Free The Human Factor by Graham Greene Page A

secret signal to him. It meant “Danger. Go away,” because I wasn’t sure that he knew about the police with their rifles.’
    â€˜Did he go?’
    â€˜Yes. Very slowly. Looking back over his tail as though he didn’t want to leave me. But I never felt afraid or lonely again. At least not often. I knew I had only to give a signal and he would leave his dug-out on the Common and come down and help me. We had a lot of private signals, codes, ciphers . . .”
    â€˜Like a spy,’ Sam said.
    â€˜Yes,’ Castle said with disappointment, ‘I suppose so. Like a spy.’
    Castle remembered how he had once made a map of the Common with all the trenches marked and the secret paths hidden by ferns. That was like a spy too. He said, ‘Time to be going home. Your mother will be anxious . . .’
    â€˜No, she won’t. I’m with you. I want to see the dragon’s cave.’
    â€˜There wasn’t really a dragon.’
    â€˜But you aren’t quite sure, are you?’
    With difficulty Castle found the old trench. The dug-out where the dragon had lived was blocked by blackberry bushes. As he forced his way through them his feet struck against a rusty tin and sent it tumbling.
    â€˜You see,’ Sam said, ‘you did bring food.’ He wormed his way forward, but there was no dragon and no skeleton. ‘Perhaps the police got him in the end,’ Sam said. Then he picked up the tin.
    â€˜It’s tobacco,’ he said, ‘not sardines.’
    That night Castle said to Sarah as they lay in bed, ‘Do you really think it’s not too late?’
    â€˜For what?’
    â€˜To leave my job.’
    â€˜Of course it isn’t. You aren’t an old man yet.’
    â€˜We might have to move from here.’
    â€˜Why? This place is as good as any.’
    â€˜Wouldn’t you like to go away? This house – it isn’t much of a house, is it? Perhaps if I got a job abroad . . .’
    â€˜I’d like Sam to stay put in one place so that when he goes away he’ll be able to come back. To something he knew in childhood. Like you came back. To something old. Something secure.’
    â€˜A collection of old ruins by the railway?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    He remembered the bourgeois voices, as sedate as the owners in their Sunday clothes, singing in the flinty church, expressing their weekly moment of belief. ‘A green hill far away, without a city wall.’
    â€˜The ruins are pretty,’ she said.
    â€˜But you can never go back,’ Castle said, ‘to your childhood.’
    â€˜That’s different, I wasn’t secure. Until I knew you. And there were no ruins – only shacks.’
    â€˜Muller is coming over, Sarah.’
    â€˜Cornelius Muller?’
    â€˜Yes. He’s a big man now. I have to be friendly to him – by order.’
    â€˜Don’t worry. He can’t hurt us any more.’
    â€˜No. But I don’t want you troubled.’
    â€˜Why should I be?’
    â€˜C wants me to bring him here.’
    â€˜Bring him then. And let him see how you and I . . . and Sam . . .’
    â€˜You agree?’
    â€˜Of course I agree. A black hostess for Mr Cornelius Muller. And a black child.’ They laughed, with a touch of fear.

CHAPTER III
    1
    â€˜H OW ’s the little bastard?’ Davis asked as he had done every day now for three weeks.
    â€˜Oh, everything’s over. He’s quite well again. He wanted to know the other day when you were going to come and see us. He likes you – I can’t imagine why. He often talks of that picnic we had last summer and the hide-and-seek. He seems to think no one else can hide like you can. He thinks you are a spy. He talks about spies like children talked about fairies in my day. Or didn’t they?’
    â€˜Could I borrow his father for tonight?’
    â€˜Why? What’s