Figures in a Landscape

by Barry England

  He eased down, orientated himself, and set off again to his right. The next moment he came face to face with MacConnachie, who grinned and said,

  ‘Thought you’d get up high to see me. Wouldn’t have spotted you otherwise.’

  Ansell laid his face in the dust.

  ‘God, am I glad to see you.’

  ‘Mutual.’

  He felt MacConnachie’s hand rest on his shoulder.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Ansell looked up, nodding.

  ‘Yes.’

  MacConnachie examined him a moment, then frowned.

  ‘Come on, I’ve found a place.’

  ‘I saw it.’

  As he wriggled after MacConnachie, Ansell said,

  ‘What happened to you?’

  MacConnachie hesitated.

  ‘Tell you later.’

  Ansell thought that, once in the gully, MacConnachie should not have left it.

  It took them twenty minutes to travel the forty yards to the gully. All the time, the numbers on Big Ridge increased as more and more of the River Boys reached the top. Once inside, Ansell said,

  ‘Can we rest a bit? I’m clapped.’

  ‘Sure. Have a drink.’

  ‘You too?’

  ‘All right.’

  Solicitously, MacConnachie unstoppered and held the canteen for Ansell, who allowed the water to linger in his mouth before swallowing. He noticed that MacConnachie fingered the gash in its side, not drinking himself. Safe again, Ansell grinned.

  ‘Close call.’

  MacConnachie muttered,

  ‘I didn’t know it was that close.’

  ‘Don’t think I realized myself at the time.’

  MacConnachie sat silent, drinking. Ansell looked along the gully. It was deep, scrub-thick, and gave the impression, at this distance, of reaching all the way to Little Ridge. Suddenly, un­asked, MacConnachie began to explain himself, scowling and pausing often:

  ‘I nearly had kittens when I saw them close over you.’ Silence. ‘I took a hell of a chance. I ran like the clappers. Stupid. We could have been blown. But I couldn’t fancy them’—he banged the stopper home with the palm of his hand—‘crawling all over me. Like ants!’ Silence. ‘Hate those little men. Hate them!’ He wasn’t able to look at Ansell. ‘Anyway, I found this place.’ He looked instead at the place where Ansell had lain under the bayonets. He said, ‘I had kittens.’

  Ansell was at a loss for words.

  ‘I had them myself.’

  ‘I believe you.’ A long silence. ‘I was . . . I guess maybe . . . Per­haps I . . .’

  Ansell couldn’t bear it; he had to look away.

  ‘You did the right thing. You covered the flank. We had enfiladed fire, if we needed it.’

  ‘That’s right. I mean, I did, didn’t I?’ MacConnachie nodded vigorously, as though the appearance of conviction could engender the conviction itself. ‘That’s true.’

  For something to say, Ansell said,

  ‘They’re coming towards us again.’

  ‘We must move.’

  MacConnachie was at once busy with practicalities.

  ‘We’ll go up this gully. Watch for drifting dust.’

  Then he noticed that he was still holding the canteen and, with a foolish grin, re-stoppered it and handed it to Ansell.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  The boy was right. Yes, he’d done the right thing. Enfiladed fire. Yes.

  Ansell was visited by a comic vision, such as he had had before. It was of MacConnachie, suitcase in one hand, gun in the other, haring across the landscape, ‘going like the clappers’, with the skirts of his native coat flapping about his ankles; had there been a hand clasping a bonnet to the back of the head, it might have been a grandmother making a getaway.

  But he was glad it was MacConnachie, and not he, who had to carry the suitcase and the gun.

  As they picked their way up the gully, the day died. Shortly before nightfall they reached its end, to discover that it did not in fact extend all the way to Little Ridge, but petered out in a rash of scrub and rocky outcrop.

  ‘Sit tight?’

  ‘Till night, yes.’

  MacConnachie considered for a moment.

  ‘We’ll eat. Soon as it’s dark, we’ll cross Little Ridge, and get the hell out of this valley.’

