The Blasphemer

by Nigel Farndale

  Daniel nodded. He liked it when his father talked about the army. It was the only subject about which he ever talked at any length.

  They found their hotel in the area of the square overlooking the Cloth Hall. It had three flags flying outside it: Canadian, British and Australian. ‘Guess there’s only one reason foreigners visit this town,’ Daniel said.

  The hotel was like a museum: paintings of the original Cloth Hall in flames hung from the walls in the gloomy foyer alongside grainy photographs of bedraggled soldiers trailing through the market square with ammunition limbers and horses. Their rooms were next to one another. Daniel dropped his canvas bag on a nylon quilt covering the bed. The walls were papered with woodchip. There was a cupboard made of plywood with the door hanging off its hinges. And the room was dominated by a bulky television hanging on an angle off its wall bracket. The bathroom sink, meanwhile, had two cold taps with blue tops. When Daniel tested them he discovered one ran hot water. When he saw that damp was coming through the polystyrene tiles on the ceiling, he grinned. It was always the same when he left the booking of hotels to his father. He went for the cheapest available.

  ‘Thought you said this whole town was rebuilt,’ Daniel said after knocking on his father’s door and walking in. ‘I think this hotel might have been one of the few things that survived.’

  Philip had his back to the door with one arm in his shirt. As he slipped the other arm on, Daniel noticed the skin-coloured patches on his shoulders. They looked like nicotine patches, but couldn’t be. His father hadn’t smoked for years. Without turning round, Philip removed something from his mouth. Daniel could see it was a handkerchief.

  ‘It’s cheap,’ Philip said, regaining his composure. ‘And at least it has a view over the square.’

  When Daniel went to lock his door he found the lock broken and so asked if he could leave his bag in Philip’s room while they went out for dinner. This time he noticed how thin his father’s legs looked, and how his chest had barrelled. He also noticed the paraphernalia of old age: the bottles of pills in the bathroom, the rubber ferrule at the bottom of the walking stick propped against the door, the surgical stocking on the bed. He also noticed the whiskers his father had missed shaving, and the smoky smell of urine on his trousers.

  On their way out, Daniel was surprised to see the old man turn and walk slowly and cautiously backwards down the stairs. Neither of them commented on it.

  Having found a restaurant in the corner of the square that was surrounded by hanging baskets, they sat at a table outside it. Though they asked for a menu and wine list in French they were handed menus in English. Daniel ordered an expensive bottle of burgundy and tested it by swirling it around the glass and inhaling rather than sipping it. He nodded at the waiter and smiled to himself as he realized he was still trying to impress his father, still trying to win his approval. The wine connoisseur at dinner. How pathetic.

  As usual it was Daniel who felt he had to lead the conversation. He began talking about college, about how there had been much more administration and red tape lately; about how the provost was always trying to modernize and introduce new computing systems. He was talking too quickly, building up to what he wanted to say. It came out abruptly: ‘By the way, Dad. I’ve been suspended.’

  Philip took a sip of wine and nodded. Daniel couldn’t decide whether he was nodding in approval of the wine, in acknowledgement of what Daniel had said, or because he already knew. ‘It’s a misunderstanding,’ he continued. ‘Office politics, really. My friend Wetherby is fighting my corner. He thinks it will all blow over.’ Pause. ‘It’s to do with Islamist radicalization on campus. I invited a Muslim on to campus who they say is a radical preacher or something. He’s nothing of the sort, of course. He’s a teacher at Martha’s school. I thought I …’ Another pause. A sigh this time. Daniel still hadn’t found a convincing way to articulate what had happened. ‘After the crash, when I was swimming for help …’ Another sigh, heavier. ‘I was hallucinating.’ Daniel realized he was gabbling and that, as usual, his father was listening in silence. ‘Well, it’s always good to talk, Dad.’ He drained his glass. ‘We should do this more often.’

  ‘Wetherby is a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes.You know him?’

