The Looking Glass War Part 22

Haldane fetched from his own bedroom a heavy cashbox and unlocked it.

First he took a wallet, a shabby brown one with a centre compartment of cellophane which held Leiser's ident.i.ty card, fingered and stamped; it lay open behind its flat frame, so that the photograph of Leiser looked outward, a little prison picture. Beside it was an authority to travel and a written offer of employment from the State Cooperative for shipbuilding in Rostock. Haldane emptied one pocket of the wallet and then replaced the contents paper for paper, describing each in turn.

"Food registration card-driving license-Party Card. How long have you been a Party member?"

"Since forty-nine."

He put in a photograph of a woman and three or four grimy letters, some still in their envelopes.

"Love letters," he explained shortly.

Next came a Union card and a cutting from a Magdeburg newspaper about production figures at a local engineering works; a photograph of the Brandenburg Gate before the war; a tattered testimonial from a former employer.

"That's the wallet, then," Haldane said. "Except for the money. The rest of your equipment is in the rucksack. Provisions and that kind of thing."

He handed Leiser a bundle of bank notes from the box. Leiser stood in the compliant att.i.tude of a man being searched, his arms raised a little from his sides and his feet slightly apart. He would accept whatever Haldane gave him, put it carefully away, then resume the same position. He signed a receipt for the money. Haldane glanced at the signature and put the paper in a black briefcase which he had put separately on a side table.

Next came the odds and ends which Hartbeck would plausibly have about him: a bunch of keys on a chain-the key to the suitcase was among them-a comb, a khaki handkerchief stained with oil and a couple of ounces of subst.i.tute coffee in a twist of newspaper; a screwdriver, a length of fine wire and fragments of metal ends newly turned-the meaningless rubble of a working man's pockets.

"I'm afraid you can't take that watch," Haldane said.

Leiser unbuckled the gold armband and dropped the watch into Haldane's open palm. They gave him a steel one of eastern manufacture and set it with great precision by Avery's bedside clock.

Haldane stood back. "That will do. Now remain there and go through your pockets. Make sure things are where you would naturally keep them. Don't touch anything else in the room, do you understand?"

"I know the form," said Leiser, glancing at his gold watch on the table. He accepted the knife and hooked the black scabbard into the waistband of his trousers. "What about my gun?"

Haldane guided the steel clip of the briefcase into its housing and it snapped like the latch of a door.

"You don't take one," Avery said.

"No gun?"

"It's not on, Fred. They reckon it's too dangerous."

"Who for?"

"It could lead to a dangerous situation. Politically, I mean. Sending an armed man into East Germany. They're afraid of an incident."

"Afraid?"

For a long time he stared at Avery, his eyes searching the young, unfurrowed face for something that was not there. He turned to Haldane.

"Is that true?"

Haldane nodded.

Suddenly he thrust out his empty hands in front of him, cupped in a terrible gesture of poverty, the fingers crooked and pressed together as if to catch the last water, his shoulders trembling in the cheap jacket, his face drawn, half in supplication, half in panic.

"The gun, John! You can't send a man without a gun! For mercy's sake, let me have the gun!"

"Sorry, Fred."

His hands still extended, he swung around to Haldane. "You don't know what you're doing!"

LeClerc had heard the noise and came to the doorway. Haldane's face was arid as rock; Leiser could have beaten his empty fists upon it for all the charity it held. His voice fell to a whisper. "What are you doing? G.o.d Christ, what are you trying to do?" To both of them he cried in revelation, "You hate me, don't you! What have I done to you? John, what have I done? We were pals, weren't we?"

LeClerc's voice, when at last he spoke, sounded very pure, as if he were deliberately emphasizing the gulf between them.

"What's the trouble?"

"He's worried about the gun," Haldane explained.

"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. It's out of our hands. You know how we feel about it, Fred. Surely you know that. It's an order, that's all. Have you forgotten how it used to be?" He added stiffly, a man of duty and decision, "I can't question my orders: what do you want me to say?"

Leiser shook his head. His hands fell to his sides. The discipline had gone out of his body.

"Never mind." He was looking at Avery.

"A knife's better in some ways, Fred," LeClerc added consolingly. "Quieter."

"Yes."

Haldane picked up Leiser's spare clothes. "I must put these into the rucksack," he said and, with a sideways glance at Avery, walked quickly from the room, taking LeClerc with him. Leiser and Avery looked at one another in silence. Avery was embarra.s.sed to see him so ugly. At last Leiser spoke.

"It was we three. The Captain, you and me. It was all right, then. Don't worry about the others, John. They don't matter."

"That's right, Fred."

Leiser smiled. "It was the best ever, that week, John. It's funny, isn't it: we spend all our time chasing girls, and it's the men that matter; just the men."

"You're one of us, Fred. You always were; all the time your card was there, you were one of us. We don't forget."

"What does it look like?"

