‘Wait here,’ the corporal said.
‘My orders say — —’ the sergeant said.
‘.… your orders,’ the corporal said. ‘We got a system here. We do things our way. Down here, you’re on active service, pal. Just give me two of your men and the stretcher. Though you can come too, if you think nothing less will keep your nose clean.’
‘That’s what I intend to do,’ the sergeant said. ‘My orders say — —’ But the corporal didn’t wait, going on, the two with the stretcher, the sergeant stooping last to enter the further tunnel, the valise still clasped against his breast like a sick child. It did not take them long, as if there were plenty in the next traverse to choose from; almost at once, it seemed to the remaining ten, they saw the sergeant come stooping out of the burrow, still clasping the valise, followed by the two men with the burdened stretcher at a sort of stumbling run, then last the corporal who didn’t even pause, walking around the stretcher where the two bearers had dropped it, already going on toward the stairs until the sergeant stopped him. ‘Wait,’ the sergeant said, the valise now clasped under one arm while he produced his order and a pencil from inside his coat and shook the folded order open. ‘We got systems in Paris too. It’s a Frenchman.’
‘Right,’ the corporal said.
‘It’s all here. Nothing missing.’
‘Right,’ the corporal said.
‘No identification of name regiment or rank.’
‘Right,’ the corporal said.
‘Then sign it,’ the sergeant said, holding out the pencil as the corporal approached. ‘You,’ he said to the nearest man. ‘About face and bend over.’ Which the man did, the sergeant holding the paper flat on his bowed back while the corporal signed. ‘Your lieutenant will have to sign too,’ the sergeant said, taking the pencil from the corporal. ‘You might go on ahead and tell him.’
‘Right,’ the corporal said, going on again.
‘All right,’ the sergeant said to the stretcher bearers. ‘Get it out of here.’
‘Not yet,’ the first stretcher bearer said. ‘We’re going to have that drink first.’
‘No,’ the sergeant said. ‘When we get it into the lorry.’ He had not wanted the assignment and indeed he did not belong here because this time they simply took the valise away from him in one concerted move of the whole twelve of them, not viciously, savagely, just rapidly: with no heat at all but almost impersonal, almost inattentive, as you might rip a last year’s calendar from the wall to kindle a fire with it; the ex-picklock didn’t even pretend to conceal his action this time, producing his instrument in plain view, the others crowding around him as he opened the valise.
Or they thought the rapidity and ease of the valise’s rape had been because they were too many for the sergeant, staring down at the single bottle it contained with shock then outrage and then with something like terror while the sergeant stood back and over them, laughing steadily down at them with a sort of vindictive and triumphant pleasure.
‘Where’s the rest of it?’ one said.
‘I threw it away,’ the sergeant said. ‘Poured it out.’
‘Poured it out, hell,’ another said. ‘He sold it.’
‘When?’ another said. ‘When did he have a chance to? Or pour it out either.’
‘While we were all asleep in the lorry coming out here.’
‘I wasn’t asleep,’ the second said.
‘All right, all right,’ the ex-picklock said. ‘What does it matter what he did with it? It’s gone. We’ll drink this one. Where’s your corkscrew?’ he said to a third one. But the man already had the corkscrew out, opening the bottle. ‘Okay,’ the ex-picklock said to the sergeant, ‘you go on and report to the officer and we’ll take it up and be putting it into the coffin.’
‘Right,’ the sergeant said, taking up the empty valise. ‘I want to get out of here too. I dont even need to want a drink to prove I dont like this.’ He went on. They emptied the bottle rapidly, passing it from one to another, and flung it away.
‘All right,’ the ex-picklock said. ‘Grab that thing up and let’s get out of here.’ Because already he was the leader, none to say or know or even care when it had happened. Because they were not drunk now, not inebriates but madmen, the last brandy lying in their stomachs cold and solid as balls of ice as they almost ran with the stretcher up the steep stairs.
‘Where is it, then?’ the one pressing behind the ex-picklock said.
‘He gave it to that corporal riding up front,’ the ex-picklock said. ‘Through that panel while we were asleep.’ They burst out into the air, the world, earth and sweet air again where the lorry waited, the driver and the corporal standing with a group of men some distance away.
They had all heard the ex-picklock and dropped the stretcher without even pausing and were rushing toward the lorry until the ex-picklock stopped them. ‘Hold it,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’ But the missing bottles were nowhere in the lorry. The ex-picklock returned to the stretcher.
‘Call that corporal over here,’ one said. ‘I know how to make him tell where it is.’
‘Fool,’ the ex-picklock said. ‘If we start something now, dont you know what’ll happen? He’ll call the M.P.’s and put us all under arrest and get a new guard from the adjutant in Verdun. We cant do anything here. We’ve got to wait till we get back to Verdun.’
‘What’ll we do in Verdun?’ another said. ‘Buy some liquor? With what? You couldn’t get one franc out of the whole lot of us with a suction pump.’
‘Morache can sell his watch,’ a fourth said.
‘But will he?’ a fifth said. They all looked at Morache.
‘Forget that now,’ Morache said. ‘Picklock’s right; the first thing to do is to get back to Verdun. Come up. Let’s get this thing into that box.’ They carried the stretcher to the lorry and lifted the sheeted body into it. The lid of the coffin had not been fastened down; a hammer and nails were inside the coffin. They tumbled the body into it, whether face-up or facedown they didn’t know and didn’t bother, and replaced the top and caught the nails enough to hold it shut.
Then the sergeant with his now empty valise climbed through the rear door and sat again on the coffin; the corporal and the driver obviously had returned too because at once the lorry moved, the twelve men sitting on the straw against the walls, quiet now, outwardly as decorous as well-behaved children but actually temporarily insane, capable of anything, talking occasionally among themselves, peacefully, idle and extraneous while the lorry returned to Verdun, until they were actually in the city again and the lorry had stopped before a door beside which a sentry stood: obviously the commandant’s headquarters: and the sergeant began to get up from the coffin. Then Picklock made one last effort:
‘I understood orders said we were to have brandy not just to go to Valaumont and get the body out, but to get it back to Paris. Or am I wrong?’
‘If you are, who made you wrong?’ the sergeant said. He looked down at Picklock a moment longer. Then he turned toward the door; it was as though he too had recognised Picklock as their leader: ‘I’ll have to sign some bumf here. Take it on to the station and load it into the carriage and wait for me there. Then we’ll have lunch.’
‘Right,’ Picklock said. The sergeant dropped to the ground and vanished; at once, even before the lorry had begun to move again, their whole air, atmosphere changed, as if their very characters and personalities had altered, or not altered but rather as if they had shed masks or cloaks; their very speech was short, rapid, succinct, cryptic, at times even verbless, as if they did not need to communicate but merely to prompt one another in one mutual prescient cognizance.
‘Morache’s watch,’ one said.
‘Hold it,’ Picklock said. ‘The station first.’
‘Tell him to hurry then,’ another said. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said, starting to get up.
‘Hold it, I said,’ Picklock said, gripping him. ‘Do you want M.P.’s?’ So they stopped talking and just sat, immobile and in motion, furious in immobility like men strained against a pyramid, as if they were straining at the back of the moving lorry itself with the urgency of their passion and need. The lorry stopped. They were already getting out of it, the first ones dropping
