Christian dropped carefully to the sand beside the Lieutenant, keeping his head down under the sky-line. There was a slight, sour smell from the leaves of the desiccated brush that clung to the sharp soil of the ridge.
"Everything is ready, Lieutenant," Christian said.
"Good," said Hardenburg, without moving.
Christian took off his cap., Slowly, very slowly, he raised his head until his eyes were over the line of the ridge.
The British were brewing tea. They had a dozen fires going in small tins that had been half-filled with sand, and then soaked with petrol. The fires flared palely. The men were grouped around them and waited with their enamel cups. The white of the enamel picked up little glitters of sunshine and gave a curious impression of restless movement to the groups. They looked very small, three hundred metres away. Their trucks and cars in their desert paint looked like battered toys.
There was a man on duty at the machine-gun mounted on a circular bar above the cab of each truck. But apart from that, the entire scene had a kind of picnic quality, city people who had left their women at home on a Sunday to rough it for a morning. The blankets on which the men had slept still lay about the vehicles and here and there Christian could see men shaving out of cups of water. They must have a lot of water, Christian thought automatically, to waste it like that.
There were six trucks, five open and laden with boxes of rations, and one covered. Ammunition in that one, probably. The sentries had drifted in towards the fires, still holding their rifles. How safe they must feel, Christian thought, thirty miles behind their own lines, on a routine run to the posts to the south. They had dug no holes for themselves and there was no cover anywhere, except behind the trucks. It was incredible that eighty men could move about so long and so unconcernedly under the guns of an enemy who was only waiting the move of a hand to kill them. And it was grotesque that they were shaving and making tea. Well, if it was going to be done, now was the time to do it.
Christian looked at the Lieutenant. There was a slight, fixed smile on his face, and he was humming, as Himmler had said. The smile was almost a fond one, like the smile of a grown-up watching the touching, clumsy movements of an infant in a play-pen. But Hardenburg made no sign. Christian settled himself in the sand, squinting to keep the men below in focus, and waited.
The water boiled below and little gusts of steam spurted up into the wind. Christian saw the Tommies domestically measuring out the tea into the water, and sugar from sacks, and tinned milk. They would make a richer tea, he thought, if they knew they wouldn't need the rest for lunch, or dinner.
He saw a man from each of the groups around the fires carry back the cans and sacks and carefully stow them away in the trucks. One by one, the Tommies dipped into the steaming brew and came up with their cups full. Occasionally, a twist of the wind would bring the faint sounds of talk or laughter, as the men sat on the ground taking their breakfast. Christian ran his tongue over his lips, watching them, envying them. He hadn't had anything to eat for twelve hours and he hadn't had a hot drink since he left their own command post. He could almost smell the rich, heavy savour of the steam, almost taste the thick, cloudy drink.
Hardenburg didn't stir. Still the smile, still the tuneless humming. What in the name of God was he waiting for? To be discovered? To have to fight, instead of merely killing at leisure? To be caught by a plane? Christian looked around him. The other men were crouched in stiff, unnatural positions, staring with worried eyes at the Lieutenant. The man on Christian's right swallowed dryly. The sound was foolishly loud and metallic.
He's enjoying it, Christian thought, looking back once more to Hardenburg. The Army has no right to put a man like that in command of its soldiers. It's bad enough without that.
Here and there among the British around the trucks men began to fill pipes and light cigarettes. It gave an added air of contentment and security to the small tableau, and at the same time made Christian's palate ache for a cigarette. Of course, it was difficult at this distance to observe the men very closely, but they seemed like the ordinary, run-of-the-mill type of English soldier, rather scrawny and small in their overcoats, moving about in their phlegmatic, deliberate way.
Some of them finished their breakfasts and industriously scrubbed their kits with sand before moving over to the trucks and starting to roll their blankets. The men at the machineguns on the trucks swung down to get their breakfast. There were two or three minutes when the guns on all the vehicles were left unattended. Now, Christian thought, this is what he was waiting for. Quickly he glanced around to see that everything was in readiness. The men had not moved. They were still crouched painfully in the same positions they had taken before.
Christian looked at Hardenburg. If he had noticed that the British guns were not manned he did nothing to show it. Still the same small smile, still the humming.
His teeth, Christian noted, are the ugliest thing about him. Big, wide, crooked, with spaces between them, you could be sure that when he drank anything he made a lot of noise about it. And he was so pleased with himself. It stuck out all over him, as he lay there smiling behind the binoculars, knowing that every man's eyes were straining on him, waiting for the signal that would release them from the torture of delay, knowing they hated him, were afraid of him, could not understand him.
Christian blinked and looked once more, hazily now, at the British, trying to erase the image of Hardenburg's thin, ironic face from his eyes. By now new sentries had slowly swung up to their positions behind the guns. One of them was bareheaded. He had blond hair and he was smoking a cigarette. He had opened his collar, warming himself in the heightening sun. He looked very comfortable, lounging with the small of his back against the iron bar, his cigarette dangling from his lips, his hands lightly resting on the gun, which was pointing directly towards Christian.
Well, now, Christian thought heavily, he's missed that chance. Now what is he waiting for? I should have inquired about him, Christian thought, when I had the chance. From Gretchen. What's driving him? What is he after? What turned him so sour? What is the best way to deal with him? Come on, come on, Christian pleaded within him, as two British soldiers, both of them officers, started out from the convoy with shovels and toilet-paper in their hand. Come on, give the signal… But Hardenburg didn't move.
Christian felt himself swallowing dryly. He was cold, colder than when he had awakened, and he felt his shoulders shaking in little spasms and there was nothing to do about it. His tongue filled his mouth in a puffy lump, and he could taste the sand inside his lip. He looked down at his hand, lying on the breech of his machine-pistol, and he tried to move his fingers. They moved slowly and weirdly, as though they were under someone else's control. I won't be able to do it, he thought crazily. He'll give the signal and I'll try to lift the gun and I won't be able to. His eyes burned and he blinked again and again until tears came, and the eighty men below, and the trucks and the fires, all blurred into a wavering mass.
He heard a curious, lilting sound next to him. He turned slowly. It was Hardenburg chuckling.
Christian turned back, but he closed his eyes. It has to end, he thought, it has to end. The chuckling had to end, the British at their morning labours had to end, Lieutenant Hardenburg had to end, Africa, the sun, the wind, the war…
Then there was the noise behind him. He opened his eyes and a moment later he saw the explosion of the mortar shell. He knew that Hardenburg had given the signal. The shell hit right on the blond boy who had been smoking, and he disappeared.
The truck started to burn. Shell after shell exploded among the other trucks. The machine-guns were pushed over the ridge and opened up, raking the convoy. The little figures seemed to stagger stupidly in all directions. The men who had been squatting at their toilets were pulling at their trousers and running clumsily, tripping and falling. One man ran straight at the ridge, as though he didn't know where the firing was coming from. Suddenly he saw the machine-guns, when he was no more than a hundred metres away. After a moment of complete, stunned immobility, he turned, holding his trousers up with one hand, and tried to get away. Someone casually, as a kind of afterthought, shot him down.