Then the landlord came back, and as Benedikt rose from the bench on which he had seated himself he thought the man exchanged a glance with the girl. But he also thought he might have imagined what he thought, for she was the sort of girl with whom glances must often be exchanged.
“I’m sorry, but Miss Becky isn’t at home.” The landlord shook his head apologetically. “But I could phone again—they say she could be back any time . . . if you like to wait . . .” He shrugged. “Or . . .
I’m sure it would be all right for you to look at the Roman villa—I can’t imagine Miss Becky minding . . . It’s just that we’re not very used to strangers.” He smiled again, and pointed to a pile of coins and notes on the bar. “And I see that you’re not very used to the price of beer in England, sir.”
“Thank you.” Benedikt was pleased to have established his foreignness. “But you will take for the telephone calls, please ... So I will go to the villa, and then return—yes?”
Outside, he first felt so absurdly and irrationally glad to be in the fresh air again, away from the claustrophobic little barroom, that he concluded he was being frightened by shadows of his dummy1
imagination. In the sunlight, with the green leaves everywhere, and the birds singing and fluttering in the trees, there was nothing to fear.
Not the small boy sitting on the churchyard wall, anyway: it was the same snub-nosed Benje who had pushed past the car, with his racing-cycle now propped up beside him.
He gave the boy a nod of recognition as he pushed open the wicket-gate into the churchyard.
It was an English churchyard like any other, with its scatter of newer gravestones among older ones on which the inscriptions ranged from the barely decipherable to mere litchen-covered indentation which only God could read. There was a neat little gravel path meandering between the stones and the occasional yew-tree, to divide just short of the porch, one branch leading directly to the door, the other curving round the building.
Under other circumstances Benedikt would have entered the church, as he had always been taught to do, to say a prayer. But the sun was warm on his face, and in these circumstances, in this place at this time, he judged that Mother would forgive him for breaking her rule, and would allow him to say the words of her old Englishman under the sky, as they had originally been prayed—
Lord, Thou knowest that I must be very busy this day. If I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me.
Instead, he followed the curving path along the side of the church, to the newest grave of all, which had instantly caught his eye.
dummy1
HERBERT GEORGE MAXWELL
CBE, DSO, MC, RA
1912-1982
The inscription was cut deep into the new headstone: it would take centuries of wind and weather to erase it.
Under the date, but less deeply incised because of its complexity, was a military badge consisting of an antique cannon surmounted by a crown, standing upon the single Latin word ‘Ubique’.
Below the stone, on the freshly-turned chalky soil, there was a plastic wreath of red poppies and laurel leaves, with a ribbon identifying ‘The Royal British Legion’ across it, and an unmarked posy of fresh flowers and greenery.
Benedikt marked the difference between the two tributes: on closer scrutiny, the soil was no longer quite freshly turned, for there were already tiny green things sprouting from it—the delicate spears of young grass and the minute broad-leaved weeds which would eventually reduce General Herbert George Maxwell’s last resting place to uniformity with all his neighbours in Duntisbury Royal churchyard and all his old comrades in dozens of far-flung military cemeteries (that was what ‘Ubique’ meant, after all, wasn’t it?).
But, where the Royal British Legion wreath dated from the original burial judging by the rain-spotted dust which covered it, the posy had been cut and carefully put together only a few hours before.
So there was somebody in Duntisbury Royal who still loved dummy1
General Herbert George Maxwell, CBE, DSO, MC, RA, aged 70 ...
CBE was some great honour, and DSO and MC were gallantry medals, and that crowned cannon could only mean Royal Artillery, not Royal Academician!
So here was the fuse . . . buried two metres deep, and impervious to any mischance now, but still as live and dangerous as any of the thousands of shells he had once fired, so it seemed.
But what shell, of all those thousands, had he fired which had killed him all those years after, so explosively?
They didn’t know, they said.
And who had killed him, anyway?
They said they didn’t know that, either.
Half-blurred, on the edge of his vision through the spectacles, he noticed another stone, but with the same name.
He turned his head towards it: Edith Mary Maxwell, 1890-1960 ...
he peered further to the left, and then to the right . . . they were all Maxwells here— Victoria Mary Maxwell—all Maxwell women, anyway—
And there was something else—someone else—on that blurred no-man’s-land—
Benje, the snub-nosed cyclist, was almost at his back, complete with his racing-bike.
“That’s the Old General, the Squire,” said the boy, nodding at the new grave. “We had a big funeral for him, with soldiers— gunners, they were.”
dummy1
Benedikt nodded gravely.
“The IRA killed him,” said the boy. “Blew him up, they did. Dad says they’re a lot of bastards.”
“Yes?” said Benedikt.
But that was one thing they did not say: the IRA had not blown up General Herbert George Maxwell. If they were agreed on nothing else, British Intelligence and the IRA were both agreed on that.
II
It might be useful, thought Benedikt. And even if it was not useful, it would be instructive.
But most of all it might be useful.
“You knew the old general?”
The boy Benje started to nod, and then a sound behind him diverted his attention.
The other—the boy who had given Mr Cecil the rude signal—shot out from behind a nearby yew tree on his bicycle, and came to a racing halt beside Benje in a spray of gravel.
Benedikt studied them both. They were two very different types, the boy Benje extrovert and cheekily-aggressive, and the other boy . . . What was his name? He had heard it, but it had escaped him . . . the other boy was black-haired and fine-boned, and altogether more withdrawn. The only thing they had in common dummy1
was their transport: the low-handlebarred, multi-geared racing cycles were identical.
And he had a better introduction to them both there. “Those look good bikes—BSA, are they?” He eased his accent, the better to communicate with them. “You are brothers?”
“Me and him?” Benje threw the question back contemptuously.
“You must be joking!”
“You do not look like brothers—no.” He searched for an opening.
“But you bought the same machines.”
Benje shook his head. “We didn’t buy ‘em.”
“Of course! You were given them.” He knew that wasn’t what the boy had meant.
“No. We won them.” Benje couldn’t let the mistake pass uncorrected.
“In a competition?”
Benje looked at him. “Sort of.” He paused for an instant, then nodded at the tombstone. “We got them from him.”
“From the General? He gave them to you?”
“No— not gave.” Benje frowned, suddenly tongue-tied.
“We both won places at King Edward’s School.” The other boy filled the silence coolly. “Everyone who wins a place at King Edward’s—everyone from here—gets a bicycle from the Old General.” He put a capital letter on the title.