THE BEE’S WINGS brought him out of blackness. He did not want them to. They came, and went, came, and went, but they would not go. Soon, they were louder, and he could not stay asleep. He opened his eyes.
It was daylight, but dark. He was lying in the sand. It was not the bee; it was thunder banging on the mountains: two peaks standing alone, and lightning about them.
Splashes of rain hit his face, and the splashes turned to a pouring, and he opened his mouth and drank the water that the bee thunder gave back to him from the root of the blue flower and the nectar of its heart.
Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt?
And can you wash it clean?
Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt,
And hang it on the green?
He danced, but his broken shoe made him stamp. Under the rain he stamped. He stamped his keggly shoe from him.
Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt?
And can you wash it clean?
Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt,
And hang it on the green?
He took the shoe soles and clapped to the tread of a foot that now knew land.
“And I can wash a soldier’s shirt! And I can wash it clean! And I can wash a soldier’s shirt, and hang it on the green!”
The sun set behind him. Another moon rose in front. The rain had filled his mug, but he had long finished it. And the rivers and streams were all salt now: rivers and streams of flowing salt into the sea; and there was marsh. Even the dew tasted of it.
Never mind, Het.
He could follow the compass in the light. Towards dawn, he saw a rock ahead, going down to the tide. He would find snails there. The sky was bright behind the rock when he got to it, and he put the compass under the mug, and walked into the sea, feeling for the shells. The flesh was tough, but in each was a squirt of clean water, and he swallowed without chewing, once he had burst the gut. He ate as much as he could. Each bite was a step to China; his belly was his baggin cloth. As long as there was baggin, he was right for another day, and he made the juice of the snails taste of cold tea.
He went back for the mug and the compass. N pointed over the rock, and he climbed up to follow it.
“Barley mey!”
Below the rock, the shore ran to a point. The sea was on both sides. Across the water, the shore began again, and there the ship was at anchor. Along the beach smoke rose from the camp, which was now ordered rows of tents and huts; and gardens. And Knoppy’s marquee. There was a pole. From it hung the Union Jack. He saw marines at drill in squares. There were sailors. Jeremiah waved to him.
He looked at the compass. N pointed at them. But the paper was torn, the folds cracked. It was coming to pieces in his hands.
“Tha’s bugger’t; and tha’s bugger’t me,” said William.
He looked again over the water.
He could smell the comfort of a fire in the night, and new baked bread, and he could smell fresh water, and there were bright colours, and friends that would talk outside his head. And there were buildings painted white, with no windows and one door and heavy bolts; and men working in lines, and straight lines, and straight fences, and straight paths and straight roads: prison bars reaching out to gridiron the shore and hill, not seeing how the land danced.
Falseness and guile, said Tiddy, have reigned too long.
And truth, said Squarker, hath been set under a lock.
“No back bargains!” shouted William, turned and jumped.
At the even, said Tiddy, men heareth the day.
To get from the sea, William fled by left and right, among tussocks and dunes, through mud pools, he kicked his one shoe away. He followed a stream against its flow. Even here, when sun and moon were mad, and N came round, streams, even salt, would not start at the sea.
He was among low hills and trees when he fell. He could not stand. The last thing he saw was the arrow, pointing away from where he had come.
“Tha’s still bugger’t.”
He must have been lying too long. The sun was burning him sick through the shade of the few trees. The ground was brittle leaves and twigs and bark, a bed of tinder. The mug and the compass were in front of him. He looked at the compass, then at the tinder. It hurt his head to move, and his tongue was swollen so that he had to breathe through his nose. His fingers twitched in the litter, picking bits over. He found a piece of bark as soft as linen. He spread it under his palm, next to the compass.
He felt for a strong twig, and took it between his fingers. He tested along his arm for a boil that was ripe, and probed and pressed it with the twig until the boil broke. He squeezed out the pus down to the blood, and, when the liquor was red, he began to copy the pattern of the compass onto the bark, using the twig as a brush: first, the circle and the cross; next the arrow, taking care that it was pointing as the arrow on the paper; and, at the top, a new N.
She’ll do.
He held the bark compass, gripped the mug, and pushed himself to his knees. He crawled to a tree, and hugged his body upright against the trunk. He inched until his back was against the tree, and he opened the flap on his ducks. He held the mug low. When it was full, he drank without pause. The taste was salt and sweet, and it was hot, but he made it cold tea, and kept it down. His tongue moved.
“Now then,” said William. “Now then.”
Kiminary. Keemo. Kiminary. “Keemo.” Kiminary. Kiltikary. “Kiminary.” Keemo. “String.” Stram. Pammadilly. Lamma. Pamma. “Rat. Tag.” Ring. Dong. Bomminanny. “Keemo.”
He paused at each word, each word one step. The ground was lifting into woodland. His feet told him. A range of hills that were forest. He heard a far sound of roaring in his head. It seemed to be in front of him, with wisps and fast moving lumps of blue cloud that dodged here and there, jumping from behind the forest.
