'Yet when I went to see her,' Somers said, 'and she told me that Harry, my only remaining son, was dead, it felt like a kind of justice. For a moment it seemed reasonable that I should suffer. What incredible selfishness, eh, Bartram? Three boys gone, the two women who had borne me sons both dismantled by loss, and I could think only that some celestial justice had been meted out to me.'
Somers got up again and walked about; he had the very slightest limp. The room seemed hardly large enough to contain the two of them and al the ghosts of the dead.
'Over the next few months there were things Gwen could not understand. The telegram notifying her of Harry's death had no details beyond the location where he'd died and it had initialy gone to the address where they lived when Harry enlisted. His effects were eventualy returned to her and a slightly strange letter folowed from him, written shortly before his death, saying he was in a "spot of trouble" but she was not to worry. There was no subsequent letter from his CO or the adjutant.
She wrote to the War Office after a while, yet received the reply only that they would forward her further details of his death once they had them.
'More months passed and no pension was forthcoming. It struck her as odd but she was always rather diffident with authority, perhaps because she was part German, and Mr Lovel had left her a little and I was happy to support her. But she asked me to see if I could use my contacts to find out anything about our boy's death. She didn't even know where he was buried.
'It took me a little longer than I had expected to find out the truth, though I already had a bad feeling about the whole business. Harry should never have been a soldier. Hugh, Miles—were different sort of men—sportsmen, confident, forceful.' Somers continued, his voice low, 'But Harry was too sensitive, too imaginative.
Always had been. More like his mother than me. He could sing. Was a chorister at St Paul's. I went to hear him a couple of times, although I never told Gwen.'
His eyes flickered downwards.
'She was so generous about describing his life without ever expecting me to share it. He was like her in so many ways. He could write; he produced a libretto while he was stil at school. Poetry, too. It was fine stuff.'
Laurence, observing him closely, saw a muscle in his cheek twitch.
'Not just a father's pride...' Somers faltered.
At last Laurence spoke. 'I know,' he said. 'I read some of his work once.'
It seemed years rather than months since he had stood next to Mary in the Emmetts' attic room and first read the young poet's work.
Somers blinked. He looked surprised, then resumed speaking almost immediately.
'The war took my boys and then the influenza took Marjorie. Which was a mercy, I think. She had no wish to live, as far as I could tel, and the ilness was shockingly quick. But the effect of seeing my whole family vanish in four years slowed me down and I took too much time in pressing for the truth about what had happened to Harry. Perhaps I was putting off the day when I would acquire unendurable knowledge.
'The truth was told to me in a room in Whitehal on a fine summer's day. I doubt the civil servant who eventualy communicated Harry's ignoble end believed a word of the story I had concocted.
'After I left Whitehal, I walked down Horse Guards to St James's Park. I sat on a bench and watched a mother with her little boy, throwing bread for the pigeons, and he was laughing and running up and down, and suddenly I was aware of the most tremendous rage. Not sorrow—I was past al that, except in anticipating Gwen's reaction to my news—but fury. Rage at my country, which I had served with pride and to the best of my ability; which had demanded my sons' service and seen al three of them act, I truly believe, to the best of their ability. Two had been taken from me in circumstances beyond anybody's control but Harry had been taken, from Gwen and from me and from his own future, by his country. My country. Quite deliberately. He was shot by men who had served under him. They'd buried him perfunctorily—the battalion was moving on—and, in the resulting mêlée, even the exact location of his grave was lost.
'On leaving, I had said to this young mandarin, comfortable in his pleasant office with its views of the park, that in the conditions that prevailed at the time, and given both Harry's length of service and his youth, I felt it was quite possible stil to say to his mother that he had served his country. He answered, sombrely, but evidently thinking I was deluded, "You may say whatever you feel wil comfort the lady, but I fear the truth is that this officer died failing to do his duty and, indeed, putting the lives of his men at great risk."'
Laurence was silent; there was nothing he could say.
'But it took a chance meeting to make me see the way ahead. You might describe it as an act of God.'
Chapter Thirty-six
'I hadn't been idle since the war. I'd needed to do something. I'd met Philip Morrel many years before. My wife was a distant relation of Lady Ottoline, Morrel's wife.
