The Letter Bearer

by Robert Allison

  He composes with distinction, this . . . ‘2Lt James Tuck’. His letter intended for . . . My Dearest Nell.

  He mouths the name.

  In coming firstly to those things practical and mundane, you should know that everything I have is yours, and always has been. All monies, all possessions. I know you will make the best of all, and I hope that what sums there are will help. As to Ada, who you know is my fondest of possessions, I hope that if you decide to sell her that she will go to a good home, where she will be properly looked after. I fear she has been sadly underused by me, and ought really to be given her legs.

  Beyond these, I have only the following wishes for you: that you should not be sad, or fall into despair. That you should be bold in claiming everything owed to you. I know you have the courage for this, whatever you might think. You were brave before we met and you will be brave again when I am gone. Of that I have no doubt.

  He looks at the envelope side of the letter. A Midlands village. No painterly hamlet materialising, no frame over which to stitch the fabric of a memory.

  He recalls another letter bearing the name of Tuck, and looks over the collection. This one sent from England addressed to the same James Tuck, written by the same Nell. Husband and wife, then. Her letter carried with him as a strength, his unhappy reply pending. The predestination of all unions hanging by words alone. Now she is husbandless, and that is the end of them.

  He wipes grit from his forehead, feeling suddenly sick, in need of air. He stumbles from the tent and collapses onto his knees, aware only of his own blood and breath, the giddying rush towards extinction. Is this the moment? Should he summon strength, or resign himself? Obstinacy might only prolong the ordeal. He lowers his face to the sand, thinking at first that the hum in his ears must be a consequence of the turbulence within his own body. Some deathly current. Then he realises that the sound is outside of himself, resounding across the flat base of the arena as though from the skin of a drum. The drone of piston prop engines, their vibrations amplified between wall and rampart of the bounding rock faces. He lifts his head to see a camouflaged mono-wing aircraft make a pass over the camp, the plane low enough for the pilot’s head to be visible as he leans from the open cockpit. A pale cross on its tail, black flashes in the underwing roundels.

  Italian.

  So they have been found.

  The plane banks and climbs, then returns for a second pass. His breathlessness easing a little, consciousness no longer threatening to leave him. Perhaps not the moment, then, merely a brutal foretaste. He feels a pinch in his chest and notices the dressing beginning to darken. Should he remain still? Simply stay here on all fours for the blood to drain out? What is the pilot looking for? Have the others been captured? They should never have left him. Not in this state, weakened, defenceless. Irresponsible of them!

  At last the exhaust note begins to diminish, and the rider pushes himself to his knees to watch the plane vanish. Was he seen? It’s hard to be sure. Perhaps the pilot will report back his discovery and ground forces will be sent. Or a bomber despatched to level the entire camp, if they think it worth the ordnance.

  He looks to the long defile that leads from the basin, the only avenue of entrance or escape. How long have the others been gone now? He has no means of telling, not even the Italian’s wristwatch made available for his use. Because they think time of no consequence to him? The very opposite is true, minutes now the most precious of commodities, hours rarer still. Days he dares not even dream of. Yet here they have left him with no means to measure any. How callous. Perhaps it might be better if the Germans come. They’ll have a field hospital, doctors. It might go easier for him that way. If they choose to take a prisoner, that is. Simpler in truth to make a quick end of him, to scuff the dust over a nameless body.

  They should have left him a gun. Armed, he might have some power to determine his own fate. Or at least to rebuff any more counterfeit Samaritans. He lifts himself up, wincing at the pain from his battered muscles, and scans the breadth of the camp. In Brinkhurst’s tent, perhaps? Items of such worth bound to be in his headmaster’s care.

  He makes his way unsteadily to the tent and pushes inside, unsurprised to find its interior as insistently ordered as the man himself. Every article sited in its appropriate location, nothing laid without plan. A trellis table clothed with several maps, each carefully set at right angles to the table corners. A selection of shorts and blouses neatly piled, each garment precisely folded to preserve the seams. A partly dismantled wireless radio on a footlocker, the handset’s cord immaculately wound. He imagines that the ex-captain would use a trouser press if he had one, puffs of steam rising under the noonday sun in his toil towards impeccability. And yet he gives up the office of rank, this matron of a man, for whom order and exactitude are the keys to universal order. An unconscionable surrender.

