by Tom Phelan
“Well, sergeant,” the lieutenant shouted, “was this man drunk?”
“There’s no smell of liquor off him,” the sergeant said.
“Don’t stand up, sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “Cut his clothes off him.”
The sergeant nicked off the buttons of the terrible dirty tunic, and when he pulled it apart his hands got all red from the blood and dirty from the muck. Then he cut apart the gansey that someone had knitted for Con and made diamond shapes in it with different coloured wool, and it was as soppy as a biscuit that was dipped for too long in tea. The more blood the lieutenant saw, the more his feet twitched on the floor, me still lying down beside Con but up on my elbow. Then the buttons of the shirt got snipped off, and then up the middle of the vest went the blade of the sergeant’s knife. The sergeant was wet to the wrists with blood the way you’d see a butcher on slaughtering day at the back of his shop after sticking the hanging pigs. When the sergeant pulled everything back off Con’s chest there was nothing but blood, and the lieutenant shouted at one of the nurses to wash it away. When she did, there was a small hole in Con’s chest just like the hole you’d see in Christ’s side where the soldier stuck in the spear and blood and water flowed out. The lieutenant got me by the eyes and started shouting at me like I was a dog. I told him I didn’t do it and I didn’t know who did it.
“Someone did this to save him from the firing squad,” the lieutenant shouted, and he looked all around the cellar. “Everyone who spent the night in here up against the wall,” the lieutenant said, “and you hurry them along, sergeant.”
The sergeant gave a few shouts, and the orderlies and the nurses and the drivers and myself went to the wall, but no matter what the lieutenant said no one said anything because no one had anything to say. Everyone was dead asleep in chairs, or cots, or on the floor, and no one heard anyone moving around in the night. The lieutenant made the sergeant take down everyone’s name and number and said there would be an investigation. Then he saw the picture with the words under it cut into the white plaster over the arch, and he looked at it for a while. Then he said to the sergeant, “What’s that man’s name?” and he pointing to Con on the floor with his stick.
The sergeant pulled the papers of transference out of his pocket and said, “Sir, his name is Cornelius Hatchel.”
“Was he Irish?” the lieutenant asked me, and I said he was.
“What did he call himself?”
“He went by Con,” I said.
“Who drew this?” the lieutenant asked, and he touched the picture with his stick and nobody said anything. “Do you lot mean to tell me that someone came in here last night, killed this man and then cut a memorial stone to him here and no one heard anything? Is that what you’re telling me? Everyone stick out your hands,” the lieutenant said, and he walked along looking for plaster dust from the arch. Then he said to his sergeant, “I want an investigation started right away, and the first thing I want to know is the name of this man’s closest friend.”
But I’m ahead of myself altogether, Mrs. Hatchel. I have told you the end of the story before the beginning but it doesn’t matter now. One way or the other, the lieutenant who came to shoot Con at dawn said Con was murdered, and it doesn’t matter if you know that at the start or the stop of the story.
For most of the War I was not at the front at all, and one of the times was that one night in the cellar in Ocean Villas. That wasn’t the name of the place but no one could say its name in French. Myself and a few other lucky lads worked around the headquarters where all the big knobs hung out. We were shorter than Fem that was eff and emm together for Field Marshal. Talk about luck getting born short and getting pulled out of the trenches because of it, and all my life in school getting picked on because I was small. We kept headquarters clean and took out the ashes and lit the fires, and emptied the poes, and made the beds, and stuff like that, and went for the coal and food. We were a few steps under a batman; skivvies I suppose we were most of the time. The worst part was we had to be spit and polish all the time, but that was better than the trenches. We got the food that was left and sometimes even a drop of wine out of a glass, but I never understood wine because I’m a Guinness man myself.
