THE GENERAL STOOD lN THE OPENING OF HIS TENT AND GAZED
at the grey horizon. Sheets of mist alternately rose and fell across the steep slopes opposite, perpetually blotting out one area only to reveal another. Every now and then the clouds sank low enough to brush the summit of his tent. The general, coat collar turned up, stood listening to the rustle of the canvas behind him as it shivered in the wind.
A few yards away was the parked car, then a little further still the workmen's tent, then the lorry. The cemetery had no clear-cut boundaries. The streams winding around it had gnawed away the earth, one on each side, and washed it away, down the slope into the valley.
There was the sound of picks rhythmically striking the hard ground. From time to time a group of men would form at one particular spot, and the general knew that another soldier's remains had been unearthed. Now, he sensed, they were disinfecting the recovered bones, and the expert was bending down to measure the skeleton's length, while the priest, standing at the expert's side, was marking a name with a cross, and also, if the height failed to correspond to that given on the list, with a question mark.
The general stood and pictured to himself, down to the smallest details, what was happening below him, in the little group, from the priest's frozen features to the expert's quick gestures as he pulled out his expanding rule and pushed it in again. When the group took a long time to break up, the general said to himself: They're measuring him again. That means another question mark on the list, I suppose.
Then one of the workmen would hurry over to his tent and come back with a nylon bag, a pretty blue bag, made to order, with two white stripes across it, black binding around the edges, and the discreet trademark 'Olympia'. The expert would take up the medallion with tweezers held between those long thin fingers, then drop it into a metal box.
One day there was an inspection to make sure we all still had our medallions. Someone had reported my mate for having chucked his away. 'What have you done with your medallion?' the lieutenant asked him when he'd made him undo his battledress. 'l don't know, 1 must have lost it.' 'Lost it? You know as well as I do that you threw it away. You useless idiot! Now you'll die like a dog and no one will be able to recognize that carcass of yours. And then we'11 come in for it again, as usual! This man, take him to the guard house!' And two days later they brought him another medallion.
But when the group dispersed, on the other hand, it meant that the remains had been duly inserted into their nylon bag, then a label attached to it inscribed with the soldier's service number and the number on their list. Then the same work man would carry the bag back to the tent, and the heavy, rhythmic blows of the picks in the damp ground would begin again.
Who is it they've found now? the general wondered as he watched the little group form yet again in the middle of the cemetery. And with every fresh body disinterred he saw once again, in thought, that crowd of silent and sombre faces in his drawing-room, so far away, in his home, during those wet and stormy days when he had just come back from the sea. All those who had come to see him talked about the relatives they had lost. Some seemed to never stop, others were less talkative, still others brought photographs with them, even thick bundles of letters, while some carried nothing at all, except their brief telegram from the War Office.
The general huddled down inside his greatcoat and glanced towards the north-west.
It's over there, their memorial, he thought to himself, at the crossroads, just where you hear the splashing of the mill race running down to that deserted mill. On a clear day it must be visible from here. But today it is hiding somewhere under the mist.
As the veils of mist slid across the slopes he expected to see it emerging from them at any moment, that tall, very tall, slender monument with its facing of white stone, and then, beyond it, the ruined arches of an old house, piles of rubble, heaps of scorched stone, and further away still, just outside the village, the burnt-out and deserted mill with the water babbling down on its way, the only thing that had not been burned or destroyed. On the face of the monument, in clumsy capitals, were carved the words: Here passed the infamous Blue Battalion that burned and massacred this village, killed our women and children, and hanged our men from these poles. To the memory of its dead the people of this place have raised this monument. The village had now been moved to a spot lower down, near the bottom of the valley, and only the telephone poles, their bases thickly tarred, with an oblique supporting strut here and there, remained. The same poles from which, the story went, Colonel Z. had hanged men with his own hands. Their height varied according to the contours of the ground, their wires still stretched taut through space.
But today even the telegraph poles were swathed in the deep mist, and from where he stood the general could see nothing. It was as though an immense white sheet had been spread over everything below, over the memorial, over the poles, over the old mill and the crumbling arches, as though in readiness for some grand inauguration.
'You'll catch cold,' the priest said as he passed the general and entered the tent. 'It's very wet, and the wind is as sharp as a knife.'
The general followed him inside. It was lunchtime. 'Well, how did things go?'
'Quite well,' the priest said. 'If the people from the cooperative come out to help us tomorrow on the far side of the stream, we shall be able to move on in four days.'
'I think the men will come. But the women and the older men may not. They feel that it's an act of impiety to open up graves.'
'I should say that the women and the old men will probably come too. I rather suspect they derive a sort of secret satisfaction from the work.'
