The Young Lions

Then Christian began to cry, clinging to the Lieutenant, and he knew he was afraid, and that he could do nothing to save himself and they would be hit and he and the Lieutenant and the motor-cycle would crash in a single, smoking mass, burnt cloth and blood and petrol in a dark pool on the sand, and then there was someone shouting in English and waving wildly nearby. Hardenburg was grunting and bending over more than ever. Then the whistles came from behind them, and suddenly they were alone on a pale streak of road, with the noise dying down far to the rear.

Finally, Christian stopped crying. He sat up straight when Hardenburg sat up, and he even managed to look with some interest at the open road peeling out in front of the bouncing motor-cycle. His mouth tasted very queer, with the vomit and the blood, and his cheek was stinging him as sand flew up under his handkerchief and ground into the bruises there. But he took a deep breath, feeling much better. For a moment, he did not even feel tired.

Behind him the glare and the firing died down quickly. In five minutes they seemed to have the desert to themselves, all the long quiet, moonlit waste from the Sudan to the Mediterranean, from Alamein to Tripoli.

He held Hardenburg affectionately. He remembered that he had wanted to tell the Lieutenant something before all this had started, but, at the moment, what he had intended to say escaped him. He took the handkerchief off his face and looked around him and felt the wind whipping the spit out of the corners of his mouth, and he felt quite happy and at peace with the world. Hardenburg was a strange man, but Christian knew he could depend upon him to get him to some place safely. Just where he would get him and at what time, Christian did not know, but there was no need to worry. How lucky it was that Captain Mueller, in command of their company, had been killed. If he had been alive it would have been Mueller and Hardenburg on the motor-cycle now, and Christian would still be back on that hill with the three dozen other dead men…

He breathed deeply of the dry, rushing air. He was sure now that he was going to live, perhaps even for quite a long time.

Then the handle-bars jerked to one side. The front wheel skidded round and the Lieutenant's hands bounced away from the grips. Christian felt himself falling and lunged forward, grasping the Lieutenant. The impact knocked the Lieutenant over the bucking front wheel and the machine skidded crazily off the track, the engine roaring loudly. Suddenly it dipped to one side and crashed. Christian felt himself flying through the air, screaming, but somewhere inside him a voice was saying quietly, This is too much, too much. Then he hit something and he felt a numbness in his shoulder, but he got up on one knee.

The Lieutenant was lying under the motor-cycle, whose front wheel was still spi

Suddenly the Lieutenant sat up. He looked once at the machine, and said, crisply, "Now we walk." But when he tried to get up he couldn't. He looked at his legs reflectively. "Nothing serious," he said, as though to convince himself. "I assure you, it is nothing serious. Are you all right?"

"Yes, Sir," said Christian.

"I think," said the Lieutenant, "I had better rest for ten minutes. Then we shall see." He lay back with his hands clutching the sodden bandage over his forehead.

Christian sat near him. He watched the front wheel of the motor-cycle slowly stop spi

The face of the desert looked fresh and cool in the new sun. Even the wrecks looked simple and harmless in the fresh light. Christian slowly uncorked his canteen. He drank one mouthful of water carefully, rolling it around on his tongue and teeth before swallowing it. The sound of his swallowing was loud and wooden. Hardenburg opened one eye to see what he was doing.

"Save your water," he said, automatically.

"Yes, Sir," said Christian, thinking with admiration: That man would give an order to the devil who was shovelling him through the door of the furnace of hell. Hardenburg, he thought, what a triumph of German military education. Orders spurted from him like blood from an artery. At his last gasp he would be laying his plans for the next three actions.

Finally Hardenburg sighed and sat up. He patted the wet bandage on his head. "Did you put this on?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir."

"It will fall off the first time I move," Hardenburg said coldly, objectively criticizing, without anger. "Where did you learn to put on bandages?"

"Sorry, Sir," said Christian. "I must have been a bit shaken myself."

"I suppose so," Hardenburg said. "Still, it's silly to waste a bandage." He opened his tunic and took out an oilskin case. From the case he took a sharply folded terrain map. He spread the map on the desert floor. "Now," he said, "we'll see where we are."

Wonderful, Christian thought, fully equipped for all eventualities.

Hardenburg blinked from time to time as he studied the map. He grimaced with pain as he held the bandage on. But he figured rapidly, mumbling to himself. He folded the map and put it back briskly into the case and carefully tucked it away inside his tunic.

"Very well," he said. "This track joins with another one, leading west, perhaps eight kilometres away. Do you think you can make it?"

"Yes, Sir," said Christian. "How about you?"

Hardenburg looked at him disdainfully. "Don't worry about me. On your feet," he barked, again to the phantom company he was continually addressing.

Christian rose slowly. His shoulder and arm pained considerably, and he could move the arm only with difficulty. But he knew he could walk several of the eight kilometres, if not all of them. He watched Hardenburg push himself up from the sand with a furious effort. The sweat broke out on his face and the blood began to come through the bandage on his forehead again. But when Christian leaned over to try to help him, Hardenburg glared at him, and said, "Get away from me, Sergeant!"

Christian stepped back and watched Hardenburg struggle to raise himself. He dug his heels into the sand as though getting ready to take the shock of being hit by an onrushing giant. Then, with his right elbow held rigid, he pushed ferociously, with cold purpose, at the ground. Slowly, inch by inch, with the pain shouting mutely from his livid face, he raised himself till he was half-bent over, but off the ground. With a wrench, he pulled himself upright and stood there, wavering, but erect, the sweat and blood mixed with the grime on his face in a thick, alarming compost. He was weeping, Christian noticed with surprise, the tears making harsh lines down the nameless paste on his cheeks. His breath came hard, in dry, tortured sobs, but he set his teeth. In a grotesque, clumsy movement, he faced north.

"All right," he said. "Forward march."

He started out along the thick sand of the track, ahead of Christian. He limped, and his head bobbed crazily to one side as he walked, but he continued steadily, without looking back.