The Young Lions (26 page)

"We will fight them on the beaches," said Rollie loudly, "we will fight them on the hills." He sat down. "We will fight them in the streets… No more Cretes, no more Norways… No more getting pushed out of any place."

"I wouldn't talk like that, old man," Hoyt said. "I had a private conversation not long ago. Chap in the Admiralty. You'd be surprised at the name if I could tell it to you. He explained to me about Crete."

"What did he say about Crete?" Rollie stared at Hoyt, a slight belligerence showing in his eyes.

"All according to the overall plan, old man," said Hoyt. "Inflict losses and pull out. Cleverest thing in the world. Let them have Crete. Who needs Crete?"

Rollie stood up majestically. "I'm not going to sit here," he said harshly, a wild light in his eye, "and hear the British Armed Forces insulted by a runaway Englishman."

"Now, now," Cahoon said, soothingly. "Sit down."

"What did I say, old boy?" Hoyt asked nervously.

"British blood spilled to the last ounce." Rollie banged the table. "Desperate, bloody stand to save the land of an ally. Englishmen dying by the thousand… and he says it was planned that way! 'Let them have Crete!' I've been watching you for some time, Hoyt, and I've tried to be fair in my mind, but I'm afraid I've finally got to believe what people're saying about you."

"Now, old man," Hoyt was very red in the face and his voice was high and rattled, "I think you're the victim of a terrible misunderstanding."

"If you were in England," Rollie said bitingly, "you'd sing a different tune. They'd have you up before the law before you'd have a chance to get out more than ten words. Spreading despondency and alarm. Criminal offence, you know, in time of war."

"Really," Hoyt said weakly, "Rollie, old man…"

"I'd like to know who's paying you for this." Rollie stuck his chin out challengingly close to Hoyt's face. "I really would like to know. Don't think this is going to die in this restaurant. Every Englishman in this town is going to hear about it, never fear! Let them have Crete, eh?" He slammed his glass down on the table and stalked back to the bar.

Hoyt wiped his sweating face with his handkerchief and looked painfully around him to see how many people had heard the tirade. "Lord," he said, "you don't know how difficult it is to be an Englishman these days. Insane, neurotic cliques, you don't dare open your mouth…" He got up. "I hope you'll excuse me," he said, "but I really must get back to the studio."

"Of course," Cahoon said.

"Terribly sorry about the play," said Hoyt. "But you see how it is."

"Yes," said Cahoon.

"Cheerio," said Hoyt.

"Cheerio," said Cahoon, with a straight face.

He and Michael watched the elegant, seven-thousand-five-hundred-dollar-a-week back retreating past the bar, retreating past the defender of Crete, retreating to the Paramount Studios, to the prop plane afire that afternoon against the processed clouds ten miles off the Hollywood-Dover coast.

Cahoon sighed. "If I didn't have ulcers when I came in here," he said. "I'd have them now." He called for the check.

Then Michael saw Laura walking towards their table. Michael looked down at his plate with great interest, but Laura stopped in front of him.

"Invite me to sit down," she said.

Michael looked coldly up at her, but Cahoon smiled and said, "Hello, Laura, won't you join us?" and she sat down facing Michael.

"I'm going anyway," Cahoon said before Michael could protest. He stood up, after signing the check. "See you tonight, Mike," he said, and wandered slowly off towards the door. Michael watched him go.

"You might be more pleasant," Laura said. "Even if we're divorced we can be friendly."

Michael stared at the sergeant who was drinking beer at the bar. The sergeant had watched Laura walk across the room and was looking at her now, frankly and hungrily.

"I don't approve of friendly divorces," Michael said. "If you have to get a divorce it should be a mean, unfriendly divorce."

Laura's eyelids quivered. Oh, God, Michael thought, she still cries.

"I just came over to warn you," Laura said, her voice trembling.

"Warn me about what?" Michael asked, puzzled.

"Not to do anything rash. About the war, I mean."

"I won't do anything rash."

"I think," said Laura softly, "you might offer me a drink."

"Waiter," said Michael, "two Scotch and soda."

"I heard you were in town," Laura said.

