The Charioteer (24 page)

Alone in the car beside a high wall topped with wire, Laurie could hear Ralph speaking to a guard, then his feet ringing crisply into the distance, then silence. He dozed lightly, kept from sleeping by the cold. At last he heard Ralph’s voice again, with some other man’s, coming nearer, milling over the small stuff of people who work together.

“Was it all right?” he asked when Ralph came out alone.

“Yes, he let me have the whole tackle. I found him at a party so he was fairly mellow. The difficulty was getting away. Sorry I’ve been so long.”

He had had another couple of drinks at the party, Laurie thought. It was not extremely obvious, and betrayed itself chiefly in his own consciousness of it. He had become much more taciturn, and drove with elaborate precision, as if he were taking a test.

Laurie was feeling drowsy again. When the car stopped he thought at first that he had slept through to the end of the run. Then he looked around him and saw that Ralph had pulled onto a farm track just off the road.

“I’ll have to stop for a minute or two, Spud. I’m sorry.”

“What’s the matter?” He felt the tilt of the car on the rutted ground and asked, “Had a puncture?”

“No. Just one party too many. I can always tell”—he was speaking with carefully articulated distinctness—“when my reflexes get bitched up. Luckily my inhibitions stay good till a much, oh, very much later stage. Don’t give it a thought, Spud. I know when to go on again.” He pushed off his cap and slid back in the seat, his head tilted against the folded hood. “You’ve got the cigarettes.”

“Shall I light one for you?”

“Yes.”

He smoked in silence for some minutes. Laurie could think of nothing to say.

“I think from now on I shall change over to the system of Saturday night blind, sober all the week.”

“It comes cheaper, they say.”

“You make me laugh, Spud. This shocks you more than finding me mixed up with Sandy’s crowd, doesn’t it?”

“Hell, where do you think I’ve been living?”

“Falling down on an errand of mercy, m-m?”

“Oh, go on, he’s not bleeding to death.”

“All the same if he was, you might have said; why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t think it.”

“You see, Spud, if you will interrupt yourself without previous notice in this arbitrary and irrational manner, you must put up with a bit of disorganization.”

“What was that?”

“Don’t be unreasonable. I can’t keep saying arbitrary and irrational just to please you.”

A wash of cold sweet air stirred across them, like an eddy in water. Drawn along the meadows, a belt of mist began to appear in a milky glimmer.

The smoke of their cigarettes was growing visible, lifting almost straight into the sky. Across one of Ralph’s temples, where the tilt of his cap had let it bleach in the weather, the hair in this faint light looked silver, and his head like bronze.

“Spud, there’s no need for you to keep falling over yourself to be tactful, because it’s of no consequence, so you can just as well say. Did you really mean to do it, or not?”

“Mean to do what?”

“Oh, come. You never used to creep out of things.”

“I won’t out of this if you tell me what it is.”

“At Dunkirk. When you sent me up.”

“Of course not. I told you.”

“You looked at me when you said it.”

“In the army you somehow don’t think of seeing people you know with beards. I just thought ‘beard’ … I daresay it was partly not having died.”

“Who’s supposed to be drunk, you or me?”

“Well, the thing was that I’d felt rather bad just a while before. I expect it was just seasickness really; but I seem to remember thinking, This is it, I must let go now. Then I woke up and there was this officer with a beard. It was reaction, I think. Street-urchin sort of thing, really.”

“God, that’s funny.” He lay back laughing to himself.

“The chap lying next me thought it was funny, too.”

“That’s really all you remember?”

“Yes. What did happen, actually?”

“To see you sitting there saying, ‘What did happen?’ It’s so bloody ridiculous, I can’t tell you. Well, now, what happened, yes. I’d just had my pom-pom gunner shot. It was awkward taking the gun just then, my sub had got put out of action the trip before, but there wasn’t anyone else so I was stuck with it. I couldn’t hit the bastard, he got away. Then up comes Norris with some garbled story, would I tell them if someone was dead. I told him where to go, and then suddenly there was a lull and time on my hands, so I went over. You shouldn’t have been there really, the order was no wounded on deck, but we were full up below and we always finished up with a few odd ones. I was picking my way between them when a gingery man with a couple of black eyes seemed to grab me by the ankle. ‘ ’Ere, sir, Spud ’ere ain’t gone, is ’e? There’s a sailor ’ere keeps sayin’ ’e’s ’ad it. Don’t you let ’em put ’im overboard, sir, I swear I seen ’im breathe.’ There’s no question of doing that,’ I said, ‘in any case, on a short crossing like this.’ Then I looked to see what it was all about, and it was you. Have you got the cigarettes?”

