The figure emerged again in the aperture, jumped, and dragged out behind him not, as first appeared, an insensible fellow passenger but, it transpired, a bulky cylindrical object; he staggered clear with it and then proceeded to roll on the ground.
‘Good God, it’s Dawkins,’ said Ritchie-Hook. ‘What the devil are you doing?’
‘Trousers on fire, sir,’ said Dawkins. ‘Permission to take them off, sir?’ Without waiting for orders he did so, pulling them down, then with difficulty unfastening his anklets and kicking the smouldering garment clear of his burden. He stood thus in shirt, tunic, and boots gazing curiously at his bare legs. ‘Fair roasted,’ he said.
The American General asked: ‘Were there any men left inside?’
‘Yes, sir. I think there was, sir. They didn’t look like moving. Too hot to stay and talk. Had to get the General’s valise out.’
‘Are you hurt.’
‘Yes, sir. I think so, sir. But I don’t seem to feel it.’
‘Shock,’ said the General. ‘You will later.’
The flames had now taken hold of the tail. ‘No one is to attempt any further rescue operations.’ No one had shown any inclination to do so. ‘Who’s missing?’ he said to his aide. ‘Count and find out.’
‘I don’t see Almeric,’ said Lieutenant Padfield.
‘How did any of us get out?’ Ian asked.
‘The General, our General Spitz. He got both the hatches open before anyone else moved.’
‘Something to be said for technological training.’
Gilpin was loudly complaining of burned fingers. No one heeded him. The little group was behaving in an orderly, mechanical manner. They spoke at random and did not listen. Each seemed alone, isolated by his recent shock. Someone said: ‘I wonder where the hell we are.’ No one answered. Ritchie-Hook said to Ian: ‘You were not in any way responsible for that intolerable exhibition of incompetence?’
‘I’m a press-officer, sir.’
‘Oh, I thought you were the pilot. You need not consider yourself under arrest. But be careful in future. This is the second time this has happened to me. They tried it on before in Africa.’
The two generals stood side by side. ‘Neat trick of yours that,’ Ritchie-Hook conceded, ‘getting the door open. I was slow off the mark. Didn’t really know what was happening for a moment. Might have been in there still.’
The aide came to report to General Spitz: ‘All the crew are missing.’
‘Ha,’ said Ritchie-Hook. ‘The dog it was that died.’
‘And six from the rest of the party. I’m afraid Sneiffel is one of them.’
‘Too bad, too bad,’ said General Spitz; ‘he was a fine boy.’
‘And the civilian musician.’
‘Too bad.’
‘And the French liaison officer.’
General Spitz was not listening to the casualty list. An epoch seemed to have passed since the disaster. General Spitz looked at his watch. ‘Eight minutes,’ he said. ‘Someone ought to be here soon.’
The place where the aeroplane had fallen was pasture. The maize field lay astern of it, tall, ripe for reaping, glowing golden in the firelight. These stalks now parted and through them came running the first of the reception party from the airfield, partisans and the British Mission. There were greetings and anxious inquiries. Ian lost all interest in the scene. He found himself uncontrollably yawning and sat on the ground with his head on his knees while behind him the chatter of solicitude and translation faded to silence.
Another great space of time, two minutes by a watch, was broken by someone saying: ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Can you walk?’
‘I suppose so. I’d sooner stay here.’
‘Come on, it’s not far.’
Someone helped him to his feet. He noticed without surprise that it was Guy. Guy, he remembered, was an inhabitant of this strange land. There was something he ought to say to Guy. It came to him. ‘Very sorry about Virginia,’ he said.
‘Thank you. Have you got any belongings?’
‘Burned. Damn fool thing to have happened. I never trusted the Air Force ever since they accepted me. Must be something wrong with people who’d accept me.’
‘Are you sure nothing hit you on the head in that crash?’ said Guy.
‘Not sure. I think I’m just sleepy.’
A partisan doctor went round the survivors. No one except Halberdier Dawkins and Gilpin had any visible injuries; the doctor made light of Gilpin’s burnt fingers. Dawkins was suffering from surface burns which had rapidly swelled into enormous blisters covering his legs and thighs. He prodded them with detached curiosity. ‘It’s a rum go,’ he said; ‘spill a kettle on your toe and you’re fair dancing. Boil you in oil like a heathen and you don’t feel a thing.’
