Martins told me later, ‘I walked downstream to find Harry, but I must have missed him in the dark. I was afraid to lift the torch: I didn’t want to tempt him to shoot again. He must have been struck by my bullet just at the entrance of a side passage. Then I suppose he crawled up the passage to the foot of the iron stairs. Thirty feet above his head was the manhole, but he wouldn’t have had the strength to lift it, and even if he had succeeded the police were waiting above. He must have known all that, but he was in great pain, and just as an animal creeps into the dark to die, so I suppose a man makes for the light. He wants to die at home, and the darkness is never home to us. He began to pull himself up the stairs, but then the pain took him and he couldn’t go on. What made him whistle that absurd scrap of a tune I’d been fool enough to believe he had written himself? Was he trying to attract attention, did he want a friend with him, even the friend who had trapped him, or was he delirious and had he no purpose at all? Anyway I heard his whistle and came back along the edge of the stream, and felt where the wall ended and found my way up the passage where he lay. I said, “Harry,” and the whistling stopped, just above my head. I put my hand on an iron hand-rail, and climbed. I was still afraid he might shoot. Then, only three steps up, my foot stamped down on his hand, and he was there. I shone my torch on him: he hadn’t got a gun; he must have dropped it when my bullet hit him. For a moment I thought he was dead, but then he whimpered with pain. I said, “Harry,” and he swivelled his eyes with a great effort to my face. He was trying to speak, and I bent down to listen. “Bloody fool,” he said – that was all. I don’t know whether he meant that for himself – some sort of act of contrition, however inadequate (he was a Catholic) – or was it for me – with my thousand a year taxed and my imaginary cattle-rustlers who couldn’t even shoot a rabbit clean? Then he began to whimper again. I couldn’t bear it any more and I put a bullet through him.’

‘We’ll forget that bit,’ I said.

Martins said, ‘I never shall.’

Chapter 17

Chapter 17