The Letter Bearer

by Robert Allison

  Though the rider has only his postbag, a haversack of tins, a bedroll and several bundled tools to carry, he still finds it impossible to keep up. His thigh and calf muscles periodically seizing, his breathing reduced to a pitiful wheeze, every trudging step accompanied by thoughts of an imminent doom. Not that they’ll care of course, his fellow absconders. As long as he’s able to haul his load some of the way, he’ll have proved to be of use. His ultimate worth – as expected – measured out in feet and yards.

  And then disaster, quite devastating in its suddenness. An immediate and complete draining of himself, all animatory forces revoked. No pain this time, but rather a cataclysmic loss of energy that drops him to his knees, his hands fluttering at once to his ribs, as though there might be some breaker there to restore the current. It was bound to happen; he’s been pushing himself far too hard. The clubs of chest pain, the light-headedness, the episodes of hallucination: all warning signs. And now not even the strength to raise himself up. Bitter fortune!

  Brinkhurst is the first to notice, the ex-captain turning to see him crumpled, a milestone as pitiable as the dead Frenchman they had encountered. A longitude of defeated souls continued.

  Hands on hips, the ex-captain looks up to a dulling sky and then down to his feet. Horribly tiresome, but he’ll have to backtrack.

  He makes the distance at the double and comes to rest, politely out of breath, on one knee. Then asks idiotically: ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I can’t do it. I can’t make it.’

  ‘Giving up, then. Throwing in the towel. Can’t say I’m surprised. But you should know you’re letting yourself down. Yourself and us. You do know that? We’ll have to leave some of the equipment behind. Because you’ve decided you want to jack it in.’

  The rider gazes through medically explicable tears. ‘You don’t know what I’ve done.’

  Brinkhurst glances to Swann, now towering at his shoulder. Then back to the rider. ‘What do you mean? What have you done?’

  The rider drops his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  Brinkhurst makes a clucking noise and stands. ‘It’s the heat. Dehydration, or something. Damned nuisance.’

  The archdeacon is summoned, but a quick examination offers no surprises. Damaged lungs, a failing heart, what can one expect? Brinkhurst pulls his revolver and pauses to wipe a spot of grease from the grip. ‘You know what I’m going to ask,’ he says to the rider.

  Yes, I know.

  ‘Quicker than you just lying here. Just waiting. So there’s the choice. If your mind’s made up, that is.’

  Swann steps forward. ‘No sense wastin’ a bullet.’ He begins to lift the straps from the rider’s shoulders. ‘Sun’ll do for him. Or the cold. One or the other. ’S what he wants, anyway.’

  The rider is tugged forward as Swann pulls away his canteen. Such easy cruelty. A dispassion to match that of the desert itself. He clings to the strap of his postbag.

  Brinkhurst holsters his revolver, satisfied after a quick three-sixty of the surrounding terrain that the scene will not be chanced upon. ‘I don’t know what it is with you,’ he says. ‘Always looking for sympathy. Always a show. Perhaps it’s attention you want. Anyway. There’s no point wishing you luck. You won’t be found. Not here. Not ever, I shouldn’t think.’

  The rider watches them resume their march, Lucchi taking a moment to signal a wan farewell before wading away with the others. Four dissolutes inked out in red; it’s all part of the new spectrum. He looks down to his postbag. A great thing you did. Except you hadn’t passed on those precious testimonials, but kept them to yourself. Because you want them lost, buried? No greater resolution but this?

  He tests himself again, stretching his arms out, flexing his calf and thigh muscles, his control over them temporarily restored. And his breathing? Steady again, for the moment.

  He raises himself to his knees and then to his feet, relocating his balance with each step. None of the criminals ahead even sparing a backward glance, as though his death was already a matter of record.

  He continues to track them nonetheless, his gaze firmly on Brinkhurst’s dwindling frame. Just a little empathy from him, some small encouragement, that was all he’d needed. But then of course the ex-captain would be a nobler soul, and would never have been with them in the first place.

