THE LOOKING GLASS WAR by John LeCarré

He began crawling up the hill, dragging himself forward with his elbows and his hands, pushing the suitcase in front of him, conscious all the time of the hump on his back rising above the undergrowth. The water was seeping through his clothes; soon it ran freely over his thighs and knees. The stink of leaf-mold filled his nostrils; twigs tugged at his hair. It was as if all nature conspired to hold him back. He looked up the slope and caught sight of the observation tower against the line of black trees on the horizon. There was no light on the tower.

He lay still. It was too far: he could never crawl so far. It was quarter to three by his watch. The relief guard would be coming from the north. He unbuckled his rucksack, stood up, holding it under his arm like a child. Taking the suitcase in his other hand he began walking cautiously up the rise, keeping the trodden path to his left, his eyes fixed upon the skeleton outline of the tower. Suddenly it rose before him like the dark bones of a monster.

The wind clattered over the brow of the hill. From directly above him he could hear the slats of old timber banging, and the long creak of a casement. It was not a single apron but double; when he pulled, it came away from the staves. He stepped across, reattached the wire and stared into the forest ahead. He felt even in that moment of unspeakable terror, while the sweat blinded him and the throbbing of his temples drowned the rustling of the wind, a full, confiding gratitude toward Avery and Haldane, as if he knew they had deceived him for his own good.

Then he saw the sentry, like the silhouette in the range, not ten yards from him, back turned, standing on the old path, his rifle slung over his shoulder, his bulky body swaying from left to right as he stamped his feet on the sodden ground to keep them from freezing. Leiser could smell tobacco—it was past him in a second—and coffee warm like a blanket. He put down the rucksack and suitcase and moved instinctively toward him; he might have been in the gymnasium at Headington. He felt the haft sharp in his hand, crosshatched to prevent slip. The sentry was quite a young boy under his greatcoat; Leiser was surprised how young. He killed him hurriedly, one blow, as a fleeing man might shoot into a crowd; shortly; not to destroy but to preserve; impatiently, for he had to get along; indifferently because it was a fixture.

“Can you see anything?” Haldane repeated.

“No.” Avery handed him the glasses. “He just went into the dark.”

“Can you see a light from the watch tower? They’d shine a light if they heard him.”

“No, I was looking for Leiser,” Avery answered.

“You should have called him Mayfly,” Leclerc objected from behind. “Johnson knows his name now.”

“I’ll forget it, sir.”

“He’s over, anyway,” Leclerc said and walked back to the car.

They drove home in silence.

As they entered the house Avery felt a friendly touch upon his shoulder and turned, expecting to see Johnson; instead he found himself looking into the hollow face of Haldane, but so altered, so manifestly at peace, that it seemed to possess the youthful calm of a man who has survived a long illness; the last pain had gone out of him.

“I am not given to eulogies,” Haldane said.

“Do you think he’s safely over?”

“You did well.” He was smiling.

“We’d have heard, wouldn’t we? Heard the shots or seen the lights?”

“He’s out of our care. Well done.” He yawned. “I propose we go early to bed. There is nothing more for us to do. Until tomorrow night, of course.” At the door he stopped, and without turning his head he remarked, “You know, it doesn’t seem real. In the war, there was no question. They went or they refused. Why did he go, Avery? Jane Austen said money or love, those were the only two things in the world. Leiser didn’t go for money.”

“You said one could never know. You said so the night he telephoned.”

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