I added nothing, however, and the subject was dropped.
The probable camp site being on the other side of the river, we rowed
across the placid Shute in a rubber dinghy. Seldom used, the boat was
invaluable at times, the nearest bridge being at Shuteley.
We made a considerable detour in order to be able to approach the place
wherd we expected the camp to be from the far side, and we stopped
talking as we neared the spot. Sound can carry unexpectedly in the open,
especially near water.
Of course Jota, Gil and I had played as kids all around Shuteley, and
the countryside had changed less than the town, which hadn't changed
much. There were some places where we knew every bush, every tree and
every stone, and this was one of them.
Along the riverside east of the probable camp site there was a jungle
of undergrowth, and it was through this that we approached. A slight
breeze rustled the leaves and cloaked any noise we might have made.
The camp was exactly where we expected and the giants didn't know we
were there. At least, if they did they were pretending they didn't,
and that seemed out of character.
At first sight their camp was like any other. There were two large tents
and five small ones. Most of the boys and girls I had already seen were
there, and there were some I was sure I hadn't seen. The sixteen who
had been in The Copper Beech the evening before, plus Greg, were not,
therefore, the whole company.
In the shade of a canopy two girls were reading magazines. Four of the
men lay on the grass sunbathing, and on the other side of the big tents,
three girls lay drowsily in the afternoon heat. Two or three more sat
on the river bank, not bathing, merely dangling their toes in the water.
Two who were missing were Miranda and Greg. The chance link produced a
sudden stab of jealousy in me. Was Miranda Greg's girl?
Such things happened. They kept happening. A girl talked as if a
certain man was as far as she was concerned the person least likely to
succeed. And then you found out . . .
On the face of it, Miranda didn't like Jota much and liked Greg less.
But I knew that any vague ideas I might have about Miranda and me --
adolescent fantasies, anyway, fatuous even if I weren't married to Sheila
-- were going to be overturned by Greg or Jota, if not both. I knew this
because such things always happened. It was in the nature of things.
Anyway, the camp presented a very normal scene. I didn't know what Jota
had expected, but I hadn't expected this. Not when the giants didn't
know we were watching them.
We could see very well, we were unlikely to be detected, but unfortunately
we were too far away to pick up any of the lazy, murmured conversation
of either group of sunbathers.
And after five minutes I was more than ready to leave. I was rather
afraid that Jota was going to force the issue by striding into the
camp and making something happen. Uncertain why I didn't want that,
I was nevertheless certain that it would be a mistake.
Every single person in the camp was dressed exactly as might be
expected. Nothing sensational like the luxon dresses was visible, and
that was puzzling. If the giants didn't mind creating a sensation in
Shuteley, why were they so conventional in their own camp?
Did they know we were watching them, after all?
The tents, too, were straightforward . . . Primus stoves, plastic
containers, buckets, basins -- every item of camping equipment I could
see looked standard.
That crystallized one of the things that puzzled me about the giants. If
their origin was as strange as I suspected, one of two things could have
been expected.
Either they'd make quite certain their clothes, money, appearance,
speech, camping equipment, and everything else they had with them were
authentic. Or, careless of what Shuteley thought of them, they'd appear
in their true colors, which were, I was quite certain, vastly different
from anything we had ever seen.
But they steered a baffling middle course.
At last what I had feared came about. "Come on," said Jota in a normal
tone, and moved forward.
"No," I whispered urgently, trying to hold him back.
"They're ordinary kids or they're not," he said. "Let's talk to them
and find out."
Reluctantly I followed him, and we strode into the camp.
No, they hadn't been expecting us. The sunbathers sat up, startled, one
of the girls who had unfastened the strap of her bra holding a towel in
front of her.
"Greg!" somebody shouted, and Greg emerged from one of the tents.
I wondered: was Miranda in there?
"Hi," said Greg casually, coming to meet us.
All the giants gathered together -- and they
were
giants, seen in
this setting. Nobody was fat, but the vital statistics of both boys and
girls were unusual . . . Average figures among the girls, I calculated,
would be 41-27-40. Scaled down, very satisfactory. But they had to stand
back for the full effect to be made.