The sun went down red, not purple.
Lamma. Pamma. Rat. Tag.
But the dark did not come. The glow of sunset became brighter, and the sound in front of him louder. He stopped. The sky was flickering. And the whole of the tops of the hills at one instant rose as another hill, of flame. Globes of fire spun across trees, leaping gaps, and the trees exploded. The fire flowed down the hill, into a valley, showing up a nearer ridge that he had not seen. Then that ridge flared, and the fireballs danced and flew. He could hear them now, and not in his head.
William drank as he watched.
The flames were coming towards him, but moving across. If he could have run, it would not have been fast enough. The wind and the wood kindled at a speed that a horse might not outstrip. There was no choice against the flames. They were the life, and behind them, where they had been, was the night.
The wind veered, and the flames turned and sped past and to the back of him. It veered again, and encircled him. The grass and the trees marched towards him, and the fireballs danced in the tops on every side.
He coughed in the smoke. It was heavy with the smell of the church and the bee. William dug down through the dry litter to the sand until he had a hole big enough to take the mug. He wrapped the swaddledidaff in the compass, put them in the mug and buried the mug, bottom up, in the sand. He put a stone on top to mark the place, then stood to meet the fire.
Ye are the salt of the earth – daft sod. Salt.
He dragged off his shirt.
Neither do men light a candle – well, some bugger has.
He unfastened his ducks and peeled them off.
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil – Yay. And empty barrels make most noise.
The grass rushed at him. He beat at it with both hands. It paused; came on. He beat again. But his ducks and his shirt were so worn and thin that their weight was not enough, just more food for the fire, which jumped for his hands. He let go, and the cloth was gone.
Only the speed of the burning saved him, and he danced, stamped and leapt. There was one bright flash that seared. His hair and beard crumbled.
The fireballs came from all sides and met, and their heat lifted them above William, sucking the breath from him, and above the trees into one thunder and bowled across the sky to the next stand.
He knelt. The ash was hot, no more. He moved the stone, dug into the sand and took the mug. Inside, the compass and the swaddledidaff were unharmed.
He watched the fires move all night, until they were far off, and in the dawn he saw.
The world had changed. All around him, and away, the ground was white ash, the trees black sticks, bark charred, some smoking, some still burning. Up and down the hills there was nothing else but stick, ash, smoke, with no marks for distance or to hide the view.
William straightened the compass, grasped it with the mug in one hand, the swaddledidaff in the other, and set off.
The dust rose from his dragging feet and covered him, and each time he stumbled, charcoal made Shick-Shack again, but there were no leaves to hold against the sun.
In the dry valleys the world was walled with spikes. On the hill tops the land was wherever he looked: burnt, white, black; every tree was every tree, and there were so many: more than he could ever have thought of, under a blaze of sky that made each trunk clear and one. The land and the trees the same. Without the compass he would have been lost.
He drank the thickening liquid, and walked on.
Something moved in front of him on the ground. It was black, heaving, and changing shape. It cried out in a harsh voice. As he came near, it broke into tatters that fled in all directions and settled as crows on the trees. The noise died, and they sat, the black on the black, and watched him.
There was still something, but smaller, on the ground. William stood over it and looked.
What it had been, or what it was, he could not tell. Bones were white, and flesh, burnt and raw, with scorched fur and blistered skin stuck to them, but no shape was left, except for a toe, an eye pecked open, an ear. The guts trailed. Ants were over all.
He went to the food, not caring how he trod. His feet now were beyond the grip of their jaws. He chose a lump, a limb, something, and threw it clear. The birds watched.
He kicked it in the dust until it was free enough for him to hold and bang it on a rock to rid it of the ants. He squatted, holding with both hands, and tore, chewed, gnawed. The crows flew down to eat again. He ran at them, growling, and snatched another piece. He settled beyond where the ants swarmed; then back and to, back and to, he battled with the birds, until even they could find no more to pick and gulp. They went their ways, leaving the marrow.
It was the last. By the next day he was meeting just empty bones, ash covered in the wind.
The dust was in his mouth. There was no dew. He had to drink. He strained, but could not, trying until the muscles were dead. He threw the mug from him, and followed N.
What’s that you said, young Eggy Mo? You want me for to finish the story? Then I’d best do it, or we shan’t be friends, shall we? But let me ask you summat first. Where’s Man in the Moon? Eh? Tell me that. He’s not there, is he? Look. You show me. It’s a rough auction, this, isn’t it? Sun backards, moon wrong road round. And no Man. Well. Shall I tell you? There is! There is that, and all! Oh, yes. He’s there, right enough! Now you do as I say. Bend over. Go on. Bend over. Right? Now look between your legs. Same as me. There. You’ve got it. Now look ye. He’s there, isn’t he? He’s beggaring upside down! You’d not seen? Well I did! Close on a twelvemonth since. Whatever next, eh? I shouldn’t wonder.
