‘Then we run into one another that day in Clermont and decided to throw in together and then it was all right, there was a war on then and all you had to do was get yourself inside a government blue suit and you were free of cops and civilians and the whole human race; all you needed was just to know who to salute and do it quick enough. So we took a bottle of brandy to a sergeant I knew——’
‘The human race?’ the corporal said.
‘Sure,’ the other said. ‘You might not think it to look at him, but he can move in the dark as quiet as a ghost and even see in it like a cat; turn this light off for a second and he will have that lighter out of your pocket and you wont even know it——So he was in too now——’
‘He learned that fast?’ the corporal said.
‘Of course we had to be a little careful about his hands. He never meant nothing, see: he just didn’t know himself how strong they were, like that night last month.’
‘So you got along fine then,’ the corporal said.
‘It was duck soup.—So he was in too now and now he could even ride sometimes, with the government paying for it, getting closer and closer to Paris now; not much over a year and we were all the way up to Verdun, that any boche will tell you is right next door to Paris——’
‘And still doing all right,’ the corporal said.
‘Why not? If you cant trust your money to a bank in peacetime, where else can you put it in a war except up the chimney or under the mattress or inside the clock? Or anywhere else you thought it was hidden for that matter because it didn’t matter to us; Horse here has a nose for a ten-franc note like a pig for a truffle. Until that night last month and that was the old dame’s fault; all she needed to do was tell us where it was and then lay quiet and keep her mouth shut but that didn’t suit her, she had to lay there in the bed hollering her head off until Horse here had to shut her up—you know: no harm intended: just to squeeze her throat a little until we could have a little peace and quiet to hunt for it in. Only we forgot about the hands, and when I got back——’
‘Got back?’ the corporal said.
‘I was downstairs hunting for the money.—got back, it was too late. So they caught us. And you’d have thought that would have satisfied them, especially as they even got the money back——’
‘You found the money?’ the corporal said.
‘Sure. While he was keeping her quiet.—But no, that wasn’t enough——’
‘You found the money and had got away with it, and then turned around and came back?’
‘What?’ the other said.
‘Why did you change your mind?’ the corporal said. After a second the other said:
‘Fag me again.’ The corporal gave him another cigarette. ‘Thanks,’ he said. The corporal extended the lighter. ‘Thanks,’ the other said. He snapped it and lit the cigarette and snuffed the lighter; again his two hands began the rapid and involuted gesture then stopped and in the same motion one of the hands tossed the lighter back to the corporal, the arms crossed again, palms to opposite elbows, the cigarette bobbing while he talked. ‘Where was I? oh yes.—But that didn’t suit them; just to take us out in a decent and peaceful way and shoot us wasn’t enough; they had to take Horse here off in a cellar somewhere and scare the daylights out of him. Justice, see? Protecting our rights. Just catching us wasn’t enough; we got to insist we did it. Just me saying so wasn’t enough; Horse too has got to holler it to high heaven—whatever that means. But it’s all right now. They cant stop us now.’ He turned and clapped the second man a hard quick blow on the back: ‘Paris tomorrow morning, kid. Fasten on to that.’
The door opened. It was the same sergeant again. He did not enter, saying to the corporal: ‘Once more’ and then stood and held the door until the corporal had passed him. Then he closed and locked it. This time it was the office of the prison commandant himself and what he—the corporal—assumed to be just another N.C.O. until he saw, arranged on the cleared desk, the utensils for the Last Sacrament—urn ewer stole candles and crucifix—and only then remarked the small embroidered cross on the coat of the man standing beside them, the other sergeant closing that door too between them so that he and the priest were alone, the priest lifting his hand to inscribe into the invisible air the invisible Passion while the corporal paused for a moment just inside the door, not surprised yet either: just once more alert, looking at him: at which moment a third person in the room would have remarked that they were almost of an age.
‘Come in, my son,’ the priest said.
‘Good evening, Sergeant,’ the corporal said.
‘Cant you say Father?’ the priest said.
‘Of course,’ the corporal said.
‘Then say it,’ the priest said.
‘Of course, Father,’ the corporal said. He came on into the room, looking quietly and rapidly again at the sacred implements on the desk while the priest watched him.
‘Not that,’ the priest said. ‘Not yet. I came to offer you life.’
‘So he sent you,’ the corporal said.
‘He?’ the priest said. ‘What he can you mean, except the Giver of all life? Why should He send me here to offer you what He has already entrusted you with? Because the man you imply, for all his rank and power, can only take it from you. Your life was never his to give you because for all his stars and braid he too before God is just one more pinch of rotten and ephemeral dust. It was neither of them which sent me here: not the One who has already given you life, nor the other who never had yours nor any other life within his gift. It was duty which sent me here. Not this—’ for an instant his hand touched the small embroidered cross on his collar ‘—not my cloth, but my belief in Him; not even as His mouthpiece but as a man——’
‘A French man?’ the corporal said.
‘All right,’ the priest said. ‘Yes, a Frenchman if you like.—commanded me here to command—not ask, offer: command—you to keep the life which you never had and never will have the refusal of, to save another one.’
‘To save another one?’ the corporal said.
