Adam Foulds - In the Wolf's Mouth

‘I am,’ Will answered. ‘I mean, I’m here in a sense representing the Allies. We’re here for every …’

‘Yes. That’s good. Do you smoke?’

‘Thank you, yes.’ Will accepted the proffered cigarette.

‘I can bring you many boxes. Good American tobacco, if you like it. So. As a friend I ask you, go to the French prison and ask to see the fish pool.’

‘The fish pond?’

‘Yes, the fish pond. Where you keep fish in a garden.’

‘And what is it?’

‘You will see.’ The man’s small brown eyes were urgent, his mouth set. ‘Go and ask like that and you will surprise them and they will think you know everything already and they will show you.’

‘But I don’t know anything because you’re not telling me.’

‘It’s better not to know. You’ll find out when you get there. Then you will know what to do. Goodbye now, friend.’

‘What? I beg your pardon, but what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying I go now. Thank you again. The fish pond.’

It was all happening. That night after a good meal accompanied by the oily aromatic local wine the sky began to vibrate. Captain Draycott knitted his hands and leaned forwards over his plate. He said, ‘Oh dear.’

‘Is that …’

‘I fear it is. Yes. Christ. There it is.’ Anti-aircraft guns began hacking from their positions around the port. An air raid siren started it, its long loops of panic rising and falling and rising again. The men sat still and thoughtful.

‘Should we not …?’

‘What?’ Henderson asked, challenging them.

‘Go somewhere. Downstairs. There’s a cellar, isn’t there? I haven’t looked.’

‘You haven’t looked? You’re Field Security and you haven’t looked?’

‘Yes,’ Captain Draycott answered, ‘that might be a sensible prec—’ The rest of the word was lost inside the loud detonation of a bomb.

‘That was close.’

Three of them got up and headed for the door.

‘Don’t shit yourselves, boys,’ Henderson shouted through the noise. He was lighting his pipe, slowly applying the flame to the circle of tobacco.

Draycott was pale, staring. He breathed noisily through his teeth.

‘It’s like being back in London,’ Samuels said.

Will grinned at him. ‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Night after night of this.’

‘Fine old time,’ Henderson said. ‘Grabbing handfuls of fanny in the Underground shelters.’

‘Not exactly.’

Planes were now directly overhead, shaking the room. The chandelier jumped and skipped on the end of its chain. The guns were going mad. Draycott leaned forward and vomited then got up and tried to walk out. He stumbled. Someone was in his path, lying under the table saying, ‘Please, Mother. Oh, Mother. Oh, shit shit shit shit.’ Draycott looked down, bewildered, then hurried out.

Samuels shouted, ‘Seems sensible!’ Another bomb fell and its light flashed at the window.

Seeing Samuels about to go, Will leaned forward and grabbed his wrist, holding him there. Samuels looked back at him, confusion in his eyes, apparently trying to hear what Will was saying and then realising, trying to twist his arm free. Will held him and held him, and then let go. Samuels swore at him as he turned but Will couldn’t hear through the engine noise, the firing and explosions.

Will’s body felt very light and thrilled, like he wanted to dance. He got up from the table and rushed out onto the terrace from where he could see the swinging diagonals of the searchlights, one catching the sea as a bomb dropped into it and cast up a brief tower of black water. The light of the guns stuttered. Fires were taking hold in parts of the city. From a gun position behind him, anti-aircraft fire was dropping red-hot shrapnel onto the terrace. Will could hear it tinkling as it hit. A bomb fell so close that he felt the hot wind on the side of his face, stinging with masonry grit. Still he felt invulnerable, exalted, charged and powerful and really there. He was haloed in his own safety. He was with his father in courage. He was in his presence. It was like they were brothers.

The prison was a square building with a central courtyard. A bomb had smashed one corner to a heap of rubble. Rather poetically, from the exposed walls above, twisted iron bars had been blown back like a curtain in a breeze. Apparently three men had been killed. Will could see others, unhoused, chained together, waiting in the courtyard.

Perhaps this confusion might be to Will’s advantage. The clerk or whoever he was behind the desk was evidently without sleep, blinking dry eyes, holding a cigarette in slightly trembling fingers.

‘I’m here from Allied Field Security,’ Will informed him.

‘Name.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Your name.’

‘My name is Walker. I’m here from Field Security. This is my pass and I’m here to see the fish pond.’

The man blinked and took the card from Will . The holder of this card is engaged in SECURITY duties, in the performance of which he is authorised to be in any place, at any time, and in any dress. All authorities subject to Military Law are enjoined to give him every assistance in their power, and others are requested to extend him all facilities for carrying out his duties. The man looked up at Will and back down at the pass.

Will said, ‘I’m not going anywhere until I have been shown the fish pond.’

‘Please wait.’ The man flapped his hand in the direction of a wooden chair then left the room.

Panic. The ants’ nest had been disturbed. Will sat and smiled to himself. The smile faded as he was kept waiting. Repeatedly, he checked his watch against the clock on the wall that filled the room with a chip-chip-chip sound. After fifteen minutes he decided he certainly would not stand for any French nonsense and called out, ‘I say!’ Nothing. He called out again and got up and smacked the desk with the flat of his hand. Noises behind the door and then the man appeared holding it open for someone who was evidently his superior, a slow, fat man with a face composed of heavy circles, dark orbits round his eyes, hanging cheeks, a drooping moustache.

‘Yes, you are here?’ he said.

‘Yes, I am here. I am here to see the fish pond.’

‘For any reason in particular?’

‘At this point,’ Will answered, ‘that is no concern of yours.’

‘Very well.’ The senior man shrugged.

‘What is your name?’ Will asked him.

‘Marchand. Look, I will show you but I don’t understand it can be interesting to you. It’s just the usual dirt.’

‘Nevertheless.’

‘Okay. Okay. You follow.’ Marchand hummed as he led Will out of the room, down a corridor and out into the courtyard. Behind them his junior scurried.

Will looked over the prisoners chained together. All of them Arabs, they weren’t saying anything. They looked at Will. Carefully, they did not look at the other two.

Marchand gestured and the junior bent down and inserted a key into a large manhole cover. The key turned, he pulled up a handle and dragged clear the heavy lid. Rolling up from the darkness below came a stench that made Will recoil.

‘What is it? A sewer? The usual dirt?’

Marchand looked at him with sorrow or contempt, it was hard to tell quite what that dark, slumped expression was. ‘It’s the fish pond,’ he said.

Will stepped forward, his hand over his face as his digestive tract bucked, returning the flavour of coffee to the back of his mouth. He looked down into the darkness. There were noises. Wounded by the sudden chute of light, cowering, streaked with filth, were naked Arab men, bearded, cringing. Slowly one stood up on weakened legs and turned his face upwards with closed eyes to breathe the fresh air.