To End All Wars

by David Tallerman

  “Yes, I understand,” Forrester said. “You never resisted, did you? From the beginning I’ve been afraid of losing my mind, but you...” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Suddenly the insight seemed too horrible to articulate. The prospect of madness hadn’t alarmed Abhaya. She had welcomed the possibility of release.

  And her difficulty just now had not been one of vocabulary but of self-awareness. “I think the word you’re looking for,” he concluded, “is intimate .”

  Abhaya considered. “Yes,” she said, apparently seeing nothing inappropriate in the idea. “Yes, that’s it.”

  For three more days, he and Forbes carried on much as they’d been doing. Forbes would provide instructions and guidance—invariably cheerful-seeming, never quite going so far as to give orders—and then Forrester would reach out to the Guest. It was growing easier and easier to make contact, correspondingly harder to keep himself separate in those times when he desired privacy. Afterwards, he’d report to Forbes, emphasising the aspects he’d been requested to focus on while conscientiously avoiding or obfuscating the remainder.

  On the sixth day, however, Forbes said, “That conversation we’ve been putting off ... it can be deferred no longer. As fascinating as this all has been, there are people I report to, and I’m saddened to say that they have scant interest in the unique and astonishing nature of our find here. They are losing men by the thousands in a war they’re not positive they can win, and they’re curious as to when our efforts will bear fruit in turning that bloody conflict around.”

  You’ve really comprehended nothing, have you? Forrester thought. Even if I was willing to help you, the Guest would never go along. It simply wouldn’t be capable.

  But all he said was, “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Whatever your personal feelings, I need you to get to the bottom of how these blackouts are being created. I need you to ascertain whether the Guest has any degree of conscious control over them, and perhaps most importantly, to start impelling it to work with us. If you should refuse, I’m advised to tell you that you’ll be subject to the unrestrained brunt of military discipline, and that the offence would be treason.”

  “And you’d find someone else to do what I’ve been doing.”

  “Yes. Oh, it might take a while, but they already have a few candidates in mind. Cooperate and I promise that you and the Guest will be treated justly. Refuse and your future will be out of my hands.”

  “I’d ask you in turn to appreciate how taxing, and even how potentially impossible, what you’re proposing is,” Forrester retorted. “But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “No,” Forbes said, “it doesn’t. It’s for me to decide what’s possible, and for you to do your absolute best to make it a reality—for all our sakes. I know you can’t agree with me now, Forrester, but I promise there’ll come a time when you’ll look back on these days as the most valuable and productive of your life. You have a chance to change the world for the better.”

  That at least they could agree on, Forrester acknowledged wryly. And as it happened, he’d spent the last two evenings exploring the Guest’s peculiar defensive mechanism, anticipating the very queries Forbes had just posed. Notwithstanding, the answers he’d arrived at were less than satisfactory. The Guest perceived its ability in the same way Forrester might regard retiring to a locked room when threatened. It was hardly even aware of the wider impact. He surmised, too, that it had rarely if ever had cause to defend itself in such a fashion before that fateful night in France. In short, its sedative power was like a muscle it had no knowing capacity to flex, and encouraging the Guest to attempt deliberate control, let alone without giving their clandestine liaisons away by knocking everyone in the house unconscious, was a challenge beyond anything Forrester had encountered.

  Still, he’d made some progress: far less than Forbes hoped for, far more than Forrester was willing to admit, and enough to leave him with a dilemma. Whatever lie he concocted, whether or not he admitted that what Forbes intended might be achievable, inevitably Forbes would respond by driving him harder. Hope of success would provoke him no less than fear of failure. Forrester could see an end to the charade he’d been perpetrating drawing near, and no way around it .

  For now, he put the issue aside, and that of the Guest’s ability also. There was something else he wished to explore, something that had been forced upon his notice the previous night. The strain of the Guest’s almost constant proximity had been increasing day by day and, in a moment of exhaustion, had grown too much for him. Within Forrester’s mind, an unvoiced scream had found full expression.

