‘They aren’t interested in Mrs Troy,’ said Ian. ‘Tell them about the others.’
‘Old trouts mostly,’ said Trimmer. ‘Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander. There were smart ones too, of course, Astors, Vanderbilts, Cuttings, Whitneys – they all came to me, but nobody was like Mrs Troy.’
‘What I had in mind for my readers, Colonel, was something a little more homy.’
Trimmer had his pride. He awoke now from his reverie, sharply piqued.
‘I never touched the homy ones,’ he said.
‘Goddammit,’ cried Joe in triumph. ‘What d’you know? The Colonel is high-bound.’
Then Ian abandoned this phase of Anglo-American friendship and within a few minutes he and Trimmer stood in the Strand vainly searching for a taxi. It was the moment of Guy’s despair at Babali Hani. Their prospect, too, was dismal. The London crowd shuffled past, men in a diversity of drab uniforms, women in the strange new look of the decade – trousered, turbaned, cigarettes adhering and drooping from grubby weary faces; all of them surfeited with tea and Woolton pies, all of them bearing gas-masks which bumped and swung to their ungainly tread.
‘You didn’t do very well,’ said Ian severely.
‘I’m hungry.’
‘You won’t find anything to eat at this time of day. I’m going home.’
‘Shall I come with you?’
‘No.’
‘Will Virginia be there?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘She was when you telephoned.’
‘She was just going out.’
‘I haven’t seen her for a week. She’s given up her job at the Transit Camp. I’ve asked the other girls. They won’t say where she’s working. You know how girls are.’
Ian looked sorrowfully at his protégé. It was in his mind to offer some sort of exhortation, to remind him of the coming delights of the armament industry, but Trimmer looked so sorrowfully back at him that he merely said: ‘Well, I’m walking to HOO HQ. You’ll be hearing from me,’ and turning, set off towards Trafalgar Square.
Trimmer followed as far as the Tube station, then broke off without a word and descended, a sad little song in his heart, to a platform lined with bunks where he waited long for a crowded train.
At Marchmain House HOO HQ, revitalized by the new exalted enthusiasm for Special Service troops, was expanding. More flats were added and more faces. It was here, in Ian’s office, that Virginia Troy had taken refuge.
‘Have you shaken off the Demon?’ she asked.
‘He just melted away, humming horribly. Virginia, I’ve got to talk to you seriously about Trimmer. The welfare of the department is at stake. Do you realize that he constitutes our sole contribution to the war effort to date? I have never seen a man so changed by success. A month ago he was all bounce. With that accent, that smile and that lock of hair he was absolutely cut out to be a great national figure. Look at him today. I doubt if he’ll last the summer. I’ve already seen Air Marshal Beech break up under my eyes. I know the symptoms. It musn’t happen again. I shall get a bad name in the service and this time it isn’t my fault at all. As the victim has remarked, it’s you, you, you. Do I have to remind you that you came to me with tears and made my home life hideous until I got you this job? I expect a little loyalty in return.’
‘But, Ian, why d’you suppose I wanted to leave the canteen except to get away from Trimmer?’
‘I thought you were bored with Brenda and Zita.’
‘Only because they always had Trimmer around.’
‘Ah,’ said Ian. ‘Oh.’ He twiddled with things on his desk. ‘What’s all this about Glasgow?’ he asked.
‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘That was nothing. That was fun. Not a bit like what’s going on now.’
‘Now the poor beast thinks he’s in love.’
‘Yes, it’s too indecent.’
On 31 May, Guy sat in a cave overhanging the beach of Sphakia where the final embarkation was shortly to begin. By his watch it was not yet ten o’clock but it seemed the dead of night. Nothing stirred in the moonlight. In the crowded ravine below the Second Halberdiers stood in column of companies, every man in full marching order, waiting for the boats. Hookforce was deployed on the ridge above, holding the perimeter against an enemy who since sunset had fallen silent. Guy had brought his section here late that afternoon. They had marched all the previous night and most of that day, up the pass, down to Imbros, down a gully to this last position. They dropped asleep where they halted. Guy had sought out and found Creforce headquarters and brought from them to the Hookforce commanders the last grim orders.
