Refiner's Fire (23 page)

So she changed her mind, thinking that Rica Vista existed in a thousand different ways, and that if by ruling with a tired hand she tired it, she would be doing a disservice. For it was as well a brighter, younger patch of lands than she knew she could see. She realized that the meaning of their lives was much the direction in which history had pointed them. It would be better for all of them to die than to have abandoned course, for their line was like an arrow pointed and the back of the arrow follows the front as if from love and loyalty, but most certainly it does.

Marshall could hear them and visualize the scene, though he stared upward at the glowing dove resting in splendor on the dark mahogany beams. In planes of silence transferred on heat, with the plants and sunshot colors outside saying her message, with the deep white sparkle of her eyes, from a life in a foil of islands and seas, as if a great judge had rendered a great decision, as if the frenzied opening of a race of the finest straining horses, as if her husband and sons were in her and traveled with all their strength into her frail limbs—she took Lucius by the hand. And as all time coursed from her to him and her life came about steady and good, eyes opened, shining, she said from deep in her chest in almost a low moan, beams of sun cast against the black, dust rising and swirling silver on the air, animals of the farm heavy and sad outside in their numbers, she said in a stroke to compass her life and his and that of a thousand generations: “Lucius! Go!” and Marshall stared upward, electrified.

The dove swooped down again and with beating wings flew toward the white clouds and the mountains. He had been tricked, but how delightfully. His resolve upon pure light had been suspended for a time, as if in a stage play with many twists and much backstepping. And then, unable to sort the full complexity of it, Marshall stared with great pleasure at the high mountains where he knew he would soon try his hand at war and other things beyond his control.

T
HEY PREPARED
for war, and entirely forgot themselves. It became easy for even the most tangled of them to glance skyward or at the form of a moving object and feel it shaking through him. Genuinely coarse men can't do that. Even the gentle horses stamped like cavalry mounts and showed themselves in statuesque profile, as if gray war clouds made them remember their horsefulness. Stanhope, who if unchecked was biased toward the rotund, quickly grew uninterested in food and became thin in consideration of the plan. Everyone feared, including Farrell, for the strategy they chose was exceedingly bold, as it had to be in view of their small number.

One day, before Marshall had been allowed to go with them, Lucius, Peter, Stanhope, Nielson, Farrell, and Marshall were gathered at sunset on a part of the lawn boxed in by thick hedges. They were all in white for vespers, during which Marshall had stood outside the copse and listened, but had remained apart. Then when the loud, clear bell had rung they moved to the boxwoods and sat on canvas chairs around a map table. Though it was light enough to make out the green of the lawn, a gas lantern burned in an endless sprint to light the intricacies of the map.

The problem was the inaccessibility of the Rasta camp. It was between two swift rivers, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. The closest road was twenty miles, and then spies en route would make surprise out of the question. Without using the roads, they would have to cross thirty-five miles of jungle overland. That way they might very well miss their target but (even more vexing) they would certainly alert the enemy of their approach, since for many miles around the camp the country people had been terrified into informing. The camp was unapproachable. Lucius had seen it from the air. It was surrounded by open space and barbwire. Lying in the fork of the Rio Nuevo and the White Water, it was backed by cliffs and a high mountain range. Farrell suggested a parachute drop.

“There aren't enough of us,” snapped Nielson, remembering the British at Port Said. “If one is injured and another must support him, we lose forty percent of our force, and that is assuming that only one is injured. We must reach the objective in perfect order. Besides, the bush farmers would hear the plane. Planes don't fly over there much.”

It seemed impossible, unless they were to take a month and move through the jungle with triple the stealth of the Rastas themselves, something which, after having exuberantly sung resounding hymns only half an hour before, they thought they could not do. They were sure that silence was unbecoming to them.

Then Marshall intervened. Placing his hands on the map with betraying affection for the form, he cut the knot. It was not such a profound solution, and would later seem rather obvious. In fact, he wondered why Nielson or Farrell had not seen it right away.

“As far as I can see,” he said pompously, and yet suddenly in command, “it seems to offer us the opportunity of coming down from the mountains. They will not be expecting us from the rear, as the Romans did not expect Hannibal, and they will think that we cannot pass the impenetrable cliffs and brush on the windward side of the Blue Mountain Range, as the French did not think that the Germans could penetrate the Ardennes with a large army.”

