They infiltrated remoter parts of the mountains looking for no one knew what, a sense of realism provided by living off what they carried, and occasionally for a day on almost nothing because no lorry turned up at the rendezvous. When there was a lorry they were glad to sleep by its huge presence, as if the vehicle was alive and would give comfort and protection. ‘God knows why we’re doing all this,’ Pemberton said, spreading his groundsheet.
‘Best not to wonder.’
A wind flipped through the branches of the pines. ‘I can’t help it. The people here want Enosis. They want to belong to Greece. They’ll be fighting us about it one day — in a few years. I’ll bet Byron would be on their side.’
‘You don’t say?’ He wanted to laugh. ‘You mean “The Isles of Greece”, and all that Missolonghi stuff? Well, Byron’s dead, and it’s different now.’ He had read in a pamphlet that the Phoenicians came to the island first, followed by Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, and then Turks who had lost it to the British. ‘Anyway, what difference would it make?’
‘It’ll mean a lot to them,’ Pemberton said, ‘the people who live here.’
Months passed in eating, sleeping, reading when you could, smoking what fags were available, doing your duty with as little effort as possible, and saying nothing. ‘Let’s get our heads down. We have to relieve the others in a couple of hours.’
When under canvas, or at the NAAFI at some base near a town, or in hutments if they were lucky, he leaned with notebook on knee and recollected his Nottingham period. The year, in memory so rich, had elasticated into a decade. A good time, now that he looked back. All good, not a day dead, more at home than he had been anywhere — at least since leaving India at seven, and that didn’t count any more. On his last visit Maud had come out with the phrase ‘wage slave’, and though he was glad she had been human enough to let the term drop against her intention, he thought it much better to be a wage slave than a soldier — though however you were occupied he supposed you were a slave to whoever paid you. Soldier or wage slave, it was certainly better than being a slave to your own confusions, during these long bouts of idleness and waiting, though you might just as well accept time on its own terms and go with the drift. In the factory there was little tolerance for such uncertainties and quite rightly, because you were sweating to fatten your pay packet which, while you were at work, was all that mattered. Existence then was as close to perfection as it was possible to get, because it was so plain and simple, and only a fool could imagine there was any state on earth that could be called perfection.
Pemberton plonked himself down and opened his book. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’
‘Push off. You’re breaking my train of thought.’
‘We’re on War Department property. I can sit where I like.’
‘Any news this morning?’
‘Nobody tells you anything, and when they do it’s an unfounded rumour. Those who start them have weird imaginations. I’ve stopped asking when we’re moving.’
He counted six birds in a row along the telephone wire. ‘Maybe they know something.’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Pemberton said. ‘All I know is we’ve been here six months, and that leaves us with another year before humping it back to Blighty.’
‘Back to the office, eh? Carry on penpushing.’
‘Suppose so. I don’t think my parents will be glad to see me. They hope I’ll stay in, in fact. I had a letter from my mother this morning and, wait for it, my parents are getting a divorce.’
‘Lucky devil!’
‘After twenty-five years, though. Would you believe it? My father’s the manager of an insurance firm, and apparently he’s been carrying on a bit too long with a popsy who works there. Mother has lost patience at last. And it’s not the first time he’s been at such tricks.’
‘I suppose in some way you might say good luck to him.’ He couldn’t tell whether Pemberton was sad about it or not, though supposed he ought to be, somehow. Such news wouldn’t have affected him one bit. His parents seemed as if crayoned on to cardboard, his last visits completely unreal, when they should have been defining moments of his life. In their last letter his mother asked whether he wouldn’t like to do something or other at Oxford when he got demobbed. What would he do at a place like that? Do nothing at all. Get into trouble, and go to the dogs. She must have thought he’d just sit there and knit.
Hugh’s view, in a later letter, was that while it might be a good experience for him to be getting some experience in the ranks, he wondered if he wouldn’t sooner than later like to have a commission and make the army his career. He’ll never stop harping on it, Herbert thought, resenting the fact that it made him angry. He pictured his mother going over his father’s letter and putting it in such lucid terms. They were a conspiracy sent on earth to give him life, and then try everything to ruin it. He could only go on respecting them if he didn’t let them do it. He saw no future in the army, and in his reply mentioned neither of these possibilities, thinking it strange how little they knew about him even though he was their son — and how easy he was able to put them out of his mind for months at a time.
Pemberton looked up from his book. ‘Maybe I’ll stay in the army, though. I’m getting to like the life.’
‘Why not? You could even get a commission.’
‘You think so?’
‘No one more suitable. You had such a horrible beginning.’ They laughed together. ‘You’re a funny old sod, Ashley. I can’t understand why you joined the army in the first place. You’d have been better off with the Brylcreem Boys.’
‘I did get called up, you know. There was no choice.’
‘Got any brothers or sisters?’
‘No. There’s only me.’
‘Hard luck. Same here. Let’s go inside for some more coffee.’
Of all the duties the one he hated most was guarding the camps of the Jews, who were being prevented from going to Palestine. Destiny was keeping him in a grip which there was no possibility of breaking out of, but he did not want to be a gaoler, or a policeman. A soldier had to feel as well as know who an enemy was, and nobody thought these people were. All they wanted to do was go where they weren’t allowed, and it made no sense to stop them — though it was no business of his. It was a duff job, being a guardian of the Empire, to which no real soldiering was attached at all.
Routine was the enemy, an unending roster of sentry-go that corroded the spirit, made you feel dirty and useless, an automaton. One day he had to deliver a wad of lists to the administration office, and the sergeant made out a pass which allowed him to go through the camp itself. He walked at his smartest, one of the elect only because he wasn’t a civilian, and this was an unexpected effort because he was escorted by a cloud of flies. They landed on him everywhere. They were all he saw, all he felt. They tormented him like the Erinyes. He wanted to murder them, hoped they would magically perish, thought a giant mobile Flit-barrel of deadly gas was about right, except that it would be too good for them. He could only pity the tens of thousands in the camps who had to endure such a plague all the hours of daylight. It was eyes front as if they didn’t exist, difficult to look at anyone if he was to keep his stance and not run helplessly off course from the continual thousand-Stuka raids.
After delivering the papers and when halfway back, he stopped by a door as if to adjust his cap, unable for a moment to go on, and not being too sure of which direction to go for the main gate. A woman called to him from inside the hut, and turning gave another excuse to brush off the flies which seemed to be eating him alive. ‘Come in here,’ he heard.