“I shouldn’t think you’d have recognized me very easily.”

“Now that was the uncanniest thing I’ve ever seen. You were dead white, of course, and, well, here’s a thing you wouldn’t know about, but that day, when you knocked at my study door and came in, I suppose what with the awkwardness and one thing and another … Well, anyway, there you were. No, light it for me, you’ve got the lighter.

“So I felt your pulse, only I couldn’t feel anything except that you were as cold as a corpse, so I opened your tunic or whatever you call those workhouse slops the army wears now—can’t you remember any of this?”

“I expect I might have just afterwards. It’s all gone now.”

“It’s funny, that, really damned funny. I felt for your heart and it seemed I could feel something just faintly ticking over; and then you moved a bit. ‘Hello, Spud,’ I said, ‘how are you feeling?’ The next man had told me your name so he didn’t think anything of my knowing it. I think I said, ‘Hold on, Spud, we’ll get you home all right,’ or something like that. And then you opened your eyes, very deliberately, and seemed to give me a good look up and down. ‘Sorry, dearie,’ you said, smiling to yourself in a private sort of way. ‘Sorry, dearie, some other time.’ Then you turned away as if that were about enough. Famous last words.” He drew once or twice on the cigarette and added, “I heard you were dead about three weeks later.”

“Thank you for writing to me. I wish I’d had the letter.”

“There must be some reason why things happen. Something in us must touch them off. Like a magnetic mine.”

“I don’t know. I always think when you go to war you make yourself over to chance by an act of will.”

“You have a peaceful mind, Spuddy.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Should I?” There was a long silence. Laurie could hear, deep in the field, the clumsy shifting of a sleepy horse, waking to graze. “Well, life’s full of surprises, isn’t it?” Suddenly his voice was light and hard, as it had been at the party. He sat up, stretched, put on his cap, switched the ignition on. “Let’s see how it goes now.”

They talked very little after that. Ralph’s contest with the car had developed a certain grimness. There was nothing wrong with his driving, except a persistent impression of something difficult being done for a bet, which kept Laurie on edge all the time. Because of the cold, or his fixed position in the car, or the bad springs, the ache in his knee was turning into a tight cramp. He was anxious not to bother Ralph with any of this; when he could bear it no longer, he dropped the cigarette-case on the floor as an excuse to move about. The knee had stiffened; he chose a moment when Ralph was turning a corner to try and flex it in his hands.

Ralph said, “How long has that been going on?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence,” said Ralph shortly. “Is it very bad?”

“No, it’s only seized up on the bearings a bit.”

“Whyever didn’t you tell me?”

“It just comes and goes again in no time. Sort of muscle spasm.”

“You bloody liar. We’ll be back in five minutes.”

He opened the throttle. Oddly enough, Laurie didn’t feel nervous. It was rather as if Ralph were driving himself as well as the car, with an eye on the defects of both.

They were back in four minutes. In the hall Laurie looked up the high well of the stairs and said, “Run up and give the things to Alec, he’ll be waiting for them. I’ll take my time.”

Ralph paused at the stair-foot. In the dim light outside there had been something young and rakish about his profile under the tilted cap. Light destroyed the illusion; he looked worn at the edges, hard and drawn. “God, he can wait another minute. It’s such a hell of a climb, Spud. Let me give you a hand.”

For the first time he looked uncertain and ineffective. Why, thought Laurie, pain twitching at the nerves of anger, why not accept the obvious fact that he couldn’t do anything, and get out of the way? Any fool must see that one couldn’t get up there with somebody staring. The mere sight of all that drive and force, poised indecisively, was oppressive; he had a feeling that at any moment Ralph would do something high-handed and insufferable, like trying to carry him. He drew back and said uncontrollably, “Oh, do get on, I can’t bear being stood over.”

“Sorry,” said Ralph. He turned and ran upstairs, brisk and straight-backed, as if he were on a companionway.

Alec had got a table set out with sterilized dishes and boiled water and Dettol, on a white cloth. It looked very professional; Laurie saw it through the open door and didn’t go in.

Just then Ralph crossed the landing from the kitchen. Each at the same moment began a strained tentative smile, which suddenly gathered kindness and relief. Ralph was going to help Alec with the suturing; he indicated this with an ironic gesture, and disappeared. Laurie lay flat on his face on one of the sitting-room divans; this posture, which always relieved the pain, was a luxury he had been looking forward to.

