Angels' Shoes, and Other Stories

by Marjorie L. C. Pickthall

“It was very dark in the swamps, too, dark almost like night. Sometimes the trees broke, and a line of light lay across the mud. As the long trail of men crawled along the logs, each as he passed under the light would go very slowly, and lift his face to it, until he was pushed on by the man behind who wanted to feel the sun on his eyes too. In this way two more men were drowned in the mud. But I was safe, and so was the man in front of me. I was glad of that, because he was my friend.”

“But can’t you remember how long you were in the swamps?” asked Fellowes, gently. “Who your captain was? Anything that happened?”

The soldier looked troubled. “No, I don’t remember. But I had a gun, and cartridges, and a bayoneta; and I was afraid of the insurgentes. I was afraid they would come up behind us. We didn’t know where they were. The man in front of me didn’t care. He was a young man and merry, with no hatred in him. He said, ‘If a Señor Insurgente gave me a good dinner, I’d build him a shrine.’ But I was afraid of the insurgentes. They were devils.

“When we came out of the swamps many of us had fever, and our feet were sore with leech-bites. There was a road, but it was very bad. Soon one part of our army was far ahead of the other. Those who went in front had shoes, those who went slowly, hadn’t any. I was afraid the insurgentes would catch us, but I couldn’t go fast. My friend had shoes, but he stayed with me. And one day he went off by himself, and came back laughing with a pair for me. ‘There’s a village yonder,’ he told me, ‘all shut up except the church. A poor place. Only the fleas are fat. I said a prayer in the church, amigo, and stole the jefe’s shoes for you.’

“Now that we both had shoes we left the rearguard behind us, the men who had none. I don’t remember where we went. We went on for a long time, and there was fighting in front of us. I think we fought too, because I remember hiding in some thick bushes covered with pink flowers. There was a dead man near us, and when I fired my gun, the pink flowers fell until he was almost buried,—only his feet out. There were lots of dead men, though, we didn’t mind them. But there were a few who were not dead. Those insurgentes are devils. I was not afraid of fighting—I was afraid of insurgentes. I would call to my friend in daylight, like a child at night. ‘Are they here, have they come, amigo?’ And he would say ‘No, we must still keep the dinner hot for them.’ He was a merry man even when he was hungry.

“I still had my gun, and some cartridges and my bayoneta; but we had no food. When we came to the river, and the village, and the house with the yellow roof, my friend went away to find food. I hid in the house with the yellow roof, waiting for him; I hid in a corner of the lower room behind the door, where there was a little window, high up. I had my gun, and my cartridges, and my bayoneta. I was going to fire on the rebels through the window if they came. But they didn’t come.

“It was very still in that house. The room was a very nice one, very clean. A water-pot hung under the eaves and dripped, and that was often the only sound I could hear. A child’s shoe lay in the middle of the floor; they must have been well-to-do folk if even the children had shoes. But I couldn’t find anything to eat, not so much as a mouldy plantain or a bit of bread. The door was open. I left it open and stood in the shadow behind it with my gun and my cartridges and my bayoneta, looking out of the little window and wondering where my friend was. There was a clearing outside, surrounded with tall trees. Sunlight hung like ropes made from gold between the trees. Birds talked; one flew in at the open door of the room where I hid. It was so quiet you woauld never have thought of fighting, of anger, of dead men. Except when the sunny wind blew off the woods.”

As if the remembered quietness locked his lips, the soldier was silent. The door at the foot of the stairs swung in a draught and he watched it anxiously with drawn-in lips until it was still. Then he went on breathlessly: “I will tell the gentleman all I can remember. It is not much. But there was fighting, but I don’t remember where or what it was all about. It is all gone. Only I was in the lower room of the house with the yellow roof, behind the door. And the door was open. I was waiting for my friend. I waited a long time, but he came at last.

“He broke through the trees on the far side of the clearing, running as if he were mad, and leaping from side to side. He had a dead fowl under each arm, and as he ran, their long necks jerked together. His tunic was all stuffed out with things, and his ragged trousers fluttered round his legs like flags round a flag-pole at a fiesta. He looked very funny. He was laughing as he ran. I laughed too, and I was just going to run and meet him, when I thought, is there a kettle here to cook the fowl in? I looked for the kettle, and looked back through the window. And I saw the little blue puff break from the trees . . .

“The crack followed, little and foolish in that big quietness as the crack of a twig. And three men ran out of the trees after my friend. They were insurgentes. I had never seen them so close before. I was afraid. But he wasn’t, I saw his white teeth flashing as he ran for the open door. He ran as fast as a dog, with the fowls’ heads jerking against his knees. And he laughed.