The doctor gave him morphia and two partisan girls bore him off on a stretcher.
The unsteady little procession followed the path the rescuers had trodden through the maize. The flames cast deep shadows before their feet. At the edge of the field grew a big chestnut. ‘Do you see what I see?’ asked Ian. Something like a monkey was perched in the branches gibbering at them. It was Sneiffel with his camera.
‘Lovely pictures,’ he said. ‘Sensational if they come out.’
When Ian woke next morning it was as though from a debauch; all the symptoms of alcoholic hangover, such as he had not experienced since adolescence, overwhelmed him. As in those days, he had no memory of going to bed. As in those days, he received an early call from the man who had put him there.
‘How are you?’ asked Guy.
‘Awful.’
‘There’s a doctor going the rounds. Do you want to see him?’
‘No.’
‘Do you want any breakfast?’
‘No.’
He was left alone. The room was shuttered. The only light came in narrow strips between the hinges. Outside poultry was cackling. Ian lay still. The door opened again; someone stamped into the room and opened shutters and windows revealing herself, in the brief moment before Ian shut his eyes and turned them from the light, as a female in man’s uniform, wearing a red cross brassard and carrying a box of objects which clinked and rattled. She began stripping Ian of his blanket and pulling at his arm.
‘What the devil are you doing?’
The woman flourished a syringe.
‘Get out,’ cried Ian.
She jabbed at him. He knocked the instrument from her hand. She called: ‘Bakic. Bakic,’ and was joined by a man to whom she talked excitedly in a foreign tongue. ‘She’s de nurse,’ said Bakic. ‘She’s got an injection for you.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘She says tetanus. She says she always injects tetanus for everyone.’
‘Tell her to get out.’
‘She says are you frightened of a needle? She says partisans are never frightened.’
‘Turn her out.’
So far as anything so feminine could be ascribed to this visitant, she exhibited pique. So far as it was possible to flounce in tight battle-dress, she flounced as she left her patient. Guy returned.
‘I say I’m sorry about that. I’ve been keeping her out all the morning. She got through while I was with the General.’
‘Did you put me to bed last night?’
‘I helped. You seemed all right. In fact in fine form.’
‘It’s worn off,’ said Ian.
‘You’d just like to be left alone?’
‘Yes.’
But it was not to be. He had closed his eyes and lapsed into a state approaching sleep when something not very heavy depressed his feet, as though a dog or a cat had landed there. He looked and saw Sneiffel.
‘Well, well, well, so you’re a newspaper man? My, but you’ve got a story. I’ve been down to the wreck. It’s still too hot to get near it. They reckon there’s five stiffs in there besides the crew. Lieutenant Padfield is het up about some British musician he’s lost.
What the Hell? There isn’t going to be any concert now. So what? There’ll be an elegant funeral when they get the bodies out. Everyone seems kinda het up today. Not me though. Maybe it’s being light I don’t shock so easy. The partisans were for putting off the battle but General Spitz works to a schedule. He’s got to have the battle on the day it was planned and then get out his report and I’ve got to have the pictures to go with it. So the battle’s tomorrow as per schedule. What say you come round with me and talk to some of these partisans? I’ve got the General’s interpreter. He’s not feeling too bright this morning but I reckon he can still hear and speak.’
So Ian gingerly set foot to the floor, dressed and began his work as a war correspondent.
No one could give a technical explanation of the night’s mishap. Guy had stood at his usual post on the edge of the airfield. He had heard the Squadron Leader talking his peculiar jargon into his wireless set, had seen the girls run from tar-barrel to barrel lighting the path for the incoming aeroplane, had watched it come down as he had watched many others, had seen it overrun its objective, rocket suddenly up like a driven pheasant and fall as though shot half a mile away. He had heard de Souza say: ‘That’s the end of them,’ had seen the flames kindle and spread and then had seen one after another a few dark, unrecognizable, apparently quite lethargic figures emerge from the hatches and stand near the wreck. He had joined in the rush to the scene. After that he had been busy with his duties as host in getting the survivors to their beds and finding in the store replacements for their lost equipment.
The partisans were inured to disaster. They had a certain relish for it. They did not neglect to mention that this was an entirely Anglo-American failure, but they did so with a rare cordiality. They had never been convinced that the allies were taking the war seriously. This unsolicited burnt-offering seemed in some way to appease them.
