The Absolutist

by John Boyne

  We stop now in the centre of the parade ground and the sergeant and his two corporals turn to face us. We stand in no particular order but he stares and remains silent until, without a word to each other, we find ourselves separating into a rectangle, ten men long and four men deep, each distanced from the next man by no more than an arm’s width.

  “Good,” says the sergeant, nodding. “That’s a good start, gentlemen. Let me begin by welcoming you to Aldershot. Some of you want to be here, I know, some of you don’t. Those of us who have been in the service for many years share your emotions and sympathize with them. But they don’t matter any more. What you think, what you feel, doesn’t matter. You are here to be trained as soldiers and that is what will happen.”

  He speaks calmly, betraying the conventional image of the barracks sergeant, perhaps to put us at our ease. Perhaps to surprise us by how quickly he might turn on us later.

  “My name is Sergeant James Clayton,” he announces. “And over the next couple of months, during your time here, it is my responsibility to train you into soldiers, a job that requires as much intellect on your part as it does strength and stamina.” He looks around and narrows his eyes, his tongue bulging out his cheek as he considers the men—boys—lined up before him.

  “You, sir,” he says, lifting his cane and pointing it at a young lad in the centre of the front row, who made himself popular on the train with his quick wit and effervescent sense of humour. “Your name, please?”

  “Mickey Rich,” says the boy confidently.

  “Mickey Rich, sir!” shouts the soldier standing at the sergeant’s left shoulder, but the older man turns to him and shakes his head.

  “It’s perfectly all right, Corporal Wells,” he says cheerfully. “Rich here doesn’t understand our ways yet. He is utterly ignorant, aren’t you, Rich?”

  “Yes, sir,” Rich replies, his tone a little less certain now, the “sir” being uttered with deliberate force.

  “And are you happy to be here, Rich?” asks Sergeant Clayton.

  “Oh yes, sir,” says Rich. “Happy as a pig in shit.”

  The entire troop bursts into laughter at this and I join in nervously.

  The sergeant waits until the laughter has died down, wearing an expression that suggests a mixture of amusement and contempt, but he says nothing before looking back through the rows and nodding in the direction of a second man. “And you?” he asks. “Who are you?”

  “William Tell,” comes the reply, and now there’s another snigger, difficult to contain.

  “William Tell?” asks the sergeant, raising an eyebrow. “Now there’s a name. Brought your bow and arrow, have you? Where are you from, Tell?”

  “Hounslow,” says Tell, and the sergeant nods, satisfied.

  “And what about you?” he asks, looking at the next man along.

  “Shields, sir. Eddie Shields.”

  “All right, then, Shields. And you?”

  “John Robinson.”

  “Robinson,” acknowledges the sergeant with a brief nod.

  “And you?”

  “Philip Unsworth.”

  “You?”

  “George Parks.”

  “You?”

  “Will Bancroft.”

  And so on and so on. A litany of names, some of them registering in my mind but none giving me any cause to look at anyone directly.

  “And you?” asks the sergeant, nodding in my direction now.

  “Tristan Sadler, sir,” I say.

  “How old are you, Sadler?”

  “Eighteen, sir,” I reply, repeating my lie.

  “Glad to be here, are you?”

  I say nothing. I can’t think of the correct answer. Fortunately he doesn’t press me on it because he has already moved on.

  “Arthur Wolf, sir,” says my neighbour.

  “Wolf?” asks the sergeant, looking at him more closely; it’s obvious that he knows something about this man already.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Well.” He looks him up and down. “I expected you to be shorter.”

  “Six foot one, sir.”

  “Indeed,” says Sergeant Clayton, his mouth creasing slowly into a thin smile. “So you’re the chap who doesn’t want to be here, yes?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Afraid to fight, are you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No, sir, indeed not, sir, what an outrageous charge, sir! I wonder, can you imagine how many brave men over there don’t want to fight either?” He pauses as his smile starts to fade. “But there they are. Fighting day in, day out. Putting their lives on the line.”

