A House in Order (10 page)

The next day – though this is not the order in which things proceeded and some must have been even on the day after that – all three went on begging me to confess my bravery, assuring me in different ways that it was too obvious to be denied:

And so on, and praising my pluck through the long winter, etc., etc., until mine were the only lies, really, and they were speaking the truth – that I had endured that winter all alone, that
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depended on me, that messages had passed, that the escaped man was not unknown to me.

– and yet in all this they didn’t care tuppence for me – though I saw sympathetic faces for what they had made my bravery – because it was the Colonel they meant to get and the Colonel whom they called at last. But first came all those involved in my arrival and the shooting of the soldier – the adjutant, soon streaming with sweat, the firing-squad, jumpy and dry-mouthed, and the young officer, who tried at first to talk like his colonel with a haughty, smiling manner, but after three hours was turned to a baby. But I was sorriest for my interpreter, who was trembling from the start and having to account, I suppose, for every order he had brought me from the
Colonel and say exactly what it had been. The fourth spokesman, representing the Colonel, was rudest to him – as if the interpreter had invented the orders himself – but he was the kindest to me and tried his best to represent me naturally as an imbecile whose fate was of no consequence and whom the Colonel was therefore justified in treating as a joke:

However, though he tried his best to make me the Colonel’s joke, his amusement wasn’t shared by anyone else and it was a pity that he tried to present the truth at all, because the more laughable he tried to make me, the graver everyone looked and the more reasonable it seemed that I was a sterling hero – though nobody really believed for a moment that I was that either. But thanks to my poor interpreter they managed to prove at last what they never believed, because he had to confess in the end – and me to confirm – that the Colonel recently had threatened to shoot me out of hand, though when I tried to play this down it only made matters worse, because clearly it was in my interest to appear a harmless fool.

Their questioning of the Colonel began properly on the morning of the fifth day, but by then I was as good as dead to what the Court was doing because in two more
days,
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was going to send me his second visitor and all I could think of was his being found in my hut. Now, when they asked me questions, I could think of no exact answers, whether true or false, because they had made the whole occasion themselves and given me my place in it and there was nothing real any more to defend or assert. But the compliments three of the spokesmen kept paying me for my courage were very welcome to me, because there was nothing I could give myself to cheer me up and I was ready to believe anything:

The chairman or president was displeased when they asked me such questions and forbade me to answer them, as if it would be quite satisfactory to prove the Colonel irregular and utterly irresponsible, and no need to make him my accomplice too. I began my questioning with nothing and was built up by them into something, but they did it the other way with him, slowly degrading him from much into nothing. On the first day of his close questioning, he was his old self and made all the worried people in our row more confident and happy, just as he had when he came back to the house six months before and found them so deadly serious about me. He was polite to the Court, but took his time answering the inquisitors and smiled at them sometimes as if to suggest that he, too, could enjoy a put-up job. I suppose he never said frankly that nobody in the Court cared a scrap whether he had shot a soldier or made me a prisoner and were only out to get him because he had shown contempt for their rules, but his manner gave him away and made the three spokesmen more indignant than ever – and even believing, possibly, what they said. He was hoarse on the second day and answered everything more shortly, and on the third day not straight up in his chair and just giving the impression that so many voices and so many words were a worse punishment than dying of wounds. On that third day, I was only called once:

So by that evening, the questioning was over, and the chairman or president wound up with an address to each of the four spokesmen in turn, then to the clerk below, then to all the witnesses – with the exception of me, who was of no interest any more. I had all the next day in my greenhouse, to wait for the verdict and
MAC
KENZIE
’S
second visitor.

He arrived as the other had, with hardly a sound at night through the back of the hut – but he had had a run, at least over the last lap, because he was panting hard and obliged to stand still a long time, never moving, until his breathing got lighter and then silent. Soon after he came, one of my new guards came to the greenhouse door and shone his light down the middle strip, where
all he saw was me at full length under my blanket, with closed eyes. And at about two in the morning, a strange officer came round with the same guard and inspected me with his own eyes, so I was thankful that my terror of having any truck with my visitor had driven me out of the hut as before, because if they had not been able to see me they would certainly have walked in to look and found the pair of us.

Like
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’S
first visitor, this one was perfectly disciplined and well behaved – he, too, had had his
ORDERS
, I could tell. I heard him relieve himself in my bucket, and just so I could hear it under his breath, whistle ‘Open the door, Confucius’, but then he made his bed exactly where the first had lain and went straight to sleep, of all things – which I knew by the fact that he laughed unconsciously and even muttered, until, waking himself up, as snorers and talkers do, he sighed, changed position and went on sleeping without a sound. At the very first light of dawn, with everything in the garden sodden and drooping, they changed the guard and I was inspected afresh, lying in my own sweat and my heart banging on the cement – which I had to go on doing until sunrise, there being no pretext I could think of for getting up earlier, with only the naked staging to tend. So I got up with the Camp reveille, sure I would never be able to stand, but running the cold water from the brass tap and washing in the first sunlight with tears pouring down my cheeks and shaking so that I thought I would never stop – and all watched curiously by the guard each time he passed, as I was a novelty to him. I put off the putting out of my bucket so long, through fear of seeing my visitor or being spoken to by him, that I delayed it almost an instant too long: they were sending to fetch me into Court at the very moment I got into the
hut and began trying to get the bucket out with a foot, but somehow it went through, with a helping hand I managed not to see, and the back door closed again. Not knowing my usual routine, of course, they gave me my coffee and bread after they had lugged me into the house – and took for granted that I should sit on a bench, twitching and trembling like a criminal and trying to drink from a hot mug like someone paralysed. I was in my place at eight-thirty and still shivering when nine struck and the shouting and laughing stopped as always instantly.

