The Anti-Death League

by Kingsley Amis

  "Will he, do you think?"

  "How would I know? You heard what Mann said. The quicker it comes on the less likely it is to go away. He's Secret Agent Best forevermore, I'd say. Good luck to him."

  "I wonder if that bang on the head he got had anything to do with it."

  "I'd say not, but Mann's sending me a complete report as soon as he can. I'll let you have a copy. Just out of interest."

  "Thanks. Anyway, you're satisfied you got the right man."

  "Oh, completely. Aren't you?"

  "Of course, for what my views are worth."

  "… some time tomorrow at the latest," said the Colonel, coming back into aural range. "Otherwise I shall be forced to take a serious view. No joke when a fellow's missing vital training."

  "I'll do everything I can, sir," said Ayscue.

  An expression of horror appeared on Leonard's face.

  "For Christ's sake," said Jagger, "what's the matter now?"

  "My gloves," muttered Leonard. "I've left them in my room. I'll just slip up and get them."

  "Is everybody off their head around here? What good will they do you, old lad? You told me yourself all you do is carry the buggers. What's it all for?"

  "You wouldn't understand. I'll be back in a minute."

  Leonard went out thoughtfully and rather sadly. What was saddening him was the realization that, with the end of his job here in sight, his service as a Sailor must also be drawing to its close. His next assignment, requiring him to impersonate a lounger in a Whitehall pub, perhaps, or a checker at a naval dockyard, would hardly allow him to appear in his present guise. Perhaps he could acquire some sort of honorary post in the regiment's Old Comrades' Association, keep up the connection that way.

  He opened the door of his room and had scarcely taken in the fact that Deering was already there before the man had sprung at him. For the second time in four hours, Leonard found himself involved in a severe and painful physical struggle. A fist caught him on the ear and sent him reeling against the bed, where, he noticed, the suitcase containing his secret files lay open and a copy of his preliminary report on the Best affair, completed that afternoon, had been unfolded. He threw himself forward and got in what he thought was going to be a punishing head-butt in Deering's stomach. That stomach proved to be a good deal harder than it had ever looked, and Leonard lost the initiative further when the edge of Deering's hand came down on the back of his neck, though without enough force to knock him over. The two closed and for a time grappled indecisively, banging into chairs, slamming into walls and then sliding along them, but the end of this phase came when Deering got a good grip on Leonard's throat and pushed him back against the rosewood dressing-table. Very soon it turned out to be impossible to loosen Deering's hands with his own, so Leonard started feeling about on the dressing-table top for possible weapons. He identified by touch an unopened carton of toothpaste, an empty sponge-bag, a plastic bottle of scalp tonic, finally, when his chances of ever drawing another breath seemed remote, a clothes-brush with a heavy wooden back. Hitting Deering on the head with this hard and repeatedly made him take one hand away and grab at it, upon which Leonard was able to gain some sort of footing and kick him on the shin. He released his hold and Leonard followed up, but too slowly or feebly, because Deering grabbed him by the arm and swung him forcefully into his triple mirror, which collapsed and shattered under him. He hit his head on something.

  He rested on the floor for a few moments, wondering whether he had spent any time unconscious. There was some blood on the back of his hand, although the skin there seemed to be whole, and a lot of broken glass all about. He got carefully to his knees and looked down at himself in one of the larger fragments of mirror. The light was good enough to show that he was more or less undamaged apart from a long but evidently shallow cut on his forehead, the source of the blood on his hand. Up again at last, he lurched over to his painting of the five Sailors, knocked askew during the fight, and straightened it. Then, still panting pretty hard, but otherwise his own man once more, he hurried to the telephone.

  "Command Post, quick… Leonard here. General Alarm. Seal the gate. Private Deering is at large somewhere in the camp. He is an enemy agent. Arrest him. Get cracking. I'm coming along to you straight away."

  Before he had finished speaking the hooters had set up their steady high-pitched clamor, as at the sighting of Jagger's helicopter that morning. Acting on a strong but vague impulse, Leonard snatched his raincoat from its hook behind the door and flung it over the mess of exposed secrets on his bed. That done, he ran out of the room and down the stairs.

