Figures in a Landscape Read online

  Among the huts a dog whined.

  MacConnachie rose and signalled that he was going up the right-hand side of the street. Ansell acknowledged; then held himself tightly against the moment that always occurs at the outset of such an operation when the striker, on first emerging from his hide, seems to scream for attention as though floodlit, and his cover man has to choke back a cry of warning. The moment passed, and Ansell ran quickly and lightly to the corner round which MacConnachie had disappeared.

  The street was deserted. MacConnachie was working his way up to the right in well-judged breaks from cover to cover. He looked purposeful and calm. Ansell waited until a gap of twenty feet had opened up and then he too moved out into the street, slipping from shadow to shadow in MacConnachie’s wake, maintaining distance and stalking him. Thus for fifty yards they progressed undisturbed. Then a man came out of the café and weaved his way towards them. He didn’t appear too badly drunk since, apart from the occasional explosive belch, he remained blessedly silent, bent, it seemed, solely on getting his legs to bed. Ansell reversed the gun to use as a club; MacConnachie he knew would be holding the knife low and close, the blade ready. But the man, utterly oblivious of their presence, passed stiffly within a few feet of them, entered one of the huts, exchanged curses with the voice of a woman and fell silent. MacConnachie looked back and shrugged cheerfully. Then, for fifteen minutes, they stood without moving until the sense of stillness came over them again.

  Once more, MacConnachie led the way forward. They had just reached a point from which both could look out across the square, MacConnachie now no more than a yard from the tree, when the second man came out of the café.

  This one was falling-down drunk. He lurched and plunged about the garishly lit street as though in pursuit of his own mon­strous shadow. Yet he too remained silent, mainly, Ansell sus­pected, because to open his mouth would be to invite disaster; he carried himself with the air of a man constantly on the point of vomiting. An amused shout came after him and then the light diminished. Clearly the proprietor, having rid himself of his last customer, had taken the lamp inside.

  Baffled by this sudden dimness the man reached out for sup­port, fell sideways, and clung to the tree not two feet from where MacConnachie stood. It seemed impossible to Ansell that he should fail to see the other figure. Nor did he, for, with a little cry of pleasure, the man released the tree and staggered forward to embrace MacConnachie. Ansell waited for him to stiffen in surprise as the knife went in. Instead, arms about one another, they muttered for some moments and then, throwing back their heads, roared with laughter. Ansell was electrified with astonish­ment and fright; but MacConnachie, apparently unaware of any danger, continued the conversation at the top of his voice until, with a vigorous display of back-slapping, he sent the man on his way across the square.

  This unlooked-for friendliness in the night appeared to have restored the man’s confidence, for he progressed now with un­warranted bravado, turning every few yards to wave back and shout at MacConnachie, who returned the salutation. At length, two thirds of the way across the square, he turned for one last exchange of good wishes and fell down the well.

  This was no more than a sunken bath four feet square, its water level only inches below that of the street. But it became rapidly apparent that the drunk was unable to extricate himself and would surely drown. Between gaspings and thrashings about he was making a great deal of noise. MacConnachie swore. ‘Wait here!’

  Hardly believing his eyes, Ansell watched as MacConnachie fled across the square, dragged the man out, thumped him and carried him quickly from view behind the corner of a hut. The next moment MacConnachie was running back alone, signalling to Ansell to join him at the tree.

  ‘I don’t want to waste any more time. He’s out for the night. See if we can find something to carry water in.’

  They turned to the nearest huts and were lucky at once. From a nail in one of the wooden uprights hung a large, flat, circular canteen on a canvas strap. It was eighteen inches across, nearly as tall, and four inches deep. It seemed inconceivable that anyone should leave so valuable a possession unguarded, for it must hold close to twenty pints of water. When Ansell pointed it out to him, MacConnachie muttered, ‘I don’t believe it.’

