The silence encouraged Pim:
“London doesn’t understand the difficulties in this sort of operation. These people are worse than Russians when it comes to gossip and suspicion; in fact, they’re worse than the Irish…London gave me no methodology on this, only the target. I had to take Felker, for instance, I told you from the first that Med Section had fobbed off Felker onto us…”
On and on, a mosaic of words that made a crazy-quilt pattern. Until he mentioned Felker a second time, and Gaunt was compelled to interrupt.
“This is about Felker then?”
For the second time, Pim turned in the little car and looked at his companion with something like astonishment pasted on the porcine features.
“Of course, who do you suppose it would be about? I never wanted Felker, I want you to note that. Later, I mean, when we make the report.”
Felker. The weak link in the whole strange pattern of the operation that had gone on all that winter at Mildenhall, where the American air force maintained its strong operations.
“Why can’t you tell me now?” Gaunt had pleaded, following the little man into the churchyard and around the broken path to the side door of the Norman edifice, with its squat tower and bleak yet eloquent walls and windows.
“I saw the pastor. In the high street, I had to agree…he remembered that I had promised…this is such a mess, but it will all be straightened out…” The words had trailed off as Pim led Gaunt into the church and they were made silent by the presence of the others in the little congregation.
Something had gone terribly wrong. Gaunt knew Pim, and for all the little man’s distracted speech and fluttering ways, he was not a fool. Something had gone terribly wrong with the assignment.
“And I must say what comfort there is to be found in the words of the Twenty-third Psalm. Because it is not only the boasting of David in the power and majesty of God and in David’s belief that God will uphold the faithful; it is in the certainty that God will surely comfort us in our moment of trouble, as we walk ‘through the valley of the shadow of death.’ What shall we fear? Nothing but our fear of God. Comfort is what He brings us in that terrible hour. Such a cozy word, comfort; it conjures up the image of a friendly fire at the end of a long and damp day in the fields…”
Gaunt frowned at the words of the vicar, but none would have noticed the frown; his face had few emotional ranges that were not dominated by his thin lips and narrow eyes. If he were to smile, it might be mistaken for a frown. He had large teeth and they were bared — at smile or frown — by the thin layer of lips.
Rubbish, thought Gaunt. He felt the service would never end. He felt as he had as a child, trapped by the adult conventions of service and worship and meaningless rituals and words that lied. Shall I fear no evil? Of course I shall fear it; it cloaks every step I make in the service; it cloaks the silly chatter of Pim, who prattles about brass rubbings when all he means is that he cannot tell me yet about Felker. What is he waiting for?
Gaunt looked at Pim in the pew next to him and saw that the porcine features were in repose; the words of the vicar, however hoary, rolled over Pim like comforting waves of heat from that fire crackling in the metaphorical fireplace, waiting for him at the end of a gray, wet day in the fields.
A day like this Sunday, Gaunt thought.
“And remember always that the Lord shall be with you, all of you, each in your secret hearts, all the days of your life, and let this comfort you.…”
But there was no comfort, Gaunt would argue. Accept that there is no comfort and the end of the long gray day in the fields is only darkness and the peace of oblivion.
Rain began to beat again at the windows, gently, like a stranger knocking at the back door. Cold, mist, rain, wind; there was no comfort in nature or in words or priests. Especially in thoughts of God.
They rose and sang another hymn, and Gaunt groaned another “My God, Pim” under his breath, but the little man ignored him and sang the hymn in the same surging flat voice as before, rolling like the cold waters in the canals that cut through the farm fields in Anglia. Gaunt had studied the countryside from the window of the first-class compartment of the train up from London. Flat and timeless and dismal, with the flat sky pressing down on the flat earth as though all things had lost a dimension. The fields were turned for spring planting and were black, held down by leaden unmoving clouds that stretched from the Wash down to London and beyond.
Pim touched his shoulder. He realized he had been daydreaming and the service was over. He moved out of the pew, holding his trilby in hand. The young vicar had moved down to the side door that faced the graveyard. Darkness had fallen. The vicar’s youthful face was bright with good-fellowship and a smile that bespoke gratitude to the congregation; at least they had come to be comforted.
“Thank you for attending, thank you, Mr. Pim.”
“It was a wonderful service, Vicar.”
“And for bringing your friend…”
The vicar wanted to talk, to pin them in conversation, but behind them a large woman in a gray coat shoved up to gush at the young minister. “What a beautiful sentiment,” she began.
Pim escaped with Gaunt into the mist of the graveyard. They stood for a moment and felt the chill seep into their clothing.
“What now, Pim? Tea at the vicarage?”
The little man huddled into his mackintosh; his piggish eyes darted up and showed a trace of annoyance. “Yes, Gaunt, that’s all very well. In fact, I met the vicar on the high street scarcely two hours ago, he reminded me about the service, and I had promised him. You don’t seem to appreciate the difficulties in operating — in running any decent sort of operation — in this country. Especially in Suffolk. My God, Gaunt, these people consider a stranger someone who has lived here less than thirty years. We have constrictions in this sort of society, you simply don’t understand, no one at Auntie understands—”
“All right, all right, what now? What about Felker?”
“Yes. What about Felker?” The voice was solemn, dirge-like. The rain and darkness closed around them; they were beyond the pale of light coming from the church door, beyond the gaggle of women and elderly men gathered around the young priest.
“Leave the car, let’s go up to the Half Moon for a warm pint.”
“Pim…”
But the little man led the way without words. Again, Gaunt followed him around the bulk of the Norman spire and up the high street, which was merely an extension of the A highway. At the end of the strip of shops squatted the Half Moon with its dark, flinty stone glistening in the damp. To the side of the structure were the outside toilet facilities. The stink of centuries was in the stones and in the damp wood. The green door beckoned with a single lamp above it and a wooden sign that said the proprietor had license to sell beverages on or off premises.
“Saloon bar,” Pim said, nodding toward the dark inner entrance. They climbed the steps and waited at the bar.
The proprietor was a middle-aged man with a round bald head and sly blue eyes. The public bar on the other side of the pub was bright and cozy; the saloon bar, albeit more elegant, was cold and empty and dark.
“Evening,” the publican said.
“Two pints bitter,” Pim ordered.
Gaunt interrupted with a stubborn tone. “Large Grant’s, I think, if you have it.”
“We have it, sur,” the publican said, immediately adopting an air of hostile subservience. His accent was pure Suffolk, the words uttered with a slurred reluctance, each sound born like a breech calf, half strangled through the clenched lips.