Will Self - Shark

than he was already . Jack Clarke, who was sitting next to Kins — and who, as a deserter, had much more to fear — gave Kins’s shoulder a brief squeeze and whispered, Buck up, man. For the remainder of the journey Kins faced down his tormentor’s sallies with stony indiff erence. But at Louth, when the lorry pulled up in the courtyard of the police station and once more the conchies were chivvied out at rifle point, Kins. . began to lose my stuffing . They were booked in by a bull-necked desk sergeant who bellowed his orders, then locked up two or three to a cell. The last thing Kins saw before the door clanged shut was Captain Smyth, who, he now realised, wasn’t much older than him, and who bore — with the addition of a futile blond moustache — a disturbing resemblance to. . Michael’s fag at Lancing . — In the coolly carbolic interior of the unlit cell Kins said to his companions, I’ll stand — then he tripped over a bucket and the stench of urine and vomit soon made the confined space. . unendurable . The others didn’t have to endure it for that long: Syd Walker, along with a cadaverous and diffident constable, came to fetch Finlay — a bookish, reserved Scot with whom Kins had played the occasional game of chess. An hour or so passed in silence. . we’d never developed any rapport . . before they returned for Briggs, a warehouseman from the West Country Kins had been accustomed to gently patronising — he’d taken the Molotov — Ribbentrop Pact. . perrsonal, like . Kins was left to his own miserable devices, the spillage from the bucket manured his imagination. . the singing farmer would approve , so visions of what was being done to the other conchies — things that in due course. . will be done to me! . . sprouted up before his eyes, and, for once, singling came easily as he nipped off the weedier possibilities — a tongue-lashing, a beating, a debagging — to leave the one healthy certainty: dawn was being dragged unresistingly into being with each muffled bing-bong! of the town hall clock, and the quarter-hour would arrive that brought with it the leaning stake, the stained gravel, the handcuff s and the blindfold soaked with the impotent tears of those who had gone before him. Rationally . . Kins knew this to be. . poppycock of the first order , yet no sooner had he wrestled his imaginings into submission than Syd Walker returned, slid open the Judas and added his filth to the general ordure: Yellow-belly, he spat. Lily-livered conchie and Fucking pansy. . If he could’ve mustered the necessary sang-froid, Kins would’ve remarked on the floweriness of this language — as it was, he only quailed while he was told, You, you’re less than fucking British, which is why we’re gonna do for you soon as cock crows. — The dated expression set Kins wondering: Was there an inky-pinky spider somewhere in the cell, whose doughty example would. . put some backbone in the Bruce? For now he truly was in a funk-hole , nearly giving way and screaming back at Syd Walker, Don’t you realise who I am?! My pater’ll have your guts for garters — I insist you put a trunk call through to his Ministry right away! — It was the thought of Sirbert’s embarrassment that restrained him — but when he was alone again he got to pondering: I’ve never seen him embarrassed in my life. Indeed, while his father’s thoughts had always been an open book. . much pored over and frequently declaimed from, his elder son had no apprehension of his feelings at all. . Flush’d is his brow, through every vein, In azure tide the currents strain, And undistinguish’d accents broke, The awful silence ere he spoke . Now considering it with a clarity borne of pitiful resignation, Kins decided that if Sirbert had any feelings at all. . he must keep them in a locked ministerial box . This was Kins’s epiphany: his father might be adept at putting on a show, but he’d probably no greater sympathy. . than a tree or a rock . — Moreover, if his own physical cowardice was a hive burning under his skin, Sirbert — being nerveless — had no comparable feelings, so neither balked at the necessity of dishing out death from a safe remove — as he’d done at the Arsenal during the last war, and was ably doing right now as the Beaver’s PPS — or so much as gave it a thought that he might be hee-hawing . . while others. . roared into the slaughter . The repellent smoothness of Sirbert’s hairless calves when he pulled up his stockings and tied the laces of his golf shoes, the ugly varicosity that wormed purplish behind his knees — these were proof he was incarnate, although, in common with Our Saviour, Sirbert had. . risen without trace . But that was where the resemblance ended. All this time Kins had been mystified: why was it he was unable to deploy the one weapon allowed him — prayer. Now he understood: his God had never been a meek, mild, silky-bearded ephebe, but a clean-shaven Old Testament bully, who took every trick his partner won for his own. . and the Devil take the hindmost . Kins had never imagined himself to be a physical coward before — now he saw there’d been a thick yellow streak running through the persistence with which he’d skived off footer and mitched rugger. There was also the studiousness with which he’d avoided the RSM who’d taught the Lancing boys the noble art. . of sadomasochism , encouraging them to spar with their guards scarcely up so as to invite their opponent’s blows. . in a manly and virile fashion . All became clear: it was not — as he’d assumed, knowing of the pashes older and younger boys shared — the homo overtones of such activities that repulsed him, it wasn’t wily Grecian love . . but. . forthright Roman contact he couldn’t abide. And if this were the case, might what Syd Walker condemned him for also be true? All this pledging, pontificating and piety had really been. . an awful pose . The old Sirbertian religion had, Kins now acknowledged, been no leap of faith, but rather. . finely factored for risk , a matter of Pascalian wagers within still more Pascalian wagers . When Kins and Michael were boys. . Our Father encouraged us to bet on the duration of the sermon . Kins had never doubted Sirbert’s sincere belief in certain aspects of the Christian deity: the ones he believed he shared, each having been made in the other’s image . Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds, From every searching Eye, Why darkness and obscurity, In all thy words and laws . . Thrice I denied him before the cock crowed . . So when Syd Walker finally beckoned him from the cell and with slapstick digs and pricks drove him into an office where an elderly and corpulent man sat wrapped in an unseasonable blue Melton overcoat, Kins was fully prepared. . to recant all and become a fighting heretic, if necessary . It wasn’t. The bull-necked desk sergeant held Kins’s certificate upright between the tips of his fingers. Bugger off now, laddie, he said to Syd Walker. Your OC has been held up a fair while now — you’re ruddy lucky I don’t get him to put you on a two-five-two for. . ah, mislaying this one. — Squeezing past the rooted Kins, Syd Walker gave a final smirk. . for my eyes only . . and brought his martial heel down hard on cowardly toes. After that he was gone, leaving Kins to grimace at the rolltop desk, a calendar advertising Emco Farm Suppliers of Caister, a hat-stand and an open but barred window, through which early-morning sunlight drained into the room. A quart-bottle of Watneys Ale and a glass sat on the blotter beside the sergeant’s zebra-striped cuff. The fat old man sighed heavily, then wheezed: I’ve no time at all for you bloody conchies. If I’d a free hand, that ass Brockleby’s set-up’d be shut down pronto and the lot of you’d be rounded up. After that, if you weren’t disposed to do your bit, well. . He sighed again, still more heavily, and, struggling round on the squeaking swivel chair, poured some ale into the glass and took a gulp. Aaah! Theatrical satisfaction, Kins felt, was of a piece with the man’s spotted bow tie and the antique nippers hanging from a tricolour ribbon pinned to his jacket collar. You’ll have a quick wet? The old man gestured with the bottle, and when the sergeant declined, he finally confirmed: I’d have you shot. Now. . he ran onЧитать дальше