Now where were we? Sit thi down on that tree yonder. Tek thi bacca. Stick thi nose up chimney. Oh, yes. Henny-Penny. Going to tell king as sky’s a-falling. That’s it.
So they goes along and they goes along and they goes along, when who should they meet but Foxy-Woxy. Oh, I was forgetting. They’d met Turkey-Lurkey, too, but we needn’t do that bit. Where are you going, Henny-Penny, Cocky-Locky, Ducky-Daddles and Turkey-Lurkey? says Foxy-Woxy. We’re going to tell king the sky’s a-falling.
William felt in the dark under the tree until he found a sharp stone. He broke it.
Oh, I’ll come with you, says Foxy-Woxy. Snap! Hrumph! he goes. So Henny-Penny never did tell king as sky was a-falling.
And so the bridge bended. And so my tale’s ended. Now, Eggy Mo, I shall have to cut thee. And he moved his arm for a vein and dragged the stone deep into him.
William sucked the blood, and sucked and licked till the flow clotted.
He could not stand. He had fallen off the trunk and lay in the ash. He held the swaddledidaff and the compass. The sun was high. He tried to move, but could not, and lay stretched out on his stomach. His arm hurt.
Het. I did me best.
He heard a yelp. He lifted his head, and saw a yellow dog standing in front of him among the trees, watching him.
Now then, Gyp.
When it knew that it had been seen, the dog turned and trotted away. William did not move. The dog stopped and looked back at him.
Gyp.
The dog whined.
It’s no use.
The dog yelped again.
Gyp.
William forced himself onto his elbows.
The dog trotted off.
Wait on. Wait on.
But the dog did not stop. William pulled himself after it. In the heat, the further the dog went, the bigger it grew. William drew his knees under him, his fists closed about swaddledidaff and compass, and followed.
No dog could be so big. And now he could see the black and white hill through it. The dog filled the land and the air.
Gyp.
It was so great that he could see and not see. It did not fill the land and the air. The land and the air were it.
William reached a tree, and he stopped because his shoulder hit the trunk. It was an old tree, and above him flames still came out of the knot holes of a dead branch. He passed on; and his eye caught something above him on the other side of the trunk. It was a fresh green shoot sprouting through the blackened bark.
It were a big tree be the side o’ a river. Half on it were afire, from root to top, and t’other half were green leaf all o’er. He wept. There were no tears in him to flow, but what shook him was joy.
Kil. Ki. Mo. Ti. Kar. Ki. Mo. String. Stram. Pam. Dil. Lam. Pam. Rat. Tag. Ring. Dong. Bom. Nan. Ki. Mo.
Behind him, the ash was stained as he crawled down the hill from the tree. His sight was going, but he would not stop.
He put his hand on grass: grass: alive. The dust ended in a clean line He could see a bush straight ahead, a few yards away, and on it red berries.
Kil ki mo ti kar ki mo. He was there. The berries hung above him. Whether they were poison he did not think. He reached, but he could not touch them. They glistened.
He felt among the grass. He put the compass in his other hand, crawled beneath the branches until he could grasp the stem, and shook it. He shook it with all his little strength. He heard dropping in the grass. He let go of the trunk and swept his hand around. His fingers touched a smoothness and picked it up and held it close to his face. Red. A berry. He put it in his mouth; and bit.
Under the skin, the flesh was soft. The taste was like nothing ever: new, yet a memory; a dream woken.
He found more berries, ate them, without shaking the stem again. He had no need. All to be done now was to go.
He raised his head. His sight had cleared. He was beside a dry river, two tall trees together on the other side. He looked up. A bird was above him, spread on the sky.
He hauled himself to the river and slid head first down. He crossed the bed, taking no care of the stones and the tangled branches. He climbed the bank with the last force of his mind; and then before him were only the trees, and beyond and between them a low hillock, and, upright on the hillock, a dead sapling.
Yon’s a right stick for to take a man home.
He crawled past the trees and onto the hillock. At the top, he grabbed the sapling with one hand. The big bird hovered.
Oss off. I’m none of your baggin.
He pulled, but he was too weak even to lift to his knees, and he swung round, hanging from his arm. The compass fell, and the wind caught it.
He was facing the two trees. On the side of each, opposite the hillock, a slice of bark had been cut away, and deep in the wood were the patterns on the timbers of the barn, the shapes of Mutlow: lines, curved and crooked; dots, spots and twisted circles; but not shimmering; all still, weathered, real.
Bloody no. I said. Bloody no.
Darkness rolled upwards across his eyes.
Lu lay, lu lay, lu lara lay; bayu, bayu, lu lara lay; hush-a-bye, lu lay. And the fruit of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden. Man of leaf and golden hood. We mun wake him if we could.
There was wet on his face.
Cush, cush. Cush-a-cush. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
He opened his eyes. A dog stood over him. Someone was sitting on the ground before the hillock, a big willow leaf in his hair, made of red wood.
William spoke.
“Are we at China, then?”