Key to the Door

by Alan Sillitoe

  Odgeson and Baker were sending bullets across the clearing in the general line of fire, though this was difficult to pin down, for after the first rush it seemed more scattered and spasmodic. “The army can’t be that far off,” Odgeson yelled. “They’re bound to hear this racket.”

  Brian pressed a clip into his magazine, raised himself to line foresight and backsight through the undergrowth, settled for a hefty yard-wide monster of a tree and let fly—harmlessly. I’d better hold back, he thought. The others’ll have nowt left in a bit. Fear and sickness grew into him and he lowered his head, an image flashed from his first life of when he had been in gang-fights, each manoeuvring warrior-band hurling showers of stones and bottle-tops through the blue sky above tips or field. Though every missile was dangerous and shunned as if it carried death, he had stayed fixed on the ground to be held with the rest of them, whether or not he had been frightened of injury at that particular hour.

  In such danger he lived on two levels, one of fear, and one of not taking the fear seriously so that the situation seemed a harmless though perhaps foolish kind of game. He looked up, lifted his rifle to fire but could see no one, peered a while at the thick enclosing foliage in the half-darkness of the jungle. There were neither faces nor movement around the wrecked plane, though bullets still came at an uneven rate from it. In a one-second reflection, Brian reasoned that maybe the bandits had difficulty in seeing them as well, though as if to call him liar and point out that this was no game, a bullet went too close to Odgeson’s elbow as he was lifting for a cool aim. He swore with shock and the rifle jumped from his hands as if a charge of electricity had gone through it, wounding him so that all he could do, and did, was get the whistle up to his mouth and use what extra strength had been given his lungs due to the incapacitated arm—blowing so that the noise rose even above a renewed burst of firing.

  Brian did not want to lift his head and be killed, but when he forgot for a few seconds that to be killed was possible, he drew the butt into his shoulder and failed to see anything worth aiming at. Maybe the bastard that got away from me is busy letting us have it from over there: though when he did press out a trio on rapid fire, he had no desire to kill or wound because the sense that they were caught in some kind of game was still with him. They want to kill us, though, he thought with bitterness, firing into the bushes so that for once, at least, he had as much chance as Cheshire of stopping someone’s gallop for good. Bullets came back. They’re rich in ammunition, he surmised, as they smacked into iron trees or came fizzing so uncomfortably close that the dam of fear broke and pushed his face into the now sweet-smelling soil.

  Baker had finished his ammo and was rifling Odgeson’s pack for more clips. The noise, according to each bullet’s often accidental trajectory, varied from the snap of giant dead branches to the hollow receding echo singing on a last journey down the mountainside, from the savage and vicious clout against a tree to the dull burial in a pillow of soil; and amid all this was the low moan of Odgeson’s whistle signalling for help. Brian filled in the gaps of their firing, making his own noise for survival, though he knew that his bullets were having no effect, and hoped that no one would notice that they weren’t.

  He laughed, a shattering loud cry that the others were too busy to bother about: I’m making a present for Mimi, he thought. A goodbye gift in not shooting to kill maybe someone who, for all I know, is the old boy-friend she had at high school in Singapore. He lay on the damp earth of the forest, some yards from a rampart of covering tree trunk, reloading with fresh clips dragged out of his pack. His refusal to get caught up in trying to kill the Communists (who were clearly wanting to slaughter them for a rich haul in rifles and wireless gear) held him from the advantages of rage and excitement that might have given him the semblance of courage. As it was, the level of fear stayed with him, burning his face and eyes and causing his guts to creak like the timbers of an old battleship.

  When the other two blazed away, he bent his head down, coughing and choking into wet leaves, bringing up phlegm and hurling it from his bone-dry throat, having recalled his father’s mad roar: “God? God is a bastard. Bastard God”—though the words did nothing to ease his fear and he pushed them out of his mind to lift himself and take aim once more, at nothing. If they charge, he realized, they’ll finish us off. They know there’s only four of us, so why are they messing about? If they show themselves in a charge, I’ll wing a few and no mistake, though that wain’t do any good to why I’m lying here—which is not to fire at my pals. He laughed, and Cheshire stared at him, a brief glance of incredulity before returning to his skilful defence.

