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the real name of every man in this squad? Been with some of them two years,
too, and that seems like a very long time, in the circumstances?' She nods.
'But, their names
... Well, there's Mr Cuts '
'He alive?' I suggest.
She looks at me oddly, then continues. 'He's kind of my deputy; a sergeant in
his old unit. Then there's Airlock, Deathwish, Victim, Karma, Tootight,
Kneecap, Verbal, Ghost Ah!' she smiles suddenly. 'See; we have a ghost
already!' She sits. forward, flicking the names off, finger by finger. '. .
Ghost, Lovegod, Fender, Dropzone, Grunt, Broadleaf, Poppy, Onetrack, Dopple,
Psycho ... and ... that's all,' she says, sitting back, closing up, crossing
her arms and legs. 'There was Half caste, but he's dead now', 'Was he the
young man on the road yesterday?'
'Yes,' she says quickly. Then is silent for a moment. 'You know the strange
thing?' She looks at me. I watch. 'I remembered Half caste's name, his old
name, civilian name, when I kissed him.' Another moment's pause. 'It was Well,
it doesn't matter now.'
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'Then you killed him.'
She looks at me for a long time. I have out stared many a man, but those cold
grey globes come close to besting me., Eventually, she says, 'Do you believe
in
God, Abel?'
'No., What must be one of the lieutenant's smallest calibre smiles is
dispatched.
'Then just wish that you aren't ever dying from a stomach wound when there's
nobody around armed with anything better than a skin plaster and the sort of
painkillers you'd use for a mild hangover. And nobody prepared to put you out
of your agony.'
'You have no medic?'
'Had. Got in the way of some mortar shrapnel two weeks ago. Name was Vet,' she
says, yawning again. 'Vet,' she repeats, and puts her arms behind her head, as
though in surrender (her gaudy jacket falls open and, within her army shirt,
the lieutenant's breasts press briefly out; I suspect they might be, like her,
quite firm). 'Not because he was long serving. Still, you take what you can
get, you know?'
'So, at the end of this, what ought we to call you?' I ask, thinking to break
her out of such dreadful sentimentality.
'You really want to know?'
I nod.
'Loot,' she tells me, passing bashful. Another shrug. 'After a while, you
become your function, Abel. I am the lieutenant, so they call me Loot. I have
become
Loot. It is what I answer to.'
'Lute, with a U?'
She smiles. 'No.'
'And before that?'
'Before?'
'What were you called before?'
She shakes her head, snorts. 'Easy.'
'Easy?'
'Yes. I used to say, "Easy, now," a lot. It got shortened.' She inspects her
nails. 'I'll thank you not to use it.'
'Indeed; the jibes that suggest themselves would be ... eponymous.'
She regards me, narrow eyed for a moment, then says, 'Just so.' She yawns,
then rises. 'And now I'm going to sleep,' she announces, stretching her arms.
She stoops to gather up her boots. 'I thought we might the three of us
take a walk, later on; into the hills,' she says. 'Maybe do some hunting, this
afternoon.' She passes me by and pats me on the shoulder. 'You two make
yourselves at home.'
Chapter 4
I regret I am impressed with our lieutenant, if mildly. She has a sort of
uncut grace, and I find her lack of beauty (as she does, not unthinking)
beyond the point. I do not like people who make me notice what they fall to
find impressive in themselves.
You rise and walk round the table, straightening the flag as you approach,
then stand behind me, hands on my shoulders, gently pressing, kneading,
massaging. I
let you work my tired muscles for a while, my body rocking slightly, my head
moving slowly back and forth. I do believe sleep may be coming at last; my
eyes half close, and a sleepy focus brings my gaze to the surface of our flag,
spread upon the table. Dried mud lies scattered on the flag, a souvenir of the
plains delivered courtesy of the lieutenant's boots. No doubt their soil lies
sprinkled over most of our rooms, corridors and rugs by now. My gaze, filtered
through the blurring eyelash veil of my half-closed eyes, stays fixed upon
that caked dirt lying on our colours, and I recall our second tryst.
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I threw you on this same flag once, though not on this table, not in this
room.
Somewhere higher than here; an old attic, dusty and warm with the day's soaked
in sunlight. On the other side of those slates we had used as a prop to our
pleasure the night before, we crept while the rest of our party, still
recovering from the night's excitement, lunched on the lawns or soaked away
hangovers in baths. I wanted you immediately my desire stoked but smothered,
banked for the rest of that night first by your too proper concern for our
absence being noticed, then by the sleeping arrangements, which meant we each
had to share a room with other relations but you demurred at first, in some
recollected aftermath of shyness.
And so, like the children we no longer were, we investigated old boxes, trunks
and chests, our declared pretext become real. We found old clothes, moth eaten
fabrics, ancient uniforms, rusted weapons, empty boxes, whole crates of hard,
heavy phonograph records, forgotten urns, vases and bowls and a hundred other
discarded pieces of our history, recent and antique, risen here like light
detritus upon the swirling currents of the castle's fluid vitality, deposited
at its dusty, unused summit like dusty memories in an old man's head.
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