John Christopher - The Death of Grass

“Must you shoot to kill?”

He began to say: “It’s a matter of safety…’ He felt the car creak over; Roger had come up quietly and was leaning on the open window.

“O.K.?” Roger asked. “We’ve got Olivia and Steve in with Millicent.”

John got out of the car. He said to Ann:

“Remember—you and Millicent bring these cars up as soon as you hear the horn. You can feel your way forward a little if you like, but it will carry well enough at this time of night.”

Ann stared up to him. “Good luck.”

“Nothing in it,” he said.

They went back to Roger’s car, where Pirrie was already waiting. Then Roger drove slowly forward, past John’s parked car, along the deserted road. It had already been reconnoitred earlier in the evening, and they knew where the last bend before the road-block was. They stopped there, and John and Pirrie slipped out and disappeared into the night Five minutes later, Roger restarted the engine and accelerated noisily towards the roadblock.

Reconnaissance had shown the block to be held by a corporal and two soldiers. Two of these could be presumed to be sleeping; the third stood by the wooden barrier, his automatic slung from his shoulder.

The car slammed to a halt The guard hefted his automatic into a readier position.

Roger leaned out of the window. He shouted:

“What the hell’s that bloody contraption doing in the middle of the road? Get it shifted, man!”

He sounded drunk, and verging on awkwardness. The guard called down:

“Sorry, sir. Road closed. All roads out of London closed.”

“Well, get the flaming things open again! Get this one open, anyway. I want to get home.”

From his position in the left-hand ditch, John watched. Strangely, he felt no particular tension; he floated free, attached to the scene only by admiration of Roger’s noisy expostulation.

Another figure appeared beside the original soldier and, after a moment, a third. The car’s headlights diffused upwards off the metalled road; the three figures were outlined, mistily but with reasonable definition, on the other side of the wooden barrier. A second voice, presumably the corporal’s said:

“We’re carrying out orders. We don’t want any trouble. You clear off back, mate. All right?”

“Is it hell all right! What do you bloody little tin soldiers think you’re up to, putting fences across the road?”

The corporal said dangerously: “That’ll do from you. You’ve been told to turn round. I don’t want any more lip.”

“Why don’t you try turning me round?” Roger asked. His voice was thick and ugly. “There are too many bloody useless military in this country, doing damn’all and eating good rations!”

“All right, mate,” the corporal said, “you asked for it.” He nodded to the other two. “Come on. We’ll turn this loudmouthed bleeder’s car round for him.”

They clambered over the barrier, and advanced into the pool of brightness from the headlights.

Roger said: “Advance the guards,” {81} 81 Advance the guards: the ordering of a regiment into action his voice sneering.

Now, suddenly, the tension caught John. The white line in the centre of the road marked off his territory from Pirrie’s. The corporal and the original sentry were on that side; the third soldier was nearer to him. They walked forward, shielding their eyes from the glare.

He felt sweat start under his arms and along his legs. He brought the rifle up and tried to hold it steady. At any fraction of a second, he must crook his finger and kill this man, unknown, innocent. He had killed in the war, but never from such close range, and never a fellow-countryman. Sweat seemed to stream on his forehead; he was afraid of it blinding his eyes, but dared not risk disturbing his aim to wipe it off. Clay-pipes {82} 82 clay-pipes: targets in a rifle range at a fairground at a fairground, he thought—a clay-pipe that must be shattered, for Ann, for Mary and Davey. His throat was dry.

Roger’s voice split the night again, but incisive now and sober: “All-right!”

The first shot came before the final word, and two others followed while it was still in the air. John still stood, with his rifle aiming, as the three figures slumped into the dazzle of the road. He did not move until he saw Pirrie, having advanced from his own position, stooping over them. Then he dropped his rifle to his side, and walked on to the road himself.

Roger got out of the car. Pirrie looked up at John.

“I must apologize for poaching, partner,” he said. His voice was as cool and precise as ever. “They were such a good lie.”

“Dead?” Roger asked.

Pirrie nodded. “Of course.”

“Then we’ll clear them into the ditch first,” Roger said. “After that, the barrier. I don’t think we’re likely to be surprised, but we don’t want to take chances.”

The body that John pulled away was limp and heavy. He avoided looking at the face at first. Then, in the shadow at the side of the road, he glanced at it. A lad, not more than twenty, his face young and unmarked except for the hole in one temple, gouting blood. The other two had already dropped their burdens and gone over to the barrier. They had their backs to him. He bent and kissed the unwounded side of the forehead, and eased the body down with gentleness.

It did not take them long to clear the barrier. On the other side equipment lay scattered; this, too, was thrown into the ditch. Then Roger ran back to the car, and pressed the horn button, holding it down for several seconds. Its harsh note tolled on the air like a bell.

Roger pulled the car over to the side. They waited. In a few moments they heard the sound of cars approaching. John’s Vauxhall came first, closely followed by Pirrie’s Ford. The Vauxhall stopped, and Ann moved over as John opened the door and got in. He pushed the accelerator pedal down hard.

Ann said: “Where are they?”

She was looking out of the side window.

“In the ditch,” he said, as the car pulled away.

After that, for some miles, they drove in silence.

According to plan, they kept off the main roads. They finished up in a remote lane bordering a wood, near Stapleford. There, under overhanging oaks, they had cocoa from thermos flasks, with only the internal lights of one car on. Roger’s Citroen {83} 83 Citroen: large car, popular at the time was convertible into a bed, and the three women were put into that, the children being comfortable enough on the rear seats of the other two cars. The men took blankets and slept under the trees.

Pirrie put up the idea of a guard. Roger was dubious.

“I shouldn’t think we’d have any trouble here. And we want what sleep we can get. There’s a long day’s driving tomorrow.” He looked at John. “What do you say, chief?”

“A night’s rest—what’s left of it.”

They settled down. John lay on his stomach, in the posture that Army life had taught him was most comfortable when sleeping on rough ground. He found the physical discomfort less than he had remembered it.

But sleep did not come lightly, and was broken, when it came, by meaningless dreams.

Saxon Court stood on a small rise; the nearest approach to a hill in this part of the county. Like many similar preparatory schools, it was a converted country house, and from a distance still had elegance. A well-kept drive—its maintenance, Davey had confided, was employed as a disciplinary measure by masters and prefects—led through a brown desert that had been playing-fields to the two Georgian wings flanking a centre both earlier and uglier.

Since three cars in convoy presented a suspicious appearance, it had been decided that only John’s car should go up to the school, the others being discreetly parked on the road from which the drive diverged. Steve, however, had insisted on being present when Davey was collected, and Olivia had decided to come along with him. Apart from John, there were also Ann and Mary.