‘Can you tell us where we are?’ David asked.
‘No, sorry,’ Barry answered apologetically. ‘Not now. Is there anything else you need?’
Frank said, ‘I’m supposed to have my – my medicine, to help me sleep. I need it. Ben knows about it.’
The Welshman nodded. ‘I’ll have a word with him.’ He smiled. ‘Have you heard the news?’
‘The rumours that Hitler’s dead? Yes.’
‘It’s more than rumours. German radio say Goebbels is the new Führer. Maybe things are going to happen now, eh?’
When he left the room Frank sat down wearily on the bed. ‘What d’you think of that?’ David asked.
‘I don’t know if I believe it.’ Frank scratched his chest. ‘I feel bad. I can’t stop thinking about Geoff, seeing him on the ground. And Sean and Eileen. I nodded off in the truck, but the pictures that came into my mind . . . He put his head in his hands.
David sat beside him. He looked at his watch; it was past one in the morning. He felt exhausted, and suddenly angry with Frank. Was it any worse for him than the rest of them? David knew that what had happened tonight would affect him for the rest of his life. Assuming he survived. He looked at the top of Frank’s head, then thought, he didn’t volunteer for this the way the rest of us did. He put a hand on his arm. ‘We’re safe now.’
Frank looked up. ‘Are we?’
There was a knock at the door and Barry returned. He had a tray with sandwiches on it, and also a glass of water and a bottle of pills. Frank’s eyes lit up. ‘This what you need?’ Barry asked.
David said, ‘You had this stuff here? You knew we were coming?’
‘We thought you might be. We know it’s important Dr Muncaster has the – what is it – Lar-something.’
‘Largactil.’ Frank eyed the bottle with an addict’s greed. Barry opened it and passed the glass and two pills to Frank, who swallowed them eagerly and lay back on the bed. ‘I’ll feel better in a few minutes,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll sleep.’
David thought, he may not be physically addicted, but he can’t do without them.
Barry looked at David. ‘I’d get a bit of sleep yourself now if I were you. Will you be – er – all right with him?’
‘Of course I will,’ David answered sharply.
Barry left. Frank lay on his side and after a minute his breathing became deep and regular. Wearily, David took off his boots, then the army tunic. He switched off the light, then walked over to the window and parted the curtains slightly. It was pitch dark outside, only the stars visible high in the sky, the suggestion of a treeline in the distance. There was a stone terrace directly below. Then a soldier with a rifle stepped into the slit of light and gestured at him angrily to close the curtains. David thought, there must be guards all round this place. He felt his way over to one of the camp beds and lay down. At least it was warm in here; the room had central heating. To the sound of Frank’s regular breathing, he fell asleep.
He was woken by Ben switching on the light. He looked haggard. David sat up and, putting a finger to his lips, pointed at Frank. Ben stepped quietly over to the bed and looked down at him, then came over to David. ‘He’s out for the count,’ he said quietly.
‘They gave him his pills. He wasn’t feeling too good before. We’ll have to get him off them when we get away.’
‘If we get away.’ Ben sat down wearily on the other camp bed. He looked at his watch. ‘Christ, it’s near four. They’ve been questioning me all this time, trying tae work out how those Special Branch bastards found us. There’s raids going down on Resistance suspects all over London, despite the fog. A few people have been picked up but it seems it was us they were looking for.’
‘I think that little boy put them onto the O’Sheas.’
‘Aye, likely.’ Ben lowered his voice. ‘The people who questioned me were all military. They’re pissed off by all the trouble this mission’s caused. They don’t seem too happy with us.’
‘All we’ve done is follow orders.’
‘They seem to think we’re more trouble than we’re worth.’
‘I was scared when we were taken off that truck,’ David confessed. ‘I thought they might shoot us. You did too, didn’t you?’
‘Aye. I thought they’d decided to get rid of the problem.’
‘Are we still going to the coast?’
‘They won’t say. Nor where the fuck we are.’
‘I took a quick look outside, could only see some sort of terrace. There was a guard outside, he made me shut the curtain again.’
‘There’s people with rifles all over the house, and a guard posted in the corridor outside.’
‘Are they going to move us on?’
‘Fuck knows.’ Ben looked across at Frank. ‘Poor wee bastard, he’s best off out of it all for a while.’
David said wearily, ‘I was thinking earlier, I wonder if this is any worse for him than for the rest of us?’
Ben said, ‘I think life is worse for him than for most people. In the asylum, you know, some of them were quite happy, just living there. Though others just pretended to be. But Frank hated it.’ He looked at David seriously. ‘I know you think I’m a bit hard on him sometimes, but in the loony bin you have to make it clear who’s boss. It just reflects the system, keepin’ people under as cheaply as possible. It’ll be different after the revolution.’ A misty, longing look came into Ben’s eyes. ‘I didnae like it much, reminded me too much of when I was inside.’
David looked at him curiously. He realized the chippy young Communist was becoming a friend. ‘You said you were in prison when you were young. What was it for?’ he asked.
Ben glanced at him doubtfully, then said, matter-of-factly, ‘When I was seventeen I got found in bed with my best mate. He wis sixteen.’
‘Oh.’ David was astonished. He thought queers were girlish, effeminate, like a man who had worked in the Dominions Office and been sacked when they’d cleared out possible security risks a few years ago. Involuntarily, he leaned away. Ben saw the movement and smiled sarcastically.
‘Yeah, that’s right. I’m one of those. The Glasgow magistrates threw the book at me, and ma family disowned me. They were all Presbyterian Orangemen, poor as fuck and blaming it on the Irish.’ He shook his head, smiling sadly. ‘There wis five of us kids in three rooms, the babies had to sleep in drawers at night; there wisnae anywhere else to put them. My sister accidentally shut the drawer on ma wee brother Tam one night. He near suffocated, he wis always a bit slow after. I wis the clever one, no’ that it did me much good. A year in a reformatory and six strokes of the birch.’
David couldn’t think of what to say. He remembered the scars he had seen across Ben’s back. ‘The birch,’ he said quietly. ‘My father had clients who were sentenced to it. He used to say it was barbaric.’
‘Disnae sound much when you say it, does it, the birch, but when you’re strapped to a rack with nothin’ on and they bring that bunch of knotted canes out, well, I fucking wet myself. Still,’ he added bitterly, ‘it toughened me up, as they say.’ He looked David in the eye. ‘And we have to be hard, if we’re to fight for something better.’
‘I know.’ They fell silent. Then David asked, ‘Did they say when Natalia’s coming back?’
‘They didn’t tell me nuthin’.’ Ben smiled sarcastically again. ‘So you and she got together, then? I saw you both as you came down the stairs.’
‘Yes,’ David answered quietly. ‘Yes, we did.’
Ben shrugged. ‘It’s all right by me, pal. I’m the last one to cast aspersions. Natalia’s a tough one. I admire her. She’s been on some hard missions. I wouldn’t get too many romantic notions, though,’ he added.