The Looking Glass War Part 15

As they went upstairs to change, Leiser smiled wryly at Avery. "He's a real boy, isn't he? The old school."

"But good," Avery said.

Leiser stopped. "Of course. Here, tell me something. Was this place always here? Have you used it for many people?"

"You're not the first," Avery said.

"Look, I know you can't tell me much. Is the outfit still like it was . . . people everywhere . .. the same setup?"

"I don't think you'd find much difference. I suppose we've expanded a bit."

"Are there many young ones like you?"

"Sorry, Fred."

Leiser put his open hand on Avery's back. He used his hands a lot.

"You're good, too," he said. "Don't bother about me. Not to worry, eh, John?"

They went to Abingdon: the Ministry had made arrangements with the parachute base. The instructor was expecting them.

"Used to any particular gun, are you?"

"Browning three eight automatic, please," Leiser said, like a child ordering groceries.

"We call it the nine millimetre now. You'll have had the Mark One."

Haldane stood in the gallery at the back while Avery helped wind in the man-sized target to a distance of ten yards and pasted squares of gum-strip over the old holes.

"You call me 'Staff,'" the instructor said and turned to Avery. "Like to have a go as well, sir?"

Haldane put in quickly, "Yes, they are both shooting, please, Staff."

Leiser took first turn. Avery stood beside Haldane while Leiser, his long back toward them, waited in the empty range, facing the plywood figure of a German soldier. The target was black, framed against the crumbling whitewash of the walls; over its belly and groin a heart had been crudely described in chalk, its interior extensively repaired with fragments of paper. As they watched, he began testing the weight of the gun, raising it quickly to the level of his eye, then lowering it slowly; pushing home the empty magazine, taking it out and thrusting it in again. He glanced over his shoulder at Avery, with his left hand brushing from his forehead a strand of brown hair which threatened to impede his view. Avery smiled encouragement, then said quickly to Haldane, talking business, "I still can't make him out."

"Why not? He's a perfectly ordinary Pole."

"Where does he come from? What part of Poland?"

"You've read the file. Danzig."

"Of course."

The instructor began. "We'll just try it with the empty gun first, both eyes open, and look along the line of sight, feet nicely apart now thank you, that's lovely. Relax now, be nice and comfy, it's not a drill movement, it's a firing position, oh yes, we've done this before! Now traverse the gun, point it but never aim. Right!" The instructor drew breath, opened a wooden box and took out four magazines. "One in the gun and one in the left hand," he said and handed the other two up to Avery, who watched with fascination as Leiser deftly slipped a full magazine into the b.u.t.t of the automatic and advanced the safety catch with his thumb.

"Now c.o.c.k the gun, pointing it at the ground three yards ahead of you. Now take up a firing position, keeping the arm straight. Pointing the gun but not aiming it, fire off one magazine, two shots at a time, remembering that we don't regard the automatic as a weapon of science but more in the order of a stopping weapon for close combat. Now slowly, very slowly ..."

Before he could finish, the range was vibrating with the sound of Leiser's shooting-he shot fast, standing very stiff, his left hand holding the spare magazine precisely at his side like a grenade. He shot angrily, a mute man finding expression. Avery could feel with rising excitement the fury and purpose of his shooting; now two shots, and another two, then three, then a long volley, while the haze gathered around him and the plywood soldier shook and Avery's nostrils filled with the sweet smell of cordite.

"Eleven out of thirteen on the target," the instructor declared. "Very nice, very nice indeed. Next time, stick to two shots at a time please, and wait till I give the fire order." To Avery, the subaltern, he said, "Care to have a go, sir?"

Leiser had walked up to the target and was lightly tracing the bullet holes with his slim hands. The silence was suddenly oppressive. He seemed lost in meditation, feeling the plywood here and there, running a finger thoughtfully along the outline of the German helmet, until the instructor called, "Come on, we haven't got all day."

Avery stood on the gym mat, measuring the weight of the gun. With the instructor's help he inserted one magazine, clutching the other nervously in his left hand. Haldane and Leiser looked on.

Avery fired, the heavy gun thudding in his ears, and he felt his young heart stir as the silhouette flickered pa.s.sively to his shooting.

"Good shot, John, good shot!"

"Very good," said the instructor automatically. "A very good first effort, sir." He turned to Leiser: "Do you mind not shouting like that?" He knew a foreigner when he saw one.

"How many?" Avery asked eagerly, as he and the sergeant gathered round the target, touching the blackened perforations scattered thinly over the chest and belly. "How many, Staff?"

"You'd better come with me, John," Leiser whispered, throwing his arm over Avery's shoulder. "I could do with you over there." For a moment Avery recoiled. Then, with a laugh, he put his own arm around Leiser, feeling the warm, crisp cloth of his sports jacket in the palm of his hand.

The instructor led them across the parade ground to a brick barrack like a theatre with no windows, tall at one end. There were walls half crossing one another like the entrance to a public lavatory.

