The General of the Dead Army (30 page)

“Do you know why I had my row with the priest?” he croaked, as if clambering out of a well.

“No,” the lieutenant-general said.

“Over a skeleton. We’re missing a six-foot-one skeleton.”

“What a thing to row over,” the other snorted.

Then he lifted his head suddenly, a gleam in his eyes.

“Six foot one? Would you like me to sell you one that height?”

“No,” the general said.

“Why not? I’ve got heaps. You’re a friend, I can let you have one for a hundred dollars.”

“No!”

“But I’ve got so many that height! I’ve even got some six foot four if you want. And six foot six too. And even some seven foot!

Our soldiers were taller than yours. Would you like some?”

“No,” the general said. “I don’t want any.”

The other shrugged.

“Well, it’s your affair. I was only trying to help.”

The general got up and made his way with difficulty over to his case. He opened it and tipped the contents onto the floor. The lists, the cards, the sheets of paper covered with notes all lay jumbled up in a heap with his towels and shirts. He picked up a bundle of lists and staggered over to the door.

What’s got into him? the lieutenant-general wondered. After weaving along the deserted corridor a short distance the general stopped outside a door.

Ah, he said to himself, this is the priest’s door

“Father!” he called out in a low voice, bending to peer through the keyhole. “Father, can you hear me? It’s me! I’ve come to make it up with you. We were stupid to have that row about the colonel. Why should we quarrel over a sack? We can settle the whole business quite easily, father. We can make another colonel for you. All right? It’s in both our interests, you know.

You want to be able to say: ‘Oh Betty, how light you are!’, don’t you? So it’s up to you. You need a skeleton, don’t you? Well I’ve got one! I’ve brought the lists with me, father, do you hear me? Here they are! We’ve got any number of six-foot-one soldiers.

If you’ll just get up now we’ll choose one. There’s one here in the second machine-gun company, and another here in a tank regiment, yes and here’s another. You get up and we’ll go over the lists in detail. Ah, that one has two incisors missing, I see. Never mind, we could get a dentist to put two in for us. And there are two or three more I’ve found as well. Are you listening? And they’re all six foot one. It’s true, father, I’m not lying to you. Six foot one, six foot one … As a matter of fact, I think I’m six foot one myself.”

The general went on for a long while muttering outside the door, bending down and trying to peer through the keyhole.

Suddenly the door flew open and a stout woman stood there glaring at him in fury. Scornfully she spat at him: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, at your age!”

The general tried to open his eyes very wide. The door was slammed in his face and he remained standing there in silence for quite a while. Then he slowly bent down, and with great difficulty tried to gather together the lists, which he had in the meantime allowed to slide from his grasp. At daybreak, when the pageboy brought the last telegram, they were still drinking. The general opened the envelope, pulled out the message, but was unable to make out a single letter of it. He held it for some while in front of his face, stretching his eyes open and furrowing his brow, but without any success. The printed strips looked to him like ribbons of mist against a white sky. He screwed the telegram up, made his way uncertainly over to the window, pulled it open.

“Unidentified!” he cried, and threw the crumpled piece of paper out.

The telegram fluttered earthwards in the cold half-light of dawn.

Last Chapter But One

IN THE MORNING, VERY EARLY
, one of the maids from the fourth floor came down to the night-porter.

“I found these papers,” she said, showing him several sheets with typing on them. “One of the guests must have left them behind.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In the corridor. Some were in front of number 429 and the rest in front of 403.”

The night-porter looked surprised. Then his forehead creased in doubt.

“That’s all right. Leave them here. Whoever lost them will come and ask for them.”

They were typewritten lists of names. Many of the names were marked with little crosses in red and blue pencil, and there were quantities of notes in a shaky handwriting.

Last Chapter

RAIN MIXED WITH SNOW
was falling on the foreign soil.

The heavy, damp flakes melted and were gone as soon as they touched the concrete of the esplanade outside the airport buildings. On the bare earth the snow lasted a little longer; though even there it was unable to form a white layer, because the rain gained the advantage over her companion as soon as they both touched the ground.

The general, in full dress, stood watching the snow. Now and again he looked up at the sky. But the sky was indifferent to her children’s fate once they were on the ground and continued to release an endless supply of fresh snowflakes to their perdition.

“It’s cold,” said the Albanian politician who had come to see them off.

“Yes, very cold,” answered the general.

With a touch of impatience they watched the progress of the aircraft as it taxied closer, while a woman’s voice from the loudspeakers urged belated passengers to hurry. Shortly after, the roar of the engines became so loud, they might have gone on using the same words to complain - “It’s cold”, “Yes, awfully cold”, “Terribly cold” - without anyone noticing the repetition.

Nothing else could be heard and so it was, with the steam of their breath enwrapping heaven knows what words, that they reached the boarding steps. The wind continued to blow, without respite.