‘Thank you,’ said Lottie. ‘Thank you, thank you.’
He ignored her. Instead, he was bundling her into the Austin parked outside, forcing her to remember accurately where the accident had taken place. The Austin was old and small; but the American drove it like a racing machine. The drive had only lasted a minute or so, when the road turned. The Austin’s headlamps illuminated the tree, the Bentley, and the skid-marks of disaster.
It was immediately apparent that the driver inside must surely be dead. The engine had shunted backwards into the front compartment of the car. All around, there was broken glass and twisted metal. Lottie, who was seeing the crash lit up for the first time, let out a gasp.
‘Oh!’ she cried. It was a wail more than a word.
As she spoke, there was a flicker of fire from inside the car engine. ‘The engine!’ cried Lottie. ‘It’s on fire! Get him out!’
The American hesitated.
Anybody would have done. The man inside was probably dead. The car was probably about to turn into an inferno. Lottie, desperate to help her husband, used the only card left to play.
‘It’s terribly important!’ she cried. ‘It’s Alan Montague in there, from the Petroleum Board. You’ve got to –’
But even as she spoke, the flames inside the front of the car grew higher. The American’s face was lit up in red, with sudden eerie flashes where paintwork from the bonnet flared up in green and purple. The American wore a look of horror, violently disturbed by something Lottie had said.
She turned to the car, about to beg for help again, but the sight closed her mouth. The flame was turning into a blaze. It would be insanity to enter the car now. Instinctively, Lottie drew away.
She glanced at the American, to see what he was doing. And she saw it. He was doing what anyone would do. He was running, fast. Not towards the car, but away from it.
All she could think was: that man is leaving my husband to die.
Tom ran.
Not towards the car, but away from it, knowing that Alan Montague was inside.
He ran because Alan was inside.
He ran to a little stream that trickled under the road some thirty yards down the hill. He tore off his coat and shirt and doused them in the water.
And then he ran again – really ran – ran like the wind uphill to the car. Using a fallen roadside log, he smashed away at the front of the bonnet, until it cannoned upwards, releasing a torrent of flame and burning air. Tom stood back as the rush of flame died back, then flung his sodden clothes on the engine. The flames sputtered but didn’t die.
Tom saw the British woman – Alan’s wife! – do as he had been doing, running down to the stream with her coat. Tom found a couple of blankets in the back of the Austin. He took the wet clothes from Mrs Montague and gave her the blankets. He approached the engine and arranged the sodden coat.
The flames were still dangerously active. There was plenty of petrol in the tank. Tom knew, and Lottie knew, that they were playing a game of chance with a loaded bomb. Tom gave Lottie quick two-word instructions that she obeyed instantly. They both worked until they had done as much as they could.
Tom piled sopping wet clothes over the engine. Here and there, little flares of scarlet reminded them that the game of chance was still being played out. They still didn’t know if the man inside the car was alive or dead.
‘Come away,’ said Lottie.
Tom shook his head. His hand rested on the front wing of the Bentley, as though to claim the privilege of death if the car exploded.
‘Come away,’ said Lottie again, but when Tom shook his head a second time, she joined him and the two of them watched together. The flames flickered, surged, flickered again, then died.
‘You know who I am?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘But whoever you are –’
‘I’m Tom. Tom Calloway. I’m –’
‘Ah!’ She gaped open-mouthed at the news. ‘Then, yes, I know who you are.’
They looked at each other and Tom grinned. For some reason, in the madness of the moment, the grin seemed perfectly natural, as though the two of them had just shared some colossal joke. They were both soaked, half-clothed, oil-stained and muddy. Lottie thought – how odd the things one thinks! – how handsome Calloway looked, nevertheless: his brilliant smile, his reckless daring.
Then Tom went to work on the car. He threw himself at it, wrenching away the tangled coachwork, brushing aside the shattered glass.
‘Alan!’ he shouted. ‘Are you there? Alan! Alan!’
