A huge overhanging rock made a lean-to, and they formed a circle, while Ahmed and Idris drew a smoke fire and poured water into a kettle. The strong aroma of brittle mint revived them. Frank climbed a rock and looked at the vermilion earth as far as the horizon, where the sun had almost set. The whole sky was bruised and dark, as if the sun were slowly descending right on to them, seeping invisibly down into the earth they camped on. It grew redder as he looked, then fell black in the space of a few minutes, so pitch that an inexperienced man might not have found his way back to the camp.
A glass of scalding tea was put into his hands. The fire was out, last smoke drifting, mixing with the sweet smell of mint from each glass. They fed on a mess of chickpeas and rancid mutton, biscuits and dates. ‘It didn’t bother me to see the tree burn,’ Shelley said, ‘but it sure surprised me to find it there in the first place. Must be water not far under it.’
He’d forgotten the tree, and it burned again, blindingly over his eyes, flashing and sparking through the all-enveloping blanket of his exhaustion. He could hear it falling to pieces, cosmically destroyed now that no roaring bomb-spilling plane interfered with his pure vision of recollection. He took the bolt out of his rifle, spread the materials of a cleaning-tin at his feet — rag, pull-through, phial of oil, a mechanical action by which he hoped to shake off the white light of the tree. He didn’t know whether it made a good or bad memory. Wholly good, or wholly bad, it had not yet played itself out, but the nagging uncertainty of its portent palled on him. His hands and feet were cold, but the sheltering rock held off the worst raging bitterness of the night, now a few dozen degrees down on the fetid dustfire of the day. They were busy, making guns to slick in all parts as good as new, knowing that the first hour of the next march would blemish them once more. Ahmed, Idris and Mohamed had said their prayers towards Mecca. Mokhtar grinned, did not believe in it, and Frank was glad, since it took the insult out of his own grin. Shelley, having performed the ablutions on his gun, passed his flashlight over the map. One day maybe I’ll tell Myra what the Israelites felt on their way out of Egypt. They, too, had to fight a war before taking over the promised land.
‘Did you ever think you’d be a soldier,’ Shelley said, mocking the loving care he was showing his rifle, though he’d lavished even more consideration on his own.
‘I’m a communist first,’ Frank said. ‘It’s not the same thing as you mean.’
‘Tell that to the Mecca boys.’
‘Mokhtar’s a communist. You remember?’ A few weeks ago, Mokhtar had assembled the score or so people at a village along the route and lectured them on the coming liberation, throwing in some choice bait on land-reform and common ownership, according to the running translation Shelley made in Frank’s ear. One old man lifted a blunderbuss, which looked as if it would blast dangerously but not quite kill. Frank sprang and the gun fell without exploding. The man was covered by them, while Mokhtar went on with his talk, grinning and full of good nature. He agreed to forgive the man who had wanted to kill him, providing he repented before them and promised to work for the benefit of the revolution. The man, who looked to Frank as if he wasn’t fit to do much work for anything, agreed, glad to get off so easily. Mokhtar wasn’t satisfied, wanted the verdict of the whole village, which, after an hour’s discussion, considered that Mokhtar was just and good, and that his judgment should stand. Mokhtar was pleased. ‘In that case the man must accompany my soldiers to the next village, in order to show his faith in us.’ They set off before dusk, and two days later, Mokhtar killed him while he was asleep.
‘Are you as good as he is?’ said Shelley.
‘I am,’ said Frank. ‘And so are you, I suppose. The lion of Judah, he breaks every chain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Mokhtar’s turn one day.’
‘One bark at a time,’ Shelley said. ‘That’s all every dog gets that has his day. Not that I’m an animal lover.’
‘If you don’t trust Mokhtar why don’t you peel off?’
Frank rolled his one cigarette of the day, hoping that the small bag of tobacco would last until more might come along. Shelley smoked a long shallow-bowled pipe. ‘My life depends on him. I wouldn’t survive for a week in this land on my own. I’d get my throat cut at the first village I stumbled into and crowed for a drop of water. It’s a thin lifeline we’ve got.’
‘You’ve got,’ said Frank. ‘You’re right not to light off.’ He kicked a stone, and it rolled down the slope, dragging several others with it, leaving silence but for their own soft speech.
‘All I remember about my childhood,’ said Shelley, ‘is snow. Long winters and snow. In the books about such days the writers tell us how warm it was, and how long the summer lasted.’
Frank pulled the blanket closer to his shoulders. ‘I can’t stand the tune of this bloody wind. It’s pulling like a knife at my tripes. I remember summers as well, though, because we had six weeks out of school. It was when I grew up that the snow fell. It was O.K. in the factory, where I was in with the right sort of blokes. But even when I was a kid I’d had ideas as to what the world should be like and how it should be run, and after so long I could stand it no longer, came up against a dead-end, a brick wall that I had to get through.’
‘And now you’re through it,’ Shelley said, ‘into the sandpit, gave up wife, kids and country because you were burning with a subconscious desire to help the world’s underdogs? Drop dead.’
Shelley’s pipe rattled against the stones. Being an expensive one, it didn’t break. Frank’s fist drew back from a real blow. By the time Mokhtar opened his eyes, Shelley had re-lit his pipe, stood up and walked into the darkness. He didn’t go far. ‘I was seeing how you’d react to the arguments I try to beat down my own spirit with. One hears often that no man is an island, and does not live by bread alone, and all that crap, but if that’s true, what the hell is there? All my life I’ve been trying to prove that I can live alone, without man and without God, and to make it easier for me I’ve dedicated myself to the cause of helping people towards the togetherness of socialism.’
Frank laughed. ‘Still, what you’re trying to do is the main thing. What makes you do it shouldn’t be much worry. There’s no world happening outside of this one. This is the world, the only one and I’m glad it is. I wouldn’t like another one moaning around, because this bugger we’re on takes all I’ve got.’
‘An individual can only exist if he’s lonely,’ Shelley said. ‘In a socialist society, with so much social activity, you can really be lonely. You can then become more completely an individual than ever.’
‘It only sounds convincing in the dark dust-storm of the night,’ Frank said. The raw cold and his own exhaustion fixed him tight so that he leaned back, using his arm for a pillow, his last sight that of Shelley’s thin light moving across a small area of the map, backwards and forwards over the route they were to take, before he split his consciousness between day and night and lost touch with the world he lived in.