Gerald Seymour - The Unknown Soldier

Beth screamed. No words of warning, only an anguished cry that pierced the quiet.

She saw Bart start up, saw his shock, saw him stare at her, then follow her line of sight. He fixed his gaze on the rifle barrel, then seemed to shrivel.

She heard Bart's voice. 'You don't have to do that, my friend. No cause for you to be worried by me. Snitch on you? No… no. Turn in a fighter? Been there. I've seen your face – it doesn't matter. Sort of made the decision last night. I'd go to my grave rather than turn in another fighter, done that long ago… I'm grateful to you. Coming down here and getting you on your feet has been kind of important to me – like the chains are off, my friend. What I'm saying is…'

She saw that the barrel of the rifle was steady. She pulled herself up against the tyre. She saw the finger slide from the guard to the trigger. She gulped in a breath, and ran.

Beth saw his head lift from the sight. Her boots ground and kicked in the sand as she slithered nearer to Bart.

For the slightest moment, there was irresolution on his face. .

The rifle dropped.

Beth reached Bart. She stood in front of him, panted, felt the heave of his chest against her back. She was a shield for him.

'You don't have to,' Bart's voice quavered in her ear.

'I do.'

Images cascaded in Beth's mind. His control over the men who would have killed her, his sweat dripping as he dug out the sand-locked wheels, his smile of gratitude as she passed him water, his frown of concern and patience as he cleaned the engine, his peace as he slept in the sand beside her, the stars and moon above h i m… The barrel was up, aimed. She looked into his face and searched for passion, loathing, madness, and saw only a strange calm. She thought his eyes had the emptiness of death, as if the light had gone from them.

'I've seen your face. I remember it. Be a hero, be a killer. Isn't that what you want?… Do you know what you said before the drip worked? I'll tell you: "They'll hear my name, they'll know it…

Everyone will hear my name… When you hear my name, all of you bastards, it'll be because I've done what my family wants of me."

Your family, big deal, have made an animal of you. Common Brit scum is what you are, always will be – and vain as a fucking peacock

… I've seen your face and I will not forget it.'

She stared back at the barrel of the rifle and she knew. Through the sights he must look into her eyes. She held her gaze steady, never lost his eyes. The finger was on the trigger.

She hadn't seen him come. One moment she faced the barrel, the next – the boy was in front of her. The boy protected her.

She felt the trembling of his slight sinewy body against her stomach, and against her back was Bart. Could he shoot? To save him, the boy had been near to death in the desert. To save him, the boy had trekked to her. Over the boy's head, she saw now the pain in his face, and it was not the pain from the wound. The sun caught the bracelet on his wrist, and she thought that when it had been put on him he had not weakened. Now he did. More movement from the corner of her eye. The boy's father walked past the long-flung shadow, and past him, never looked at him, and past the raised barrel. The boy's father spat into the sand, then turned and stood in front of his son. Beth knew he would not shoot. They made their untidy line, body to body, and faced him.

She did not taunt him again, did not need to.

At that moment, as Beth saw it, there was a vulnerability about him, and loneliness, and In snapped movements, those of a trained man, the rifle barrel was raised towards the brightened skies, there was the clatter of the mechanism as it was wrenched back and the bullet ejected. The bullet, its case gleaming, arched from the rifle and fell, and his finger was off the trigger. There was the click of the safety lever. The rifle was held out, and the guide went a dozen paces and took it. She wondered if he was broken – if she had isolated him, had killed him.

He walked away from them, using the weapon to lean on, struggling to walk.

Bart said softly, behind her, 'How's he going to get his name up in lights, murder half a city, if he can't blow us away?'

The guide was at the trumpeting camels, knelt to loosen their hobble ropes, and the boy trudged to the high ground to resume his watch. Beth clung to Bart, held the gross, sweaty man in her arms, felt him quiver against her.

'I'm not taking blame. Not any way I'm not. I done everything for him, he never wanted. One quick shag – excuse me – and it's with you the rest of your life. Might as well have hung a rock round my neck. Want to hear about it?'

Jed Dietrich thought himself privileged to be at a master-class as taught by Michael Lovejoy. He knew the woman to be aged forty-three, but appearance gave her fifteen years more, minimum.

'Well, you're going to… Me and Lucy Winthrop and Di Mackie, we're all eighteen, all in work at a packager, and it's Friday night.

Twenty-five years ago, and it's like yesterday – would be because it screwed my life. We were in the Crown and Anchor, that's Wolverhampton, but it's a car park now. Hot night, summer night, too much booze. Three guys… They were Italians, all the soft talk.

Italians in Wolverhampton to put in a new printing press or something. Closing time, chucking out. Christ, they'd hands like bloody octopuses, the lot of them. We're down an alley and it's a knee-trembler job. I'm in the middle and we're all going at it – and we're pissed. Mine's called himself Pier-Luigi, and he's from Sicily. What else do I know about him? Not much. Oh, yes – he was big and it . hurt. They did their zips and we pulled our knickers up. We went home, they went wherever… Di's OK and Lucy's OK, but I'm in the club. Trouble is, I don't know it till it's too late to dump it. My dad tried to trace him but it was a brick wall. We called him Caleb – don't ask me why, it was Dad's choice. Five years later, Dad and Mum moved down south, bought a bungalow. Truth was, they wanted to be shot of us. So I was left behind with the little bastard. They hated him, said he'd ruined their lives. They're dead now, both of them. We didn't go to the funerals. They wouldn't have wanted us there, neither of them. As a baby and a child he was dark, he was different.'

They'd been at the door early. In her housecoat, she'd answered Lovejoy's knock. He had been so charming, so gentle. Inside the hall he'd remarked on the wallpaper – 'What a pretty pattern, Miss Hunt, what a nice choice' – and he'd edged into the kitchen, and not seemed to notice the filled sink and last night's plate, and he'd fixed on a dying plant in a pot – 'Always did like that one, Miss Hunt, in fact I'd say it's my favourite' – and he'd put the kettle on.

'I was lucky to get this place. Dad had a friend in the town hall, housing. It was his price to me for moving south. Dad got my file moved up, then he could go and wash his hands of me. We're here, like an island, all Asians around us. I'm not complaining – some people would, not me – they're good people and good neighbours, so all his friends were Asians, had to be. He got to blaming me that I wasn't Asian, and hadn't a family like his friends had – but I'm not taking any blame. Nothing's my fault.'

Said so quietly and with a smile that won: 'Miss Hunt, you seem like a woman who looks after herself. I'm hesitating – will you have sugar if I do?' Lovejoy had poured the tea into cups he'd taken from the cupboard, and she'd almost purred. Dietrich reflected that the woman had no idea of the devastation about to hit her shabby, damp little home, and Lovejoy wasn't about to tell her; effortlessly it was established that the room upstairs was untouched, uncleared, from the day the 'little bastard' had left – the room would be the centre of the storm, but only when Lovejoy was finished.