The Complete Flying Officer X Stories (24 page)

For a second or two Butcher remained unaware of the sound of the falling bomb. As it exploded somewhere beyond the chestnut wood he heard the sound of earth-dust sucked high up and then beginning to fall again. Not thinking, he lay flat on his face, one arm plunged among the reeds as he fell. He heard the whistle of the second.

The soup was mostly cabbage and potatoes, and the Russian Lieutenant and I ate it with thick pieces of rather leathery rye bread. As we walked out of the hut where we had eaten, the snow was whipped up into our faces in dusty and bitter gusts of fine ice, so sudden that if you were not careful they hit your eyeballs, fetching tears of pain. Otherwise I was warm after the soup, and the cold, even on that bitterly dry, windy Russian Plateau, did not bother us much. What really bothered me was a piece of rye bread that had stuck into my teeth; I kept pushing it with my tongue, but I could not get it out at all.

It was a few days before Christmas. About fifty yards from the huts, which made up a sort of sectional headquarters, just at the intersection of the track that led between the hut and the main track where army transports and little pony sledges made a yellow-brown line as they passed all day long, stood a group of thirty or forty people. They were pretty well dressed: mostly wearing woollen scarves and Balaclava helmets and fur caps and heavy overcoats that buttoned up to the neck. It was clear that they were not soldiers, though they were all carrying rifles, with ammunition belts holding about fifty rounds. They kept stamping their feet on the frozen snow and their breath hung over them in a constant cloud that was like white smoke in the grey air of the early afternoon.

“Who are they?” I said.

“They?” the Lietenant said. “Partisans. I thought you saw them as we were going in to eat.”

“No,” I said.

“They were there,” he said. “They had just come in.”

The last fifteen miles in the lorry from Moscow had been very cold. I had felt that there was a film of ice over my eyes, and I have been glad to walk to the hut with my head down against the wind.

“You think we could talk to them now?” I said

“Talk to them by all means,” he said.

We went over to them at once and began to talk. The leader came forward and stood in front of them, leaning on his rifle. His face, as much as I could see of it, was flat and impassive. It had a kind of anonymous strength about it. His nose was very thick and broad, and his nostrils were full of wiry black hairs on which his breath had frozen in minute white beads.

The rest of the party stood watching me, faces turned one way, mouths a little open, peasant-fashion, because I was a stranger. The eldest of them were men about fifty or even fifty-five. I could not tell how young the youngest were, but one was so small that the rifle slung from the shoulder almost touched the ground.

“Even the boys are in,” I said.

“Boys?” The leader turned his head and saw me looking at the small figure that was not much taller than its rifle. “Boys? You mean Nastashya,” he said.

For a minute I did not speak. I stood looking at the small dark face in the open oval of the brown Balaclava helmet. The eyes were black and shiny and very young. Only by them could you tell you were looking at a girl.

“Could I talk to her?” I said.

“Talk to her, please,” the Lieutenant said. “Talk to her by all means.”

But when I went over to her I did not know what to say. The piece of rye crust in my teeth kept bothering me and I kept stabbing at it with my tongue, unable to get it out. It made me more nervous than the girl, who simply looked up at me with cold, placid, shiny eyes.

“Where do you come from?” I said at last.

“Voznesensk,” She said

“Ah, Voskressensk,” I said. “That's near Moscow.”

“No,” She smiled. “Not Voskressensk, that's another place. Not the same. Mine is Voznesensk.”

“I don't know it,” I said.

“It's just a little place,” she said. “That's where I really come from.”

“Near here?” I said.

“No,” she said. “It's the other side of Moscow. But I've been living here with my brother until he was killed.”

We were about ten miles behind the lines and I wondered how old she was. Still worried by the piece of bread in my tooth I stood thinking, looking at her, wondering if she could be more than eighteen. Very often, especially in the mornings, you could hear the noise of shelling from the west or, if they were bombing, the linked-up crump of bombs, but this afternoon was very quiet and you could hear nothing but the wind beating at the line of birch-trees beyond the main track and then whining down the narrow spaces between the huts, scattering snow.