He dozed and woke for seconds at a time, barely thinking.
There were footsteps outside. Guy had not troubled to post a look-out. Ivor Claire’s troop was a few hundred yards distant. He went to the mouth of the cave and in the moonlight saw a familiar figure and heard a familiar voice: ‘Guy? Ivor.’
Ivor entered and sat beside him.
They sat together, speaking between long pauses in the listless drawl of extreme fatigue.
‘This is a damn fool business, Guy.’
‘It will all be over tomorrow.’
‘Just beginning. You’re sure Tony Luxmore hasn’t got the wrong end of the stick? I was at Dunkirk, you know. Not much fuss about priorities there. No inquiries afterwards. It doesn’t make any sense, leaving the fighting troops behind and taking off the rabble. Tony’s all in. I bet he muddled his orders.’
‘I’ve got them all in writing from the GOC. Surrender at dawn. The men aren’t supposed to know yet.’
‘They know all right.’
‘The General’s off in a flying-boat tonight.’
‘No staying with the sinking ship.’
‘Napoleon didn’t stay with his army after Moscow.’
Presently Ivor said: ‘What does one do in prison?’
‘I imagine a ghastly series of concert parties – perhaps for years. I’ve a nephew who was captured at Calais. D’you imagine one can do anything about getting posted where one wants?’
‘I presume so. One usually can.’
Another pause.
‘There would be no sense in the GOC sitting here to be captured.’
‘None at all. No sense in any of us staying.’
Another pause.
‘Poor Freda,’ said Ivor.’ Poor Freda. She’ll be an old dog by the time I see her again.’
Guy briefly fell asleep. Then Ivor said: ‘Guy, what would you do if you were challenged to a duel?’
‘Laugh.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘What made you think of that now?’
‘I was thinking about honour. It’s a thing that changes, doesn’t it? I mean, a hundred and fifty years ago we would have had to fight if challenged. Now we’d laugh. There must have been a time a hundred years or so ago when it was rather an awkward question.’
‘Yes. Moral theologians were never able to stop duelling – it took democracy to do that.’
‘And in the next war, when we are completely democratic, I expect it will be quite honourable for officers to leave their men behind. It’ll be laid down in King’s Regulations as their duty – to keep a cadre going to train new men to take the place of prisoners.’
‘Perhaps men wouldn’t take kindly to being trained by deserters.’
‘Don’t you think in a really modern army they’d respect them the more for being fly? I reckon our trouble is that we’re at the awkward stage – like a man challenged to a duel a hundred years ago.’
Guy could see him clearly in the moonlight, the austere face, haggard now but calm and recollected, as he had first seen it in the Borghese Gardens. It was his last sight of him. Ivor stood up saying : ‘Well, the path of honour lies up the hill,’ and he strolled away.
And Guy fell asleep.
He dreamed continuously, it seemed to him, and most prosaically. All night in the cave he marched, took down orders, passed them on, marked his map, marched again, while the
moon set and the ships came into the bay and the boats went back and forth between them and the beach, and the ships sailed away leaving Hookforce and five or six thousand other men behind them. In Guy’s dreams there were no exotic visitants among the shades of Creforce, no absurdity, no escape. Everything was as it had been the preceding day, the preceding night, night and day since he had landed at Suda, and when he awoke at dawn it was to the same half-world; sleeping and waking were like two airfields, identical in aspect though continents apart. He had no clear apprehension that this was a fatal morning, that he was that day to resign an immeasurable piece of his manhood. He saw himself dimly at a great distance. Weariness was all.
‘They say the ships left food on the beach,’ said Sergeant Smiley,
‘We’d better have a meal before we go to prison.’
‘It’s true then, sir, what they’re saying, that there’s no more ships coming?’
‘Quite true, Sergeant.’
‘And we’re to surrender?’
‘Quite true.’
‘It don’t seem right.’
