The Magus - John Fowles [165]
but suddenly the night was torn open by a tremendous cry. It came from the other man, the noble brigand, from the very depth of his lungs and it must have been heard, if anyone had been awake to hear it, from one side of the island to the other. It was just one word, but the most Greek of all words. I knew it was acting, but it was magnificent acting. It came out harsh as fire, more a diabolical howl than anything else, but electrifying, right from the very inmost core. It jagged into the colonel like a rowel of a spur. He must have understood Greek. He spun round like a steel spring. In three strides he was in front of the Cretan and had delivered a savage smashing slap across his face. It knocked the man's head sideways, but he straightened up at once. Again it shocked me almost as if I was the one hit. The beating-up, the bloody arm could be faked, but not that blow. Lower down the path they came dragging the other man out of the bushes. He could not stand and they were pulling him by the arms. They dropped him in midpath and he lay on his side, groaning. The sergeant went down, took a water bottle from one of the soldiers and poured it over his face. The man made an attempt to stand. The sergeant said something and the original guards hauled him to his feet. The colonel spoke. The soldiers split into two sections, the prisoners in the middle, and began to move off. In under a minute the last back disappeared. I was alone with my two guards, the colonel and the lieutenant. The colonel came up to me. His face had a basilisk coldness. He spoke in a punctiliously overdistinct English. "It. Is. Not. Ended." There was just the trace of a humourless smile on his face; and more than a trace of menace. As if he meant something more than that there was a sequel to this scene; but that the whole Nazi _Weltanschauung_ would one day be resurrected and realised. He was an impressively iron man. As soon as he spoke he turned and began to follow the soldiers down the path. The lieutenant followed him. I called out. "What isn't ended?" But there was no reply. The two dark figures, the taller limping, disappeared between the pale, soft walls of the tamarisk. I turned to my guards. "What now?" For answer I found myself jerked forward and then back, and so forced to sit. There were a ridiculous few moments of struggle, which they easily won. A minute later they had roped my ankles together tightly, then hoisted me back against a boulder, so that I had support for my back. The younger soldier felt in his tunic top pocket and tossed me down three cigarettes. In the flare of the match I lit I looked at them. They were rather cheap looking. Along each one was printed in red, between little black swastikas, the words _Leipzig dankt euch_. The one I smoked tasted very stale, at least ten years old, as if they had been overthorough and actually used cigarettes from some war-issue tin. In 1943 it would have tasted fresh. I made attempt after attempt to speak with them. In English, then in my exiguous German; French, Greek. But they sat stolidly opposite me, on the other side of the path. They hardly spoke ten words to each other; and were obviously under orders not to speak to me. I had looked at my watch when they first tied me. It had said twelve thirty-five. Now it was one thirty. Somewhere on the north coast of the island, a mile or two west of the school, I heard the first faint pump of an engine. It sounded like the diesel of a large coastal ca�e. The cast had re-embarked. As soon as they heard it, the two men stood up. The elder one held something up, a table knife. He put it down where he had been sitting. Then without a word they started to walk away, away from the north coast, up the path. As soon as I was sure they had gone I crawled over the stones to where they had left the knife. It was blunt, the rope was new, and I wasn't free for another exasperating twenty minutes. I climbed back to the ridge, to where I could look down over the south side of the island. Of course it was quiet, serene, a landscape tilted to the stars, an Aegean