  ‘He’s the music professor, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s working on something to do with Mahler. I overheard him telling Nancy about it. He reckons Mahler wrote an alternative opening to one of his symphonies …You OK, Dad?’

  Philip had closed his eyes. He was choosing his words. ‘There is something I have to tell you, too.’

  Daniel blinked and swallowed. His hands moved to the edge of the table and took hold. ‘Go on.’

  ‘There is a name on the memorial that shouldn’t be there.’

  The waiter returned. ‘Are you ready to order?’

  Philip put his glasses on and tightened the strap at the back that compensated for his missing ear. He scanned the menu. ‘I’ll have the moules,’ he said.

  ‘A cheese omelette and salad for me.’

  ‘Still a vegetarian?’

  ‘Still a carnivore?’ Daniel watched the waiter walk away before prompting his father: ‘You were saying?’

  ‘The name Andrew Kennedy, it shouldn’t be on there.’

  ‘His body’s been found?’

  Silence. ‘It was never missing. There’s no easy way to say this, Daniel … Andrew Kennedy was shot at dawn. He was a deserter. Court-martialled and shot.’

  Daniel tilted his head back and frowned. He couldn’t take it in. ‘I don’t understand … Have you always known this?’

  ‘Had no idea until earlier this week. It was in his file at the National Archives. The court record of his trial. It’s only recently been declassified.’

  ‘But wasn’t your grandmother told he’d been killed in action?’

  ‘Families of deserters were rarely told the truth. The letter home usually said “died of wounds”.’

  ‘Is that what ours said?’

  ‘No, not quite. I have it here.’ Philip handed over a pre-printed letter with spaces that had been filled in by hand.

  Sir, it is my painful duty to inform you that no further news having been recorded relative to (No) … 9862. (Rank) … Private. (Name) … Andrew Kennedy. (Regiment) … Shropshire Fusiliers who has been missing since … 31 – 7 – 17 the Army Council has been regretfully constrained to conclude that he is dead, and that his death took place on … 31 – 7 – 17. I am to express to you the sympathy of the Army Council with your loss.

  The Regimental Adjutant

  ‘They thought he was missing in action,’ Philip explained. ‘Then they realized he’d run away.’

  Daniel let out a low whistle. ‘Poor bugger. How did they catch him?’

  ‘He was gone for more than a year. Went to live in Nieppe, a town about fifteen miles from here. Met a French woman.’

  ‘A year!’

  ‘He met a French woman.’

  ‘Those letters…’

  Philip nodded. ‘They were going to get married. He needed his birth certificate sent over from England to make it official. It came back addressed to him care of his regiment. He was easy to track down after that.’

  ‘But he was already married …’

  Philip sighed. Took a white plastic bottle from his jacket pocket and sipped from it.

  ‘What’s that? A hip flask?’

  Philip ignored the question. ‘The French woman’s name was Adilah Camier. She was called as a witness at his court martial. According to the records, she was pregnant.’

  Two plates of food arrived. Daniel broke off a chunk of bread and buttered it. ‘Andrew was the father?’

  ‘So it seems. He refers to the baby in his letters to her.’

  ‘And do we know what became of this baby?’

  ‘That is what I’m hoping to find out. I thought we could drive over to Nieppe tomorrow afternoon, have a look around, see if we can find the house where he l
ived. What do you reckon?’

  ‘Course. I’m still trying to take this in.’ Daniel drained his glass and refilled it, leaning over to top Philip’s up, too. ‘So you might have had an uncle or aunt you didn’t know about?’

  ‘It’s possible but …There was always something that never quite added up about when my father was born. There was no birth certificate, for one thing. Everyone in our family was always cagey on the subject. My mother, I remember, would never talk about it. And I always suspected that my sister knew something I didn’t, that she was somehow protecting me.’

  ‘You think that baby might have been your father, my grandfather?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We could drive over to Nieppe first thing.’

