A Fable

‘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.