Owen Sheers - Resistance

Shifting himself a little higher up the ridge he lay against, George lowered his head to the eyepiece of the sight. His whole body felt transparent with lightness, the pulse of his blood heavy in his veins. The circular view of the sight wavered and trembled, eclipsed by thin crescents of darkness at either side, as he watched Maggie reach the end of the orchard and undo the latch of the gate to lead the colt through into the long-grassed meadow. There were tall thistles at the field’s edge, between which a charm of goldfinches flitted and sparked. As the colt came into the meadow, he whinnied to the mare grazing in the field beyond. Maggie slipped off his head collar, then watched as he trotted away to nose with his mother over the hedge. Excited by the sudden space of the field after his night in the stable, the colt cantered down and up the slope, eventually coming to a stop near Maggie, where, after sniffing at the grass, he dropped to the ground to roll, shifting himself from one side to the other with grunts and snorts through his nostrils. When he stood again he began to graze, letting Maggie walk up and stroke his neck and flanks as he did.

George could see Maggie’s lips moving. She was talking to the horse as she brushed her hand over his mane. He tried to control his breathing, which had become rapid and shallow. The trigger felt cold as his finger touched it, making the crosshairs shiver over Maggie and the yearling. “Simply not an option. Will not, in any circumstances, be tolerated.” He heard the man’s voice in his ear again, steady and sure. Then he thought of the empty villages outside Hereford (one thousand), of his mother, weeping on the trough (two thousand), of the young lieutenant barking questions into his face (three thousand), of loose change jangling in the pockets of soldiers (four thousand), of his sister, laughing.

Maggie was looking up at the Hatterall ridge trying to see where the flock were grazing when she heard the bullet’s whine followed immediately by the soft thud of its impact. When she turned round Glyndwr was still standing, a dark pearl of blood welling in his right ear. But then he began to fall, slowly at first, tilting up the slope, his legs buckling until he collapsed to the ground with the sound of a woolsack, full to straining, thrown from the back of a wagon. Only then, when he lay at her feet, did Maggie see the horse’s left eye, exploded into a purple and red pulp, like an overripe damson undone by the beaks of hungry birds.

Albrecht was shaving from a bowl of warm water that Steiner had brought him when Maggie arrived at The Court. He stood opposite her in the front room just as he had on that first morning she’d called, wiping the soap from his face with a towel, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows. Maggie, however, looked like a different woman from the one who’d challenged him so defiantly in that same room seven months before. Her skin was ashen, her eyes unfocused, and her speech hesitant. “She’s in shock,” Sebald said, guiding her into a chair with his hands on her shoulders. “Alex, get me a blanket.”

Albrecht hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Ever since Alex came back yesterday and told him what happened at the show, his mind had been racing, playing out the configurations, trying to second-guess what would happen next. He’d placed the men on double guard duty then retired to his room early, so he could think. While he’d expected a reaction, a consequence of some kind, he was still shocked by what Maggie told him, at the swiftness of the retribution. He sat opposite her, his head bowed, trying to gauge what this meant and how much time he might have. Had their husbands done this? Had they been watching them all along, waiting? No, he didn’t think so. They would never operate in the area of their own homes. But then, why shouldn’t they? Perhaps they thought they had nothing to lose now, and there were, after all, no rules. Had he really forgotten that so quickly? No rules and no boundaries, he knew that.

He looked back up at Maggie. Her face was haggard and loose, the light in her eyes dulling even as he watched them with his own. He brought his hand up to her cheek and held it there, cupping her face in his palm. “Look,” he said quietly to Sebald, “at what it does.” He knew this face too well, had seen it too many times before. In Holland, Belgium, Russia. Its features knew no borders, no nationality. He’d created this face in others, and even worn its mask himself, in a bunker on the outskirts of Moscow, a letter dated months earlier falling from his hand. It was not the face of war but the face war left in its wake. The numb, ghosted expression that set upon the features at the moment of a spirit’s leaving.

Albrecht lowered his hand. “Put on your uniform,” he said to Sebald, still speaking quietly, as if Maggie were asleep and he might wake her with his speech. “Then take Mrs. Jones to Mrs. Lewis and stay there with them.” He stood up and walked over to a desk in the corner of the room. Tearing a piece of paper from a notepad, he wrote over it quickly, then folded it once. “Give this to Mrs. Lewis,” he said as he passed the paper to Sebald. Then he walked over to Alex, who was standing silent at the side of the room. “I’m sorry,” he said in a whisper, placing a hand on his shoulder. Then, almost as quietly, as he walked up the stairs, “Battle dress, double-time.”

At the top of the house, Albrecht opened a window and scanned the valley with Steiner’s pair of binoculars as the clatter of the men assembling rose up through the rooms below him. Slowly pulling the fields and trees through the circular view, he eventually found the colt. The horse was, just as Maggie had said it would be, lying in the meadow beside her farm, the grass around its head stained dark with blood. A black ruff of crows fluttered about its neck, busy with their beaks, their wings clamouring above them.

When Albrecht came back down into the front room the rest of the patrol were waiting for him. As he ducked his head under the low beam at the bottom of the stairs, Alex brought them to attention with a scuffing of heels and a rattling of weapons and webbing. As Albrecht looked over them, at their threadbare uniforms, their helmets spotted with rust, their rifles and machine guns cumbersome in their arms, his heart sank in his ribs and a faint nausea rose in his stomach. One bullet. That was all it had needed for this to happen, for the men he had come to know so well to slip behind the uniforms of the soldiers he no longer did. The uniforms were necessary, though, and not just to prevent any incoming troops mistaking them for British insurgents. No, Albrecht needed them too. He was grateful for them. They would make it so much easier for him to hold his resolve and stay true to the promises he’d made to himself yesterday.

While Alex and Maggie were at the show Albrecht had spent much of the day in the hollow up at the Red Darren, sitting before the map once more. The darkness of that cavity in the cliff, the map itself and its resonance of centuries had calmed him. Illuminating it with his torch he’d stared into its half-imagined countries and illustrations, searching once more for the answers to the questions within him, and it was then, as he’d studied the map in its makeshift chamber, that he’d decided. He would not go back, whatever happened, even if there were a way of doing so safely. He would not return to the life he’d endured for the five years before fate and this map drew him to this valley. He would continue with his escape, reach again for the life he’d discovered to be his. But he would not do so alone. That was the other decision he made, sitting before the map in the dark. There would be no point in reaching for his life, in fighting for his life, if he left the woman he wanted to share it with behind him. So he would take Sarah with him. After the seven months he’d spent with her, he couldn’t imagine it being any other way. But not yet. First there were the other women to be protected and these men standing before him, the men he’d chosen as they rested on that lawn outside a burnt-out cottage on the coast. He’d chosen them, he had decided their fate, and so he must stay with them until the very last moment, until it was time, at last, to leave them. Gathering himself, he walked towards the four soldiers standing to attention in their faded uniforms, placed his steel helmet on the table, and began issuing his orders.