  It was as though MacConnachie blamed the valley for his own defection. Ansell had had time to appreciate, and thoroughly to examine, the fact that while he had lain under the bayonets, MacConnachie had watched from a place of safety; and further, that he had achieved that safety only at the risk of jeopardizing their entire escape. Yet Ansell was unable to generate any emotion about this, either anger or a sense of betrayal. In war, what you got away with was good; what you didn’t was bad.

  He remembered that in every battle he had ever fought in, some men had hidden, or run away. In the next, they hadn’t, but others had. At different moments, in differing circumstances, what one man found acceptable another found intolerable. The normal conventions of praise and blame did not apply. He thought it an admirable system. Both he and MacConnachie were tired, and had enough to carry as it was.

  Having eaten the meat left over from breakfast, they drank and rested, waiting for night.

  At MacConnachie’s word, they set out again to traverse Little Ridge. Compared to previous climbs, it was a simple ascent, and in less than two hours they were on the peak, lying flat and peering forward into the night. Of the enemy they saw and heard nothing, though they knew him to be close. Of the country ahead they saw little more, save patches of shadow accentuated by the pale glow in the sky. MacConnachie put his face close to Ansell’s.

  ‘We’ll go as far and as fast as we can, then rest.’

  Ansell nodded exaggeratedly, to be sure MacConnachie caught the movement.

  Very quickly it became apparent that they were leaving the range of hills. Counting tomorrow, they would have made the march in five days, two less than estimated; MacConnachie was pleased. The ground continued gently and steadily downhill, and they made fast time.

  Then came the moment when MacConnachie’s feet told him that the nature of the earth had changed; and shortly afterwards his nostrils confirmed it. They were not far from water. They must stop. Before he led them out of the hills, he needed to see the ground ahead.

  At the next gentle rise, he cast about for a place to sleep; once he had found it, they bedded down.

  He was concerned. The next day, he knew, he could feel, would face them with their second area of maximum danger, and he had a great need to feel that both his hands were free; but the suitcase had to be carried. So he looked down at the boy who slept peacefully in the security of his trust, and fretted.

  *

  The fifth dawn found MacConnachie already awake, waiting impatiently for the mist to clear. His whole body prickled with a sense of dissonance relative to the territory around him. Some­thing was wrong. He shook Ansell.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘We’ve got to move.’

  Ansell peered blearily at the mist.

  ‘Have we been seen?’

  ‘No. Something’s wrong, I can feel it.’

  Ansell was awake at once. Just the word ‘feel’ communicated the urgency to him: MacConnachie’s instinct had become, for him, hope itself. Rapidly, he repacked their jackets and blanket.

  ‘Eat now?’

  ‘Later.’

  He roped up the case and laid it at MacConnachie’s other side. Then he tested the weight of the canteen on first one shoulder, then the other. The left was still by far the more painful so, draping the strap over his right, he rested his hand lightly on the knife, quietly waiting MacConnachie’s order.

  The mist was maddeningly slow to lift, for they were much lower down than hitherto, and MacConnachie shifted restively all the time. Then, quite suddenly the drifting wraiths were gone, and he could see to his rear.

  They had walked on to the stage of a natural amphi
theatre, a wide, shallow basin in the face of the slope. To left, right, and behind they were overlooked by a horseshoe of ground higher than that on which they lay—though not so high that MacConnachie could have seen it, by night, against the pale glow. The Goons had only to man the heights, close the neck of the horseshoe, and they would be trapped. Speed was essential.

  Ansell muttered, ‘Christ,’ and, turning, MacConnachie saw that he was looking into the ground that lay ahead. A glance gave him a quick impression of cultivated fields, a river system and the mountains beyond, but looking farther to his right he saw that on that side the arm of the horseshoe crumpled away into a confused area of high scrub and trees, where the ground fell away steeply into the valley. He said, ‘Run! Don’t stop!’