Lottie joined in: ‘Alan? My love? Alan? Are you there?’
There was no answer. Lottie began to cry.
‘Alan! Alan! It’s me, it’s Tom.’
Silence. Just the dripping of water from the sodden engine.
And then a voice from inside the car, alive but weak.
‘Bloody Americans. Always shouting.’
‘Alan!’
‘Tom!’
As Tom’s eyes adjusted to the interior of the car, he could see a pale face crushed sideways against the steering wheel. It was a moment like no other in his life. All the hatred, all the bitterness, all the fury of their long rivalry was swallowed up and made meaningless. The only thing that mattered now was to make Alan safe.
‘Don’t die on me now, brother.’
‘I wasn’t planning to.’
Tom fought to get to Alan. Alan’s legs were crushed by the engine casing. The rest of him appeared to be bloody and bruised but otherwise OK. But the legs were bleeding.
Bleeding heavily.
Every time Tom withdrew his hands from the wreckage they came out covered in blood. Lottie tore off her scarf and handed it to Tom, who used it as a tourniquet to tie over the one leg he could reach. Alan managed to get some of the cloth and jam it up against his other thigh in an effort to stanch the bleeding. The two men worked perfectly together, the way they had always done as kids.
Lottie watched them, Tom especially. It was strange to be meeting this man about whom she had heard so much. Strange and terrible to be meeting him under such circumstances. Finally they had done the best they could.
There are people coming,’ said Tom. ‘We’ll cut you out of there before long.’
‘Yes … Is Lottie there?’
‘Here.’
‘Not too badly hurt?’
‘Not a scratch.’
Lottie was at the other window of the car. The side door was smashed in, so that Lottie could reach across and put her hand to her husband’s cheek. Alan caught her hand and held it.
‘PLUTO?’ he asked. ‘Everything all right?’
Tom nodded. ‘All set and ready to go.’
‘Good.’
There was silence again. Lottie was crying and her hand communicated oceans to her husband. Alan wriggled in his seat, turning his face towards Tom. His mouth fought to form words.
Tom felt a sudden chill descend. He knew that the moment had finally approached: the moment when they would have to face the past. Tom bent his head.
‘What was it? I knew everything else. But not that.’ Alan’s words were faint. He paused for breath after every sentence.
‘What was what?’ Tom’s old suspicious anger returned. His head jerked backwards.
‘What made you leave? We never knew.’
‘You ask me that? You ask me that now?’
Alan’s question had gone a good way towards shattering Tom’s mood of reconciliation. It was an insult for Alan to pretend he didn’t understand. He’d had his hand on Alan’s shoulder but he withdrew it now, angry and ready to take offence.
Alan spoke again. ‘For God’s sake, the quarrel … we always quarrelled. I was three-quarters gone. Shell-shock. You must have known.’
His voice was small. He sounded distant instead of just eighteen inches away. Tom could hear the drip of blood on the roadside grass. Tom’s anger subsided. Alan was injured, maybe dying. What was the use of being angry with a dying man?
‘It wasn’t the quarrel,’ he said. ‘It was the mission that night. You tried to have me killed. You put my name forward. The machine guns, for heaven’s sake! You knew it was lunacy, murderous lunacy. I couldn’t forgive that.’
Tom ran on too long. Alan was shaking his head, trying to interrupt.
‘Not me.’
‘I know it was you.’
‘Not me. Guy.’
Tom’s head swam. He had played this encounter in his mind a thousand times over the years. He had never envisaged this response. Alan was either a vicious liar now, or else …
‘A chap called Captain Morgan told me. Lieutenant Montague. I checked with him a dozen times. He was regular army, not the sort to confuse a major’s uniform with a lieutenant’s.’
Once again Tom had spoken too long.
‘Tunic. He took my …’ Alan’s last word was inaudible.
‘He was wearing your coat? But Guy was wounded. I know that because I … I …’
‘Shot him.’ Alan nodded to indicate he already knew.