  He sees a small leather case under the bunk, and opens it to find a black Enfield revolver. He stares at the gun, as if to reacquaint himself with its purpose, then sits down to lift it, the weapon cold to the touch, as though owning its own temperature. He hefts it to shoulder height and sights down the barrel, his fingers settling to its contours in the manner prescribed by military writ . . .

  . . . before tiring muscles force him to relax the pose. He unlatches the barrel, the hinged frame dropping forward to expose the cylinder’s six rounds, then closes it again to re-aim, picturing Swann’s face, Mawdsley’s face. If only I’d had this when that fucking German stole my watch! But could he pull the trigger, if it came to it? Or was strength of will simply washed from his head as more functionless detritus?

  He spies a large chest at the foot of Brinkhurst’s bunk, its edges lined with rubber seals, and he unlatches it to find a modest trove of plunder, which he sifts through. A bottle of straw-jacketed Chianti, a bottle of Liebfraumilch (opened), a gilded alarm clock, a tin of black cherries, a box of Italian biscuits, Prodotto di Roma, several copies of fiction magazines: Dime Detective, Hutchinson’s Mystery Story, Phantom Detective. He rifles through fresh undergarments, a jar of hair cream, an ivory quellazaire, an Italian medal in silver, Medaglia al Valore Militare. He sits back to survey the cache. So much for Brinkhurst’s egalitarian collective. Do the others know? Mawdsley must at least be in on it. He and Brinkhurst perhaps spending evenings over red wine, debating the nuisance of men with mortal injuries. Or indeed of any incumbents who might threaten their government. Does Swann know? Perhaps he should.

  He opens the box of Italian biscuits and bites into one, finding it agreeable – if a little stale – with a pleasant crème centre. He eats another, and then another, shedding crumbs over the bunk. Brinkhurst be damned! He gathers up the Enfield, the box of biscuits and the Liebfraumilch, then stumbles from the tent out into the middle of the camp, where he seats himself on a wooden crate to uncork the bottle. If he’s behaving badly, he can’t be held accountable. He shouldn’t have been left. His head’s not right.

  Inebriated after the first mouthful, he takes up the Enfield again and sweeps the barrel in a long traverse across the hemisphere of basalt, his finger on the trigger. What a thunder he could draw! What a row! He pans the barrel back across inlets and runnels, looking for faces, familiar outlines, a worthy target. Just as a tank’s gunner would, adjusting elevation, hand-cranking the turret, seeking the correct range and angle.

  He lowers the gun, the effort of holding it overtaxing his arm. But there it is: logical, empirical, his foundation. He thinks like a tank crewman. He carries letters from troops in an armoured battalion. This is progress.

  He stands the wine bottle in the sand and watches dully as it topples over, his head already beginning to whirl. You can’t subject a failing body to alcohol! Idiot.

  He stumbles back into his tent and collapses face down on his bunk, its frame spinning like a slow carousel. His hair colour: he should have logged it when he had the opportunity. He reaches out to the bundle of shaving implements left on the top of a stowage bin and seizes u
p the mirrored square. It’s hard to look straight with the axes of his perception so askew, the gimballing failing to stabilise.

  But there it is: fair hair. Red, of course, but fair if one’s vision was unimpaired, as with most who are new to the desert, each inducted into that same anonymous tribe. He might once have been much darker. And his eyes? An albino red. But pale in shade, perhaps light blue or grey to those registering the full spectrum, the hue shifting depending on the character of the light, on the way it’s refracted and filtered. This is how difficult it is to find yourself.

  He mustn’t be sick. The force of his rising gorge might overstress his heart, leaving him to decay amid the bilge of his own stomach. An idea he finds repellent but at the same time oddly amusing (that would be the wine). He drops the arm holding the mirror and gazes at the reflection of his trembling fingers. So he has imbibed himself to destruction without even learning his name. In the event, neither soldier nor scholar nor any man of discipline at all, but a mere carouser.

