A Blind Man's War

by David Fiddimore

  I reckon the Humber made half that height when we took off over the highest ridge of the bridge. I kept the wheels centred. I had never been in a flying car before, and it seemed to be the right thing to do. We hit the road the other side with a hell of a thump, the boot lid flew open, and it took me about thirty yards to pull her up. I hadn’t even stalled the engine. I was quite proud of that. Thirdlow got out, and slammed the boot shut. She needed two goes at it.

  When she got back up alongside me she said, ‘Your petrol can hasn’t leaked, and the tyres still look OK.’

  I was looking ahead, but seeing nothing. My hands, clamped to the steering wheel now, were trembling. I said, ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Turn the car round again, Charlie. Go back there.’

  ‘You’re a fucking lunatic!’

  ‘Yes, but I’m still the one with the gun in her hands, so turn the bloody car round. We have to get their guns.’

  I took us back to where the shooting had occurred. I’ve told you before that the most shocking thing about violence is the speed with which it occurs, and the speed with which it’s over. I stayed in the car still gripping the steering wheel. My knuckles were literally white. I hadn’t seen that before. Thirdlow clipped a fresh mag onto the silenced Sterling and got out. I could hear the guy I’d hit groaning, still lying across the wall. She walked up to him, and I heard a small pop. He twitched, and then relaxed; stopped moving. She picked up his pistol, and moved on to the others. I heard no more pops so I guess they’d had it. She came back a few minutes later with two pistols, and an old Italian military rifle. She put them on the back seat, then climbed back in beside me.

  ‘OK, you can go on now, Charlie. We’re finished here.’

  I didn’t speak at first. I put the bus into first and let her roll, picking up speed. Probably after a minute I said, ‘You’re a bloody murderer.’

  It’s funny that I’d lost sight of the ghosts which would be knocking on my door when my Christmas Carol came round, isn’t it? She sighed, and looked away from me out of the passenger-side window, her arm leaning on the sill and catching the breeze.

  ‘Murderess. OK, if you like, Charlie. But don’t worry, it doesn’t make me unreliable.’

  After a minute I think I began to laugh; out of pure relief, I’m sure. Then she started to laugh as well. A low little chuckle. She had a nice laugh to go with her nice stretch and nice hands. One of us must have turned off the radio as the action started. She reached forward and turned it on, and found some music this time.

  I said, ‘I can’t believe that the car and us came through that with barely a scratch.’

  She smiled and replied, ‘They make them good in England, Charlie.’

  Some time later she asked me, ‘Let me get this right. Your plan, if I can call it that, is to ride into Kampos like the cowboy with the white hat, and ask the priest at the local church where Pat Tobin and Will Carney are?’

  ‘Will Carney?’

  ‘Warrant Officer Wilson Carney, the Army Air Corps pilot. You didn’t even know his name, did you?’

  ‘It may not be as simple as that. As far as I can gather Kampos is a bit bigger than your average mountain village. It may have more than one church. I’ll pick the biggest. And I’m not going to go knocking on the priest’s door – I thought I’d just go and sit in the church, and wait to see what happens. Sooner or later someone’s going to get curious.’

  ‘Why the priest?’

  ‘Because the best info we’ve had so far came from a priest. They’re the black mafia out here – if anyone’s heard anything, they have. Whether they’ll tell me about it, is another thing. I was going to make an appeal to their better nature – the bit God talks to. I’m willing to listen to better suggestions if you have them.’

  She hadn’t, but did ask me, ‘Why are you doing this, Charlie?’

  ‘Because Pat Tobin looked after me when I arrived in the Canal Zone three years ago. I might not have survived it without the advice and help he gave me then. I don’t like to think of him out here on his own, without anyone to back him up.’

  ‘He chose to go out on his own. A couple of National Service boys took a week’s leave last year at the height of the killings, and hiked right across the island to see the sights. They got away with it, why shouldn’t he?’

  ‘And I chose to do the same . . . until you turned up. Why are you here?’

  ‘I chose to as well, didn’t I?’

