by Len Deighton
Afterwards I realized that I should have fired through the thin, alloy fuselage at the pilot, or even in the direction of the rotor linkage. But I could think only of the man gripping Ferdy's arm and I put all my shots in that direction. There was a scream of pain and then I felt myself falling. I hung tight to Ferdy's legs — and tighter still — but that didn't stop me falling.
* * *
There was no way to tell whether we'd been there for seconds, for minutes, or for hours. I must have stirred enough to move my arm, for it was the pain of that that brought me to consciousness.
'Ferdy. Ferdy.'
There was no movement from him. There was blood on his face from a nose-bleed, and his boot was twisted enough for me to suspect that he'd fractured an ankle.
An ankle, it would have to be an ankle, wouldn't it. I didn't fancy my chances of carrying Ferdy more than twenty yards, even if I had known in which direction the submarine was, or whether it was still there.
Schlegel would be searching for us. I was sure of that. Whatever his shortcomings, he did not give up easily.
'Ferdy.' He moved and groaned.
'The moon was north-easterly, right, Ferdy?'
Ferdy didn't exactly nod, but he contracted his face muscles as if he wanted to. I looked again at the sky. There was a glimpse of the moon now and again, as the low fast clouds parted. And there was a handful of stars too, but like any handful of stars I had no trouble converting them into a plough and making its handle point north any way I wanted. Ferdy was our only chance of heading in the right direction.
'The submarine, Ferdy.'
Again there was that movement of his face.
'Would you say the submarine was thataway?'
He looked at the moonlight, and at the hand I held close to his face. The wind was howling so loudly that I had to hold my head against his mouth to hear his words. 'More,' it sounded like. I held my hand above him, and turned it until his eyes moved to show me a sort of affirmative. Then I got to my feet very slowly, examined myself and Ferdy too. He was semi-conscious, but his ankle was the only damage I could see. Getting a fireman's lift on Ferdy was a long and difficult process but the pain of his ankle brought him almost back into the world again.
'Put me down,' whispered Ferdy as I shuffled along, half-carrying him. His arms were clasped round my neck, and only infrequently did his good leg assist our progress.
'Put me down and let me die,' said Ferdy.
'Listen, Ferdy,' I said. 'You'd better pull yourself together, or I'D do exactly that.'
'Put me down,' said Ferdy, and he gave a long groan of pain and weariness.
'Left, right, left, right, left, right,' I called loudly. He couldn't do much about the rights, but with a bit more nagging I was able to persuade him to take Ms weight on his left foot now and again.
I was kidding myself, if I thought that I could get as far as we could see. And there was no submarine nearer than that. I stopped. But just holding Ferdy upright took more of my strength than I could spare.
'Schlegel will be searching for us,' I said.
Ferdy groaned, as if to indicate that he'd rather be left there than rescued by the dreaded Schlegel.
'Left, right, left, right, left, right,' I continued.
Sometimes the wet grey mist wrapped itself round us so completely that we had to stop and wait for the wind to find us a path through it.
'For God's sake, Ferdy, take some of your weight.'
'Cinnamon toast,' said Ferdy.
'Damn right,' I said. 'It's all that bloody cinnamon toast.'
Sometimes I stopped even when the mist did not force us to. I stopped to recover my breath, and, as time went on, the stops became more and more frequent. But at least Ferdy was not demanding to be abandoned in the Arctic wastes, It was a good sign, I thought, perhaps not unconnected with thoughts of cinnamon toast.
It was getting darker and darker all the time and I was frightened of losing my sense of direction as already I had lost all track of time.
Once I thought I heard the sound of whistles. I stopped. 'Listen. Ferdy: whistles.'
But it was just the shriek of the wind, playing the sharp fluted ice.
'Left, right, left, right.'
By now I was croaking the tune for myself, more titan for Ferdy. I was commanding my own feet to crunch down into the unending snow. As it got darker I was more and more often blundering into ice ridges that came out of the mist at us, for all the world like ships steaming through a fog. 'Here's another, Ferdy,' I said. 'Left, right, left, right, left, right. No slackening of pace. You're doing well, old son.'