Fem had a toady working for him who was called Uphisarse, and most times Uphis for short. There never was a man more like a dog than Uphisarse and he was under Fem’s feet all the time with his tongue out waiting to be told what to do, or to get kicked, or to get his paws stepped on, or to get shouted at, or to get his belly scratched with a good word. Uphisarse, with his wet eyes and the look on his face of a dog wanting to do anything to please—even jump into a fire—used to make my skin feel like there were maggots squirming all over me. It was a real pitiable sight to have to look at Uphisarse being so far up the arse of Fem, if you know what I mean.
On a night around eleven in 1918, I was damping down the fire in Fem’s bedroom with the man himself scratching his chest and belly after being in his woolly uniform all day. The sound was like the scratching of fingernails on a taut bedsheet. I hated that sound. Uphis came knocking and whined at Fem for permission to speak and said there was a messenger who’d come a long time ago and wouldn’t go away. Fem growled like a lion frightening off a mouse and told Uphis to find out what the message was and to tell him in the morning—in other words telling Uphis to bugger off. Uphis scraped his arse along the floor like a dog scratching his itchy piles and said the messenger wouldn’t talk to anyone, only to the field marshal; that he’d come hours ago and wouldn’t go away because it was urgent and the guards had him. The guards were afraid he had something important for the field marshal because he wouldn’t stop telling them the message was very important. Fem growled again, and Uphis scraped his arse on the floor again and said nothing. Then Fem stood up and pulled on his tunic with all its accoutrements. His medals jangled like pennies in an empty bucket, so loud that it was like Fem was shouting at Uphis that this better be important or I’m going to send you yelping through the nearest wall with my boot up your arse. Fem even put on his Sam Brown because he never let anyone see him not in full uniform except me and his batman. Maybe that’s why he was growling so much at Uphis because Uphis saw the great man in his vest and with his galluses down around his arse. Himself and Uphis went out into Fem’s parlour, and I stole over to the door to listen and look. Uphis was loping for the outside door but Fem growled at him to hold his horses until the tunic was buttoned all the way to the neck, and Uphis nearly broke out in the mange the way Haig snarled at him. When Fem was all ready he gave the nod, and Uphis fell over himself trying to get to the knob and there were the guards right outside the doorway with the messenger between them. The guards always stayed outside because they were a couple of feet taller than Fem and twice as broad. They were there to stop anyone who tried to get in and ask them their business and then they told Uphis and Uphis said yes or no. This night the guards came into Fem’s parlour because they were treating the messenger like he wanted guarding.
I suppose it was because the guards and Haig and Uphis were so clean and creased and polished and spitted and relaxed and well fed, that the messenger looked like a madman, so dirty and thin and hungry. I could get the stink of him the minute he came in and it was worse than the worst onion-and-porter fart I ever smelled. He was covered from head to toe with wet muck and his uniform was a sopping rag. His face was wiped the way a boy wipes his nose with a belt of his sleeve that drags the snot across his face from nose to ears. He wanted a good shave and there was a lot of white in his eyes and a lot of muck in his hair. He had no helmet or rifle the way a soldier always has. The soldier looked like a human rat, if you know what I mean. You would cross to the other side of the road if you saw him coming. Uphis and Haig looked at him the way they’d look at a steaming horse dung served to them on a dinner plate with gold paint around the edge. Uphis told the messenger to salute and the mucky soldier gave a snort that sounded like “fuck you” in snort language. Uphis said, “Are yo
u a soldier or what?” and the messenger said, “I am a what, your honour.”
Then Uphis said, “Salute Field Marshal Haig.”
The messenger saluted like he was in a show on a stage having a go at the army and said, “Does that make you feel any better, your honour?”
“This man is mad,” Haig growled at Uphis. “Why is he so dirty, and why was he allowed into my presence stinking like a pig?”
“I’m not mad at all,” the soldier said, “and I am dirty because I have come from the place you sent me to. I came from the trenches and no man’s land, and there’s bits of dead soldiers in my boots and on my uniform and in my pockets, and that’s why I stink like an open grave but that’s all beside the point. The message I have for you is what’s important, Mr. Haig.”
“He is Field Marshal Haig,” Uphis said, “and you will address the field marshal properly.”