  Even so, it’s tempting to believe that he might still – somehow – break from that inflexible mould to display a more benevolent nature. Possible even to imagine that more compassionate rendition of him falling back in comradeship, as convincing in form and detail as any trick of the desert:

  Thought I’d tag along for a bit. That’s if you don’t mind? Give you a little company. I know I’ve been remiss on that side of things. No excuse for it really, but there it is. Better late than never.

  Anyway, I’ve been speaking to Mawdsley, and he thinks you’re doing quite marvellously. In fact we all do. That you should pull yourself together like this and push on – it’s the stuff of real grit, and no mistake.

  And you should know that if things come to the worst and you don’t make it, then we’ll certainly give you a proper and decent send-off.

  In fact, I can tell you that when I do make it back home – and I shall have to before too long, as the staff and groundsmen must certainly be at sixes and sevens by now – then I’ll make sure you get your due credit. There might even be a posthumous medal. An obituary in the Telegraph. A gentleman and officer fondly remembered. Yes, yes, I know you haven’t admitted it yet, but it’s been clear to me from the start. It’s why I approached you in the first place. That sense of authority, a certain bearing – quite unmistakable. You think I’d have bothered with you if I thought you were some cloddish tinhat? You might not recognise it now, but it’ll come to you in time. We can’t change what we are, even if we might like to.

  In any case, I wonder if you’ve even been going about it the right way. Trying to find yourself among those letters simply by poring over them. Better to discover yourself through writing one of your own. Don’t you think that makes sense?

  The rider pauses for breath. Perfect sense.

  Upon which, the notional ex-captain quickens his pace until caught up to his less charitable counterpart, who turns to see the rider following. He cups his hands to his mouth. ‘Stronger than you thought, eh?’

  The rider takes the deepest breath he dares.

  Stronger than you know.

  *

  The deserters pause, waiting with ill-disguised impatience as the rider slogs towards them. The prodigal pack mule, now no more than an inconvenience. It’ll be dark soon, warns Brinkhurst, they really ought to be in the foothills before then. Can’t he hurry it up a little?

  But he is making his own way now, escaped from their heckling and malice into the quiet hollow of a transport ship, where he finds himself more at ease, despite the stifling air, the stink of diesel. A solitary sort, better schooled in the lexicon of metals than in human nature. A man not unlike Lance Corporal Swann, if truth be told.

  And here too there are happier discoveries awaiting: those times when he will look into a crew compartment and find inside it a message from his wife. Never lose hope, I know you’ll be coming home, or, everything is waiting for you, just as it was.

  No more treasured moments than these.

  ‘What on God’s good earth is that?’ Brinkhurst drops the binoculars from his face.

  The deserters gather, their attention turned from the colossal reef sliding upward before them to a collection of sheet aluminium and canvas dwellings nestled among its jetties and forelands, the entire settlement ballooned from the sheared fuselage of a transport plane.

  ‘Not too smart,’ says Swann, ‘whoever they are. Spot those fires a mile high.’

  Brinkhurst raises the binoculars again, intent on the softly glowing stretches of hide. ‘I don’t suppose they care.’

  ‘Refugees?’ says Mawdsley, without compassion. ‘Chased out of their villages, maybe. Nowhere e
lse to go.’

  ‘Definitely locals,’ says Brinkhurst. ‘One or two of them outside. God knows why they didn’t all hike off into the mountains. Safer up there, you’d think.’

  ‘Scramble ’em out of there,’ says Swann, ‘and we got ourselves somewhere to shack up. All nice and ready, no bother.’

  Brinkhurst’s expression sours. ‘Well, we don’t want a fuss,’ he points out. ‘No sense making a song and dance of it.’

  The matter is deferred for now as they press on towards the mountainside, Brinkhurst taking the opportunity as they draw closer to raise his finger triumphantly towards moonlit inclines decked with foliage, grass, sprays of forest, bursts of white blossom. ‘So what do you think about that?’

  And no wonder at his excitement, thinks the rider, when here at last is his prize of prizes, an unassailable retreat, the end of war. And a kingdom where they are to be installed under his princely rule. A more successful adventure – he might claim – than any battle they might have fought.