There was no pretense that we were anything but unwelcome
visitors. Someone whispered to Greg, and then he faced us.
"So you came to spy on us, Val," Greg said. "Jota's idea, I guess.
He said Jota this time, not Clarence Mulliner.
"We simply came to -- "
"Fft," said Greg derisively, pointing. I followed his glance. His
meaning, and his conclusion, were unmistakable. We had come from dense
undergrowth. Nobody openly approaching the camp would ever have come
that way.
While my head was turned he must have made a gesture. Before we could
move we were each in the grasp of two of the most gigantic of the giants.
From that moment I ceased thinking of the giants as kids. When two of
them could hold Jota and I as those four held us, they were men.
"A duel," said Greg. "No, two duels. That's it."
There was an excited hum among the giants.
Jota's silence surprised me. He was seldom at a loss for words.
"Knives or guns," said Greg. "I'll take Jota. Obviously, Wesley, you
can have Val."
They began to form a ring. One of the girls ran into Greg's tent, and
emerged almost at once with a pair of wicked-looking knives and two
old-fashioned dueling pistols in a case.
"This has gone far enough," I said. "Where's Miranda?"
"She isn't here," Greg said. And the way he said it made me certain that
her absence completely let him off the leash, that he felt free to do
things he might not otherwise have dared do.
In a daze I saw Jota calmly elect to fight with the pistols. His idea
was to play along with the giants, see how far they would go. Perhaps he
was right, I thought. On his own, without any conventional reaction, he'd
possibly have been able to get himself accepted on his own terms as usual.
The giants played out the farce gravely, though with suppressed
excitement. One of them offered himself as Jota's second.
Then Greg said, not to us but to the rest of them: "This really is a
test. This really is worth while. I'm taking Jota." He stopped, the
pause heavy with significance, although what the significance might be
was a complete mystery to us. He went on: "So after this we'll all know,
won't we?"
A wave of uneasiness ran through them. All the girls stood well back. Then
we got on with it. The pistols were inspected, the meeting-ground paced
out. Then Greg and Jota stood back to back, and at a signal began to
stride slowly and steadily apart.
They had not let me be Jota's second. I had therefore had no chance to
examine the pistols. They would, of course, be loaded with blanks. Perhaps
they were not really pistols at all, but cigarette lighters or elaborate
toys.
I couldn't take the affair seriously, and I was sure Jota wasn't doing
so either, because it was obvious that the giants were simply playing
at duels. There had been a chill for a moment as Greg made his little
speech, but already those not directly involved were smiling and laughing,
as if this was all a big ioke.
Jota and Greg took their last pace and turned. The two shots were so
close that it was impossible to tell which was first. Jota's, I thought,
but of course he had deloped -- fired in the air. Crazy though he might
be at times, he wasn't taking the chance of really shooting Greg.
But Greg had not deloped. And incredulously I watched Jota sink to his
knees, blood at his mouth.
When we reached him he was dead.
I don't know what I said and did. The rest was nightmare.
Fragments of thought flashed through my mind. One was that if our world
really was nothing to the giants, murder in it didn't count to them. If
to them we were unreal, they could kill us as we'd shoot clay pipes. Was
that the explanation?
I also thought of the incredible manner of Jota's death. He had always
seemed larger than life. Yet at the end, he died grotesquely -- firing
in the air, quite certain the duel was a piece of juvenile playacting,
letting Greg pick him off.
I wondered if Miranda's presence would have made any difference. Would
she have stood back with the rest of the girls? Or would she, having
spoken to me three times and lunched with me, have felt what none of
the others seemed to feel -- that we were human beings? I had to admit
she had never shown any sign of it.
I noticed then, though I was unable to analyze it until later, that Greg
had proved a point. The giants were looking at him with new respect -- no,
not respect, rather caution and apprehension. Why this should be I didn't
know. The reason had to be something more than that he had proved he
could shoot straight. Perhaps it was because he had proved he could kill.
Incredibly, in the middle of this, they were making me choose
weapons. Greg was telling me -- the sense registered, though the words
did not -- that if I won, I was free to go.