The golden dawn was changing to unclouded blue. Guy led his section down the rough path to the harbour. The quay was littered with abandoned equipment and the wreckage of bombardment. Among the scrap and waste stood a pile of rations – bully beef and biscuit – and a slow-moving concourse of soldiers foraging. Sergeant Smiley pushed his way through them and passed back half a dozen tins. There was a tap of fresh water running to waste in the wall of a ruined building. Guy and his section filled their bottles, drank deep, refilled them, turned off the tap; then breakfasted. The little town was burned, battered and deserted by its inhabitants. The ghosts of an army teemed everywhere. Some were quite apathetic, too weary to eat; others were smashing their rifles on the stones, taking a fierce relish in this symbolic farewell to their arms; an officer stamped on his binoculars; a motor bicycle was burning; there was a small group under command of a sapper Captain doing something to a seedy-looking fishing-boat that lay on its side, out of the water, on the beach. One man sat on the sea-wall methodically stripping down his Bren and throwing the parts separately far into the scum. A very short man was moving from group to group saying: ‘Me surrender? Not bloody likely. I’m for the hills. Who’s coming with me?’ like a preacher exhorting a doomed congregation to flee from the wrath to come.
‘Is there anything in that, sir?’ asked Sergeant Smiley.
‘Our orders are to surrender,’ said Guy.’ If we go into hiding the Cretans will have to look after us. If the Germans found us we should only be marched off as prisoners of war – our friends would be shot.’
‘Put like that, sir, it doesn’t seem right.’
Nothing seemed right that morning, nothing seemed real.
‘I imagine a party of senior officers have gone forward already to find the right person to surrender to.’
An hour passed.
The short man filled his haversack with food, slung three water-bottles from his shoulders, changed his rifle for the pistol which an Australian gunner was about to throw away, and bowed under his load, sturdily strutted off out of their sight. Out to sea, beyond the mouth of the harbour, the open sea calmly glittered. Flies everywhere buzzed and settled. Guy had not taken off his clothes since he left the destroyer. He said: ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Sergeant. I’m going to bathe.’
‘Not in that, sir?’
‘No. There’ll be clean water round the point.’
Sergeant Smiley and two men went with him. There was no giving of orders that day. They found a cleft in the rocky spur that enclosed the harbour. They strolled through and came to a little cove, a rocky foreshore, deep clear water. Guy stripped and dived and swam out in a sudden access of euphoria; he turned on his back and floated, his eyes closed to the sun, his ears sealed to every sound, oblivious of everything except physical ease, solitary and exultant. He turned and swam and floated again and swam; then he struck out for the shore, making for the opposite side. The cliffs here ran down into deep water. He stretched up and found a handhold in a shelf of rock. It was already warm with the sun. He pulled up, rested luxuriously on his fore-arms with his legs dangling knee deep in water, paused, for he was feebler than a week ago, then raised his head and found himself staring straight into the eyes of another, a man who was seated above him on the black ledge and gazing down at him; a strangely clean and sleek man for Creforce; his eyes in the brilliant sunshine were the colour of oysters.
‘Can I give you a hand, sir?’ asked Corporal-Major Ludovic. He stood and stooped and drew Guy out of the sea. ‘A smoke, sir?’
‘He offered a neat, highly pictorial packet of Greek cigarettes. He struck a light. Guy sat beside him, naked and wet and smoking.
‘Where on earth have you been, Corporal-Major?’
‘At my post, sir. With rear headquarters.’
‘I thought you’d deserted us?’
‘Did you, sir? Perhaps we both made a miscalculation.’
‘Have you seen Major Hound?’
‘Oh yes, sir. I was with him until – as long as he needed me, sir.’
‘Where is he now? Why have you left him?’
‘Need we go into that, sir? Wouldn’t you say it was rather too early or rather too late for inquiries of that sort?’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘To be quite frank, sir, I was considering drowning myself. I am a weak swimmer and the sea is most inviting. You know something of theology, I believe, sir, I’ve seen some of your books. Would moralists hold it was suicide if one were just to swim out to sea, sir, in the fanciful hope of reaching Egypt? I haven’t the gift of faith myself, but I have always been intrigued by theological speculation.’