  In the next life, he thinks, I shall be a husband and father. And that way discover myself.

  He stirs to see a dim red light through the gap in the tent, the last hours of daylight now arrived, with not so much as a breeze to disturb the stillness. Groggy and beset by a vile headache, he pushes his way outside to find the camp as he had left it, wine bottle and pistol lying unburied about his makeshift seat, as though the story to some penny dreadful. His first reaction to the sight not one of relief – nor even amazement at his body’s obduracy – but simply alarm. Where are they? Are they even coming back?

  He confronts the thought with uncertain sentiment. No more Brinkhurst. No more archdeacon. No more interrogation or intimidation. He has supplies of food, drugs (if he can find them), he even has a gun should he need one. But who will bury him? Is he simply to fall upon the sand at the appointed time and be gradually eroded?

  He looks across to the plot of his future and fellow internee, shovelled into the ground without commendation. And yet his place has at least been marked. Pioneers might one day push into this harbour and find his gravesite. They might enter his name into their journals, restore the story of him. A fate to be aspired to.

  He takes up the entrenching tool left by Swann after his post-Ghibli excavations, the spade parked by the petrol-fired stove. It’s a mad idea. He barely has the strength, and is still suffering from the effects of his indulgences. But he must do it while he has the vim and mettle. For who else now, if not he?

  He hauls the spade over to the gravesite and examines the tags looped around the crosspiece, similar to those taken from his own neck.

  It’s that easy. No burden of proof required. They will take the name and number and correlate them to an individual, and then to a family, a lineage. But the man they will find in the ground beside him, now he will be an enigma. They will have to measure his bones, gauge his teeth, gather up the residues and stains of him and subject them to the most rigorous science. But in the end they will name him, because the lure of that posthumous unveiling will be irresistible.

  The surface is hard, gravel and shale now obscuring the softer ground beneath. The skin of his hands beginning to blister even after the first few strokes, barely the top layers displaced. The still potent heat obliging him to wipe sweat from his brow with each drive into the earth, his lungs unable to percolate enough oxygen into the blood. A man should not have to dig his own grave.

  Overwhelmed, he sinks to his knees, surveying the stage for his funeral. There ought to be some peace to it, but rather he finds himself in the sway of despair. If he had the lungs for it, he would cry out at full voice just to hear the proof of himself. Instead he slumps forward, quite spent.

  My regret is to have let you down.

  It is in his peripheral vision that he first catches sight of the disturbed air rising over the basin’s escape road. He peers harder, straining to distil feature and outline. Dust?

  Dust!

  He rises to his feet, recognising the familiar silhouettes of the Fordson and Quad travelling in line astern, the vehicles animated over the ruts and bumps. It’s almost enough to make him wave madly, to bellow his gladness. But he remains still, teetering slightly over his unfinished plot, his relief as mysterious to him as it is boundless. The dour Swann at the wheel of the truck, Brinkhurst piloting the tractor, Coates, Mawdsley, Lucchi as passengers. All present and accounted for.

  He remains motionless as the vehicles steer into the leaguer and pull to a halt. Only at the last does he recall the discarded Enfield along with the looted wine and biscuits, the realisation prompting him hurriedly to collect up the evidence as the doors of both vehicles open, the occupants sombrely debussing, Swann the first to ignore him, stalking past as though he were merely another of the camp’s fixtures. Then the thin-legged Brinkhurst, his jaw muscles busy in practice of some yet unspoken vexation.

  ‘Swann! We need to talk about it. We can’t just ignore it. Swann!’

  The lance corporal proceeds without pause to his tent and pushes inside, leaving Brinkhurst to stand outside, hands on hips, any impulse towards a further challenge deferred. He is joined by Mawdsley, the two engaging in quiet conference. And still the rider goes unaddressed, his illicit prizes in plain sight. Coates is first to acknowledge him, offering a rueful smile as he and Lucchi begin unloading several crates from the back of the Fordson. Mawdsley breaks from Brinkhurst and the rider takes the opportunity to intercept him. ‘I wondered where you’d gone. I had an attack.’

  The MO pauses to register the information, then moves past the rider without further regard.

