General is definitely not to be disturbed, eh, soldier?’ I leered. He smiled back in an embarrassed way, but made no attempt to stop me going into the library. I moved with a studied lack of hurry and lit another cigarette.
The General’s set of Shakespeare were pigskin, hand-tooled, a pleasure to handle. I didn’t need to look up Artemidorus in the third scene of Act 2 Julius Caesar. The old man knew that I knew the play well enough. But I looked it up.*
The library was lit by a signal rocket and a hundred ‘Ahs!’ lay lethargic on the air. In the anticipatory silence a voice outside the window said, ‘They just don’t make corks the way they used to.’ Then followed a giggle-giggle of laughter and the sound of pouring wine.
The dim light of the small desk lamp enabled me to see a slim figure standing at the door. The tearing sound of another rocket made me jump. The figure was a tall young PFC with a Band-Aid on his neck and ginger eyebrows that he jammed together to simulate concentration. He marched towards me. He carefully read my identity brooch then compared the photo with me. He gave me a strange perfunctory salute.
‘Compliments of Brigadier Dalby, sir,’ he said.
Brigadier, I thought. What the hell is coming next? He waited.
‘Yes?’ I said inquiringly, and put Julius back on the shelf.
‘There’s been an accident, sir. A generator truck has gone off the road at “Bloody Angle”.’ I knew the place that bore the name of one of Lee’s Civil War emplacements. A low brick wall painted in black and yellow checks separated a roadway blasted out of solid rock from a perpendicular drop into empty space. It was a tricky place for cornering in a jeep; with thirty foot of generator truck it was like drinking from a square glass. He didn’t have to say the next bit. ‘Lieutenant Montgomery was the officer on it, sir.’ It was Barney. The young soldier looked awkward in the face of death. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said. He was being nice. I appreciated it. ‘The Brigadier was heading for his car. He said that if you didn’t have transport I was to …’
‘It’s OK,’ I told him, ‘and thanks.’ Outside the clouds had put dark glasses on the moon.
It was a black night, of the sort one only encounters in the tropics. Dalby had on a lambswool US Army windcheater, and stood near a big new shiny Ford. I shouted, ‘Let’s go,’ but his reply was lost in the crackle crackle of a big chrysanthemum rocket. I couldn’t get used to the idea of a dead Barney Barnes. I told myself that it was a mistake, the way one does with facts that the brain prefers to absorb piecemeal.
By the time I had pulled the big oversprung Lincoln Continental on to the road, Dalby’s rear lights were way down the General Guerite highway. The big V8 engine warmed to the rich mixture. I saw Dalby pull over to the left and head along the coast road. This road was less carefully made since only certain lorries carrying supplies were normally allowed to use it. To the left only a hundred metres of sea separated us from the Shot Island. Had it been a better night the ‘mountain’ would have been clearly visible. Dalby was drawing even farther ahead and must have been doing sixty in spite of the road. I hoped he’d be able to talk us out of trouble if any of the road sections were closed. The forty-foot towers at about 300-yard intervals reflected back the sound of the car in roars. Most of the towers held only infra-red TV cameras, but every third tower was manned. I hoped none would phone ahead to stop us taking this obvious short cut from the General’s party. Odd tangles of brush obscured Dalby’s lights now and again. I was peering at the blackerty that sat upon the windscreen when I caught sight of the red ‘CAUTION HALT AT 25 YDS’ sign. I stopped the car. It was 2.12 A.M.
They had closed this section ahead of me with only three miles of forbidden road to traverse. Dalby was nowhere in sight, he had slipped through.
As I felt for my spare cigarettes my hand touched a coarse fabric. I switched on the dashboard light. Someone had left a pair of heavy asbestos insulation gauntlets on the seat. I wondered if Barney had been in the car; he was doing the ‘power’ act. Then I found my Gauloises.
I clicked the cigarette lighter on and waited for it to glow red.
I was still waiting when the sky exploded into daylight – except that daylight and I had, neither of us, been so bright lately.
1 Combined Services Information Clearing House.
I opened the car door and rolled out into the white frozen day-like night. It suddenly became very quiet until from the far side of the island I heard a siren wailing pitifully.
Overhead two police helicopters chug-chugged towards Shot Island, and began dropping hand grenades into the sea. Under each, a huge spotlight waved an erratic beam.
The Air Police had located, recognized and flown towards the light of the large flare, while I was still expecting my eyeballs to melt.
One of the ‘choppers’ stopped, did an about turn and came back to me. The flare spluttered and faded, and now the glare of the spotlight blinded me. I sat very still. It was 2.17. Against the noise of the blades a deeper resonant sound bit into the chill black air. From a loudspeaker, mounted with the light, a voice spoke from the air. I didn’t hear or make sense of the words at first, although I was trying hard. They had a strong accent.
‘Just don’t move a muscle, boy!’ the voice said again.
The two beaters were really close to the car; the one that had spoken held its light about six feet away from my eye sockets – it inched around the car keeping well off the ground. The other ’copter ran its light over the high tension lines and the camera tower. The light looked yellow and dim after the intensity of the high-pitched, almost green, light of the flare. The beam sliced the darkness, it moved up the steel ladder of the tower. Way before the top was reached I saw the dead soldier in the penumbra of the searchlight: he was hanging half out of the smashed glass window. That he was dead came as no surprise. No one could stay alive in a metal tower connected to the high tension power line, connected by angle irons and bolts in the most professional way.
It was about 2.36 A.M. when a Provost-Colonel arrived to arrest me. At 2.36½ I remembered the big insulating gauntlets. But even had I remembered before, what could I have done?
I opened my eyes. A 200-watt light bulb hung from the centre of the ceiling. Its light scaled my brain. I closed my eyes. Time passed.
I opened my eyes again; slowly. The ceiling almost ceased to flutter up and down. I could probably have got to my feet but decided not to try for a month. I was very very old. The soldier I’d seen outside the General’s office was now sitting across the room, still reading the same copy of Confidential. On the front cover large print asked, ‘Is he a broad-chasing booze-hound?’
I’d tell you whose face the cover featured, but I can’t afford a million-dollar law suit the way they can. The soldier turned over the page and gave me a glance.
I remembered arriving in this room at 2.59 one night. I remembered the Sergeant who called me names: mostly Anglo-Saxon monosyllabic four-letter