‘You had better rejoin Sergeant Smiley and the remains of headquarters.’
‘You speak as an officer, sir, or as a theologian?’
‘Neither really,’ said Guy.
He stood up.
‘If you aren’t going to finish that cigarette, may I have it back?’ Corporal Ludovic carefully pinched off the glowing end and returned the half to its packet. ‘Gold-dust,’ he said, relapsing into the language of the barracks. ‘I’ll follow you round, sir.’
Guy dived and swam back. By the time he was dressed, Corporal-Major Ludovic was among them. Sergeant Smiley nodded dully. Without speaking, they strolled together into Sphakia. The crowd of soldiers had grown and was growing as unsteady files shuffled down from their hiding-places in the hills. Nothing remained of the ration dump. Men were sitting about with their backs against the ruined walls eating. The point of interest now was the boating party who were pushing their craft towards the water. The sapper Captain was directing them in a stronger voice than Guy had heard for some days.
‘Easy … All together, now, heave … steady … keep her moving …’ The men were enfeebled but the boat moved. The beach was steep and slippery with weed. ‘… Now then, once more all together… she’s off… let her run… What ho, she floats…’
Guy pushed forward in the crowd.
‘They’re barmy,’ said a man next to him. ‘They haven’t a hope in hell.’
The boat was afloat. Three men, waist deep, held her; the Captain and the rest of his party climbed on board and began bailing out and working on the engine. Guy watched them.
‘Anyone else coming?’ the sapper called.
Guy waded to him.
‘What are your chances?’ he asked.
‘One in ten, I reckon, of being picked up. One in five of making it on our own. We’re not exactly well found. Coming?’
Guy made no calculation. Nothing was measurable that morning. He was aware only of the wide welcome of the open sea, of the satisfaction of finding someone else to take control of things.
‘Yes. I’ll just talk to my men.’
The engine gave out a puff of oily smoke and a series of small explosions.
‘Tell them to make up their minds. We’ll be off as soon as that thing starts
up.’
Guy said to his section: ‘There’s one chance in five of getting away. I’m going. Decide for yourselves.’
‘Not for me, sir, thank you,’ said Sergeant Smiley. ‘I’ll stick to dry land.’
The other men of his Intelligence section shook their heads.
‘How about you, Corporal-Major? You can be confident that no moral theologian would condemn this as suicide.’
Corporal-Major Ludovic turned his pale eyes out to sea and said nothing.
The sapper shouted: ‘Liberty boat just leaving. Anyone else want to come?’
‘I’m coming,’ Guy shouted.
He was at the side of the boat when he noticed that Ludovic was close behind him. The engine started up, drowning the sound which Ludovic had heard. They climbed on board together. One of the watching crowd called, ‘Good luck, chums,’ and his words were taken up by a few others, but did not carry above the noise of the engine.
The sapper steered. They moved quite fast across the water, out of the oil and floating refuse. As they watched they saw that the crowd on shore had all turned their faces skyward.
‘Stukas again,’ said the sapper.
‘Well, it’s all over now. I suppose they’ve just come to have a look at their spoils.’
The men on shore seemed to be of this opinion. Few of them took cover. The match was over, stumps drawn. Then the bombs began to fall among them.
‘Bastards,’ said the sapper.
From the boat they saw havoc. One of the aeroplanes dipped over their heads, fired its machine-gun, missed and turned away. Nothing further was done to molest them. Guy saw more bombs burst on the now-deserted water-front. His last thoughts were of X Commando, of Bertie and Eddie, most of all of Ivor Claire, waiting at their posts to be made prisoner. At the moment there was nothing in the boat for any of them to do. They had merely to sit still in the sunshine and the fresh breeze.
So they sailed out of the picture.
7
SILENCE was all. Ripeness was all. Silence swelled lusciously like a ripening fig, while through the hospital the softly petulant northwest wind, which long ago delayed Helen and Menelaus on that strand, stirred and fluttered.