‘Well, how did he come to be sitting round with the brigadier? That wasn’t like Guy.’
‘Brig thought he was making bloody fuss … Told him to sit down, shut up.’ Alan smiled feebly. It was so stupid. A lifetime apart because of one stupid case of mistaken identity.
‘You … you didn’t … Jesus Christ! So it wasn’t you? I can’t believe it.’
Tom spoke in a daze. The last thing he said wasn’t even true: he did believe it. He had believed it already before Alan had finished explaining. What he found hard to believe was that all those years of anger had been for nothing. Tom didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, except that he wanted to do both.
‘Not your fault,’ said Alan in a whisper.
Tom shook his head – uselessly, since Alan couldn’t see him do it. ‘It was my fault. I should have known, no matter how many Captain Morgans I’d run into.’
And he spoke the truth. For the past thirty years, he’d lived his life according to one gigantic error. And what made it worse was that he should have known. It was impossible that his brother could have tried to kill him. Impossible, no matter if two dozen Sandhurst captains had been there to witness it. For the first time, Tom saw Alan’s love for what it was. Alan’s love, and his own idiot pride.
‘I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry!’
Alan made a little shrug of dismissal. ‘Never mind. It’s done with now.’
Tom put his hand to the bottom of the door, and found the blood still dripping. He did what he could to tighten the tourniquet.
‘Do hold on, darling,’ said Lottie. ‘Tom here – your brother –’ she stumbled over the unfamiliar word – ‘has got half the village out fetching doctors and tackle to get you out of there. You’ll be right in no time.’
Alan squeezed her hand. ‘I’ve got you. All right now.’
Above them, the wind gusted strongly, humming loudly through the oak tree. Both Tom and Alan thought of the English Channel and the invasion fleet that had to cross it. Paratroopers and glider troops would already be in France now, snatching control of vital bridges from German hands, desperate to hold on for just long enough to meet the relieving armies. Even now, with Alan bleeding, possibly to death, both men thought of PLUTO.
‘Came looking for you,’ said Alan, after a pause. ‘Then Guy told me about shooting … Shooting Guy … Didn’t want to see man who did that … Bloody fool … Me, I mean. Should have come and found you anyway … but … but …’
‘Why did I shoot Guy? My God! That’s what stopped you from coming?’
Alan didn’t answer, but the twin-communication was working at full strength now.
‘Boy! Am I pleased I wasn’t the only one to screw up. Guy never told you what happened?’
Alan shook his head a fraction of an inch. ‘His version.’
Tom took a deep, juddering breath, raising his face to the sky so that the wind could blow over it, the same wind that was raising waves on the Channel …
‘He was a good soldier, Guy,’ he said. ‘A first-rate staff officer. There should have been more like him. But as an infantryman? In the front line?’
There was a long pause. The two men stared at each other. Lottie caught herself wondering why Tom didn’t just say whatever it was he had to say.
Then: ‘Ah! I’m a bloody fool,’ whispered Alan.
‘What is it?’ asked Lottie. ‘What are you talking about?’
Tom looked across at her, but it was Alan who spoke.
‘Heavy fighting … Lots of shooting, shells … Bloody awful.’ Everything now made sense. He should have known it. ‘Of course, he shot him. Only thing to do.’
‘Please? I don’t understand.’
It was Lottie again. Although she knew that Alan loved her utterly, she also saw that the bond between him and Tom was something unique, something extraordinary. She tried to catch up with their telepathic exchange.
‘It was a day of heavy combat,’ said Tom. ‘The field telephones were shot to shreds and the battalion’s runners had been mostly killed or wounded. Guy had been sent up to find out what was going on and to pass the information back to brigade staff … I don’t believe he’d ever been in the front line before. Not on a day when there was real fighting.’
There was a tiny gesture of assent from Alan and Tom continued.
