Figures in a Landscape

by Barry England

  ‘Next question,’ he said, throwing it away again.

  ‘How do you like your consommé?’

  ‘Cold.’

  ‘How fortunate. It happens to be the speciality of the house.’

  MacConnachie laughed slightly.

  ‘You have half, then I will.’

  Ansell took the tin between both his hands, raised it to his mouth and sucked some of the thick liquid down; it had an odd taste that puzzled him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. What does it say on the label?’

  ‘The label’s gone.’

  ‘Can’t you remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Guess then.’

  Ansell drew in some more and tested it against his palate, swallowing, and smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. MacConnachie said, ‘Well?’

  Ansell pondered then, as might a connoisseur, and finally pronounced:

  ‘Cream of Chicken.’

  ‘We’re living like kings!’

  But the soup was like a ribbon of chill worming its way deep into his guts, and he quickly became nauseated. He handed the tin to MacConnachie, who sucked eagerly, looked startled, spat and exclaimed,

  ‘Christ, it’s horrible!’

  There was a silence. Ansell shivered.

  ‘Have we no way to make fire?’

  ‘None that I know of.’

  ‘I wonder if they’ve got fire down the hill.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about it if they have. Not yet.’

  MacConnachie tilted the tin once more, but then even he had had enough. Ansell said,

  ‘I hate just sitting here, doing nothing.’

  ‘We’ll have to do something soon enough.’

  ‘What?’

  A pause.

  ‘I’ll tell you when the time comes.’

  Ansell said nothing. MacConnachie held out the tin.

  ‘Here, finish it.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘Finish it.’

  ‘Stuff it.’

  ‘All right, suit yourself.’

  MacConnachie threw the tin out through the sheet of rain. For a long time they sat silent, then MacConnachie said,

  ‘Don’t let me down now. I couldn’t have got this far without you.’

  ‘Neither could I.’

  MacConnachie said:

  ‘If we attack the Goons, there are too many. And we’ve still got a chance. When the time comes, we’ll know. Then, each man decides for himself. But at the moment, we’ve still got a chance. We have.’

  ‘Yes, Mac.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘Yes, Mac.’

  A long pause.

  ‘We have.’

  Time passed. Ansell thought, it’s extraordinary how you get used to the rain all the time, as you get used to the sickness and the pain. They fall on you from the sky, and in the end you don’t notice them.

  ‘It’ll be night soon.’

  Ansell blinked.

  ‘Already?’

  ‘The day’s gone.’

  ‘I didn’t see.’

  A pause.

  ‘Shall we eat?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Some time during the night, Ansell said,

  ‘We’re waiting for death, aren’t we?’

  ‘We won’t just wait, kid. I promise you that. We’ll go to meet it.’

  A silence.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mac.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘You really wanted to get away, didn’t you?’

  A pause.

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  A pause.

  ‘I’m happy to be with you.’

  MacConnachie strove, with all his strength, that Ansell might not hear the dry, tearless sobs that racked him.

  Ansell thought that MacConnachie might be laughing, but he didn’t mind. After a time, he said,

  ‘Tell me about the women.’

  There was a silence, then MacConnachie’s voice:

  ‘We need ’em. Don’t let anyone kid you. A woman is . . . soft . . . and . . . What they give. The crappiest old tart. They smell good. They’ve got hair. You. You can hide . . . in a woman. The best of them. There’s no . . . fear . . . where a woman is. You poke a woman . . . there’s no . . . fear.’

  The voice stopped.

  ‘Sounds all right,’ said Ansell.

  Towards dawn, MacConnachie said,

  ‘But we are free! We are free!’

  ‘Yes, Mac. We’re free.’

  Ansell dozed, and in his dreams he had a woman. His first. He couldn’t remember the dream, but he woke up different; more peaceful.

  It was the ninth day, and MacConnachie was already awake.

  ‘We must move soon. It is time.’

  ‘Yes. I’m ready.’

