 'In the end, it's all the same/In the end, it's all a game.' Hmmm, no, all wrong. Somehow it doesn't feel feel much like a game about now. What about, 'We are the hollow men/We are the ...' No, that's not appropriate either. Er, 'If I should die, think only this of me, there's some corner of a foreign field that's forever POUM.' Good heavens, how appalling! Trouble is, they don't write any good war stuff anymore. It's out of fas.h.i.+on. They only write antiwar stuff, no help at all to a bloke about to go over the top, eh? I feel like something cheerful and powerfully seductive, something that would make me hungry to die for somebody else's party and someone else's country." much like a game about now. What about, 'We are the hollow men/We are the ...' No, that's not appropriate either. Er, 'If I should die, think only this of me, there's some corner of a foreign field that's forever POUM.' Good heavens, how appalling! Trouble is, they don't write any good war stuff anymore. It's out of fas.h.i.+on. They only write antiwar stuff, no help at all to a bloke about to go over the top, eh? I feel like something cheerful and powerfully seductive, something that would make me hungry to die for somebody else's party and someone else's country."

"I don't believe that poem has been written."

"Hasn't, has it? Well, you haven't read the great 'Pons' yet. If I ever can put a tail on the beast, it'll move me from seventh greatest living poet on up to third. And if b.l.o.o.d.y Auden should drop dead of a dose of clap from some Chineeboy, why then I'm second second. Gad how exciting!"

"Recite a line, then."

"Hmm. All right.

Among the Druids, in the Druid hall, the fire flickers, shadows fall The past, an icy castle, slowly settles, while they boil the future in their kettles.

And death was inches, dark was all."

Florry waited. "Go on."

"Out of words, old man. That's where it stops."

"G.o.d, it's brilliant, Julian."

"What's it mean, Jules?" said the man on the other side of Julian.

"Now, Sammy, don't you worry. It's just words."

"Ready boys," came Billy Mowry's call through the rain. "It's almost time."

"How's that for inspiration! At least in an aristocratic army, the officers can quote a line of verse at the key moment. 'These in the hour when heaven was falling'-"

"That's about mercenaries, old boy," Florry said through chattering teeth, "who took their wages and are dead. We are not mercenaries. At any rate, if we are, the pay is b.l.o.o.d.y low."

"Au contraire, chum, it's b.l.o.o.d.y high. A clean soul. Freedom from one's little secrets, eh? From the little men inside one who are always clamoring to get out, eh?"

"All right, lads," Billy sounded calm in the rain, "it's time."

"Good heavens, it is, isn't it?" Julian said. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out what appeared to be a ring on a chain, brought it swiftly to his lips and kissed it. "There, now I'm all safe," he said. "My old dad was wearing it at the Somme day he cashed in. Wedding ring. It's my lucky piece. Never done me wrong. Care for a smooch, Stink?"

"Thanks, no. I don't think my lips are working."

"Tally-ho, then. Good hunting, and all that rot."

"Luck to you, old man," said Florry, unsure how he meant it. "I'll tell you my my secrets one day, too." And he became lost in the struggle to get himself up the wall-he'd lost some strength-but with a sliding, grunting kind of athletic twist, he suddenly achieved it, staggered onto wet but solid ground, and found himself standing up, pretty as you please, in front of the trench in which he'd cowered for weeks. It was both a curiously liberating and curiously vulnerable sensation. All up and down the line, in the ghostly mist, men were rising, shaking themselves off like wet terriers, unslinging their rifles, and facing their death. They were like the children of the Hydra's teeth, Florry thought, his fancy education delivering him a fancy metaphor at just the right time: half-mythical creatures slouching out of some dimly remembered far ago time and place. A hideous joy cut through Florry as he slid the great bayonet-heavy Mosin-Nagent from his shoulder and brought it to the high port. Bombs-grenades-hung on his belt and he wore his Webley at his hip. secrets one day, too." And he became lost in the struggle to get himself up the wall-he'd lost some strength-but with a sliding, grunting kind of athletic twist, he suddenly achieved it, staggered onto wet but solid ground, and found himself standing up, pretty as you please, in front of the trench in which he'd cowered for weeks. It was both a curiously liberating and curiously vulnerable sensation. All up and down the line, in the ghostly mist, men were rising, shaking themselves off like wet terriers, unslinging their rifles, and facing their death. They were like the children of the Hydra's teeth, Florry thought, his fancy education delivering him a fancy metaphor at just the right time: half-mythical creatures slouching out of some dimly remembered far ago time and place. A hideous joy cut through Florry as he slid the great bayonet-heavy Mosin-Nagent from his shoulder and brought it to the high port. Bombs-grenades-hung on his belt and he wore his Webley at his hip.

