The Young Lions

"I don't know what their orders are," Hardenburg shouted, "and they may have to turn off and fight at any moment…"

"Of course," said Christian.

"It's a good idea to hold on to our own transportation," Hardenburg said. Christian was vaguely grateful that the Lieutenant was being so kind about explaining everything to him.

"Yes," said Christian, "yes, indeed."

"What did you say?" Hardenburg shouted as an armoured car roared past.

"I said…" Christian hesitated. He did not remember what he had said. "I am agreeable," he said, nodding ambiguously.

"Absolutely agreeable."

"Good," said Hardenburg. He unknotted the handkerchief that Christian had round his throat. "Better put this round your face. For the dust." He started to tie it behind Christian's head.

Christian put his hands up slowly and pushed the Lieutenant's hands away. "Pardon me," he said, "for a moment." Then he leaned over and vomited.

The men in the trucks going by did not look at him or the Lieutenant. They merely stared straight ahead as though they were riding in a wintry parade in a dying man's dream, without interest, curiosity, destination, hope.

Christian straightened up. He felt much better, although the taste in his mouth was considerably worse than it had been before. He put the handkerchief up around over the bridge of his nose so that it covered the entire lower part of his face. His fingers worked heavily on the knot behind, but finally he made it.

"I am ready," he a

Hardenburg had his handkerchief round his face by this time. Christian put his arms around the Lieutenant's waist, and the motor-cycle kicked and spun in the sand and jolted into the procession behind an ambulance with three pairs of legs showing through the torn door.

Christian felt very fond of the Lieutenant, sitting iron-like on the seat in front of him, looking, with his handkerchief mask, like a bandit in an American Western movie. I ought to do something, Christian thought, to show him my appreciation. For five minutes, in the shaking dust, he tried to think how he could demonstrate his gratitude to the Lieutenant. Slowly, the idea came to him. I will tell him, Christian thought, about his wife and myself. That is all I have to offer. Christian shook his head. Silly, he thought, silly, silly. But now he had thought of the idea, he could not escape it. He closed his eyes; he tried to think of the thirty-six men digging slowly in the sand to the south; he tried to think of all the beer and cold wine and cold water he had drunk in the last five years, but again and again he felt himself on the verge of shouting over the clanking of the traffic around him, "Lieutenant, I had your wife when I went on leave from Re

The procession stopped, and Hardenburg, who had decided to remain, for safety, in the middle of the convoy, put his foot down and balanced the machine in neutral. Now, thought Christian crazily, now I am going to tell him. But at that moment two men got out of the ambulance in front of them and dragged a body out by the feet and put it down by the side of the road. They moved heavily and wearily and dragged it by the ankles out of the way of the vehicles. Christian stared at them over the edge of his handkerchief. The two men looked up guiltily. "He is not alive," one of them said earnestly, coming over to Christian. "What's the sense of carrying him if he is not alive?"

Then the convoy started and the ambulance ground into first gear. The two men had to run, their water-bottles flapping against their hips, and they were dragged for quite a distance "before they managed to scramble into the body of the ambulance over the other legs jutting out through the torn door. Then it was too noisy to tell Hardenburg about his wife.

It was hard to remember when the firing started. There was a ragged crackling near the head of the column and the vehicles stopped. Then Christian realized that he had been hearing the noise for what seemed like a long time without understanding what it was.

Men jumped heavily from the thin-ski

Mortar shells were dropping sixty metres away. A fire started in one of the carriers there. In the light Christian could see men being dragged roughly away from the road. Hardenburg drove the motor-cycle alongside the ambulance and stopped. He peered sharply across the desert, the little V of the handkerchief whipping around his chin like a misplaced beard.

The British were using tracers in their machine-guns and light artillery now. The lazy, curving streaks were sweeping in, seeming to gather speed as they neared the convoy. It was impossible for Christian to figure out where they were firing from. It is very disorderly, he thought reproachfully, it is impossible to fight under ridiculous conditions like this. He started to get off the motor-cycle. He would merely walk away from this and lie down and wait for something to happen to him.

"Stay on here!" Hardenburg shouted, although he was only twelve inches away from him. More disorder, Christian thought, resentfully sitting back on the pillion. He felt for his gun but he did not remember what he had done with it. There was an acrid, biting smell of disinfectant coming from the ambulance, mixed with the smell of the dead. Christian began to cough. A shell whistled in and burst near and Christian ducked against the metal side of the ambulance. A moment later he felt a tap on his back. He put his hand up, knocking a hot spent fragment of shrapnel from his shoulder. In reaching back, he found his gun slung over his shoulder. He was heavily trying to disentangle it when Hardenburg kicked the machine into movement. Christian nearly fell off. The barrel of the gun hit him under the chin and he bit his tongue and tasted the blood, salty and hot, from the cut his teeth had made. He clung to Hardenburg. The motorcycle careered off among the crouching figures and the noise and the intermittent explosions. A stream of tracers from a great distance arched towards them. Hardenburg held the bucking machine on a straight course under the tracers and they pulled out of the glare of the flaming trucks.

"Very disorderly," Christian murmured. Then he got angry with Hardenburg. If he wanted to go riding into the British Army, let him do it. Why did he have to drag Christian with him? Craftily, Christian decided to fall off the machine. He tried to pick up his foot, but his trouser leg seemed to be caught on a protruding strip of metal and he couldn't lift his knee. Vaguely, ahead of them, and to one side, he saw the dark outlines of tanks. Then the tanks swung their guns round. A machine-gun from one of the turrets opened on them, and there was the sickening whistle as the bullets screamed behind their heads.

Christian bent down and pressed his head crookedly against the Lieutenant's shoulder. The Lieutenant was wearing a leather harness and the buckles scraped against Christian's cheekbone. The machine-gun swung round again. This time the bullets were hitting in front of them, knocking up puffs of moonlit dust, and bouncing up with thick savage thuds.