“How will we get to the mountains without traveling the roads, Master Pearl?” asked Farrell. “If we go by the Kingston side every damned Rasta in the world will see us.”

“We will go by sea, in Stanhope's launch. Leaving at night, in two days we will make the extreme eastern part of the island. After we are dropped we will head for the ridge, here, and get to the top so that our westward march will be unhindered by thick vegetation. In a few days we will reach this point, at which we will descend to here, and then, to avoid becoming fouled in the impossible windward country, we will ride the White Water down to the camp.

“It can be done, with our equipment in rubber flotation bags, which will support us. At the Rasta camp we will arrive without warning, at our ease. If the rear is unprotected we're set. All we need do is mortar over a lot of smoke and some high explosive shells to draw their attention. Then Farrell and Nielson can enter the camp and grab what's his name.”

“Big Tub,” said Lucius.

“What makes you think you can tell us how to do this?” asked Farrell, his face all twisted and his eye cocked.

“Because I have,” answered Marshall, striking a heroic pose. The five of them eyed him dumbfoundedly. Lucius started to laugh, enjoying himself tremendously. Then Stanhope began to laugh as well, and the rest followed until they were rolling on the grass in the stark shadows of the map light, until they hurt and tears came to their eyes.

In between bursts of hilarium, Farrell said, “Tomorrow I'll start to teach Marshall how to use the weapons.”

Marshall replied, “Tomorrow, Farrell, I'll teach
you
how to use weapons.” They thought that this was the funniest thing in the world, and they would have been hysterical all evening had not the dinner bell sounded and forced them to migrate toward the house like a bunch of drunken sailors. Dinner was especially enjoyable—lobsters from the coast—and everyone had giggling fits, even Dash and Mrs. Pringle, who had no idea why there was so much whimsy.

Later, in bed, Marshall looked at the stars through the wide-open window and thought of marksmanship. He practiced, sighting in the pins of light, and assured himself that on the morrow he would awaken in one of those steelcast moods in which he sometimes found himself, when he could have threaded a needle on the back of a galloping horse, so precise and ecstatic were his confidence and belief. When he looked at the stars he felt bodiless and as if his power extended in a sphere. That night he dreamed of bullseyes, one after another.

F
ARRELL TOO
had stayed up late, thinking of how to test Marshall. It vexed him. Everyone knew that the five had been practicing, and that, though he had arrived with a gun in his hand, Marshall hadn't fired a shot in months. So, at breakfast, they decided to go easy on him. But partly because Dash was there, and partly because he believed that challenges were best faced when amplified, he cut in and said, “Oh no. If I don't shoot best I don't even want to go on the raid. In fact, I'll go back to New York.” Getting himself deeper and deeper until his heart pounded and his ears burned, he said, “You must remember, Lucius, Peter, Stanhope, Nielson, Farrell, Dash, and Mrs. Pringle, that I am an American.” Farrell smirked, but Dash was amused. “Americans shoot straight.” They started to laugh, but stopped when they realized that Marshall was serious. It was getting out of hand.

“Perhaps in Texas they shoot straight,” said Mrs. Pringle, “but in New York, Marshall?”

“Mrs. Pringle, it's true that Texas is bigger than space. That I admit. But the great marksmen of the United States live in New York. New York is not just New York City. The countryside is seven hundred miles wide by one thousand miles long. There's plenty of room for shooting. I have a friend who can throw ten dimes in the air and shoot holes in every single one. Once, we were about a thousand feet from a traffic light. There was an ant on top of the traffic light. My friend said: ‘You want me to shoot that ant?' And he did.”

“Marshall,” asked Dash, “if the ant had been wearing a hat, could your friend have shot off the hat?”

“Certainly.”

“That I'd like to see,” said Farrell, always inclined to take things quite literally.

“Here it is,” said Marshall, holding up a tiny crumb he had picked from the table. “I brought it with me. This is the hat of the ant shot by my friend Dabaloin in Fish's Eddy, New York.”

