The Promise of Light

by Paul Watkins

  Crow’s head poked from his raincape. It seemed to have come loose from the rest of his body. “I ate Maconochie stew for a hundred days straight in 1917.”

  “I suppose you get used to it after a while.” I let biscuits fall like chips of tan-colored slate into my mess tin. Then I mashed them with a spoon.

  “You do get used to it. To this and everything else. It’s trying to get used to having things be normal again that you’ll find hard. I learned that when the war ended in France.” Crow knocked a fist against his chest to help himself swallow a lump of potato. “On the day the war ended, we were in trenches only two hundred yards from the German dugouts. We were expecting a raid in the morning. But no raid came. We stood there on the parapets in the pissing rain and waited and nothing happened. At first we thought maybe some new Germans were coming in to take the place of the old ones. Perhaps that’s why they’d canceled the raid. But it wasn’t time for a rotation. There was something queer about it. Why eleven o’clock? They never rotated in the daytime, always at night.”

  Crow looked at his hands as he talked, turning them over and back, studying the lines. “There was a machine gunner in a pit opposite from us. Since sunrise, we’d been plinking away at him. Every now and then, he’d have a go back at us and chop up the sandbags we were hiding behind. He had a Maxim gun. It was a thing on little wheels with an armored plate up front. Every time we hit the plate, we’d hear a ping noise and then we’d cheer. Then came eleven o’clock. The officer blew a whistle. I heard whistles from the German side, too. All up and down the line, we heard whistles. The officer said there’d been a cease-fire. The war had ended. He had to keep saying it to us because we didn’t understand. Then this German Maxim gunner started shooting up in the air. He fired until his barrel melted. When it quit, there was no noise from anywhere. Then this German gets up out of his pit. He stands up right in full view of us and takes a bow like an orchestra conductor! After that, he just turns around and starts walking back to Germany. And more of them and more of them and soon enough the whole German company is walking home. They dropped their helmets and their guns. We started cheering. And then in the middle of all the shouting, Stan turns to me and says, ‘So what do we do now?’ And you should have seen the smile fall off my face. I hadn’t thought about it. But now I realized how difficult it was going to be heading home. And it was. It is. Sometimes I think I like it better out here in the rain.”

  The mushed biscuits boiled and plopped. I blew out the white fuel cube. The flame slithered back and a gust of acid smoke struck my face.

  Clayton stood in the church doorway, hands in the pocket of his coat. No one had spoken to him since they reached the church. They shifted nervously when he walked past. Their talking ground into silence. Clayton even seemed to make himself uncomfortable.

  I draped the raincape over my head and smelled the rubberized cloth. For a while I watched the other men. They knelt by the fire, hands stretched out to the flames and drawing in warmth. Shadows seemed to make the bones jut from their faces. Suddenly I wished I knew them better. I wished there was time to be friends.

  * * *

  The rancid smoke of fuel tablets drilled into my sleep.

  It was morning. Crow had thrown back his cape. He stood stripped to the waist, slapping a soap-lathered shaving brush across his bald head.

  Tarbox held up a pocket mirror. In his other hand, he held out a mess tin of water, which foamed with shaving soap. He was bare-chested under his trench coat. His shirt lay draped over a gravestone, warming in the sun.

  “Hold the mirror steady.” Crow held the razor to his forehead, then scraped the blade slowly back across his head.

  “Morning, Ben.” Tarbox nodded. “Ready for a fifteen-mile march across the Burren?”

  “Stop wobbling the damn mirror!” Crow shook his razor and shaving soap splattered the grass.

  Four men were out in the field, throwing peat at each other. The spongy clods exploded on their chests and backs. Their out-of-breath laughter echoed through the church.

  “Stop wobbling the bloody mirror, Crabman!”

  Tarbox looked out toward the field. The hand that held the mirror dropped to his side. “What’s that noise?”

  Crow grabbed Tarbox’s hand and held it up, so he could see himself again. “It’s me yelling at you, you silly bugger.”

  “No.” I stepped to the door of the church and looked out at the vault of blue sky. “Something else.”