  ‘Good. We’ll have a pee. And some soup. And when the rain stops . . .’

  ‘We’ll go out.’

  ‘Into the open. Yes.’

  But all that day it rained.

  Ansell said,

  ‘Shall we go on up the hill? Or shall we attack the Goons?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I want to go on up the hill. I don’t want to—not be free again.’

  ‘I want to—go up the hill, too.’

  ‘Good. That’s settled, then.’

  ‘It’s funny.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I don’t know. All of it. Funny.’

  ‘Die laughing.’

  ‘In some places, you know, they hold on to their slashers all the time, because they’re afraid they’ll fly up into their stomachs like a piece of elastic.’

  ‘In others, they call that pocket billiards.’

  A discernibly giggly sound came from Ansell.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘That’s funny.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Pocket billiards.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Actually, I don’t think they have pockets.’

  It was bitterly cold that night. Huddled together, no longer hungry or properly sensible, they waited for the rain to stop and for the dawn to come. Ansell felt, as he never had before, that the cold came from inside him. Normally, when a man is cold, it is his extremities that ache, and from within a warm glow reaches out to sustain him; but now his finger-tips and ears were warmer than his stomach, which lay within him leaden, heavy and chill. The spark of life had moved, as though it were on its way out; a curious phenomenon. He said,

  ‘One day . . .’

  After a time, MacConnachie said,

  ‘What?’

  There was a silence, and then Ansell started to hum:

  ‘Show me the way to go home,

  I’m tired and I want to go to bed,

  I had a little drink about an hour ago,

  And it’s gone right . . . to . . . my . . . head . . .’

  MacConnachie said,

  ‘Don’t worry, kid. It won’t be bad. Not bad.’

  ‘I’m not worried, Mac.’

  It’s what a man comes to, anyway, thought MacCon­nachie.

  But when it came, it was bad.

  Dawn on the tenth day. They performed their ritual of peeing, and then drank the last tin of soup which, by some oversight, they had failed to consume the previous day. An hour after dawn, the rain stopped. MacConnachie looked out.

  ‘We might as well go.’

  ‘Yes.’

  MacConnachie looked at him, and shrugged.

  ‘It’s a day for it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  MacConnachie crawled stiffly out and Ansell followed. By mutual unspoken consent they left their helmets behind. Ansell thought: this is pointless, really; we’d be far better off in the cave. He found himself humming again: ‘You’d be far better off in a Home.’ We don’t need helmets where we’re going, by all accounts. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have the great pleasure of introducin
g to you tonight Professor MacConnachie, who has recently returned from a long journey to the Other World.’ Applause.

  Who wants to die in a cave?

  They crawled high-bottomed up the mountain-side. Rivulets and little streams trickled and chuckled and gurgled down the cracks in the shining slopes. The air was heavy with moisture.

  ‘. . . and in conclusion, I should like to pay tribute to my faithful bearer and drum-beater, Basher Ansell, without whom . . .’ Applause. Come now. A man who is about to die should harbour more solemn thoughts. Long live the Holy Mother of God! Applause again. I wonder if mine would have been a virgin? Go on, now pull the other one.

  It’s got bells on.

  When the rain started again they were still crawling. Keep going, MacConnachie thought; just keep going, that’s all. The blinding sheets of water wrapped about and enfolded them, enclosing them in a fast-dribbling blanket. The river ran down the mountain-side, pressing between their fingers, seeking always to render their grasp untenable. At length, blundering upon another hole, MacConnachie crawled into it, turned and pulled Ansell after him.

  It was little more than a large crack in the rock wall, far from being habitable. Water lay inches deep in the bottom, but they settled down and waited for the rain to stop. At some point in the night, Ansell said,

  ‘Are we still alive?’

  On the eleventh day, when day had come, but how long since MacConnachie didn’t know, he found that he was grasping a jar paw-like between his padded hands, licking the paste therein, and puzzling that it had so conveniently lost its lid; he had no recollection of having removed it. Remembering that he was not alone, he passed the jar to Ansell who, letting it fall into the water, nuzzled about for some time with snout and pads before he lost interest.