  I can sense a low murmuring in the ranks and some of the recruits turn their heads to look at Wolf.

  “I’m not sending you home, if that’s what you’re expecting,” says the sergeant in a casual tone.

  “No, sir,” says Wolf. “No, I didn’t expect you would. Not yet, anyway.”

  “And you won’t be put in confinement either. Not till I get orders to that effect. We’ll train you, that’s what we’ll do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sergeant Clayton stares at Wolf, his jaw becoming a little more clenched. “All right, Wolf,” he says quietly. “We’ll just see how this all turns out, shall we?”

  “I expect to hear quite soon, sir,” announces Wolf, no tremor audible in his voice, although standing next to him I can sense a certain tension in his body, an anxiety that he’s trying hard to keep well hidden. “From the tribunal, I mean. I expect they’ll be in touch to let me know their decision, sir.”

  “Actually, it is I who shall hear, Wolf,” snaps the sergeant, losing his cool a little at last. “They will direct any communication through me.”

  “Perhaps you’d be good enough to let me know as soon as you do, sir,” replies Wolf, and Sergeant Clayton smiles again.

  “Perhaps,” he says after a moment. “I’m sure you’re all proud to be here, men,” he continues then, looking around and raising his voice, addressing the pack now. “But you’re probably aware that there are some men of your generation who feel no obligation to defend their country. Objectors, they call themselves. Chaps who examine their conscience and find nothing there to satisfy the call of duty. They look like other men, of course. They have two eyes and two ears, two arms and two legs. No balls, though, that’s a given. But unless you whip their pants off and make the necessary enquiries it can be fairly difficult to distinguish them from real men. But they’re out there. They surround us. And they would bring us down if they could. They give sustenance to the enemy.”

  He smiles then, a bitter, angry smile, and the men in the ranks grumble and mutter to themselves, turning to look at Wolf with scorn in their eyes, each one trying harder than the last to impress upon Sergeant Clayton that they subscribe to no such beliefs themselves. Wolf, to his credit, holds his ground and acknowledges none of the hisses and catcalls that are coming his way, taunts that neither the sergeant nor his two corporals do anything to quell.

  “Disgrace,” says one voice from somewhere behind me.

  “Bloody coward,” says another.

  “Feather man.”

  I watch to see how he will react to the abuse and it is then that I lay eyes on Will Bancroft for the first time. He’s standing four men down from me and staring at Wolf with an expression of interest upon his face. He doesn’t look as if he entirely approves of what the man is doing but he isn’t joining in the chorus of disapproval. It’s as if he wants to get the mark of a fellow who calls himself a conscientious objector, as if he has heard of such mythical creatures and has always wondered what one might look like in the flesh. I find myself staring directly at him—at Bancroft, I mean, not Wolf—unable to shift my gaze, and he must sense my interest for he turns and catches my eye, looking at me for a moment, then cocking his head a little to the side and smiling. It’s strange: I feel as if I already know him, as if we know each other. Confused, I bite my lip and look away, waiting for as long a
s I can force myself to before turning to look at him again, but he’s standing straight in line now, focused ahead, and it’s almost as if the moment of connection never happened.

  “That’s enough, men,” says Sergeant Clayton, and the cacophony quickly dies down as forty heads turn back towards the front. “Come up here, Wolf,” he adds, and my companion hesitates only briefly before stepping forward. I can sense the anxiety beneath the bravado. “And you, Mr. Rich,” he adds, pointing at his first interviewee. “Our resident pig in shit. The two of you, come up here, if you please.”

  The two men advance until they’re standing about six or seven feet away from the sergeant and about the same distance from the front line behind them. There is absolute silence from the rest of us.