He had odd views, frankly, but was wel meaning and wel connected. He talked to me round about the time of the Darling Committee. Asked if I'd be involved. They needed reliable fact-gatherers. People who could talk to people.'
He looked up as if checking whether Laurence knew what he was talking about.
'I was an experienced military man, I'd lost sons in the war, but I was broadly in sympathy with his views. Horatio Bottomley, the newspaperman, was with us.
Obnoxious, but a force to be reckoned with. His interest was not simply altruism, of course; for him every cause had material value. Cruelty and injustice sold papers.
He was raising questions before the war even ended. Damn lucky he wasn't prosecuted. But he correctly gauged a slight shift in mood and he's a useful man—he ensured we stayed in the public eye. Colonel Lambert Ward kept us respectable and we had Ernest Thirtle, the MP, as a parliamentary link to the ordinary man.'
Somers could have been speaking to an anonymous interviewer, now that he had gained momentum.
'Morrel was asking questions in the House about the military handling of capital sentences before the war ended. Just a year later the Darling Committee accepted that there were grave problems in the system. Rather too late, of course, for those affected by it.'
'Yes, of course.' Laurence tried to feel soothed by this account of public service.
'And when the Southborough Inquiry reports next year, it wil certainly confirm the validity of shel-shock. Not before time. The government are currently refusing to pay pensions to men who have broken down mentaly without also having been physicaly injured.'
Somers was animated by indignation.
'They invited me to be a member of the board. And that's how I first encountered the journalist.'
Laurence was startled. For a moment he thought he'd lost the thread.
'Journalist?' he asked, with a shiver of apprehension.
'He'd contacted Lambert Ward while researching an article for his newspaper but when he let slip that he'd witnessed a firing squad, Lambert Ward persuaded him to talk at the Darling Committee sessions about the experience of being a Prisoner's Friend. He gave Lambert Ward a photograph of an incident he'd been involved in. For him, I gather, images speak louder than words. Eighteen months or so ago, we thought he might have further information for us, so Lambert Ward asked to see him again. Lambert Ward fel il. I didn't trust Bottomley. Morrel was abroad. Thirtle was in his constituency so I said I'd see him. The colonel gave me the photograph and his file.'
Laurence was becoming increasingly puzzled. Where was the story going now?
'God sent his messenger in the form of Mr Tresham Brabourne. A man who bore witness, who watched my son go to his death. A man who'd been to school with Miles and Hugh. You've met him, I know.'
Somers looked straight at Laurence, who felt a degree of foreboding.
'Keen young chap,' said Somers. 'Reminded me a bit of Miles, to be honest. But now, slowly, agonisingly, I realy learned about Harry's death. I began to get some idea of the paucity of what passed for evidence
, of the flimsiness of the case against Harry. Of the carelessness with which they took his life. Speaking to Mr Brabourne took me to the firing line, as it were. But Brabourne was—and remains—quite oblivious of my connection with the man he knows as Edmund Hart. I very much doubt he would have supplied so much detailed information if he'd realised he was speaking to Edmund's father.' He gave a wry smile.
'Young Brabourne had excelent recal of the trial but he couldn't give me al the names, only those he'd served with. However, he did identify Emmett in the photograph.
'Until I spoke to Brabourne, I had no idea who the officer who commanded the firing squad was, or even if he'd survived the war. But just as I was moving towards Captain Emmett, he was moving towards me.
'The final reckoning began in November last year,' Somers said, pre-empting with his slightly raised hand Laurence's attempt to interrupt. 'The homecoming of the Unknown Warrior. A warrior stil fighting, it seems. Rising from his grave, journeying home, welcomed by the greatest in the land, sleeping among kings? Moving stuff, fine spectacle: caught the mood of the nation.'
Laurence nodded. It had al happened at a time when he was scarcely reading the papers, yet the event had slowly seeped into that selfish, armoured part of his life. Although he hadn't been inside Westminster Abbey since then, he did sometimes think, as he walked past, of the anonymous, broken corpse in the vault.
