Greybeard

As if coming to a resolution, he raised his revolver. As the point swung towards Timberlane, Martha screamed. Her husband trod on the brake. They rocked back and forth, the engine died, they stopped.

Before Timberlane could heave himself round, Pitt dropped the gun and hid his face in his hands. He was weeping and raving, but what he said was indistinguishable.

The slack-mouthed fellow said, “Keep still! Keep still! Don’t run away! We don’t none of us want to get shot.”

Timberlane had the corporal’s revolver in his hand. He knocked Pitt’s arms down from his face. Seeing how his weapon had changed owners sobered Pitt.

“Shoot me if you must — think I’d care? Go on, better get it over with. I shall be shot anyhow when Croucher finds I let you escape. Shoot us all and be done with it!”

“I never done no one any harm — I used to be a postman. Let me get out! Don’t shoot me,” the slack-mouthed guard said. He still nursed his revolver helplessly on his lap. The sight of his captain’s breakdown had completely disorganized him.

“Why should I shoot either of you?” Timberlane asked curtly. “Equally, why should you shoot me? What were your orders, Pitt?”

“I spared your life. You can spare mine. You’re a gentleman! Put the gun away. Let me have it again. Shut it in a locker.” He was recovering again, still confused, but cocky and casting his untrustworthy eye about. Timberlane kept the gun aimed at his chest.

“Let’s have that explanation.”

“It was Croucher’s orders. He had me in front of me — I mean in front of him, this morning. Said that this vehicle of yours should be in his hands. Said you were just an intellectual troublemaker, a spy maybe, from London. Once you’d got the truck moving, I was to shoot you and your lady wife. Then Studley here and me was to report back to him, with the vehicle. But I couldn’t do it, honest, I’m not cut out for this sort of thing. I had a wife and family — I’ve had enough of all this killing — if my poor old Vi -“

“Cut out the ham acting, Mr. Pitt, and let us think,” Martha said. She put an arm over her husband’s shoulder. “So we couldn’t trust friend Croucher after all.”

“He couldn’t trust us. Men in his position may be fundamentally liberal, but they have to remove random elements.”

“You got that phrase from my father. Okay, Algy, so we’re random elements again; now what do we do?” To her surprise, he twisted round and kissed her. There was a hard gaiety in him. He was the man in command. He removed the revolver from the unprotesting Studley, and slipped it into a locker. “In the circumstances we have no alternatives. We’re getting out of Oxford. We’ll head west towards

Devon. That would seem to be the best bet. Pitt, will you and Studley join us?”

“You’ll never get out of Oxford and Cowley. The barricades are up. They were put up during the night across all roads leading out of town.”

“If you want to throw in your lot with us, you take orders from me. Are you going to join us? Yes or no?”

“But I’m telling you, the barricades are up. You couldn’t get out of town, not if you were Croucher you couldn’t,” Pitt said. “You must have a pass or something to permit you to be driving round the streets. What was that thing you flashed at the guard as we left the barracks?” Pitt brought a pass sheet out of his tunic pocket, and handed it over. “I’ll have your tunic, too. From now on you are demoted to private. Sorry, Pitt, but you didn’t exactly earn your promotion, did you?”

“I’m no murderer, if that’s what you mean.” His manner was steadier now. “Look, I tell you we’ll all get killed if you attempt to drive through the barricades. They’ve established these big concrete blocks everywhere. They stop traffic and tip up GEM’s.”

“Get that tunic off before we talk.” The Cowley Fathers came level with the truck. They stared in before labouring into a public house with their burden. As Timberlane passed his jacket over to Martha and slipped on Pitt’s tunic — it creaked at its rotten seams as he struggled into it — he said, “Food must be still coming into the town, mustn’t it? Food, stores, ammunition — God knows what. Don’t tell me Croucher isn’t intelligent enough to organize that. In fact he’s probably looting the counties all round for his supplies.”

Unexpectedly, Studley leant forward and tapped Timberlane on the shoulder. “That’s right, sir, and there’s a fish convoy coming up from Southampton due here this morning, ‘cos I heard that Transport Sergeant Tucker say so when we signed for the Windrush earlier on.”

“Good man! The barriers will have to go down to let the convoy through. As the convoy enters, we go out. Which way will it be coming from?”

As they trundled south through the devouring sunlight, the sound of an explosion came to them. Farther up the road, they saw by a pall of smoke to their right that Donnington Bridge had been blown up. A way out of the city had been cut off. Nobody spoke. Like the cholera, the desolation in the streets was contagious.