“You have toothache?” she said.

“No,” I said.

“I thought you must have toothache,” she said. “You can open your mouth and the cold will give you toothache.”

“It's a piece of bread in my tooth,” I said.

“Oh! I know. Like when you eat sunflower seeds,” she said. “It just aggravates you.”

She laughed and she took off one of her gloves and put her hand in her pocket.

“This is what you want,” she said.

I smiled and took the toothpick she gave me and thanked her.

“You can make them out of feathers,” she said. “I like making them. When we're waiting and there's nothing to do I sit and pick my teeth. It passes the time.”

“It's out!” I said.

“Good.” We laughed again. “Now you can keep the toothpick for next time.”

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

I stood with the toothpick in my hand and once again I did not know what to say to her. At last I thought of something.

“Are you the only girl in this company?” I said.

“Oh! no,” she said. “There's three others. Over there. See? But I'm the youngest.”

I did not even look at the other girls and again I did not know what to say.

“We'll soon be going now, I expect,” she said. “I see Yakov has gone for the orders.”

“Yakov?”

“Our leader, he was talking to the Lieutenant.”

“Oh! yes,” I said.

For some moments longer I stood talking to her, never quite knowing what to say. The wind was blowing more strongly now and once it came round the corner of the nearest hut in a violent gust of bitter dusty snow that caught the girl unbalanced and almost blew her down.

“You go behind the lines?” I said.

“Behind the lines,” she said.

I had not time to ask her anything more before I saw Yakov, the leader, striding back to us. There was a slight commotion in the group as he reached us and the girl hitched her rifle farther on her shoulder.

“All right,” Yakov said.

He stood talking a moment or two longer to the Lieutenant. Most of the men lengthened the slings of their rifles now and slung them full across their shoulders so that their hands were free. But Nastashya kept hers on her left shoulder, so that the butt still almost touched the ground.

“All right! Ready!” Yakov said.

Immediately the whole group began to shuffle in the snow.

“Goodbye,” Nastashya said. She smiled.

“Goodbye,” I said. I smiled too.

Before I had time to speak again she moved off with the others, as they shuffled in a kind of rough formation down the track between the huts. On this main track a few transport lorries were passing westward and the group of partisans halted until the last of the lorries had gone by. In the lorries some of the drivers lifted their hands and a few of the partisans waved their hands in reply.

It was not until they began to move again, stringing out in the now empty road, that the Lieutenant spoke to me.

“They have a good journey,” he said.

“Where?”

“Through the lines. They're going to blow up a bridge beyond Vyazna.”

I did not speak as we watched them marching down the road. The wind was beating at them sideways, from the north, and the snow was hurled at them like bursts of smoky dust. All the time I was able to tell which was Nastashya because hers was the only rifle that almost touched the ground. All the time too I must have stood with the toothpick in my hand. I did not notice it until the moment when the girl turned to wave her hand and I lifted my own in reply.

“Happy Christmas, Nastashya,” I said.

I stood watching them a little longer, holding the toothpick in my hand. The sharp wind blew tears of pain into my eyes again as I stood there, and my lips felt frozen as I spoke. But in that moment, above all, my heart was cold.

We drove along the ferry road in the spring twilight and parked the car on the flat bank by the river, where the ferry bell hung on a sort of wooden gallows directly opposite the pub and a boat-landing by sallow-trees. I pulled the bell twice and the big sound donged over the water and the flat meadows and the fields of young corn beyond. The sallows were honey-cream with flower, and when finally the boy began to pull the ferry across to us I could see the yellow reflections of them pouring brokenly away behind the boat. In a few moments we were being ferried over.

In the bar of the pub we could look out of the windows, across the water, and see the ferry bell reflected, black and still, below the bare flat bank and the empty sky. I looked at it and it was like the old days again.

“Well, what will it be, sir?” Alf said. He flattened his hands on the bar.