  They ran flat out, completely exposed to view, until they fell among the tall scrub and tangled branches of the thicket. Just before they reached it, without any warning, the helicopter suddenly roared down out of the thin morning sky, scudding low over the crest of Little Ridge and swishing past above them.

  Ansell could not believe it. It was too fortuitous to be chance, and yet he could not accept the possibility that they had been spotted in the valley the day before. That would mean that the Goons had known all the time where they were, and were using their escape to test their own techniques of search and destroy. If that were true, it was the end of him. Unlike MacConnachie, he could not endure without prospect of reward. If he were simply the object of sport, he did not want to go on. Demoralized and chill, he lay dazed with fear, inwardly weeping.

  Then he heard the voice of MacConnachie, weary and defiant, murmuring a litany of such outraged and convolute obscenity that small eructations of helpless laughter bubbled up in him like wind. What’s the use? he thought.

  Together they rose to peer through the umbrella of branches.

  ‘What’s the little bastard up to?’

  ‘Setting a pattern over the forward slopes.’

  ‘We might as well eat.’

  ‘Did he see us?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How did he know where to search?’

  ‘Because he’s good.’ Again, Ansell heard the note of amused comradeship in MacConnachie’s voice. ‘He knew we’d left the valley. He knows we’re good too.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Assume he didn’t see us.’

  MacConnachie turned away, and started to untie the suitcase. Ansell said,

  ‘Can we afford to?’

  ‘Kid, we haven’t any choice. We’ve got to eat; the worst is just ahead of us. And there’s nothing we can do, either way.’

  MacConnachie pulled a tin out of the case, and took the kitchen knife to it. Far from satisfied, Ansell sat on the scab grass opposite him. The scrub was much taller than any they had so far encountered, the branches interleaving in a roof above their heads. A withered, spiky tree grew close at hand and, farther down the slope, the worn and twisted trunks of other trees were visible between the strands of meshing brush. The buzz of the helicopter apart, it was a peaceful glade. They had half a tin of meat for breakfast, and a mouthful of water each. Then, in preparation for what was to come, they examined their physical capacity.

  MacConnachie’s wrist, where the rope had burned it, was suppurating a little, or had been, for the cloth with which Ansell had bound it was stuck fast. Ansell said,

  ‘Hang on a sec, I’ll give it one quick heave.’

  MacConnachie recoiled in alarm.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?!’

  ‘You want to see what it looks like.’

  ‘Sod what it looks like! I can’t feel it, it must be all right.’

  Ansell laughed.

  ‘I’ll bet you’re scared of jabs as well.’

  ‘Who isn’t? Anyway, why open it? We’ve nothing to put on it.’

  ‘We can clean it.’

  ‘I’ll keep it the way it is!’

  Silence. Then Ansell said,

  ‘Mac, you can’t really not feel it, can you?’

  MacConnachie glowered at him like an evil-tempered child, then waggled his hand from the wrist. ‘It’s all right.’ Finally a look of resignation appeared on his face. ‘Oh, all right, then!’ He seized the cloth and ripped it off with one jerk.

  The sides of the channel burnt in the flesh were thickly encrusted with congealed pus and blood. At the centre, a colourless fluid rose up before their eyes to glisten in the diffused light of the clearing. Flies came at once to settle and feed, but Ansell flushed them away. MacConnachie tossed the cloth aside, and instantly it was black with gorging insects.

  Ansell put his nose to the wound and smelt it.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s clean.’ Ansell reached for the canteen, saying, ‘Don’t argue, I just want to use a little to wash it.’

  MacConnachie nodded.

  ‘All right.’

  Ansell took another section of torn-off sleeve and, with great care, washed the waste from MacConnachie’s wound, gradually breaking off little pieces of the harder substance, until the area was seen to be fresh, uncorrupt, and far better than they had feared. Finally, he dampened the cloth again, slit one end down the centre with the kitchen knife, and bound it round MacConnachie’s wrist, tying off the ends.

  ‘That should be okay,’ he said; ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of . . .’

  But he decided not to mention gangrene.

