“That’ll do.” The Sergeant was brusque. “Make a back. I want to get on top here.” He pointed at the hut’s roof.
“I don’t under…” Sanders began.
“Come on!” said the Sergeant. “Make a back! Put your hands there… and bend a bit. I want to get on the roof.”
He got there presently. Below, Sanders rubbed at his bony shoulders. The Sergeant, standing delicately at a corner of the flat roof where the thick wall joined it and gave support, shaded his eyes with one hand from the slanting rays of the dipping sun. He peered westward. As he had imagined, he was high enough here to see out, between the palm trunks, over the desert; but not so high that the palm fronds obstructed his view.
His eyes searched the waste. They saw sand and sand and sand. A few dips and ridges like low, quiet waves. But nothing more… No life… Nor, it seemed, anything … any hole or crack or mound in, behind, or about which men could hide.
But Brown had been shot… That was that… So, somewhere within range, there was… someone. He strained his eyes until black specks floated before and round him in the hot, still, lifeless air.
He cursed beneath his breath. He gingerly crouched and sat, and finally slid from the roof. He landed in a heap; to find Sanders standing over him. He got to his feet. “Better get inside again,” he said. “How is he?” He jerked his head towards the wall upon the other side of which lay Bell.
“He seems stronger.” Sanders spoke hesitantly. “His breathing is not so light and quick as it was.” He paused; turned away; halted and turned again. “Sergeant!” His voice was urgent, already reaching for its higher note. “Sergeant! what was… what has happened?”
The Sergeant looked at him. He said, slowly and quietly, watching the thin, drawn face:
“Brown’s been killed. He was up that palm… somebody shot him. He was dead at once.”
Sanders drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. He stood silent, with bent head. His lips moved rapidly. The Sergeant glanced at him, then turned away. “Get back inside,” he said.
VIII
They buried Brown after sunset, down on the desert to the east side of the oasis. Three carried his body, Morelli and Hale and Cook. On that side of the knoll, above them, lay Abelson and MacKay: rifles rested before them, they watched. On the other fringe, looking out to the west, were the Sergeant and Sanders. No sound nor sight disturbed the work.
They gathered, afterwards, about the Sergeant, who stood now by the spring. He chose a night-guard; three three-hour reliefs of two men each. First, Hale and Abelson; second, MacKay and Cook; third, himself and Morelli. Sanders, offered change from his nursing duty, shook his head. No; he would continue; he could snatch, he thought, a few minutes’ sleep here and there.
They had a meal of sorts doled out by the Sergeant; to each a hard biscuit, the seventh part of a tin of bully beef, dates. They sorted themselves for this meal: Hale and Abelson and Sanders ate theirs at their posts; MacKay, at the Sergeant’s order, sat with him over by the hut, leaving Morelli and Cook by the spring.
Inside the hut, Sanders devoured his food: he ate with a speed which did not arise from hunger but rather from a desire to be done, as quickly as might be possible, with a tiresome and unpleasant but necessary operation. The last crumb barely swallowed he knelt beside the sprawling, immobile body of the Corporal. He cast back his head: his face, the eyes closed, wore a look enrapt. The lines went from it; it became smooth and calm, but yet, somehow, the face of a man in pain. His lips moved, soundlessly, and his hands were clasped, high before his chest, with such force that the knuckles shone white.
By the spring, Cook ate with slow enjoyment. He cut his little square of beef into small cubes, each of which he set upon a larger section of his carefully-broken biscuit. He chewed deliberately at each mouthful, and between mouthfuls took draughts of water. Morelli watched, his own food untouched before him, resting on the side of his flat-lying water-bottle. He said, suddenly, the first words that either had spoken:
“Like this? I don’t want it.” He held out his biscuit and meat.
“Ar!” said Cook. He put out a hand, enormous, and received the food. He nodded by way of thanks.
Morelli was restless. He sat; he stood; he walked about in narrow circles and sat again. He repeatedly brought out, jerkily, words meant as the beginnings of remarks he did not make. He pulled out his pipe but found no tobacco; put then a cigarette between his lips; changed his mind and thrust it back into his leather case. He stood, now, looking down at the other, who still stolidly chewed. He said:
“Cookie! You ever get… upset like… ’bout anythin’?”