  The hall was full of colorfully attired officers shouting questions and speculations at one another. Leonard shouldered his way through and gained the Command Post. Jagger, Hunter and Ross-Donaldson followed him in.

  "What happened?" everybody seemed to be asking him.

  "It's Deering, my batman. I found him going through my files in my room. I fought him but he escaped. He's our man all right. He can't get away."

  "Any idea where he is, sir?" asked the duty sergeant-major.

  The rapid battering of a heavy-caliber automatic weapon started up from somewhere above them. All present turned reflexively to the television screens on the walls. One of them showed considerable chips of concrete flying off part of the wall of Hut D4. On another, a sentry, half doubled up, was just running out of shot.

  'Well, we know where he is now, don't we?" said Ross-Donaldson. "He must have gone straight up to the roof. A good position for maximally destructive self-terminating improvisation."

  Another burst sounded overhead, though without effect visible to those in the Command Post. Hunter started for the door.

  "Where are you off to, old lad?" asked Jagger.

  "Take a look out front. Can't see anything from here."

  With Ross-Donaldson close behind, Hunter ran down the hall to the front door. Here a group that included the Colonel and Ayscue was in rapid internal movement, some of those still inside the threshold pushing outwards, those beyond it halted or stepping back as the machine-gun started firing again. Hunter and Ross-Donaldson squeezed past and moved along the outside wall until they were almost directly beneath Deering's position. A familiar voice, the tension in it sounding through the amplification, bawled out over the public-address system.

  "Leonard speaking. Keep down, everybody. Camp patrol to concentrate at northern gable end of farmhouse. Take your time. Don't expose yourselves unnecessarily."

  "That's sound enough, anyway," said Ross-Donaldson. "From the northern end they'll be able to move round and take him in the rear."

  "I liked the bit about exposure, too."

  Figures were moving among the huts beside the main track. A civilian vehicle of some sort was halted there, its windshield reflecting the evening sun. The gun opened up, sounding shockingly loud and near to the two under the wall, and the reflection seemed to vanish. The figures went to ground.

  "Somebody'll get killed if this goes on," whispered Hunter when the gun had stopped. "No doubt there's a silly little man down there thirsting for a decoration. Deering'll murder them if they get much nearer. Let's see… Ah yes. Would you give me a hand up here?"

  He indicated a nearby drainpipe, from the top of which a short crawl across sloping tiles would bring him to the machine-gun post.

  "You'll get your head blown off," said Ross-Donaldson.

  "I think not. He won't be able to depress that thing far enough to bring it to bear, and it'll take him much too long to get it off its mounting, even if he knows how to. Come on, Alastair."

  Ross-Donaldson offered his shoulders and Hunter soon had his head above the level of the gutter. Deering was about fifteen feet above and to the right, blinking along the gun-barrel. A pair of boot-soles and an outflung arm presumably belonged to the man who had been on duty at the post. Hunter spread his hands on the gutter and set about heaving himself up. A part of the gutter gave with a creaking sound. Deering heard, looked and saw him
. Without touching the machine-gun, the man reached behind him and picked up a machine-pistol, no doubt the property of the unconscious guard. Before he could swing its muzzle round, Hunter was below the level of the gutter. He hung there, listening carefully. When he heard the scrape of metal or shoe-leather on the tiles above he dropped straight to the ground, shouting to Ross-Donaldson to run.

  They both ran. There was no burst of machine-pistol fire from behind them. Instead they heard a machine-gun, though not from Deering's position. Without any clear idea of how they got there, they found themselves behind the lee of a corner of Hut D4, where a solitary corporal lay full length.

  "That was kind of him," shouted Hunter, indicating the machine-gun post aloft in the meadow. "Saved our bacon."

  "What?" yelled Ross-Donaldson as the gun continued to fire.

