Everyone Brave Is Forgiven(18)

“Damn it,” said Alistair.

He took up his rifle and pack, gripped the steel hoops of the canvas top to keep his balance, and stumbled over the legs and packs of the men to reach the back of the truck bed. He braced, then launched himself over the tailgate.

The fall winded him. He lost his equipment. He rolled over in the sodden grass, coming to rest jackknifed and gasping. Twenty minutes of warmth had been enough to make him forget the nature of cold completely. Straight away, he doubted whether he could survive. He picked himself up and stumbled in a half crouch with his back to the gale as he retrieved first his pack and then his gun. The rain beat on his bare head—his helmet was gone. His rifle was slick with rain. He shouldered the awful thing.

The truck did not slow or change its note, and he did not expect it to. In the back they would all be feeling the lifting of a burden. The remaining men would be talking again promising to stand pints for the man who had gone over. They would not all be certain of his name.

Alistair watched the slit beams of the taillights disappear, and set his back to the direction. He retraced the track they had driven, estimating the distance and the time. As he went, leaning into the gale, he shouted for Duggan. The stars were nowhere. The night was furiously dark.

Three miles to the west, the unexploded shell trembled at the approach of the truck. Through the soil, beneath the roar of the wind, the vibrations came through softly at first. As the sound drew closer it resolved into the groaning of leaf springs and the grinding of the overwrought transmission. Closer still, the bass rumble of the truck was louder than the moaning of the gale. The impact fuse almost triggered. In the back of the truck, the soldiers were singing an Al Bowlly number.

Life is just a bowl of cherries,

Don’t be so serious, life’s so mysterious

The soldiers’ voices lurched as the truck swayed. There was the thin metal sound of a harmonica, setting up an answering oscillation in the cold brass jacket of the artillery shell. Men were beating time with their boots on the floor of the truck. The reverberations filled the soil as the rumble approached, almost over the top of the shell now.

You work, you save, you worry so,

But you can’t take your dough when you go, go, go

The truck was ten yards away from the shell. Down in the wet earth the points of the impact fuse buzzed and rattled and came in contact with each other and exerted a pressure that was almost enough. The truck came closer. Nearly underneath it now, the shell vibrated with every nuance: the secondary rhythm that the sergeant major tapped out on the dashboard, slightly out of time, his cheerful swaying now that the men could not see him, the pop of the small chained cork as he shared his hip flask with the driver, the asymmetry of the load where the men huddled in the back on the less drafty side, the squeal as the wet fan belt slipped, the flatulence of the soldiers as it was transmitted through the long hard benches and broadcast through the treaded rubber tires and into the saturated earth.

The men sang and the truck drove directly over the top of the shell, the wheels passing to each side and missing it completely. It settled a little deeper in the cold mud as the vibrations diminished again. The men drove on to barracks, unaware that everything was new. It was not as if the Army issued them each with a stopwatch that started again from zero every time they were spared. Even if they had then it would not have operated reliably, and the men would have earmarked an arsehole to stow it in.

Three miles to the east the ground surprised Alistair by falling away, so that he had to accelerate to keep his footing. In the dark he ran blindly down the slope and found Duggan by tripping over him, bringing a yell of shock. He stopped and leaned on his rifle, panting. “Duggan?”

“Huh . . . who is it?”

“It’s me. Heath.”

“Alistair?”

He crouched, using his hands to establish the orientation of Duggan’s body. He was on his back, just off perpendicular to the slope, with his head uphill. Alistair’s best guess at the terrain was that they were close to the base of a shallow draw. Water ran noisily in what must be its base.

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know. I fuh . . . fell.”

Alistair felt down Duggan’s sides. “Your legs are in the water.”

“Are they? I can’t fuh . . . feel them.”

“Come on, let’s get you out of there.”

He unstrapped his pack, settled it on the slope, then took Duggan under the arms and heaved him clear of the water.

“There,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“As an actor? I’m truh . . . tremendous.”

“Where’s your pack?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s your gun?”

“It’s called a ruh . . . rifle, Heath. You should know better.”

“Where the hell is it?”

The gale moaned above the lip of the draw.

“I duh . . . I don’t know. I’m suh . . . suh . . . sorry, Alistair.”

“Don’t be, you fool.” He put himself between Duggan and the wind.

“The suh . . . sergeant major kicked you out too, I suppose?”

“Something like that.”

“He really is an abysmal buh . . . bastard. I could have him buh . . . barred from every club in Soho.”

Alistair helped Duggan to a sitting position. “Can you stand?”