‘I have a horse and cart. It’s been behind the station yonder ever since we heard yesterday what you were coming for.’
‘Heard how?’ Picklock said. ‘This is official business.’
‘Does that matter?’ she said, almost impatiently. ‘Count it.’
But Picklock didn’t open the reticule yet. He turned to Morache. ‘Go with her and get the cart. Bring it up to the window on the other side. Make it snappy. Landry’ll be back any minute now.’ It didn’t take long. They got the window up; almost immediately Morache brought the cart up, the big farm-horse going at a heavy and astonished gallop. Morache snatched it to a halt; already the others in the carriage had the sheeted body balanced on the window sill. Morache handed the lines to the old woman on the seat beside him and vaulted over the seat and snatched the body down into the cart and vaulted to the ground beside it; at that moment Picklock inside the carriage tossed the reticule through the window, into the cart.
‘Go on,’ Morache said to the old woman. ‘Get the hell out of here. Quick.’ Then she was gone. Morache re- entered the carriage. ‘How much was it?’ he said to Picklock.
‘I took a hundred francs,’ Picklock said.
‘A
‘Yes,’ Picklock said. ‘And tomorrow I’ll be ashamed I took even that much. But that will be a bottle apiece.’ He handed the money to the man who had spoken last. ‘Go and get it.’ Then to the others: ‘Get that lid back on. What are you waiting for, anyway: for Landry to help you?’ They replaced the coffin lid and set the nails in the old holes. The absolute minimum of prudence would have dictated or at least suggested a weight of some kind, any kind in the coffin first, but they were not concerned with prudence. The ganymede returned, clasping a frayed wicker basket to his breast; they snatched it from him before he could even get into the carriage, the owner of the corkscrew opening the bottles rapidly as they were passed to him.
‘He said to bring the basket back,’ the ganymede said.
‘Take it back then,’ Picklock said: and then no more of that either; the hands snatching at the bottles almost before the corks were out, so that when the sergeant returned about an hour later, his outrage—not rage: outrage—knew no bounds. But this time he was impotent because they were indeed in coma now, sprawled and snoring in one inextricable filth of straw and urine and vomit and spilled brandy and empty bottles, invulnerable and immune in that nepenthe when toward the end of the afternoon an engine coupled onto the carriage and took it back to St Mihiel and set it off on another siding, and waking them only because of the glare of yellow light which now filled the carriage through the windows, and the sound of hammers against the outside of it, which roused Picklock.
Clasping his throbbing head and shutting his eyes quickly against that unbearable glare, it seemed to him that there had never been so fierce a sunrise. It was almost like electricity; he didn’t see how he could move beneath it to rise, and even on his feet, staggering until he braced himself, he didn’t see how he had accomplished the feat, bracing himself against the wall while he kicked the others one by one into sentience or anyway consciousness. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Get up. We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘Where are we?’ one said.
‘Paris,’ Picklock said. ‘It’s already tomorrow.’
‘Oh Christ,’ a voice said. Because they were all awake now, waking not into remembering, since even comatose they had not really forgotten, but into simple realisation like sleepwalkers waking to find themselves standing on the outside of forty-storey window ledges. They were not drunk now. They didn’t even have time to be sick. ‘Christ yes,’ the voice said. They got up, staggering for balance, shaking and trembling, and stumbled through the door and huddled, blinking against the fierce glare until they could bear it. Except that it was electricity; it was still last night (or perhaps tomorrow night, for all they knew or for the moment cared even): two searchlights such as anti aircraft batteries had used against night-flying aeroplanes during the war, trained on the carriage and in the glare of which men on ladders were nailing long strips of black and funereal bunting along the eaves of the carriage: to whom— which—they paid no attention. Nor was it Paris either.
‘We’re still in Verdun,’ another said.
‘Then they’ve moved the station around to the other side of the tracks,’ Picklock said.
‘Anyway it’s not Paris,’ a third said. ‘I’ve got to have a drink.’
‘No,’ Picklock said. ‘You’ll take coffee and something to eat.’ He turned to the ganymede. ‘How much money have you got left?’
‘I gave it to you,’ the ganymede said.
‘Damn that,’ Picklock said, extending his hand. ‘Come on with it.’ The ganymede fumbled out a small wad of paper notes and coins. Picklock took and counted it rapidly. ‘It might do,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ There was a small bistro opposite the station. He led the way to it and inside—a small zinc bar at which a single man stood in a countryman’s corduroy coat, and two tables where other men in the rough clothes of farmers or laborers sat with glasses of coffee or wine, playing dominoes, all of them turning to look as Picklock led his party in and up to the bar, where a tremendous woman in black said,
‘Messieurs?’
‘Coffee, Madame, and bread if you have it,’ Picklock said.
‘I dont want coffee,’ the third said. ‘I want a drink.’
‘Sure,’ Picklock said in a calm and furious voice, even lowering it a little: ‘Stick around here until somebody comes and lifts that box, let alone opens it. I hear they always give you a drink before you climb the steps.’
‘Maybe we could find another—’ a fourth began.
‘Shut up,’ Picklock said. ‘Drink that coffee. I’ve got to think.’ Then a new voice spoke.
‘What’s the matter?’ it said. ‘You boys in trouble?’ It was the man who had been standing at the bar when they entered. They looked at him now—a solid stocky man, obviously a farmer, not quite as old as they had thought, with a round hard ungullible head and a ribbon in the lapel of the coat—not one of the best ones but still a good one, matching in fact one which Picklock himself wore; possibly that was why he spoke to them, he and Picklock watching one another for a moment.