"Moving targets," Haldane said. "And shooting in the dark."

At lunch they played the tapes.

The tapes were to run like a theme through the first two weeks of his training. They were made from old phonograph records; there was a crack in one which recurred like a metronome. Together, they comprised a ma.s.sive parlour game in which things to be remembered were not listed but mentioned, casually, obliquely, often against a distracting background of other noises, now contradicted in conversation, now corrected or contested. There were three princ.i.p.al voices, one female and two male. Others would interfere. It was the woman who got on their nerves.

She had that antiseptic voice which air hostesses seem to acquire. In the first tape she read from lists, quickly. First it was a shopping list, two pounds of this, one kilo of that; without warning she was talking about coloured skittles-so many green, so many ochre; then it was weapons, guns, torpedoes, ammunition of this and that calibre; then a factory with capacity, waste and production figures, annual targets and monthly achievements. In the second tape she had not abandoned these topics, but strange voices distracted her and led the dialogue into unexpected paths.

While shopping she entered into an argument with the grocer's wife about certain merchandise which did not meet with her approval; eggs that were not sound, the outrageous cost of b.u.t.ter. When the grocer himself attempted to mediate he was accused of favouritism; there was talk of points and ration cards, the extra allowance of sugar for jam-making; a hint of undisclosed treasures under the counter. The grocer's voice was raised in anger but he stopped when the child intervened, talking about skittles. "Mummy, Mummy, I've knocked over the three green ones, but when I tried to put them up, seven black ones fell down; Mummy, why are there only eight black ones left?"

The scene shifted to a public house. It was the woman again. She was reciting armaments statistics; other voices joined in. Figures were disputed, new targets stated, old ones recalled; the performance of a weapon-a weapon unnamed, undescribed- was cynically questioned and heatedly defended.

Every few minutes a voice shouted "Break!" It might have been a referee-and Haldane stopped the tape and made Leiser talk about football or the weather, or read aloud from a newspaper for five minutes by his watch (the clock on the mantelpiece was broken). The tape recorder was switched on again, and they heard a voice, vaguely familiar, trailing a little like a parson's; a young voice, deprecating and unsure, like Avery's: "Now here are the four questions. Discounting those eggs which were not sound, how many has she bought in the last three weeks? How many skittles are there altogether? What was the annual overall output of proved and calibrated gun barrels for the years 1937 and 1938? Finally, put in telegraph form any information from which the length of the barrels might be computed."

Leiser rushed to the study-he seemed to know the game- to write down his answers. As soon as he had left the room Avery said accusingly, "That was you. That was your voice speaking at the end."

"Was it?" Haldane replied. He might not have known.

There were other tapes too, and they had the smell of death; the running of feet on a wooden staircase, the slamming of a door, a click, and a girl's voice asking-she might have been offering lemon or cream-"Catch of a door? c.o.c.king of a gun?"

Leiser hesitated. "A door," he said. "It was just the door."

"It was a gun," Haldane retorted. "A Browning nine millimetre automatic. The magazine was being slid into the b.u.t.t."

In the afternoon they went for their first walk, the two of them, Leiser and Avery, through Port Meadow and into the country beyond. Haldane had sent them. They walked fast, striding over the whip gra.s.s, the wind catching at Leiser's hair and throwing it wildly about his head. It was cold but there was no rain; a clear, sunless day when the sky above the flat fields was darker than the earth.

"You know your way around here, don't you?" Leiser asked. "Were you at school here?"

"I was an undergraduate here, yes."

"What did you study?"

"I read languages. German princ.i.p.ally."

They climbed a stile and emerged in a narrow lane.

"You married?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Kids?"

"One."

"Tell me something, John. When the Captain turned up my card . . . what happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"What does it look like, an index for so many? It must be a big thing in an outfit like ours."

"It's in alphabetical order," Avery said helplessly. "Just cards. Why?"

"He said they remembered me: the old hands. I was the best, he said. Well, who remembered?"

"They all did. There's a special index for the best people. Practically everyone in the Department knows Fred Leiser. Even the new ones. You can't have a record like yours and get forgotten, you know." He smiled. "You're part of the furniture, Fred."

"Tell me something else, John. I don't want to rock the boat, see, but tell me this . . . Would I be any good on the inside?"

"The inside?"

"In the Office, with you people. I suppose you've got to be born to it really, like the Captain."

"I'm afraid so, Fred."

"What cars do you use up there, John?"

"Humbers."

"Hawk or Snipe?"

"Hawk."

"Only four-cylinder? The Snipe's a better job, you know."

"I'm talking about nonoperational transport," Avery said. "We've a whole range of stuff for the special work."

"Like the van?"

"That's it."

"How long before . . . how long does it take to train you? You, for instance; you just did a run. How long before they let you go?"

"Sorry, Fred. I'm not allowed ... not even you."

"Not to worry."

They pa.s.sed a church set back on a rise above the road, skirted a ploughed field and returned, tired and radiant, to the cheerful embrace of the Mayfly house and the gas fire playing on the golden roses.