  They arrive presently at a nook underlaid with veinlike channels of rock and sheltered on both south- and east-facing sides by barricades of red limestone. This will do, announces Brinkhurst. Far enough from the wogs that they won’t come begging or thieving. Close enough to keep an eye on them in case they try.

  With some eagerness they dump their baggage into the centre of their temporary harbourage, each man at once looking to secure himself a bedroll for the night before they set about lighting a petrol-and-sand burner. A high wind arriving with darkness to whip the flames about, the bitterness of it causing each man’s teeth to clatter.

  ‘Fucked if I’m goin’ to sit here and freeze,’ says Swann, hurling the cold dregs of his tea. ‘Not when those monkeys are having a cosy time of it.’ He rises and goes to the weapons bundle, unwrapping it to select a Sten.

  Brinkhurst looks woefully to the stars. ‘Swann, look, I’m not giving you orders, I’m really not. But all we want now is to go unnoticed. Keeping a low profile is what we should be about. Don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m bettin’ they scare dead easy. Only take a min. What do you reckon? Five at the most.’

  They watch him march off, a brooding Brinkhurst pulling his knees to his chin. ‘Absolutely farcical. No more wit than the man in the bloody moon.’

  Mawdsley stands to gaze after the lance corporal. He asks for the binoculars and raises them to his eyes.

  ‘Let’s hear it then,’ says Brinkhurst dolefully. ‘The usual shoving and stamping, is it?’

  The rider pictures it vividly: Swann stalking with Olympian disdain among the downtrodden and sick, eyes fierce with pleasure as he kicks one huddled wretch from his bed, propels another trembling soul out into the cold. Your fucken problem, he’ll retort, when tearing a starving family from their blankets. Your bad luck!

  Mawdsley continues to watch.

  ‘Just don’t fire your bloody gun, you nasty, dunder-headed infant,’ mutters Brinkhurst. ‘For Christ’s sake.’

  The archdeacon drops the binoculars. He’s coming back! Already, and without stirring anything of the expected furore. A change of heart? The lance corporal famously dissuaded?

  ‘Are there many of them?’ Mawdsley thinks to ask when Swann re-enters the camp, his expression unreadable as he makes his way directly to the piled rations to select several tins. He catches Brinkhurst in a quick stare, as if to dare comment, then promptly sets off back in the direction of the shelter.

  Brinkhurst shakes his head. Easier to predict the changing wind. A man like that will chew you up if you let him, consume you in his appetite for misrule. Worse still, ‘He took the peaches, damn it. No need for that.’

  Quietly elated, the rider watches Swann depart. A man thrillingly at war with himself, the very model of confused self-hood. In seeking one’s own identity it should come as no surprise to unearth more than a single nature.

  He picks up his bedroll and takes himself away from the others to find a more secluded space, his view of emptiness pleasingly obstructed by a low barricade of rock, into which is carved the face of some inscrutable deity, its crudely sculpted features accented in moonlight. The handiwork, perhaps, of some other fellow who had crouched here to shut out the desert. The act of authorship a reliable path to self-discovery, as Brinkhurst had (kindly) proposed.

  Except of course one would need a correspondent to be encouraged to one’s best efforts. A wife or sweetheart with whom to share those more personal thoughts and fancies.

  My darling–––––

  He might tell her,

  I’m alive. Alive and whole, un-maimed, face unscarred, limbs intact. I can walk to you unaided, just as before. Nothing is lost. We can pick up the thread.

  I was in an explosion. It damaged my lungs. It’s hard to breathe sometimes, but I know you’ll understand. It’s manageable. The long-term prognosis is good. The important thing is that I’m coming back. We’re going to be among the survivors.

  And if he might only flesh her out a little, make her more real to him, then he might find more inspiration yet. This more fully realised version of her being a woman of refined taste and enquiring mind, who might appreciate his more philosophic ponderings, his inclination towards the mystic. And beyond that he would presume more of her still: that she is bold, modern, almost wilful in her determinedness. A woman who will dye her hair flame red to signal her unguarded tempers, and who will don her husband’s leather greatcoat and ride his motorcycle. And who, by cloaking herself in a fierce obstinacy, will refute those withering claims set out in War Office teletype . . .