  The surprise marked on the coin of his face sent a memory back to Brian as he, too, simulated an angry few rounds rapid, a memory of some chargehand from the Raleigh recounting how his father had behaved with bravery and foolhardiness during the war (that’s a laugh: what’s all this pot-shooting if it ain’t a war?) one blacked-out midnight when a German bomber had machine-gunned the factory. Harold Seaton had stood in the main wide road of the works, looking into the sky and cursing, as the Jerry plane let rip on its second time round, while his pals from the sheltering doorways yelled for him to come in and not be a bleddy fool. But Harold had stayed there, working while the bullets sped like the patter of tiny clogged feet running for their lives around and by him, the first and last time he had shown a remarkable calmness in a situation in which it would have been natural and useful to have scattered in four directions—whereas a misplaced word from someone at home would have sent him into a black and uncontrolled fury. Still, he’d got guts, Brian remembered, so maybe some of ’em have been passed on to me here, and I’ll use ’em not to fire at the bandit-Communists in spite of the fact that in one way my fingers are itching to.

  Baker seemed cool enough, knew himself to be calm, what’s more, and enjoyed knowing it, firing as accurately as he was able and not bothering about the risk. He’ll get the VC, the daft bastard, though Brian saw as well that Baker’s lips were turned down in anger as he took aim and fired, though in anger at who or what, Brian refused to imagine. He listened now and again for answering signals from Knotman or the army, but heard nothing: a dim surging whistle in the distance turned out to be an echo of Odgeson’s still strong blasts. He caught himself laughing at the idea of their making a charge towards the wreckage—the bravest and most desperate military operation he could imagine. The end of it struck him like a cheap picture in a chewing-gum packet for future generations of children, number one in the series before real-life depictions came through: Odgeson or any officer-commanding leading them to the razor’s-edge point of success, then turning round and panic-roaring to them in the thick of it: “Run for your lives! Every man for himself!”

  Brian’s head was low, feeling for another clip. There were four or five still left and, sliding the bolt in, he saw a large red ant—head, body, and feelers out on a private patrol of its own—walk cautiously from a leaf on to his hand. It stopped to smell and reconnoitre this new earth of hairs and skin, took a few more paces into the unmapped interior until the grimy nail of Brian’s finger flicked it back on to more familiar earth. “Get to where it’s safe, you ginger-haired bastard.”

  Another whistle sounded through the trees, away to the left, and the noise against them seemed to relax because of it, though both Cheshire and Baker fired rapidly into some movement now discernible beneath the plane, and Odgeson never stopped blasting his whistle. He was pale, wearing a look of death-like exhaustion as if he were about to keel over. “They’re beating it,” Brian called to him. “The others must be close.” He aimed at the trees, at nothing, an erratic blade of fire to help with the impression of patriotic or devoted noise that still covered the hillside like a sliding roof. “If you’ve got any more slugs left,” Cheshire called, “I’ll ’ave ’em. My bleeders are about finished.”

  “I want ’em for mysen,” Brian said. “Keep your nut down: they’re still here.”

  “I suppose them army crumbs
are going to spoil all this for us.” There was a sudden silence, as if the bandits had abandoned the wreckage. Then another burst came to prove that some remained: the loony bastards’ll get killed if they don’t scram quick. “I’ll be glad when I’m out of this lot,” he called to Baker, lifting himself to fire high into the trees.

  “Don’t waste them,” Baker said. “They haven’t gone yet: I can see one moving.”

  “I’m not.” Their firing was filled and renewed by the first of the army, seasoned and competent in jungle-green as they came through the trees, cautiously blazing away. Brian laughed: “We’ll be back in camp today, after we’ve cleared this lot up,” he called to Baker. “I’ll be glad an’ all.”

  “Me, too,” Baker said. “I wish I was.…” He exposed himself too soon, and an explosion switched his face around, as though an insect had flown into his eye and taken him by surprise with its powerful sting. He lifted one hand to coax it out, then fell back, revealing that he had no face left.