  But it was there all right; and so, close at hand, was an old woman sitting on a stoop, who must have watched everything that had so far transpired without uttering a sound. At her feet lay the body of a dead man, a son perhaps, or a grandson. She seemed to be aware of them and yet divorced from their actions, as though she looked both at and through them. For some moments they returned her gaze in a state of shocked suspension. Ansell felt a prickle of weird unreality. Then MacConnachie walked across, took down the canteen and shook it; Ansell could tell that it contained water and was sound. MacConnachie came back and stared down at the old lady. Apparently satisfied that whatever ritual of mourning she was performing she constituted no danger to them, he handed the canteen to Ansell and said,

  ‘Refill it, fresh water entirely. Then drink what you want, quickly!’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Leave the gun, here’s the knife.’

  Ansell ran quickly to the well, crouched, laid down the knife and, removing the stopper from the canteen, poured its contents into the dust. As soon as it was empty he plunged it below the surface and waited impatiently for it to refill; then he withdrew it, stoppered it tightly, looked about him, and plunged his face into the well to drink his fill. He found to his surprise that he didn’t enjoy it. As soon as he started to drink he was attacked by an outbreak of wind; and his thirst, strangely, had left him. But, spacing his gulps, he did his best to replace the liquid lost during the day; then, knife in one hand and canteen, unexpectedly heavy now, in the other, he ran back to MacConnachie.

  While MacConnachie drank, Ansell kept watch, the absolute stillness of the old lady making him, for no reason, acutely uneasy. He had the feeling that they no longer controlled events. MacConnachie returned, took the gun, and said,

  ‘We might as well try this hut first.’

  But now the old lady rose in muted protest, barring the way; this, it appeared, she would not allow. MacConnachie mur­mured, ‘Sorry, love,’ and struck her down with a short, right-arm chop. Catching at the front of her clothing, he sat her gently against the door jamb and passed inside. Hesitating, Ansell followed.

  There was one room with a yard at the back. It may have been that gifts had been brought in recognition of the visitation of death. Whatever the explanation, there were little piles of food neatly laid out all over the table and bed: fish, fruit, vegetables and some flowers. Not much of this was useful to them but, stuffing fruit into their pockets and munching as they worked, they searched the room. In a cupboard Ansell came on an un­expected hoard of tins, four of meat and two of soup. There were also two jars of paste, a small quantity of sugar and a larger amount of salt. Since the sugar tin lacked a lid, MacConnachie told him to add the sugar to the salt, which he did. MacConnachie then displayed his own discovery, laughing.

  ‘Look what I found under the bed.’

  It was a small, shabby suitcase tied up with a piece of rope.

  ‘Surely we can do better than that?’

  But MacConnachie said, ‘It’ll do for the time being,’ and proceeded to pack their plunder into it, adding a sharp kitchen knife and the rough blanket from the bed which, stuffed in tight, held the rest of it together. Finally he roped up the case, took a native coat from a peg on the wall and tossed it to Ansell, saying, ‘Put it on. He won’t need it where he’s gone.’

  When he was ready, Ansell said,

  ‘Where now? The café?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  They had intended to approach the café with stealth, do a recce, leave the suitcase and canteen and go in with knife and gun. But whatever good fortune had guided them to the canteen now deserted them. For they were still twenty feet from the back entrance when a dog started to bark with a loud, vi
cious and dangerous persistence. At once the lamp, which had pre­viously glowed in the front of the building, moved hurriedly through to the rear. MacConnachie swore, and whispered urgently,

  ‘We’ll have to back off!’

  ‘But we need the stuff in there.’

  ‘We can’t fight the dog!’

  ‘We can kill it!’

  ‘Not with the gun, and any other way we might get bitten!’

  ‘Well, for Christ’s . . .’

  ‘Shut up!’