“Why was this madman allowed into my headquarters?” Fem snapped at Uphis.
“Because I kept asking to see the great man because I have an important message for you, Mr. Haig,” the soldier said.
“I am Field Marshal Haig,” Haig roared, “and you are insubordinate. Take this man out of my sight; you will hear from me in the morning, Cheeseman”—meaning Uphis, and Uphis whined and protected his balls by pulling his tail between his legs.
The soldier slipped out from between the two big guards before they could grab him, and he ran behind Fem’s big desk that was bigger than most people’s kitchens. He had a revolver in his hand and he clicked it ready with his other hand. Fem turned around the way a man turns around when he hears a noise behind him when he’s walking along a lane in the dark. A sound even came out of Fem like he expected to get hit. The two guards were stuck to the floor by their flat feet, and Uphis had his fingers at his open mouth with his eyes as big as two ripe plums.
“Look at me, Field Marshal Haig!” the soldier shouted. “Look at me. I am one of your soldiers. Look at me, goddamn you. Look at me. I am the message,” he shouted. “Look at me. Smell me. It’s me in the state that I’m in that’s the message. I am the message and I am from all the lads.”
“What lads?” Uphis shouted at the soldier like he was trying to be brave in front of Fem.
The soldier waved the revolver in Haig’s direction. “What lads do you think I’m talking about, only the lads in the trenches with the rats, and the lads dead and the rats eating them?” the soldier said. “The lads out in the land rotting under their packs or drying out like mackerel on the wire; the lads floating in the shell holes all swelled up like drowned dogs in the Canal with a rock tied around the neck waiting for a tench to burst them so they can sink again; the lads in the trenches waiting to go over the top with their feet rotten in the rotten water standing on last week’s corpses and wading around in their own shite and piss and vomiting on each other with the fright.”
“You will stop this,” Uphis shouted, like he was afraid the soldier’s words would splash onto Fem’s immaculate uniform and dirty it.
The soldier didn’t hear Uphis and said, “As well as a message I am an invitation to Field Marshal Haig to come up to the trenches to enjoy the muck, and the rats, and the shite, and the piss, and the rotten corpses, and rotten horses. The lads told me to invite you to the picnic they’re having and you’re to bring your camel loaded with claret to give the lads a toddy. They want the impeccable field marshal to go up to see the view from the grand places you keep sending them to. The lads said to bring your impeccable wife with you to the trenches.”
Uphis ran over and slapped the flat of his hand on the top of the desk and at the same time shouted at the soldier to shut his mouth, but he nearly fell when he was backing away real quick when the soldier pointed his gun at him.
The soldier looked back to Haig and said, “Your wife would love to see the way the rats use their little claws to hold on to a man’s face when it’s eating his cheeks, when it’s sucking the eyes out of him.”
“I’m ordering you to shut your mouth!” Uphis shouted across the room, but the soldier never even blinked.
“If your wife wants to swim before the picnic she can hold on to the lads who have floated to the top, use them to hold on to when she gets tired.”
Uphis could do nothing but stand there and cringe and shiver like a dog that knows a hobnailed boot is on its way to its arse. Fem had to take over and he barked, “Where’s your unit?”
The soldier said, “Near Ocean Villas where you sent all the Newfoundlanders to fall like a lost herd of crying, cornered caribou in front of machine guns.”
“And is your commanding officer aware of your whereabouts?” Haig asked.
“I didn’t tell him I was coming to see you, if that’s what you mean. I know that if he had known he wouldn’t have said, ‘Say hello to Haig for me.’ He’d have said, ‘Shoot the fucker when you see him.’”
“You are a deserter,” Haig said, pretending the soldier hadn’t a gun. “There will be no orderly room for you, Mister.”
I nearly collapsed onto the floor when Fem shouted out my name at the top of his lungs without even looking over his shoulder at his bedroom door. For a second I thought he’d caught me listening and was going to court-martial me. I wasn’t able to get myself moving quick enough, and he shouted out my name again. I came out with the coal scuttle still in my hand and I wanted to go to the lav badly, I was so frightened.