'I went and stood by the track at some smal Kentish station,' Somers said, 'and I watched the train pass from Dover to London. Five seconds of light in the darkness. He was in his box of oak, known only to God and certainly never to be known to anyone on earth. Maybe he was one of the criminal, idle sort: stealing food, cheating at cards, clipped with his head down, trying to keep out of it. Maybe he was a hero who laid down his life for his friend. Al the same, I thought my wife might have liked me to be there. Three-quarters of a milion or more British dead, ten of thousands of bodies never found, and just one man on the train. They weren't good odds but there he was, for a fragment of time, hurtling past in the dark. The possibility of Miles. The shadow of Hugh and Harry. It was foolish, of course, but I was in good company. I stood there and a made a vow to myself: Harry's death would not go unanswered.
'I wasn't the only one who had fancies after that dead man's journey,' Somers said, stil matter-of-fact. 'There was Gwen getting more concerned that she knew so little about Harry's death. But then there was Emmett himself. Things were unraveling. The turning point came when she received this letter—'
'From John Emmett,' Laurence broke in.
'Captain Emmett, on his own inexorable crusade for truth and justice,' Somers said bitterly. 'Emmett had pored over the hulabaloo in the papers. He too had been thinking about the unknown dead. In fact, it turned out he seldom thought of anything else, although at the point of contact with Gwen he was vague and said only that he had information about Harry's death.
'Gwen wrote to me. She assumed, rightly, that it was a fairly standard communication from a surviving comrade in arms, but she was puzzled by the intensity of the tone. I realised the letter's significance immediately and told her I would contact him. I didn't know what to do. I hadn't even told her the truth yet, but it was obvious Emmett fuly intended to do so. I knew then that I couldn't bear the thought of her finding out about her dear boy's sordid end yet.'
In the few minutes' silence that folowed, Laurence strained to hear movement. Wherever Gwen had gone, she was silent. He was cold and his back was stiff; his leg was going dead. He had a feeling that a dark shadow was faling on them al.
'I had waited two decades to do the right thing by Gwen and Harry. It was too late now, of course, so al I could do was intercept Emmett. So I wrote to him, expressing an official interest in his actions. I threw the names in—Darling, Southborough. Mentioned Lambert Ward,' Somers explained. 'Said that I had his name on record as commanding a firing squad. I hoped I might draw his focus away from Gwen for a while. I claimed his testimony would be invaluable.
Laurence could only imagine the effect this interrogation would have had on John, whose memories had never left him. His heart sank.
'I wrote to his Cambridge address—it was on the letter to Gwen—and he replied. I asked him to meet me in London. When he arrived and revealed that he was currently incarcerated, I was surprised. His letters were untidy but rational, and the man himself anxious but entirely sane.
'I had arranged the meeting at the Coburg—somewhere I had taken Gwen, long ago. Nicely anonymous place. I did promise him discretion. A promise I suppose you could say I broke?'
Just for a second his eyes met Laurence's.
'He told me everything. I promised him a meeting with Mrs Lovel—I said I'd met her in the course of building up a file for the committee—meeting her was the thing he most wanted. What I wanted was information. He provided it. After he was dead, I was left to deal with the guilty men. But I stil couldn't tel Gwen the truth about Harry's death. I dreaded an official letter coming. I hoped my interview at the War Office had pre-empted the possibility. But then came Emmett's letter and then, afterwards, you came too.'
He stopped, then said, abruptly, 'Do you know about how Harry died, Bartram?'
'Yes, I think so. Tresham Brabourne told me.'
'My boy was il. In mind and body. He'd been treated for shel-shock and for dysentery. He'd not long been back from sick leave. Do you know what condition he was in when they arrested him, Captain Bartram?'
Laurence thought he detected a slight tremor in Somers' voice.
'He was very distressed, I think.'