  The proprietor had appeared on the back porch, holding out the lamp from side to side and shouting at the dog to be quiet. Eventually he subdued it with a sharp kick on the muzzle, and then called out into the darkness while the dog whined and growled and pulled at its chain. After a moment or two, he grunted with annoyance, swore at the dog, slammed back into the café and bolted the door. The dog continued to snarl, its hair standing up as it glared in their direction. Ansell whispered crossly,

  ‘What does it matter if we get a bit of a bite?’

  ‘You can never trust an animal to be clean. We go back.’

  Bad-temperedly, Ansell followed MacConnachie. Once they were in the room again he burst out furiously,

  ‘So what the hell do we do now?’

  MacConnachie was just as angry.

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of rabies?’

  ‘He wouldn’t keep a rabid dog.’

  ‘How the hell would you know?’

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  ‘Look—we take no unnecessary chances. Not as long as we’re in this place and we’ve still got a chance to get something out of it. We’ve a long way to go! Right?’

  Sulkily, Ansell said,

  ‘All right.’

  ‘So trust me.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  MacConnachie looked at him. After a moment, he said,

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

  But Ansell was calmer now and his brain had started to function. He said,

  ‘The first drunk . . .’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’ll take a bit of waking.’

  ‘Can you remember which house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  No word of thanks; no acknowledgement. Ansell said,

  ‘Shall I bring the suitcase?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Outside, Ansell stooped to check on the old lady, who was deeply unconscious. MacConnachie hissed at him,

  ‘I don’t make mistakes. Come on!’

  At the edge of the square they checked all round their field of view: silence, stillness. MacConnachie said,

  ‘Which one?’

  Ansell counted down the houses on the other side of the street.

  ‘The seventh.’

  ‘Right. I’ll go in with the knife. You take everything else, cover me from across the street. When I signal, join me.’

  Ansell waited until a gap of fifteen feet had opened up and then he followed MacConnachie down what was, to them, now the left-hand side of the street. With the canteen round his neck, the gun in one hand and the suitcase in the other, and with the skirts of his long coat brushing about his ankles, he felt ridiculous trying to be stealthy. All was quiet.

  Opposite the house, MacConnachie paused. Ansell unslung the canteen, put down the suitcase and crouched in a firing position. He watched as MacConnachie flitted across the street in the pale light, but then lost him in the shadows at the side of the hut. For ten minutes nothing happened and the village was absolutely still.

  Then a darker shadow appeared in the front of the building as the door opened. Ansell gathered up their possessions and ran to join MacConnachie. As soon as he was inside, MacConnachie shut the door and whispered, ‘Quiet!’

  In the first hut there had been some light reflected from the café. Here it was pitch dark. Ansell waited for night vision to come. Suddenly he screwed up his eyes as light flared directly beneath them: MacConnachie had struck a match and was lighting a candle-end at a table. Ansell went forward to remon­strate, but MacConnachie gestured him to silence. When he had screened the candle with a vase from the far end of the room, MacConnachie came close and put his lips to Ansell’s ear.

  ‘We’ve got to take a chance. It’s after one. Search as quick and quiet as you can. They’re asleep at the other end.’

  Ansell’s eyes were growing accustomed to the flickering light and he saw now that, in one case at least, ‘asleep’ was something of a euphemism. The woman lay sprawled half out of bed, a patch of blood showing at her left ear. She breathed heavily. Her husband, for different reasons, was equally stertorous beside her. MacConnachie said,

  ‘See if you can find more matches, and some oil for the gun.’

  They set to work. Their swift, silent search uncovered one tin of condensed milk; an old safety razor which Ansell would have rejected, but which MacConnachie added firmly to the contents of their case, now open on the table; a tin of some sort of grease which MacConnachie sniffed, tasted, and elected also to keep; a narrow bottle of vegetable oil, almost empty, with a little of which MacConnachie immediately oiled the accessible working parts of the gun; one box of eleven matches, and one of seven; another candle; a little more sugar, which went into their tin; and some money, which MacConnachie added to that already in his belt.