'You amaze me,' the general said. 'Is it possible to derive satisfaction from opening up graves?'
'For them it's a sort of belated vengeance.' The general shrugged his shoulders.
'And as a bonus it is also very remunerative work,' the priest continued. 'We pay them well enough for it to be worth their while to drop everything else. With what they earn working just a few days for us they can buy themselves a nice little radio. They're very fond of radios.'
'I've noticed,' the general said. 'And they always play them full blast. It might have been a good idea if we'd brought a portable with us.'
'Yes, one just didn't think of it at the time.'
'I'm beginning to be sick of the sight of this tent.'
'And the weather is getting steadily colder every day. Let's hope this is the last camp we shall have to make in this area.' 'As I recall there's still one more place in this direction we have to investigate. Somewhere up in the actual mountains, near a disused military supply route.' 'Oh?'
'Yes, the dead men were manning a checkpoint on the road, or guarding a bridge, I don't remember which at the moment.'
'So there will be a fair number?'
'Oh yes, without a doubt. That's why I'm thinking of leaving it over till next year. It can't be much fun clambering about up there in this weather.'
There was the sound of an engine outside. The priest went out to investigate.
'What is it?' the general asked when he reappeared. 'Nothing,' the priest said. 'Just the new stock of disinfectant sprays arriving.'
The general took out their thermos flasks. They lunched frugally and silently on dry rations. Then the general lay down on his camp bed. The priest took up a book and began reading.
What did he get up to with the colonel's widow, the general wondered as he lay watching the priest's profile and his black, silky hair, in which not a single grey hair was visible.
How charming she was! he thought, his hands clasped behind his head, eyes fixed on the canvas quivering gently above him. The rain had started to fall again.
The sky was blue, totally blue, he thought to himself as he gazed at the slope of mauve canvas above his head. And that woman, under that sky, she was so pretty you'd have sworn there could be nothing in the whole world as graceful as her.
He had the feeling that the vision he was seeing must come from much further back in his past, that he couldn't have been seeing it as recently as last August, on that flaming late afternoon with the sun going down red like a huge tired eye, and here and there on the horizon, still pale and uncertain, the first glimmering of evening. The promenade along the sea front was always full at that hour, and they had been sitting with all their usual companions on the terrace of their big hotel to watch the sunset, and the boats, and the gulls out to sea. They came there every day, to admire the evening sky, and they always waited until the sun had sunk finally into the sea and the big hotel signs had lit up, interspersed with the small, vertical ones of the night clubs, all around the bay, before they left their chairs to walk with the child ren on the beach.
That afternoon the terrace was packed, and the beams of the westering sun struck red-tinged reflections from the glasses on the tables. What did they talk about? He found it difficult to remember. It was one of those trivial conversations that fade with the daylight itself, and leave nothing behind but empty bottles on the tables, those bottles of fruit juice with their multi-coloured gaudy labels.
Then suddenly he had the feeling that he was being stared at insistently from a nearby table. He turned slowly round and his eyes met that woman's gaze for the first time, then that of an old lady, then the eyes of a man, and lastly those of a second man. Clearly these people were talking about him. After having exchanged a few nods of the head they began staring at him again, with the same insistence. And it was then that the young woman began to smile. After a moment one of the men suddenly stood up, walked over, and said with a slightly embarrassed air: 'General!'
That was how he had come to make the acquaintance of
Colonel Z.'s family. They had all come to that resort for the sole purpose of meeting him : that pretty woman, the colonel's still young widow, the old lady, his mother, and his two first cousins.
'We were informed that you had been charged with this holy and sublime mission,' the old lady said, 'and we are happy to know you.'
'Indeed, that was our reason for coming here.'
'We tried endlessly to have him found, right up till the end of the war,' the old lady went on. 'Three times I sent people to look for him and all three drew a complete blank. The fourth man I sent was a con man. He pocketed the money and disappeared. When we heard that you were going out to that country our hopes were renewed. Oh yes, my child, we have placed all our hopes, all our great hopes, in you now!'
'I shall do my best, madame. I shall spare no effort, I assure you.'
'He was so young, you know. And he had every virtue!' the old woman went on, her eyes filling with tears. 'Every one thought he had the makings of a military genius. Those were the words the Minister of War used himself, when he came to offer us his condolences. It is a great loss, a very cruel loss for us all, he said. But he was my son, and so the loss naturally hits me the hardest. Oh, you too, Betty, of course, I'm sorry, my dear. Do you remember that last time he came back from Albania? For those two weeks of leave? Only two weeks and we had to celebrate your marriage in such a rush, because time was so precious. His duties were so important he couldn't stay away from that accursed country any longer. Do you remember, Betty?'
'Yes, mother, how could I forget?'