  Down through the jungle and wearied to death, Brian thought back to nearly two years ago, when Baker had been alive on the troop-ship leaving England, and Brian had stood alone by the rail, watching the dockside, with its huge sheds and Martian spatula-footed cranes, get farther away as the water of midstream eddied and churned around them. Tugs heaved it clear and clouds of gulls squealed in fancy flight at the prospect of swill and scraps, and a group of soldiers down the rail were trying to hit them with sharp crossbow bolts of white spit. Brian smiled at their near-misses, wondering whether his aim would be any better, but not bothering to try because there were other things to look at. Bilious clouds were stacked over the Isle of Wight, as stationary and important as if they were part of an urgent stockpile waiting to be transported to some mythical D-day beach. Before them on the blue water was a derrick-laden, top-heavy American ship, and Brian took his hat off to stop the sudden wind flinging it over the side as a tidbit for the gulls. Water foamed into salt-white patches below the stern, and at the gentle rocking of the ship he hoped he wouldn’t heave his guts up at the open sea—his first time out on any ocean—recalling how as sick as a dog he’d been the whole twenty-seven miles to Worksop, where he was evacuated in 1939, leaving his pale-faced bile between Newstead and the Trent, between pit-scars of the Derbyshire hills and the stately halls of the Dukeries. They drifted by the Queen Mary, left it behind, and came towards the green banks of the Isle of Wight, a turreted manor showing itself between the trees. Up Southampton Water, sheds and cranes packed the blue skyline of the quays, ships of all sorts scattered over the blue water, some with funnels smoking thinly like a tailor-made, others in a full steam of thick twist. Marvellous, I’m glad to be leaving England, even though the old man did say I was a bloody fool and wanted my brains testing for not getting out of it, and even though Pauline might never forgive me if she thought I’d had a chance of not getting sent over on compassionate grounds. Not that I’m sure I could have got out of it, anyway; though if I get broken-hearted to be going, I hope it won’t be till I’m a thousand miles away and can’t swim back. He winced at a thump on his shoulder and, trying not to turn at it, said: “I can tell that’s you, Baker, you bastard.” But he did turn, and Baker leaned towards him like the Tower of Pisa, standing on tiptoe to make himself six inches taller instead of three. “Are you glad to be off?” he asked, coming to his normal height. “You bet,” Brian said. “I’ve allus wanted to do a bunk from England and see other countries. For as long as I can remember.” Excited gangs stood all over the ship, pointing out the sights. “They’re glad, anyway,” Baker said. He squinted at Brian through his rimless glasses: “It’s my first time as well. The old man’s been promising me a holiday in Switzerland since the end of the war, but it hasn’t turned up so far.” They watched a Beaufighter take a running torpedo-drop at target boards in the Solent, its blue underbelly roaring across flattened greenish water. “I write to a girl in Switzerland, so I’d like to go there for sentimental reasons,” Baker said. “I’d never get sentimental about a country,” Brian scoffed. “In some ways I wouldn’t care if I never saw this joint again.” The ship swung slowly east and along Spithead towards Portsmouth. A surfaced submarine passed, then a destroyer, each dipping its flags. “I thought you were married, though,” Baker said. “That’s hard luck. All I’m leaving behind is my motorbike.” Brian lit a cigarette, flipped the dead match into a drain at his feet. The moving tide slapped against the ship. Someone farther along pointed out the warships Ramillies and Malaya at Portsmouth, and the coastal forts built against Napoleon. “That word ‘Malaya’ seems familiar,” Baker laughed. “Or will soon, I expect,” Brian said, looking up from the hypnotic rush of sea passing the ship’s waterline. Baker observed with calm superciliousness the coast going by:

  “England

  This syphilitic isle

  This seat of majesty

  This lump of excrement.”

  “As long as you don’t include Nottingham in that,” Brian said. “You haughty bastard.”

  “Patriotism,” Baker sneered.

  “If you think I’m patriotic,” Brian said, “you’ve got another thought coming. I’m hungry. Let’s go down and see if we can’t snatch summat to eat.”

  CHAPTER 28

  His mother had written to let Brian know that Merton’s collection of prize horseshoes was to be divided among the family, and that she had put one by for when he came back. “You can nail it up on your door as soon as you and Pauline get a council house,” she added. The horseshoe again set him thinking of the picture in his grandmother’s parlour, of the girl holding a bunch of flowers and saying to the youth by her side: “If you love me as I love you, nothing can ever part us two”—which, pleasurably brooding on his living with Pauline, was how he felt about her. On the last day of his embarkation leave they had walked beyond Strelley Church, lingered between Cossal and Kimberley, wherein one part of the earth had been ripped open, and the humps and hollows they had often made love in while courting were scraped to the grey bones of a lunar landscape. To the left of undiscovered coal was a grey-pencilled wood surrounded by black upturned soil, and scattered beyond, a patrol of trees silhouetted their branches like half-opened fans. From behind came the thud of engines and the sigh of slave-driven cranes, while at their feet were dark up-ended rows of rich loam, heavy and wet, yet light on some crests where the loam had dried in the wind, miniature mountain-ranges still flecked with snow, a whiteness reminding him, in the clear cool air, of the milk of babies—and the fact that they had to walk back home so that Pauline could feed Bernard.