"Pip, pip," said Julian, next to him, with a wicked smile that Florry could see through the murk. "I do believe the glorious adventure is about to commence."

Indeed it was. The line, like some kind of creature itself, began to move out across no-man's-land.

Florry no longer felt the cold or the wet and once or twice stepped into a huge cold trough, the water slopping over his boot tops, but it meant nothing. They moved steadily through the mist, toward the Fascist lines. He could feel the incline beginning to rise under him and the heavy, sloshy weight of the clinging mud grow at his feet.

The plan was simple yet dangerous: to approach silently-the rain helped them here-to the wire at the outer limits of the Fascist lines, cut it, get inside it, and hurl a wave of bombs, then leap into the trench before the Fascists had a chance to recover from the blasts. It all, therefore, depended most fragilely on surprise, but the soldiers moved like knights to Florry's ears, clanking and lumbering in the dark. Yet from beyond there was no response.

They seemed to have been walking for hours. Had they lost direction like souped-in aviators and now headed the wrong way? These thoughts nagged at Florry as he fought through a ma.s.s of brush and up a little gulch; for a moment, he was entirely alone. He felt as if he were the last man on earth.

"Jolly fun, eh?" Julian, close at hand, muttered in a stage whisper.

At last they got through the vines and Florry realized with a start that they had covered the ground and had made the wire, which curled cruelly before them in the steady rain. It all had an underwater slowness to it, the steady pelt of the rain, the soaked, heavy clothes, the mud-heavy boots, and now men crouched with the deliberation of scientists to ready themselves for the final few feet. In the slanting sheets of water that descended out of the sky upon them, Florry made out the figure of one fellow scurrying ahead with a kind of lizard's urgency. Billy Mowry, a hero as well as a leader, took it upon himself to scamper up the slope to perform the most dangerous task, the cutting of the wire. He lay on his back under the evil stuff and Florry could see the snippers come out and begin to twist and tug at the strands. Florry knelt, the fingers of one hand nervously playing with his rifle. With his other, he pulled a bomb off his belt. It had two pins. Cradling his rifle against his shoulder, he pulled the easy one out and let it drop. Now he had only to yank the hard one and throw it in four seconds.

With each snap of Billy Mowry's clippers another strand of the wire popped free. Florry could feel his own breath rasping in his chest. His knees felt like warm jelly. How could he be so hot and so cold, so dry and so wet, at once? He could feel each raindrop individually strike against his skin; a million, a trillion of them. And from the Fascists, there was still nothing, though they were less than thirty-five or forty paces away, gathered about their cooking fires.

Hurry, d.a.m.n you, Billy Mowry, Florry thought.

Sylvia came into his mind suddenly. We had a night, didn't we, darling. Whatever there wasn't, there was that. He could feel the tension in his thighs like steel springs cranking tighter and tighter. The bomb was growing in weight, deadening his arm. The rifle leaning against him seemed a long ton of coal.

Hurry, d.a.m.n you, Bill Mowry, hurry! hurry!

The last snip sounded and Billy Mowry pulled himself up, peeling back the wire. He wore heavy engineer's gloves. His face, even in the dim light, shone with mad excitement and zealotry. He looked insane, like Jack the Ripper.

Julian dashed through the gap first. All right, that's one for him. Would a spy risk the first bullet, the first thrust of bayonet? Florry rose and scrambled after, feeling a singing in his ears. He could feel men clumping through behind him, slipping and straining in the mud. A wonderful strangeness pa.s.sed over them all: it felt like some huge opera, all stylized and abstract and mighty with song and ma.s.s and chorus. It seemed incredible; they were doing it! The excitement poured through Florry's veins and a great hope blossomed like an exotic flower in his imagination and- The first shot seemed to come from very close by. It was a spurt of flame just at the horizon, accompanied by a loud percussion. Perhaps there was a yell, too, with the noise of the rifle. And then an instant of horrified silence as if each side were unwilling to believe what was about to happen. A second later, a hundred shots spattered out, an attack of fireflies, brief novas of light and sound in the whizzing rain.

Florry was astounded by the cold beauty of the gunfire. He seemed suddenly to be among clouds of insects and could not quite understand what was happening. The bullets struck all about him, kicking up puffs of spray.

Billy Mowry, just ahead, rose and hurled a bomb. It detonated behind the parapet with a flash and perhaps there was another scream lost in the ring of the burst. But the fire on the militia did not lapse in the least.

"Bombs, boys," Mowry screamed, fussing with another. "Throw your f.o.o.kin' bombs!"