  The rain stopped, and they started to crawl again. Upwards at first; and then, although they were unaware of the fact, sideways along the line of an ill-defined ledge in the rock. For a while, the sun showed weakly and the stone glowed wetly back.

  It was here, minutes or days later, that the helicopter found them.

  MacConnachie became aware of the roaring presence. From his hands and knees he rolled over on to his bottom. He sought out the bottle of oil. With the gun laid across his legs, he tried to unscrew the top but failed. All the while, the helicopter hovered overhead. At length, with his teeth, MacConnachie managed to open the bottle and spat the cap away. The pilot, he knew, was trying to decide whether to kill them or attempt to recapture them. This, what I am doing, is important, he thought; but it’s taking such a hell of a stupid long time.

  He opened the working parts of the gun and poured the re­mainder of the oil in, throwing the bottle away. He then dabbled his fingers in the breech, running them over the rust-brown metal of the weapon. A shot cracked dully up above, and the ricochet sang off near by. He operated the working parts until they slid smoothly, ejecting four or five rounds, then lay back to take aim. Ansell said,

  ‘They’re shooting at us.’

  A burst was fired from above and MacConnachie felt his leg leap as bullets hit his foot. The other rounds jumped on the rock, throwing up powdered scree. MacConnachie fired single shots, grouped together in two bunches of three. They smacked against the frontage—one might have penetrated—and the helicopter rose up out of range.

  Then the sun went in and the chopper fell quickly away from them. A moment later it started to rain again.

  ‘He’s taking his chances,’ said MacConnachie, sitting up and lying forward over the gun in his lap to protect it. He found that he was looking at his foot. Ansell said,

  ‘It certainly concentrates the mind, quite wonderfully.’

  MacConnachie saw that his boots were tinted green and one upper had at last come adrift from the sole. Glancing across, he saw that Ansell’s boots were worse, being badly cracked. He looked again at the foot that had been hit but, apart from two neat punctures, there was nothing to see. Ansell said,

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘No. I think it’s already dead.’

  ‘Ah.’

  The rain was still quite light, as though waiting for them to finish speaking. MacConnachie said,

  ‘We mustn’t let them take us alive.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Must—stay awake—long enough to be killed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Yes. Hate to miss it.’

  And then the rain drowned every other noise.

  Stop laughing, Ansell told himself.

  MacConnachie lay slumped forward over the gun, trying to keep it dry for the next encounter, patient, waiting, at peace, the water running off his head.

  Does it hurt, indeed? Only when I laugh. Why not bite on the bullet? Oh Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ . . .

  Time passed.

  Daylight.

  The rain stopped.

  ‘New magazine,’ said MacConnachie.

  Ansell fumbled out a fresh magazine. MacConnachie dropped the other, although there were rounds left in it. Fingers too blunt to reload individual bullets. Ansell fixed the full magazine to the gun. The helicopter came again.

  This time it came firing as soon as it was in range. But not too close. Testing us out, thought MacConnachie: is there life in the bastards yet? Come a little closer, my friend, and see for yourself.

  MacConnachie held his fire. I want him. Oh God, I want him like I never wanted anything. It isn’t much to ask. To take that bastard with me.

  The chopper rose up the slope with the ponderous movement of a lift, spraying bullets in short bursts, always a little closer to their bodies, awaiting a reaction. MacConnachie had lain back full length again. When it was close enough, he fired. The perspex cracked somewhere near the pilot’s feet, then split and shattered. The observer fired back. Particles of stone flew about and Ansell let out a little cry of surprise. The chopper tilted and rose up sharply. MacConnachie grunted with pleasure. Ansell said, ‘My hand.’

  MacConnachie took a quick look: Ansell’s left hand hung awry, shattered at the wrist.