  The men who had been throwing peat stood still in the field. They all looked toward the horizon.

  Worry brushed through me.

  Crow’s shaving soap smelled of sandalwood. The razor was a stripe of silver in his hand. “For God’s sake, what is it?”

  Now we could hear it. The buzz of an engine, coming from one place and then another, shifting on the breeze.

  The fields were empty and bright.

  Then a beetle-winged speck popped into view. It grew quickly. The sound grew with it. A plane, flying in low to the ground.

  The men in the field were already running. Their untucked shirts flapped behind them.

  Crow spun around. “Run!” He grabbed his rifle and swatted away a raincape that covered a window. He dove out and rolled away onto the grass.

  “Run!” they were shouting in the field, eyes wide and terrified.

  The plane took shape. The noise of its engine was loud.

  I could make out the crossed threads of its wingstruts and the leather-wrapped ball of the pilot’s head. I turned and followed Crow out through the window, thumping down hard on the grass and running now, already breathless. But there was no place to go. The fields gave no cover and the engine filled my ears. Then came the clatter of its guns and I pitched myself down on the ground. Grass dragged between my outstretched fingers.

  A shadow jumped on my back and passed over. When I raised my head, I saw the plane bank sideways.

  It was a two-seater. There was a fixed gun that fired between the propellers and the man in the back had a gun mounted on the fuselage. He stood in his cockpit, bundled in leather and his face hidden behind the two insect eyes of his goggles. He swung the gun around and fired at the church.

  The plane was painted brown with red and blue circles on its sides and wings. Pale blue like a robin’s egg coated the underbelly, a paler blue than the sky, as if the paint was made to hide it on a different day than this. The machine swept back at the church and smoke poured from its guns.

  Men crouched down and fired at the plane. The soil burst open around them. One man flew against the church wall. Pieces of rock chipped from the stones. The men panicked and ran in all directions across the empty field. Stitches of earth exploded at their feet as the gunner fired at them.

  I sprinted for the hedge. I’d seen Crow heading that way, and in the place where he had dived through the brambles were peeled back and broken.

  The engine grew louder behind me. Then the air snapped open and a clod of grass sailed past my face. The albatross shadow cut out the light and then the plane’s wheels flipped past, wobbling crookedly. The gunner was aiming straight at me, hunched over the fat ring of the gunsight. Again the air split apart and I dropped at the base of the hedge. Bramble leaves thrashed over me as the bullets ripped through and punched into the earth.

  Then gunfire came from the road as Crow shot at the plane.

  I heard the sharp clack-clack of reloading and the clink of empty cartridges that bounced off the stony road.

  The plane was over the church again. Its pilot turned and looked down. His gloved hand pointed at the building. The gunner sent bullets chopping through the gravestones.

  A man stood, arms raised, and fell back to the ground. His rifle spun in the air and came down on top of him.

  The plane banked once more, sun on the tight fabric of its wings.

  Tarbox broke from the churchyard and started running. He had dropped his gun.

  “Here!” I waved.

  Tarbox changed cou
rse. Now he was running toward me.

  Crow shouldered his rifle and fired over the top of my head.

  The plane dove at Tarbox.

  “Keep running, Crabman! Don’t look back!” I pulled out my Webley. The drum clicked empty after four shots. “You’re almost here, Crabman!”

  The plane tipped slightly to the side as its gunner took aim.

  “Oh, Christ!” Tarbox yelled as he ran. “Oh, Christ almighty!”

  “Run, Crabmaaaan!”

  Then the gun began firing. It sparkled through the propeller.

  Tarbox cried out, his short arms flailing as he ran. A bursting trench of earth flew up where bullets struck. They raced in toward him, sputtering soil and ripped grass.

  Crow dove into the hedge.

  I stood, the revolver in my hand, and emptied my lungs with a shout. “Crabmaaaaaan!”

  Tarbox’s right shoe blew to pieces off his foot. His body rose in the air. Then Tarbox’s chest exploded and his still-flailing arms carried him down to the ground.

  A line of bullets chopped past and smacked into the road.

