27
CIGARETTE TOBACCO BURNS AT 800 DEGREES CENTIGRADE. However, the coal at the end of the cigarette is normally surrounded by a thin layer of ash. To cause a burn, the cigarette has to be pressed against the skin for the better part of a second—a glancing touch will hardly be felt. This applies even to the eyes; blinking is the fastest involuntary reaction of the human body. Only amateurs throw cigarettes, and David Rose was an amateur—a thoroughly frustrated and action-starved amateur. Professionals ignore them.
Faber ignored the lighted cigarette that David Rose threw at him. He was right, because the cigarette glanced off his forehead and fell to the metal floor of the jeep. He made a grab for David’s gun, which was an error. He should, he instantly realized, have drawn out his stiletto and stabbed David: David might have shot him first but David had never before pointed a gun at a human being, let alone killed somebody, so he would almost certainly have hesitated and in that moment Faber could have killed him. Faber decided he could blame his recent lapse into humanity for such intolerable miscalculation. It would be his last.
David had both hands on the midsection of the gun—left hand on the barrel, right hand around the breech—and had pulled the weapon about six inches from its rack when Faber got a one-handed grip on the muzzle. David tugged the gun toward himself, but for a moment Faber’s grasp held the gun pointed at the windshield.
Faber was a strong man, but David was exceptionally strong. His shoulders, arms and wrists had moved his body and his wheelchair for four years, and the muscles had become abnormally developed. Furthermore he had both hands on the gun in front of him, and Faber was holding on with one hand at an awkward angle. David tugged again, more determinedly this time, and the muzzle slipped from Faber’s grasp.
At that instant, with the shotgun pointed at his belly and David’s finger curling around the trigger, Faber felt very close to death.
He jerked upward, catapulting himself out of his seat. His head hit the canvas roof of the jeep as the gun exploded with a crash that numbed the ears and produced a physical pain behind the eyes. The window by the passenger seat shattered into small pieces and the rain blew in through the empty frame. Faber twisted his body and fell back, not onto his own seat but across David. He got both hands to David’s throat and squeezed his thumbs.
David tried to bring the gun around between their bodies to fire the other barrel, but the weapon was too big. Faber looked into his eyes, and saw…what? Exhilaration. Of course—the man finally had a chance to fight for his country. Then his expression changed as his body felt the lack of oxygen and he began to fight for breath.
David released his grip on the gun and brought both elbows back as far as he could, then punched Faber’s lower ribs with a powerful double jab.
Faber screwed up his face in pain, but he held his grip on David’s throat, knowing he could withstand David’s punches longer than David could hold his breath.
David must have had the same thought. He crossed his forearms between their bodies and pushed Faber away; then, when the gap was a few inches wide, he brought his hands up in an upward-and-outward blow against Faber’s arms, breaking the stranglehold. He bunched his right fist and swung downward with a powerful but unscientific punch that landed on Faber’s cheekbone and brought water to his eyes.
Faber replied with a series of body jabs; David continued to bruise his face. They were too close together to do real damage to each other in a short time, but David’s greater strength began to tell.
Almost in admiration, Faber realized that David had shrewdly picked the time and the place for the fight: he had had the advantages of surprise, the gun, and the confined space in which his muscle counted for much and Faber’s better balance and greater maneuverability counted for little. He had only erred, really, in his bravado—understandable perhaps—about finding the film can, giving Faber a moment of warning.
Faber shifted his weight slightly and his hip came into contact with the gearshift, throwing the transmission into forward. The engine was still running and the car jerked, throwing him off balance. David used the opportunity to release a long straight left that—more by luck than by judgment—caught Faber flush on the chin and threw him clear across the cab of the jeep. His head cracked against the A-post, he slumped with his shoulder on the door handle, the door opened and he fell out of the car in a backward somersault to land on his face in the mud.
For a moment he was too dazed to move. When he opened his eyes he could see nothing but flashes of blue lightning against a misty red background. He heard the engine of the jeep racing. He shook his head trying to clear the fireworks from his vision, and struggled onto his hands and knees. The sound of the jeep receded and then came closer again. He turned his head toward the noise, and as the colors in front of his eyes dissolved and disappeared he saw the vehicle bearing down on him.
David was going to run him over.
With the front bumper less than a yard from his face he threw himself sideways. He felt a blast of wind. A fender struck his outflung foot as the jeep roared past, its heavy-gauge tires tearing up the spongy turf and spitting mud. He rolled over twice in the wet grass, then got to one knee. His foot hurt. He watched the jeep turn in a tight circle and come for him again.
He could see David’s face through the windshield. The young man was leaning forward, hunched over the steering wheel, his lips actually drawn back over his teeth in a savage almost crazy grin…apparently the frustrated warrior imagining himself in the cockpit of a Spitfire, coming down out of the sun at an enemy plane with all eight Browning machine guns blazing 1,260 rounds per minute.
Faber moved toward the cliff edge. The jeep gathered speed. Faber knew that, for a moment at least, he was incapable of running. He looked over the cliff—a rocky, almost vertical slope to the angry sea a hundred feet below. The jeep was coming straight down the cliff edge toward him. Faber looked up and down for a ledge, or even a foothold. There was none.
The jeep was four or five yards away, traveling at something like forty miles per hour. Its wheels were less than two feet from the cliff edge. Faber dropped flat and swung his legs out into space, supporting his weight on his forearms as he hung on the brink.