  Hunter flapped his hand and started crawling to the corner of the hut. As he did so the clamor of heavy-caliber ammunition suddenly doubled. For a few intolerable seconds the two machine-guns continued to shoot it out, then the one in the meadow fell silent. Smoke and sparks and chips of flying stuff could be seen around it. After a moment, while Deering fired on, somebody started descending the steel ladder that led down to the meadow. Hunter turned quickly and snatched up the corporal's machine-pistol from where it lay beside him. The man's mouth started moving largely. Hunter moved round the hut into full view of Deering and fired a burst at him from the shoulder. He missed, but there was immediate silence as Deering shifted his sights to the new target. Hunter fired again and saw brick dust rising from the farmhouse roof. A moment later he was startled by the tremendous noise through the air about him made by what Deering was shooting. A moment later still a hand seized his arm and pulled him back into cover. The machine-gun stopped at once.

  "No need to overdo it," said Ross-Donaldson. "That chap's down the ladder now and away. I must say he might have opened up in the first place a little sooner than he did. And why didn't he stick it out where he was?"

  "We'll discuss it later," said Hunter. "I must say Deering's quite useful with that popper, isn't he? Perhaps they put him through a course in Moscow or Hanoi or one of those places."

  "There isn't very much to it, actually, at close range anyway. The impact on material is so tremendous that you can correct your aim by it. It takes a few seconds each time, of course, or you wouldn't be here now."

  "No, I don't suppose I would. What a blessing… Would you reload your very handy gun for me, corporal? We might need it again soon."

  As he grudgingly obeyed, the corporal said, "This wouldn't be one of that Captain Leonard's ideas, would it, sir?"

  "Oh, I doubt it. The Ministry are very sticky about living-target practice shoots. They're still living in the nineteenth century in many ways. Ah, thank you."

  "What have you in mind now?" asked Ross-Donaldson.

  "Just a little look. I won't go far."

  Hunter lay down and moved his face slowly round the corner. He instantly caught sight of Jagger's red hair shining in the late sun as its owner began to emerge from a window some twenty feet from Deering and on a level with him.

  "Oh, Christ," said Hunter.

  "What's up?"

  "Jagger's getting out onto the roof."

  "Good idea."

  "Not from his point of view. He probably doesn't know Deering's got that machine-pistol with him. He can knock Jagger off in a second."

  When Jagger was fully out of his window, Hunter took up his previous position and fired a burst at a chimney-pot fifteen feet away from Deering on the other side. The machine-gun started up after a couple of seconds. Hunter ran twenty yards, fired again, this time more or less into the sky, and ran on. The air in his path seemed to fill with invisible rushing metal, any piece of which, it occurred to him, would be fatal if it struck almost anywhere. He tried to make himself run straight on, could not, turned at a right angle, ran a few more paces, tripped over a tussock and fell. For a single second the sound of flying metal grew louder, then it and the sound of the gun ceased abruptly. The silence made him put his hands to his ears. When he looked up at the roof he saw Jagger's hand raised in a wave and at his feet a shape that must have been Deering.

  The whole action, from when Deering fired his first round to when he fired his last, had taken six minutes. After another seven or eight, Hunter was lying in the best armchair in the ante-room drinking champagne out of a silver tankard. Discussion raged round him.

  "First-class show, Max," said the Colonel.

  "Thank you, sir."

  "I'll see you get a gong for this."

  "That's frightfully kind of you, sir."

  "And of course it'll make all the difference to your career."

  "I'm glad you think so, sir."

  "No doubt about it… Yes, Alastair, what's the score?"

  "Casualty report, sir. Two men superficially cut by flying splinters, otherwise nil. As regards this unit, that is. One civilian casualty."

  "How on earth did that come about?"

  Ross-Donaldson accepted champagne from a proffered tray. "The man concerned was to have lectured here tonight," he said. "Name of Caton, Dr. L. S. Caton. It seems he arrived by taxi just before the alarm sounded. The gate guard admitted him according to arrangement, and presumably he'd just started being driven up to the Mess when the firing began. The driver pulled up, they hung on for a bit and a stray round came through the windshield."

  "Mm. He's dead, I take it?"

  "Oh yes, sir. Full in the face. I'm afraid he won't be easy to identify. Ayscue's down there now, taking care of things."

  "What about the taxi-driver?"

