At five o’clock he wondered if it wasn’t happening again, this time the result of rough water heaved up from village wells on the way down. The weakening sun played against him, and he tried to press the dots away, but they hovered to the west, clear cut on the horizon. He didn’t think his eyes could betray him at such a time. There were, after all, other men still on the earth. He jerked his foot, a thin piece of string reaching down into the ravine.
The specks had vanished. Shelley was by his side. ‘You’ll see them again. They may not hit this spot. I can’t understand it. They’re coming from Morocco, but they’re bound to be French, one of their patrols sprung as a surprise. But why Morocco? There’s the rub, Frank. Look, see them again?’ The second Bren had been moved to form a more solid front, to perfect the spider. Shelley used his glasses. ‘I make six.’ Frank remembered the manuaclass="underline" if there are more, retreat. If there are less and you can win, attack. He wondered on the state of his gun — which had seemed all right when he’d taken it to pieces, but who could tell? ‘If they pass a good distance on either side,’ Shelley said, ‘it’s their lucky day.’
We’re a web, Frank thought. He had said nothing while Shelley talked. Flies always come into a web, just as rats can never resist a trap, even when they can’t see it, even in the middle of a plain like this when they could easily miss it. Noiselessly, almost without movement, Shelley was somewhere else. He checked the signal string around his ankle. His breath was shallow, forceless, as if he had no lungs and his windpipe opened on the empty air of the desert, a nothing-pump of sun-stroke and gut-ache. It would take them an hour to get here. From behind them a white light flickered once. If the plane had spotted us, he thought, they’ll fan out and make a web of their own, a war of spiders. Still far off, they came in line, as if to cut across their front, in which case there’d be no contact. He steeled himself not to drink water. Gravel chafed his boots but he wouldn’t move to empty them. Shelley was back: ‘If we pull off this ambush, we retreat the way we came. There’ll be no time to spare.’
‘What about the lorry, the crates of stuff?’
‘The others will come for it during the night. They know our stopping places. We’ve done all we can.’
‘Or will have,’ Frank said.
At dusk the six men came towards the high rocky flank of the ravine. Waiting: they were moving towards his gun like one end of a micrometer being wound in in slow motion, to meet the other end which was him. They were drawn by thousandths of an inch, a boon speed to his precision patience. He eased in the trigger at a few hundred yards. They were ambling along as if ready for a night’s camp and a meal, two of them laughing. They were well-spaced, called for a wider, chancier arc of fire than Frank would have thought ideal for an ambush now that they were face to face, but enfilading rifles enveloped the first and last man as they stumbled under the wall of bullets. The kick at his shoulder was the joy of life.
The gun worked: greased, set, and aimed, half a magazine blew out of its spout towards their feet. He was human in that he had acted without thought; inhuman in that he hadn’t felt terror while waiting. They were eaten up, tossed into death. It all seemed so quick and thoughtless, silent and pantomimic under the canopy of noise that was terrifying after the long wait. The day seemed to have begun only now, and it was dusk.
One of Shelley’s Moroccans was killed stone dead. There was no dust. It was too quick for confusion, a silent horror film you couldn’t wind back, noise tacked on later when remembered. He was afraid of such first-time success. The Moroccans smashed open the air, hurling grenades as they moved over like panthers, approached firing into the bodies, taking less than no chances, as if they hadn’t had their money’s worth and wanted a full scale battle. A cold wind blew, shattering Frank’s bones. He glanced at the scattered bodies, and lit a cigarette. He felt more empty than safe, more sure of himself than sorry for them, his feet riveted.
It was quiet before complete darkness, an anticlimax of boredom and irritation, everyone sullen, hating to speak. Shelley had collected the soldiers’ papers: ‘They’ve all got German names, except the officer. Maybe they were Alsatians. Maybe. The French are demoralized, but they’re winning. It often happens. It breeds viciousness, and lack of caution — but they’ve got too much stuff and too many men.’
Frank set up the Bren on a rock, trained it on the lorry: ‘We’d better head south-east, then work north to Monts des Ksour. You said there was fighting there.’
Shelley took this suggestion as a joke, post-action madness, he’d expected even from Frank, but which would quickly pass. He gave orders to unload the lorry: ‘We leave the equipment here. There’ll be quite a heap of it with the stuff they’re bringing in from the dead. The Moroccans are heading east on foot to link up with the F L N tonight, who’ll send a truck for this. We’ve got to make tracks for Tangier and report back. Our work’s done for this trip.’
Frank felt anything but mad, saw Shelley as only wanting to skedaddle now from the consequences of his skill, and leave the dump of arms to take its chance with whoever might be first to reach the spot, soon to be clearly marked by weaving and hungry birds. ‘We’re fifteen miles short. The only sure way of getting this across is to drive it as soon as it’s dark.’
‘It’s all taken care of. They know we’re here.’
‘We can’t be sure of that,’ Frank said. ‘Whichever way we go, it’s dangerous. That patrol came from where we didn’t expect it. It’s death to go back that way.’
‘And death to push on.’
‘So we push on. Get them boxes up. I’m delivering this stuff — and myself. They need anyone they can get.’
Shelley looked into the Bren, opening towards him, a grey fossilized toothless mouth that struck in neither east nor west but straight at unresisting points of the body. The Moroccans stopped work, understood, and waited. ‘Listen, you lunatic bastard, if you want to go into Algeria, then hit the trail with them. I’ve been there before, and it’s no Thanksgiving. I’m heading back for Tangier. There are other loads to be brought down.’
‘Not to this place,’ Frank said. ‘Not after this ambush. I want that lorry, and I’m not going without the stuff. You’re coming with me as well. I can’t speak to these others — yet — unless you interpret.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Shelley’s eyes diminished, his face skeletal from sand and work, thirst and the unexpected situation they had dropped into.
‘There aren’t any more “whys” in my life,’ Frank said calmly. He couldn’t go back; every footfall or turn of the wheel made it more impossible. The bullets from the Bren had stitched a row of foolproof locks across the door of the past.
‘It’s crazy thinking; it’s suicide. We’re all finished unless we go back. The French have half a dozen patrols beamed on us. You’re ignoring the rules, Frank. We’ll end up like those poor bastards, with even less reason in it. It won’t work.’
‘It will,’ he argued. ‘If it doesn’t, it will still work. That’s how I think. If you do something, it works, whether you fail or not. In any case, you say we’ll draw French patrols on us. Well, the Algerians in the Monts des Ksour are having a hard time according to the agent at the last village, so it’s possible that what is sent against us might relieve them a bit. It’s no more dangerous for us than for them. We’re mobile. We’ve got good chances. This country’s broken enough to hide us. We’ve got as good a chance of surviving as any others of the F L N. If the uproar is to the north, we’re free and mobile and can strike from the south. I’m learning quick. We’ll pick up others. We’ll be the surprise party.’