Cook, drinking, shook his head slowly from side to side. Morelli sat, abruptly and with a sort of finality in his action as if he were determined, now, that this should remain his position. He looked down between his hunched-up knees.
“Not never?” he said. “S’pose they was to get Jock… next? What ’bout that?”
Cook withdrew from his mouth the finger which had been pursuing a clinging string of the bully beef. He pondered, looking at this finger blankly.
“Ar!” he said at last.
Morelli seized on the inflection. “There!” he said, “that shook you! Well… that’s how I’m feelin’… You was a sailor, Cookie? … You know about them guys they call … what is it? … Jonahs?”
Cook nodded decisively. “Ar.” He had finished his meal now. He drew his legs up under him, crossing them and wedging the ankles beneath his solid thighs. He groped in a breeches pocket. His hand came away with a cake of black tobacco. He bit off this cake a lump. His jaws began to work with a steady rhythm. Save for their movement he was motionless as the palms behind and before him. Now the moon was flooding the clearing with soft silver light, and Cook, half-bathed in this light and half in black shadow, was like a stone Buddha, square, thick; immobile and immutable.
“… Jonahs!” Morelli was saying. “Guys what bring bad luck… I’m one o’ them, Cookie… I’m a Jonah… I am, sure! To me frien’s, anyways.” He stopped, his voice dying away; tailing off, as it were, into the light and darkness and silence.
Cook chewed. Every now and then, his only movement, his head would turn as he shot from his mouth a dark jet of saliva and tobacco juice.
“A God-damned bahstud of a Jonah… that’s me,” Morelli said. “… To me frien’s… I’ve always been noticin’ it, ever since I was so high… Whoever gets tangled up with me… friendly-like… so he, or she, gets it right slick where the chicken got the axe… Started when I was at school, it did… That’s funny, too, now I think… there was a kid called Brown… he was a sidekicker o’ mine: got a public birchin’ through me… Now there’s old Brownie… not that his coppin’ that packet was through me, exact … but we was half-sections and he’s got his… Good guy, old Topper! Eh, Cookie?”
Cook spat again. “Ar!” he said.
“One o’ the best!” Morelli unclasped the hands that locked his knees; he stretched his legs and lay back, crossed hands supporting his head. He went on, his voice very low. “Why the — hell,” he said savagely, “should he click before a — like that choot of a Jew-boy, or that tin-faced Bible thrasher? Or me? … No reason! No reason a-tall… But he was my half-section… Get that, Cookie? … How’d you like it, bein’ a Jonah?”
Cook spat. He shook his great head, slowly, from side to side.
“’Course you wouldn’t. Nobody wouldn’t! And, by Mary, I don’t! … I’m just an ornery little —! I don’t mean any harm even if I don’t mean much good… But it’s just that way with me… Always the same… wi’ women too… Take that turn o’ mine, ’fore the war… That was as good a little team o’ two as ever you saw, Cookie… Morel and Moree… that was us… And we’d of got somewhere, if I hadn’t had this ju-ju Jonah business on me… We would that, believe me… Why in Chicago, though we was the first turn… y’know what that means… they gave us a coupla ’cores the very first night… When we left to go on to th’ next o’ the
circle… Pittsburg… we was half-way up the bills, and in letters ’bout three-four inches high… Morel an’ Moree: Specialty Dancers… Morel was me, see? An’ Moree was Joey, bless ’er! … That was a good kid, Cookie… There was some that said she was chee-chee… But that was all wind! … She thought her gran was a Chink… that’s all. And what if she was! Eh? … Joey was all right all right! And dance! She was a looker, too… p’r’aps there was some who wouldn’t of said that the first time they saw ’er. But she grew on you, did Joey… We wasn’t married, Cookie, but if ever a little sawn-off runt of a ’centric dancer got a wife a helluva sight too good for ’im, that was me after I found Joey.”… His voice died away again, he lay on his back, his eyes blankly staring up through the tracery of the palm leaves at the star-blazing sky.
Cook was still and soundless and… permanent. Morelli did not look at him. He started to talk again, his voice so soft that it seemed a part of the breathless night.
“… We was pretty damn’ happy, Morel an’ Moree! … I should say! … Happy as… whatever’s happy… All the time, we was… and then, out in the States, with the turn goin’ so good ’n everything… well, there wasn’t no holdin’ us, believe me! … We was knocking down good money, too…
“But I’m a Jonah… I’ve told yer… a bleedin’ ugly great sod of a Jonah… What happens? … Why, our second time in Chicago there’s a feller sees Joey… he comes again… takes a front rower every night fer a week… Well, this guy, he’s not one o’ the lads after his greens, see? He’s an Agent… name o’ Mount… a guy that fixes up Managers wi’ talent an’ Arteests wi’ jobs, see? … Well, this Mount, he sizes Joey up an’ reckons she’s the goods… reckons he could fix her with a two-year Noo York contract at God-knows-how-many bucks a week… an’ all this just to start with… But he’s fly, is Mount… He makes a few inquiries ’bout Joey an’ me, an’ he finds, roughly like, how things are with us… So he gets at Joey private… He doesn’t write, see? He gets her one day when I’m out; an’ he puts it to her in words an’ gives her a letter on top o’ that with it all down in black an’ white, and red… ’Course, I never heard any o’ this till after, becos… what d’you think that kid does… She tells Mount she’ll think it over, an’ she does think it over… And she decides that I wouldn’t like it, as there wasn’t nothing for me in it… So she writes this Mount a letter turnin’ ’im down… all on her own an’ never tellin’ me damn-all…
“Then we goes on, for the second time, to Pittsburg… we’re known there then an’ we goes with a bleedin’ zip an’ zowie ’n everything, I can tell you… God! we were all right all right… then. Happy! I should say! …
“But I’m a Jonah, Cookie… as I’ve said… The third day in Pittsburg, Joey’s out shoppin’… There’s a coat she wanted… She’d made up her little mind to have that coat … She borrows a hundred bucks off me an’ goes out laughin’ all over her face… I was still lyin’ in her bed… no revelly in those days…
“Cookie! she never came back to that room… God Almighty! I’m a Jonah, I tell yer! … She was crossin’ the road… to that shop, that bleeding shop… She’s just stepped off the sidewalk when… blim! … a damn lout drives his car right into her…”
Morelli sat up. His voice was shaking. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. He put his empty pipe into his mouth and spoke with his teeth clenched round its stem.
“She wasn’t killed… because I’m a Jonah… She wasn’t killed… no such luck… No, sir! That smash does somethin’ to her back… jiggers up ’er spine, somehow… An’… an’ there she is, when I’m allowed to see her, ’bout two-three days after… lyin’ flat in a nursin’-home bed… Flat, Cookie… flat as flat… An’ white’s a lot of linen… But she smiles at me… the same smile… an’ she jest guys me a bit… Some kid, Joey! … I should say! …” He got to his feet and walked up and down, three or four steps in each direction, in front of the silent Cook.
“She’s… still there, Cookie,” he said. “Still there… in that same bed… so far’s I know… had a letter from her last mail we had, at Sheikh Amid… Fourteenth o’ March, ’14, it was… when she got run down… An’ there she is … for keeps… It was her made me… well, not made me … it was her who saw as I was thinkin’ after the war started, that p’r’aps I oughta if it wasn’t fer her… oughta come back an’ join up… She made me leave ’er, Cookie…
“See what I mean… about this Jonah business?” He stopped in walk and looked down at the other. “See what I mean, Cookie? … There was that Mount an’ her contract… ’F it hadn’t been for me she’d a’ taken that… never ’ve gone that second time to Pittsburg… See, Cookie?”
“Ar,” said Cook. He got to his feet. He began to walk. Morelli fell into step at his side. They walked, in silence, round the clearing, and round it, and round it.
“You’re right,” Morelli said, after the third circuit. “Exercise.”
“Ar!” said Cook.
They saw, as they walked, the red, leaping glow of a small fire behind and to the left of the hut.
Beside the fire squatted MacKay and the Sergeant. MacKay held over the fire the lower half of a mess-tin, three-quarters full of a brownish liquid in which floated long string-like shreds. He stirred this liquid from time to time with a sliver of wood. He lifted the tin from the fire and peered into it.
“What’s it like?” asked the Sergeant.
MacKay pulled a wry mouth. “We-el, it’s no’ dainty… Nor would Ah care t’ be suppin’ it mesel’, if ye follow me.”
“It’s the best we can manage,” the Sergeant said. “P’r’aps when we’ve strained the grease off, it’ll do. It’s got to.”
“Ay! But when’ll yon puir son-of-a-bitch ha’ life in ’im to tek it? Answer me that.”
The Sergeant rose. “Not so long. He’s better, Jock. When I went in just now he was movin’… a little. And Sanders there, prayin’ like an abbey full of monks.”
“Yon’d pray th’ feet off a comp’ny o’ the H.L.I.!” said MacKay. “In ma opeenion yon Sanders’ sire was a cab-horrse, and his dam had nine row o’ brass dugs.” He spat, tasted the brew, spat again and was silent.
“Bad as that, is it?” The Sergeant stretched out a hand for the mess-tin.
“No’ quite,” said MacKay. “But, d’ye know, in nigh on thairty year o’ soldierin’, Ah never tasted bully-broath afore.” He passed the tin.
“It’s all we can do. And that’s that.” The Sergeant sipped. “I dunno. It might be worse.” He raised his voice. “Sanders!” he called softly.
Sanders came. His face was pale beneath its tan, and lines were graven deep upon it. But his eyes were almost peaceful; their flare had gone. “You called me?” he asked.
The Sergeant nodded. “How’s he now?”
“The same, Sergeant. There has been no change at all since you saw him. He’s still a little restless. And once or twice he has spoken; incoherently.”
“Hm.” The Sergeant scratched his head. “We’ll leave him to-night.” He held out the mess-tin. “Take that, Sanders. Keep it covered up. That’s for Corporal Bell… when we can feed him. In the morning, start straining it… somehow… to get that fat off as much as you can.” He watched while Sanders, mess-tin in hand, walked with slow, careful steps back to the hut and disappeared within it.
“Looks better, doesn’t he?” The Sergeant turned to face MacKay again.
“Sanders? … Wee-ell…” The Scot was doubtful. “Mebbe yes; mebbe no… He sairtenly’s quieter… But whot’s that? Mebbe only the calm afore the storm… Yon felley’s goin’… mark me words!” He tapped his forehead.
The Sergeant changed the subject. “I’m going to tell ’em, Jock… To-night.”
“Tell whot?”
“What I said to you after our talk just now.”
“Oh… ay!”
“Weigh up the position… and be frank about it… Tell ’em our suggestion about the river… and ask ’em to draw for it…”
“Yes… Draw for it… Every one except Sanders. He’d be no more good ’n a wet Sunday… Just one draw. Whoever gets it picks his half-section…”
“But there’s no’ any need fer drawin’.” MacKay was vehement. “Did not Ah say—”
The Sergeant cut him short. “You said all right. But what you say isn’t necessarily what I do… No, Jock, every one’s to be in this… it’s a poorish business to send a man on, and we’ve all got to take a chance.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll do it when the first relief comes off… You must put it up to Cook, when you both go on… or just before… Better find him now; there’s about half an hour.”
MacKay went grumbling. The Sergeant was left squatting by the little fire. Its dying embers blazed angrily as he stirred them. A little spurting flame threw light upon his face as he crouched, casting into relief the rather high cheek-bones and taut cheeks beneath them; the strongly-muscled jaw and deep-set eyes, wide apart, on either side the arrogant nose.
These eyes were bent upon the fire, unseeing. His lips moved, in prayer or curse. From behind him came a low crisp crack as Abelson, on his beat, trod upon and broke some fallen palm-leaf, thick and sinewy and brittle.
The Sergeant started. He found himself standing upright, the stick with which he had been stirring the fire fallen from his fingers. He became aware that every muscle in his body was rigid; that sweat had broken out upon his forehead… not such sweat as was habitual throughout these desert days and nights… but a sudden, cold douche of sweat. He turned to see the dim, shadowed figure of the sentry disappear among the trees.
He laughed at himself… a mirthless sound. He wiped his forehead upon his forearm; and his mouth curled.
“Jumpy!” he muttered, and went in search of his garrison.
IX
The relief had changed. Cook and MacKay were now on duty. By the spring the Sergeant sat with his back at a tree trunk: facing him, sitting, lying, sprawling, were Hale and Morelli and Abelson. The moon was high now, over a man’s head if he looked directly up, so that the clearing was a silver dish bounded by ebony and silvery tracery. Where they sat the light was strong; so strong that one could with care have read small print. The Sergeant had been talking. He had finished now, and there was silence.
Patrol Page 5