Florry remembered the treasure he clutched, and yanked on the second pin, certain that at any second a bullet would come along to bash his brains out. The pin would not budge, though he twisted it insanely. He looked down at it: he had been turning it the wrong way! Reversing direction, he got the thing out with a tug and a grunt, and the effort transfigured itself into a toss as he heaved it forward where it immediately disappeared in the dark. He dove back to the earth and it suddenly seemed as if the foundations of the planet had become unbolted. Explosions burst behind the parapet, a chorus of them, three or four or five or six, then far too many to count.

"Again, boys, again!" shouted Mowry.

Florry got the pins out of another bomb and hurled it off, too, feeling all the while the buzz of bullets. He threw himself back and tasted the sandy grit and pebbles of the earth pressing against his lips when suddenly, quite close up, the powerful clap of another bomb shook him. The Fascists were throwing the b.l.o.o.d.y things, too. The blast was orange and hot and stung him with a harsh spray of pebbles. The echo died reluctantly and he could hear moaning and pleading in the ringing in his ears. Miraculously, he realized he was unhurt. He picked his rifle up, shouldered it, and fired. It bucked against his bones and he threw the bolt quickly, ejecting a spent sh.e.l.l, and fired again.

He was aware that Billy Mowry had risen to fire steadily on the Fascist position with his Luger. Mowry suddenly slipped back, clutching his knee.

Florry felt sick. Without Billy, they were lost.

"d.a.m.n!" howled Mowry, coming to rest in his tumble near Florry. "Pranged again. The f.o.o.kers." He looked at Florry. "Get going, d.a.m.n you. You're dead for certain if you stay here."

Florry picked up his rifle and began to scramble with the mob toward the ridge. Around him, men were clawing their lugubrious way up the slope through what seemed a sudden, blessed respite in the firing.

Florry reached the sandbag parapet and jumped over, landing heavily in the Fascist trench, ready to get up close and jam his monstrous bayonet into somebody's guts, preferably an Italian or a Moorish colonel or a Falangist executioner. He was full of murderous exultation and rage; at the same time, he felt terrified. But the trench was deserted; there was n.o.body to stick. He looked up and down it and could see only his comrades tumbling in like parachutists, as eager for combat as he and as equally disappointed.

Off to the left, there seemed to be a gap in the trench wall of some sort. He moved quickly to discover it was a communications trench, that is, a sort of gutterlike path scooped out of the dirt to facilitate low-profile movement between the different trenches. He began to work his way through the litter and the mud, heading deeper toward the Fascist position, when a shot flashed in the dark and the bullet whipped with a thud into the trench wall near him. He answered with a shot at the noise and got a bomb off his harness. He pulled the two pins and hurled it down the way, falling back. The explosion was as bright as a flare, fragmenting his night vision and filling his ears with a roar. He sat up, dazed, wondering what on earth to do, when someone grabbed him.

"Eh?"

"No, no. Stay here. They'll be back soon enough." It was Julian. One arm hung limply at his side.

"You're hurt!"

"It's nothing. A piece of shrapnel or something gave me a shaving cut on the arm. Brilliant Julian will never play the viola again. Congratulations on surviving."

"Terrifying, wasn't it?"

"Gloriously full of fear. I'm afraid to check my pants. They may be wet and one doesn't want to humiliate oneself in front of the servants."

"I'm sure they're dry as the Sahara."

"We seem to have won, by the way. That fellow Jones is dead. He caught one in the head and went down as if he'd been ... well, as if he'd been shot in the head. Several others are variously messed up, including our beloved Billy Mowry, whose leg has been perforated. But he always always gets banged up; otherwise, he's indestructible. When he was a babe, his mother dipped him by the knee into a pot of socialist marmalade, thus rendering him invulnerable to capitalist bullets." gets banged up; otherwise, he's indestructible. When he was a babe, his mother dipped him by the knee into a pot of socialist marmalade, thus rendering him invulnerable to capitalist bullets."

"Will they come back, do you think?" Florry asked.

"Oh, shortly. They'll have to get the priests to whip up their frenzy, but they'll come. G.o.d, if they had mortars, they could wipe us out in a second. If they had tanks, they'd squash us like insects. Lucky for us these chaps don't know any more about fighting a war than our chaps do. I say, did you get yourself a Fascist?"

"I-I don't know. Maybe."

"I caught one with my bayonet. He's farther down the ditch. Ghastly, but interesting. There was so much blood. I had no idea a man had that much blood in him. You look rather ill."

"It's all so-"

"Elemental. Yes, isn't it, rather."

A bugle sounded off in the distance where the Fascists had retreated. Florry saw shapes scrambling about far off, yet they were too indistinct to waste bullets on.