  . . . every ounce of her faith cemented instead to that certainty of his eventual return.

  My dearest husband,

  Nothing matters now. Nothing except that you are coming back to me.

  I never believed them when they told me you wouldn’t. I never felt you were gone.

  So come home and heal, be well and whole again. And we will live our lives. Everything we wanted, everything we planned.

  You are my greatest joy, and all I ever wanted.

  Yours with all my heart,

  xxx

  xx

  The rider looks up to see Swann, his silhouette ogreish against the moon, his hands stayed in the action of unbuttoning his shorts. The lance corporal cranks his head to one side as if better to study the idol’s features. ‘Fuck,’ he says conversationally. ‘Looks just like me.’

  He expertly takes aim and pisses long and loud across the face, then ambles away into the dark, a halo of his own expelled air carried with him.

  13

  The next morning the deserters breakfast perfunctorily, then abandon their nesting place to enter the gape of a broad valley, its rock-strewn base selected as the least taxing route upward. Re-equipped with his load, the rider spies a lizard shimmy across a stone ramp only feet before him. Then mounds of goat scat, a collection of hoofprints, several inlets to rodent burrows. All manner of life returning, creatures barred from the desert’s inhospitable reaches harboured here. A haven quite removed from the bordering deadlands.

  Further progress takes them onto ground of modest incline, a series of stone tiers incrementing in height, each divided by parched watercourses and seeded here and there with the evidence of human activity; frayed tethers, fragments of earthenware vessels, strips of dyed fabric trodden into the gravel. Between tongues of sandstone that loll out from the hillsides there are miniature hand-built cairns, piled to some practical but unreadable purpose. Burial markers, perhaps, or the wayposts to some preferred passageway into the mountain. The group mount the crest of a plateau to spy a small settlement raised up in warped blocks of clay, each of the several dwellings roofless and derelict. Swann indicates for them to crouch in the cleft of a neighbouring defile until they are certain the site is empty. Then they move on, curious, and in some wonder.

  A little farther they find a corpse. The man has been crucified across the breadth of a low-built sangar, each wrist pinned and splintered beneath
a basalt boulder. The flesh eaten from his suspended feet, the eyes pecked from his face, the shrunken remainder of him harvested by all manner of lowly creatures. Time and the elements have largely denuded the fellow of his uniform, but it’s possible to discern that the cut is Italian.

  ‘Best watch yourself,’ quips Swann to Lucchi. ‘Not big on macaronis round here.’

  The Italian pauses to regard the body, his expression wavering between mystification and horror. An evil man? An oppressor? A murderer of the innocent and the wounded? He hefts the chicken cage further up his back and presses on, followed by the rider, likewise enthralled. It seems almost unconscionable in the moment merely to take note, as though the execution were any mundane feature. But there are mitigations. The man’s rank still shows. There are dog tags around his neck, giving his name. He will be found, his story will be made known, along with those famously tortured, who are remembered with greater enthusiasm than the prosaically killed. There is at least that.

  They trek on through a wadi, which deepens into a scree-bedded gulley as it winds into the mountains, woodland gradually thickening about its upper reaches. Swallowed up, decides the rider, into some vast mouth of nature where they can lodge themselves, never to be pulled. Their mood ought really to be better. To have the shade of cliff walls cut across their faces, to see the silhouettes of pines! But still there is an apprehensiveness among them, no sense of elation. For himself this might be expected, all natural colour and shade burnt to red, the steppes gathering upon each other as larval flows, sprays of myrtle and juniper blooming into embers. For the rest it must simply be that wariness of the unfamiliar. These formations that tower above them and close off the sky after so much time on open land, rock faces scooped and carved in the fashion of medieval dooms. Even a foreign air now, flavoured with the sweat of vegetation, thickened with pollen. Like any migratory creatures, they must adapt. There’s still an hour or so of daylight, reminds Brinkhurst. They should make for higher ground, find a safe vantage point before evening.