‘He was terrified. He was a good staff officer, but as for physical courage … well, he never had any. Never. None at all. He was tearing down the line like a frightened rabbit. A British major in full flight from the enemy. I’d just come up the trench in the other direction. Just round the corner, there was a group of top brass including Colonel Jimmy, the brigadier, a few others. Colonel Jimmy was a soldier of the old school. He shot men for desertion as a matter of course. Guy was about to run right into him. Anyone could have seen Guy was running. He was out of his mind, virtually pissing himself … I yelled at Guy, trying to make him understand the situation. I pushed him. I probably hit him. I know I waved my gun in his face. It made no difference.’
‘So you shot him?’ said Lottie, in awe of the man on the other side of the car.
‘There was nothing else to do. He couldn’t very well be accused of desertion if he had a bullet hole in him. So I shot him. Maximum appearance for minimum effect. That was my intention anyway. I don’t know how well I succeeded. That was that. I ran back up the line. I left Guy to make his own way back.’
‘You shot him!’
Lottie’s awe increased with every ripple of implication. Tom had coolly put himself into a situation where a court martial would have sentenced him to death by shooting squad, and all to protect a man he detested. Lottie didn’t know which to admire more: his decisiveness, his courage or his selflessness. It was the remarkable action of a remarkable man.
‘Bloody fool,’ whispered Alan. ‘I’m a bloody fool.’
And he too saw it. Saw that he should never once have doubted his brother. Of course, Tom was impulsive, quarrelsome, reckless and a thousand other things. But plunge him into a moment of crisis, and his great-hearted side was always bigger than his petty one. Alan’s failure to see that had condemned him to a dozen years of struggle and absence. He should have trusted himself. He should have trusted Tom. He sighed deeply.
‘Make that a pair of fools,’ said Tom. ‘A pair of bloody fools.’
The wind gathered in the trees. There was a long silence. Down in the village, there were shouts and movements of lights.
‘Why won’t they come?’ said Tom to himself.
He looked up to see Lottie looking down towards the lights as well. ‘If we could only get him out …’ she said.
Tom nodded. Perhaps the rescue party had the cutting equipment, but was waiting for an ambulance. If so, they were making a desperate error. Everything depended on stopping the bleeding. He looked across at Lottie, who was thinking the same thing: one of them should go down to the village to check what was going on.
‘We ought t
o –’
‘It’d be a good idea –’
They both spoke together, then stopped. Tom was about to speak again, but Lottie raised her hand.
‘You stay,’ she said. ‘I’ll go.’
Tom desperately wanted to stay, but he hesitated. This was Alan’s wife, after all. ‘No. You stay. I’ll –’
‘Stop it!’ Lottie spoke so sharply that Tom actually jumped. ‘Sorry,’ she added, ‘but I won’t have it. I’ve had Alan to myself for twenty-two years. It’s your turn now. I think you have some catching up to do.’
Tom swallowed and held her gaze.
‘Thank you.’
She took the flashlight that Tom handed her and shot off into the night. The two brothers, reunited, were quiet for a long while.
Then, after a long pause, Alan spoke again. ‘Guy.’
‘Guy?’ Tom queried, but Alan only nodded. Tom frowned for a moment, then the old spark of understanding jumped between them, as it had so often done before. ‘Guy,’ said Tom. ‘He’s OK, is he? Not dead, surely?’
‘Dead, yes. Died hero.’
‘Guy died the hero, did he?’ Tom couldn’t help but smile. It was ironic in a way that of the three of them it should have been Guy who ended up being killed in action. He tried to find the place in his heart where the flame of his anger with Guy had been kept burning all these years, but it was gone. Tom felt he had no anger left; not towards Alan, not towards Guy, not towards Sir Adam, not towards anyone. ‘Well, I’m pleased he found his courage in the end.’
‘He wanted to mend things. Wanted me to tell Father you were alive.’
‘Guy? Guy wanted you to?’
Alan nodded. ‘I didn’t, though. Silly sod. Too late now.’
‘Too late? Uncle … is he?’
‘He died. Very peaceful. Happy.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
The Sons of Adam Page 49