Part 15 (1/2)

14.

HUESCA.

IN THE COLD REAR OF A TRUCK HAULING HIM FROM THE railhead at Barbastros to the firing line, and amid a crew of largely drunken militiamen, Florry remembered the last time he had seen Julian Raines. It had been in June of 1928, nine years earlier, Honors Day at Eton, a June afternoon. The sixth-formers, liberated that morning at matriculation from the rigors of the college, had gathered with their parents on the lawn of one of the yards, near the famous Wall, for a last mingle or whatever before commencing with the lives to follow. These lives usually meant university or something promising in the City or at Sandhurst; however, not for Florry. He knew by then he'd spend the summer boning up on engineering and math at a place that tutored dim boys just furiously enough to get them by the India service exam. He knew, in other words, he'd wasted it all. railhead at Barbastros to the firing line, and amid a crew of largely drunken militiamen, Florry remembered the last time he had seen Julian Raines. It had been in June of 1928, nine years earlier, Honors Day at Eton, a June afternoon. The sixth-formers, liberated that morning at matriculation from the rigors of the college, had gathered with their parents on the lawn of one of the yards, near the famous Wall, for a last mingle or whatever before commencing with the lives to follow. These lives usually meant university or something promising in the City or at Sandhurst; however, not for Florry. He knew by then he'd spend the summer boning up on engineering and math at a place that tutored dim boys just furiously enough to get them by the India service exam. He knew, in other words, he'd wasted it all.

A bright and lovely day it had been, too, a touch warm, under a sky of English blue and a breeze as sweet as a perfect lyric-or was this his wretched memory playing its wretched trick on him, in the way a generation insisted that the summer of '14, wet and hot and muggy, had been a rare masterpiece of temperate beauty? Florry didn't know. What he remembered was the misery and shame he felt, in counterpoint to a gathering so full of hope and ambition and confidence-the earth's natural heirs pausing for just a second before a.s.suming their rightful place-and had stood off, the failed scholars.h.i.+p boy, with his mousy mother and his uncomfortable clerk of a dad while glossier types laughed merrily and quaffed great quant.i.ties of champagne on the lawn and told school stories.

”Robert, can't you introduce us to your friends?” his mother had said, but before he could answer, his dad-surprisingly sensitive, in retrospect-had replied, ”There, it isn't necessary.”

”Well, now he's all fancy Eton, you think he knew dukes and the like,” his mum said. ”He talks like one.”

”Sir, maybe the three of us could go off and get a pint,” he'd said. ”They've a nice pub in the town.”

”Robert, can't say as I have a thirst,” his dad said. ”But if you'd like. Just the three of us, to celebrate our Eton chap.”

Florry then led them on an awkward pilgrimage through the crowd with an excuse-me here and a beg-pardon there, his eyes down, his face hot and drawn. He was exceedingly worried that his hated nickname-”Stinky,” from a bad spell of bed wetting when first he'd arrived-would come up at him within his parents' earshot.

But something far worse happened.

”Good heavens, Robert, can these be your parents?”

It was the first time that Julian had spoken to him in six months, and Florry looked up in weird, pa.s.sionate misery. Julian stood before him, having appeared from G.o.d knows where, having suddenly, magically materialized-it was a gift for dramatic entrances, uniquely Julian's-blocking the way. Julian's skin was flushed pink and his fair hair hung lankly across his forehead, nonchalant in a way that many younger boys imitated, from under an Eton boater worn atilt on his head. He had on one of those absurd, smug little Eton jackets, too, with its white piping, and it looked das.h.i.+ng and perfect.

It had been most peculiar. Julian, the form's sw.a.n.kiest boy, had taken up Florry abruptly, been his closest and most trusting friend for nearly three years, then six months earlier had just as abruptly dropped him. It still hurt; in fact, it absolutely crushed Florry and he'd watched helplessly as his studies disintegrated and his chances at a university scholars.h.i.+p, once so close, had simply vanished.

Thus Julian's sudden appearance was at once wonderful and terrifying. Was this to be a sort of reconciliation, a readmission to favor? Florry's knees began to shake and his breath came sharp as a knife.

”I say, Mr. and Mrs. Florry?” Julian bent forward, past Florry, and Florry was yet unable to identify the tone and did not know what course the next moment or so would take. ”I'm Robert's friend, Julian Raines.”

He paused, as if to tighten the suspense.

”I wanted to say h.e.l.lo to you. It's an honor to meet you.”

Julian bowed, shook dad's slack hand and kissed mum on hers. Florry could see the poor woman's eyelashes flutter: a gent like Julian had never paid any attention to her.

”I must say,” said Julian, ”it's a shame Robert mussed his opportunity here. It's not often that a chap from your cla.s.s has the chance. We'd all so hoped Robert would prove out. But alas, he hasn't. Off to India, Stink?” Julian smiled in the excruciating silence of the moment. ”Well, it's probably better that way. You won't be dogged by it, old man. Well, best of luck.”