The wheels passed him within inches. A few yards farther on one tire actually slipped over the edge. For a moment Faber thought the whole vehicle would slide over and fall into the sea below, but the other three wheels dragged the jeep to safety.
The ground under Faber’s arms shifted. The vibration of the jeep’s passing had loosened the earth. He felt himself slip a fraction. One hundred feet below, the sea boiled among the rocks. Faber stretched one arm to its farthest extent and dug his fingers deep into the soft ground. He felt a nail tear, and ignored it. He repeated the process with his other arm. With two hands anchored in the earth he pulled himself upward. It was agonizingly slow, but eventually his head drew level with his hands, his hips reached firm ground and he was able to swivel around and roll away from the edge.
The jeep was turning again. Faber ran toward it. His foot was painful, but not, he decided, broken. David accelerated for another pass. Faber turned and ran at right angles to the jeep’s direction, forcing David to turn the wheel and consequently slow down.
Faber knew he could not keep this up much longer, he was certain to tire before David did. This had to be the last pass.
He ran faster. David steered an interception course, headed for a point in front of Faber. Faber doubled back, and the jeep zigzagged. It was now quite close. Faber broke into a sprint, his course forcing David to drive in a tight circle. The jeep was getting slower and Faber was getting closer. There were only a few yards between them when David realized what Faber was up to. He steered away but it was too late. Faber rushed to the jeep’s side and threw himself upward, landing face down on the top of the canvas roof.
He lay there for a few seconds, catching his breath. His injured foot felt as if it was being held in a fire; his lungs ached.
The jeep was still moving. Faber drew the stiletto from its sheath under his sleeve and cut a long, jagged tear in the canvas roof. The material flapped downward and Faber found himself staring at the back of David’s head.
David looked up and back, a look of astonishment crossed his face. Faber drew back his arm for a knife thrust…
David jammed the throttle open and heaved the wheel around. The jeep leaped forward and lifted on two wheels as it screeched around in a tight curve. Faber struggled to stay on. The jeep, still gathering speed, crashed down onto four wheels, then lifted again. It teetered precariously for a few yards, the wheels slipped on the sodden ground and the vehicle toppled onto its side with a grinding crash.
Faber was thrown several yards and landed awkwardly, the breath knocked out of him by the impact. It was several seconds before he could move.
The jeep’s crazy course had once again taken it perilously close to the cliff.
Faber saw his knife in the grass a few yards away. He picked it up, then turned to the jeep.
Somehow, David had got himself and his wheelchair out through the ripped roof, and he was now sitting in the chair and pushing himself away along the cliff edge. Faber, running after him, had to acknowledge his courage.
David must have heard the footsteps, because just before Faber caught up with the chair it stopped dead and spun around; and Faber glimpsed a heavy wrench in David’s hand.
Faber crashed into the wheelchair, overturning it. His last thought was that both of them and the chair might end up in the sea below—and then the wrench hit the back of his head and he blacked out.
When he came to, the wheelchair lay beside him, but David was nowhere to be seen. He stood up and looked around in dazed puzzlement.
“Here.”
The voice came from over the cliff. David must have just been able to hit him with the wrench before being flung from the chair and over the edge. Faber crawled to the cliff and looked over.
David had one hand around the stem of a bush that grew just under the lip of the cliff. The other hand was jammed into a small crevice in the rock. He hung suspended, just as Faber had a few minutes earlier. His bravado had gone now.
“Pull me up, for God’s sake,” he called hoarsely.
Faber leaned closer. “How did you know about the film?” he said.
“Help me, please.”
“Tell me about the film.”
“Oh, God.” David made a mighty effort to concentrate. “When you went to Tom’s outhouse you left your jacket drying in the kitchen, Tom went upstairs for more whisky and I went through your pockets and I found the negatives—”
“And that was evidence enough for you to try to kill me?”
“That, and what you did with my wife in my house…no Englishman would behave like that—”
Faber could not help laughing. The man was a boy, after all. “Where are the negatives now?”
“In my pocket…”
“Give them to me, and I’ll pull you up.”
“You’ll have to take them—I can’t let go. Hurry…”
Faber lay flat on his stomach and reached down, under David’s oilskin, to the breast pocket of his jacket. He sighed in relief as his fingers reached the film can and carefully withdrew it. He looked at the films; they all seemed to be there. He put the can in the pocket of his jacket, buttoned the flap, and reached down to David again. No more mistakes.
He took hold of the bush David was clinging to and uprooted it with a savage jerk.
David screamed, “No!” and scrabbled desperately for grip as his other hand slipped inexorably out of the crack in the rock.
“It’s not fair,” he screamed, and then his hand came away from the crevice.
He seemed to hang in midair for a moment, then dropped bouncing twice against the cliff on his way down, until he hit the water with a splash.
Faber watched for a while to make sure he did not come up again. “Not fair? Not fair? Don’t you know there’s a war on?”
He looked down at the sea for some minutes. Once he thought he saw a flash of yellow oilskin on the surface but it was gone before he could focus on it. There was just the sea and the rocks.
Suddenly he felt terribly tired. His injuries penetrated his consciousness one by one: the damaged foot, the bump on his head, the bruises all over his face. David Rose had been something of a fool, also a braggart and a poor husband, and he had died screaming for mercy; but he had been a brave man, and he had died for his country—which had been his contribution.
Faber wondered whether his own death would be as good.
He turned away from the cliff edge and walked back toward the overturned jeep.