  Then the helicopter came again from behind and above—Ah Christ, it hurts to turn my head that far—a sputtering snout, bullets everywhere, jumping, singing, smacking on the rock. In a daze, MacConnachie fired at the muzzle flash. The weapon tilted; a hand jerked up to an eye as though pulled on a string. MacConnachie realigned his own gun and put two more shots through the crack as the chopper passed overhead before drop­ping once more away down the mountain-side.

  Crash, damn you, crash.

  ‘New magazine.’

  Ansell was holding his broken arm.

  ‘Yes.’

  He searched about under his clothing, then said,

  ‘I haven’t got one.’

  ‘Pocket.’

  Ansell fumbled about until he found another magazine in MacConnachie’s slacks pocket, which he handed to him. Mac­Connachie changed magazines and said,

  ‘Put that one back.’

  Ansell put the half-empty magazine into the pocket from which the full one had come. MacConnachie said,

  ‘How’s your hand?’

  ‘Sort of numb.’

  MacConnachie looked into the sky.

  ‘He’ll come again soon.’

  ‘I wish they’d get it done with.’

  ‘They will.’

  Silence.

  ‘Will they come up from below?’

  ‘Now. Yes.’

  A silence.

  ‘You get so you lose interest.’

  ‘You must stay awake.’

  MacConnachie waited. He thought perhaps the pilot hadn’t told about finding them the first time, but now he would have to, with yet another dead navigator to explain away.

  I wish to God, thought Ansell, they’d kill us. Just come and just kill us.

  The helicopter came again. Straight at them. Firing burst after burst. Hovering, firing, hovering, firing, turning, firing, coming from behind, firing. MacConnachie fire
d back, desperate to enlarge that crack, splitting and tearing his skin in an attempt to follow the cumbrous movements of the aircraft. Go down, go down, GO DOWN!

  Bullets poured into MacConnachie, slashing across his chest, churning his stomach, smashing his rib-cage to pieces. Dimly, he heard Ansell cry out. He half rose, foundered, fell to his knees, rolled on to his side, GO DOWN, GO DOWN, GO DOWN. He wrenched the gun up and fired again. He tried to get to his feet. Bullets thudded into his back, or it might have been the rain. His mouth was full of thick, hot liquid. He rose to his feet. The helicopter was very close, all muddied and smudged with dark stains and darting, cobweb shadows. He fired his gun from the hip. The helicopter came so close he fell again and fired up into its underbelly.

  He rose to his hands and knees, and fell against Ansell. Ansell had the gun in the crook of his good arm and was firing upwards from the hip.

  Ansell had been hit in the thigh. When he saw MacConnachie totter and spin, he lost his bearings for a moment; then Mac­Connachie was grovelling in pink slime, and the gun lay at his feet. Ansell had picked it up. There was dark slobber dripping from MacConnachie’s chin. Ansell fired as the chopper drifted in towards them again and the recoil knocked him on to his bottom.

  Then the rain came, and the helicopter went away.

  One thing about the rain, it washed MacConnachie clean. Ansell felt very calm. MacConnachie looked—flatter. Yes, flatter. His lips were moving. Ansell leaned forward to put his ear close.

  ‘Get—him,’ said MacConnachie.

  ‘Of course,’ said Ansell, who might have been replying to a child’s request for the moon.

  After a long time, MacConnachie’s lips moved again, and Ansell again leant close.

  ‘Fresh magazine.’

  Ansell found one, at length, in MacConnachie’s bush jacket. It was all very damp and crumpled under there. But it was wet, anyway.

  MacConnachie was speaking again.

  ‘Don’t let them . . .’

  Ansell waited. Finally, he said,

  ‘No.’

  The rain stopped. Ansell thought that by sitting on Mac­Connachie’s stomach he might protect him a little. Anyway, he did, and the helicopter came again.

  This time, it didn’t fire.

  Come on, for God’s sake. What is this? A game?

  But it sat up there in the sky and it didn’t fire.

  What do I do?

  They want to take you alive, kid. Be careful. Look down.