Peggy came out. Her hair shone in the sun as though she had combed it violently upstairs, and her face was composed and smiling.
"Forgive me," she said, touching his arm. "I'm just as surprised by it as you are."
"That's all right," Michael said. "I'm no prize today myself."
"I didn't mean a word of what I said. You believe that, don't you?"
"Of course," said Michael.
"Some other time," Peggy said, "I'll tell you about the man in Vienna. It's an interesting story. Especially for a soldier."
"Sure," said Michael politely. "I'd love to hear it."
"And now," Peggy looked up the street and waved to a taxicab that was slowly coming down from Lexington Avenue, "I think I'd better go back to work for the rest of the afternoon. Don't you?"
"There's no need…"
Peggy smiled at him. "I think it's a good idea," she said.
"Then tonight, we'll meet as though we never had lunch today at all. I'd prefer it that way. You can find plenty of things to do this afternoon, can't you?"
"Of course," Michael said.
"Have a good time, darling." She kissed him lightly. "And wear your grey suit tonight." She got into the cab without looking back and the car drove off. Michael watched it turn the corner and then he walked slowly west on the shady side of the street.
He had put off thinking about Peggy, half consciously, half unconsciously. There were so many other things to think about. The war made a miser out of a man, he saved all his emotions for it. But that was no excuse, either. He still wanted to postpone thinking about her. He knew himself too well to imagine that for two, three, four years he could remain faithful to a photograph, a letter a month, a memory… And he didn't want to make any claims on her. They were two sensible, forthright, candid people, and here was a problem that millions of people all around them were facing one way or another, and they couldn't handle it any better than the youngest, the most naive, the most illiterate backwoodsman come down from his hills to pick up a rifle, leaving his Cora Sue behind him… He knew that they wouldn't talk about it any more, either that night or any night before the end of the war, but he knew that in the nights of memory and recapitulation ahead of him, on continents he had never travelled before, he would suffer as he thought of this early summer afternoon and a voice would cry within him, "Why didn't you do it? Why not? Why not?"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE General had come down to inspect the line, exuding confidence, so they all knew something was up. Even the Italian General in the party of ten bulky, binoculared, goggled, scarved, glittering officers had exuded confidence, so they knew it was something big. The General had been particularly hearty, laughing uproariously when he talked to the soldiers, patting them heavily on the shoulder, even pinching the cheek of an eighteen-year-old boy who had just come up as a replacement in Himmler's squad. This was a certain sign that a great many men were going to be killed, one way or another, very soon.
There were other signs, too. Himmler, who had been at Divisional Headquarters two days ago, had heard on the radio that the British had been burning papers again at their headquarters in Cairo. The British seemed to have an unlimited number of papers to burn. They had burned them in July, and then again in August, and here it was October, and they were still burning them.
Himmler had also heard the man on the radio say that the overall strategy was for them to break through to Alexandria and Jerusalem and finally to join up with the Japanese in India. It was true that this seemed a little grandiose and ambitious to men who had been sitting in the same place in the bitter sun for months, but there was a reassuring sound to the plan. At least it gave evidence that the General had a plan.
The night was very quiet. Occasionally there was a random small rattle of fire, or a flare, but that was all. There was a moon and the pale sky, crusted with the mild glitter of the stars, blended gently with the shadowy expanse of the desert.
Christian stood alone, loosely holding the machine-pistol in the crook of his arm, looking out towards the anonymous shadows behind which lay the enemy. There was no sound from them in the sleeping night, and no sound from the thousands of men all about him.
Night had its advantages. You could move about quite freely, without worrying that some Englishman had you in his glasses and was debating with himself whether or not you were worth a shell or two. Also, the smell died down. The smell was the salient fact about war in the desert. There was not enough water for anything but drinking, and not enough for that, so nobody washed. You sweated all day, in the same clothes, week in and week out, and your clothes rotted with it, and became stiff on your back, and you had a steady rash of prickly heat that itched and burned, but your nose suffered worst of all. The human race was only bearable when the obscene juices of living were being constantly washed away. You became dulled to your own smell, of course, otherwise you would kill yourself, but when you joined any group, the smell hit you, in a solid, jolting attack.
So the night was solace. There had been little enough solace since he had arrived in Africa. They had been winning, it was true, and he had marched from Bardia to this spot, some seventy miles from Alexandria. But somehow, while agreeable, victory did not have a personal quality to a soldier in the line. No doubt victory meant a great deal to the well-uniformed officers at the various headquarters and they probably celebrated over large dinners with wines and beer when towns were taken, but victories for you still meant that there was a good chance that you would die in the morning, and that you would still live in a shallow, gritty hole.
The only good time had been the two weeks in Cyrene, when he had been sent back with malaria. It had been cooler there, and green, and there was swimming in the Mediterranean.
When Himmler had reported that he had heard the expert on the radio announce that the plan of the German General Staff was to go through Alexandria and Cairo to join up in India with the Japanese, Knuhlen, who had come out with a recent draft of replacements, and who had taken over some of Himmler's old position of comedian to the company, had said, "Anybody who wants can go and join up with the Japs. Myself, if nobody minds, I'll stop in Alexandria."
Christian grinned in the darkness as he remembered Knuhlen's rough witticism. There are probably few jokes, he thought, being told tonight on the other side of the minefield.
Then there was the flash for a hundred miles, and a second later, the sound. He fell to the sand, just as the shells exploded all around him.
He opened his eyes. It was dark, but he knew he was moving and he knew that he was not alone, because there was the smell. The smell was like clotted wounds and the winter clothes of the children of the poor. He remembered the sound of the shells over his head, and he closed his eyes again.
It was a truck. There was no doubt about that. And somewhere the war was still on, because there was the sound of artillery, going and coming, not very far off. And something bad had happened, because a voice in the darkness near him was weeping and saying between sobs, "My name is Richard Knuhlen, my name is Richard Knuhlen," over and over again, as though the man were trying to prove to himself that he was a normal fellow who knew exactly who he was and what he was doing.
Christian stared up in the opaque darkness at the heavy-smelling canvas that swayed and jolted above him. The bones of his arms and legs felt as though they had been broken. His ears felt smashed against his head, and for a while he lay on the board floor in the complete blackness contemplating the fact that he was going to die.
"My name is Richard Knuhlen," the voice said, "and I live at Number Three, Carl Ludwigstrasse. My name is Richard Knuhlen and I live at…"