  “Gentlemen,” says Sergeant Clayton, looking towards the assembled men. “In this army, you will all be trained, as I have been trained, to honour your uniform. To fight, to handle a rifle, to be strong and to go out there and to kill as many of the fucking enemy as you can find.” His voice rises quickly and angrily on that last phrase and I think, There he is, that’s who this man is. “But sometimes,” he continues, “you will find that you have worked your way into a situation where you have no weapons left and neither has your opponent. You might be standing in the centre of no-man’s-land, perhaps, with Fritz standing in front of you, and your rifle might have vanished and your bayonet might have disappeared and you will have nothing left to defend yourself with but your fists. A terrifying prospect, gentlemen, isn’t it? And if such a thing were to happen, Shields,” he says, addressing one of the recruits, “what do you think you would do?”

  “Not much choice, sir,” says Shields. “Fight it out.”

  “Exactly,” says the sergeant. “Very good, Shields. Fight it out. Now, you two,” and here he nods in the direction of Wolf and Rich. “Imagine that you are in that very situation.”

  “Sir?” asks Rich.

  “Fight it out, boy,” says the sergeant cheerfully. “We’ll call you the Englishman, since you showed a bit of spark, if nothing else. Wolf, you’re the enemy. Fight it out. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Both Rich and Wolf turn to each other, the latter with an expression of disbelief on his face, but Rich can tell where the land lies and he doesn’t hesitate, clenching his right hand into a fist and punching Wolf directly in the nose, a sharp jab forward and back, like a boxer, so quickly surprising Wolf that he stumbles backwards, tripping over his feet, holding his face in his hands. When he rights himself again he looks in shock at the blood pouring from his nostrils over his fingers. But then Rich is a big lad with strong arms and a neat right-hook.

  “You’ve broken my nose,” says Wolf, looking at all of us as if he can’t quite believe what has just happened. “You’ve only gone and broken my fucking nose!”

  “So break his in return,” says Sergeant Clayton in a casual tone.

  Wolf stares down at his hands; the blood has slowed a little but there is a lot of it already, gathered in thick swirls on his palms. His nose is not broken, not really; Rich has just burst a few blood vessels, that’s all.

  “No, sir,” Wolf says.

  “Hit him again, Rich,” says Clayton, and Rich jabs once more, this time to the right cheek, and Wolf stumbles back once again but manages to stay erect. He works his jaw, uttering a low cry of pain, and puts a hand to it, holding it there for a moment, massaging the bruise.

  “Fight him, Wolf,” says Clayton, very quietly, very slowly, enunciating each syllable clearly, and there’s something in Wolf’s expression that suggests to me that he just might, but he waits for twenty, thirty seconds, breathing heavily, controlling his temper, before shaking his head.

  “I won’t fight, sir,” he insists, and now he is punched again, in the stomach, then once more in the solar plexus, and he’s on the ground, cowering a little, no doubt hoping that this beating will soon come to an end. The men watch, uncertain how they should feel about the whole thing. Even Rich takes a step back, aware that it’s hardly a fair fight when the other fellow won’t stand his ground.

  “For pity’s sake,” says Sergeant Clayton, shaking his head contemptuously, realizing that he’s not going to get the brawl that he’s been hoping for, the one that could leave Wolf seriously damaged. “All right, Rich, get back in line. And you,” he says, nodding towards the prostrate Wolf, “get up, for God’s sake. Be a man. He barely touched you.”

  It takes a minute or two but Wolf eventually rises to his feet unassisted and shuffles his way back into line next to me. He catches my eye; perhaps he sees the expression of concern there, but he looks away. He wants no pity.

  “It’s a beautiful day for a new beginning,” announces Sergeant Clayton, stretching his arms out in front of him and cracking his knuckles. “A beautiful day to learn about discipline and to understand that I will tolerate neither humour nor cowardice in this regiment. They are my twin bugbears, gentlemen. Understand that well. You are here to train. And you will be trained.”

  And with that he turns around and strolls off in the direction of the barracks, leaving us in the hands of his two apostles, whose names are Wells and Moody, and who step forward now to tick our names off on a list that they hold in their hands, working their way down the line, letting each man leave once he has been accounted for, and leaving Wolf, of course, until the end.

  My first real contact with Will Bancroft comes the following morning at five o’clock, when we’re woken by Wells and Moody.

