Gerald Seymour - At Close Quarters

"Mr Crane, you are being your own enemy."

"My name is Noah Crane."

"You need attention for your leg, the doctors and the nurses and the surgeons are waiting… "

"My IDF serial is 478391."

"You have to tell me what was the tasking of your mission into the Beqa'a… "

"My name is Noah Crane."

"You have to tell me what was the object of your mission."

"My IDF serial is 478391."

"Mr Crane, by your own hand, with your own knife, you murdered a poor cook boy. You are not a prisoner of war, Mr Crane. To us you are a common criminal.

Do you know, Mr Crane, what is the fate of common criminals convicted of the murder of innocents…?"

"My name is Noah Crane."

"We have in our criminal code, Mr Crane, an instrument of execution. In our native tongue we call that instrument the khazuk, sadly I do not have present with me such an instrument to show you. It is, Mr Crane, a sharp pointed staff that is driven down into the body of the condemned. To our judges the khazuk is a deterrent.

It is the decision of the executioner into which part of the body he drives the khazuk. The result is the same, it is simply the timing of death that is at variance… "

"My IDF serial is 478391."

He heard the rustle of the cigarette packet. He heard the click of the lighter. He stiffened his muscles. He could not protect himself. It was the signal. When the major lit a cigarette and leaned back and inhaled, then the boots flew. The lieutenant kicked hardest. Crane gasped. The lieutenant kicked as if his promotion depended on it. He wanted to cry. Heavy toe caps belting at his shoulders and his back and his spine.

"Mr Crane, I think you are a racist. I think you believe that because you are a Jew and I am an Arab you are superior to me. I think you believe that I am foolish… "

"My name is Noah Crane."

"Would you like me to demonstrate to you, Mr Crane, that I am not foolish?"

"My IDF serial is 478391."

The boots in again, the kicking and the stamping, and the hands going for his short cut hair and dragging up his head so that his face could be kicked. He thought he was falling, falling in a pit, dark sides, black bottom. He thought of Holt, white light on a hillside, white light of a bullet path over a hillside. Falling, tumbling, helpless.

And he thought of the face of Holt, the face of the youngster. A thousand yards, and getting into five inches… God, the pain… God, the pain in the bone at the end of his spine. And the pain was blackness, darkness, the pain riddled through him, and he was falling, backwards, down.

He felt a calmness. He felt a peace through the battery of the boots. A hillside. Rose flowers and oleander bushes and watered cyclamen. He heard the singing of the rabbi's prayers. He heard the rattle crash of the volley. He heard the beauty of the bugle playing. He walked on the slope of Mount Herzl. He was a stranger amongst the men from Kiryat Shmona who had come south to the cemetery, and the rabbi in army fatigues, and the chief of staff in starched uniform. It was the bottom of the pit, it was the end of the darkness, the blackness.

It was sunlight on the slopes of Mount Herzl.

"Mr Crane, because I have to demonstrate to you that I am not foolish, answer me… When you were infiltrated through the NORBAT sector there was an Englishman staying at the guest house of the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi. Why was the infiltration the concern of the Englishman?"

He forced open his eyes. His vision was narrowed by the swelling at his cheeks, his eyebrows.

He hesitated. "My name is Noah Crane."

"When you were infiltrated you travelled with an Englishman. Mr Crane, who is the Englishman? Why is an Englishman involved in the infiltration?"

He stared at the constructed face, at the pink under-skin. There was no challenge in his voice. "My IDF serial is 478391."

He pushed himself up, the pain flooded inside him.

He knelt in front of the major. He gazed into the face.

He was losing, he had reacted. He thought of Holt, the clean young face of Holt. He thought he loved the boy.

He thought he should have been the father of the boy.

And he asked the boy for a thousand yards, and he asked the boy to shoot into five inches diameter. He felt the wash of despair.

"Mr Crane, in me rests a decision; the decision that is mine is whether you go from here to a military prison to await some exchange, or whether you go from here to the El Masr gaol to await the convenience of the executioner and the khazuk… Mr Crane, why is an Englishman concerned in an infiltration? Why were you on surveillance on the hillside above the camp of the Popular Front recruits?"

He whispered hoarsely, "My name is Noah Crane."

As if they were the only men in the room. As though the tormentors had evaporated. The major with his surgeon's face, the marksman with his slashed, puffed, bleeding face.

"Why are the English concerned with this camp?

Help me, Mr Crane, because I am trying to understand.

What is particular, what is important about this camp?"

The major shook his head. His laugh tinkled. He used his hands – how could he have been so blind. The major beamed his pleasure at Crane. A low voice, as if he confided in the wretch who knelt in front of him.

' "Abu Hamid?"

"My IDF serial is 478391."

He saw the pleasure in the peculiar wide-apart eyes of Major Said Hazan. He saw the satisfaction curl the mouth that was lipless.

"You know the name of Abu Hamid, Mr Crane?"

"My name is Noah Crane."

"Abu Hamid is the commander of the camp where the Popular Front recruits are undergoing training…

Abu Hamid is the slayer of a British official… Abu Hamid is like a toy to me… "

Again the major laughed.

"You thought me a fool. You mistook me, Mr Crane."

"My IDF serial is 478391."

"You are boring me, Mr Crane. I have what I require.

I have the target for your infiltration. You may take it, Mr Crane, that from this moment the target is taken out of the reach of your English plan."

He seemed to see Holt. He seemed to see the jutting barrel of Model PM.

Noah Crane lurched to his feet. The weight gave at his wounded knee. He fell forward. He cannoned down onto the sitting major. He saw the throat, he saw the grafted skin above the knotted tie, below the stubbed smooth chin. His hands found the throat. His hands locked on the throat.

He seemed to see the corridor aperture of the telescopic sight, and the wavering of the crosshairs on the chest of a sallow skinned, dark haired man who was marked by a crow's foot scar on his left upper cheek.

He clung to the throat. He felt the blows of the lieutenant. He felt the scrabbling fingers of the sergeants. He heard the shortening gasps of breath.

He seemed to know the gentle two stage squeeze on the trigger of the Model PM. There was the sunlight shafting between the water green trees on Mt Herzl.

There was the ripple of the singing, there was the floating of the flowers, there was the love of his people, and there was Holt's love.

He squeezed. They could not pull him back. He could hear their shouts, he could feel their hammered blows.

He clung to the throat. The man no longer fought him.

He saw the pinkness of the face dissolve, washed to pale grey blue. He saw the pistol in the hand of the lieutenant.

Noah Crane seemed to hear the youngster, Holt, fire.

The Foreign Secretary slammed down his hand onto the mahogany polished table top.

It was a theatrical gesture, but he was not ashamed of it. One of his aides took a shorthand note, for posterity. His two senior advisers on the Middle Eastern Desk at FCO shuffled their hands. He knew they were having an affair… An affair, albeit adulterous, between an Assistant Secretary and a Deputy Assistant Secretary, between two 70-hours-a-week aides, was a regrettable but supportable nuisance.