And so when I saw the bright-red flares ahead of me, it was just another ship in the convoy. 'Left, right, left, right, left, right.' And the whistles were just the wind. So Ferdy and I pressed on through them, even when the ice ridges steered two points or more to ram us, or those icy ships were tearing at our clothes. 'Left, right, left, right. Pick your bloody feet up, Ferdy, you bastard, and take a bit of your two hundred pounds of cinnamon toast on your good ankle, for a change.'
Slabs of up-tilted ice — as big as a man — were on every side of us. It was difficult to pick a way through them. I used an outstretched hand to steady myself, as in the half-light the ice seemed to place itself in our path.
'Not much farther now, Ferdy,' I coaxed him. 'I can almost smell that damned toast.'
'Are they both crazy.' It was the Captain's voice.
'Left, right,' I said pushing my way past the ice but snagged upon it, I felt myself stamping the same piece of snow.
'Help me with the big fellow.' It was the voice of the doctor. 'Dead — done for long since.'
Schlegel's voice said, 'No goggles — snow blind and concussed. Have you got a needle with you, Doc?'
Somewhere nearby there was another signal flare and I could see that all right. I struggled to get free.
'Wasted effort,' said the voice of Schlegel. 'Carrying him all that time — what a state he's in.'
'Probably wasn't dead when they started.'
'Maybe not, Doc.'
'Let go of Foxwell.' It was Schlegel shouting again, and this time his face was only inches from me. 'You stupid bastard, let go of him, I say!'
Chapter Twenty-one
PRINTOUT (pink sheet total) is the end of game. Subordinate, aggregate and continuous play not included in. PRINTOUT are not part of the game.
RULES. TACWARGAME. STUDIES CENTRE. LONDON
Several times I had almost awakened into a hazy snow-white world of ether and antiseptic. Through the window bright sun shone on a world of dark-green pine forests, the trees sagging under layers of snow.
Someone lowered the blinds so that the room filled with soft shadowless light. There was a table with fruit, flowers and newspapers on it. The newspapers were in some unreadable script. At the end of the bed sat a man I recognized. He wore a dark suit and his face was elderly and slightly blurred.
'He's waking up again.'
'Pat!'
I groaned. And now another figure came into view, looming over the end of the bed like a sun rising over the Arctic wastes. 'Wake up, sweetheart, we've got other appointments.'
'I'll pour him some tea,' said Dawlish. There's nothing so reviving as a nice cup of tea. Probably hasn't had a proper one since coming in here.'
'Where am I?' I said, I didn't want to say it but I wanted to know where I was.
Schlegel smiled. 'Kirkenes, Norway. A Norwegian chopper brought you off the submarine a few days ago.'
'Is that right?' I asked Dawlish.
Dawlish said, 'We were worried.'
'I can imagine you were,' I said. 'I catty about ten thousand pounds in government insurance.'
'He's getting better,' said Schlegel.
'If you'd rather we wait…' Dawlish offered.
I shook my head very gently in case it rolled under the bedside cabinet and we had to prod it with sticks to get it out. 'Where's Ferdy?'
'You know where Ferdy is,' said Sc
hlegel. 'You did your best for him — but Ferdy's dead.'
'What for,' I said, 'what the hell for?'
Dawlish smoothed out Ids English newspaper. The headline said: german talks end when red katya walks out.
Dawlish said, 'Stok's people arrested Remoziva's sister yesterday morning. Only thing they could do really.'
I looked from Schlegel to Dawlish and back again. 'So that's what it was all about — the German reunification.'
'They're cagey blighters,' said Dawlish. 'They weren't convinced that the Admiral was coming over to us until they saw that corpse you took out there. They're cynics I suppose, like you, Pat.'
'Poor Ferdy.'
'It was only thanks to Colonel Schlegel that you were saved,' said Dawlish. 'He thought of using the radar, and bullied the Captain into using it so close to their monitors.'
'Bad security, Colonel,' I said.
'We brought some fruit for you,' said Schlegel. 'You want a grape?'
'No, thanks,' I said.
'I told you he wouldn't want it,' said Schlegel.
'He'll eat it,' said Dawlish. 'In fact, I wouldn't mind a grape myself.' He helped himself to two, in rapid succession.
'You encouraged them to snatch Ferdy,' I accused Schlegel.
'These grapes are good,' said Dawlish. 'Must be hot-house at this time of year but they're awfully sweet.'
