Adam Foulds - In the Wolf's Mouth

George was distant. Ray yearned towards him, to protect him. Surely he wouldn’t survive on his own, a secret pacifist in the middle of a war, in the damned infantry for Christ’s sake. Ray wrote letters to him in his head, arguing with him. My friend , they began, my friend . Ray would assert how important this war was and how the killing was necessary, the lesser of two evils in the world. George didn’t realise how valuable his own life was, so valuable compared to some useless Nazi. His life was precious and he should defend it. Ray imagined these letters — that he never wrote or sent — convincing George on the night before a decisive battle and saving him. At the same time, Ray imagined George protected by his goodness, a slight shimmer in the air around him, coming through the battle unharmed. George could be the hero of a new kind of war movie, about a man whose goodness triumphed.

All of these thoughts were repeatedly burned up and destroyed in the sudden certainty that George had just been or was just about to be killed, in that moment just gone or coming right now. Confirmation of this came with each new wounded or maddened soldier brought in from the fury of battle to be dragged along behind with Ray, drugged and repaired enough to be returned and properly killed next time.

At night, Ray cried out towards George, his own voice through his deafness high and weightless and weak.

‘Is it possible, do you think,’ Will asked Dr Zakaria, ‘that Alloula is a French informant?’ It was a mischievous question, a little flashing out of the excitement that Will felt at these meetings, the dense buzzing in his belly as he leaned forwards, smoking, listening. He asked the question with a hint of a smile.

‘No,’ Dr Zakaria answered, eyebrows raised and eyelids drooping, an expression of serene disdain. ‘Not only do I know Alloula thoroughly but you make the mistake of assuming that the French are interested in us. They aren’t. They don’t think we are capable of anything. We are invisible as far as they are concerned. The Bey is a pet. No one else has any authority.’

‘But now that I’m here and I’ve been meeting with you, their interest might have been piqued.’

Zakaria shook his head. ‘Because you are here, all of you British and others, the French withdraw entirely. They are on vacation. They are waiting for you to go away again and then life will return to normal.’

Alloula was the first of the others to arrive. Tall and sloping, his long heavy belly abbreviated by a tight belt, he looked, as ever, tired. His eyes were vague with worry. He flattened his thick black hair to his head and with the same hand summoned the waiter.

He sat and before he’d made eye contact with Will or Zakaria, he said, ‘My wife is very unhappy about me coming here.’

‘I see,’ Zakaria answered. ‘She likes the French too much.’

Will rose slightly in his seat as he considered attempting a joke about a French lover but decided against it and sank back.

‘No,’ Alloula answered. ‘But she thinks it might be dangerous, that the French are watching us.’

‘That’s precisely what I was just saying,’ Will said.

‘Not precisely,’ Zakaria corrected. ‘They aren’t,’ he went on. ‘They like different kinds of gossip and they’re too busy considering their positions when the Allies go. The Free French supporters will want to take control. As far as they are concerned, we’ll still be their niggers.’

‘Until you commit your first outrage. Anyway, you’re repeating yourself.’

‘To someone else. Repetition. Perseverance. Doing the same thing again and again before it gives way. It’s boring, trying to change things. Boring and difficult.’

‘I’m not bored.’

‘Until you do something, until we all do something, my good friend, you are still a spectator.’

Mr Ammar arrived next, sudden through the hanging beads at the door, shaking hands with his right hand, holding a match flame to a cigarette with his left. Ammar was angry. Ammar was always angry. He had weapons in his cellar. He abused waiters, clenched and unclenched his fists during conversation. He was a powerful man, compact and raging. Will liked observing him, feeling him seethe. Ammar was trivially powerful at the moment, powerful conversationally, personally, but Will could see how as events changed he might darkly blossom. He was the one. He could be a great force at the right moment.

Will sat beglamoured in the company of the conspirators who talked about some Italian armaments that could be bought. Several more arrived, argued and departed before the evening was done, faces hovering in the light of match flames and lighters. Dark hands held his forearms as ideas were elaborated. He listened. It was intelligence, pure intelligence.

Back at the villa, Samuels was still awake, sitting in a clean cone of lamplight, his hands spidery with shadows as he stripped and fixed the wiring of their telephone. Humming along to some dance music on the wireless, with tools spread out and litter of Bakelite pieces, Will thought he looked as idiotically happy as a child in a sand pit.

‘Evening.’

Samuels looked up, mouth open, and down again at his task. ‘Out with the rebels again?’ he asked.

‘Something along those lines.’

‘Need a drink, I imagine, after all that boozeless Mohammedan plotting. There’s Scotch in that window seat for some reason. Don’t know whose it is.’

‘Excellent idea. Draycott’s probably. According to Travis he’s now hiding things. Travis found one of the maps under the rug. That’s why when you knock on the door he tells you to hang on and there’s a lot of fuss and thumping about before he lets you come in.’

‘There’s a mug on the table as well.’

‘A mug. Ideal.’

Will poured himself a sincere measure of about three fingers and sat with the mug resting on his belt buckle. He tilted his head back and sighed.

‘Aaah. Hmmm. There’s quite a lot I need to remember, actually. I should make a few notes.’

‘I see. They seducing you to their side?’

‘No. What a fatuous thing to say. I’m not being seduced by anyone. You make it sound …’

‘Oops. Sorry if I hit a nerve.’

‘You haven’t hit anything because you don’t know anything.’

‘I don’t see that that follows logically. Anyway, I’m not wrong. You’re sympathetic to their side.’

‘Samuels, I think you’re straying out of your area of expertise. You don’t know the language here. Your brethren are a little north and east of here, aren’t they, somewhere in Palestine?’

Samuels said nothing, then, ‘They’re in London and on the Continent.’

‘Muttering to yourself like an old woman.’

‘Snippety snip. Somebody’s very tetchy.’

‘No idea what the situation is in this country.’

‘Doing my job. Minding my own bleeding business. Not blessed, you see, your excellency, with your understanding of the great game here. I does what I can in me humble way. For example, this telephone now works. You go on and win the war for us, sir.’

‘Oh, for crying out loud. I’m going to bed.’

Sergeant Major Henderson stood with his thick, freckled arms folded high across his pristine shirt, his eyes half closed with sceptical curiosity. ‘So who was that fucker with the sharp stick up his arse?’

Will examined the card the man had given him. Tilting it so that the swirling curlicues of black ink caught the light and shone. ‘He works for the Bey. Says here he’s an adviser, a courtier.’

‘Works for the what’s that?’