savvy?'
Bastable heard the chippings crunch once more, away into a distance of sound made up of aeroplane-drone and the blood in his own ear-drums.
He had been dead so many times that being dead was no longer a burden, it was a memory drilled into him by long practice and experience. So many pieces of him had died along the way, during these last hours, that another piece made no difference. One piece lay under the carrier, and another was among the Tynesiders and Germans on the grass behind the field hospital, where he had dropped the lanyard—and picked it up; and another piece remained in the attic, with his uniform, where he had consciously-unconsciously transferred the lanyard from one pocket to another—
the last surviving piece of his identity as himself.
And now even that was gone. He was stripped bare to the bone in the sunlight, full of separate pains—hands and knees and face stinging, the unyielding stones beneath him digging dummy4
into his aching back.
Yet the pains were as nothing compared with the utter bewilderment he was experiencing; rather, they were the spur to an awareness that he was still alive, when he should be finally dead at last. For although he could otherwise have argued with himself that some fragment of consciousness might still continue after death-that the brain might continue kicking and twitching with thoughts as darkness closed in—
he could not reconcile such an imagining with the ordinary discomfort he continued to feel.
He was alive, when he ought to be dead.
Sandy-hair had quite deliberately spared him, when that should have been the coup-de-grace—
And more, and more confusing than that: Sandy-hair had quite deliberately pretended to kill him—
'Lie still! Stay dead until I come back!'
It didn't make sense.
For it had been Sandy-hair who had fired at him from behind, as he had jumped the rails; and it had been that which had made him miss his footing and fall.
But then Sandy-hair had fired that second time—but to miss
—
It didn't make sense, and the nonsense of it made his head ache with the effort of thinking about it.
And now Sandy-hair had returned to his German friends, to complete whatever treason he was transacting with them . . .
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It didn't make any sense at all.
Time was passing.
He toyed with the idea of seizing this opportunity to start running again—to spring to life and start running— but finally rejected it as unsound. He dare not move to test the strength of his leg, which he had damaged in his fall, but he could add its likely weakness to the greater tiredness and lassitude which enveloped him, and to the doubts within him; and the addition told him that if he ran he would not run far before they caught him.
And, also, if he ran he would be disobeying Sandy-hair's explicit instruction: Lie there! Stay dead until I come back—
or we'll both be dead. Savvy?
So he lay there, and stayed dead, even though he didn't savvy at all. Because it didn't make sense at all.
Eventually he heard the familiar crunching footfalls again, far away but coming closer.
He thought: Now it will make sense, and the thought so filled his mind that there almost wasn't room in it to be frightened.
He closed his eyes and held his breath.
'Don't move,' murmured Sandy-hair above him. 'They've gone, but I said I'd dispose of you, and it's not safe in the dummy4
open, so that's what I'm going to do— for appearances'
sake ... I'm going to drag you off the line into the bushes—
right?'
If it was right it was also decidedly uncomfortable as Bastable felt his wrists being seized and his arms stretched, and his boots bumped and scraped over the granite chippings of the railway track. But at least he knew what was happening to him.
Then the going became softer, and the light penetrating his eyelids was shadowed.
He opened his eyes, and beheld a nightmare, and closed them again instantly because the nightmare was impossible.
Bushes swished around him, and twigs cracked underfoot ahead of him.
He opened his eyes again fearfully, and saw that he was in a small clearing enclosed by bushes.
The bushes parted and the nightmare came back, scowling frightfully at him.
The Brigadier was alive.
XVI
'Sit up, Willis!' said the sandy-haired staff officer.
Bastable stared up through a tracery of leaves at the blue sky far above. He didn't want to sit up. He wanted to die.
He had failed.
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'Sit up!' repeated Sandy-hair sharply.
He had not merely failed: he had failed miserably and shamefully and impossibly. He had failed at point-blank range.
'Don't play silly buggers with me, man!' rasped the Brigadier.
'Sit up this instant!'
Harry Bastable raised himself on to his elbows and faced his failure.
Its extent was printed on the Brigadier's face, across his cheek and the side of his neck in a fiery red powder-burn—
and also in the ferocious expression of anger on the rest of the Brigadier's face.
And finally in the pistol in the Brigadier's hand which pointed unwaveringly at his heart across the little clearing in which they lay.
'Now then—' The Brigadier spoke through clenched teeth, as though his face hurt him. 'Now then—'
'Sir!' The sandy-haired staff officer raised his hand. 'If it's all the same to you, sir—he's mine.'
'Yours?' The Brigadier started to turn towards Sandy-hair, and then winced as the movement creased his powder-burn.
'Well. . . he's certainly your responsibility, Freddie—I grant you that. Because when you deceived Obergruppenfuhrer Keller you risked both of us getting the kybosh. God only dummy4
knows what you would have said if he'd decided to examine the corpse!'
'I should have said that I wanted to interrogate him myself, sir—without delay and without interference,' said Sandy-hair suavely.
'And you think Keller would have let you?'
'Our need is greater than his, sir—he isn't going straight back to British lines, and we are. So it's our risk .. . Besides which, Keller's got a far-more-urgent job than interrogating British agents; the sooner he gets the details of Operation Dynamo back to Berlin, the better.'
'Hmmm . . . well, I'm glad you didn't have to put that theory to the test. Keller's awkward enough as it is.' The Brigadier lifted his arm to bring his wrist-watch level with his eyes.
'And we've not got a lot of time, anyway.'
The railway line will be safe until thirteen-thirty hours, sir.
Keller was positive about that. We've a clear thirty minutes.'
'If you say so ... But I wouldn't like to come a cropper at the last fence.' The Brigadier lowered his arm. 'Very well—he's yours. Only just remember that my vote is for shooting him here and now. Better to be safe than sorry is my motto.'
His wish was going to be granted, thought Bastable bleakly: they were going to kill him.
'But he did try to shoot you, sir,' said Sandy-hair. That's pretty strong evidence on his behalf.'
'True.' The Brigadier fixed his fierce pale eyes on Bastable.
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'But he missed.'
'Only by a hair's-breadth.'
'Also true.' The Brigadier lifted his free hand to touch his neck gingerly. 'It undoubtedly wasn't for lack of trying ...' The eyes bored into Bastable. 'You're a monstrously bad shot, whoever you are.'
'Willis, sir,' said Sandy-hair quickly. 'Captain, Prince Regent's Own—those Terriers at Colembert, remember?'
'Yes. The ones the Huns scuppered.' The Brigadier's eyes flickered. 'I remember.'
'Do you recognize him?'