'You bastard,' I said.
Schlegel said, 'Ferdy was deep into Toliver's set-up. He needn't have gone on the trip at all, but he insisted.'
'So you two have been conniving all down the line?'
'Conniving?' said Dawlish. 'Sure you won't try a grape. No? Well, I mustn't eat them all.' But he helped himself to another. 'Conniving isn't at all the word I'd choose. Colonel Schlegel was sent to help us sort out the Toliver complication — we appreciated his help.'
'… got it,' I said. 'Use Colonel Schegel to beat Toliver over the head. Then if Toliver complains to the Home Secretary you say its the C.I.A. doing it. Neat, but not gaudy.'
'Toliver came near to knocking you off,' said Schlegel. 'Don't shed any tears for that bastard.'
'Well, I'm sure he'll be taken care of, now.'
'He's discredited,' said Dawlish. 'That's all we wanted.'
'And all the hard work is being done by Russian security,' I said. I picked up the newspaper.
TWO JOIN SOVIET POLITBURO, THREE OUSTED.
Moscow (Reuters)
The first Politburo shake-out since the ousting of Nikita Khrushchev was announced at the end of a two-day meeting of the Central Committee.
According to observers here the new line-up means the end of all hopes for the German treaty of federalization.
I pushed the paper aside. The stop press said the D Mark had already begun falling against the dollar and sterling. So that was it. A united Germany would have upset the status quo. Its agricultural East would make French agriculture suffer, with a resulting gain for the French communists. Meanwhile Germany got a share in the Common Market's agricultural share-out. Germany's contribution to NATO — something like a third of all nato forces-would certainly have to be dismantled tinder the treaty's terms. U.S. forces in Germany would not be able to withdraw to France, which wasn't a member of NATO. And this was timed for a period when the U.S.A. would be changing to an all-volunteer force. It would inevitably mean U.S. withdrawal from Europe. Just as Russia had completed its big five year military build-up. Yes, worth a couple of operatives.
They both watched me as I finished reading. 'And the Russians arrested all the Remoziva;s just on the basis of us meeting that chopper?'
'Sippenhaft. Isn't that what the Germans call it? said Dawlish. 'Collective family responsibility for the actions of one person.'
'Don't you care that you've helped to frame completely innocent people?'
'You've got it wrong, haven't you? It wasn't British policemen who went out arresting everyone named Remoziva the other morning, it was Russian communist policemen. And the people they arrested were working very energetically to strengthen, improve and expand this system that arrests people in the middle of the night on the grounds that they might be an enemy of the state. I don't intend to lose any sleep over it.'
'Just to foul up the reunification, eh?' I said.
'They've got an analogue computer at the Foreign Office you know,' said Dawlish.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'It's not supposed to mean anything. It's a fact. They put the German reunification on it and didn't like the scenario one little bit.'
I helped myself to one of my fast disappearing grapes. Dawlish said, 'You are bound to feel a bit depressed for a while: it's the drugs. You were in. a bad way, you know.'
'Does Marjorie know I'm here?'
'I've been trying to get hold of her, Pat. She's left the hospital.'
It was a softer voice he used. 'She seems to have cancelled the bread and the milk deliveries.'
'Did she go to Los Angeles?'
'We're not sure,' said Dawlish, trying to break it to me, gently. 'We've only just got her family's address in Wales. Quite a tongue-twister, it is. She might be there.'
'No,' I said. 'Forget it.'
I turned away from my two visitors. For a moment I saw the wallpaper that I never did replace and heard Marjorie greet me as I returned from a trip. The bookshelves would now be cleared of those damned anaemia books but I'd go on finding hairpins down the back of the sofa.
Self-pity reached in and grabbed my breakfast. It hurt, and if you want to say it was nothing but a self-inflicted wound, I can only reply that it hurt none the less because of that. Ferdy had gone and Marjorie too: the comfortable little world I'd built up since leaving the department had disappeared as if it had never been.
'Are they treating you well in here?' said Dawlish.
'Pickled fish for breakfast,' I said.
'The reason I ask', said Dawlish, 'is that we have a bit of a problem… It's a security job…'
I suppose I might have guessed that a man like that doesn't fly to Norway to bring anyone grapes.
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