– ?’
‘What – ?’ (The memory of the hair-raising flight was equally best-forgotten!.) ‘No. It was . . .’ (Best forgotten!)
‘Oh aye! From Greece, it was – ?’ (Pause.) ‘Are they starving dummy4
there?’ (Pause.) ‘If it goes on raining, and the harvest fails . . . then the Americans will be feeding us by the autumn – aye, and feeding the Geairrmans too, if they’re lucky – the Nazis and all the rest, as well as Number 21 in the picture tonight – ’
‘Alec!’ (Colbourne didn’t say ‘Shut up!’ to Major McCorquodale, but he came close to doing so.)
‘I was in England not so long ago, actually.’ (A new voice came from down the table, almost as lazy as de Souza’s, from one of the faceless officers outside Fred’s direct range of vision.) ‘In London ... it was quite dreadfully . . . threadbare, you know. So I thought about Paris. But, apparently, it’s just as bad there – the fellow at the Embassy I spoke to said that you had to bow and scrape to head waiters to get any sort of decent meal . . . and as I wasn’t going to do that I ended up going down to our place in the country, where my wife is ... where I thought I might at least get a square meal – away from the rationing with no bowing and scraping – ?’
‘Oh aye?’ (The Crocodile leant forward to fix an insulting eye on the interrupter.) ‘And, of course, your family does own half of Wiltshire, doesn’t it, Johnnie. Or is it Berkshire? So they wouldn’t be starving, then.’
‘Starving – ?’
They say – ‘ (Amos overbore the beginnings of Johnnie’s outrage diplomatically, like the good adjutant he was.) ’ – they do say that the hunting in the shires will be exceptionally good this autumn. Is that true, Johnnie?‘
dummy4
‘Is that a fact?’ (The Crocodile got in first.) ‘And how do they eat the foxes down in Wiltshire? Da they roast them over a slow fire?
I’d have thought fox-meat would be a wee bit tough, and stringy . . . Maybe you should ask Otto how he cooks foxes, man?
That is, unless Oscar Wilde knew what he was talking about – “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”, didn’t he say?’
(Christ! The Colonel must do something now! Because that was as naked an insult as might be imagined in this company – not even Amos de Souza’s diplomacy could gloss over the Crocodile’s deliberate scorn!) ‘
‘Eh – ?’ (Down among the candles and the silver and the glasses
‘Johnnie’ wasn’t quite sure he’d heard what the Crocodile had said.) ‘Who – ?’
‘My ancestors ate rats,’ said de Souza. ‘The rats ate the ship’s biscuits – and then they ate the rats. But that was in Nelson’s time, in the navy. But they used to say that a biscuit-fed rat was as good as a rabbit. So maybe rabbit-fed fox isn’t so bad, perhaps?’
That’s a most interesting proposition, you know.‘ (The mention of food enlivened Philip Macallister’s otherwise dry, academic delivery.) ’Dog, which I ate in Shanghai . . . dog is perfectly edible
– even potentially delicious. And rat certainly has a long and honourable history of consumption in the extremities of siege-warfare.‘ (Now the voice was gourmet-academic.) ’Human flesh is preferable to both, I’m told. But I’ve never been reduced to that extremity.‘ (Horribly, the voice was characterized by faint regret, rather than distaste.) ’I believe that sailors ate it often enough in the old days. But as it was usually uncooked; they left no recipes dummy4
for it.‘
‘Oh aye?’ (The favourite Crocodilian-Scottish interruption.) ‘Well, there’ll be Gearrimans able to satisfy your curiosity there, Philip, before this time next year, I shouldna wonder. So dinna give up hope, man.’
(Pause – pause elongating into embarrassed and horrified silence as those who had not finished their wild boar suddenly contemplated it with wilder doubt for an instant, and then with distaste.)
‘I see.’ (Amos coughed politely.) ‘What you’re saying, Alec ... is that the Germans will be starving soon – is that all?’
(Fred swallowed his last mouthful of boar with an effort, feeling it go down insufficiently chewed, to join the deer ham which was churning up in his guts.)
‘What I have been saying, Amos – ’ (The Crocodile pushed his empty plate away and reached for a toothpick with which to dislodge a morsel of meat from between his teeth.)‘ – is that the wee foolish men who are supposed to be making policy for us do not know what they are doing. They are starving the Geairrmans by accident, not by design. While the Russians, they have no such problems because they have no romantic notions about their roles as conquerors. So, with them, the Geairrmans know exactly where they are . . . Whereas, with us – why man, they know us for the fools we are! So the clever ones among them . . . they are neither scairt of us, nor do they trust us.’ (The Crocodile reached for his glass, and held it up to the candles’ light for an instant, and then drained it in one swallow, knowing that he had the whole table dummy4
hanging on his next pronouncement.) ‘Waiter!’ (He waited while the one-eyed Otto refilled his glass and then raised it mockingly to the Colonel.) ‘Which may well be why this unit is having such little success, I’m thinking – eh, Colonel sirrr? Or may we hope for better luck tonight – ?’
Click-click-click!
For Christ’s sake! thought Fred, in a panic: he should have been clicking and he’d clean forgotten!
Click-click-click!
‘Fred?’
Utter darkness, all around him: dripping, utter darkness.
And . . . ‘ This is how it must have been,’ Audley had said. But what had he meant?
‘David?’
A sodden, muted-crunching sound. ‘Thank God for that! I thought I’d never find you – I’ve been straining my ears, but I couldn’t bloody-well hear a sound . . . You have been clicking, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’ He still couldn’t really see Audley. But somehow the voice created the person.
‘It’s the rain.’ Amos de Souza’s voice came out of an adjacent area of darkness. ‘Don’t let it confuse your senses.’
‘It doesn’t seem to confuse you, I must say,’ Audley half-grumbled. ‘But I suppose we should be comforted by that. Or is it dummy4
just adjutant’s quiet, misplaced confidence?’
‘Probably. Hullo there, Freddie. Sorry you’ve been left alone like this. Hope you’re not too wet.’
‘I’m fine. David gave me his umbrella.’ He could just make out the loom of them now. And de Souza’s quiet confidence was somehow comforting. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Yes, there is, actually. David explained what’s happening, did he?’
‘Ah ... no, I didn’t actually – ’
‘Why the devil not?’ De Souza’s tone sharpened.
‘Hold on, Amos! I didn’t get the chance before dinner –or after.