In the evening, they had the projector for visual memory: they would be in a car, pa.s.sing a marshalling yard; or in a train beside an airfield; they would be taken on a walk through a town, and suddenly they would become aware that a vehicle or a face had reappeared, and they had not remembered its features. Sometimes a series of disconnected objects were flashed in rapid succession on the screen, and there would be voices in the background, like the voices on the tape, but the conversation was not related to the film, so that the student must consult both his senses and retain what was valuable from each.

Thus the first day ended, setting the pattern for those that followed: carefree, exciting days for them both, days of honest labour and cautious but deepening attachment as the skills of boyhood became once more the weapons of war.

For the unarmed combat they had rented a small gymnasium near Headington which they had used in the war. An instructor had come by train. They called him Sergeant.

"Will he be carrying a knife at all? Not wanting to be curious," he asked respectfully. He had a Welsh accent.

Haldane shrugged. "It depends what he likes. We don't want to clutter him up."

"There's a lot to be said for a knife, sir." Leiser was still in the changing room. "If he knows how to use it. And the Jerries don't like them, not one bit." He had brought some knives in a handcase, and he unpacked them in a private way, like a salesman unpacking his samples. "They never could take cold steel," he explained. "Nothing too long, that's the trick of it, sir. Something flat with the two cutting edges." He selected one and held it up. "You can't do much better than this as a matter of fact." It was wide and flat like a laurel leaf, the blade unpolished, the handle waisted like an hourgla.s.s, crosshatched to prevent slip. Leiser was walking toward them, smoothing a comb through his hair.

"Used one of these, have you?"

Leiser examined the knife and nodded. The sergeant looked at him carefully. "I know you, don't I? My name's Sandy Lowe. I'm a b.l.o.o.d.y Welshman."

"You taught me in the war."

"Christ," said Lowe softly, "so I did. You haven't changed much, have you?" They grinned shyly at one another, not knowing whether to shake hands. "Come on then, see what you remember." They walked to the coconut matting in the centre of the floor. Lowe threw the knife at Leiser's feet and he s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, grunting as he bent.

Lowe wore a jacket of torn tweed, very old. He stepped quickly back, took it off and with a single movement wrapped it around his left forearm, like a man preparing to fight a dog.

Drawing his own knife as he moved slowly around Leiser, keeping his weight steady but riding a little from one foot to the other. He was stooping, his bound arm held loosely in front of his stomach, fingers outstretched, palm facing the ground. He had gathered his body behind the guard, letting the blade play restlessly in front of it while Leiser kept steady, his eyes fixed upon the sergeant. For a time they feinted back and forth; once Leiser lunged and Lowe sprang back, allowing the knife to cut the cloth of the jacket on his arm. Once Lowe dropped to his knees, as if to drive the knife upward beneath Leiser's guard, and it was Leiser's turn to spring back, but too slowly it seemed, for Lowe shook his head, shouted "Halt!" and stood upright.

"Remember that?" He indicated his own belly and groin, pressing his arms and elbows in as if to reduce the width of his body. "Keep the target small." He made Leiser put his knife away and showed him holds, crooking his left arm around Leiser's neck and pretending to stab him in the kidneys or the stomach. Then he asked Avery to stand as a dummy, and the two of them moved around him with detachment, Lowe indicating the places with his knife and Leiser nodding, smiling occasionally when a particular trick came back to him.

"You didn't weave with the blade enough. Remember, thumb on top, blade parallel to the ground, forearm stiff, wrist loose. Don't let his eye settle on it, not for a moment. And left hand in over your own target, whether you've got the knife or not. Never be generous about offering the body, that's what I say to my daughter." They laughed dutifully, all but Haldane.

After that, Avery had a turn. Leiser seemed to want it. Removing his gla.s.ses, he held the knife as Lowe showed him, hesitant, alert, while Leiser trod crabwise, feinted and darted lightly back, the sweat running off his face, his small eyes alight with concentration. All the time Avery was conscious of the sharp grooves of the shaft against the flesh of his palm, the aching in his calves and b.u.t.tocks as he kept his weight forward on his toes, and Leiser's angry eyes searching his own. Then Leiser's foot had hooked around his ankle; as he lost balance he felt the knife being wrenched from his hand; he fell back, Leiser's full weight upon him, Leiser's hand clawing at the collar of his shirt.

They helped him up, all laughing, while Leiser brushed the dust from Avery's clothes. The knives were put away while they did physical training; Avery took part.

When it was over, Lowe said, "We'll just have a spot of unarmed combat and that will do nicely."

Haldane glanced at Leiser. "Have you had enough?"

"I'm all right."

Lowe took Avery by the arm and stood him in the centre of the gym mat. "You sit on the bench," he called to Leiser, "while I show you a couple of things."

He put a hand on Avery's shoulder. "We're only concerned with five marks, whether we got a knife or not. What are they?"