When the other two blazed away, he bent his head down, coughing and choking into wet leaves, bringing up phlegm and hurling it from his bone-dry throat, having recalled his father’s mad roar: “God? God is a bastard. Bastard God”—though the words did nothing to ease his fear and he pushed them out of his mind to lift himself and take aim once more, at nothing. If they charge, he realized, they’ll finish us off. They know there’s only four of us, so why are they messing about? If they show themselves in a charge, I’ll wing a few and no mistake, though that wain’t do any good to why I’m lying here — which is not to fire at my pals. He laughed, and Cheshire stared at him, a brief glance of incredulity before returning to his skilful defence.
The surprise marked on the coin of his face sent a memory back to Brian as he, too, simulated an angry few rounds rapid, a memory of some chargehand from the Raleigh recounting how his father had behaved with bravery and foolhardiness during the war (that’s a laugh: what’s all this pot-shooting if it ain’t a war?) one blacked-out midnight when a German bomber had machine-gunned the factory. Harold Seaton had stood in the main wide road of the works, looking into the sky and cursing, as the Jerry plane let rip on its second time round, while his pals from the sheltering doorways yelled for him to come in and not be a bleddy fool. But Harold had stayed there, working while the bullets sped like the patter of tiny clogged feet running for their lives around and by him, the first and last time he had shown a remarkable calmness in a situation in which it would have been natural and useful to have scattered in four directions — whereas a misplaced word from someone at home would have sent him into a black and uncontrolled fury. Still, he’d got guts, Brian remembered, so maybe some of ’em have been passed on to me here, and I’ll use ’em not to fire at the bandit-Communists in spite of the fact that in one way my fingers are itching to.
Baker seemed cool enough, knew himself to be calm, what’s more, and enjoyed knowing it, firing as accurately as he was able and not bothering about the risk. He’ll get the VC, the daft bastard, though Brian saw as well that Baker’s lips were turned down in anger as he took aim and fired, though in anger at who or what, Brian refused to imagine. He listened now and again for answering signals from Knotman or the army, but heard nothing: a dim surging whistle in the distance turned out to be an echo of Odgeson’s still strong blasts. He caught himself laughing at the idea of their making a charge towards the wreckage — the bravest and most desperate military operation he could imagine. The end of it struck him like a cheap picture in a chewing-gum packet for future generations of children, number one in the series before real-life depictions came through: Odgeson or any officer-commanding leading them to the razor’s-edge point of success, then turning round and panic-roaring to them in the thick of it: “Run for your lives! Every man for himself!”
Brian’s head was low, feeling for another clip. There were four or five still left and, sliding the bolt in, he saw a large red ant — head, body, and feelers out on a private patrol of its own — walk cautiously from a leaf on to his hand. It stopped to smell and reconnoitre this new earth of hairs and skin, took a few more paces into the unmapped interior until the grimy nail of Brian’s finger flicked it back on to more familiar earth. “Get to where it’s safe, you ginger-haired bastard.”
Another whistle sounded through the trees, away to the left, and the noise against them seemed to relax because of it, though both Cheshire and Baker fired rapidly into some movement now discernible beneath the plane, and Odgeson never stopped blasting his whistle. He was pale, wearing a look of death-like exhaustion as if he were about to keel over. “They’re beating it,” Brian called to him. “The others must be close.” He aimed at the trees, at nothing, an erratic blade of fire to help with the impression of patriotic or devoted noise that still covered the hillside like a sliding roof. “If you’ve got any more slugs left,” Cheshire called, “I’ll ’ave ’em. My bleeders are about finished.”
“I want ’em for mysen,” Brian said. “Keep your nut down: they’re still here.”
“I suppose them army crumbs are going to spoil all this for us.” There was a sudden silence, as if the bandits had abandoned the wreckage. Then another burst came to prove that some remained: the loony bastards’ll get killed if they don’t scram quick. “I’ll be glad when I’m out of this lot,” he called to Baker, lifting himself to fire high into the trees.
“Don’t waste them,” Baker said. “They haven’t gone yet: I can see one moving.”
