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The Moor

by John Benson

The wind swept whistling and glacial across the endless moor, ploughing a ghostly wake through the grass in its path. Following the rolling contours of the scrubby plains, it accelerated towards the central basin of the wilderness, puncturing and swirling the barriers of mist rising across its path. Crossing the glassy hardness of a lake it kicked up small waves, spoiling the perfect reflection of the grey, rain-laden sky above. Reaching the other shore, it shot up and over the last hill and bore down on a little white figure who put up his arms as it approached to protect his head against the screaming attack.

The man was sitting naked in a muddy place in the middle of the moor. He had his legs drawn up to his chest, with his arms clasped around his knees for warmth. Sudden gusts of wind brought with them sheets of rain which had matted his thin black hair to his forehead. Both his body and his mind were numb with the cold, and for the first time in his life he could hear, as if from far away, the sound of his teeth chattering. He looked around at the vast muddy heath surrounding him on all sides. It had been several hours since he last tried to stand up. He knew that he was going to die.

It was funny feeling the water drip off his nose and then watch it run down his legs. Very white, his legs. He had always meant to do more exercise. The folds in his stomach too, not that he was fat, but on the whole a bit thin, a bit pathetic.

He looked at the mud -foreign mud- but it was all the same. It was the same as the mud he had played in as a boy, and now his body was finally going to join it. Carefully he took a handful of it. Surprisingly it was warm. He looked very closely at the muck in his hand. How old was it? he wondered. And then he looked at it again with surprise because it had just struck him that this matter did not have an age, it had always existed. Maybe in different forms, but it was as old as the universe, just like the matter of which he was made himself. He shook his head at the idea; there was some conclusion that he knew he could draw from it, but he couldn't quite make the connection. Then his eyes went out of focus from staring too long.

Besides it didn't change the fact that soon he wouldn't be breathing.

He tried to stay motionless to conserve his heat, which he could feel very clearly radiating from his armpits, head and groin, but every few seconds his body jerked convulsively as if he had the hiccups. A few minutes later, despite all his efforts, he could feel that he was going to sleep. Dimly he realized that he would probably not wake up again. This neither bothered, nor comforted him. It just happened.

He did awake some time in the future, very confused. There was a beating, droning sound that was getting louder and louder, and which seemed to be coming from beyond a small hill to his right. Trying to turn his head to look he became aware of how weak he was, it was a painful effort. He stared at the rain-soaked plants on the hillside, breathing shallowly, trying to understand what the sound could mean.

With the roar of an engine revving too high in low gear, a Range Rover suddenly shot over the crest of the hill where it had been struggling in the boggy ground. For the man lying in the mud 100 yards further on, the sound was deafening, as if somebody had ripped out his earplugs right next to a jack-hammer. He clapped his hands over his ears instinctively and watched as the car, the driver alerted by the movement, suddenly swung to the left and approached him. It drove up slowly and then ground to a sticky halt about ten feet away. The naked man looked up at it uncomprehendingly and was terrified. With the yellow fog lights on and the engine ticking over, it seemed to him like a huge mechanical beast. He curled up into an even tighter ball in the mud.

Inside the car, the driver looked out through the fogged-up wind-screen at the inert form lying in the mud. He was annoyed. From the top of the hill he had mistaken the white blur against the moor as the stray sheep he had been looking for. It was only when he was up close that he had realized that it was human. He stabbed savagely at the dash board to switch off the wipers which were still stupidly squeaking across the glass, and then turned off the ignition.

What the hell was he going to do?

He peered through the windscreen trying to get a better look at the poor bastard curled up on the ground outside. A drowned rat, that was what he looked like, or a puppy just out of its mother's belly, all feeble and wet. Long thin white limbs, shaking convulsively from time to time. Couldn't really make out the face, which was turned away so as not to be blinded by the headlights.

He started to play with the waxed ends of his military moustache, which is what he always did when he was nervous, and looked around the comfortable plush interior of the four wheel drive. All the options. He had been tempted to take the cheaper model, but damn it he was old. He needed a decent vehicle to get around the farm. And besides he couldn't do much walking now what with his bad leg, so that settled it.

Reassured, he became aware again of the situation. Damn the stupid bastard to Hell! He'd never find that bloody ewe now. His mind raced over what he was going to do. It was 15 miles back to the farm, at least an hour, and then another 2 hours by road to the village to see the doctor. Christ Almighty he wouldn't be in bed before 1 in the morning! And the poor bastard on the ground, he'd seen men that weak in Korea; probably wouldn't even survive the trip.

