Simonson did. He crossed his legs and put his cap on his knee. He supposed he was to be loaned to HQ for a spell. It didn’t do to think of it as a holiday—one ought to relish the added responsibility—but just now he felt only relief at the prospect of release from daily command.
Hamilton returned to his papers. He paged through the quartermaster’s weekly provisions report, and it seemed he intended to read the thing in its entirety. Simonson felt a snap of unease. The longer one was made to wait, the harder it was to like what one waited for. He kept his eyes on the wall map of the island, as if the siege might be lifted by further study.
Hamilton finished the report, took a red pencil and made careful annotations in the margins of several pages. This gross of biscuits to be issued; that ounce of aspirin to be allocated to sick bay. Finally he took off his reading glasses, lit a cigarette, and slid a typed sheet across the desk.
“Have you any explanation for this?”
He rocked back in his chair and watched Simonson read the document. It was a signed statement from a junior officer at Luqa, admitting to having moved Heath up the evacuation order under instructions from Royal Artillery.
Simonson looked up. “The poor man has completely misunderstood, of course. I brought no special pressure to bear, and I certainly issued no order.”
“He must be exaggeratedly stupid, then.”
Simonson gave a thin smile.
“Amused, Simonson?”
“I hoped you’d called me in for good news.”
Hamilton stood and went to the thin, barred window. With his back to Simonson he looked out over the darkening courtyard where four hundred men, following orders, were lying on the ground to save strength.
“I know you were friendly with Heath. You sunbathed. You sailed.”
“I try to be agreeable with all my fellow officers.”
“Don’t soft-soap it. You two were thick as thieves.”
“Not really, sir. Heath meant no more to me than the others.”
Saying it made him feel as close to ashamed as starvation permitted. How good it had been, back then, to chat with Alistair of this and that while the sun tanned them and the local beer softened their responsibilities. They had lain sprawled together like puppies, laughing till their sides ached. They had shared a grace that even the enemy sensed. Fighter pilots had stayed their hands on the firing switch. Mines had missed them by inches, by the gap between auguring stars.
“The word is important,” said Hamilton. “Are you quite sure the two of you weren’t friends?”
“If you must know, I thought Heath rather inferior. If I made an effort with him from time to time, it was because I felt sorry for him.”
“To be clear, you thought him socially inferior?”
“It’s hardly a man’s fault, but yes. I’m afraid it comes down to that. Anyway, he wouldn’t be the first who’d queered things to get off the island.”
“No, but he’d be the first from an honorable regiment. I hope you still appreciate the distinction.”
“I do, sir.”
“So you say Heath pulled strings, and you had nothing to do with it?”
“God damn it, yes.”
“And if I were to ask Heath the same question, no doubt he would say that it was you who pulled the strings, and that he had no hand in the affair?”
“If he has any sense at all, I hope that’s exactly what he’ll say.”
They watched each other while the old war turned through another minute of arc.
“I see,” said Hamilton at last.
“I’m very sorry.”
“Do you know what my days consist of now? HQ gives me orders that are almost supernatural. This caloric requirement to be transcended, these mortal wounds to be healed, those laws of nature to be revoked. As if we weren’t soldiers but saints.”
“I remember when we were human beings.”
“Yes. Well, I don’t suppose you’d have let Heath take the swing on his own, back then.”
Simonson closed his eyes. A girlfriend had written the week before: Catherine, trusting he was having fun. He remembered her at Oxford. Her hair, smelling of strawberries. Their punt, adrift among the meadows of the Cherwell. His cheerful incompetence with the pole. The summer sun fixing the memory, immortalizing her laughter even as it pealed.
Outside, another raid was starting up. The courtyard emptied as everyone hurried to the guns.
Simonson stood. “I should go to my men—”
“Stay where you are. What good to them is a man like you?”
Simonson sat back down. The bombs came, shaking the earth, deepening his headache until he felt his skull must crack. Officers, bloody and disheveled, began to bring their reports—communications with HQ were cut; number nine gun was a total loss; Grandfield and Barlow were killed.
Hamilton sat behind his desk and took the reports one by one.
“Do you see it yet?” he said in a lull. “Do you see it from my point of view? Because I have all night, you know. We can do this as long as you like.”
More reports came.
“Oh, look,” said Hamilton, sliding a damage chit across the desk. “That aimer on Nine Gun—you know, the Geordie—he’s had the front of his foot blown off. Shall we give him an evacuation number, do you think, or should we pull some strings?”