“You are a witness in a court martial, Simkins. This man is guilty of desertion by his own admission.”
Fem sat down at his smaller desk at the wall and took a piece of paper out of his drawer, and took one of the twelve pens he had in twelve inkwells on his desk. As usual he looked at the nib before he started to write, hoping he was going to find a hair in it so he could shout at his batman. Fem took in a breath like he was going to say something when the soldier said, “Cornelius Francis Hatchel. That’s spelled C-o-r-n-e-l-i-u-s F-r-a-n-c-i-s; not ‘es’ like a girl’s. I’m called Con by my familiars. H-a-t-c-h-e-l, as Irish as Paddy’s pig, is my last name, and as old as a Roman emperor is my first.” Then he told Fem a number and a stretcher unit that I can’t remember because I was never good at sums.
While Haig wrote, Con said, “The wife will have to be careful not to swallow any of the stuff in the trenches because it’s full of shite and piss and vomit and rotting feet and rotting horse flesh and rotting man flesh. I’ve heard it said by lads who got a mouthful of the stuff that German soldiers taste better from all that beer they drink; it gives their meat a nice flavour, like the taste of the sun in barley-fed bacon. During the picnic she’ll have to make sure to keep the flies off her little sandwiches and to hold them up over her head, but even then the rats might run up along her and out along her arm. She’ll have to hold her water for a long time because there’s no place for a woman to go unless she does it when she’s halfway up her belly in trench water.”
Haig stood up from his desk and his chair fell over behind him. It made a loud noise, and Uphis made like he was going to get the chair but then thought better of it. Haig roared, “Shut your mouth. Shut your filthy mouth. As field marshal of the British Expeditionary Force I find you guilty of desertion. You will be brought back to Ocean Villas, and Simkins will give this envelope to your officer. You will be shot at dawn.”
Con didn’t hear Haig, and he said, “The lads will make a path of duckboards for your wife so the hem of her dress won’t drag across the piles of rotting guts and disturb the flies mixing their dinner with their own shite between their front legs.”
“Shut up!” Fem bellowed, like a lion with its paw in a spring trap, and everyone in the room except Con shook. “Cheeseman, arrange a detail to take this man back to his unit. Simkins, you will deliver the papers of transference.” When he stuck the envelope out at me, I didn’t know what to do with the coal scuttle and it fell on the floor. The coal went everywhere, and when I went down on my knees to pick it all up, Fem roared at me, “Get off the floor, you buffoon,” and
when I did he stuck the letter in my face.
“You’re a cavalryman yourself, Mr. Haig,” Con said. “Surely they’ll make a statue of you on a horse after the War to pretend to themselves how great the War was, and when all the people are cheering you, Mr. Haig, it’s not cheering you will hear but only the hisses of the men you sent to hell while they were still alive. Remember me, Mr. Haig, when they pull the cover off the statue and you see yourself up there being proud on the horse’s back, and listen to the hissing and the booing of the young lads you sent to the butcher, not for a pound of beef, but to get butchered themselves.”
“Take that man out of here!” Fem shouted, and when the two guards didn’t come to life, Fem shouted at Con, “Give that revolver to me, soldier.” Con looked at the revolver like he’d never seen it before, and he let it fall onto the top of the big desk in front of him. The gun went off and the bullet hit the row of inkwells and pens on Fem’s other desk and everyone jumped.
The two big soldiers ran over and grabbed Con. They dragged him out through the door with Uphis and myself after them. Uphis was running so as to get out of Fem’s sight as quick as he could.
That’s how I was one of the lads in the detail that brought Con back to his own unit about six miles in the dark to Ocean Villas. That’s how I come to have slept beside your son that last night and how he gave me your address, and he wrote on the inside of the Woodbine box a message for me to put in the letter: Matt, we got to the far end of the Mediterranean, and we saw Africa. Remember the Canal. Marry Kitty. Tell them all I love them. And Sarah. Your brother, Con.