by Ben Elton
The First Casualty
by Ben Elton
(2005)
* * *
Flanders, June 1917: a British officer and celebrated poet, is shot dead, killed not by German fire, but while recuperating from shell shock well behind the lines. A young English soldier is arrested and, although he protests his innocence, charged with his murder. Douglas Kingsley is a conscientious objector, previously a detective with the London police, now imprisoned for his beliefs. He is released and sent to France in order to secure a conviction. Forced to conduct his investigations amidst the hell of The Third Battle of Ypres, Kingsley soon discovers that both the evidence and the witnesses he needs are quite literally disappearing into the mud that surrounds him. Ben Elton's tenth novel is a gut-wrenching historical drama which explores some fundamental questions. What is murder? What is justice in the face of unimaginable daily slaughter? And where is the honour in saving a man from the gallows if he is only to be returned to die in a suicidal battle? As the gap between legally-sanctioned and illegal murder becomes evermore blurred, Kingsley quickly learns that the first casualty when war comes is truth.
ONE
Ypres, Belgium, October 1917, before dawn
The soldier was laden like a pack mule.
Besides his knapsack and his water bottle, he carried on his back an iron bar around which was wound a mass of barbed wire that must have weighed a hundred pounds. Hanging from his belt and webbing were two Mills bombs, a hatchet, a bayonet, a pouch of ammunition and various entrenching tools. In his hands he carried his rifle. In addition, the man was wet through and through, every stitch of cloth and every inch of leather as sodden as if it had been deliberately immersed in water, so that it all weighed three times what a uniform, coat and boots ought to have weighed. Of course, every man in Flanders was as wet as that, but not every man carried a reel of wire on his back and so not all of them staggered as this man did or made such slow time.
‘You there,’ cried a voice, trying to make itself heard above the roar of artillery that thundered up from the guns at the rear. ‘Military Police! Make way. I must get past. I simply must get past.’
Perhaps the man heard, perhaps he didn’t — but if he did, he did not make way, but continued to plod steadily towards his goal. The officer could do no more than travel in his wake, cursing this ponderous beast of burden and hoping to find a point where the duckboard grew wide enough to let him pass safely. It was doubly frustrating for him to be so obstructed, for he knew enough about the nature of an attack to see that this fellow would not be advancing in the first wave. His job would be to follow on, using his wire and tools to help consolidate the gains made by the boys with the bayonets. The impatient officer did not expect any gains to be made. No gains of any significance anyway. There had not been any in the battle before this one, nor had there been in the one preceding that. Still, even gains of a few yards would need consolidation, new trenches to be dug and fresh wire laid. And so the pack mule plodded on.
Then the mule slipped. His heavily nailed boot skidded on the wet duckboard and with scarcely a cry he fell sideways into the mud and was gone, sucked instantly beneath the surface.
‘Man in the mud!’ the officer shouted, although he knew it was already too late. ‘Bring a rope! A rope, I say, for God’s sake!’
But there was no rope to hand. Even if there had been one, and time to slip it around the sinking man, it is doubtful whether four of his comrades pulling together would have had the strength to draw him forth from the swamp that sucked at him. And there was no room on the duckboard for four men to stand together, or even two, and so slippery were the wire-bound planks that any rescue attempt would have resulted in the rescuers sharing the same fate as the man they hoped to save.
And so the man drowned in mud. Dead and buried in a single moment.
TWO
Some time earlier
Douglas Kingsley was an unlikely candidate to join the ranks of conscientious objectors, in that he had killed more men than most soldiers were ever likely to do. Not directly, of course; he had not plunged in the knife or pulled the trigger but he had killed his quarry no less certainly for that. It was a point he readily conceded at his trial.
‘It is true that I have no small acquaintance with matters of life and death, sir,’ Kingsley said, addressing the judge, ‘and have been forced to examine my conscience accordingly. I have, however, slept soundly in the knowledge that those men and the three women who were condemned to death as a result of my investigations were all heartily deserving of their fate.’
It was a very public trial. Most conscientious objectors were court-martialled before military tribunals, but such was the notoriety of Kingsley’s case that somehow the authorities had intrigued to bring him before a civil court. Kingsley cut an incongruous figure in the dock, not least because he was impeccably turned out in the dress uniform of an inspector of His Majesty’s Metropolitan Police. His buttons shone, his badges sparkled and the ribbons at his breast were an unlikely decoration for a man who stood accused of cowardice. Tall and proud, almost arrogant in his stance, Kingsley was steady and commanding in voice and manner. His tone clearly irritated the judge, who seemed to feel that some humility on his part would have been appropriate.
‘You think yourself a better arbiter of moral worth than His Majesty’s Government?’ he demanded.
‘In the circumstances under discussion, how could it possibly be otherwise? ‘
‘Do not curl your lip at me, sir!’ the judge barked.
Kingsley’s lip had indeed curled, but involuntarily. All his life those who knew and loved Douglas Kingsley had found themselves making excuses for what often seemed on first acquaintance to be an insufferably superior manner. Kingsley did not set out to patronize people but the truth was that every line on his face was wont to display evidence of his absolute conviction that he knew better than them. He was constantly surprised to discover that the fact that he usually did know better in no way mitigated people’s irritation at his all-encompassing assurance.