"It's two pinned together. One for then, one for now. It's in the index . .. live agents, we call it. Yours is the first name. You're the best man we've got." He could imagine it now: the index was something they had built together. He could believe in it, like love.

"You said it was alphabetical order," Leiser said sharply. "You said it was a special index for the best."

"Big cases go to the front."

"And men all over the world?"

"Everywhere."

Leiser frowned as if it were a private matter, a decision to be privately taken. He stared slowly around the bare room, then at the cuffs of his coa.r.s.e jacket, then at Avery, interminably at Avery, until, taking him by the wrist, but lightly, more to touch than to lead, he said under his breath, "Give us something. Give me something to take. From you. Anything."

Avery felt in his pockets, pulling out a handkerchief, some loose change and a twist of thin cardboard, which he opened. It was the photograph of Taylor's little girl.

"Is that your kid?" Leiser looked over the other's shoulder at the small, bespectacled face; his hand closed on Avery's. "I'd like that." Avery nodded. Leiser put it in his wallet, then picked up his watch from the bed. It was gold with a black dial for the phases of the moon. "You have it," he said. "Keep it. I've been trying to remember," he continued, "at home. There was this school. A big courtyard like a barracks with nothing but windows and drainpipes. We used to bang a ball around after lunch. Then a gate, and a path to the church, and the river on the other side ..." He was laying out the town with his hands, placing bricks. "We went Sunday, through the side door, the kids last, see?" A smile of success. "That church was facing north," he declared. "Not east at all." Suddenly he asked: "How long; how long have you been in, John?"

"In the outfit?"

"Yes."

"Four years."

"How old were you then?"

"Twenty-eight. It's the youngest they take you."

"You told me you were thirty-four."

"They're waiting for us," Avery said.

In the hall they had the rucksack and the suitcase, green canvas with leather corners. He tried the rucksack on, adjusting the straps until it sat high on his back like a German schoolboy's satchel. He lifted the suitcase and felt the weight of the two things together.

"Not too bad," he muttered.

"It's the minimum," LeClerc said. They had begun to whisper, though no one could hear. One by one they got into the car.

A hurried handshake and he walked away toward the hill. There were no fine words; not even from LeClerc. It was as if they had all taken leave of Leiser long ago. The last they saw of him was the rucksack gently bobbing as he disappeared into the darkness. There had always been a rhythm about the way he walked.

Eighteen Leiser lay in the bracken on the spur of the hill, stared at the luminous dial of his watch. Ten minutes to wait. The key chain was swinging from his belt. He put the keys back in his pocket, and as he drew his hand away he felt the links slip between his thumb and finger like the beads of a rosary. For a moment he let them linger there; there was comfort in their touch; they were where his childhood was. St. Christopher and all his angels, please preserve us from road accidents.

Ahead of him the ground descended sharply, then evened out. He had seen it; he knew. But now, as he looked down, he could make out nothing in the darkness below him. Suppose it was marshland down there? There had been rain; the water had drained into the valley. He saw himself struggling through mud to his waist, carrying the suitcase above his head, the bullets splashing around him.

He tried to discern the tower on the opposite hill, but if it was there it was lost against the blackness of the trees.

Seven minutes. Don't worry about the noise, they said, the wind will carry it south. They'll hear nothing in a wind like this. Run beside the path, on the south side, that means to the right, keep on the new trail through the bracken, it's narrow but clear. If you meet anyone, use your knife, but for the love of heaven don't go near the path.

His rucksack was heavy. Too heavy. So was the case. He'd quarrelled about it with Jack. He didn't care for Jack. "Better be on the safe side, Fred," Jack had explained. "These little sets are sensitive as virgins: all right for fifty miles, dead as mutton on sixty. Better to have the margin, Fred, then we know where we are. They're experts, real experts where this one comes from."

One minute to go. They'd set his watch by Avery's clock.

He was frightened. Suddenly he couldn't keep his mind from it anymore. Perhaps he was too old, too tired, perhaps he'd done enough. Perhaps the training had worn him out. He felt his heart pounding his chest. His body wouldn't stand anymore; he hadn't the strength. He lay there, talking to Haldane: Christ, Captain, can't you see I'm past it? The old body's cracking up. That's what he'd tell them; he would stay there when the minute hand came up, he would stay there too heavy to move. "It's my heart, it's packed in," he'd tell them, "I've had a heart attack, Skipper, didn't tell you about my d.i.c.kie heart, did I? It just came over me as I lay here in the bracken."

He stood up. Let the dog see the rabbit.

Run down the hill, they'd said; in this wind they won't hear a thing; run down the hill, because that's where they may spot you, they'll be looking at that hillside hoping for a silhouette. Run fast through the moving bracken, keep low and you'll be safe. When you reach level ground, lie up and get your breath back, then begin to crawl.