De Souza was very busy with his tear-off cipher-pads and it devolved on Guy to arrange the day of the newcomers. General Spitz’s aide had been struck with a delayed stammer by his fall and complained of pains in his back. Gilpin now had both hands bandaged and useless. The two generals were the fittest of the party; General Spitz brisk and business-like, Ritchie-Hook reanimated. Guy had not seen him in his decline. He was now as he had always been in Guy’s experience.
Halberdier Dawkins said: ‘It’s been a fair treat for the General. He’s his old self. Come in this morning and gave me rocket for disobeying orders getting his gear out.’
Dawkins was a stretcher case, and after arduous years in Ritchie-Hook’s service not sorry to be honourably at ease. He submitted without complaint to his tetanus injections and basked in the hospitality of the Mission sergeant who brought him whisky and cigarettes and gossip.
The former Minister of the Interior reluctantly cancelled the Vin d’Honneur and the concert but there were sociable meetings between the general staff and their guests, the observers, at which the plans for the little battle were discussed. It was after one of these that Ritchie-Hook took Guy aside and said: ‘I’d like you to arrange for me to have a quiet talk with the fellow whose name ends in “itch”.’
‘All their names end like that, sir.’
‘I mean the decent young fellow. They call him a brigadier. The fellow who’s going to lead the assault.’
Guy identified him as a ferocious young Montenegran who had a certain affinity to Ritchie-Hook in that he, too, lacked an eye and a large part of one hand.
Guy arranged a meeting and left the two warriors with the Commissar’s interpreter. Ritchie-Hook returned in high good humour. ‘Rattling good fellow that Itch,’ he said. ‘No flannel or ormolu about him. D’you suppose all his stories are true?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Nor do I. I pulled his leg a bit but I am not sure that interpreter quite twigged. Anyway, we had a perfectly foul drink together – that ended in itch too – extraordinary language – and we parted friends. I’ve attached myself to him for tomorrow. Don’t tell the others. Itch hasn’t room for more than one tourist in his car. We’re driving out tonight to make a recce and get the men in place for the attack.’
‘You know, sir,’ Guy said, ‘there’s a certain amount of humbug about this attack. It’s being laid on for General Spitz.’
‘Don’t try and teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ said Ritchie-Hook. ‘Of course I twigged all that from the word “go”. Itch and I understand one another. It’s a demonstration. Sort of thing we did in training. But we enjoyed that, didn’t we?’
Guy thought of those long chilly exercises in ‘biffing’ at Southsands, Penkirk, and Hoy. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘those were good days.’
‘And between you and me I reckon it’s the last chance I have of hearing a shot fired in anger. If there’s any fun going, Itch will be in it.’
At eight next morning General Spitz and his aide, the British Mission, the partisan general staff, Ian and Sneiffel assembled beside the line of miscellaneous cars which the Jugoslavs had all the summer kept secreted, with so much else, in the forest. Guy made Ritchie-Hook’s excuses to General Spitz who merely said: ‘Well, there’s plenty of us without him.’
The convoy set out through a terrain of rustic enchantment, as through a water-colour painting of the last century. Strings of brilliant peppers hung from the eaves of the cottages. The women at work in the fields sometimes waved a greeting, sometimes hid their faces. There was no visible difference between ‘liberated’ territory and that groaning under foreign oppression. Ian was unaware when they passed the vague frontier.
‘It’s like driving to a meet,’ he said, ‘when the horses have gone on ahead.’
In less than an hour they were in sight of the block-house. A place had been chosen 500 yards from it, well screened by foliage, where the observers could await events in comfort and safety. The partisans had moved out in the darkness and should have been in position surrounding their objective in the nearest cover.
‘I’m going down to look for them,’ said Sneiffel.
‘I shall stay here,’ said Ian. He was still feeling debauched by shock.
General Spitz studied the scene through very large binoculars. ‘Block-house’ had been a slightly deceptive term. What he saw was a very solid little fort built more than a century earlier, part of the defensive line of Christendom against the Turk. ‘I appreciate now why they want air support,’ said General Spitz. ‘Can’t see anyone moving. Anyway we’ve achieved surprise.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said de Souza aside to Guy, ‘things have not gone quite right. One of the brigades lost its way in the approach-march. They may turn up in time. Don’t let on to our allies.’
