Figures in a Landscape

by Barry England

  ‘How do you feel?’

  MacConnachie’s lips were close to his ear.

  ‘Not too bad.’

  In fact his face hurt so that he could weep, but the sickness, surprisingly, had left him, and the repulsive dross with which he was smeared and the choking stench had diminished to manage­able proportions. He was grateful for MacConnachie’s aid, so immediately and unthinkingly given, but now that the worst of his need had subsided, he felt a different compulsion: to reassert himself. He said,

  ‘What now?’

  MacConnachie understood at once: the boy was strong enough to stand alone, and wanted to. He edged along, still gripping the stalks, until he stood beside him. He spat the muck out of his mouth and looked at the sky.

  ‘We’ll have to move, towards the river.’

  ‘Do you think we convinced them we’re dead?’

  ‘I don’t know about them, but I bloody near convinced myself.’

  ‘I can hear the chopper.’

  With ears unclogged and senses more about them, they be­came aware of sound again. The roar of the fire continued un­abated, though muted now by the walls of the depression in which they stood. The sound of the helicopter’s engine, roaring at one moment, at another distantly whining, came through persistently in nagging counterpoint.

  ‘He’s quartering the field,’ MacConnachie said.

  And looking for us, he thought. He’s meant to be directing the fire-fighters, but that man’s having a damned good look for us. We’ll have to wait till the smoke gets thicker.

  ‘As soon as the flames get really close, we’ll go out the left-hand side.’

  ‘Across the front of that second fire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ansell had seen it: it was clearly the danger now. Already, as well as being putrid, the air was stiflingly hot. He turned his face away, and looked down the trench in the direction of the river. It came to an abrupt end fifteen feet away. He said to MacConnachie,

  ‘Is that any use?’

  ‘What?’

  He indicated that at the far end there stood in slime the ruin of an ancient monsoon drain, its stone arch cracked and crumb­ling, its weathered feet sunk deep and darkly stained with green and black corruption. Within, they saw the mouth of a dank, narrow cavern.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To hide in.’

  ‘Kid, this whole place will boil when the fire comes. I don’t think we could take another roasting. We’re done to a turn already.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t we find somewhere to lie up till night?’

  ‘No, they’re more worried about the fire than us.’

  Ansell doubted this, but felt too tired to argue. He looked into the sky.

  ‘Hey, Mac, look!’

  ‘The shite hawks.’

  ‘But why are they up there? Is it the tributary?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  And now MacConnachie knew exactly where they were. The burning field was on their right. The river ran across their front. To their left and behind was the second fire. To their left and in front was the small tributary that curled back on itself, the one he had seen from the hills before they entered the valley. The birds, of course, had always been wheeling over that, but he had misjudged the distance and chance had led them to the ditch.

  The tributary was still fifty yards distant; it would serve as their first objective.

  Suddenly there was an outbreak of shouting to their right, answered at once by calls from the left. Ansell said,

  ‘They’re all around us.’

  ‘They have been all the time. They’re nearer now, that’s all.’

  The helicopter roared close again, momentarily blotting out the raging crackle of the fire, but it failed to appear in the sky above them, and shortly afterwards faded to its lower register.

  ‘That man doesn’t believe we’re dead, does he?’

  ‘Kid, you’re learning. We’ll head for the tributary. Check gear, then move.’

  They went rapidly through their possessions; nothing was missing. MacConnachie took the suitcase and gun, Ansell the canteen and knife, and they plunged into the filth once more.

  At the far bank, gasping, they rested. Then MacConnachie hauled himself clear at the second attempt, reached down to help Ansell, and they were back among the stalks again.

  MacConnachie was happy to be on their true line of march once more. Looking to the birds for guidance, he led the way at a crouching lope towards the tributary. But the stalks, he noticed, grew thinner all the time, and he was oppressed by the fact that they found themselves constantly looking down long corridors of neat sticks, from the far end of which they might be spotted at any moment. With a grunt he stopped, raised a finger to his lips for silence, and cleaned the gun as best he could with the muck-blackened tail of his coat. Moving on, he made no attempt at speed; now that contact was broken again, and the initiative within their grasp, he did not intend to relinquish dominance through carelessness. Every time a shout arose, which happened often, he paused, waiting for silence, before pressing on. Then, halfway to the tributary, he entered a corridor and froze.

  Looking over MacConnachie’s shoulder, absolutely still, Ansell saw that one of the three-man patrols was walking to­wards them from the other end, its members jabbering to one another and pointing through the stalks towards the fire. MacConnachie was inching the weapon up into a firing position. The Goons were shouting loudly, rather excitedly, as though the day had come as an adventure to break their dull military routine. Ansell noticed, for the first time in many hours, how hot the sun was.

  Abruptly the Goons turned off in answer to a shout that arose from startlingly close at hand, and disappeared behind the screen of stalks towards the fire. Ansell had not realized the ring was so tight about them. He waited, sweating, for MacConnachie to start again, but they had only gone ten yards when the second patrol came into view, trudging through the stalks, kicking in sweaty anger and cursing dully; and even before this group had passed, a third could be heard coming very close.

  MacConnachie flattened himself to spring, Ansell doing the same. But the stalks parted suddenly six feet ahead, and the Goons stamped across without looking at them. By now they could hear yet more patrols approaching. Some sort of general call must have gone out; this part of the field was alive with groups of men moving towards the fire.

  They fell into a tense and desperate game of hide-and-seek, advancing a few yards, hiding to let a patrol pass through, ad­vancing and hiding again; but all the time they worked their way closer to their objective.

  They reached it before they knew they were upon it; MacConnachie parted some stalks, leant through, and from the angle at which his feet rose up Ansell realized that he was teetering for­ward suddenly without support. He threw himself down on MacConnachie’s legs to provide a counterbalance.

  MacConnachie was hanging, head down, over a stream of rela­tively clear water. He twisted back and whispered urgently, ‘Take the gun!’

  Ansell reached down awkwardly for it. Then MacConnachie said, ‘Let me go!’

  Ansell raised his weight, MacConnachie dropped the suitcase and slid after it into the water. At once he came to his feet, handed the suitcase up to Ansell, and looked about him.

  It was possible to see for nearly fifty feet along the tributary before it turned off on its twisted course to the river; the stalks grew right up to the banks on either side. There was little smoke in the sky and, although the sounds of the fire and the helicopter were still audible, they were distant. No scent of immediate danger came to him and on impulse he rinsed himself and his clothes as quickly and thoroughly as he could; then, taking Ansell’s place on the bank, he told him to do the same.

  Ansell jumped at the way the water, warm though it was, stung his face; but he washed himself. It had become important that he and MacConnachie should suffer the same degree of pain.

  There flowed from him across the yellow surface a skein of dark discoloration; fre
e from the worst of the filth, he felt refreshed.

  With Ansell once more crouching at his side, MacConnachie listened and watched. Within the walls of the tributary they would be deaf and blind. He remembered, too, that it turned soon to the left to join the delta; he had decided therefore to travel along its bank until they reached that bend, and then to strike out to the right for the least populated part of the valley where, according to his original plan, they would cross the river.

  But a new problem had arisen. It wasn’t simply that the num­bers of people pushing their way through the stalks had increased, but that he had heard first one woman’s voice, and then another, and knew that the villagers had joined the fight to save their crops. MacConnachie hated civilians. To avoid patrols was one thing—the behaviour of trained soldiers was familiar to him—but the ‘others’ were unpredictable; they mooched and slopped about, they fell asleep and became bored. Women were the worst; a man could fall over them.

  With a sigh, he led the way forward.

  Until they reached the bend in the tributary, progress was rapid and professional. The clamour to their right increased in variety—he even heard an infant bawl—but he suffered it. Then they had to turn right into the open field.

  It was becoming intolerably hot. Ansell suddenly realized that it must be nearly midday, and he was astonished. Until this moment, he had given no thought to the hour. His face felt stiff and dry, as though it had taken on the texture of gauze; he was unwilling to form an expression.

  By now the stalks were dangerously thin. Again and again they sighted groups of figures to their right, or leapt startled at the closeness of an unexpected voice; for every yard they moved for­ward, minutes were spent in an agonized watchfulness as villagers dragged past. They were approaching the open fields, where the stalks would end, and the flat expanses of water-logged clay would lie between themselves and the river. For the life of him, Ansell could not see how MacConnachie intended to cross this hazard with the helicopter still in the sky, and the entire area alive with an alarmed and alert populace.

  Then MacConnachie came face to face with the child. He was a boy of about six, with all the wide-eyed expansiveness of his age. His straight black hair hung down in a fringe across his fore­head. For some moments, he stared at MacConnachie in astonish­ment, legs apart, little fists uncoiling in shock. Then his face darkened with uncertainty, and finally lit with growing alarm. Eyes intent on MacConnachie’s features, he opened his mouth as if to call out, and Ansell caught the quick movement of MacConnachie’s gun arm.

  My God, he thought, he means to kill him.

  But even as he stretched out an arm in restraint, MacConnachie leant forward to ruffle the boy’s hair, chuckling, soothing him with a murmur in his own language. The boy’s expression softened, as though the familiar words had reassured him; then at last he grinned in response to something MacConnachie said, and Ansell relaxed, appalled to find how tightly he had been holding himself.

  With confidence came curiosity. The boy was now clearly demanding an explanation as to why two adults should be down on their knees, at his level, in what he evidently regarded as a private playground. MacConnachie seemed to enjoy explaining. Since Ansell didn’t understand the words, he had to deduce their meaning from the changing expressions on the boy’s face. It came to him that MacConnachie was describing some sort of complicated game; and that, he thought, would prove to be a mistake. So it did. For the boy wanted to join in. And when MacConnachie attempted to persuade him of the impossibility of this, a crisis of confidence ensued.

  Ansell was becoming restless and afraid. Away to their right a growing cloud of smoke was visible, thickened by attempts to damp the fire. Figures passed back and forth beneath it with in­creasing frequency; it was only a matter of time before someone looked their way and since, although stationary, MacConnachie was obliged to make small movements to communicate with the boy, discovery was an imminent threat. And MacConnachie had fallen into a trap.

  In his efforts to quell the child’s growing disillusion, MacConnachie had apparently offered a gift in place of the game. Now, as he reached down for pockets that were no longer there, he hesitated, and Ansell knew exactly what was passing through his mind. He had nothing to give. And the boy was a danger, one of the enemy: a pair of eyes and a mouth that had to be closed.

  Contact had been re-established.

  Ansell found that he was locked in a terrible premonition of impending horror. He was unable to move or to speak; the cast of MacConnachie’s neck was riveting, his shoulders hypnotic. The boy was regarding MacConnachie with a steady gaze of anticipation and confidence, his head a little to one side as though to make the blow easy and clean. The voices grew suddenly distant.

  MacConnachie reached out and took one of the boy’s hands between his thick, dirty fingers as though to prevent him from escaping or as though, by this means, he might draw from that source something of which he was desperately in need. The boy smiled a little; he might at that moment have been much the older of the two.

  Then a woman’s voice called out in alarm from very close, and Ansell jumped with fright. But MacConnachie, as though to pre­vent the passage of his own fear to the child, remained very still, holding him. He need not have concerned himself. The boy came upright at once, stepped back, and looked towards the voice with disappointment and doubt. Then he looked at MacConnachie with an expression of regret. MacConnachie reached up and ruffled his hair. Suddenly the boy laughed and wrapped his small brown arms round MacConnachie’s neck. MacConnachie held him a moment then, turning him about, sent him running off to his mother with a smack on the bottom. The boy didn’t look back. He seemed not to have noticed Ansell at all.

  As MacConnachie’s face, following the flight of the child, came round towards him, Ansell got his first clear look at it. There was so much uncertainty and doubt therein, such confusion and fear for the consequences of a stupid and impulsive weakness, that Ansell could have wept for his friend at that moment.

  Would the boy talk? What was happening to them, that so much depended on the natural urge of a child to share an ad­venture with his parents?

  MacConnachie knew he had made an elementary mistake. A child might be expected to see people in the grass, but not such obvious foreigners. He should have killed the brat. What was the matter with him?

  God keep him silent, the little bastard.

  And now it went bad on them. A great shout of consternation rose up from the right, and looking they saw a gout of flame spurt up into the sky. A fierce gust of wind set all the stalks chattering, as though God had sneezed. They thought it was the helicopter, but that remained distant, buzzing. All around, the concatenation multiplied with increasing desperation as the smoke thickened.

  The sudden stroke of nature seemed to bring MacConnachie to himself, for he pressed forward now with greater urgency, cleaving through the stalks with rapid, professional precision, slipping past stray figures to left and right; but much too fast, Ansell thought, as though, a climax approaching, he must rush forward to embrace the disaster.

  In minutes they reached the limits of the stalks and, crouching side by side, looked out over an expanse of unprotected, soggy mud-flat. The huts began only two hundred yards to their left; they had hit too close to the village. Low dykes ran down towards the river, meeting others and breaking out at right angles to contain the rectangular boxes of cultivation. Isolated trees stood at various points but, together with the low walls, they consti­tuted the only cover and were useless. The river was three hundred yards to their front, but they could not reach it. The entire area was animate with dozens of villagers running about in a state of great excitation, chattering among themselves and carrying, Ansell would have said pointlessly, slung paniers of water towards the fire. If they propose to extinguish it by such a method, he thought, we are here for the day.

  MacConnachie, still moving with what seemed to Ansell an undue and dangerous haste, made one more attempt to work alo
ng the perimeter of stalks to their right, but it was futile. The farther they went in that direction, the greater the number of villagers with whom they were forced to play hide and seek. And by now the thick pall of greasy smoke was drifting down over them, creating the additional hazard of discovery through chok­ing, so difficult had breathing become.

  At length MacConnachie stopped and looked slowly all about them, clearly seeking a way out of their dilemma; but there was none. They could go neither forward nor back. They were trapped at the edge of the burning field as the fire drew closer.

  For the third time that day, MacConnachie was involved in a crisis of confidence: not this time in Ansell’s intelligence or a child’s trust, but in his own strange and particular abilities.

  To have made the mistake with the child was bad enough, but now he had committed a major tactical blunder. What was the matter with him? Why in the name of God wasn’t he alone?

  The moment Ansell’s eyes—not his abilities, but Ansell’s eyes—had saved them from the fire, they should have gone to ground. Ansell had told him. Ansell had seen his mistake and warned him: ‘Shouldn’t we lie up till night?’ he had said, and MacConnachie had said ‘No.’ Now he had thrown the whole lot away.

  Ansell said quietly at his side,

  ‘Mac, we must go back to the tributary.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid!’

  ‘The Goons will use it as a fire-break, they can’t control the fire. On the other side, we’ll be safe.’

  It was true. The Goons would have to let the fire burn itself out. That meant they would let it advance to the mud-flats at the front, and on the left-hand side allow it a controlled spread as far as the tributary, where they could contain it. What happened to the right was not MacConnachie’s concern. But at any moment a party would be sent to scythe down the stalks on either side of the tributary.