‘I’m sorry, sir, but I won’t do it, and I won’t let you do it either. Are you with me, Lomov?’
‘Yes!’
‘Do as you’re told!’ screamed Alexander.
‘I’m sorry, your honour. We’ll blow up Vanag and his men for you and welcome, but we won’t see our own lads harmed. Make up your mind to that.’
Alexander raved for nearly five minutes. His main theme was that the two were behaving in this way, not out of comradeship or humanitarianism, but as an expression of the envy and malice which vile creatures like them must naturally feel for anyone of his exalted state. Much of his tirade could not be heard, and much of what could be heard was unintelligible to Lomov, who even so decided that some turns of phrase would not have been disowned by the regimental farrier-major. He felt embarrassment too, and at one point acute alarm, when it seemed that the officer would strike the corporal and be blown in half for his pains (there were limits to Lyubimov’s unpredictability). But the moment passed.
Suddenly it was all over, and Lomov found himself looking at the back view of a man on a horse moving away from him at full gallop.
‘Come on!’ yelled Lyubimov. ‘There’s no knowing what he might get up to in that state.’
It had sounded rather like an excuse, but Lomov ran for his mount as fast as he could.
Now, as the early-autumn evening closed in, a long chase began. One after the other Lyubimov and Lomov jumped the fence into the next field, and the next, and the next, then into a lane which they crossed into a patch of thin woodland. The thunder receded, returned and once more receded without bringing a drop of rain. In his grey uniform and on his black horse, Alexander was not an easy figure to spot among the shadows, and twice they almost lost him in the woods, but he had not had much more than a hundred metres’ start and the more intensive training of his men had made it possible for them to narrow the gap. On the flat, things were more equal; even so, when the woods were behind them and they entered on a wide expanse of level grass with patches of scrub, the pursuers had the advantage of being able to traverse the chord of any arc traced by the pursued. Here Lyubimov gained slightly on Lomov. Strands of lightning came into view and were gone so fast that the reactions of the retina could not keep pace and vision became fogged.
It may have been this impairment which prevented Lomov from seeing the man on the grey horse until he was almost level with him. The horse was grey only in the language of horsemen; other people would have called it white, or rather not exactly white, nor any shade of grey; there was no naming its colour satisfactorily. Lomov thought he had never seen a horse stand so still. Its rider, a tall man in black, wore a hat that shaded his face, though his posture indicated that he was watching the chase, more particularly the one being chased, with intense interest. He did not return Lomov’s wave.
The going became less even. A boy and a dog were moving a flock of sheep with predictable difficulty; the thunder had returned for the second time. Soon a road came up on the right. The three men and five horses, by now almost a single party again, tore along it at top speed until they reached a small church standing back from it. Here Alexander reined in cruelly hard, causing his mount to stagger, and proceeded to dismount. Lyubimov did the same, then Lomov.
‘Are we to consider ourselves back under your command, sir?’ asked Lyubimov.
‘You can consider yourselves what you please.’ The strenuous ride had done nothing to cool Alexander’s rage; he was still moving his lips about and glaring. When he went on he tried to control the way he spoke. ‘I have an errand here that will take two minutes. If you decide to come with me after that I can hardly stop you.’
‘Where are we, sir?’ asked Lomov curiously. ‘What’s in the church?’
A short man in a dark suit had been standing near the church door, as if waiting for someone, when they first rode up. He had not looked at them then. Now, whether at Lomov’s question or by chance, he turned his head. Alexander saw the face of a man of fifty, rather heavy in the jowl and baggy under the eyes, with an expression of mild curiosity, nothing more, not the slightest hint of menace. But Lomov screamed.
Alexander turned on him savagely. ‘What is the matter with you, you dolt, you imbecile? What did you see this time, you madman, Hitler’s ghost?’
‘I didn’t see it, your honour. I didn’t see anything.’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Lyubimov gently. ‘We all know that. You just thought you saw something, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I made a mistake. I… made a mistake.’
‘Of course you did, but saying so once is enough.’
‘Forgive me.’
With a great effort, Lomov unclenched his hands and straightened up to his full small height. No good would come of trying to puzzle out what he had seen or could not have seen in the last hour; the images, never clear, had already started to fade, and whatever was to come, he felt sure, would call for all his attention and capability. Sighing deeply and swallowing, he took off his cap, smoothed his hair and put the cap back on. His officer was just going on foot round the corner of the church. The man in the dark suit was nowhere to be seen. For the time being the skies were quiet and had even grown a little lighter over to the west. After a careful look at his companion, Lyubimov said,
‘I could do with a beer, I don’t mind telling you. Still, I can use up some of the time making room for it, can’t I?’
He handed Lomov the reins of the three riding-horses, went into the churchyard and set about urinating; it was against regulations to do so in the open Street.
‘Lyubimov, what is this place?’
‘Search me. No, wait a bit, it’s probably his dad’s house behind this, if we’re anywhere near where I think we are. You know he’s a big noise in the government side of things round here.’
‘Of course,’ said Lomov thoughtfully. ‘I expect he’s got a-’
Afterwards he always swore he actually heard the great bare pillar of lightning come into being over and beyond the church, but varied on whether it did so with a click or a fizz. At the time he shut his eyes automatically and after no apparent interval flinched at the tremendous detonation that seemed to reach right down to him and be everywhere about him. Neighing loudly, the horses stamped and plunged and pulled him from side to side. Lyubimov, doing up his trousers, hurried over to help.
‘That was close,’ he said.
It had been closer still for Alexander. who had just passed the miniature temple when, with stupefying suddenness, the flash touched the lightning-conductor system of the house. Enormous sparks flew outwards and the air shifted and shook and tossed him to the ground. His fall, on to a patch of coarse grass, left him undamaged, but he lay there for a couple of minutes in a torpor, shocked and half-blinded, deafened too for the moment, inhaling the pungent refreshing odour of ozone. At last he got laboriously to his feet.
The lights were on in the drawing-room, but the curtains had been pulled and in any case the windows were too high off the ground for him to see inside. This business must be finished with as soon as possible; even as it was he had underestimated times and would be late at the rendezvous with Theodore and the others. If they came. As quietly as he could without loitering, he mounted the steps, went indoors and reached the little lobby. With his eyes on the engraved pane he wondered, not for the first time, how that other Alexander would have regarded the enterprise that this one was about to take in hand, and at once saw quite clearly, so clearly that he could not understand never having so much as glimpsed it before, that all his feelings in this matter were fabrications, that he and the dead Englishman were separated not only by time but also by another barrier just as impenetrable, a mental one, a moral one, and that their shared name was the product of a dreary, puny coincidence. How could he have supposed anything else?