"Killer," I whispered.
"We're all killers," he said indifferently. "You're a meat eater."
"Are you going to eat Jota?" I demanded.
"That's a point," he admitted, and groped mentally. "A hit -- a palpable
hit," he added.
Realizing that this much was real, that I had to fight Wesley and he
would kill me if he could, I chose the knives. Pistols were no use. Greg
had shown he could shoot, and no doubt Wesley could too. I didn't know
I couldn't, but I was fairly sure, never having tried.
Wesley was taller than me but not much heavier. Although some of the
protocol of duello had been observed, no one had said anything about
dress. I still wore dark pants and a dark sweater, and Wesley, in
swimming briefs, evidently intended to stay that way.
We started fighting. In the first two seconds Wesley slashed my left
wrist deeply and painfully, and nothing could have brought home to me
more clearly that I was fighting for my life.
I knew this was a nightmare, I knew it wasn't real to the giants, and
yet it had been real to Jota and it was real to me.
So I feinted, I slid under that teriifying blade, and before I got clear
again I slashed Wesley's leg. It was a fearsome cut, and it nearly made
me sick. The giants shouted and screamed with excitement.
I had tried to tell Greg that we couldn't kill them, that the death of
Jota had been murder because Jota couldn't possibly try to kill him. And
if I killed one of the giants, the police would see it only as murder.
But if I didn't kill Wesley, he would kill me. This I now fully accepted.
The slashed leg hampered him considerably. Faster than me until then, he
had shown no particular skill with a knife. But then, I had none either.
He attacked twice and I dodged him, making him waste energy and lose
blood. And now he knew that he could lose this fight -- I saw it in his
eyes. With every moment he was slower and weaker.
I got him again. Although the slash across his chest did no serious
damage, it made him a gory object, with rich blood welling from his leg
on the grass and long streaks running down his torso.
It was his blood that nearly finished me. I slipped on it and he was on
me, the knife high.
Too high. Never having fought with a knife, any more than I had, he
paid for the dramatic gesture, knife raised at arm's length for the
death stroke.
I cut his legs from under him, and as he fell pressed the knife into
his heart. It was torn from my fingers.
Unfortunately for all of us, he didn't die quite as quickly as Jota had
done . . .
"All right, Val," Greg said soberly, "you can go."
They were all sober now, the excitement fading from, their faces. Some
of the girls looked rather sick.
I turned and walked out of the camp. What I was going to do now, I had
no idea. The giants had killed Jota and I'd killed one of them.
Of one thing, somehow, I was certain. The giants would cover up. If I
went to the police and took them back to the camp, there would be no
sign of Jota or of Wesley. The blood would be gone . . .
Jota and I were striding into the camp. For a moment we faltered
and stared at each other. Then Greg, enjoying himself, was saying:
"No argument, please. Just get out."
Grinning at me in a not unfriendly way was Wesley. And I knew from
his expression that the duels were something more than a figment of
imagination. He looked exactly as if I had beaten him, fair and square,
in any contest, and he was ready to admit it.
But there was no blood. He was unscratched, as I was.
It wasn't quite the same as the last time we had entered the camp. This
time they were expecting us, lined up. The sunbathers were there too,
on their feet. The shy girl had fastened her bra.
In a second sense, Jota came to life.
"No," he said. "I'd like to stay here with you. In fact, I will."
Greg frowned. "That was meant as a warning. If you -- "
"I'm warned," said Jota easily. "Now I'd like to stay with you for a
while. I'll be no bother -- I've camped out often."
All the giants seemed taken aback.
"I'll even promise not to ask questions," Jota said. "Gosh, it's hot."
He started taking off his jacket.
"We'll throw you out," said Greg.
"And I'll come back," Jota said. "I came back from the dead, didn't I?"
"We arranged that," said Greg ominously. "Next time we won't loop
you back."
Jota had his jacket off and was unbuttoning his shirt. "Can someone lend
me a pair of shorts?" he asked.
Greg suddenly laughed -- the bellow that had rattled the windows of my
office. "I like you," he said.