Everyone Brave Is Forgiven(86)

He exhaled smoke and pressed his thumbs to his eyes.

Alistair patted his shoulder. “It could be worse—you could make major.”

Simonson took Alistair’s arm and held it. “All of this will stick to us, you’ll see.”

“After the war, you mean?”

“ ‘The men will loathe us. If any of the poor bastards are left.”

“The men don’t hate officers.”

“It is the men’s function to hate us. The fact that you don’t understand it only shows your lack of breeding.”

Alistair grinned. Simonson turned the ignition. “My brother won’t be called up. England won’t change. It was built with its blocks, the same as this damned island. When they reuse the rubble, you will see that it can only fit back together one way.”

“I will bet you five pounds that England is different, after the war.”

“Oh, spare us.”

“Don’t you think we shall all be kinder to one another? I hope one’s class will matter less and one’s convictions more. I hope we might be more inclined to pardon one another for our errors with both.”

“I bet you five pounds we shan’t see war’s end.”

“That’s not a bet I could ever collect on.”

“See how it works?” said Simonson.

He let out the clutch and steered the truck down the rubble-strewn road. They lurched on, through the interlocking turrets and ramparts that marked the limit of the city. They were terrific fortifications and would prove their worth the next time the Ottoman Turks invaded. In the meantime they would be useless against the German air assault.

Perhaps Simonson was right that the regiment would not survive the siege. They were all turning to stone from hunger. They took cover behind stone walls. They painted their trucks and their helmets and their guns to resemble stone blocks, as if by sympathetic magic some hardness might accrue. They saw rubble walls when they closed their eyes at night. Sometimes, when one was particularly hungry, the omnipresent yellow limestone had the exact hue of cheddar, and when the enemy’s paratroopers finally came it would afford about as much protection.

Alistair rested a notepad on the dash and dug out a stub of pencil.

To: Mary North, c/o Mairie & Northe

From: Allis, Terre & Heythe, Solicitors at Law

Re: A guided tour of the island of Malta

Madam,

Our client, Alistair Heath (Cpt, RA) commands us to convey to you—

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” said Simonson. “You are like love-struck schoolchildren passing notes.”

Alistair looked back at him mildly. “So?”

“So, teacher says there’s a war on.”

“It’s just a bit of fun.”

“Well it is sickening to be around. So you are in love—bully for you. You’re not obliged to rub it in everyone’s face.”

“Oh come on, Simonson, you know I only have eyes for you.”

He looked over, but Simonson only stared ahead at the road. Alistair put the pad back in his pocket.

At the city’s edge the fortifications gave way to a treeless plain of small fields no larger than suburban gardens, enclosed as far as the horizon by a tracery of dry stone walls. It was arid land, with dry yellow grasses in tufts. Poor crops of oranges and artichokes struggled in the thin yellow soil. Dusty stands of barbary fig rose along the lines of the walls, and in the ditches teasels and reedy bamboo were footed in unseen damp. There were small rock escarpments, indistinguishable in hue from the walls, so that the eye lost the distinction between the man-made and the natural. One scarcely cared in any case. It was wretched country, the kind no man would bother to wall in if any other land were available.

“Damn it,” said Simonson. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you are quite right.”

“You must write as and when you please. Don’t mind my sour grapes.”

“I wouldn’t mind grapes of any kind. Who’s fussy these days?”

Simonson smiled in a way that did not entirely release the tension. Four 109s barreled overhead in an asymmetric V, uncontested and exultant in the blue. Simonson swung the van off the road and they jumped from the cab and threw themselves into the ditch. They lay with their hands over their heads for a minute while the aircraft noise diminished. The Germans had either not noticed them or not considered them worth the ammunition, and flown on into the west.

Simonson and Alistair climbed out of the ditch and sat in the shade of a yellow stone wall, dusting themselves off. Black bees droned in the thyme beside the road. Dogs barked from farm to farm. Birds gave monosyllabic cries, harsh and unlovely, as if describing the landscape. The wind worried up twists of dust from the road. Fat-tailed lizards plowed the dirt, and from far away came the boom of the coastal batteries.

Simonson looked out over the ruined country. “You know who’d miss me if those planes had shot us up? No one.”

Alistair shrugged. “I might miss you.”

Simonson seemed not to hear him. “It would keep one going, to have someone who gave a damn.”

“What about your three nice girlfriends?”

“If I died they might wear the grief like a brooch for a while, if it pleased them to go with the fashion.”

“I thought you were fond of those girls.”