  He shivered to think of it, and as the last notes of an unnecessary message from Saigon died away, he thought of the death of his grandfather. He heard about it from his mother and aunts, how Merton one morning took a stick and walked past the Cherry Orchard to see whether there was still anything left of the wheatfield and Serpent Wood. It was an uncertain spring, clouds hurriedly dividing the empire of the sky after a fine start to the morning, a biting wind worrying grass and hedge-leaves already clumsy with rain that had pelted down in the night. The hollow tree in which Brian had often played now lay across a ditch, with branches scattered around, to be collected as firewood by kids from nearby prefabs. The navvies had been laid off because of bad weather, and the trackway of a projected road was deserted, odd planks to one side seesawing over cement bags, heaps of rammel pointing to grey sky. Even in such weather, it was good to walk and smell fresh wind that had come over the fields from Trowel and Bramcote—though these deserted trenches and half-built houses made the land look a battlefield up for GOC’s inspection: a wilderness. By the wood a fine rain began spitting on the leaves, so with a snort of contempt he turned back, walking along puddle-holed footpaths as fresh gusts rammed the bare trees, easing up only to let down heavier drops of rain. “Didn’t expect this bleddy lot,” he muttered, stooping as he walked, coat collar pulled up, though his shoulders and legs were already wet.

  He stamped into the house, wa
s enveloped in a comforting and familiar smell of steam pudding and sausages bursting their skins in the oven pan. “Where yer bin?” Mary cried, seeing his hair and face soaked. “You’ll get yer death o’ code, going out in such weather.” She poked at the coal-fire: “Come on, get out o’ them trousers and ’ave a warm.”

  He hung his jacket by the door and loosened his braces: “Don’t bloody-well fuss. I only went to see the new road they’re pushing through. I wun’t a gone if I’d a known it’d a pissed like this.” He stripped to his vest and rubbed head and arms vigorously. “I’ll get yer a cup o’ tea wi’ a drop o’ whisky in it,” she said. “That’ll set you up, if I know yer.”

  After dinner he went to bed and slept till tea-time; but came down feeling heavy and still anchored to an unfamiliar exhaustion.

  “Gorrout tasty?” he asked from the fire, sneezing into his great spotted handkerchief. He ate chicken legs and broth, but stayed listless well into the evening.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You shun’t a gone out in that rain.” Lydia was home for tea: “Let me get you some Aspros, dad. It wain’t tek a minute, from Warrener’s.”

  “Shut your rattle,” he said to them, and trod his way slowly up the creaking stairs to bed.

  “He’s a nasty-tempered owd bogger,” Lydia said. “I don’t think anybody in this house has ever had a civil word from him.”

  “And no more you bleddy-well will, either,” Merton said, suddenly back for his boots. “If yer’ve got owt to say, you want to tell it to my face.” He stood tall and erect by the mantelshelf, his face swarthy and well-lined, his head a bristle of white hairs. “People are only trying to be good to you,” Lydia spoke out, knowing herself to be in the right.

  “I’ll bring you a drink up soon,” Mary said, “and some Aspros.”

  “Ah, all right then,” he said, and went up. Sleep didn’t come easily. He tossed and sweated and grumbled all night and in the morning, when he couldn’t get out of bed, felt angry and ashamed, unable to remember when he had last been pinned there by illness. Years ago, as a girl, Vera remembered him sleeping awkwardly on two chairs before the fire when he was ill, so uncomfortable that the minute he was able to get up he would do so, stagger out to feed the pigs or get in some coal, breaking himself back into life. Illness was cowardice and weakness, and no man ever let it drive him to bed if he had any guts about him. But here he was gutless and without strength, and grieving that everyone witnessed it. When Mary said she thought he should have a doctor, his answer was: “What do I want a bleddy doctor for?”