  I didn’t move. I stared at the pile of trench coat that covered Tarbox’s head. His hand stuck out twisted from under the cloth. A piece of his shoe lay nearby.

  The plane dove once more on the church and then headed off over the fields. Its engine faded away.

  Crow crawled out of the hedge. He ran over to Tarbox and pulled back the trench coat.

  Tarbox’s eyes were like mirrors. All his blood ran out. It smeared and beaded on the grass, luminous against the green.

  Clayton rose up from the middle of the field, as if he had been hiding underground and had clawed his way out of the soil. He started walking toward us.

  * * *

  We buried Tarbox and two others in the peat-dark earth. We dug the grave with our hands and laid the bodies side by side. We covered them quickly, raking back the soil with crooked fingers, because we had to keep moving and there was no time to waste.

  “May the Lord bless you and keep you,” Crow was saying. “May the Lord make his face to shine upon you.”

  I knelt with the others, dew soaking through my trousers, and I tried to remember a prayer. But nothing came to mind, not even a song. All I could think of were Tarbox’s bright-painted crab-pot floats, bobbing in the water off Lahinch. And now Mrs. Fuller’s words sank into me, about whole generations dying out. I saw how it would be. Tarbox’s wife would move away and their tin-roofed shack would fold back into the earth. There would be no children to inherit the land and keep the name alive. The faint scratches that Tarbox had left on the earth would be rubbed out by a year or two of wind and rain.

  I had not liked him much. If he had lived and I’d gone back home again, I would not have remembered him kindly. But now I cried for Tarbox and for his wife, because I had been jealous of how much they were in love.

  * * *

  The rock of the Burren spread like barely cooled lava across the ground.

  We waded through ferns in the stone-stubbled fields. Gorse bushes dragged their needle leaves across our legs.

  Clayton said that now it was too dangerous to move along the roads. So we walked in a straggling line across the open ground.

  Sometimes he climbed up on a wall and pulled out a compass in a silver case. He pressed a button at the top and the lid popped open. Then he held the compass out on the flat of his palm to take a bearing.

  Towns clustered in the valleys. Through Clayton’s binoculars, I saw a woman hanging laundry in her garden. She held clothespins between her teeth. Wind molded the wet sheets against her body.

  In another garden, a man had set his compost heap on fire. Thick scarves of smoke climbed from the mulch. Sparks had caught in the gorse and set it burning. The man beat down the flames with a shovel. The charred gorse branches smouldered, pain-twisted like the legs of a cripple.

  Distant ocean snubbed the Burren rock.

  Once, in the corner of my eye, I saw a crooked wing. I hunched down fast beside a wall, thinking it was another plane. But it was only a raven, gliding off toward the water, feet tucked into its feathers.

  It was evening when we heard the sound of a truck.

  We crouched in the brown-edged ferns and watched it putter through a town. Its canvas roof was tied shut. A staff car followed after.

  People ran from their houses when the machines had passed. They stood at their garden gates and watched.

  Clayton rose from cover. His shadow stretched along the ground. “We’ll stay here tonight. These people will give us shelter.”

  The thought of staying under a roof and perhaps even in a bed made me feel almost dizzy. I walked down the slope with the others. Sunset blazed through the grass.

  Sheep raised their heads and peered at us. Their monotone laughter passed from field to field.

  A woman looked up from her garden, where rosebushes burst with pink and yellow flowers. She pointed at us and called to her neighbors.

  Gunfire. The dry clap of rifles.

  I flopped down in the ferns, pulled out my revolver and realized it was empty. So I rolled onto my back and pulled spare bullets from my pocket. Some of them slipped out of my hands. I fished for them among the fern stalks, and jammed the bullets into the Webley’s cylinder.

  “It’s in the next valley.” Clayton snapped his fingers at me and we both ran down to the village. Ferns had jammed in the wooden holster of his Mauser.

  A man walked out to meet us. He said his name was Gracey. He wore blue overalls and a grey coat. “They’re at Tolliver’s farm about a dozen of them. They all moved in there last night. That truckload of Tans has gone after them.”

  “All who?” Clayton looked over Gracey’s shoulder at the people in the street.