'The official report says he had discarded part of his uniform,' said Somers. 'He had taken off his Sam Browne and his tunic. They argued that he was trying to hide the fact he was an officer. His CO said Harry had been jittery beforehand. They'd been close to a shel burst. The men dispersed into foxholes. Harry had blood and bone fragments on his uniform, on his face. Another man's blood and bone. A witness had seen him rubbing at his jacket, spitting on a handkerchief, like a mother wiping her child's mouth. Another junior officer, a bumptious young subaltern, Liley'—he spat out the name—'told him to pul the rump of his group together and continue the march forward. Harry told him that he didn't have to take orders from him. It was a schoolboy spat—not the stuff of heroes, but neither was it desertion.
'Harry turned on to open land and walked away towards HQ. There was no protection and constant German sheling. It was hardly the act of a man running for safety. If anything, it was suicide. The other subaltern reported his disappearance the next morning but by that time Harry had come in, half dressed. There'd been sleet al night. He'd got lost, disoriented. He'd spent the night half naked in the mud. He had to be treated for exposure.'
Somers came to a halt. He looked tired, Laurence thought, although he stil held himself erect. They sat, almost companionably, their knees only inches apart.
'My whole career was about making correct military decisions.' Somers shook his head disbelievingly. 'I was a soldier myself, damn it. Some of the men were animals: looting, pilaging, making brutal assaults on each other—worse, on the local population. Rape. Murder. They'd have hanged in England and we despatched them just as soundly overseas. Hard men. A hard life. Swift justice, often as not. But we gave even them a hearing.'
His legs were set wide apart, his fingertips splayed deep into the arms of the chair.
Laurence was about to speak, but Somers stopped him again. It was as if he was anxious that he might lose track if he was interrupted.
'I imagine Brabourne told you about the sergeant—Tucker?'
Somers didn't wait for a reply.
'He was a buly and, Emmett believed, a rapist, probably a murderer, who found entertainment in an execution. If anyone should have been before a firing squad, it was Tucker. The minute it was done, Tucker should have got the men out of sight and marched them away. This is the army. Executing soldiers is nothing new.
There's a procedure for al these things. But Tucker wan
ted to relish it. Harry's suffering, the soldiers' suffering and Emmett's destruction.'
'Tucker was kiled.'
Somers nodded. 'Vermin,' he said. 'Emmett had already tracked him down. Gave me the details of his whereabouts. But the Tuckers of this world enjoy violence and degradation. Why should Tucker repent? I didn't have to shoot him. He was so drunk that he put up no kind of fight. I did little more than destroy his face as he destroyed my son's, then I roled him into the canal. He deserved worse.'
Somers' confirmation that he had kiled a man was delivered so matter-of-factly that it took some seconds for it to sink in. It had long been obvious what Somers was leading up to but it was so hard for Laurence to absorb that a deadly curiosity now overwhelmed the enormity of what he had been told.
'The police officer in London?'
'Mulins? Yes, of course.'
'And Byers?' he asked, slowly. 'In Devon?'
'Yes.'
'It was your revenge for your son?' said Laurence. 'That was why?'
Outside the window, on the other side of the tidy hedge, lay a smal London street where darkness had falen. Across it, under the streetlight, two women walked by and their animated chat was quite audible through the window. Laurence thought the room seemed too ordinary to contain the man in front of him.
'Yes,' said Somers, finaly. Then he repeated himself, 'Yes. Wasn't that enough?'
Wasn't that enough? Leonard Byers had said that the last time Laurence had seen him. It was an epitaph for the whole grim mess. He waited for the other man to colect himself.
'Tucker died too easily,' Somers went on. 'Corporal Byers, too: a man more used to making beds and heating an officer's canteen than putting his life on the line. Your friend Captain Emmett said Byers was fussing about his wet feet while they were waiting to shoot my son and then he walked up to my boy, a condemned man within seconds of death, and tore off his badges. It was simply an act to humiliate him. Gratuitous.'
He was white-faced.
'As for Inspector—late Assistant Provost Marshal—Mulins, he was a cold, hard man who believed the worst of everybody. From my committee work I know that more men, whether guilty or simply unfortunate, were ensured of capture, arrest or execution under Mulins' aegis than any other. Although I took enormous risks in shooting him in broad daylight, so close to Scotland Yard, it was worth it. I was never worried for myself but simply that I would be prevented from finishing off my work.'
The Return of Captain John Emmett Page 33