‘I will not be sneered at in my own courtroom!’ the judge added, raising his voice.
‘I do not mean to sneer, sir, and was not aware that I was doing so. I am sorry.’
‘Explain yourself then! How is it that you imagine yourself so much more morally astute than those who govern us?’
‘In general I would make no such claim, sir. I am merely seeking to point out that I have known every single person whom I have sent before the hanging judge and known them intimately. I have examined every available detail of their character and their actions. His Majesty’s Government knows none of those whom it kills, be they Germans, Turks, Austro-Hungarians or our own men.’
This last comment drew cries of shame from the packed gallery of the courtroom.
‘You’re a traitor, Kingsley,’ an old man shouted, ‘and a dirty German too!’
This jibe was a reference to the fact that Kingsley’s grandfather had been born in Frankfurt and his family name had been König.
‘Traitor or German, sir?’ Kingsley enquired. ‘If I were German, which I am not, then I could hardly be called a traitor for refusing to fight them.’
Kingsley’s lip again curled, and a hail of abuse descended upon him from the gallery. Above the noise of it he could hear in his head his wife’s voice scolding him for making patronizing comments. Comments she used to repeat to him angrily on their way home from dinner parties at which he had imagined himself to be the soul of reason and reserve. ‘You think yourself so clever, ‘she would chide, ‘and I’m sure you are, but you don’t know everything and nobody likes a smart Alec.’
Certainly Kingsley was making no friends in the courtroom.
‘Coward!’ sh
rieked a shabby-looking woman who was dressed in conspicuous mourning.
‘Filthy snivelling coward!’ the ex-private soldier beside her added with equal venom.
Kingsley had noticed this man earlier. He had been carried into the dock by his family, for he had no legs on which to walk.
Kingsley thought of his brother Robert, missing since the first morning of the Somme and long since pronounced dead. If Robert had merely lost his legs instead of being vaporized by shells, could it have been him sitting there in the gallary? Hurling abuse, his face a mask of fury?
The judge called for silence but he issued no rebukes. It was clear that he sympathized with the sentiments of the crowd.
‘This courtroom will not provide a platform for slanders and treason, Mr Kingsley! The British government does not kill its own men. The enemy kills our soldiers to further its wicked aims and our valiant soldiers are prepared to sacrifice themselves in order to stop it. You dishonour the memory of the fallen with your fatuous sloganeering.’
‘I assure you I had no such intention.’ Kingsley pressed on quickly. ‘The point I am trying to make is that whilst I am entirely satisfied that the human souls I sent to the gallows in pursuance of my duties as a police officer were wicked ones fully deserving of their early dispatch, His Majesty’s Government is unable to judge the moral merits of ending the life of even a single one of its victims.’
The judge seemed about to shout but instead he gripped his gavel and paused to collect himself. His was a position of great authority, the dignity of his office the bedrock of the criminal justice system, and clearly he realized that he was in danger of allowing himself to be provoked. He must attempt to meet Kingsley’s arguments calmly and leave baying to the mob.
‘Inspector Kingsley, this is childish! The German soldier represents the will of his government, a government whose moral merits we know only too well.’
‘We know them because they are similar to our own!’
Again there were roars of protest from the gallery. Kingsley bit his lip, aware that every word he uttered must increase the contempt in which he was held. All his common sense told him to be silent and yet he could not stop himself. He wanted people to understand that he was right. Not necessarily right morally, for to his mind that was a matter of personal conscience, but right intellectually. All the arguments were irrefutably on his side.
Somewhere in the distance a military band struck up ‘Goodbye Dolly Gray’. It was a warm day and the high windows of the courtroom had been opened an inch or two, so the music could be heard despite the noise in the room.
Goodbye Dolly I must leave you,
Though it breaks my heart to go…
The old Boer War favourite had been a popular revival in the early days of the war, sending many a troop train of the British Expeditionary Force on its way from Waterloo and Victoria. The song had been heard less frequently in recent years and Kingsley wished that they would not play it now. It was a favourite of his son’s, and many times Kingsley had watched as the little boy marched about their cosy sitting room while his wife sat at her beloved piano and sang.
Kingsley tried to put thoughts of his family from his mind. He had tried to do this every waking moment since he had been arrested, but he always failed. In happier times Kingsley had believed that nothing on earth could ever mean more to him than his family, yet he had sacrificed them for a cold, dry principle and a part of him loathed himself for it.
‘I do not approve of the Kaiser!’ Kingsley said, raising his face to those who sneered down upon him. ‘I think him vain and aggressive and believe that he must take much of the blame for the catastrophe that we all now face…’
‘Well, I am sure we are all delighted to hear it.’ The judge’s voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘No doubt General Haig will see fit to pass on your comments to the army in an order of the day, that they may be emboldened in their task.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Kingsley pressed on, ‘whatever his faults, the Kaiser leads an industrialized, imperial, Christian nation! Just as does his first cousin, His Majesty King George. It is true that we are a democracy and Germany is an oligarchy but it is not for that reason that we fight. Indeed, our ally Russia was until recently every bit the absolute monarchy that Germany is. I can see no reason why all these most similar European nations have pronounced the death sentence upon one another’s populations.’