“Where are you, Spud?” said Ralph’s voice outside.

“Here,” said Laurie, rolling over. He guessed that Ralph was trying not to take him by surprise.

“Brought you some more dope. One more lot can’t hurt.”

Laurie took it thankfully. Soon he was sleeping, his head buried in his arms. The smell of strong coffee wove itself into his dreams.

Afterwards he had only the dimmest recollection of Ralph sitting beside him and persuading him to wake up, of getting downstairs again and into the car. He could not remember whether he saw Alec again or whether Ralph asked him the way to the hospital. Wrapped in something rough and warm he sank, as the car ran out into the country, deeper and deeper into sleep. At first his dreams were full of haste and confused emergency; but later they grew easy and idle, till at last the ivory gate opened, and the phantasms of happiness came out, like Arabian genii answering a wish. He was in bed at home; he had had a new operation on his leg, which had put everything right, and his mother was nursing him. There was some special joy in the fact of her presence, some danger past; but even the memory of what this danger had been was healed and smoothed away. When she had said good night she kissed him, very lightly but with more tenderness than she had shown him since he was a child. He was half aware that he dreamed, and was conscious of an extra happiness because, even after this fatal knowledge had touched him, he still felt the kiss as if it were real. To bring her back he began to put out his hand to her; but she had gone, and his own movement woke him. The car had stopped; beyond the shadow of the tree was the gate of the hospital. Ralph was sitting back in the driver’s seat, lighting a cigarette.

“Hello, Ralph,” said Laurie, smiling at him out of the peace he had just left.

“Hello, Spud. Here we are. Will you be all right going in, or shall I come with you?”

“No, I’ll be all right. I feel wonderful now. I’ve been sound asleep.”

“Have you? Good. Oh, I’d better take Alec’s burberry. Next time we meet perhaps it won’t be in such a madhouse. I’ll ring you up. Good night.”

The hospital lay flat in staring moonlight. As Laurie walked up the wide asphalt path between the huts, he thought that if he had been demobbed for years, and had looked in as he happened to pass, it couldn’t seem more altered and remote. He reached the ward without meeting anyone. In the corridor Nurse Sims swept down on him, and drove him with fierce whispers into the kitchen.

“No one saw you? Here, drink this while it’s hot, you look dead on your feet. To think of
you
breaking out like this! Don’t you dare go in the ward till you’ve changed; I’ll bring you your pajamas in the bathroom. Night Sister would kill me. When she did her first round I just threw your bed open and she thought you’d gone through. What
have
you been up to? No, don’t tell me, it’s written all over you. Don’t you ever think I’ll cover up for you if it happens again. And another thing. Next time you see your friend, you tell him from me that he’s a very naughty boy. He’s in the navy,
he
ought to know the man on the switchboard always listens in. Who drove you back here? Oh,
did
he? Well, I’m only surprised he didn’t come wandering in here, he seems to have cheek enough for anything. I suppose he thought he’d gone a bit
too
far. Well, goodness, I’d have found him a cup of cocoa or something, driving all that way this time of night. You tell him, I’m not such a sourpuss as all that.”

As he was creeping up the ward, someone whispered hoarsely, to the effect that his girl would be wanting breakfast in bed. It was Willis, making the first joke Laurie had ever heard from him which seemed inspired, on the whole, by good nature.

No one else was awake. Reg Barker lay in a patch of moonlight which seemed to eat like acid into the thin surface of his sleep, leaving him half exposed to reality; it was like seeing someone sleeping huddled in the cold. There was something unbearably childlike and vulnerable in the bareness of his unprotected face; so he must have lain while his wife looked down at him with boredom, with calculation, with sensual dreams of the new man. Charlot, the white light piercing his brain with some memory of a naked and dead sky, was whimpering in his sleep as he sometimes did, softly, like a dog by the fire. Laurie slid into bed. With a poignancy he had never felt during the half-stupefying agony on the beach, he was beset by a terrible consciousness of the world’s ever-renewed, ever-varied, never-dying pain: children and animals without hope in the present moment’s eternity; the prisoners of cruel men, the cruel terribly imprisoned in themselves; Alec watching beside Sandy; Ralph quietly struggling with the gear-lever of his last command; tomorrow’s air raid victims, the still unknown suffering of the unmeasured years of war. He heard footsteps coming, and turned on his face to hide it and to ease the ache in his leg. Then he knew they weren’t the nurse’s, and looked up into Andrew’s face.