'Do you remember how you cried and cried up on the landing while he was putting on his uniform, how I tried to comfort you and keep myself calm, and then suddenly there was that telephone call. It was from the War Office. The plane had to take off in half an hour. Our poor darling hurtled down those stairs, barely touching them, kissed us both, and left. Oh, do forgive me,' the old lady said, 'I do beg your pardon for pouring it all out like this, but I do feel things so, I always have.'
During the days that followed they became even better acquainted, and the colonel's family became part of their group. They played tennis, swam, took boat trips, and went dancing together in the nightclubs along the front. The general's wife didn't find this new friendship very much to her taste, but as was her custom she kept the fact to herself. Inwardly, however, she was decidedly chagrined to see her husband walking so often with Betty along the water's edge, and the other woman's perfect figure, her alluring blonde hair, and indeed all her attractions, became a constant source of jealousy.
'I should very much like to know what you two find to talk about all the time you're together,' she remarked one day.
'About the colonel,' he answered. 'What else?'
'Oh, come! I'm prepared to accept that his old mother talks about him non-stop all day, but that his widow has no other subject of conversation either, well .. .'
'That's not very nice of you,' he interrupted her. 'These people are in distress and they've asked me to help them. And after all, it's the least I can do to try.'
'Oh, I can imagine easily enough what the colonel's widow is really concerned about. The whole beach knows by now how anxiously she is waiting to receive her husband's remains; you never hear her talking about anything else. And I can only say that such exaggerated attachment to a husband who's been dead twenty years, and with whom she lived for only two weeks, can be explained in only one way.'
'What do you mean?'
'Quite simply that she is trying to pull the wool over her mother-in-law's eyes, hoping that she's so senile she won't notice. The poor old woman really believes that her daughter-in-law never thinks about anything but the dear departed colonel-though admittedly it is a great consolation to her.' 'And so?' the general said, pretending not to understand. 'What do you mean, "and so"? The old countess is immensely rich and has no heirs. She's going to die in the not too distant future, and she will leave a will.'
'I don't want to listen to gossip of this kind. It is my duty to bring back the colonel's remains. That is my mission. And that's all there is to be said about it.'
'An ill-fated mission too,' his wife said.
Then Betty suddenly disappeared for two days, and when she returned the general noticed a certain coldness combined with a hint of lassitude in her eyes.
'Where have you been?' he asked her when he met her outside the hotel.
She was in a bathing costume and wearing sunglasses that masked almost all the top half of her face. He could not pre vent himself noticing that she had blushed under her tan as she spoke the name of the priest.
She told him that her mother-in-law had begged her to go immediately to the priest, on her behalf, and ask him to do his best in helping to find her son, that she had finally succeeded in locating him, that her mother-in-law's mind was now at rest, etc....
But he wasn't listening to her. He was gazing in a sensual stupor at her scantily covered body, and it was then that he wondered for the first time what her relationship with the priest really was.
Then the days sped by, soaked with sunlight. The colonel's old mother continued to hold forth on the virtues of her son -who according to her had been the entire War Office's blue-eyed boy-and on the antiquity of her family. Betty, meanwhile, would disappear from the beach from time to time; and when she came back-always with that same tired and distant air-the general always asked himself the same question.
One afternoon their group spent the whole afternoon on the hotel's main terrace. A film star, the group's latest addition, said to him :
'You know, general, there is no one on this beach quite so strange as you. There is a veil of mystery all around you, and when I think that after these splendid days spent here basking in the sun you are going off to hunt for dead bodies over there, in Albania, I feel a shiver of horror. You remind me of the hero in that ballad by the German poet-his name escapes me at the moment but we had to study him at school. Yes, you're just like him, the hero who rose up out of his tomb to ride through the moonlight. I feel sometimes that you are going to come knocking at my window in the night. Oh! What a terrifying thought!'
The general laughed obediently, his mind not really there, while his companions all gazed in silent wonder at the set ting sun. Except for the colonel's mother, who must needs refer everything to her son and therefore remarked:
'Oh, how he would have loved this. He was so sensitive to beauty of every kind!' And she wiped away a tear with her handkerchief.
Betty was still as seductive and as enigmatic as ever, the sky still as blue-only, from time to time, here and there, the horizon was beginning to be darkened by black clouds, heavy with rain, sailing slowly eastwards, towards the Albanian coast....
The general got to his feet. There was no one else in the tent. The noise of rain on canvas seemed to have stopped. Presumably work had begun again. He walked out and stood in front of the tent. The mist, still as thick as ever, lay in a blanket over the landscape, and the general turned his eyes to the south-east, towards where the monument should be rising, and the telephone poles, with their wires stretched out in space.