"Did you?" Michael stared at the sergeant, who had not taken his eyes off Laura since she sat down.

"I was hoping you'd call me," she said.

Women, Michael thought, their emotions were like trapeze artists falling into nets. Miss the rung, fall through the air, then bounce up as high and spry as ever.

"I was busy," Michael said. "How are things with you?"

"Not bad," Laura said. "They're testing me for a part at Fox."

"Good luck."

"Thanks," Laura said.

The sergeant swung round fully at the bar so that he wouldn't have to crane his neck to see Laura. She did look very pretty, with a severe black dress and a tiny hat on the back of her head, and Michael didn't blame the sergeant for looking. The uniform accentuated the expression of loss and loneliness and dumb desire on his face. Here he is, Michael thought, adrift in the war, maybe on the verge of being sent to die on some jungle island that nobody ever heard of, or to rot there month after month and year after year in the dry, womanless clutch of the Army, and he probably doesn't know a girl between here and Dubuque, and he sees a civilian, not much older than he, sitting in this fancy place with a beautiful girl… Probably behind that lost, staring expression there are visions of me unconcernedly drinking with one pretty girl after another in the rich bars of his native land, in bed with them, between the crisp civilized sheets, while he sweats and weeps and dies so far away…

Michael had an insane notion that he wanted to go up to the sergeant and say to him, "Look here, I know what you're thinking. You're absolutely wrong. I'm not going to be with that girl tonight or any other night. If it was up to me, I'd send her out with you tonight, I swear I would." But he couldn't do that. He could just sit there and feel guilty, as though he had been given a prize that someone else had earned. Sitting beside his lovely ex-wife, he knew that this was still another thing to sour his days; that every time he entered a restaurant with a girl and there was a soldier unescorted, he would feel guilty; and that every time he touched a woman with tenderness and longing, he would feel that she had been bought with someone else's blood.

"Michael," Laura said softly, looking with a little smile over her drink, "what are you doing tonight? Late?"

Michael took his eyes away from the sergeant. "Working," he said. "Are you through with your drink? I have to go."

IT might have been bearable without the wind. Christian moved heavily under his blanket, tasting the sand on his cracked lips. The wind picked the sand off the flinty, rolling ridges and hurled it in malicious bursts at you, into your eyes, your throat, your lungs.

Christian sat up slowly, keeping his blanket around him. It was just getting light and the pitiless cold of night still gripped the desert. His jaws were quivering with the cold and he moved about, stiffly, still sitting, to get warm.

Some of the men were actually sleeping. Christian stared at them with wonder and loathing. Hardenburg and five of the men were lying just under the ridge. Hardenburg was peering over the ridge at the convoy through his glasses, only the very top of his head above the jagged rocky line. Every line of Hardenburg's body, even through the swathing of the big, thick overcoat, was alert, resilient. God, Christian thought, doesn't he ever have to sleep? What a wonderful thing it would be if Hardenburg got killed in the next ten minutes. Christian played deliciously with the idea for a moment, then sighed. Not a chance. All the rest of them might get killed that morning, but not Hardenburg. You could take one look at Hardenburg and know that he was going to be alive when the war ended.

Himmler crawled cautiously down from his position under the ridge next to Hardenburg, careful not to raise any dust. He shook the sleeping men to awaken them and whispered to them. Slowly they began to move around, with elaborate measured motions, as though they were in a dark room crowded with many delicate glass ornaments.

Himmler reached Christian on his hands and knees. He moved his knees round in front of him and sat down next to Christian very deliberately.

"He wants you," Himmler whispered, although the British were three hundred metres away.

"All right," Christian said, without moving.

"He's going to get us all killed," Himmler said. He had lost a great deal of weight and his face was raw under the stubble of his beard and his eyes seemed caged and desperate. He hadn't made a joke or clowned for the officers since the first shell was fired over their heads outside Bardia three months before. It was as though another man, a thinner, despairing cousin, had taken possession of Sergeant Himmler's body upon his arrival in Africa, leaving the rotund, jovial ghost of the old Himmler comfortably moored in some shadowy haven back in Europe, waiting to claim possession of the Sergeant's body if and when he ever returned. "He just lies up there," Himmler whispered, "watching the Tommies, singing to himself."