  ‘I’ve arranged to meet an archaeologist tomorrow morning. A friend of mine. I work with him on the British War Graves Commission. He is on a dig over on the Passchendaele Ridge. We can go after that.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  The scrape of cutlery on plates.

  Daniel could feel the wine warming his belly, taking the edges off their conversation. He spoke first. ‘It’s not, I mean, there’s no stigma attached to it these days, is there? Being shot at dawn. Everyone knows the poor sods were all suffering from shell shock. Didn’t they pardon them all a few years ago?’

  ‘I think they called it “a retrospective recommendation for mercy”, but yes. All three hundred and six recorded cases posthumously pardoned.’

  ‘Presumably that number didn’t include Andrew?’

  ‘Think it was meant to cover everyone.’

  ‘I wonder if it’s genetic.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cowardice.’

  The sound of shells being cracked open, sauce being sipped. Then Philip said: ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I wonder if there is a gene for cowardice. Obviously it skipped two generations in the case of our family – my great-grandfather, then me.’

  Philip avoided his son’s eye. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You know: you and your father. The medals. The hero gene.’ Daniel searched his father’s face; ran a piece of bread around the rim of his plate. ‘My great-grandfather and me, the yellow streak …’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daniel.’

  ‘Nancy told you what happened on the plane, didn’t she?’

  Philip hesitated. Nodded. He was still avoiding his son’s eyes. ‘She hinted at something. Didn’t go into detail.’

  ‘Well, let me fill you in. I saved myself and left her to drown.’

  ‘I’m sure …’ Philip didn’t know how to finish the sentence. ‘I’ve always had the highest regard for Nancy.’

  ‘You’re changing the subject.’

  ‘You have to fight for her. Fight to keep her.’

  ‘I am, Dad, but lately … She called me a coward. I’m surprised she didn’t present me with a white feather. She has every right to.’

  ‘She is a beautiful woman … Beautiful … Like your mother.’

  Daniel blinked. He was astonished to hear his father talk in this way. He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard him talk about his mother. It was a taboo between them. ‘I know. Don’t think I don’t know how lucky I am.’ Realizing he had drunk most of the bottle of wine on his own, he added: ‘Sorry, Dad, you hardly had any. Let me order another.’

  ‘Might have a brandy.’

  Daniel caught the waiter’s eye and held up two fingers. ‘Deux cognacs, s’il vous plaît.’

  When they arrived, Daniel said, ‘Merci, et l’addition, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ the waiter said in English.

  ‘I blame myself,’ Philip said. ‘Too protective of you … after your mother died.’

  ‘Were you? That’s not how I remember it.’

  ‘Never let you hurt yourself. Get stung by nettles. Fall out of trees.’

  Daniel sensed his father’s embarrassment but continued anyway. He was feeling drunk, reckless and affectionate. ‘Why have we never talked about my mother?’

  Philip exhaled and played with the glasses hanging from a cord around his neck. ‘Don’t know. You were very angry about her death. Angry with God.’

  ‘Was I?’ Daniel sounded distant. ‘Why does it take something like this to get us talking? We never really have talked, have we?’

  ‘That’s not true, Daniel.’

  Both men felt awkward about the exchange. It hung in the air and neither could think how to dispel it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Le Bizet, Belgium. Second Monday of September, 1918

  MAJOR MORRIS FINDS THE CHAPLAIN IN THE VESTRY OF THE church. He taps on the open door. Removes his cap. ‘I’ve come to apologize,’ he says in a thin voice.

  The chaplain has not heard him enter and jumps slightly. ‘For what?’

  ‘For my behaviour at the court martial.’

  The chaplain looks puzzled.

  ‘I’ve come to ask for your forgiveness.’

  ‘My forgiveness?’

  ‘God’s.’

  ‘I see. Well.’ He gestures towards a chair.

  ‘Will you pray with me?’

  ‘By all means.’ The two men kneel together and say the Lord’s Prayer.

