The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [609]
At this moment Kikuchi became aware that the infantry lorry had followed him and was gunning its motor at his back as it negotiated the ruined and abandoned British defences. He stood aside and swung himself aboard as it passed. Other members of his platoon, already inside, grabbed him and hauled him in. A few yards further on another figure loomed out of the darkness and sprang aboard like a panther. A mortar bomb exploding behind them lit up the face of this latecomer … it was Matsushita, his lips working, eyes burning, speechless with excitement. Kikuchi sniffed carefully. Even if he had not seen the Lieutenant’s face he could have told who it was by the strange odour, unlike anything he had ever smelled before, which came from him. He sniffed again. If electricity had a smell, that was what Matsushita would have smelled like at that moment.
Now the lorry had reached the dark haven which lay between the Hyderabads and the next British position. More tanks were following them, dark shapes on the moonlit road, and soon the sound of gunfire was left far behind. They drove on down the road as rapidly as they dared without lights in the wake of the two tanks which had taken over the lead. Nakamura’s tank was now cruising immediately behind them.
On and on they went into the darkness. Kikuchi was in a trance, his mind whirling. He became aware presently that his mouth was open and that he was panting like a dog, his tongue hanging over his lower lip. It must be the heat, he thought. He closed his mouth and tried not to pant, afraid that Matsushita might regard it as a sign of fear. Now the word was passed back that the leading tank was approaching Milestone 61. Air reconnaissance had revealed further road-blocks at this point. The time was 4.30 a.m. It was still pitch dark. Kikuchi experienced a craving to see daylight once more.
Suddenly there was a flash and a violent explosion just ahead of them. The leading tank had struck a mine buried in the road: instantly the quiet night erupted into fire and uproar. Once more Kikuchi found himself tumbling out on to the road with his companions, screaming at the top of his lungs. Streams of tracer poured over his head from Nakamura’s tank behind the lorry, so close that it seemed to scorch his cheek with its fiery breath.
In the darkness something hit him a sharp blow on the side of the head: perhaps the tail-gate of the lorry or the butt of someone’s rifle. The blow dazed him; he stood still in a pool of darkness. It was like being in a cage of bright dotted lines criss-crossing each other … it was like a firework display: amid the rushing streams of fire from the tracer there bloomed and died magnificent white and orange chrysanthemums. The white lights which flickered and dribbled from pillboxes set back from the road might have been merely the sparklers which children hold in their hands. The air was alive, too, with the hum and whir of insect wings just as when cherry blossom covers the branches with its lovely foam in the spring and all the hives are busy. ‘How beautiful! he thought for the second time. And he continued to stand there while enemy bullets fell so thickly around him that it was just like a sudden hailstorm rattling on the slopes of Mount Fuji. ‘Look at this!’ he marvelled, contemplating the way the bullets furrowed the soft tar of the road-surface like thick worms in the moonlight.
Suddenly his arm was roughly taken and he was thrown down again into the ditch at the side of the road. The shock brought him partly to his senses and he thought that perhaps an Englishman was at this moment fumbling with his shirt before slipping a knife between his ribs. But the voice which spoke to him spoke