  It wasn’t good. Most disturbing of all, they still lacked any alternative to the suitcase. MacConnachie was clearly concerned about this. He repacked their belongings, snuffed the candle and put it into his jacket pocket. Then he came to Ansell and said very quietly,

  ‘We’ll have to try another hut.’

  This, Ansell knew, went against all MacConnachie’s instincts, for, to do so, they would have to steal time from the other end of the night, when they would most need it. He waited quietly for MacConnachie to lead the way.

  MacConnachie went to the door and opened it. As if on cue, there came a piercing shout from the direction of the square. After a moment of silence it came again, startlingly clamorous, and then once more. Ansell closed up to look over MacCon­nachie’s shoulder. He saw the door of the café open, and then the proprietor come running out, pressure lamp held high. At the edge of the square he encountered the shouting man, who proved to be the second drunk, the one MacConnachie had rescued from the well. Despite MacConnachie’s assurance, the man was clearly conscious and vocal.

  ‘Oh Christ, I should have let the little bastard drown.’

  ‘Do we go and sort them out?’

  ‘No, you never know who’ll turn out to be a hero.’

  By this time the drunk and the proprietor were berating one another at the tops of their voices, and lights had appeared at two other windows. Now the woman in bed behind MacConnachie and Ansell started to moan at the first return of awareness, and MacConnachie said,

  ‘We’ll have to bug out.’

  ‘I’ll cover you.’

  ‘No, together. They’re not interested in us.’

  It was true; for, as MacConnachie and Ansell fled lightly down the street, the quarrelling men did not look once in their direc­tion; and they were already beyond the scrub and on to the track before they heard the woman scream.

  It had not been a successful raid. They had saved one life, bent two heads, and stolen sufficient water. But they lacked everything else that they needed to survive. No drugs, no soap, no medicines; too little food and money; no waterproofs, no tools and no haversack. And they had, if MacConnachie’s guess was correct, four hundred miles to go.

  It took an hour to reach the gully again, and here they rested for five minutes. MacConnachie stripped down the gun and oiled it properly, while Ansell sat recovering his breath. At length, Ansell said,

  ‘We didn’t do very well.’

  ‘It’s a start.’

  Ansell kicked the suitcase.

  ‘The trouble is, we’ll have to carry this damned thing. We can’t sling it.’

  ‘I know.’

 
Then Ansell chuckled.

  ‘You realize we haven’t got a tin opener.’

  ‘We’ve got a couple of knives.’

  ‘Not to mention a cut-throat razor.’

  ‘We’ll use that tomorrow.’

  ‘We’re going to shave?’

  ‘Not our faces. Armpits and crutches.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘You won’t laugh if you get the rot.’

  ‘I shan’t laugh if the razor slips, either.’

  ‘I’ll do it for you, if you like.’

  ‘No thanks. You look after your inheritance, I’ll look after mine.’

  Now MacConnachie laughed. Then he reassembled the gun, tested its action, and stood up.

  ‘I’ll take the lead with the suitcase and gun. You bring the canteen.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We go as far as we can. An hour before dawn, we rest.’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘It won’t hit us properly till the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘I like to have something to look forward to.’

  They marched steadily throughout the remainder of the night, sometimes climbing, sometimes descending, the one by no means easier than the other. From time to time they swopped suitcase for canteen, but these periods grew longer for MacConnachie, mostly in charge of the suitcase, and shorter for Ansell, who seemed most often to carry the canteen. If they had anything in their favour, it lay in the fact that they were still making their initial outlay of strength. From the morning, when they would be forced to make a second start, there would follow a period of adjustment to their new condition which would be physically painful and psychologically difficult. On top of this, they would have to combat the effects of an imprisonment which had in­volved, besides the customary severe confinement, a deliberate policy of physical debilitation, the aim of which had been to render them, through the deprivation of food, sleep, sanitation and elementary comfort, fit subjects for re-education. MacCon­nachie had been right to suppose that they must escape quickly, or not at all.