‘It is not your business to look for reasons, sir!’
‘I consider it to be more than my business, I think it my duty.’
‘If you knew anything about duty, sir, you would be in France!’
Cheering broke out at this and it seemed to Kingsley that the judge would be happy to allow the spectators to descend from the gallery and lynch him there and then.
‘You are a citizen and a subject!’ the judge thundered. ‘If you wish to influence national policy you have your vote. If you wish to influence it further, then for a small deposit you may stand for parliament. You have lived all your life in comfort and prosperity under the protection of parliament and the Crown. You have happily embraced the rights and privileges of British citizenship. What right have you now to avoid its responsibilities?’
Kingsley struggled to meet the judge’s eye. The hostility in the room was intense and despite his confident manner Kingsley was horrified to be the focus of so much aggression. For a moment it seemed as if the fight was draining from him.
‘I have no such right, sir,’ he said quietly.
‘Speak up, man!’ the judge demanded.
Kingsley raised his head once more and looked straight at the judge. He knew the case was drawing to a close.
‘I have no right to avoid my responsibilities. At least not unless I am prepared to accept the consequences. But you see, sir, I am. That is why I am here. To face the consequences of the position which regrettably I have felt obliged to adopt.’
At this something approaching a hush fell upon the courtroom, which only moments previously had threatened to become a bear pit. The baying mob was briefly taken aback by this sudden appearance of humility on Kingsley’s part. The judge also took a quieter tone. It seemed that, beneath the bluster and the anger, Kingsley troubled him.
‘Inspector Kingsley,’ he said, ‘you are aware that I am empowered under the law to exercise tolerance of pacifism if that pacifism is grounded in a genuine moral or religious abhorrence at the taking of human life?’
‘I am, sir.’
‘Those individuals who come before me burdened with such principles may expect to be obliged to labour for their country in some peaceful capacity, but in general they will escape a prison sentence.’
‘I understand that.’
‘And yet you do not seek to claim such principles in your defence? ‘
‘I am not a pacifist, sir. Nor do I believe that all human life is inalienably sacred. I believe that there are circumstances under which killing may be justified. Perhaps even on the industrial scale currently under way on the fields of Belgium and France, although it is difficult to imagine what those circumstances might be. The reason I stand before you today is that I do not think those circumstances are met by the guarantees this country made to Belgium in the London Treaty of 1839.’
The moment of calm was short-lived. Once more the gallery began to stir. Kingsley could hear his wife’s voice warning, Nobody likes a smart Alec. Why bring up the treaty? Why mention the date? It was snooty and bookish and could only further alienate an already deeply hostile room. But Kingsley would not be browbeaten. Facts were important. They were all that was important when justifying a war. Kingsley knew his facts, and he was damned if he was going to water down his arguments simply to satisfy the preference of the mob for dogma and ignorance.
‘You think it wrong then,’ the judge enquired, ‘that a great and mighty nation such as ours comes to the aid of a small, brave one like gallant Belgium when that country is brutally attacked and occupied?’
‘If that is the reason
for our current expedition then I think it strange that we felt no similar obligation to the peoples of the African Congo whom ‘gallant’ Belgium has happily attacked, subdued and fiendishly brutalized in a manner which I dare say exceeds any current German excesses on the Continent.’
‘You compare the fate of savages with that of Christian white men?’
‘Yes, I do.’
The judge seemed momentarily taken aback. It was certainly true that the particular cruelty of Belgian imperialism had provoked much criticism in Britain a few years earlier. Criticism which had been quietly forgotten in the circumstances of Belgium’s currently celebrated martyrdom.
‘The Belgian Congo is utterly irrelevant to your case.’
‘I don’t see why.’
‘Because you are a British citizen and we are discussing British policy, Inspector Kingsley, and it is not for the individual to pick and choose what articles of national policy they care to subscribe to. That is called anarchy. Are you an anarchist, sir?’
‘No, I am not, sir.
‘I am glad to hear it. It would be a strange thing indeed if a man who has seen fourteen years’ service with the Metropolitan Police were to be an anarchist.’
Kingsley knew that he was getting nowhere and suddenly he felt tired. The months since his arrest had been taxing in the extreme, the trial itself terrifying and exhausting. He decided that he must try to assist in bringing the proceedings to a close.
‘Sir, I am sorry to have caused you and this court so much trouble. I truly am. I recognize that there is no legal defence for my position and that there is only one verdict that you can deliver. All I can say is that in the current international circumstances I am forced, with the greatest reluctance, to renounce my obligations as a subject of the King. I cannot shelter behind any deeply felt moral or religious principles. I accept that there are men I would be prepared to kill. I accept that there are wars I would be prepared to fight. All I can tell you, sir, is that the German Army does not contain those men and this war is not one of those wars.