  He’d frightened the Guest, had made it withdraw so far that initially he’d been uncertain he’d be able to reach it again, and in part he wanted to reassure it that only rarely did its contact overwhelm him. However, a further possibility had come to him afterwards, while he lay in the dark, feeling nakedly alone without the Guest’s presence and simultaneously nervy of its return. There was a question Forrester needed answering, one he knew to be perilous—and not merely for himself.

  “I can’t stay here any longer,” Forrester told Abhaya that night. “I can’t keep bluffing Forbes. Any day now, he’s going to discover how much more progress I’ve been making than I’ve let on. Once he does, there’ll be no convincing him I can’t make the Guest do what he wants it to do.”

  “I think he might be getting suspicious,” Abhaya announced softly.

  Forrester started. “What makes you say that?”

  She shrugged, an eloquent gesture in itself. “I know my husband.”

  Funny, but despite everything, Forrester had not quite grasped the notion that Forbes and Abhaya were man and wife, that they’d shared a life, a home, a bed together. Though he had accepted the fact in the abstract, only then did it seem fully real. Forbes might be a spy, and professionally dishonest, but every man must have his revealing mannerisms that an attentive wife would pick up on.

  That realisation reminded Forrester of another problem he’d been pondering. “The men under Forbes’s command, how many of them know that you’re his wife?”

  Abhaya looked puzzled. “It’s not a secret.”

  “You’ve accompanied him? They’ve seen the two of you together?”

  “Often.”

  Forrester nodded. That was useful, so long as Forbes didn’t seriously distrust her. “I’ve an idea,” he said. “If the Guest can be persuaded to go along with it. And it requires your assistance as well ... more than assistance, really, the entire scheme relies on you. I can’t lie to you, Abhaya, we’ll both be in awful jeopardy, and you perhaps more than me. But I promise—“

  She raised a hand to hush him. “Please, don’t.”

  Not understanding and faintly hurt, Forrester asked, “But why?”

  “Because you’re a good man. You don’t need to make me any promises.”

  He considered. “Then, not a promise. Call it a request. I’ve been thinking, Abhaya, and I don’t see how there can be any normal life for either of us after this. The government isn’t simply going to forget, and Forbes definitely won’t. If we make it through, I want you to know that I’ll do anything I can to help you—if you’ll let me.”

  “Raff...” She’d begun to call him that, on his insistence, though she still spoke his name awkwardly. “All that matters is that you and the Guest go free.”

  “All that matters,” he said, “is that we all three of us get out of this in one piece.”

  “Tell me your idea,” Abhaya persisted.

  He’d have argued on, but it was evident from her face how futile doing so would be. Might she actually want to stay? Despite Forbes’s cruelty, did she feel a bond of duty toward her husband? Or was it that, after so long without hope, she’d come to find even the prospect dubious?

  At any rate, there was no use in cajoling her. Forrester explained, as rapidly and thoroughly as he was able, the plan he’d been formulating throughout the last night and that day, and the part he’d ne
ed her to play for the undertaking to stand the barest likelihood of success.

  “It’s dangerous,” she said, when he’d finished. “If Gustav suspects me...”

  “Yes, that would be the end of it, all right.” Yet Forrester had thought every detail through, and now he had no doubt that this was as close to a chance as they had. “Look, Abhaya, we both know the risks, just as we have a fair impression of what will happen if we stay here. Are you willing to give this a shot?”

  “Of course,” she said, and it occurred to him then that there had never been any question in her mind.

  Forrester was dreaming.

  He recalled Abhaya leaving, and how he’d sat for hours, at first trying to refine his plan into something less desperate and after that striving not to think, confident that sleep was far away and that without its relief the tomorrow would be all the more difficult.

