Lawrence Durrell - The Dark Labyrinth

The little group of saboteurs lived for almost two years in a comradeship and humour that was never tested. Baird learned the Cretan dances, and studied the particularities of the Cretan wines. His particular task was to build a small guerilla army, and to this end he devoted all his energies, backed by the hard-swearing Abbot. They operated from the mouth of the labyrinth, above the village of Cefalû, where later Axelos was to make his discoveries, and where the darkness was to dose down on Fearmax, Campion and poor Miss Dombey. Despite its uglier moments, the life was at first merely tiring in the physical sense, in every other way there was the exhilaration to be enjoyed of freedom (the solitude of these immense white mountains in winter and autumn) and remoteness of control over his own actions. War, in terms of ambush and bluff, was something new and it taught him concentration and spareness without touching the springs of a nature already formed in an unreflective soldierly automatism. It was only after a considerable length of time that the strain began to tell. “I’m fed up,” he told the old man one day, “my ten days in Cairo did me no good at all. I’m going to find another job. I’m getting numb.” The Abbot John regarded him keenly from under his bushy eyebrows. He nodded. “I know how you feel. It is always the same. After a long time one gets sick of the killing. One feels nothing — neither hate nor pity. It’s like the soul getting pins and needles.”

It was indeed something like the failure of experience itself to register; he killed now with a numbness and abstraction that passed for strength of mind; but it was as if he were acting in his sleep. As if he were a somnambulist leading his small parties out to ambush patrols or to examine installations. Now it was out of all this that Böcklin’s death arose; and yet at first it was simply a term in a crowded life based on animal values — fear, cunning, lice, damp blankets, snow.

Böcklin was the remaining survivor of a German mission visiting the island, which had strayed into an ambush laid for them by the Abbot. He was a rather self-conscious, almost effeminate figure, and he showed a quixotic expectancy of death when he was captured that made the Abbot, who was usually merciless to Germans, stay his hand. His English was almost perfect, and Baird discovered that he had been educated partly in England and partly in France. A Bavarian, his gentleness of manner and politeness completely won over the old man. “Since we did not kill him at the first rush,” said the Abbot looking slowly round the little group of huddled figures which had fallen among the stacked leaves round the olive-boles, “we cannot kill him now, eh?” It was not a decision to be approved easily. If he should escape.…

It was, however, becoming increasingly difficult to remind the Abbot that he came under the orders of H.Q. Cairo, and that military decisions affecting the whole guerilla group should come from the British officers present. The Abbot had never been to Cairo. He thought it was somewhere near Singapore. While he liked the British and accepted their help, he showed no desire to be ordered about in his own country. Baird opened his mouth to protest against Böcklin being alive when he saw that he had fallen in with the baggage donkeys, his young slight figure shivering in the thin field-grey uniform. They began the long trek back to the mouth of the labyrinth.

During the brief fortnight that Böcklin was with them, he proved to be a quiet and good-natured addition to the band. He took his turn at the cooking and sweeping, ran errands, played with “Koax”, and became very friendly with the dour Cretan mountaineers; indeed they liked him so much that once they even set him on guard with a loaded rifle while they slept. Baird, returning to the network of caves, saw the shadow of an armed German on guard and very nearly shot him. Böcklin handed over his rifle and retired to his corner without a word. The next day he said: “Captain, do not scold the guard. They accepted me as one of them, and by the laws of hospitality I was bound not to escape or to harm them.”

On another occasion he brought them food to a little observation post overlooking the plain from which Baird was watching the movements of a German patrol through glasses. “Who sent you up here?” he cried irritably, realizing that a prisoner should not be allowed to know too much. “The Abbot,” said Böcklin. Baird gave a sigh and turned back to watch the group of small grey-blue figures crossing the plain in open order. The mad Greeks, with their irrepressible friendliness and naïvéti , would be the. death of them all. They liked Böcklin and immediately accepted him as one of them. Well, come to think of it, why not?

He looked at the keen features and yellow hair of the German, who was sitting behind a bush, arms clasped round his knees. “Böcklin,” he said, “what did you do before you joined up?” Böcklin hung his head for a moment and looked confused. “I was going to be a priest, Captain,” he said with a clumsy attempt to bring his heels smartly together in the manner of the approved salute accorded to officers by the common soldier. Baird said nothing for a long time. The patrol in the valley moved slowly across the sodden field combing the copses. They had obviously been sent out after the Abbot. “Did you”, he said, lighting a cigarette, “believe in this war?” Böcklin, who had relapsed into reverie once more, went rigid at the knees and produced the faint simulacrum of a salute. “I did not believe either in the peace or the war, Captain,” he said. His face flushed again. He was obviously afraid of appearing impertinent. Baird grunted. “I suppose the German people will be as pleased when it’s over as we will,” he said, and, to his surprise, Böcklin shook his head slowly. “You are still fresh,” he said, “you can enjoy. We have had years now, and there is only — I do not know how to say it in English.” Baird turned to him and said in German: “Say it in German.” It was then that he heard from Böcklin’s lips the word which was afterwards to sum up, far more accurately than any other in French or English, his feeling for the world— Gleichgultigkeit .

The next day the Abbot received a present of a whole lamb, and, despite Baird’s protests, the mountaineers set to work to spit it and set it to turn on the huge fire which blazed in the fireplace. “German patrols?” said the Abbot loftily. It would take more than that to keep him from having some real meat to eat for a change. It was perhaps the smoke that gave them away.

At dawn a German patrol opened fire on the guard who was manning the light machine-gun on the outer rock-face. Wakened by the sharp scream of lead thrown off the rock-face and the hoarse winnowing noise of tommy-guns, the whole party awoke and found that their secret headquarters — not to mention the whole plan of operations — was in danger.

The only hope was to retreat further into the labyrinth along the main tunnel, which was known to two of the men who were shepherds. In a small rock chamber, too, was housed the transmitting set which kept Cairo informed of their activities. Böcklin could not go with them. In the confusion and the shouting Baird made his decision.

Böcklin must have followed his reasoning perfectly, for he sat at the entrance of one of the caves, trying to register a pathetic indifference, his thin hands in trouser-pockets. Laird came up to him at a run. In his hand he held a heavy captured Luger. Pressing the muzzle to the head of the boy he fired. The report was deafening in that confined space. The body, knocked from the old ammunition box on which it had been sitting, was thrown against the side of the rock, and fell back artfully like a character in a play, upon its back. His thick blond hair hid the wound. As Baird looked down at him he heard him draw one long and perfectly calm breath.