  Coates and Lucchi carry the crates to the stores tent, the Italian offering the rider a quick nod as he trudges past, prompting the rider to proffer the looted biscuits. The POW stands in surprise before delving into the box, quickly eating one biscuit and sliding another two beneath his sleeve before signalling his thanks with a discreet incline of his head.

  The gesture is brazen enough to catch Brinkhurst’s eye, spurring him into bounding over like a maddened cricket. ‘What the hell are you doing? Where did you get those things? How dare you! Is this how you repay trust? By playing the sneak thief? Is that it?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be back.’

  Brinkhurst steps closer, faintly ridiculous for being the slighter man. He snatches the Enfield and depleted Liebfraumilch from the rider’s hands, wincing at the bottle’s lightness. ‘Well, we know your colours now, don’t we. Plain for all to see. Here’s what we can expect!’

  ‘I’ve already been told what to expect.’

  ‘And that’s a licence to thievery? That’s what we deserve? Backpedalling and sneakery?’

  And there’s the impasse. Brinkhurst turns his attention to the Enfield, snapping the gun’s breech to examine the cylinder. ‘No doubt you wasted ammunition, too.’

  ‘There was a plane.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Directly overhead.’

  ‘Enemy?’

  ‘Italian. Like the biscuits.’

  ‘Were you seen?’

  ‘I don’t know. But he took a good look at the place. So that’s that.’

  A rude summation, but succinct. Brinkhurst spares the rider a final look of disdain and marches to Swann’s tent, where he stands with unconcealed impatience. ‘Swann. The plane’s been over. They’ll be coming. Do you hear?’

  Still no lance corporal. Brinkhurst closes his eyes and drops his head. ‘Swann, look. I thought you made a rash decision, that’s all. Rushing ahead back there. I wasn’t trying to give orders. But we need to make a decision. Swann?’ He swears to himself then abandons the tent to address the others. ‘This changes everything. We need to make a decision.’

  Coates is slouched against the Quad. ‘What’s there to decide? Seems pretty straightforward. Show’s over. So we head east, towards Cairo, try to make it there before Jerry. What we always said we’d do. Right?’

  Brinkhurst exchanges glances with Mawdsley, neither prepared
to submit their rebuttal.

  ‘What else is there? West, and we run straight into Jerry. Probably a Kraut lockdown on Derna and Tobruk. South and we’ll be dried out and dead in a week. Best way is north-east, make for Alex or Cairo.’

  ‘That’s a lot of ground to cover,’ says Mawdsley.

  Brinkhurst takes the prompt. ‘Heavy going, mind. There might be better options.’

  Coates throws his arms out. ‘Like what?’

  ‘The Akhdar mountains are about a hundred and fifty miles north-west of here. That’s a third of the distance to Cairo. Couple of days’ travel should see us there. Somewhere to regroup, take stock.’

  Coates eyes move from one to the other. ‘We’re here because it was this or a lot worse. Anybody would do the same. But what you’re talking about, that’s different. That’s a whole other thing.’

  ‘We make the best decision we can under the circumstances. What use are we dead or captured?’

  ‘And you think a military court would go for that? ’Cause the last I heard, they were talking about trotters being given the bullet.’

  Brinkhurst lifts his chin. ‘We have a wounded man with us.’ (The rider is indignant to find himself singled out.) ‘We do what we can. We take the most reasonable option. Can’t put a man on a charge for that.’

  ‘Say what you want. No way am I gonna vote to run. I’m saying it right now. So that we’re straight.’

  The stand-off is broken by Swann, who emerges from his tent and strides to the petrol oven, where he squats to turn on the fuel tap.

  ‘What do you say, Swann?’ asks Brinkhurst, pointedly deferential.

  ‘Hungry as fuck.’ The lance corporal pulls a lighter from his shorts and ignites the pooling reservoir of fuel.

  Brinkhurst takes a breath, relieved to find their feud in abeyance. ‘All right, but let’s go steady on the fuel, shall we? We’re going to need it.’ He directs his attention to the rider. ‘The filchers and pilferers among us can retire for the evening.’