‘That’s it, got it in one. And why not? That poor guy would be happy to cart you, all around the island I should imagine, if that was the price of reversing your positions. Don’t make a fuss, just do it.’
Teeth clenched, an expression of extreme distaste on his face, Clarence took hold of the body by the ankles and helped carry it out. It joined a row of six others beside the wall of the house…
‘Two more will join them soon.’ Private Fraser stared at the line. ‘Nothing I can do for them you see. Don’t matter what I cover them with, they can’t move about, the cold just creeps into them and they slip away.’
‘I know what it’s like.’ Clarence continually wiped his hands down his side to brush away the thought of the contact he’d just had to endure. He hated the feel of another person close to him, and physical contact forced him to fight the urge to lash out and end it, before he was sick. Handling the body, even though he’d only been touching the corpse’s stiffened boots, had been as repugnant to him as enduring the jostling proximity of a crowd. He knew the feeling was an abnormal one, but had long since ceased to try to curb or cure it. Somehow it was as if the manner in which he had cut himself off from all emotional contact with others had not been enough. ‘Let’s get back inside before we stay out here with him permanently.’
The silence and near total darkness inside the house were oppressive, but that suited Clarence. Even the cold, after what it had almost done to him, seemed on his side; forcing each man to withdraw within whatever lagging-like bundle of rags and dead man’s clothes he could gather and hold about him. Feeling his way along the wall back to his place, Clarence squatted and picked up his Enfield. Even the sacking bindings could not hide its familiar detail from him. As though it were an extension of himself, the forged and machined metal slipped comfortably into his grasp. He held it close, bowing forward until he rested his forehead against the jute-draped barrel. Reaching out, he patted his pack and then pulled it closer. Not that there had ever been any danger of it being taken. He would find a use for those special rounds, he was sure of that, absolutely sure. The feeling was one he’d had before, and it had never been wrong yet.
In the pitch-black of the interior Revell was also alone. Command did that for a man, and he did nothing to lessen it. Responsibility had brought him remoteness, as well as, respect and obedience. But it wasn’t just the rank: example and tough discipline had been the most important contributory factors. Other officers were able to combine that with an ability to mix, even to be familiar, with the men: but of his own choice Revell didn’t, or maybe it was nearer the truth to say he couldn’t. That was a hard thing to admit to himself. He’d not formed a stable relationship of any kind, not since his divorce. In a way, it was as if he didn’t trust people any more. It was OK to work with them, or in the case of his women, have a brief affair with them, but never anything closer. And here, in the Zone, getting to know someone well could be a mistake. The Zone had a way of ruthlessly breaking up partnerships, friendships… permanently.
‘I wonder where Hyde is now, and the lieutenant…’
‘And the girl.’ It was York who tacked on an end to Libby’s sentence.
‘Who knows.’ Burke’s voice floated in from the kitchen, where he was curled up against the warm metal of the generator. ‘All I know is that wherever I was with her, I could keep warm.’
Revell almost snapped a slap-down, to put an end to the exchange, but administered one to himself instead, and said nothing. He let the conversation flow on, only half-heard it as it degenerated into an obscene version of tennis, with the men’s dirty minds providing the rackets, and their speculations about Andrea, the balls. Upstairs he could hear Fraser moving about. The medic was having a tough time. All he could do was watch his patients die, and he was taking it hard. But at least he had that to keep him occupied. For the rest of them, there were hours to be passed in which there would be nothing to do but sit, or pace, and wait. Anything that prompted them to action before the ships came into range would be bad news, unless it was Hyde returning; and as the minutes ticked by, and the temperature continued to drop, the chances of that became more and more remote
‘…and if I know the Sarge,’ Burke was having the last say, concluding with a tone of authoritive finality, ‘he’ll have found somewhere nice and snug, and he’ll be waiting for the Ruskies to settle down before trekking back. I bet you, nice and snug…’
‘Frostbite.’ Fraser cut away the woman’s boot, rolled down her thick socks and pulled them off. To mid-calf, her leg was an ugly purplish-black. ‘That’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen.’ He tentatively touched the hardened skin. It was rough and cracked, like ill-kept parchment. ‘Come to that, it’s worse than anything I’ve ever heard of.’
‘Heck, it was hard enough keeping the rest of us from going that way, we couldn’t look after that Commie dame as well.’ Ripper was bent over, his arms crossed and his hands beneath his armpits, nursing feeling back into his limbs and fighting the pain as circulation gradually returned.
‘What about him?’ Hyde toed the Swede on the floor. The man was breathing badly, his chest heaving at each laboured breath, every exertion making his eyes roll to leave only the whites showing.
‘Looks like a heart attack. I haven’t got the time for him.’ With those words Fraser dismissed the dying man and went on attending to the woman. ‘Back at base hospital it was the MOs who had all the cases like that, all I did was splinters in the bum and routine pox treatment…’
‘Now he fucking tells us.’
The medic went on, ignoring Burke’s interruption. ‘…but that’s the way my uncle went. Nothing we can do for him.’
Using his elbow Burke gave Dooley’s ribs a hefty double-nudge. ‘Must’ve been the big cuddle-up with our German piece that made his ticker give out. A few hours close with her and I reckon mine would overheat as well.’
‘Fuck off.’ For once Dooley made the effort and kept his hair-trigger temper in check. ‘We kept together to keep warm, no one touched her, no one.’ If Revell had not been near by, he might have, he would have smashed their driver in the face, driven his nose out through the back of his head. OK, so maybe he hadn’t done all the things with her he’d boasted of to the others in the past, but she was still with him, and though from necessity Hyde and Ripper and the old Swede might have joined in the penguin-like huddle to stay warm, no one had touched her. No one would while he was around.
For Andrea, the Swede’s collapse at the moment they reached the house had been a final irony. At every step the presence of the two Soviet agents had endangered them all. By increasing the size of the group they had made concealment more difficult, and in addition to slowing their return to a snail’s crawl, the sledge had forced them to wait for first light so that they had a chance of picking a manageable route. And now as events had turned out they could have, they might as well have, left them behind. There would be nothing gleaned from either.
‘Look’s like the fickle finger of fate has done gone and saved you the worry of playing executioner.’ Ice crusted Ripper’s face, and flaked away as he grinned at Andrea.
‘Kinda seems a shame when I bet you got yourself all. keyed up for it. Maybe the major will let you play with the bodies while they’re still warm.’
‘If he does, she can have this old Commie anytime.’ Clumsily using his mittened hand, Libby closed the Swede’s eyes. ‘Looks like he might have been a school teacher.’ He examined the dead man’s palms. ‘Doesn’t seem to have done much real work.’