  ‘Stupid.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  A few miles on I asked her, ‘Can you fill and light a pipe for me?’

  ‘Yes. I used to do that for my grandfather.’

  ‘You’ll find everything in my small pack, under your seat.’

  She had a good couple of puffs herself before she handed it over. A nice-looking woman smoking an old straight billiard briar looks very exotic. The Humber had one of the quietest engines of any car I had driven. She had been right: they made them well in England.

  It was like a bloody ghost town. We found two churches, and both were shut. You should always have a Plan B, shouldn’t you? Unfortunately that’s never been my strongest suit.

  An old woman, led by a boy of about ten, came from a small house surrounded by chickens in the small, dusty square in front of the second of the churches. Thirdlow and I sat on the wide church steps, by the Humber. The passenger door was open so Thirdlow could get at her armoury if she needed to. We’d switched the courtesy light off – the one that came on as soon as a door was opened; I didn’t want to drain the battery. The woman addressed us in formal but not unfriendly Cyppo. The boy translated.

  ‘She says you are not welcome here. She says you would have been welcomed here before you started killing our men, and sided with the Turks.’

  ‘Tell her I am on nobody’s side. I wanted to speak with a priest.’

  ‘She says the priests have all gone to the Mother of God monastery at Kykkos for the festival, and asks why you wanted them. Do you and the lady wish to be married?’

  ‘No. We do not wish to be married. A brother was lost in the Troodos some weeks ago. I was hoping for some news.’

  The old lady crossed her hands at lap level, and said nothing for some time. When she spoke again she addressed Thirdlow directly.

  ‘She asks if you are the Lion’s woman.’

  Thirdlow said, ‘Tell her yes. I am a friend of the Lion.’

  The old woman nodded, and fell silent again. If I ran a tune in my head it was a hymn. One of those nice harvest festival ones. It seemed appropriate. When the old woman spoke again she was still looking at Thirdlow.

  ‘She says there is a small church where a hermit lives.’ The boy had a shrill piping voice. He was proud to be able to translate the conversations. ‘On the back road to Varisia. Perhaps five or six English miles. You take the right-hand fork alongside the river – it runs north.’

  ‘Yes?’ Thirdlow asked him.

  ‘Your brother is probably dead. She says a lot of brothers have died – yours and ours. She says ask there.’

  The old lady sought the boy’s hand with one of hers. I noticed for the first time that her eyes were milky: she was nearly blind. He took her back to the house from whence they had come. The shutting of its door came as a clear sound in the clean air. The birds and the insects, which had fallen silent, started sounding off with an almost shocking suddenness.

  Thirdlow shrugged. ‘No point in hanging about here.’

  We got back in the Humber, and continued south and deeper into the Troodos, looking for the junction that would lead us back to the north, and the tree-smothered river valleys.

  Once we were rolling something occurred to me.

  ‘I wonder if we have to go back the same way, or can cut south or east?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re hardly going to be welcomed with open arms once they realize what we did this morning. Holding up our hands, and bleating not our fault, isn’t going to satis
fy anyone.’

  ‘It wasn’t our fault.’

  I thought about it.

  ‘I’m not so sure. We could have kept on driving.’

  ‘And they would have shot up the next unarmed civvy car that came along,’ she retorted. ‘If ever I have to talk to God about that fight I think you’ll find we came out morally ahead.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’

  ‘My job.’ She had our map on her lap. She read it like a man. ‘We want the next road on the right. It will probably be a dry track, but wide and firm enough for us.’ I wondered if she ever lost her focus, and decided that she probably didn’t. What had Collins said a hundred years ago? God help any man who ends up with her. He must have had a reason for saying it.

  An hour later we found the small stone chapel. It had a pigsty built onto one side of it. I’d seen other buildings in Cyprus which couldn’t make up their minds whether they were residences for humans or animals, but they had all been farms or smallholdings. This was the first church with a split personality I’d encountered so far. There were chickens, and even a scraggly turkey, pecking in the dirt around the chapel door.

  We parked the Humber up under the trees across the road. When we got out, stiff from the bouncing the track had given us, Thirdlow reached back in and grabbed her Sterling, which she looped over her shoulder by its carrying strap, and held out in front of her as we advanced on the building. Thirdlow was always ready for anything; I’ll bet she never even went out without an emergency pack in her handbag.

  We both saw the movement in the pigsty at the same time. An aimed pistol, I thought, attached to a sunburned hand and arm, over the dry-stone wall. I fumbled for my own pistol, but was far too slow of course: one day I’ll learn. Thirdlow didn’t hesitate. Four rounds maybe . . . five. Pop, pop . . . pop, pop, pop. The impact of the bullets threw the man back into the pigsty. I heard a pig squeal. When we reached it, and looked over the wall, the man lying spreadeagled in the shit and the blood was Pat Tobin. His gun, an old-fashioned service revolver, had fallen on my side of the wall. I picked it up. No bullets. I had been behind Thirdlow. Maybe he just hadn’t recognized us. Balls.

  He was still alive. His short-sleeved KD shirt already saturated, wet and red. I reckoned he’d taken three slugs at least. He made eye contact with me, and, although his grave facial expression did not change, something softened in his eyes just before he died. He was probably just pleased someone he knew was there to see him off. His lower lip quivered, almost as if he was about to cry, and then he died. It was one of those moments when I felt like crying myself. It was over so quickly.

  When I looked at Thirdlow her eyes were as dead as his had become. All she said as she turned away was, ‘Silly beggar. He only had to shout.’ She had no doubts about herself. Where do people like that come from?

  To tell you the truth, I felt like pulling the trigger on her myself. They call that sort of thing ‘friendly fire’ these days, to make the relatives feel better. Let me tell you something: there’s nothing friendly about a fucking bullet. Never was, never will be – except maybe the one that comes out of the pistol you’ve put in your mouth to kill the pain you can no longer bear. I can see that one coming one day; when I’m old.

  The door of the small church was open. We stepped inside. Thirdlow’s weapon carried the smell of burned propellant with it. The priest, praying on his knees on the packed-earth floor before the small altar – a crucifix on a table below an illuminated painting of Christ’s face – finished his prayer, before he stood and faced us. Did he think we were going to kill him as well? He was tall and thin, had an immense unkempt beard and a dirty cassock. Maybe that’s what hermits are supposed to look like. He spoke first in Greek, and then, when we failed to respond, in English.

  ‘So, you are beginning to kill each other now. You did kill him, I suppose?’

  I took on the White Man’s Burden. I nodded.

  ‘I’m afraid we did. It was an accident. He didn’t identify himself.’

  The priest studied the earthen floor of the chapel. He was barefoot, and his feet were the same colour. He looked up.

  ‘He was actually a good man. He came here to help another – did you know that?’

  ‘Yes, we did. We followed to help him.’

  ‘But killed him instead. That was very unfortunate.’

  ‘I told you . . . it was an accident.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Thirdlow spoke to him for the first time. A couple of candles guttered. I could smell the red scent from her gun again.

  ‘You are in no danger. We will not harm you.’

  I was learning about her: learning fast. So I wondered about that. I wondered if she would leave a witness alive.

  All he said was, ‘Yes.’

  She persisted, ‘It is sad, but an accident. He came here to help yet another man . . .’

  ‘His cousin, yes.’

  ‘Do you have news of him?’

  ‘You will kill him too?’

  ‘No. We told you. We came to help.’

  He turned away from us, and snuffed one of the candles between a finger and thumb.

  ‘I hope I never have to ask you to help me.’

  I asked his back, ‘Is the pilot alive?’

  ‘Yes, he is alive and well, and is being recovered. I will not tell you how, but you need not concern yourself any longer. Go home.’

  ‘Did the dead man know his cousin was being rescued?’

  ‘Yes. I told him this morning when he arrived. He had been driving around in the mountains for days looking for him. Everyone knew – and the wolves were gathering. I doubt that he would have escaped unharmed anyway. You saved the patriots a bullet, that’s all. If you stay here they will come for you too.’

  I suppose that the priests had a hard line to draw. Priest or patriot? Which comes first? I won’t make the cheap point of observing that it’s odd how often different elements of the Christian religion use their faith to justify murders. Except that I just did.

  We got into our next battle in a village, and for once you have to believe that it wasn’t my fault. The place was built around a farmyard and named Agios Nikolaos Something-or-other. When the Orthodox Greeks set out to name their saints they promoted enough of them to raise a battalion, and St Nick was just one of them. We had dropped down on to the southern foothills of the Troodos after a five-minute stop to swallow the last of the water, and top up the Humber from my jerrycan. I had to watch the car’s water temperature; the gauge kept on stealing into the red. No one had pointed a weapon at us for at least an hour, so things were looking up. I’d given the hermit a handful of money to say prayers for Pat Tobin, and clean his body up, and told him someone would come to collect it later. I didn’t want to think about Pat yet . . . I knew that would come later, and anyway, in my book the days of the British not abandoning the bodies of their dead were long gone. I didn’t want him in the car with us. Thirdlow reckoned I was making a mistake, but didn’t argue her case that strongly.

  The road south ran through the farmyard, and when we arrived it was like the Lincoln County War down there. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid must have been just around the corner. We heard the gunshots from a mile away, and I coasted the car down towards them with the engine switched off, the way you still could in the fifties.

  I stopped on a bend in the track which called itself a road, looking down on a farmyard and a huddle of buildings. I told you already that I reckoned Thirdlow was prepared for anything; she proved it by opening her bag and producing a dinky set of Zeiss binoculars. She scanned the scene below us and said, ‘There’s an army Bedford in front of the house – flat tyres. British soldiers in the house and the animal sheds. The terrorists are in a grove of trees and on the hillside opposite. They look fairly evenly matched.’

  ‘And you want to join in?’

  ‘That’s the general rule – we don’t walk away from fights out here. What do you think?’

  ‘The r
oad goes between the two sides, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We’d never make it. It turns sharp left the other side of the farmyard. I’d have to slow for the corner – we’d be a sitting duck.’

  ‘Agreed. We could always stay back, and see what happens. If that squad has a functioning radio they’re bound to have called in the cavalry.’

  ‘But you don’t want to do that . . .’

  ‘No. When the GCs pull out they could come in this direction, in which case you and I will be stuffed. I think there are about twenty of them dug into that hill.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Hide the car, and work our way down to the edge of the yard. Then we’ll throw a light barrage down on the GCs, hope some squaddy realizes that there’s a third element to the fight, and lets us in when we race for the farmhouse door. I can see it’s open.’

  I gave her proposition a microsecond’s thought and said, ‘OK. I’m with you.’

  ‘You’re not going to argue?’

  ‘Why should I? You’re trained to do this – I’m not. I’m only any good at aircraft, and I can’t see any of them around at present . . . so you’re in charge.’

  Watson’s Humber was beginning to look the worse for wear. We had lost a front wing somewhere along the line, and the rear window was lying on the back seat in a million tiny pieces. The boot smelt strongly of petrol – maybe the tank had been nicked – and on both flanks the paintwork was gouged down to the undercoat. It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to run it into a bank of juniper scrub on the side of the track. Then I accepted the Sterling she handed me, shouldered the ammo pack, and followed her down the road to the farm. We stayed ducked under crumbling stone walls, and more straggly junipers and vines. Common sense told me we were well concealed. Funk told me that every EOKA man on the island had his sights on me.

  From behind a stone drinking trough near the yard gate Thirdlow started to lay bullets on what looked to me like an empty hillside. The empty hillside shot back at us. Its bullets ricocheted off the trough the way they do in Richard Widmark Westerns. Like Warlock: did you ever catch that? I managed half a mag before the damned gun jammed. She changed hers, and gave them another scattered burst before I’d cleared it. I think the rest of my bullets went everywhere. I think I shot the sky. I hoped the sky wasn’t offended; it was where I made my living, after all, and I wouldn’t feel happy up there if it was holding a grudge.