“I’m not.” Their firing was filled and renewed by the first of the army, seasoned and competent in jungle-green as they came through the trees, cautiously blazing away. Brian laughed: “We’ll be back in camp today, after we’ve cleared this lot up,” he called to Baker. “I’ll be glad an’ all.”
“Me, too,” Baker said. “I wish I was.…” He exposed himself too soon, and an explosion switched his face around, as though an insect had flown into his eye and taken him by surprise with its powerful sting. He lifted one hand to coax it out, then fell back, revealing that he had no face left.
Down through the jungle and wearied to death, Brian thought back to nearly two years ago, when Baker had been alive on the troop-ship leaving England, and Brian had stood alone by the rail, watching the dockside, with its huge sheds and Martian spatula-footed cranes, get farther away as the water of midstream eddied and churned around them. Tugs heaved it clear and clouds of gulls squealed in fancy flight at the prospect of swill and scraps, and a group of soldiers down the rail were trying to hit them with sharp crossbow bolts of white spit. Brian smiled at their near-misses, wondering whether his aim would be any better, but not bothering to try because there were other things to look at. Bilious clouds were stacked over the Isle of Wight, as stationary and important as if they were part of an urgent stockpile waiting to be transported to some mythical D-day beach. Before them on the blue water was a derrick-laden, top-heavy American ship, and Brian took his hat off to stop the sudden wind flinging it over the side as a tidbit for the gulls. Water foamed into salt-white patches below the stern, and at the gentle rocking of the ship he hoped he wouldn’t heave his guts up at the open sea — his first time out on any ocean — recalling how as sick as a dog he’d been the whole twenty-seven miles to Worksop, where he was evacuated in 1939, leaving his pale-faced bile between Newstead and the Trent, between pit-scars of the Derbyshire hills and the stately halls of the Dukeries. They drifted by the Queen Mary, left it behind, and came towards the green banks of the Isle of Wight, a turreted manor showing itself between the trees. Up Southampton Water, sheds and cranes packed the blue skyline of the quays, ships of all sorts scattered over the blue water, some with funnels smoking thinly like a tailor-made, others in a full steam of thick twist. Marvellous, I’m glad to be leaving England, even though the old man did say I was a bloody fool and wanted my brains testing for not getting out of it, and even though Pauline might never forgive me if she thought I’d had a chance of not getting sent over on compassionate grounds. Not that I’m sure I could have got out of it, anyway; though if I get broken-hearted to be going, I hope it won’t be till I’m a thousand miles away and can’t swim back. He winced at a thump on his shoulder and, trying not to turn at it, said: “I can tell that’s you, Baker, you bastard.” But he did turn, and Baker leaned towards him like the Tower of Pisa, standing on tiptoe to make himself six inches taller instead of three. “Are you glad to be off?” he asked, coming to his normal height. “You bet,” Brian said. “I’ve allus wanted to do a bunk from England and see other countries. For as long as I can remember.” Excited gangs stood all over the ship, pointing out the sights. “They’re glad, anyway,” Baker said. He squinted at Brian through his rimless glasses: “It’s my first time as well. The old man’s been promising me a holiday in Switzerland since the end of the war, but it hasn’t turned up so far.” They watched a Beaufighter take a running torpedo-drop at target boards in the Solent, its blue underbelly roaring across flattened greenish water. “I write to a girl in Switzerland, so I’d like to go there for sentimental reasons,” Baker said. “I’d never get sentimental about a country,” Brian scoffed. “In some ways I wouldn’t care if I never saw this joint again.” The ship swung slowly east and along Spithead towards Portsmouth. A surfaced submarine passed, then a destroyer, each dipping its flags. “I thought you were married, though,” Baker said. “That’s hard luck. All I’m leaving behind is my motorbike.” Brian lit a cigarette, flipped the dead match into a drain at his feet. The moving tide slapped against the ship. Someone farther along pointed out the warships Ramillies and Malaya at Portsmouth, and the coastal forts built against Napoleon. “That word ‘Malaya’ seems familiar,” Baker laughed. “Or will soon, I expect,” Brian said, looking up from the hypnotic rush of sea passing the ship’s waterline. Baker observed with calm superciliousness the coast going by: