Figures in a Landscape

by Barry England

  All of this came to him precipitately in the sharpened awareness of flight.

  Now, at three points, great swathes of light lit up the stubble in the fields as previously sited floodlights were brought into play. Those at the ambush point were angled away from them; glancing hurriedly in that direction, MacConnachie saw a finger of light wave raggedly at the sky and knew that the lights were being turned towards the village and towards them. The other areas of bright light were too distant to be a danger.

  His sole concern was to close the gap between themselves and the foot of the mountain as rapidly as possible, and this they were doing by running flat out. There was still a great deal of confusion; patrols ran past quite close, all of them towards the scene of the shooting, and all dully tinged with scarlet by the parachute flare suspended in the sky. The whistles took up a different chant, issuing instructions and passing information. There was no more shooting yet. It didn’t matter where they hit the rock wall, they would start climbing at once. The peri­meter guard would still be intact along the foot of the heights. Even the idle man should be alert by now.

  A hundred and fifty yards to go. A figure rose up in MacConnachie’s path; he smashed him down with the butt of his gun. Now isolated shots were fired from the direction of the ambush, but MacConnachie could hear no sound of bullets’ passage through the air.

  A hundred yards, and there was shouting again. Far away to the right a lone gun fired a burst. And now what MacConnachie had been waiting for and hoping to beat occurred: the mortar started to fire again to the logical pre-set pattern. Star shell. There was a slight pause after the whoosh of discharge, and then the whole scene was lit with a sudden, garish light. It was all a matter of luck now. While he and Ansell had only to reach the mountain, the Goons would have to locate, aim and fire with their night eyes half blinded by the dazzling purity of the flare’s brightness.

  He drove himself to accelerate, watching the rise and fall of the ground beneath his feet to give his eyes a moment to adjust from night vision, before he looked up to seek out the perimeter guards. Fortunately he and Ansell were coming out of the light towards them, and that would help.

  Now the guns started to fire controlled bursts behind them, and the pitch of the whistles changed. They screamed, Contact, Contact! The whisper of bullets came to him, but the range was long and the burp gun is a close-quarter weapon. The mortar was pumping star shell into the sky as fast as it could fire. The sentries at the perimeter were sharply alert, looking this way and that with weapons raised, but it was clear they had not yet spotted the rushing shapes of MacConnachie and Ansell.

  Thirty yards to go. Bullets slapped into the earth all around them, half-spent and less than dangerous. But now one of the perimeter guards spotted them and started to fire. MacConnachie broke right, away from the man, and picking one particular sentry ran straight at him, roaring at the top of his voice. The firing man was having to change position constantly to maintain a clear field of view, taking hurried aim, firing, then running forward a little before he could take aim again; he was ineffective. But he had activated his comrades; they, too, had now seen the roaring figures—for Ansell had taken up MacConnachie’s battle cry—and were attempting, like the first man, to close the gap and fire accurately at the same time.

  The man directly in MacConnachie’s path had panicked. He was edging to his right, firing from the hip and forgetting to aim low; the bullets passed harmlessly above MacConnachie’s head.

  They were now very close, not twenty feet to cover. The Goons were trying in messy, disorganized formation to press in from left and right. MacConnachie heard Ansell fire, and one man tumbled down to his right: fluke shot; running, and without proper aim, a discharge might be expected to take psychological rather than effective toll of an enemy.

  In their anxiety to stop them, the Goons to their rear were getting careless and firing many shots into the wavering rank of their own men. Another man went down, clutching at his thigh; neither MacConnachie nor Ansell had fired at that moment. It was evident that the mountain guard had been disconcerted by the suddenness of the charge, the pitch of Ansell and MacCon­nachie’s redoubtable screaming, and the daunting realization that they were being fired on by their own side. Confusion grew among them.

  Then MacConnachie and Ansell were into the line and MacConnachie fired one-handed from the hip, clutching the suitcase in his other hand. The nearest man flew back, mouth agape, arms flung wide, his weapon spinning off into the shadows. MacConnachie passed through the line, dropped the case, turned left, and got off four shots at close range, aiming as carefully as his trembling arms and heaving chest would allow. Two shots took effect. He could hear Ansell, at his back, firing single-shot, and knew that he had seen his own manoeuvre and imitated it, shooting into the right flank of the line.

  The moment he was sure the guards had been cowed and the fire fight temporarily won, he shouted over his shoulder, ‘Piss off!’

  He saw Ansell scramble up the slope, pulling the suitcase after him. He fired once more into the left flank, then turned to engage the right, now left in the air by Ansell’s departure. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of the situation in the valley. Many hundreds of the enemy were pressing in from all sides, shooting as they came; they were far closer than he had expected.

  Now one of the guard came charging at him and he was compelled to drop to his knees, take careful aim and fire three times before the man stopped coming. It was like killing one of his own, so determinedly was the assault pressed home.

  Bullets sang off the rocks on every quarter, above and beside him. He was at an impossible disadvantage in that he couldn’t fire a burst, he had to conserve ammunition for the remainder of their journey, so much more potentially dangerous now that they lacked supplies. He knew there was nothing remarkable in his remaining so far unhit—the Goons, too, had to fire from the hip while running—but the superior numbers of shots discharged must take effect at any moment. He waited for Ansell to open covering fire above. It was past time to pull out.

  Then he heard Ansell’s gun fire in well-judged single-shot, and saw first one man and then another spin out of the line to his front. The range was only thirty yards. He turned and scrabbled furiously up the face of the mountain.

  The Goons were brilliantly lit by their own flares and in the natural killing-ground from Ansell’s point of view—fifty feet, directly below—he could hardly fail to take out an enemy with every shot. But he didn’t want to waste ammunition, so he contented himself with striking only at those men who, from their stance, were clearly following the passage of MacConnachie’s flight and actually aiming at him.

  Then MacConnachie was beside him, gasping, ‘Let’s go!’

  They went up the mountain, Ansell hanging back this time to cover the rear, MacConnachie once more in the lead with the suitcase.

  It was a matter now of disengaging from the enemy, and here the factors all favoured them: they held the high ground, domi­nating an enemy who was forced to climb no faster than they did, and always under the threat of their guns; they were travers­ing a terrain riven confusingly with opportunities for an unseen change of direction, and never more than half revealed by even the closest flare. When the mortar man moved closer to the mountain, the illumination he provided was more useful to them than to their enemies since, while it outlined the Goons as per­fect targets, it did nothing to improve the Goons’ visibility of them.

  Someone threw a grenade, but this method was abandoned at once to a howl of execration. To throw grenades uphill is a doubtful procedure at any time; to do it by night on a hillside crowded with your own men is to invite disaster.

  MacConnachie and Ansell had simply to maintain a steady rate of progress, which they did. Only three times did they fire, on each occasion killing one man, to maintain their ascendancy over their pursuers. In a short while the star shell was discontinued and silence fell. Someone down below had got a grip on his men and brought them under proper control
. Within an hour they had lost the Goons, and contact was once again successfully broken off.

  MacConnachie kept going. He knew that the Goons would climb through the night, and that they would have to do the same. When morning came, the Goons would form up a defen­sive perimeter, and send patrols forward. They were in no hurry; they had overwhelming superiority of manpower, a secure supply-line, and eyes in the sky.

  As the gap opened out, he began to think again of the heli­copter as the greater threat and the infantry as the lesser. Of the raid on the valley he would not allow himself to think at all.

  Ansell could not help thinking about it. He was desperately tired. He knew that he was using the last of his strength. His face ached without cease, and it seemed to him that what was left of his arms and legs operated without conscious instruction from him, propelling him endlessly to no particular destination—although he was never in fact more than two yards below MacConnachie all night.

  The strangest phenomenon, though it was in no way alarming, was that his brain had deserted his cranium and was floating up the mountain-side before him. Far from being a hindrance, this proved to be a help, since he tried constantly, and with good humour, to rejoin it. All the time this brain worked busily, very light and clear, but with areas of mist and impenetrability.

  The attack on the valley was a complete disaster. For the first time we brought death and took nothing. Not so. We took one gun and two magazines. Three, with the one already on the gun. We’ve got half a tin of meat left, and two of soup. I think it’s two. My brain thinks it’s two, too. And lost a knife. At least, I haven’t got it, and I started out with it.

  There was something else that Ansell and his brain could not quite reach. But to turn to other matters . . .

  We can no longer escape. We have no food, and no prospect of food. Without food, we cannot cross the mountains. Therefore we shall die. That’s a clue. But to turn to other matters . . .

  Every hut was guarded, and every hut was empty. We gave no thought to this, as we gave no thought to the possibility of ambush. We must be very tired. Our brains must be very tired. The truth is, from the very beginning, we had no chance at all of making a successful raid on the valley. We should have known that. That’s another clue.

  You see, Mac, it’s very simple. So simple that you can’t see it. Message: There are more of them than there are of us. Message ends.

  We have—now—no chance whatever.

  But to turn to other . . .

  It was the killing of the sentry. Not the killing so close, with the man you are killing so tight in your arms as though you were loving him. But . . . clue, too . . . food, two, soup, two, too.

  But to turn . . .

  It’s to do with . . . empty huts . . . no chance.

  It’s . . .

  One of the necessary conditions—in morality—of a ‘just war’—is that you should have—a—reasonable—prospect—of—success.

  But we have none.

  None.

  This is nonsense.

  Is there a point at which all the virtues Mac has—that I am learning so fast—that I aspire to—become vices? When killing is simply killing? Plain murder? Because we are directing our violence to no achievable end?

  Oh, this is nonsense. What are we to do? Give ourselves up? Acknowledge defeat from within?

  We raided the valley, and we came away with nothing. We were out-thought at every turn. We are hungry, we are cold. We are tired, and hurt, and without supplies or hope of any kind. Why should we worry?—Ansell smiled—we are already dead.

  What a trick!

  An hour before dawn, MacConnachie floundered to a stop. He turned to Ansell with the fraught petulance of a child who has been deceived.

  ‘We must sleep. We must!’

  He fell down. Ansell bent carefully, restraining the natural buoyancy of his body, to prevent that inflated bladder of flesh from taking off, and stroked MacConnachie’s head. But he was already asleep, the helmet beside him like a spare skull.

  What do you expect for ten cents a day and a bowl of rice? asked Ansell’s brain. Hercules?

  Oh, do be quiet, I want to sleep.

  *

  The seventh day, when God rested. Ansell had hardly slept at all when the sound of the helicopter’s engine woke him. He forced his eyelids apart; they had stuck together at some point during the last hour. Then, realizing that he still sat upright, he lay carefully back. The helicopter flew over and disappeared above; he was still waiting for the sound to fade, when a quite unexpected modulation of pitch came back to him: the chopper was landing.

  He frowned—or rather, he sent a message to his face that said ‘frown’, but nothing occurred; he was aware simply of resistance from his features, as though his facial skin had been encased in some sort of cocoon. This phenomenon he found faintly enter­taining. He was tempted to essay the full range of expressions. He felt relaxed, lackadaisical, a little dizzy.

  The helicopter flew out again, heading once more down into the valley. He supposed he ought to have a look to see if the Goons were coming up. He crawled to the nearest lip and peered over. Below him, small groups of infantry were working their way up the face of the mountain. The sun was hidden behind layers of grey, puffy cloud, but the air burned and the atmosphere was stifling. He went back to wake MacConnachie.

  ‘The chopper flew over just now, landed, and flew out again.’