His thoughts drily followed a reasoning process instilled by a lifetime in the military ending in a clear decision, accepted unquestioningly with a sharp nod of the head. Starting the motor, he put the car into reverse. There was no point bothering with the fellow. He'd be dead in an hour or less. Somebody would find the body tomorrow or not, as the case may be, but all the same it was not his affair. He dismissed the man outside formally from his mind in the same way he had dismissed so many fatally wounded soldiers during his time in Korea.

He reversed back 10 feet and then, putting it into first, started to turn carefully to the right, the fan of the headlights swinging off the pathetic form and illuminating the marshy ground of the moor. Having picked out a path back over the rise, he was just starting to accelerate when a white flash landed on the bonnet with a thud that scared the living daylights out of him.

Outside, the naked man had been waiting. The thought of the warmth that the car represented obsessed him; the idea of hands lifting and wrapping him in dry towels made his stomach growl with hunger. When, after a few minutes, the car started to back away and he understood that he was being left, the disappointment was unbearable. He scrambled to his feet, staggered over to the car, and threw himself over the bonnet. The car stopped with a jerk and he half slid off, but scrabbled desperately back on, like a baby searching for a teat, desperate to find the warmth.

It was warm, hot, burning hot. The metal of the bonnet seared his chest, the heat of the engine rising in steam around him, through him, soaking him with energy. He was drunk, he laughed, he was high on the heat. Images poured through his mind. Lying as a child on the super-heated concrete next to pools. Waking in bed curled up around the toasting body of the woman he loved. He laughed and cried, and beat on the bonnet like a baby beats on the chest of its mother.

The driver of the car looked out furiously at the writhing form. Damn him to Hell and back! He couldn't very well leave the stupid bastard there now. He'd misjudged how much life there was left in the man.

He turned off the engine, opened the door and stepped down carefully into the mud, regretting it instantly. He was only wearing a flannel shirt, and was soaked to the bone immediately by the wind-driven rain.

"Bugger it!" he shouted angrily, slamming the door and walking round the front of the car.

"Hey!" he yelled through the wind at the naked man.

The man on the bonnet looked up, and for the first time the other could see his face. A large, hooked nose over thin lips defined an angular face. But more than that there were the large bulging eyes, lit with the unnatural shine of death. The face stared for a moment then twisted into an hysterical laugh.

The older man waited patiently in the rain for the fit to pass. But the man on his bonnet just as suddenly stopped laughing, and slid off with surprising agility onto the other side of the car, and then turned to face him with a mischievous grin.

"Come on..." he croaked in his death-rattle voice, with eyebrows arched high, the eyes staring, "...Come on."

Then he turned and started to half scramble, half fall up the hillside beyond the car.

The old man looked on uncomprehendingly. Then he shouted for a few seconds at the retreating figure to come back, the words blown away by the wind. He resigned himself to the inevitable, he would have to go and get the idiot himself. Slowly he limped up the slope, being careful not to trip in the slippery muck. At every step he could feel the joints of his right hip grinding together like sandpaper.

The naked man had stopped about half way up the hill and was rolling around scooping up handfuls of mud and smearing it over his body. He was screaming in a dry hoarse voice, punctuated by fits of wild laughter. The words were lost in the wind. As the old man approached he sat up and pointed a finger at the old man's midriff. A reasonable expression washed over his features, and in a calm raspy voice he said:

"Take off your clothes, you'll feel better."

The old man stopped up short. The man was a nutter, now he was sure of it. He held out his hand.

"Come along son, let's get you somewhere warm and dry."

His only response was an inarticulate scream from the man in the mud, as he lurched at him, pulling at his clothes. Both men lost their balance and toppled over, rolling together 10 or 15 feet back down the hill. The younger man ended on top, feebly trying to rip open the other's shirt. The older man pushed him off to one side. He sat up.

"What in God's name!" he thundered.

He was covered in mud and his shirt gaped open where 2 buttons had been ripped off. The naked man was on his knees next to him, talking very quickly.

"You see this," he was saying showing his fists full of mud, "It's us. What I mean is, there's no difference. All this..." his arm swept the horizon, "...is just as important as we are. We are this mud. We are these trees, we are these rocks. But these..." he pulled at the older man's sleeve, "...they just get in the way. They stop you realizing who you are, they fool you. Do you understand? Do you see?" He stopped talking and looked into the other man's face, with a quizzical twitching smile.