  Except, at some point, he had drifted from consciousness. The Guest had been keeping its distance, wary after the incident of the previous night and made more so by what Forrester had asked of it during his session with Forbes. Yet perhaps it had relented and this respite was its doing, for though he was dreaming, he was at the same time quite aware .

  He was back in the trenches, as he’d known he would be. There was the perennial sunset, there the opening in the earth with the gas blanket hung over. He felt no trepidation as he descended the stairs. In a way, there was comfort in the knowledge that he slept and therefore could wake. Nevertheless, when he beheld Middleton’s figure in the lamp-lit gloom, Forrester’s breath faltered.

  Middleton was standing with his hands knotted, as he did when he was deep in thought. He turned at the sound of Forrester’s steps, and Forrester expected to see old wounds strung like beads across his chest. However, Middleton’s uniform was pristine, as neat and clean as on the day he’d arrived.

  “Hello Raff,” Middleton said. “I wasn’t certain you’d come.”

  “Hello,” Forrester replied, and then, remembering and horrified that he’d managed again to forget, he blurted, “I’m so sorry about your letters.” He patted his jacket, making sure that they were where he’d left them all those days ago.

  “Oh, they’re only letters. They’ll have had the news by now, anyway. And they know how much I cared for them. That’s the thing, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Forrester agreed, “that’s the thing.”

  Middleton pulled up a chair at the small table and motioned toward the other. “Won’t you join me?”

  It would have been easy. Forrester’s hand was already curved upon the chair back. The dream of my hand upon the dream of a chair, he reminded himself, but in that moment, he couldn’t believe it. Here he was in the old dugout, the air redolent with familiar odours, and there was Middleton, who had been his friend—who he missed so badly.

  “I would,” Forrester said. “Oh, I gladly would. But you’re dead, you know.” Sighing, he felt his heart throb with abrupt pain. “I wish to god you weren’t. ”

  Middleton smiled. As always, doing so made him look younger. “But there’s nothing to be done, is there?”

  “No. There’s nothing to be done.”

  “Then I suppose we ought to say goodbye.”

  “I think so.” That was why he was here, he understood. That was why he’d come back.

  Middleton reached out a hand and Forrester grasped it and they shook. The gesture seemed curiously formal, yet somehow right for the occasion. Middleton’s hand was warm, Forrester realised, not cold as he might have predicted.

  “It’s been good to see you one last time,” Middleton said, and his voice was fading, as though he were retreating even as he spoke. “But you really must put all this behind you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  F orrester hardly spoke to Abhaya when she brought his breakfast. Despite himself, he felt tired and insular. So far as he could judge, her mood was similarly reclusive, and he doubted she could have slept much better than he had. Selfishly, he found himself hoping that she’d managed to hide her restlessness from Forbes.

  The food went some way toward bringing him round, but only enough so to make him wish he had some encouragement to offer her, or even a decent manner in which to express his gratitude. All he could think to say was, “I’ll see you again, when it’s over.” He’d intended the sentiment as an assurance, but it sounded disappointingly weak to his own ears.

  After Abhaya left, Forrester went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face until his fatigue began to pass. He must be on the best of form for Forbes. One slip might be the end of everything.

  Once he was satisfied the haggardness was gone from his eyes, Forrester went and sat on the bed. He was past the point of sensible thought, past the point where he could make any useful embellishments to his plan. Now he merely wanted to be on with it.

  Certainly he was too restive to be relaxed by reading. Yet after a few minutes, in frustration, he snatched up the Marcus Aurelius from the bedside table and rummaged its pages at random, searching for he knew not what. He prodded irritably at a paragraph and read back the words he’d picked out.

  Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.

  Whatever he’d hoped for, that wasn’t it. Still, the advice was sage enough, he supposed. He had attempted forbearance and had proved ill-suited. Well, today he must try to teach.

  Just then, he was relieved to hear the rap of knuckles upon his door: Campion had taken once more to knocking. “One minute,” Forrester called, and limped over, making sure to catch up his stick as he did so. He was walking capably without its support, but the exertion quickly exhausted him, and in any case, this wasn’t the time to abandon his charade.