  We’re divided into barracks of twenty men, ten beds along one wall pointing into the centre, ten facing on the opposite side, an arrangement that Unsworth remarks is exactly his idea of what a field hospital might look like.

  “Let’s hope you don’t find out any time soon,” says Yates.

  Having no brothers, I’m unaccustomed to sharing a room with anyone, let alone nineteen other young men who breathe, snore and toss and turn throughout the night, and I’m convinced that it will be all but impossible to sleep. However, to my surprise, my head has barely hit the pillow before a series of confused dreams begins—I must be exhausted from both the train journey and the emotion of being here at last—and then it’s morning again and our two corporals are screaming at us to shift our fucking arses or they’ll shift them for us with the toes of their fucking boots.

  I have the last-but-one bunk on the left-hand wall, the side where, should the sun shine in the morning through the small window close to the ceiling, the light will fall directly on my face. Will was among the first inside the barracks and he took the bunk next to mine, the best place to be for he has a wall to one side of him and only one neighbour, me. Across from him and three beds down to the right is Wolf, who has received a great deal of pushing and shoving from the men since the previous night. To my surprise, Rich chose the bed next to his, and I wonder whether this was an act of apology or a threat of some sort.

  Will and I acknowledged each other only briefly before falling into our bunks but as we leap from them again, me to my left, him to his right, we collide and fall backwards, nursing bruised heads. We laugh and offer a quick apology before lining up at the end of our beds, where Moody tells us that we’re to make our way quick-smart to the medical tent for an inspection—another inspection, for I had one at Brentford when I enlisted—which will decide whether or not we’re suitable to fight for the King’s empire.

  “Which is unlikely,” he adds, “as I’ve never seen such a bunch of fucking degenerate misfits in my entire life. If this war depends on you lot, well, then, we better all spruce up on our Guten Morgens and our Gute Nachts because we’ll need them soon enough.”

  Drifting outside towards the back of the group, dressed in nothing but our shorts and vests, our feet bare against the scratchy gravel, Will and I fall into line with each other and he extends a hand to me.

  “Will Bancroft,” he says.

  “Tristan Sadler.”

  “Looks like we’re to be neighbours for the next couple of mont
hs. You don’t snore, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, having never considered it. “No one’s ever said so. What about you?”

  “I’m told that when I lie on my back I could raise the roof, but I seem to have trained myself to turn over on to my side.”

  “I’ll push you over if you begin,” I say, smiling at him, and he laughs a little and already I feel a camaraderie between us.

  “I shouldn’t mind it,” he says quietly, after a moment.

  “How many brothers do you have, then?” I ask, assuming that there must be some if he has been told about his nocturnal habits.

  “None,” he says. “Just an older sister. You’re an only child?”

  I hesitate, feeling a lump in my throat, unsure whether to answer truthfully or not. “My sister, Laura,” I say, and leave it at that.

  “I was always glad of my sister,” he says, smiling. “She’s a few years older than me but we look out for each other, if you know what I mean. She’s made me promise to write to her regularly while I’m over there. I shall keep that promise.”

  I nod, examining him closer now. He’s a good-looking fellow with a mess of dark, untidy hair, a pair of bright blue eyes that look poised for adventure, and round cheeks that crease into dimples when he smiles. He’s not muscular but his arms are well toned and fit his vest well. I imagine that he has never had any difficulty finding bed-companions to roll him over on to his side if he grows too noisy.

  “What’s the matter, Tristan?” he asks, staring at me. “You’ve grown quite flushed.”

  “It’s the early start,” I explain, looking away. “I got out of bed too quickly, that’s all. The blood has rushed to my head.”

  He nods and we stride on, bringing up the rear of our troop, who don’t seem quite as enthusiastic or spirited at this early hour as they did when we descended from the train yesterday afternoon. Most of the men are keeping themselves to themselves and marching along quietly, their eyes focused more on the ground beneath their feet than the medical hut up ahead. Wells keeps time for us, calling out a fierce “Hup-two-three-four!” at the top of his voice, and we do our best to keep some sort of order but it’s pretty hopeless really.