  “I don’t know who they are, sir.” Gracey wiped his palms on his chest, as if he meant to shake Clayton’s hand. “All I know is that they came by looking for shelter and Tolliver gave them his barn to sleep in.”

  “Was the man in charge named Hagan?”

  “I never heard him mentioned, sir.”

  “Who told the Tans they were there?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I know it wasn’t me.”

  “How far are they?”

  “A ten-minute walk, sir. Five minutes if you run.”

  * * *

  We ran toward Tolliver’s farm, boots clattering on the elephant-grey stone.

  My joints ached as if I’d been running all day.

  The gunfire continued, shots echoing over the hedges. Then the slate roof of the farmhouse slid into view.

  We rounded a corner and saw a Crossley truck jamming the road. Its canvas back was open and the truck looked empty.

  An English voice shouted orders and the firing grew sharper. Glass broke in the farmhouse. The tangled branches of the hedge hid everything from view. The light had left the road and now it swam in shadows.

  Clayton looked over the top of the hedge and then ducked down again. He signaled for us to move up.

  Four Tans crouched behind a wall. They fired at the farmhouse. One shot, then ducked down and reloaded. Another popped up and fired. Their helmets had been taken off and lay like upturned birdbaths on the ground.

  Crow shouldered his rifle. His cheek pressed against the dark oiled wood of the stock. He wrapped his arm through the black canvas sling and took aim.

  Then a Tan appeared by the truck. His tunic was undone and his brass buttons seemed to glow in the failing light. He was carrying two cans of ammunition. As soon as he saw us, he dropped the cans and turned to run.

  Clayton swung his arm up and the Mauser jumped in his hand.

  A sudden wave of fire poured across the road. A screech filled my ears and after that there was only ringing. Heat thrashed at my face. It threw me to the ground. I’m on fire, I thought. I beat at my chest and legs. Oh, Jesus, I’m burning.

  Someone had hold of my collar and was dragging me back down the road.

  I wasn’t burning now, but
smoke climbed from the wool of my coat like dust off a trampled rug. The truck was outlined in flames. Its canvas roof hung in shreds, dripping like liquid from the steel frame of the roof. The tires boiled black smoke. I put my hands to my face and felt the skin raw, as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. Flecks of burnt hair crumbled dull orange onto my chest.

  It was Crow dragging me. He pulled me into a field and we lay in the ferns. Smoke skimmed over the hedge. It twisted and coiled and blew away out to sea.

  “Clayton hit the fuel tank.” Crow pulled a handful of copper-headed .303 bullets from his bandolier and started to reload his rifle.

  Night pressed dark-edged blue around the corners of the sky. The last streaks of sun touched the water out to sea.

  Now the Tans came running down the road, bayonets fixed on their guns.

  I sat up, ready to fire and Crow heaved me back into cover. The smell of my burnt hair made me wince.

  Footsteps crunched by.

  Then came a volley that set my ears ringing again. I crawled to the edge of the road, elbows and knees pasted with mud.

  The soldiers had fallen. They lay with arms outstretched, like swimmers on the land.

  Clayton jumped from the hedge in a waft of ripped trench coat. He took the soldiers’ bandoliers and the revolvers in their belts. Then he waded through the gorse and ordered us into a firing line. With a wave of his hand, he pointed me down toward the water.

  I dodged across the road and started to crawl, following the thump of waves against the rocks. The gunfire had stopped. No commands came shrieking through the breeze. After a few minutes of pawing through the musty jungle of ferns, I raised my head and looked at the farmhouse. Its windows were all broken and the shutters hung smashed on their hinges. The truck still burned, throwing shadows on the silhouettes of men.

  One of them had to be my father. I wanted to call out his name, but a heavy silence had sunk down on the fields, drowning our voices away.

  CHAPTER 16

  Lazy waves rode up the beach. They rumbled through a bank of empty mussel shells.

  The beach was short. Rocks crowded down to the shore.

  The Tans lay somewhere between here and the farmhouse. If they broke out of the ring that had gathered around them, they could run for help. When daylight came, the ring would close in. Then the Tans would have no place to hide.