The Final Cut

George had never been aware of such a silence. It was a silence inside when, for a moment, the heart stops and the blood no longer pulses through the veins. No bird sang, suddenly no breeze, no whispering of the pines, no more sound of approaching footsteps. Nothing, until the corporal, voice a tone deeper, spoke.

‘My God. Now we’ll need the bloody officer.’

The officer in question was Francis Ewan Urquhart. Second Lieutenant. Age twenty-two. Engaged on National Service following his university deferment, he personified the triumph of education over experience and, in the parlance of the officers’ mess, he was not having a good war. Indeed, in the few months he’d been stationed in Cyprus, he’d barely had any war at all. He craved action, all too aware of his callow youth, desperate for the chance to prove himself, yet he had found only frustration. His commander had proved to be a man of chronic constipation, his caution denying the company any chance to show its colours. The EOKA terrorists had been bombing, butchering and even burning alive so-called traitors, setting them in flames to run down the streets of their village as a sign to others, yet Urquhart’s company had broken more sweat digging latrines than hauling terrorists from their foxholes. But that was last week. This week, the company commander was on leave, Urquhart was in charge, the tactics had been changed and his men had walked four hours up the mountain that afternoon to avoid detection. And the surprise seemed to have worked.

At the first crackle of gunfire, a sense of opportunity had filled his veins. He had been waiting two miles down the valley in his Austin Champ and it took him less than fifteen minutes to arrive on the scene, covering the last few hundred yards on foot with a spring in his step.

‘Report, Corporal Ross.’

The flies were already beginning to gather around the bloodied body of MacPherson.

‘Two boys and a donkey? You can’t be serious,’ Urquhart demanded incredulously.

‘The bullet didnae seem to unnerstand it was being fired by a bairn. Sir.’

The two, Urquhart and Ross, were born to collide, one brought into the world in a Clydeside tenement and the other by Highland patriarchs. Ross had been burying comrades from the Normandy beaches while Urquhart was still having his tie adjusted by his nanny.

A year earlier, Urquhart had been the officious little subaltern who had busted Ross from sergeant back down to private after a month’s liquor allowance had disappeared from the officers’ mess at Tell-el-Kebir and Urquhart had been instructed to round up suitable suspects. Ross had only just been given back the second stripe, still making up the lost ground. And lost pay.

Urquhart knew he had to watch his back, but for now he ignored the other’s insolence; he had a more important battle to fight.

The children had stumbled into a remarkably effective natural redoubt. Some twenty feet across, the scraping in the mountainside was backed by a picket line of boulders that effectively denied a clear line of either sight or fire from above, while the ground ran gently away on the valley side, making it difficult to attack except by means of a frontal and uphill assault, a tactic that had already been shown to be mortally flawed. Clumps of bushes hugged the perimeter providing still further cover.

‘Suggestions, Corporal Ross?’ Urquhart slapped the officer’s Browning at his belt.

The corporal sucked a little finger as though trying to remove a splinter. ‘We could surrender straight away, that’d be quickest. Or blow the wee bastards into eternity, if that’s what you want, Lieutenant. One grenade should do the job.’

‘We need them alive. Find out where they were headed with those arms.’

‘They’re weans. Be famished by breakfast time, come oot wavin’ a white flag an’ a fork.’

‘Now, we need them now, Corporal. By breakfast time it will be all too late.’

They both understood the urgency. EOKA supply drops were made at specified times; any more than six hours overdue and the hide was evacuated. They needed short cuts; it made early capture essential and interrogation techniques sometimes short on patience.

‘In life, Ross, timing is everything.’

‘In death an’ all,’ the Clydesider responded, indicating MacPherson.

‘What the hell’s your problem, Corporal?’

‘To be honest, Mr Urquhart, I dinnae hae much stomach for the killing of weans.’ MacPherson had a son not much younger than the boys hiding in the rocks. ‘I’ll do it, if I huv tae. If ye order me. But I’ll tak nae joy fae it. You’re welcome tae any medal.’

‘I’ll remember to include your little homily when I write to MacPherson’s parents. I’m sure they’ll be touched.’

The tangerine sun was chasing through the sky, splashing a glow of misleading warmth across the scene. Delay would bring darkness and failure for Urquhart and he was a young man as intolerant of failure in himself as he was in others. He took a Sten from the shoulder of one of his men and, planting his feet firmly in the forest floor, unleashed a fusillade of bullets against the amphitheatre of boulders at the back of the bowl. A second magazine followed, dust and sparks spitting from the orange-blonde rocks; the noise was awesome.

‘You boys,’ he shouted. ‘You cannot escape. Come out, I promise no one will get hurt.’

There was silence. He directed two other members of the section to empty their magazines against the rocks, and suddenly there was a youthful cry of pain. A spent bullet had ricocheted and caught one of the lads a glancing blow. No damage, but surprise and distress.

‘Can you speak English? Come out now, before anyone gets hurt.’

Silence.

‘Damn them! Do they want to die?’ Urquhart beat his palms with frustration. But Ross was on his knees, fiddling with a Mills grenade.

‘What on earth…?’ Urquhart demanded, but could not avoid taking an involuntary pace backwards.

The corporal had bent the pin so that it could not fall out, then with meticulous care and using the stock of a Sten gun for torque he proceeded to unscrew the top of the grenade, lifting it away from the dull metal body complete with its detonator. The powdered explosive poured out easily into a little pile on the rocks beside his boot. He now reassembled the harmless bomb, and handed it to Urquhart.

‘If this doesnae scare those rabbits out of their hole, nothing will.’

Urquhart nodded in understanding. ‘This is your last chance,’ he shouted to the rocks. ‘Come out or we’ll use grenades.’

‘Eleftheria i Thanatos!’ came the reply.

‘The EOKA battle cry. Freedom or Death!’ Ross explained.

‘They’re only children!’ Urquhart snapped in exasperation.

‘Brave wee buggers.’

Angrily, Urquhart wrenched the pin from the grenade, letting the noise of the spring-loaded firing pin drift out across the rocks. Then he threw the grenade into the bowl.

Less than two seconds later it came hurtling out again. The reaction was automatic, the instinct for self-preservation overriding. Urquhart threw himself to the ground, burying his head amongst the pine needles and cones, trying to count the seconds. There came a muffled pop from the detonator, but nothing more. No blast; no ripping metal or torn flesh. Eventually he looked up to find the figure of Ross towering above him, framed in menacing silhouette against the evening sky.

‘Let me help you tae yer feet. Sir.’ Derision filled every syllable.

Urquhart waved away the proffered hand and scrambled up, meticulously thrashing the dust from his khaki uniform to hide his humiliation. He knew that every Jock in the section was mocking and by morning the tale would have filled all four corners of the officers’ mess. Ross had exacted his revenge.

A rage grew within Urquhart. Not a blind rage that blurs judgement but a wrath that burnt and whose light brought appalling clarity.

‘Fetch two jerry cans of petrol from the Champ,’ he instructed.

A soldier went scurrying.

‘What are you intending to do, Mr Urquhart?’ Ross asked, the triumph evaporated from his voice.

‘We need information or examples. Those terrorists can provide either.’

Ross noted the change in the boys’ status. ‘Examples? Of what?’

Urquhart met the other man’s gaze; he saw fear. He had regained the advantage. Then the jerry cans arrived.

‘Corporal, I want you to get around behind them. Use the cover of those rocks. Then empty the petrol into their hide.’

‘And then what?’