"They must be ma.s.sing for their show. I can't imagine they're too happy about all this work on a wet night."

Dust spurts began to kick to life all about the sandbags, just as the noise of high-pitched, rapid typing rose from the dark. Julian and Florry ducked back, hearing the crack-crack-crack of projectiles rus.h.i.+ng through the air above them.

"They've a Maxim, d.a.m.n them," said Julian. "We'll not be going any farther tonight. But we'll have some b.l.o.o.d.y sport when they attack. Oh, I wish I could get my hands on a Vickers or a Lewis instead of this neolithic implement," implement," Julian said, clapping his crude Russian rifle with disgust. "Why is it the b.l.o.o.d.y nasties have all the fancy toys?" Julian said, clapping his crude Russian rifle with disgust. "Why is it the b.l.o.o.d.y nasties have all the fancy toys?"

"Florry!" someone whispered.

"'Eh?"

"b.l.o.o.d.y Billy wants to see you."

"Where is he?"

"Back down the trench, by the bunker."

"All right. Pa.s.s the word, I'm coming."

Florry crawled off, past the shapes of the other section men in the trench. In time, crawling over litter and junk, he reached the Fascist bunker. He ducked into it, finding it as crude as their own quarters. Billy sat on a cot, his b.l.o.o.d.y leg up and swaddled before him.

"You all right, commissar?"

"Ah, it's nothing I won't survive, the f.o.o.kers. Listen, old man, I want you to tell the chaps on the left to keep their ears open. Keep track of them, Florry, chum, don't let them wander away. I'm worried. There should have been a lot of shooting on our left, where the German battalion was to have hit the line farther down. n.o.body's heard anything. I'd hate to think of us in the middle of this picnic by ourselves, eh? And of course our b.l.o.o.d.y Colt at last snapped its f.o.o.kin' bolt, so we've no automatic weapons."

Florry was surprised Billy had chosen him for this tiny smidgen of responsibility; why not the far more experienced Julian?

"And especially watch b.l.o.o.d.y Julian. You can see the b.l.o.o.d.y madness in his eyes. He's liable to get himself kippered on something harebrained. He thinks he's Lord Cardigan and Winston Churchill rolled up in one. If he's to die, let him die for something something beyond his own b.l.o.o.d.y vanity." beyond his own b.l.o.o.d.y vanity."

"Right-o, Billy."

"Now get back there, and send word if you hear anything. And get ready. The Fascists are sure to hit us back tonight."

Florry scurried out.

He went on back and spread the word. But someone had vanished.

"Where's Julian?"

" 'E said 'e wanted to do a bit of poking about, and off 'e went."

"Christ, you let him go?"

"Aw, 'n you you could stop 'is majesty when 'e's got 'is 'eart set on somethin', chum?" could stop 'is majesty when 'e's got 'is 'eart set on somethin', chum?"

Florry supposed he couldn't. He looked down the communications trench through which Julian had purportedly disappeared. The seconds ticked by, turning to minutes. They heard bugles again. The Maxim began to pepper the air over their heads.

"d.a.m.n him," Florry cursed. "And if he's out there when the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. .h.i.t us, what then?"

" 'E's kippered certain, that's wot. Relax, chum. The bloke figured to catch 'is doin' somethin' b.l.o.o.d.y ignorant. 'E's too b.l.o.o.d.y brilliant for this 'ere world."

Well, here it was. Julian off on some mad toot, sure to buy it in the neck.

Leave him, he thought. Leave him and be done. It solves everything. Your life can continue. Your obligations have been met. Everybody's happy.

Yet what Florry discovered himself saying surprised himself as much as the men to whom he spoke.

"Look, I'm going to mosey down there a bit, see if I can't rein him in, all right? Sammy, you keep watch."

"Florry, chum, no point two two fancy gents gettin' kippered the same night." fancy gents gettin' kippered the same night."

"I told b.l.o.o.d.y Billy I'd look after the fool."

"Florry, mate, it's b.l.o.o.d.y fool-"

"Shut up!" Florry barked, suddenly furious at the man. "I told d.a.m.ned Billy, don't you understand?" Florry barked, suddenly furious at the man. "I told d.a.m.ned Billy, don't you understand?"

"Christ, chum, no need to get so worked up."

Florry could see nothing down the trench except some broken timbers and eerily reflective puddles. About twenty yards ahead it took a jagged dogleg off to the right and vanished from his vision. He set down his rifle, which would do him no good in close quarters, and pulled out the Webley.

"Don't be gone long, chum. No tellin' when Billy's going to pull us back. I don't think we're here for the season."