“You don't remember me, Alf,” I said.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” Alf Said. He looked at me, large grey eyes screwed up. “I seem to remember your face. But I get so many Air Force boys in here.”

So I told him who I was. “You remember,” I said. “I used to come in a year or so back. With Mr. Taylor and Mr. Baker and Mr. Dibdin and Mr. Lockley. You remember. The boys of the old squadron,” I said. “You remember.”

“Well, bless my heart an' life,” Alf said. He wiped his right hand across his apron and held it across the bar.

“How are you, sir? How are you? Fancy me forgettin'.” He looked up at me with eyes large and tender with regret. We shook hands. “But you know, sir, they come an' go. That's the truth. They come an' go.”

“Yes,” I said. “They come and go.”

“Missus!” Alf shouted into the back of the bar. “Come an' look who's here! Come on.”

And in a moment or two Mrs. Alf came into the bar. She was dressed in black. Her hair was the colour of the sallow-blooms by the landing-stage outside, and the flesh of her face hung in loose powdered folds on the high lace collar of her dress.

“They y'are,” Alf said. “There's a gentleman I bet you don't remember.”

Mrs. Alf put her head on one side and smiled, pouting her scarlet lips.

“Don't talk so wet!” she said. “Course I remember. Talk so wet. He's a friend of Mr. Lockley's.”

“Well!” Alf said. “Well! If that don't call for one all round.”

“How de do,” Mrs. Alf said. “How de do.”

She held out her flabby white hand to me and smiled. The flesh of her hands was so thick that it had pressed the three rings on her marriage finger deep and tight, until they were like a small coiled gold spring locked on her fingers.

“How d'ye do,” I said. We shook hands, and I felt her hand over-soft and warm in mine.

“And this is Mr. Whitworth,” I said.

“How de do,” she said to my friend, and smiled.

“Well!” Alf said. “Well!”

He had drawn four light ales, and now he set them on the bar. We took them up and held them for a moment in the air.

“Well! Here's to everybody!” Alf said.

“And here's to you,” I said.

“And here's to the boys of the old squadron,” Mrs. Alf said. “God bless them.”

We drank and smiled at each other. Alf wiped his mouth with his hand and breathed hard. “Ever see anything of the old squadron now, sir?”

“I saw Mr. Taylor the other day,” I said. “Back from Canada. Mr. McIntyre, he's a prisoner.”

“No camp will hold him long,” Alf said.

“No,” I said. “And Mr. Armstrong—you remember Maxie—he's an instructor. Mr.Butterworth, he's a squadron leader. Mr. Colton, he went back to Canada too.”

“Scattered all over the place,” Alf said.

“Yes,” I said. “Mr. Feddington, he's with the Americans.”

“But there's something I wanted to ask you,” Mrs. Alf said. “What happened to Mr. Lockley, sir? We never heard. What happened to Mr. Lockley?”

“He was a cough-drop,” Alf said.

“Oh, a nice boy!” Mrs. Alf said. “You could always reckon on fun when Mr. Lockley was here.”

“You could an' all,” Alf said.

“Always up to some game. The number of glasses he broke in here is nobody's business. Always larkin' about. Never took nothing serious. Acrobats on the bar. Swimming the river at midnight. All the capers you could think of. I bet he never took nothing serious in his life, that boy.”

I did not say anything now.

“I tell you a thing he used to do,” Alf said, “last thing at night I'd ferry him and the boys over. Shortest way home for 'em. I'd come back and lock the boat up. And then about a quarter of an hour later the bell would ring.”

“Mr. Lockley,” I said.

“Well, I ain't goin' to say it was and I ain't to say it wasn't,” Alf said. “For whenever I got over there, after unlocking the boat an' everything, there was never anybody there. And that was him all over.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Him all over,” Alf said. “I bet he never took nothing serious in his life. I bet he never took his flying serious. You couldn't imagine him. I bet he thought that was a lark.”

I put the glass down on the bar and looked at Alf, big and heavy like a boxer, and Mrs. Alf, simple and florid, her rings coiled tight on her fingers.