They went to the firing range, where there were five tests—rifle, pistol, submachine gun, grenade, and hand-to-hand fighting. Farrell handed Marshall a Mauser, explaining the criteria. At fifty yards, Marshall was to put three holes as close together as possible in the center of a small black frame on the target. He had three shots in which to test trajectory and bias. Everyone took his turn while Marshall waited. The concussions made their nerves raw. Farrell had assumed that the many shots would shake Marshall's hand, but Marshall was used to the pressure of a firing range, and knew how to go limp and let the shock travel through him and out again. Nielson made the best score with a total spread of sixteen centimeters.

Marshall slung his Mauser, stretching tight against the cream-colored leather. Adjusting elevation and guessing the windage, he took careful aim at the center of the box and hit exactly. Compensating according to memory of where he had first aimed, he followed with two shots which came close upon the first. “That's it,” he said, “I don't need to practice.” His spread was nine centimeters, nearly twice as good as Nielson's.

Farrell grit his teeth and proceeded to distribute a half dozen pistols. Thirty bottles were placed on a plank. Each man had five shots. Lucius hit three, Peter three, Stanhope two, Farrell four, and Nielson four as well. They knew that the pistol would be heavy in Marshall's hands. Fourteen bottles remained. Before Marshall fired, he loaded another pistol and placed it before him. Then with only one hand (the use of two hands cramped the felicitous lateral traverse) he raised his weapon, knocked off five bottles in a row, picked up the other pistol, and knocked off
six,
getting the last one by a lucky fragmentation of the one before it.

Farrell was speechless. With the submachine gun, Marshall placed twenty of twenty-five cartridges expended in a silhouette target, a fine score. Throwing the grenade was foolish pleasure.

In fact, everyone but Marshall was astounded, since only he knew that from a very early age he had been taught by Livingston to sight and shoot, and that he had a private range on which to practice. But he was puzzled at the thought of fighting Farrell, who outweighed him by about fifty pounds and was hard and tough. Farrell had a mustache. Marshall was no more capable of growing a mustache than of growing a tusk. Farrell's muscles buckled and popped. Marshall was a boy. He swallowed hard and advanced to the center of a dirt ring where they boxed and threw each other about in training. He faced Farrell and began to circle like a fighting cock. He grunted and groaned, and made faces.

This proved too much for Farrell, who left the ring in disgust. “I cant beat up a kid,” he said. “I give up. The little bastard is mad, can shoot like fookin' Robin Hood, talks like an instructor at Sandhurst, and isn't afraid of the bloody divil. Let the little fooker be chief of staff for all I care.”

They made him clean the guns. “Do a good job,” said Nielson. “They must be in good condition.” Nielson had seen more than all of them combined, and he was the most anxious. Having seen nothing whatsoever, Marshall had no fear. The noise from the guns had quieted them, and they moved about in the blooming sunlight as if it were night.

T
HEY LEFT
in moonlight on a Saturday night when there was a dance at the banana wharf and everyone was drunk or dancing and would not notice the graceful green-and-white launch as it made out of the channel to a smooth black sea undulating with the slow sway of deep swells. Marshall glanced at Stanhopes gentle eyes lit mildly by the low compass light and red gauges. Stanhope turned the brass wheel precisely and rhythmically as they navigated through the coral to the high sea, satisfying requirements of course and recognizing the influence of a slow electronic tune coming from the wharf.

It was another time, another country, inhabited by men as strong as horses, who worked hard and talked like rapids. Strikingly set into the night sky and stars, the sea, and the fragrant hills, was the wharf, crowded with the colors they loved—red, indigo, pink like orchids. A table was covered with bottles of Red Stripe. The girls were in home-sewn dresses and patent-leather shoes. Lights sparkled from houses on the hill. The wharf moved like a drum of confetti, shaking. It receded in the distance as the small boat full of armed men moved to the open sea and its silence, with only rays and sharks slim and silver below. The stars showered down to Cuba, and as they turned eastward, Lucius lighted a cigar and passed it around. Stanhope took a puff and said: “Thank you, brother Lucius, and good luck to us.” Marshall fell asleep almost as contented and happy as he had ever been. To be armed and at sea was very fine. A warm breeze washed over them. The boat pushed along toward Rigel and Orion, under constellations exceedingly bright.