Gerald Seymour - The Dealer and the Dead

Up to now they had barely spoken. Silence was a commodity Arbuthnot valued highly and he sensed that the man beside him – with the rifle and the old camouflage tunic – begged, in conversation, to be given the status of chief. He knew that the boy was Simun and that the man was Mladen, who had led the village in the last days of the siege and was the undisputed headman. He judged the moment right for the overture. From the inside pocket of his jacket, behind the pen, he produced his hip flask and passed it to him.

Thanks were translated, the response gruff and noncommittal. Arbuthnot said, ‘It’s ten-year-old Irish, Bushmills, a favourite of mine.’

A good swig was taken, then a dirty hand wiped the top and passed it back.

‘What is your purpose here, sir?’ The boy played interpreter for question and answer.

‘Just happened to be passing.’ He drank, sparingly, then pressed the flask again into the broad hand of the man and was refused. ‘I think it is enough.’

‘No, go on – something wonderfully refreshing about whiskey before breakfast. You were the commander here? I congratulate you. Those bastards in the ministry and the president’s office wrote you off, abandoned you. You fought as lions would. What was it at the end? Exhaustion?’ As the flask was returned to him, Arbuthnot shook his head, pushed it again towards Mladen’s chin.

An answer came through the boy. ‘Some of us, at the end, had not slept for four days and four nights.’

‘Ammunition was finished?’

‘We had none.’

‘You were a man of ability. A good leader – which you were – must also be able to recognise reality. See that?’ Arbuthnot pointed to the crest on the side of the hip flask, engraved in the silver. ‘That grinning skull with the crossed bones clamped in the teeth and the legend “Or Glory” was my crowd. The 17th/21st Lancers, light armour for reconnaissance. I did time in the mountains north of Aden, in a wretched corner of Ireland and, of course, Germany. A long time ago… Never faced anything of the intensity of the attack you withstood for so long. Proud to have met you, sir.’

He shook the hand offered him. He thought Gillot, at that speed, would reach them in a couple of minutes. Little of what Benjamin Arbuthnot did was casual or without the benefit of assessment, analysis, planning… Again he proffered the flask and murmured something about a presentation on his leaving the regiment. He said, ‘Of course, in the cavalry, with armour, we learned about the various weaponry on the market. This one, we called it Sagger, the NATO code name.’

A smile that was defrosting. ‘To us it was Malyutka.’

‘Very difficult to use. I think it was the decision of the schoolteacher to try to bring in the Malyutka weapon?’

He could hear the shouting and make out individual voices – the deeper harshness of the men, the shrill hatred of women. The knives flashed. God forbid, the thought came: it was not an arms dealer, an asset of the Secret Intelligence Service, but a Christian martyr being dragged to a death of barbarous cruelty. He thought, perhaps, he had used up a last vessel of goodwill at Vauxhall Bridge Cross. He had been given the medical pack and the rattling matchbox. He couldn’t expect to be welcomed back again, even into an anonymous interview room on the ground floor, and would not again be afforded the privilege of receiving help in any form. New men and new women, in slacks and shirtsleeves, trousers and severe blouses, would chime in chorus:

Only an arms dealer, wasn’t he? Only a one-time asset but now well past his sell-by date, isn’t he? What’s the big deal? History – who cares? Benjie Arbuthnot did.

‘One man wanted it. It had been successful in Vukovar, but they had no more. He told the teacher what he wanted.’

‘Friend, how many of your men had experience of using it?’

‘One.’

‘It is at best very difficult for a trained man to use, impossible for a novice. You did not have men with the skills to make it effective.’

‘We did not.’

‘It wouldn’t have saved you, not the village or the town.’

‘Perhaps. If I’d said that then I would not now be the leader.’

His wife, Deirdre, always remarked that her husband had the persistence of a polecat. She would have meant the persistence the murderous little creature showed when it was hungry and needing to feed young, stalking a rabbit or closing on a nest where there were fledglings. He thought this man both cunning and careful. A poor education, but the stature of one who would be followed. Arbuthnot had chosen his moment and had allowed the silences to build as the column had approached where they stood on the path between the corn. Now he played the final cards in his hand. Poor education, yes, but common sense and caution. The sort of man who would have risen easily in the British Army of Benjie’s day to the rank of senior sergeant and would have been trusted implicitly by any officer, depended upon.

‘And at Vinkovci or Nustar where the crates went on to the Cornfield Road, would the senior commanders have allowed a delivery of such importance to go to this village alone?’

‘It would have been a problem, but it was the teacher’s problem.’

‘Would they, in fact, have been taken by more senior commanders for more important sections of the defence of Vukovar? My friend, would any of the missiles have reached here?’

‘I do not think so. I never thought so… It cannot be said. The teacher promised it would come to us.’

In his shoulders, Arbuthnot mirrored sadness, and in his voice there was regret. ‘So it was for nothing? Collecting everything of value, sending young men with the teacher to the rendezvous? Believing in the weapons? You are a commander, proven in combat. You know it was for nothing.’

‘What I know, sir, and what I will say are not similar.’

‘My friend… No, not for me, you have it. Wonderful, yes? The Bushmills whiskey of Northern Ireland.’ The hip flask was again offered, and Arbuthnot again insisted. ‘Quite the best thing to come out of the place… What is happening is nonsense. You were the commander, you are the leader. End it.’

‘I cannot.’

‘It is barbaric, medieval. It drags you back when you should step forward. Look for the future, not the past. End it.’

‘I say to you I cannot.’

‘The cry is for leadership.’ It was the last card of the deck. He seemed to slap it down on green baize as if he was with Deirdre in Shropshire and among other dinosaur friends, not here. The shouting was deafening and they came close. The hip flask was rammed back into his hand.

‘You are wrong, sir. The cry is for blood. If I do not give them blood I am not the leader. The whiskey is good. Thank you, sir.’

As the purveyor of a trade where deceit, obfuscation, half-truths, half-lies and deceptions were praised he found rank honesty interesting when it was shown him. Almost deflating. He couldn’t disagree with the man.

Level with him, not half a dozen feet away, Gillot staggered, seemed to pause, and reached down into the waist of his trousers. He dragged out a lightly filled plastic bag – it would have come from any high-street supermarket – and threw it at Benjie. The old spy scrabbled for it, dropped the flask and had to crouch to pick it up. He saw the engraved skull and the crossed bones, the words from the cap-badge, ‘Or Glory’. He might have said: Fuck all glory here, my old cocker. It might have been Anders who grabbed him, or Steyn, but his eyes had misted. He clutched the plastic bag and was swept along with the herd.

Had he been recognised? He didn’t know – no greeting had been offered him. He had expected none. He had said that Gillot must face and confront, and he now did so. At a cost.