  Campion was even more subdued than on the preceding days. He wouldn’t meet Forrester’s eye, and said nothing besides a terse, “Good morning.” There was no trace of the bluster and bitterness that until recently had so defined him. He led the way in silence down to the cellars and held the door for Forrester.

  Forbes was seated exactly as on the previous mornings. He’d had the bottles and casks cleared out a couple of days before, presumably on the assumption that they’d be working in the cellar for the foreseeable future. Ornate rugs had been brought down to soften the stone flags, and candelabras had been positioned to provide the muted lighting that Forbes apparently considered essential to proceedings. For all his diligence, the armchairs and coffee table were as odd and out of place as ever, like a cathedral built upon a desert island.

  Forrester took the second chair as he always did, endeavouring to seem cheerful, or at least not to reveal his anxiety. “So what’s it to be today?”

  “Let’s keep on with the same exercise as yesterday,” Forbes said. “In fact, I’m afraid that will be our focus henceforward. I know how unsavoury you find the whole business, but—“

  “Yes, I’ve been giving that some thought.”

  “Oh?” Forbes looked half annoyed by the interruption and half intrigued.

  “I think I may have a solution.”

  “Go on.”

  “Since the beginning,” Forrester said, “we’ve taken for granted that my ability to communicate with the Guest was exceptional. Perhaps we formed a bond on that first night in No Man’s Land, or perhaps there’s something unusual in my mental composition that predisposed it toward me.”

  “That’s right.” Forbes’s tone was guarded. Regardless of what he might admit, Forrester had no doubt he’d made efforts to duplicate Forrester’s connection with the Guest. The fact that Forrester was still here was all the evidence he needed that those attempts had failed.

  “The thing is,” Forrester continued, “I’m not convinced anymore that that’s the case. The more accustomed I’ve come to it, the more I’ve begun to suspect that the Guest is quite capable of communicating with any intelligent mind, human or otherwise. The reason it hasn’t done so is because it’s chosen not to—or rather, because it’s had no incentive to
.”

  Now Forbes was interested. He leaned forward, eyes agleam. “You’re sure of this?”

  “Not altogether. But can it hurt to try?”

  “I don’t see how. Not if you’d be willing.”

  “Let us be honest,” Forrester said, “I’ve no wish to stay here any longer than I have to. As fascinating an experience as this has been, I’m still a prisoner, and I’d sooner take my chances back in France if those are my choices. And you’d prefer someone more compliant, someone in sympathy with your goals.”

  “Unfortunately true,” Forbes conceded. “But then, I like working with you, Forrester. You’re a good sort: sharp, resourceful, conscientious. Your progress in recent days has been remarkable. We may be close to a breakthrough. Am I to believe that you could just as well be anyone? And if I should accept that, what luck would I have prevailing on my superiors?”

  Forrester tensed, and fought to relax. This was it, he succeeded or he was lost. “There’s one obvious way,” he said, with casualness entirely divorced from how he felt. “What would you think about being a test subject yourself? You’re right, there’s every likelihood that it won’t work, or that it won’t work sufficiently for your purposes. I’d hate to embarrass us both.”

  Forbes held his gaze. For a moment Forrester imagined that there was some link between them too, and that their endless rounds of confrontation had spilled over into the psychic realm, that even now they were wrestling in an arena of the mind.

  “And what would be involved,” Forbes enquired, enunciating each word with care, “in this being a ‘test subject’?”

  The moment of subliminal conflict passed. Maybe it had never occurred at all. But had some of the eagerness in Forbes’s eyes been replaced by suspicion? “Oh, nothing much,” Forrester said. “Just what you’ve been assisting me in doing. Relax. Open your thoughts. Only, whatever happens, you mustn’t resist. If the Guest senses any trepidation, it will pull away, and I might not persuade it to try a second time.”