  Sensing more is needed, the chaplain places his hand on the officer’s head and blesses him.

  ‘Thank you,’ Morris says, still kneeling. ‘What did you make of Private Kennedy’s testimony in court? That business about him following the soldier across no-man’s-land?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘Have you heard of the Angel of Mons?’

  The chaplain removes his hand. ‘Everyone has.’

  Morris raises his head and looks the chaplain in the eye. ‘Well, I saw it. I was there.’

  ‘The Angel of Mons is a myth, surely.’ The chaplain studies his face. ‘You expect me to believe you saw St George wearing a suit of armour and riding a white horse?’

  ‘No, it was a soldier. He just stood there, oblivious to the bullets. They went through him as if he was made of air.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention this at the trial?’

  ‘Because it would have made me sound mad. Because I couldn’t believe my own eyes. We were exhausted. When you haven’t slept for days you see things.’ Morris reaches for the chaplain’s hand. ‘I’m not mad, you know. I never told anyone, apart from a nurse who I had heard was investigating the claim. I wrote to her.’

  ‘I see. And do you think Kennedy saw the same figure?’

  Morris looks away. ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now anyway. Doesn’t change the fact that he deserted his post.’ A long sigh. ‘Thank you for listening, padre. It is a weight off my mind.’ He gets to his feet. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, there is something to which I must attend.’

  Once outside, Morris dismisses his waiting driver and gets behind the wheel himself. Five minutes later, when he parks in front of the armoury, a converted schoolroom, sentries challenge him. With a scrawling signature, he signs for a dozen short-magazine Lee Enfield rifles. These he carries out to the car two at a time and lays against the running board. Next he retrieves a box of .303 ammunition which he has in the boot of his car, loads a cartridge into the chamber of each gun and sets the safety catch before laying the weapon carefully down on the slatted wooden seats in the back. He sets off for the police station now, narrowly missing a dispatch rider on a motorbike as he swings out into the road.

  *

  Because the ground floor of his house had recently been decorated with an expensive silk wallpaper from Paris, the mayor of Le Bizet had not allowed it to be commandeered without protest. But he was relieved to learn it was officers who would be using it as a mess, not men.Two of them are standing in the drawing room now, reflecting on the court martial.

  ‘What do you make of Major Morris?’ Brigadier-General Blakemore says, staring out of the window.

  Lieutenant Cooper purses his dry l
ips. ‘Don’t know, sir. Don’t know him.’

  ‘Know how he got his VC?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘I can find out if you like, sir.’

  ‘No need. It’s just he’s asked to take personal charge of the firing squad.What kind of man does that?’The brigadier-general turns to face the lieutenant. ‘What was he, do you know?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Before the war.’

  ‘Morris, sir? I’d heard he was a conductor.’ As if further explanation is needed, he adds: ‘Symphonies and so on. But that’s only a rumour.’

  ‘Good God.’ Blakemore walks heavily up to a cabinet and pours himself a whisky from a decanter. ‘Did you see the way his hands shook?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s been in it from the start. Fought at Mons.’

  The chug-chug of a motorcycle on the road outside signals a dispatch from general headquarters. Both the officers know this means Field Marshal Haig has signed the death warrant.They would have had a phone call otherwise.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ Blakemore says, looking up after reading it. ‘I thought he might show leniency this near the end.’ He studies the amber liquid in his glass, swirling it around.

  ‘Sir?’ Cooper says. ‘I’ve been thinking. Private Kennedy’s wife in England thinks he was killed at Passchendaele. Do we need to disabuse her?’

  Blakemore takes a swig as he considers this. ‘No, I suppose not … Strange, that business with the French nurse. Attractive woman. Has she been sent back to Nieppe?’

  Cooper’s smile is embarrassed. ‘I said she could visit the prisoner, sir. For five minutes.’

  ‘You still have compassion, Cooper … How old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen, sir.’

  Blakemore sets down his empty glass. ‘Do you know how old I am?’