"Singing?" Christian shook his head to clear it.

"Humming. Smiling. He hasn't closed his eyes all night. Ever since that convoy stopped out there last night, he's just lain there and kept his glasses on them, smiling." Himmler looked bleakly over at the Lieutenant. "Wouldn't go for them last night. Oh, no. Too easy. Afraid we might miss one of them. Has to lay up here for ten hours, to wait till it gets light, so we can get every one of them. It'll look better in the report." Himmler spat unhappily into the restlessly swirling sand. "He'll get us all killed, you wait and see."

"How many Tommies are there?" Christian asked. He finally dropped his blanket and shivered as he picked up his carefully wrapped machine pistol.

"Eighty," Himmler whispered. He looked around him bitterly.

"And thirteen of us. Thirteen. Only that son of a bitch would take thirteen men out on a patrol. Not twelve, not fourteen, not…"

"Are they up yet?" Christian broke in.

"They're up," Himmler said. "Sentries all over the place. It's just a miracle they haven't spotted us so far."

"What is he waiting for?" Christian looked at the Lieutenant, lying tensely, like a crouching animal, just under the ridge.

"You ask him," Himmler said. "Maybe for Rommel to come down and watch this personally and give him a medal after breakfast."

The Lieutenant slid down from the top of the ridge and waved impatiently for Christian. Christian crept slowly up towards him, with Himmler following.

"Had to set the mortar himself," Himmler grumbled.

"Couldn't trust me. I'm not scientific enough for him. He's been crawling over and playing with the elevation all night. I swear to God, if they examined him for lunacy, they'd have him in a strait-jacket in two minutes."

"Come on, come on," Hardenburg whispered harshly. As Christian came up to him, he could see that Hardenburg's eyes were glowing with what could only be happiness. He needed a shave and his cap was sandy, but he looked as though he had slept at least ten refreshing hours.

"I want everyone in position," Hardenburg said, "in one minute. No one will make a move until I tell them. The first shots will be from the mortar and I will give a hand signal from up here."

Christian, on his hands and knees, nodded.

"On the signal, the two machine-guns will be raised to the top of the ridge and will begin firing, and continuous fire will be kept up by the riflemen until I give the command to stop. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Christian whispered.

"When I want corrections on the mortar I will call them myself. The crew will keep their eyes open and watch me at all times. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir," said Christian. "When will we go into action, Sir?"

"When I am good and ready," Hardenburg said. "Make your rounds, see that everything is in order and come back to me."

"Yes, Sir." Christian and Himmler turned and crawled over to where the mortar was set up, with the shells piled behind it and the men crouched beside it.

"If only," Himmler whispered, "that bastard gets a slug up his arse I will die happy today."

"Keep quiet," Christian said. Himmler's nervousness was unsettling. "You do your job, and let the Lieutenant take care of himself."

"Nobody has to worry about me," Himmler said. "Nobody can say I don't do my job."

"Nobody said it."

"You were about to say it," Himmler said pugnaciously, glad to have this intimate enemy to argue with for the moment – to take his mind off the eighty Englishmen three hundred metres away.

"Keep your mouth shut," Christian said. He looked at the mortar crew. They were cold and shivering. The new one, Schoener, kept opening and closing his mouth in an ugly, trembling yawn, but they seemed ready. Christian repeated the Lieutenant's instructions and crawled on. Making certain to raise no dust, he approached the machine-gun crew of three on the right end of the ridge.

The men were ready. The waiting, through the night, with the eighty Englishmen just over the scanty ridge, had told on everyone. The vehicles, the two scout cars and the tracked carrier, were barely hidden by the small rise. If an RAF plane on an early patrol appeared in the sky and came down to investigate, they would all be lost. The men kept peering nervously, as they had done all the previous day, too, into the clear, limitless sky, lit now by the growing light of dawn. Luckily, the sun was behind them, low and blinding. For another hour the British on the ground would have a difficult time locating them against its glare.