  ‘Landed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That wasn’t for a pee.’

  ‘No. The Goons are above us. They’re coming up from below too.’

  For some moments MacConnachie lay very still, looking up at the sky. Then he slowly sat up as though he had wearied of the whole business and become bored by it. He said,

  ‘I suppose we ought to move.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’ll rain soon.’

  ‘That’ll make it harder for them.’

  ‘And for us.’

  MacConnachie opened the suitcase and brought out their last half-tin of meat. He sat staring dully down into the interior, pushing their few remaining possessions this way and that as though he had forgotten what he was doing. Then he pulled the fish knife from under his body. So that’s where it was, thought Ansell. MacConnachie scooped out his share, then passed the tin to Ansell, eating his own from the end of the blade. Ansell found the meat quite without taste of any kind but, although he was in no way hungry, he swallowed it down. The helicopter flew over again, landed, and departed. Neither man paid any attention to this intrusion upon a private picnic. He looks something less than human, thought Ansell, watching the darker hole open in MacConnachie’s filthy, stiff, crystalline mask, and the gobbets of substance disappear within; I must look the same. The mask said,

  ‘There must be a shelf of some kind up there.’

  They drank, putting the stale hole of the canteen to the stale holes of their mouths. It transpired that when MacConnachie ran back to the sentry Ansell had killed, he stole not only the steel helmet but the two spare magazines as well. When he learned that Ansell had done the same at the second hut, he seemed for a moment to gain a new lease of life. His gun still held six rounds, Ansell’s eight, and there were eight left in the magazine he had replaced before the valley raid. By putting all of this ammunition into one magazine, they were left with four full magazines, a further magazine with twenty-two rounds in it, and two empty ones.

  He put the twenty-two-round magazine on to his own gun, telling Ansell to put a full magazine on his. They then had three full magazines in reserve: one hundred and twenty-two bullets in all.

  Since the terrain now abounded in safe hiding-places, he decided also to dispose of all the refuse they had collected on their journey. He therefore took the accumulation of empty tins from the case and stuffed them one by one deep into a fissure in the rock wall, thrusting the two empty magazines after them. He then repacked the case and roped it up, packing also the fish knife and the razor. For immediate action
they were both armed; should they require the knives, they would have time to get at them.

  Their order of march now involved the carrying of one gun to each man, two spare magazines by MacConnachie and one by Ansell, a steel helmet apiece, and the suitcase and canteen as before. Without noticing the fact, they had discontinued their routine of changing clothes at dusk and dawn. They now wore their jackets and slacks under the native coats at all times.

  MacConnachie seemed to have relapsed into his previous indifference. The helicopter came and went with its third load, and MacConnachie watched it, staring into the sky long after it had gone. Two days ago, he would never have revealed his face to a searching chopper. Finally he turned to Ansell with pale eyes.

  ‘There’s not much point in going on, is there?’

  ‘No.’

  After a silence, Ansell added,

  ‘But I suppose we will.’

  ‘We might as well.’

  The failure of the raid on the valley was not referred to. Those who are not here must make the moral decisions, Ansell thought; those who are, are too busy. But within himself he was aware that an important barrier had been crossed, and that a watershed of great significance now lay behind them.

  As he climbed, MacConnachie leaned into the face of the mountain, straining to make headway against the steep slope of the rock wall and tearing his neck in the attempt to spot the shelf on which the Goons were located; but he couldn’t see it. Both he and Ansell had slung their guns round their necks, with the weapons nestling uncomfortably in the small of the back and the straps tight about their throats. He would have to do something about the suitcase. He could no longer climb one-handed over this sort of stuff; he was too tired. There was, in any case, a great lassitude over him. Every action that the ascent demanded, he performed with the minimum of effort; he knew he must find some way to conserve a strength in which he was, quite suddenly, frighteningly deficient. It was almost as though Ansell had more in reserve than he had.