The silence became oppressive. I remembered how he had slid his hand to the side pocket of his jacket. Suppose he became scared that I'd give him away? There was no forecasting his reactions. 'Forget about it and get some sleep, why don't you?' I said.
He raised his head and looked at me slowly. 'I never killed anybody before, you know,' he murmured. Then he turned back and continued to gaze into the flames. 'All through the war I never killed a soul — never even saw a dead body. The R. A.S. C. company I was with kept pretty well in the rear. And then, because I'd been in coal ships out from Swansea, I was transferred to a Water Transport Company. It wasn't me, you know, that thought up that idea of booby-trapping the hatches. The Captain, it was — damn his eyes. How was I to know the whole bloody vessel would go up in a sheet of flame? I thought it would just scuttle her. How was I to know — tell me that, man?' His eyes were excited and his whole body moved with the widespread disavowal of guilt made by his hands. 'Why is it you sit there so silent? You think it's damned I am? What right have you to judge? Didn't you walk out on your pals — a deserter? There's nothing rottener. Isn't it true that a man who deserts is — is — " He opened his arms again, unable to find the word. 'I didn't desert, did I? I jumped to save my skin. Any one would have done the same.' He leaned forward on his elbow and peered up at me. 'I'm not a murderer, I tell you.' It was a cry of desperation. Then he muttered. 'By God, if that's what you think — " In a single lithe movement he had risen and was feeling in the pocket of his jacket.
I braced myself. My tongue felt dry. 'For God's sake, sit down,' I said. 'I'm in no position to do you any harm.'
He hesitated. Then he seemed to relax. 'That's right,' he said. 'You're not, are you?' he smiled. It wasn't a real smile. It was no more than a drawing back of the lips to show the flash of his even white teeth. He looked like some devil, his body all red with the firelight and his teeth bared. Behind him his distorted shadow sprawled menacingly over wall and roof.
I passed my tongue across my lips. It rasped like a piece of adhesive tape. 'Sit down,' I said again. 'You're all hepped up. I can't do you any harm. Besides, I need your help.'
He didn't say anything. He stood there, looking at me for the moment, his dark head thrust forward like a snake considering whether to strike. Then he shivered and went into the corner of the cave and relieved himself. Away from the fire his body was white again. He was watching me all the time. I could see his eyes like two red coals in the gloom. Then he came back to the fire and stood right over it with his legs apart so that the warmth of it seeped up his body. He was shivering so that I wondered whether he wasn't a bit feverish.
After a moment he crouched down and began staring into the flames again. 'Funny what your childhood's days do to you,' he said softly. 'We lived in the Rhondda. My father was a miner. Two pounds ten a week, that's what he got, and my mother to keep the six of us. Three sisters I had and me the eldest of the children. I was at work in the pits when I was twelve and by the time I was sixteen it's a man's job I was trying to do, and me so weak I could hardly walk home after the end of each shift. It's not much food there is when there's six mouths to feed, and the pits closing all along the valley. By the time I was eighteen I was drawing dole. So I went down to Cardiff, you know, and worked as stevedore. It wasn't long before I was handling stuff brought in by the sailors. Why should a man starve himself when there's crooks earning thousands of pounds that have the law on their side?' He gave a sudden harsh laugh. 'I've been back to the Rhondda once or twice. Shall I tell you something? There's boys that used to play in the Valley with me that are old men now. No wonder the country's in a bad way for coal. And it's nobody but themselves they've got to blame.' He wriggled closer to the fire. 'They've sucked the life blood out of a great race of people for years. Why shouldn't I do a little bloodsucking? If I murdered a thousand of them I'd be justified, wouldn't I?' He picked a flaming brand out of the fire and held it aloft. 'Them and their bloody laws — I don't care that much for them.' He flung the blazing log out through the door. The flame of it died and vanished in a sizzle of steam as the rain swept over it. 'See what I mean?' His eyes blazed at me across the fire. 'What are laws? They're not made by the men who starve. They're made to protect the moneyed class. They're my enemies, aren't they? Well, aren't they?' His voice died suddenly and he turned his gaze back into the fire. 'But I didn't know the old boat would go up like that.'
I was beginning to feel chilly. My clothes were dry now and I got up and put them on. Dave watched me for a while, then he did the same. When he was fully dressed, he went to the entrance and looked out at the weather. Then he came back to the fire. 'No use whatever going out in that. We'd best kip down here for the night.'
'What about your farm?' I said. 'You said you wanted me there by daybreak.'
He rounded on me. 'Who said I was going to a farm?' he snarled.
'You did,' I reminded him.
He crossed over to me, dragging his left foot. 'Understand this,' he said, 'I never told you I was going to a farm. I never told you anything. You never met me. You never came to see me. You don't know me. Understand?'
I nodded.
He searched my face. Finally he seemed satisfied and went back to the other side of the fire. 'We'll go on tomorrow,' he said. Then he wrapped himself up in his raincoat and curled up close to the smouldering heap of timber. His eyes closed for a second. But I noticed that he slept with his right hand in his jacket pocket. His face, with the eyes closed, looked old and drawn. There was no trace of the boy in him that I'd seen earlier.
I was dead tired, but though I lay down with my raincoat round me, I could not get to sleep. Through long hours I lay huddled close to the fire, thinking over the events of the day and listening to my companion's regular breathing. Outside the rain streamed down, the monotonous sound of it being relieved only when a gust of wind lashed at the mouth of the cave. Strange shadows flickered across the broken rock of wall and roof and occasionally a piece of timber moved in the fire sending up a shower of sparks. God, I kept on thinking, what a mess I've got myself into! How much easier would it have been if I had kept right on at Cassino, and got myself killed like the rest of the platoon. Or would I have still lived on, crippled and disfigured, a relic of human idiocy in some home for wrecks that they dare not show to the public? At least I was alive and intact.
I suppose I must have dozed off, for a little later it seemed I opened my eyes to find the fire nearly out and a wan light creeping furtively through the entrance-way. It was very cold. I got up and went out. The rain was still sheeting down out of a leaden sky. All about me was a scene of bleak confusion. The walls of the mine buildings had collapsed and mingled with the dumps of rock to form desolate mounts of sharp-edged stone. I got furze and more timber and built up the fire again. Dave's eyes were open and he lay watching me. His face was very white so that his eyes looked like two black sloes. His right hand was still in the pocket of his jacket.
As I moved about the cave I was uncomfortably aware of his watchfulness. The damp of the morning had chilled me to the marrow. It made me nervous and every time my back was turned towards him I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to glance quickly back over my shoulder. At last he got to his feet. His hand was still in his pocket and he was watching me. I tried to understand the expression in his eyes. But I couldn't. They were the eyes of a monkey — mischievous, cruel and without reason. At last I could stand it no longer.
'Why do you stare at me like that?' I asked.