‘You’d think there would be more sign of life from a German post,’ said General Spitz. ‘Everyone seems asleep.’
‘These are domobrans,’ said the Commissar’s interpreter. ‘They are lazy people.’
‘How’s that again?’
‘Fascist collaborators.’
‘Oh. I got the idea in Bari we were going to fight Germans. I suppose it’s all the same thing.’
The sun rose high but it was cool in the shade of the observation post. The air support was timed to begin at ten o’clock. That was to be the signal for the infantry to come into the open.
At half-past nine rifle-fire broke out below them. The partisan general looked vexed.
‘What are they up to?’ asked General Spitz.
A partisan runner was sent down to inquire. Before he returned the firing ceased. When he reported, the interpreter said to General Spitz ‘It is nothing, it was a mistake.’
‘It’s lost us surprise.’
De Souza, who had heard and understood the runner’s report, said to Guy: ‘That was the second brigade turning up. The first thought they were enemy and started pooping off. No one’s been hit but, as our ally remarks, we have “lost surprise”.’
There was no longer peace in the valley. For the next quarter of an hour occasional shots came, at random
it seemed, some from the parapet of the block-house, some from the surrounding cover; then sharp at ten, just as on General Spitz’s elaborate watch the minute hand touched its zenith, there came screaming out of the blue sky the two aeroplanes. They swooped down one behind the other. The first fired simultaneously two rockets which just missed their target and exploded in the woods beyond, where part of the attacking force was now grouped. The second shot straighter. Both his rockets landed square on the masonry, raising a cloud of flying rubble. Then the machines climbed and circled. Guy, remembering the dive-bombers in Crete relentlessly tracking and pounding the troops on the ground, waited for their return. Instead they dwindled from sight and hearing.
The airman who had been sent to observe them, stood near. ‘Lovely job,’ he said, ‘right on time, right on target.’
‘Is that all?’asked Guy.
‘That’s all. Now the soldiers can do some work.’
Silence had fallen in the valley. Everyone, friend and enemy alike, expected the return of the aeroplanes. The dust cleared revealing to those on the hillside equipped with binoculars two distinct patches of dilapidation in the massive walls of the block-house. Some of the partisans began discharging their weapons. None came into view. The Air Force observer began to explain to General Spitz the complexity of the task which he had seen successfully executed. The Commissar and the partisan General spoke earnestly and crossly in their own language. A runner from below came to report to them. ‘It appears,’ the interpreter explained to General Spitz, ‘that the attack must be postponed. A German armoured column has been warned and is on its way here.’
‘What do your men do about that?’
‘Before a German armoured column they disperse. That is the secret of our great and many victories.’
‘Well, uncle,’ said de Souza to Guy, ‘we had better begin thinking of luncheon for our visitors. They’ve seen all the sport we have to offer here.’
But he was wrong. Just as the observers were turning towards their cars, Ian said: ‘Look.’
Two figures had emerged from the scrub near the blockhouse walls and were advancing across the open ground. Guy remembered the precept of his musketry instructor: ‘At 200 yards all parts of the body are distinctly seen. At 300 the outline of the face is blurred. At 400 no face. At 600 the head is a dot and the body tapers.’ He raised his binoculars and recognized the incongruous pair, the first was Ritchie-Hook. He was signalling fiercely, summoning to the advance the men behind him, who were already slinking away; he went forward at a slow and clumsy trot towards the place where the rocket-bombs had disturbed the stones. He did not look back to see if he was being followed. He did not know that he was followed, by one man, Sneiffel, who like a terrier, like the pet dwarf privileged to tumble about the heels of a prince of the Renaissance, was gambolling round him with his camera, crouching and skipping, so small and agile as to elude the snipers on the walls. A first bullet hit Ritchie-Hook when he was some 20 yards from the walls. He spun completely round, then fell forwards on his knees, rose again and limped slowly on. He was touching the walls, feeling for a hand-hold, when a volley from above caught him and flung him down dead. Sneiffel paused long enough to record his last posture, then bolted, and the defenders were so much surprised by the whole incident that they withheld their fire until he had plunged into the ranks of the retreating partisans.