He was running like a madman. He tripped and the rucksack brought him down, he felt his knee against his chin and the pain as he bit his tongue, then he was up again and the suitcase swung him around. He half fell into the path and waited for the flash of a bursting mine. He was running down the slope, the ground gave way beneath his heels, the suitcase rattling like an old car. Why wouldn't they let him take the gun? The pain rose in his chest like fire, spreading under the bone, burning the lungs: he counted each step, he could feel the thump of each footfall and the slowing drag of the case and rucksack. Avery had lied. Lied all the way. Better watch that cough, Captain; better see a doctor, it's like barbed wire in your guts. The ground levelled out; he fell again and lay still, panting like an animal, feeling nothing but fear and the sweat that drenched his woollen shirt.

He pressed his face to the ground. Arching his body, he slid his hand beneath his belly and tightened the belt of his rucksack.

He began crawling up the hill, dragging himself forward with his elbows and his hands, pushing the suitcase in front of him, conscious all the time of the hump on his back rising above the undergrowth. The water was seeping through his clothes; soon it ran freely over his thighs and knees. The stink of leaf-mold filled his nostrils; twigs tugged at his hair. It was as if all nature conspired to hold him back. He looked up the slope and caught sight of the observation tower against the line of black trees on the horizon. There was no light on the tower.

He lay still. It was too far: he could never crawl so far. It was quarter to three by his watch. The relief guard would be coming from the north. He unbuckled his rucksack, stood up, holding it under his arm like a child. Taking the suitcase in his other hand he began walking cautiously up the rise, keeping the trodden path to his left, his eyes fixed upon the skeleton outline of the tower. Suddenly it rose before him like the dark bones of a monster.

The wind clattered over the brow of the hill. From directly above him he could hear the slats of old timber banging, and the long creak of a cas.e.m.e.nt. It was not a single ap.r.o.n but double; when he pulled, it came away from the staves. He stepped across, reattached the wire and stared into the forest ahead. He felt even in that moment of unspeakable terror, while the sweat blinded him and the throbbing of his temples drowned the rustling of the wind, a full, confiding grat.i.tude toward Avery and Haldane, as if he knew they had deceived him for his own good.

Then he saw the sentry, like the silhouette in the range, not ten yards from him, back turned, standing on the old path, his rifle slung over his shoulder, his bulky body swaying from left to right as he stamped his feet on the sodden ground to keep them from freezing. Leiser could smell tobacco-it was past him in a second-and coffee warm like a blanket. He put down the rucksack and suitcase and moved instinctively toward him; he might have been in the gymnasium at Headington. He felt the haft sharp in his hand, crosshatched to prevent slip. The sentry was quite a young boy under his greatcoat; Leiser was surprised how young. He killed him hurriedly, one blow, as a fleeing man might shoot into a crowd; shortly; not to destroy but to preserve; impatiently, for he had to get along; indifferently because it was a fixture.

"Can you see anything?" Haldane repeated.

"No." Avery handed him the gla.s.ses. "He just went into the dark."

"Can you see a light from the watch tower? They'd shine a light if they heard him."

"No, I was looking for Leiser," Avery answered.

"You should have called him Mayfly," LeClerc objected from behind. "Johnson knows his name now."

"I'll forget it, sir."

"He's over, anyway," LeClerc said and walked back to the car.

They drove home in silence.

As they entered the house Avery felt a friendly touch upon his shoulder and turned, expecting to see Johnson; instead he found himself looking into the hollow face of Haldane, but so altered, so manifestly at peace, that it seemed to possess the youthful calm of a man who has survived a long illness; the last pain had gone out of him.

"I am not given to eulogies," Haldane said.

"Do you think he's safely over?"

"You did well." He was smiling.

"We'd have heard, wouldn't we? Heard the shots or seen the lights?"

"He's out of our care. Well done." He yawned. "I propose we go early to bed. There is nothing more for us to do. Until tomorrow night, of course." At the door he stopped, and without turning his head he remarked, "You know, it doesn't seem real. In the war, there was no question. They went or they refused. Why did he go, Avery? Jane Austen said money or love, those were the only two things in the world. Leiser didn't go for money."

"You said one could never know. You said so the night he telephoned."

"He told me it was hate. Hatred for the Germans; and I didn't believe him."

"He went anyway. I thought that was all that mattered to you, you said you didn't trust motive."

"He wouldn't do it for hatred, we know that. What is he then? We never knew him, did we? He's near the mark, you know; he's on his deathbed. What does he think of? If he dies now, tonight, what will be in his mind?"

"You shouldn't speak like that."

"Ah." At last he turned and looked at Avery and the peace had not left his face. "When we met him, he was a man without love. Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray. We ourselves live without it in our profession. We don't force people to do things for us. We let them discover love. And of course, Leiser did, didn't he? He married us for money, so to speak, and left us for love. He took his second vow. I wonder when."

Avery said quickly, "What do you mean, for money?"

"I mean whatever we gave to him. Love is what he gave to us. I see you have his watch, incidentally."

"I'm keeping it for him."