The floor of the pit, into which smoke was rapidly drifting, was perhaps two metres below him. Sarah Harland, coughing and gasping, half-lay on it struggling to get up but, no doubt because of her fall, without success. She saw him at once, recognised him and silently but unmistakably entreated him to help her. He considered. He would have no trouble getting in and very little trouble getting her out. The trouble would come when he tried to get out himself. She could not help him, nobody else would and there was no furniture in the pit at all, nothing to stand on. He would have to rely entirely on the strength of his arms, and whether he could make it would depend on how far he found he had to reach up. From where he was it looked as if it might be too far. It just might be; that was enough. His decision must have shown in his face, because on to hers came a look of totally unsurprised contempt, a terrible look that was to haunt him till the day he died. He turned away to search for Kitty, for whom after all he was much more responsible.
Huge rounded masses of smoke piled on one another were sailing up the front of the house. The safety curtain, its mechanism failed or its operator fled, was less than half lowered; flames were moving down stage towards it. To be sure, it would not have saved Sarah Harland even if it had come all the way. She died of asphyxiation a few minutes after Alexander had left her, the only fatal casualty of the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ fire. It was soon established that this had been started deliberately, but the perpetrator was never found, nor even his motive placed beyond dispute. An adverse critic of the performance so terminated would have had no time to assemble his materials; a straight saboteur of the Festival might have been expected to pick a time when the building was empty. The most popular theory was that the culprit had been a crazed pre-war set on punishing the cast, the theatre staff, the audience and everybody concerned for having, in different ways, collaborated with the oppressor; he would have counted (rightly) on giving them all a good scare and could not have been expected to shed any tears if many more than one person had died. Again, no evidence for this view was discovered.
On the night of the fire Alexander returned to quarters; troop inspection 0800 hours on the morrow. Although it was still early the mess was deserted. This displeased him; for once he hankered for companionship. At the bar he took a bottle of beer from the shelf, put it back and poured himself a stiff vodka. The following afternoon would see his vital session with Mrs Korotchenko; his thoughts were soon fixed entirely on that. She had her imperfections, but for capturing and holding the attention, even at a distance, she was most effective.
18
At seven o’clock the next morning four officers were breakfasting in ‘B’ Squadron mess: Alexander, Victor, Dmitri and Vsevolod, the aggressive Byelorussian who had been flown in to replace Leo. Boris had already eaten and left to start his day’s work; Major Yakir and George, the second-in-command, were not yet down. The sunlight streamed in through the farmhouse windows cheerfully enough, and yet the prevailing mood was not in the least cheerfuclass="underline" restless, even nervous, under the influence perhaps of the high humidity, the falling atmospheric pressure and the unnatural stillness of the air, all unalleviated by a heavy downpour in the small hours. Dmitri seemed to be the least affected by these intangibles, helping himself to a second coddled egg from the folds of a napkin in the basket before him, skimming through the day’s edition of ‘Angliskaya Pravda’ and finding matters of interest in it. An item on the back page drew a grunt of surprise from him.
‘Listen to this, you fellows,’ he said. ‘Apparently there was a big fire in Northampton last night. In the theatre there – they were putting on some old English play or other. Seems to have been quite a blaze.’
‘What of it?’ asked Vsevolod. He had a red face, bristly hair and pop eyes, all of which went almost too well with his manner.
‘Well, nothing very much if you insist. I just thought somebody might like to know that, against all expectation, something does sometimes happen in this depressingly unimportant part of the world. No more than that.’
‘And quite enough too, thank you.’ Victor had his elbow on the table and his forehead in his hand. His breakfast had consisted of three glasses of mineral water and a cigarette. ‘Not worth shouting your head off, anyway.’
‘Sorry. A girl was killed, it says here. English. She’d been acting in the play. Trapped and overcome by fumes. Isn’t that terrible?’
‘Nothing like as terrible as what you’re doing to the inside of my skull.’
‘Alexander missed a chance there.’ Vsevolod grinned as he spread cherry jam on white bread and butter. ‘If he’d been around he’d have charged in through the flames, snatched up the girl in his powerful grasp and ridden off with her over his saddle-bow.’
Alexander said with great earnestness, ‘Ballocks to you. Fuck your mother, you pig. In this outfit we serve for a while before we start trying to be funny. Have you got that?’
‘Yes, Petrovsky.’
‘See you remember it. – Well?’ he said to the mess corporal, who had just come in.
‘Your orderly is at the door, sir.’
Without another word Alexander threw down his napkin and strode out. There was a ripple of relief and amusement round the table.
‘Can’t he take a joke?’ asked Vsevolod.
‘Usually he can,’ said Dmitri. ‘Another time he’d have roared with laughter. It depends entirely on how he happens to be feeling. He’s probably worried about the court-martial. I don’t blame him. I certainly am.’
Victor scowled. ‘Why don’t they get on with the confounded thing? The prosecutor’s been here a week. What’s he doing?’
‘Getting drunk?’ suggested Vsevolod.
‘That depends how much sense he’s got,’ said Victor.
Dmitri gave an admiring chuckle and said, ‘You never miss a chance, do you?’
‘Horse-shit,’ said Victor. ‘I think I feel strong enough now to try some tea.’
There was no relief from the humidity outside. In the remotest distance, greyish clouds moved sluggishly. The orderly, a bony, bullet-headed youth with a twitching eyelid, drew himself up and saluted – smartly, many would have said, but not Alexander, not this morning.
‘As you were! Again! All right, I won’t waste my time. What is it?’
‘Sergeant Ulmanis’s compliments, your honour, and this has just come by the CO’s orderly.’
Alexander took the proffered envelope. It was grubby, but he noticed nothing; envelopes were always apt to be grubby. This one contained an informal, hand-written note from Colonel Tabidze inviting him to tea and after-lunch drinks at two o’clock that afternoon. If the party went on much above half an hour he would be late for Mrs Korotchenko. Well, that could be endured.
‘Is there an answer, your excellency?’