And with that little masterpiece of destruction, he was off. He had not looked at Florry after the first second, yet in less than a minute he had transformed Florry's failure from a general one to a specific one, given it special shape and meaning and inserted it forever into his parents' memories.

But Florry surprised himself by not crying. He simply swallowed and led his parents onward.

”You're lucky to have such fancy friends,” his mum said. ”Did you see how he kissed my hand? There, n.o.body's ever done such a thing.”

”A bit cheeky, you ask me,” said his father. ”Robert did graduate, did he not? First of our lot to get even half so far. Well, Robert, there's still India. You'll get your chance yet. What's that he called you?”

”It's nothing, Dad,” Florry said. ”Just a schoolboy name.”

”d.a.m.ned silly,” his father said.

Florry managed a dry heroic smile, but-and later he hated himself for this last weakness-looked past him back into the mob one last time: into Eton through the gates and the crowd of boys and their parents-and he'd seen Julian amid the form's handsomest youths, laughing, sipping champagne ... and then lost sight of him, and that was the end of it.

Thus when the truck halted and the driver came back and shouted, ”Ingles. Si, ingles. Vamonos!” ”Ingles. Si, ingles. Vamonos!” and he'd climbed down to find himself hard by a seedy, battered old country house, he discovered in himself a curious mixture of apprehension and loathing. He knew he was at La Granja, near the English section of the line around Huesca. Somewhere hereabouts he would find his friend and enemy, the man he was sent to stop. and he'd climbed down to find himself hard by a seedy, battered old country house, he discovered in himself a curious mixture of apprehension and loathing. He knew he was at La Granja, near the English section of the line around Huesca. Somewhere hereabouts he would find his friend and enemy, the man he was sent to stop.

Mobs of soldiers loafed about in the sun, most of them scruffier looking than hobos. In the yard, a dozen different languages filled the air. The largest crowd had formed up about a fire, where a cook was ladling out huge helpings of some sort of rice dish. Near the great house, a tent had been set up with a huge red cross painted on its roof, and Florry could make out wounded soldiers lying on cots. The house itself bore the marks of battle: one wing was smashed to rubble and most of the windows had been broken out. The ubiquitous POUM initials had been inscribed across its facade in garish red paint, in a spidery, gargantuan penmans.h.i.+p. Yet for all the noise and the numbers of men, the scene was strangely pastoral: it had no sense of particular urgency or design. It was as so much of the Spanish revolution, that is, primarily improvised and quite ragtag. No sentry questioned him or challenged him and there seemed to be no office for new arrivals. He simply asked the first several men he saw about the English, and after a time, someone pointed him in more or less the right direction.

He was directed beyond the house, through an orchard, and across a meadow, perhaps a mile's walk in all. At last he came to a dour little redhead sitting on an appropriated dining-room chair in the middle of a field, sucking on a pipe, and hacking at what proved to be an ancient Colt machine gun.

”I say,” Florry called, ”seen a chap about calling himself Julian Raines? Tall fellow, rather fine-boned. Blond.”

The man didn't bother to look up.

After a time, Florry said, ”Er, I was addressing you, sir.”

The man at last raised his face, fixing Florry with shrewd, dirty-gray eyes.

”Wouldn't have a spare potato-digger bolt on you, mate? This one's about to bleedin' snap.”

”I a.s.sume 'potato digger' is slang for the weapon?”

”You got it, chum. They said they'd send one up.”

”No, they didn't say anything about that.”

”Public-school man, eh?”

”Yes. My b.l.o.o.d.y accent, is it? Afraid I can't much help it.”

”Your pal's up top the hill, chum. Just go on up.”

”Oh. Thanks. Thanks awfully.”

”Think nothing of it, chum.”

Florry marched up the hill, dragging his rifle with him. At the crest, he saw before him a broad brown plain and beyond that a range of glorious white mountains and halfway between himself and the mountains there lay a doll's city of brown structures crouching behind a wall from which there issued, lazily, a few columns of smoke. Huesca itself, the enemy city.

Florry looked down the hill where a group of men huddled around a cooking fire behind a rude trench, and cupped his hand to his mouth and- The tackle sent him hurling down, rolling with bone-crunching racket, over rocks and bushes and branches. He came to a rest against a stunted tree, all tangled up in his equipment, hurting and sc.r.a.ped in a half dozen places. There seemed to be a flock of birds fluttering through the trees.

”You b.l.o.o.d.y idiot,” someone nearby was shouting at him.

Florry blinked in shock.

”What on earth-”

”Them's bullets whippin' about, you b.l.o.o.d.y fool,” screamed his a.s.sailant, no less than the redheaded runt of the other side of the hill. ”Blimey, mate, don't you know a b.l.o.o.d.y prank? Don't they have b.l.o.o.d.y humor at that awful school of yours? Christ, 'e goes and stands against the crestline!”

”Eh?”

”Come on, then.”