Gerald considered. Even the empty Lounge, with its dreary decorations and commonplace furniture, seemed inimical. ‘They can hardly go on practising all night,’ he said. But now it was fear that hushed his voice.
‘Practising!’ The Commandant’s scorn flickered coldly through the overheated room.
‘What else?’
‘They’re ringing to wake the dead.’
A tremor of wind in the flue momentarily drew on the already roaring fire. Gerald had turned very pale.
‘That’s a figure of speech,’ he said, hardly to be heard.
‘Not in Holihaven.’ The Commandant’s gaze had returned to the fire.
Gerald looked at Phrynne. She was breathing less heavily. His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘What happens?’
The Commandant also was nearly whispering. ‘No one can tell how long they have to go on ringing. It varies from year to year. I don’t know why. You should be all right up to midnight. Probably for some while after. In the end the dead awake. First one or two: then all of them. Tonight even the sea draws back. You have seen that for yourself. In a place like this there are always several drowned each year. This year there’ve been more than several. But even so that’s only a few. Most of them come not from the water but from the earth. It is not a pretty sight.’
‘Where do they go?’
‘I’ve never followed them to see. I’m not stark staring mad.’ The red of the fire reflected in the Commandant’s eyes. There was a long pause.
‘I don’t believe in the resurrection of the body,’ said Gerald. As the hour grew later, the bells grew louder. ‘Not of the body.’
‘What other kind of resurrection is possible? Everything else is only theory. You can’t even imagine it. No one can.’
Gerald had not argued such a thing for twenty years. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you advise me to go. Where?’
‘Where doesn’t matter.’
‘I have no car.’
‘Then you’d better walk.’
‘With her?’ He indicated Phrynne only with his eyes.
‘She’s young and strong.’ A forlorn tenderness lay within the Commandant’s words. ‘She’s twenty years younger than you and therefore twenty years more important.’
‘Yes,’ said Gerald. ‘I agree … What about you? What will you do?’
‘I’ve lived here some time now. I know what to do.’
‘And the Pascoes?’
‘He’s drunk. There is nothing in the world to fear if you’re thoroughly drunk. DSO and bar. DFC and bar.’
‘But you’re not drinking yourself?’
‘Not since I came to Holihaven. I lost the knack.’
Suddenly Phrynne sat up. ‘Hullo,’ she said to the Commandant; not yet fully awake. Then she said, ‘What fun! The bells are still ringing.’
The Commandant rose, his eyes averted. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more to say,’ he remarked, addressing Gerald. ‘You’ve still got time.’ He nodded slightly to Phrynne, and walked out of the Lounge.
‘What have you still got time for?’ asked Phrynne, stretching. ‘Was he trying to convert you? I’m sure he’s an Anabaptist.’
‘Something like that,’ said Gerald, trying to think.
‘Shall we go to bed? Sorry, I’m so sleepy.’
‘Nothing to be sorry about.’
‘Or shall we go for another walk? That would wake me up. Besides the tide might have come in.’
Gerald, although he half-despised himself for it, found it impossible to explain to her that they should leave at once; without transport or a destination; walk all night if necessary. He said to himself that probably he would not go even were he alone.
‘If you’re sleepy, it’s probably a good thing.’
‘Darling!’
‘I mean with these bells. God knows when they will stop.’ Instantly he felt a new pang of fear at what he had said.
Mrs Pascoe had appeared at the door leading to the Bar, and opposite to that from which the Commandant had departed. She bore two steaming glasses on a tray. She looked about, possibly to confirm that the Commandant had really gone.
‘I thought you might both like a nightcap. Ovaltine, with something in it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Phrynne. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer.’
Gerald set the glasses on a wicker table, and quickly finished his cognac.
Mrs Pascoe began to move chairs and slap cushions. She looked very haggard.
‘Is the Commandant an Anabaptist?’ asked Phrynne over her shoulder. She was proud of her ability to outdistance Gerald in beginning to consume a hot drink.
Mrs Pascoe stopped slapping for a moment. ‘I don’t know what that is,’ she said.
‘He’s left his book,’ said Phrynne, on a new tack.
Mrs Pascoe looked at it indifferently across the Lounge.
‘I wonder what he’s reading,’ continued Phrynne. ‘Fox’s Lives of the Martyrs, I expect.’ A small unusual devil seemed to have entered into her.
But Mrs Pascoe knew the answer. ‘It’s always the same,’ she said, contemptuously. ‘He only reads one. It’s called Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. He’s been reading it ever since he came here. When he gets to the end, he starts again.’
‘Should I take it up to him?’ asked Gerald. It was neither courtesy nor inclination, but rather a fear lest the Commandant return to the Lounge: a desire, after those few minutes of reflection, to cross-examine.
‘Thanks very much,’ said Mrs Pascoe, as if relieved of a similar apprehension. ‘Room One. Next to the suit of Japanese armour.’ She went on tipping and banging. To Gerald’s inflamed nerves, her behaviour seemed too consciously normal.
He collected the book and made his way upstairs. The volume was bound in real leather, and the tops of its pages were gilded: apparently a presentation copy. Outside the Lounge, Gerald looked at the fly leaf: in a very large hand was written ‘To my dear Son, Raglan, on his being honoured by the Queen. From his proud Father, B. Shotcroft, Major-General.’ Beneath the inscription a very ugly military crest had been appended by a stamper of primitive type.
The suit of Japanese armour lurked in a dark corner as the Commandant himself had done when Gerald had first encountered him. The wide brim of the helmet concealed the black eyeholes in the headpiece; the moustache bristled realistically. It was exactly as if the figure stood guard over the door behind it.
