The tunnel turned at right-angles, and then again sharply, for soldiers had been known to advance into such places preceded by flamethrowers, and such an intricate entrance was better for picking off the machinist before he came into the central ward, gave time for the lightly wounded to escape by an emergency exit.
He stood ten minutes in the dark. Wounded men were lying on the floor wrapped in greatcoats and ragged blankets. Damp petrol fumes made even John join in the coughing, and as he walked between them the disinfectant stench brought him close to retching. He could see clearly, and those sitting up showed gaunt faces, olive-wax features wondering who this man was from another world, who found it so warm that he paused to force out the peg-buttons of his sheepskin coat. The major explained that a doctor and three nurses looked after the hospital. Once the wounded reached it there were few deaths, but fatalities were common between battleground and casualty station. They had still not solved this kind of problem. The rules of Red Cross protection were hardly refined enough to help in such a struggle, but perhaps they would be so when this type of war became more general. John wanted him to finish before asking the question he made at each stop, but at the end of the row, following his own intense scrutiny of every face and revealed feature, he saw Frank Dawley resting with his back against the rocky wall. His eyes opened, and were set in a dull stare.
The black earth stank, the reek of months or years, of petrol and wound odours, palliasses soaking in urine and excrement. His hopes, when he’d imagined it would end like this, had been nightmares, sweat-rivers and black seas desolate under the light of a slaughter-moon, a sickle-back sweeping along the rim of the earth. Any man who came down to this must count it as a certain end in his life, the point at which only death or resurrection could occur. The major talked on, and it seemed to John that the top of the ladder in guerrilla warfare was the gift of an easy and authoritative tongue, with little way to go before it led to a government post.
His eyes closed for a moment. They were hemmed in by grey bristles that spread over the pallow-eyed face. John took out his wallet, and gave him the letter from Myra which contained a photo of her and the child. ‘This is the man you were looking for?’ the major said.
‘Who are you?’ Frank asked, taking the envelope.
The doctor was a young man of twenty-five who had not finished medical school. ‘He was brought in a fortnight ago, and is ready to be discharged. His papers are in order for repatriation — out by the coast.’
‘When?’
He laughed. ‘We don’t know.’
‘My name is John Handley,’ he said. ‘I’m Albert’s brother. I’ve been sent here to look for you.’
Those who could walk were allowed into the fresh air, stood at the entrance waiting for eyes to focus on humps of rock and twisted tree-pillars. ‘I made up my mind to come and find you,’ he said, hand on his arm. ‘It was so easy that I still can’t believe I’ve done it. A month ago I was in Lincolnshire with Albert and Myra, and all the brood.’
Frank smoked one of his smooth well-packed steel-tasting cigarettes. ‘You may not find it so easy to get back.’
‘Has this life made you pessimistic?’
‘Not at all. But I know what is involved. The Yugoslav ships don’t have a regular schedule, and often they can’t get in at all. French warships go up and down playing guns and searchlights on the coast. We may wait months.’ He wondered whether anyone but John could have discovered him in this way, and at the same time talk so blithely about getting out. He’d only seen him for thirty seconds two years ago, at Albert’s house in Lincolnshire when he’d inadvertently strayed into his room while looking for the lavatory. John, sending morse at his radio-set, had picked up a huge revolver and threatened to blow his brains into the wall if he didn’t clear out. ‘I left my passport at the last place in Morocco,’ Frank said, ‘but it followed me by FLN courier. There’s more organisation here than you imagine. I suppose it looks like one big slice of chaos with everything so worn-down and shabby, but it works better than any so-called civilised town.’
John was amused by his defensiveness. They walked some way from the hospital, sat on a spur of land looking into a valley. ‘Did you bring any books with you?’ Frank was eager to set his eyes again on print that could be immediately understood, wanted for a while to restrict his world to clear shapes and lines of letters that would liberate his mind into the sort of pictures he chose to make from them. ‘My luggage should catch me up tomorrow,’ John said. ‘There are one or two things you might like.’
‘The fact is,’ Dawley said, ‘I feel at home here. I’m a part of this country. I’ve learned to exist in it. I don’t know that I want to leave just yet.’
‘You don’t have much choice. They’re sending you away.’
‘That’s true. I’ll have to go. I wouldn’t want to hinder them. They’re all right, in spite of what they’ve had to do at times.’
‘And you helped them, I think.’
‘I wanted to. What else could I do? A friend of mine died, an American. When I get out I must write to his father, even though they loathed each other. I must write to his girl-friend as well.’
‘Did you want to die?’
Frank laughed. ‘You’re bringing the wrong values in. That was always an irrelevant question.’
‘Still, I’m asking it.’
The sight of John, his clothes, speech, manner, face and body with the air of externalised living still on them made him hungry. The sparse diet he had grown used to seemed not enough at the apparition of this man newly-arrived from the outside world. He had a wild craving for food, for pork, cheese, sugar, cake. The desire went through his whole body and he laughed aloud at this strongest material sensation he’d had for months. He mentioned it to John.
‘I suppose that answers my question. It’s a good sign.’
‘I don’t believe in signs. It’ll pass, this unnatural unnecessary hunger. I’d like to stay here with these people, right to the end. I believe in their cause. I’ve been with them so long that it’s mine as well. There’s nothing false about it any more.’
‘It’s also mine,’ said John, ‘though I needn’t say it. But I came here to find you, and to see that you got safely back to England. Myra wants to see you. She’s never known in the last year whether you were dead or not. She’s grieving for you.’
‘I tried to send a letter,’ said Frank. ‘I thought she might have stopped caring. Yet I never did, really. You can never be sure of these things. The morning I left her in Tangier was a dream I was always trying to get back to. I managed it only when I was most desolate and disembodied. I must see her soon, or I will die completely. It’s funny, but I was strong before you came, but now I feel as if I’m caving in. I’m human again, weak. No, it’s all right, John. Don’t despair! I always was, but I kept it down. It was always a fight, for me. I’ve never been half so strong as I think I am. But I feel strong in realising that. I want to go away for a while, because I know that a rest from this will never weaken me towards it.’
He lit another cigarette. ‘Myra wants to see you. We all do.’
‘I’m busy here. I love Myra, but I believe in what we are trying to do in this country. How can a person be in love, and fight, and still be sane? Don’t you have to give up one or the other? Can any dedicated man, even a poet, say, claim to be in love with someone while he is writing his verses? Still, maybe you don’t have to believe that love is dead to draw enough strength to fight for a cause you believe in. Otherwise you’re not a whole man. I can get out of here for a while to see Myra, and then come back quite easily if I want to, or go to another war like this. There’ll be plenty in my lifetime.’