Gerald Seymour - Kingfisher

Thirty-five years he had been there now. Through the discomfiture of sores and bruises and spreading scabs, the pain of his ailing teeth, the frustration of his fading sight. He was paid a few kopecks by the dacha owners, who asked nothing more than that he should watch over their properties in the winter, and a few more coins for the wood that he brought them for their fires in the spring and in the autumn. Not that he had any use for the money. And they left him to himself, his memories and his hatreds, seeing him only as a harmless, pathetic, sometimes laughable figure, with a marginal usefulness that protected him from denunciation.

David whistled a warning of his approach when he was still a hundred yards from the old man's hut. Then he stood stock still and listened after the harsh notes that Timofey had taught him, and heard the answering call; it had started as a sort of game, but that was before the talk in the group had been of action. After that there had been a difference. New justifications and a seriousness for the precautions. David had not told him of the programme, just prodded his memory, vague and fading, leading the old man to the days in the woods round Sevsk when he had stalked the partisans. Technique, procedure, manoeuvre, tactics – all those Timofey could teach him. 'Be careful. Be on guard at all times. It is when you relax that they take you. The knife in the back, at the throat, the single shot.' Always the same epitaph: that he had relaxed, that he was not careful.

A silly thing to bury a man for, that he was casual, Timofey had said.

The hut was not as large as the one the group had found, but big enough for a woodsman to spend a night when his search for dried and fallen branches that were needed for his fires caused him to stray far from his home. Table inside, and chairs, and a mattress on the floor, all had been thrown out from the dachas and disappeared overnight from the rubbish heap. Rabbit snares on the wall, neatly in line, the coils of steel wire suspended from nails, a source of food.

When they were inside David said, 'Timofey, I do not have much time, and I have come to ask something of you. It is of the greatest importance you give me what I ask for. You have suffered greatly at their hands. If you give me what I need you will have the chance to hit them in a way that has not been possible for you. I want guns, Timofey. Not a rifle – I have no need of that-but the machine-guns. Two of them, certainly, I must have.'

In the half-light of the room David saw the eyes opposite him glint, closing with interest as the old man's attention was captured by the request. Desperate to know what I want them for, the old fox, thought David.

'Timofey, it is not a criminal act, not robbing a bank, not for money. It is against them, the system – it will hurt them whether we succeed or fail. It will punish them for what they have done to you, and to us.'

'What have they done to you?' His voice was hoarse with the strangeness of speaking.

They have hunted us in the same way as you, only the weapons have changed. They are our enemies as they are yours.'

'You have a house, clothes, work, money-how are they your enemies as they are mine?'

'We do not have the same opportunities, we are second- class citizens. We are not permitted to be part of their world. They reject us because we are Jews.'

'We saw the Jews go in the war. We were on the side of those who exterminated your parents and your relatives. Perhaps we even approved

… it is difficult… it was a long time a g o… we did nothing. How many millions of your people died then? And now you want guns, and you want to kill people to get a better place in the sun. Is that reason enough? We killed so many of each other at that time; what you now talk of seems a little matter. Perhaps because I am old, but what you seek for yourself seems nothing..

'I have not the time, old man.'

Timofey rose from his stool. 'When you have guns then you will go to war. That is the time when you must learn the wisdom of patience and calm, or you will end as nothing. With the strength of the gun beside you your haste must be tempered, even your haste to be clear of an old man who asks nothing of you, nothing but a few words that can be lies or truth, immaterial.' He moved stiffly because the damp had long been in his knees and movement was hard for him, towards the hanging sacking that marked off the area where he slept. When he emerged again it was with an ageing knapsack coloured the steel grey of the wartime German forces. He placed it with deliberation on the table and unbuckled the straps that held down the top flap. There was pale green mildew on them and the buckles were dark with rust. He saw the way the young man looked at him. 'Have no worry. Inside it is dry. Weapons do not age, not if they have been cared for, if they are cleaned. These have been.' Then the bundle of water-proofed oilskin, a mustard brown, camouflage ground sheet, and that was laid on the table, and there was string to be undone, and finally the guns were revealed. So small, David thought. The tubular steel shoulder rests folded down the stock, magazines separate and detached, just barrellength basically, insignificant little things such as children play with when they mimic the television pictures of the Red Army at its manoeuvres. But clean, and shining, and as worked on as any of his mother's mantelpiece ornaments.

'The ammunition too I have cared for. It would not be wise to fire a test, but I tell you, my boy, that they will function. They are adequate to kill any who are keeping you as a second citizen.' He laughed, his hoarseness giving way to a raven's croak, his face cracking with the humour of his remark, spilling new lines across the log-brown face.

'I need two, Timofey.'

'So there are more than one of you. You have a follower, perhaps an army, and you will be the general?'

"There are no generals. We are together.'

'We all say that when we are young. But do not listen to yourself. When there is danger there must be a leader. You cannot fight by committee, even they found that. And are you the leader, David? Can you take your friends forward? When you have the guns it is changed, you know.

You must discover that before you begin the course, whatever it may be, that you have chosen.

Later is too late, there is no time.'

David did not reply, and Timofey lapsed to taking the guns in his hands.

For half an hour he showed David the workings of the weapons until the lesson was learned.

He showed him the safety mechanism, showed him how to arm them, how to load the magazine, to attach it, explained the drift of automatic fire high and to the right if more than five shots were fired in a burst, showed him what to do if he suffered a jam.

At the door, the load he had come for in a plastic bag, David said, 'What is the call that you taught me, told me to use when I approached?'

'The kingfisher's.'

'Why did you choose that one?'

Timofey pointed past his hut into the tangle of trees. 'You cannot see it from here, but there is a stream, where no one comes, where I sit. There is the nest of a kingfisher there, and I hear her call, or that of her mate when he has need of her. It is rare for people to see that bird. Most of these swine that live here through the summer would never see one, let alone hear her. So I say that if I hear that call, and I hear it from the path that you use, then it will be you. Another bird, and I could be mistaken, or I might hear it too often. But the kingfisher is the rarity, a princess amongst them.'

'I have never seen one.'

'Because you are from the city. She is fast and swift, and she holds the initiative in her world.

None can catch her, few even see her, she is devastating in her attack. She is a lesson to the guerrilla. She is what you must strive after.'