This was the chairman’s or president’s day, to sum up and judge, and he was in no hurry to miss a minute of it, putting away his usual glasses and drawing larger ones from his pocket and polishing with a shammy. He called on each of the four spokesmen to say their last words, which they all did loudly and firmly, and when they had done he asked them certain questions, to confirm what he had already decided, and made notes carefully of their answers – while all I could think was whether the new men, not knowing the proper routine, would try and open the shed door to put back my empty bucket. He then adjourned for lunch, though it was only twelve – I suppose not wanting to make a speech for only an hour before needing to interrupt himself.

But sharp at two he got going, with all our row like dead men and the Colonel holding himself up by the arms of his chair, which was all a consolation to me, not because of what I had suffered from them but because they were with me now in the soup – and much worse off, because I was only an enemy and they were their country’s soldiers. But just as he was about to begin, the door opened and a stranger came in – somebody very stout and loudly uniformed whom the president or chairman
rose to greet and gave a special place to in the well. I knew from his hat that he was to do with the Prisons, but it was a good two hours before I guessed he was the Camp Commandant, come up from the prison below to hear the verdict.

After that, all went smoothly, beginning with many references and readings aloud from books, with everyone holding his head in his hand and waiting patiently for what mattered. So far as I can tell, the more personal side began with me, judging from the glances I received, and went on far into the afternoon, after which there was a pause before he started on his countrymen.

To do him justice, he got a move on then: I suppose their misconduct was plain-sailing. But even so, the evening began to draw in and the lights came on, with him becoming sterner and sharper as he went on. When he came at last to the Colonel, he stopped to have a drink first, and was sipping from his glass when the siren from the camp went off.

Everybody started with surprise, but everyone kept his seat except the fat Commandant, who without a word to the president or chairman, threw back his chair and ran for the door, with a number of accidents on the way. He was not at the door before the first church bells joined the siren, then he was gone with the door ajar behind him.

There were loud whisperings and exclamations, but they were silenced at once and the door ordered closed. Then there was only what seemed at first to be somebody’s heavy breathing, getting louder, which proved to be the Colonel, shaking from head to foot with laughter. This, mixing with the bells announcing the serious emergency, made everyone angry except our row, but we were too glum by then to find anything funny. His good laugh seemed to do him good, however, because he sat straight up in his chair again as he had done on the first day and, when the last word had been said, bowed his head very politely and waited cheerfully enough for his moment to go out.

The four spokesmen now rose in turn and made little acknowledgements while their assistants put their papers back into their brief-cases. Everything, then, was finished apparently, but to my surprise, there was another item.

The agronomist, who had not once been questioned or said a word, got up with his friendly smile and spoke to the Court. He bowed to all the spokesmen and the president or chairman, and even acknowledged the witnesses. He seemed to be saying thank you to everybody, and did so briefly, but with great politeness. When he sat down, the hall was cleared of all the rest of us, leaving it to him and the president, who departed together.

They kept me back in the hall so long that I began to think I would never see my greenhouse again, and I even began to worry in case the lawyers who had proved me to be a secret agent had really in the end, by so much talking, come to believe that I was. But at last my guards brought me to the verandah, where every manjack and woman that had been in the hall were lined against the railings, staring down at the camp – a vivid sight, with every searchlight pouring on and, as before, the circle of beaters drawing in slowly round the main building, with the little military cars racing round and round the fields outside the circle, and all to the ringing of the bells as if it were a day of feasting or resurrection. My escort had a difficulty getting me through the crowd and down the steps, and having put me through my door, took up position in front of it and stared into the valley
with the rest. Very soon, they were relieved by four soldiers, who took up positions round the greenhouse in a square, while an engineer set up an electric light on the verandah rail, to shine over my glass walls. If my second visitor had not run on when the siren went, he would never get out now – nor did I mean to look into the hut and see, but only sat on my chair on the concrete strip, watching the valley with everybody else. Only once my heart stopped, when out of a little hooded car with a spinning ventilator in the roof, they brought two dogs, causing excitement on the verandah. But these happy animals, though they tried their best with waving tails and pleasure, did no more than run in circles, as if they had been trotted out just for the look of things, but no real scent to follow, and soon they were ordered back into their private car. Once they had disappeared, the audience on the verandah took it as a signal and began to drift away, until when midnight came and the beaters had drawn their knot tight round the prison walls, there was only me left with my guards, and slowly even the bells stopped.

Now, my guard was inspected by a junior officer, who walked all round the hut and greenhouse with a tough face, and having satisfied himself that there was no escape for me, made me do what I didn’t dare to do of my own accord. He gestured me into the hut with a scowl, as if I had no business putting off my bedtime, and watched to see me lay out my blankets there and lie down. When I had done so, he came in with a torch and flashed it thoroughly into all sides of the shed, after which he was content and went away.
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’S
  second visitor had been even more cautious for my sake than the first had been, leaving no trace of his form behind him, nor even any paper scrap of
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as to what I must suffer next. When I saw that such things could be done, and done so well, I suddenly began to feel almost happy and somehow to imagine myself what the court had tried so hard to prove me. I thought of all the compliments they had paid to my bravery and cunning and began to think they must be true, however absurd they really were. One question by one of the spokesmen kept coming back to me more than all the others, particularly because he had pressed it on me with so much friendliness and tried so hard in his tone to show me that it answered itself:

I also remembered this question because it had caused a murmur in the Court, everyone except the Colonel and our row turning their eyes to respect me.