Читать книгу This Above All - Eric Knight - Страница 5

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After Clive left the hotel he went west, going through the town, then steadily along the cliff top road. He marched, going in stolid, set gait, until the sentry challenged him.

“Halt, who goes there?”

“Friend,” he said.

“Advance, friend, and be recognized.”

The formula was over, and now he thought it had a humorous quality. The sentry was quite young. He stood with his left foot forward and the rifle correctly at the on-guard of bayonet fighting. But the gun had no bayonet. The boy shifted his feet.

“Come on,” he said, uneasily. “What yer want?”

He walked over, looking at the boy’s arm band.

“Hello, L.V.D.,” he said. “What’s up?”

The boy grounded his rifle. He motioned with his head.

“It’s a closed port, they call it. I ain’t supposed to let no one down here less they got a pass. D’you have one?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, if you got business, like, you can go see ’em down there. You go down by the main road here. That’s where the guardhouse is.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I was just walking. So long.”

“So long,” the boy said, uneasily.

Clive turned about and went along the road. A half mile further back he struck a footpath branching north. He followed it for a half-hour with the sun beginning to slant low on his left shoulder. At twilight he was on a metaled road going north. Just before dark, at a crossroads bus stop he saw two men standing. One had at his feet an old-fashioned straw satchel such as carpenters carry their tools in.

He stood beside them and caught the bus that stopped for them. He sat there, nodding with the sway of the bus, hearing the rear-end grind, and going over in his mind all the things one would do to take the rear axle down, put the differential into shape, and put the job together again.

When the conductor came around for the fares, the carpenter and his helper said: “Gosley.”

He said the same. It was a sixpenny fare. The bus went on, making many stops. It was long after dark when the carpenter bent down for his satchel. Clive followed the men out.

The place was dark from the blackout, but Clive felt he was in a small town—a village. He went along in the darkness, seeing dimly the narrow pavement. More from the heavy smell of ale than through sight he found the village pub. The bar was crowded. As he went in the place was loud with the hubbub of thick county accents. Then the room quieted as people turned to look at him. He went to the bar.

“Can I get anything to eat?”

“Sorry,” the bar man said.

“Well—where could I get something?”

“I dunno. You could try up the inn. Does he have any meals at the inn, Will?”

A man at the bar bent and spat.

“His daughter’s poorly in bed. They’ll not have anything.”

“I could give you a cup of Bovril,” the barman said.

“No, it doesn’t matter. You might give me a double brandy.”

“A double brandy, sir. Yes, sir.”

Clive took his drink and went to a table. When he sat it was as if a signal had been given, and the men took up their clamor of talk again.

He sat with his head bowed. He could hear the plunk of the darts in the board. The voices chipped in singsong comments on the game. His ear became tuned to the accents, and he began to pick out the thread of sense in the voices. There was an argument at the bar. He heard a voice lifted.

“Didn’t they kill three not twenty miles away?”

“Aye—and sunk a French ship taking surrendered Frenchies back to France?”

“Ah, to hell with Frogs—and Belgies too. Aye, they could walk through them bloody Belgians, but when they hit a right army, they knew it. I bet we give ’em hell.”

“I’ll bet if the flank hadn’t been opened we’d ha’ stuck there yet.”

It was a young militiaman. He looked about, hopefully.

“Them bloody Belgians,” the man beside him said. “It was the same in the last war. You never knew where you were with a Belgian. Half of ’em were no better than Germans, the bastards.”

Clive got up and went to the bar.

“Another double,” he said.

His voice rang too clearly. The man beside him stared and the conversation died. The man turned his back and went on to the militiaman.

“Well, I say, this time we ought to do the bloody job right. Last war, we let ’em off light. They don’t know what war is, in Germany. Well, what I say is, this time we shouldn’t stop until we’ve shown ’em. Right to Berlin, and let ’em see what it is.”

The man turned, pugnaciously.

“Isn’t that so, mate?”

He picked up his glass. He knew the men were waiting. Terriers with a strange dog among them. They didn’t really want to be unfriendly.

“If you say so,” he said, quietly.

“What do you mean, if I say so?”

Clive put his drink down carefully before answering.

“What do you want me to say? Yes, with jam on it?”

The man glared at him, uncertainly, and the place was quiet.

Afterwards, when he had gone back to his seat, he could hear the men talking, now in lower tones. He felt as if among enemies.

But as he drank the thought of them went from his mind. He felt the deep, warm glow spreading through his body, and he lost himself in the peace of it. He felt his head nodding and rocking. The noise about him blurred, and the words tangled into meaninglessness. Sometimes he felt that he slept, and sometimes it seemed that only his mind was sleeping. It kept waking up to find his body going independently through normal motions—moving to the bar—picking up a glass—sitting opposite a young man and lifting his glass in salute—stepping carefully around a man with a dart poised in his hand.

Then he came from the curious sleep to hear a loud voice. He saw the heavy face, and realized that he was in the argument again.

“I say, land on the Continent and take him by surprise. And, by Christ, fight it out this time if it takes every bloody last man. No surrender for good old Britain.”

“That’s what you say.”

“Bet your bloody life that’s what I say.”

“With your mouth.”

“Yes, with my mouth.”

“When does the rest of you go? When do you march?”

“I was in the last bloody war, and I’d go in this one if I wasn’t over age.”

“Too bad you’re over age.”

“Too bad about you, too. What about you?”

“I’m over age, too. I’m a grandfather.”

“A grandfather! You’ll be a bloody clout in the jaw in a minute.”

Clive saw the man swinging, so he stepped back and then struck out, gladly, viciously. He felt he had hit cleanly on the side of the jawbone. The man went down, and came up strongly, weaving his head in boxing manner.

He almost laughed, even though he felt that he had been hit over the heart. There was a curious peace at last—to be doing something. He danced back and chopped at the man going past him. He could hear the cry of the barman:

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!”

No one was paying any attention.

There was a curious jump in time, and then he was in a press of bodies by the door. He had his head down and was slugging monotonously right and left. His arms were weary, but there was peace even in that weariness.

Then, like a broken film, the scene shut off, and there was only blackness and not knowing.