Banks, Iain A Song of Stone

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gunfire is still crackling around me and I dare not raise my head. My hands are
aching; I had forgotten they were burned when I was digging with them. The jeep lies
on its back on the bank of a deep roadside ditch, its rear resting in the water in the
ditch's bottom, front wheels pointing at the slowly lightening clouds. The road is
dotted with the litter of refugees, the jeep just one of several vehicles lying on or
beside the road. Opposite me there are trees; a dark mass of conifers. Twisting and
looking through the branches of the bushes, I can see a stretch of broken, sandy
landscape, ridged and hummocked and scattered with low, leafless trees. On the
highest swelling of ground there is an old windmill, a black painted clapboard
construction, feathered sails tattered and forming a crucifix raised against the grey
extent of sky.
Something moves against the dawn light to the east; a man running, crouched, from
one low stone wall towards another. Light flickers from the open doorway of the mill.
The sound of the gunfire comes at the same moment the man drops to the ground. He
tries to rise, then as the gunfire cracks again he shakes and jerks and lies still.
Looking back, I see a dark figure moving round the side of the windmill from the
other side, a rifle held one handed, the other arm held up, hand clenched and full, by
his shoulder. I squint, trying to make the fellow out in the still deficient light. I don't
think he is one of the lieutenant's men. There is silence for a few moments as the man
moves towards to the door. No sign of movement comes from inside the mill. The
soldier edges closer, just a stride's length away.
A single shot cracks out, and the man jerks away from the side of the mill, dropping
the rifle and staggering forwards as he clutches at his side. Where his side had been,
against the mill's sloped wooden planks, there is a small pale gash in the black slat.
He half runs, half falls past the mill's open door, arm moving, throwing something.
More firing; he hops, arms flying out and for an instant he has the comical look of
somebody trying to imitate the mill's shape, his spread limbs like the building's four
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spread sails. Then he drops, collapsing like a bag of broken bones, folding and
collapsing to a sitting position on the ground outside, before toppling over and
disappearing into the grass.
The explosion in the mill is a single sudden flash of light and a ragged jolt of sound.
Grey white smoke drifts out of the mill after a moment or two. I lie there for some
time, waiting, but there is no more movement, no more sound.
In a little while, birdsong begins. I listen to it.
Still nobody moving. When I shiver, I decide to get up. I stand shakily, using the
bushes for support, then I wipe my face with the back of a shaking hand. I remember I
have a handkerchief somewhere, and finally find it. I walk across the sandy soil
towards the mill, crouching and feeling foolish, but still afraid that there is somebody
else here, more patient than I, lying watching and waiting with a gun. I stop by a
stunted tree, gazing into the darkness of the mill's doorway. Something creaks above
me. I duck and almost fall, but it is only the branches, moving in a faint breeze.
Mr Cuts lies sprawled on a barbed wire fence just below the mill, half kneeling, arms
on the far side of the wire, face laid against the barbs, the ground below him saturated
with dark blood. His gun dangles from one hand, swaying in the breeze.
A little way up the slope is the soldier who threw the grenade into the mill, lying in
long grass. His uniform is unfamiliar though I wouldn't be able to recognise him
anyway because his face is a red ruin of bloody flesh.
I walk up to the mill and step inside. The interior reeks of smoke and a musty odour
that must be ancient flour. My eyes gradually adjust to the deeper gloom. There is still
dust or flour in the air, circling and settling as it backs away from the breeze from the
doorway. Out of the ceiling, a single great wooden shaft descends, linked by an axle
to a pair of huge and ancient millstones balanced coupled on their stony track like
dancers frozen in the figure. Funnels and channels lead from hoppers to the stones, the
outworks of a doubled heart. An octagonal wooden dais surrounds the great stump of
rock. Not much else remains, no sacks or sign of grain or recent flour; I think the mill
last worked long ago.
I stumble over a couple of tape twinned gun magazines. There is a man lying on his
back by the side of the door, chest opened and bloody. Beneath the bloody, floury
mask is a face I recognise as one of the lieutenant's men but cannot put a name to. By
his side lies a radio, hissing. The grenade seems to have gone off a little way past him,
beneath where a spiral of wooden stairs lead up into a greater darkness, their wooden
steps ruptured and splintered.
By the rear of the mill's torus of stone, the lieutenant sits, her back to the wooden
wall. Her legs are spread out in front of her and her head rests on her chest. Her head
jerks up as I approach, and her hand comes up too, holding a pistol. I flinch, but the
gun flies from her hand and clatters on to the floorboards to one side. She mutters
something, then her head flops back. There is blood beneath her, its surface coated
with a thin patina of flour. A grey white dusting on her hair, skin and uniform makes
her look like a ghost.
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I squat by her, putting my hand to her chin and raising it. The eyes move behind their
lids and her mouth works, but that is all. Blood from her nose has left twin rivulets
over her lips and down her chin. I let her head fall back. The lieutenant's long gun lies
nearby her hand. The exposed magazine is empty. I try various little levers and
catches and eventually find the one which frees the other clip; it too has been used up.
I cross to where the lieutenant's pistol lies. It feels light, though when I open it I can
see there are at least two bullets in the magazine.
I look at the dead man at the door, at the two dead men visible outside, Mr Cuts
hanging on the wire like an image from an earlier war, the grenade thrower keeled
over in the swaying grass with no discernible face. I hold the lieutenant's pistol in my
burned, shaking hand.
What to do? What to do? Become furious, my muse murmurs, and I squat by the
lieutenant again and put the muzzle of the pistol experimentally against her temple. I
recall the first day we met her, when she blew out the brains of the young man with
the stomach wound, after kissing him first. I think of her a little while ago, kneeling
naked on the bed, firing at me, nearly killing me. My hand is shaking so much I have
to steady it with my other hand. The muzzle of the gun vibrates against the skin at the
side of her head, beneath her brown curls. A small vein pulses weakly under the olive
surface. I swallow. My finger feels weak upon the trigger, incapable of exerting any
pressure. For all I know she's dying anyway; she seems concussed or in some way
losing consciousness and all this blood must indicate a serious wound somewhere.
Killing her might be a release. I steady my grip and sight along the barrel, as though
this makes a difference.
Then there is a creaking, cracking noise from above me, and then a disorienting sense
of movement, and a deep, surrounding rumbling noise. I stare wildly around,
wondering what's happening, and see the world outside the door moving, and cannot
believe my eyes, and only then realise that the mill itself is rotating. The force of the
breeze must have just become sufficient to make the airy wooden circle turn to face
into the flow of air. Grinding and resounding, with many a mournfulsounding moan [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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