  MacConnachie checked that the canteen was securely stop­pered, and then examined Ansell. The one thing that gave him real concern was Ansell’s left shoulder.

  Both of them had suffered superficial damage to their arms, legs and faces; and of course there were debilitating factors, such as lack of food and sleep, about which they could do nothing. But the shoulder was another matter.

  On the first day, the strap must have bitten deeply. The skin was chafed and rubbed away from neck to shoulder, and even now had begun only improperly to re-form. The worst weals were in the centre, puffy and bruised across the ridge of bone; from there, they radiated outwards with diminishing severity, as the boy must have shifted the canteen from place to place in a vain search for relief.

  So far as he could see the area was not actually weeping, but carrying the canteen must have become an agony that could only grow worse. A quick glance at the other shoulder told him that soon there would be nothing to choose between the two. The boy had not complained. Well, the canteen had to be carried. He said,

  ‘Not too bad.’

  ‘The right’s better.’

  ‘Try draping it round your neck.’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to, but we seem to crawl all the time.’

  ‘It’ll be better when we get in the mountains.’

  ‘Yes.’

  But MacConnachie could not push the memory of that ravaged shoulder from his mind. Knowing he would have to approach the suggestion obliquely, unsubtle though he was, he nodded briskly and turned away, saying,

  ‘We’ll see if we can find something to pad it with.’ And then, very casual, ‘I’ll give you a spell, when I can, to give it a chance to heal.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Good. That’s fixed.’

  ‘And I’ll take the suitcase.’

  Oh well.

  The water had made Ansell’s finger-tips tingle, reminding him of their condition, but, having so recently seen the produce of MacConnachie’s wound, he decided against interfering with his own. Their boots had stood the march well, remaining weatherproof and securely attached all round. And this time, when they scratched out their shallow holes and squatted, they were both successful.

  ‘Must be the early morning trot.’

  ‘We’ll ask him to call us again tomorrow.’

  Finally, MacConnachie said,

  ‘We must move to a place where we can see the whole valley ahead.’

  It took nearly half an hour to find a suitable position. Crawling down through the scrub, they came suddenly upon a dazzling complex of brush, cr
eeper and vine, at the heart of which, and running to its forward edge, there lay a scab-grown depression, offering concealment and a perfect vista of the valley floor. Settling on his stomach, MacConnachie read the ground over which they must travel; to know it by heart was essential.

  From left to right, a river system of four elements ran across their front. The valley floor itself was cultivated and well in­habited, being dotted with huts. Beyond, the mountains rose sheer into the sky.

  He broke this panorama down into its component parts.

  From their present position to the level valley floor was a distance of about a mile. Gentle downhill slope. Cover, fair to middling, with enough isolated scrub to offer a reasonable passage to the valley. Here the fields began, with hedging dykes beyond, and deep cover abundant.

  The valley floor was a mile and a half across. The main river ran along its entire length, with two tributaries on the far side, and one on this, his own side. This nearer stream curled back on itself, running towards the hills and petering out. But the farther two, maintaining a bolder passage, ran more or less parallel to the main river until, with it, they disappeared from view behind the swell of the hillside to his right.

  At the other, left-hand end of the valley, the four streams came together to form a delta. But here there was a permanent Goon station, and the thickest concentration of those huts that pro­liferated all about the water system.

  They would have, therefore, three hazards of water to cross, one wide and two narrow. Selecting a route that took best advantage of the distribution of huts, jetties and river traffic, MacConnachie memorized it, and turned his attention to that part of the valley that lay outside the rivers on either side.

  A simple pattern emerged at once. Wherever the valley floor failed to support either water or a home, it was culti­vated, the fields reaching out towards the hills and mountains, into which they were cut and shelved until the soil became intransigent.

  He was puzzled by the exact nature of some of the crops. Those fields, for instance, that lay in their direct line of march to the river appeared to be full of a wheat-like growth that stood, unless he was mistaken, over eight feet tall. He turned to Ansell.