Tapestry of Spies

“are you a poet, too?”

“No, comrade. A fighter.”

“A believer in the revolution?”

“Yes.”

“A public-school revolutionary!” Steinbach laughed. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

Steinbach went back to his notebooks and Florry simply stood there for some time before it occurred to him they had been dismissed. At last he turned. But as he turned, he was astonished to notice what the fellow had been laboring so passionately over in his notebooks.

“Did you see that?” asked Julian. “He was drawing pictures of bridges. Damned curious. Perhaps he was an architect or some such.”

“Coolish fellow. Not exactly inspirational.”

“Something of a legend, however. The intelligence nabob. You’ll see. Seventh! Now sixth I would have accep?”

At that point a flatbed truck pulled into the yard, and the soldiers were drawn to it as if it were to distribute candy or mail.

But instead, after just a bit, a delegation emerged from the stable. At the center, Florry could see a puffy- faced young lieutenant in Fascist gray. His hands were tied behind him. He was led roughly along.

“Julian, I think I’m going to head back. I’m not sure I can watch?”

“Oh, you must, chum. Really, it’ll be a smashing experience. It’ll give you something fabulous to write about. I may even incorporate it into my new poem.”

“I’ve already done an execution piece. I’ve already seen an execution.”

“Why, you are an expert, then.”

Yet Florry thought he’d be physically ill. The fat officer was tugged to the truck, and a dozen or so rough pairs of hands pushed him up where he stood, his knees quaking. He was weeping.

“Fascist pig!”

“You bloody bastard!”

“Blow ’is fookin’ brains out!”

The cries rose.

“I wonder who the lucky chap is gets to pull the trigger,” Julian said.

“Really, this is?”

At that point, somebody climbed aboard the truck. It was the stout, one-eyed Steinbach who’d been drawing bridges in the orchard.

“Death to Fascists,” he shouted.

“?Viva Cristo Rey!” shouted the tied man, as Steinbach pushed him to his knees. Steinbach had the revolver out and with a cinematic flourish showed it to the crowd, drawing their cheers. He cocked it and Florry, stupefied and mesmerized, watched the physics of the thing: how the fluted cylinder ticked in the light as the hammer’s retraction drew it around so that a charge was placed beneath its fall.

Steinbach pushed the pistol against the quaking officer’s spine and fired. The sound of the shot was muffled in the intimacy between muzzle and flesh. The man pitched forward on the truck bed, face a sudden blank. Steinbach stood over him and fired three more times into the man’s body. Florry could see black splotches where the spurt of flash scorched the uniform. The cheers were enormous.

Steinbach leaped off the truck with surprising agility. “Take the dog away,” he shouted. Meanwhile, the smoking body lay flat and inert on the truck, its total death like an ugly charm that kept the crowd away. Florry watched as Steinbach strode through the men and went back to his chaise longue. He sat down again and began to draw.

“What a piece of work is Steinbach,” said Julian.

* * *

The sound of a shell awakened Florry, and he bolted conscious in a shower of dust. He was back in his bunker. He blinked in the flickering candlelight, barely remembering his final collapse into an oceanically vast and dreamless sleep.

“Easy chum,” said Julian, close by.

“What time is it?”

“Near dawn.”

“Good God, I’ve missed sentry-go.”

“No matter. Schedule’s off.”

Julian, in the candlelit bunker, semed queerly agitated.

Florry hauled himself up from the warmth of his sleeping blanket and sat back against the earth wall, amid a welter of hanging water bottles, bayonets, bombs, and knives, and asked for a cigarette.

Julian gave him one, lighting it. Florry could see his hands tremble and feel his eyes upon him, hot and bright, almost sad.

Florry inhaled, the glow suffusing the narrow space with weird, ominous illumination for an instant. His head ached, and he was ravenously hungry.

“Stinky,” Julian said, “tonight we attack. After five bloody months of waiting, it’s the big one. The Anarchists on the other side of the city go at nine, then the German battalion at ten, and we jump off at ten-thirty. It’s a terrible plan, one of those fancy, clever things that Royal Marines couldn’t pull off with a month of rehearsal, a three-pronged, clockwork masterpiece that’ll be a ball’s up from the start. This time tomorrow we’re dead. But I must say, I feel rather good about it. No more of this awful mudbath living. It’s over the top for us, Stink.”

Florry felt a curious sense of relief slide through him. Yes, he welcomed it, too, to be done for a time with the damned trench and also with his other confusions.

All right, Florry thought. If you’re truly a spy, you won’t risk your bloody neck in a battle for a silly Spanish city that nobody ever heard of.

“Well, it’s bloody wonderful, if you ask me,” said Florry. “I’d like a fair chance at the bastards in a fair fight.”

Julian laughed.

“Damn you, Stinky, your Eton fairness will get us both kippered. If you’ve a chance, shoot ’em in the guts with your rifle and stick ’em in the throat with your spike and maybe you’ll come out of it.”

“I wonder why now,” said Florry. “One supposes it was in the cards ever since we got up here, but why now, so suddenly?”

“Who knows how their brains work?” wondered Julian. “Generals are all the same, you know. Ours or theirs, it makes no difference. But listen here. I’ve hired a boy who’s about to leave for the rear. I’ve some messages to send, perhaps you’d like to say something to lovely Sylvia before the balloon goes up, eh? Say it quick. He’s leaving shortly.”

He slid out, leaving Florry alone. Florry pawed through his kit, found paper and pen, and, squinting in the candlelight, quickly scrawled his message.

APRIL 26, 1937

SYLVIA,

I’ve no right at all to the feelings I hold for you, but I hold them anyway. We are about to go out to battle and I wanted to tell you. In another life, perhaps.

ROBERT FLORRY

Drivel he thought, and almost threw it away, but then he thought how much easier it would be to die without regrets, having at least made his idiotic declaration.

Then he felt the need for another note, another bit of unfinished business.

APRIL 26, 1937

SAMPSON,

A chance to push the inquiry forward tomorrow night. We’re throwing a party and our chap the poet is invited. I’ll know by his behavior, one way or the other. Good hunting!