  "Not a scratch. But he's naturally rather upset. His taxi's in a bit of a state. I had him taken to the Sergeants' Mess. I'll go over there and sort him out when I've drunk this. Oh, as regards the damage report, sir, will the morning be soon enough for that? There won't be much on it, apart from the second machine-gun."

  "Of course, Alastair, of course," said the Colonel. "Thank you. Spot more champagne all round, I think, before we go in to dinner."

  Hunter had more champagne. It made him feel tired, or he began to feel tired while he was drinking it. When the time came to move to the dining-room he excused himself, saying he thought he would finish his drink and take a sandwich up to his room. Left alone, he shut his eyes.

  "Passing over," he muttered. "Somebody we don't know. The farther edge."

  He opened his eyes when the door opened and Jagger's gaudy head appeared round it.

  "Hullo, Hunter. All on your tod, eh? Mind if I join you? I couldn't face it in there. Too much buggering protocol. I thought of slipping out to the pub and having another go at those pork pies of theirs. Perhaps you might feel like coming along too."

  "If you don't mind awfully I don't think I will. The notion of going to bed reasonably soon has begun to exercise a hypnotic spell over me."

  "Sure, you've had a long day. Well, in that case well just have a quiet noggin together and I'll toddle down there by myself. Can I get you something?"

  "I don't think so," said Hunter, indecisively. Then he added decisively, "If there's a bottle of champagne already opened I don't mind helping to clear it up."

  "Okay, understood. Be back in a minute."

  Hunter shut his eyes again. When he opened them Jagger was settling himself at his side with a tankard of champagne, a pint glass and a large bedroom ewer that proved to be full of beer.

  "Now we shan't be disturbed," said Jagger, filling his glass. "There are just one or two points you might fill in for me if you will."

  "Points about what?"

  Jagger looked at Hunter for a few seconds without saying anything.

  "I see." Hunter lit a cigarette. "What do you want to know?"

  "The mechanics, first of all. How you managed to move in and out of here without notice being taken and the rest of it. There's a pretty tight guard on that gate."

  "Nothing to it. I drove out of camp after dinner in the ordinary way
. I came back in after midnight on foot, having put my car in a field on the other side of the main road. The guard had changed by then and they don't keep a record of how you leave and return, only when and what for. Then I had a quiet lie-down for a couple of hours, after which I went out again by way of the fence. Easy enough for anyone who knows the ground and the habits of the patrol. Next, a pleasant drive to the target area via the place where I'd hidden the rifle, the destruction of St. Jerome's Priory, and a much quicker run to the neighborhood of the mental hospital, where, again, escaping notice was no problem if you knew the place. Dodging Leonard's men in the grounds and round the staff block was terrifyingly easy. Finally, a swift belt back in this direction and participation in the general chaotic comings and goings which, as I reasoned correctly, everybody would be far too busy and bothered to keep a detailed check on."

  "That was a risk, that last part. Anybody might have started looking for you at any time, to give you a job to do or whatnot."

  "In which case I was somewhere else. In the Army, people are never where they're wanted. It's a condition of life. And the whole thing was a risk. I didn't mind. In fact that was almost the best part. Anyway, I had to go through with it. Things are going wrong for people all the time in such devious and complicated and unlikely ways that as soon as that lorry caught fire and the whole scheme occurred to me I was completely committed. Not to bet on things going unbelievably right for once would have been letting down everything I stand for. I don't know whether that makes any sense."

  "Oh yes. Quite a bit of sense. Well, that clears that up nicely. Mm. Another thing that bothered me was the typewriter. I can't figure out how you let it be found. You were in charge of the search of the camp, after all. It would have been dead easy for you to decide to be the one who searched C Company shit-house or wherever you'd hidden the bloody thing."

  "What put you on to that?"

  "Plain as a pikestaff, old lad. I hadn't been here five minutes before I was quite clear in my own mind that the point of the priory being blown up was that it was a priory. Belonging to God the Father Almighty. So I was looking for somebody who didn't like God the Father Almighty. Then as soon as Leonard shows me that poster about the Anti-Death League and gets the poem off the parson and gives it to me I know I'm looking at more work by the same fellow. And I've narrowed the search down a lot, too. Here."