Looking at the dripping face only inches from his own, the older man realized that the fellow was completely bonkers. That, or he was suffering from delusions caused by hypothermia. He decided to try to reason with him.

"Listen, if I take my shirt off, will you come back and get in the car?" he asked, trying to adopt as friendly a tone as possible. He was soaked through anyway, it wouldn't make any difference.

A broad smile broke out on the other's face. He clasped his hands together in joy. "Oh, yes, yes, take your shirt off, you'll see, it's better."

The older man was suspicious.

"And then you'll come back to the car?"

"Yes, yes, of course, you'll see."

The old man nodded his head, the contract concluded, and got to his feet, wiping his hands clean as he could on the backs of his trousers. The younger man looked on eagerly as he slowly, with fingers stiff from age and the cold, undid his filthy shirt. He could only shrug it off with difficulty as the sodden cloth stuck tenaciously to his back and shoulders.

There was a silence as the old man stood naked from the waist up. He struck a pathetic figure with his white, sagging arms, protruding belly and flaccid biceps, and he knew it.

"Right, now we go back to the car."

The younger man was still smiling up at him.

"Doesn't that feel better? Now you're part of the world. Dance, dance! Lift up your arms, feel the world around you. Walk around, walk around!"

The old man looked down coldly.

"After I walk around, we go back to the car, right?"

The younger man nodded his head, his lips tight in expectation. The old man started to walk slowly around in a circle.

"Lift up your arms," croaked the younger man. "Feel the rain, doesn't it feel warm, doesn't it feel good? Feel the warmth, listen to your body!"

The wind had in fact dropped, and as the older man walked around in the muck, his arms raised, feeling like an old fool, he was surprised to notice how warm the rain really was. This sensation grew in his mind, filling him with a lost memory from his youth. He and a group of friends had rented a cottage in the Lakes District near a river, he'd forgotten which, at the end of the summer hols. One day they had all been down at the river when a cloud burst caught them and soaked them through before they could even make it to the nearest tree for shelter. The electric atmosphere of the storm and the suddenness of the minor disaster filled them all with laughter, and instead of going back to the house they started to throw each other, fully clothed, into the surprising warmth of the river. And then the clothes came off, girls and boys, and they spent an hour playing the fool in the water. Afterwards they had all sat naked talking, unselfconsciously, on the bank, young bodies soaked in the warm summer rain.

The old man stood there in the mud, with his arms still raised, smiling as his mind caressed this memory which he hadn't thought of in 30 years or more. It was amazing how, with the rain playing over his chest and back, the memory of that day seemed so real. He looked across at the younger man with a bewildered smile.

The younger man smiled back.

"Do you see now, do you see?" he asked eagerly.

The older man replied mechanically:

"Yes I see," still lost in his memory.

The younger man nodded to himself.

"Yes, good."

He rose, picked up the old man's soiled shirt where it lay on the ground, and started off towards the car putting it on as he went. The old man looked around with a start.

"Hey, where the Devil do you think you're going?"

He started after him, but with his hip he couldn't run. The younger fellow had a good 15 foot start on him, and easily reached the vehicle before him. He opened the driver's side door and got in, shutting it behind him. As the old man limped up he could see the other man was struggling with the lock. Just as he reached for the handle the other managed to depress the button. All the locks clicked down in unison. Central locking had been one of the optional extras.

The old man felt desperately in his pockets. Damn it, he'd left the keys in the ignition.

"Hi, you!" he screamed, banging on the window, "What in God's name do you think you're doing?" His voice rose in desperation as the engine started.

"Open up, you bastard, you can't leave me here, you..."

He broke off and stumbled back as the driver found first gear and the car shot away, turning, the rear wheels spraying mud all over the old man, who protected his face with his hands. He watched it skid crazily up and over the hill. A white fury filled him and he ran limping after it to the crest, cursing. At the top, he stopped out of breath. The car was already half a mile away, careening dangerously by the side of the lake. The stupid bastard would probably kill himself and wreck the car at the same time. He watched it till it disappeared over a rise into the mist and rain.

It was then that he became aware of the situation. He was miles from the nearest habitation or road, night was falling, he had no shirt or coat, and his hip was already burning like a poker in his side. He looked up at the sky, knowing it would be a miracle if he survived the night, and howled a cry of rage and frustration.

The wind, blasting over the ridge, ripped the words out of his mouth, silencing him. It swept on, carrying his cry and mixing it with its own eerie song, over the lake, past the dying man in the Range Rover driving in crazy circles far out on the moor, onwards over the bleak hills into the darkness.