by Phillip Rock
The once spacious foyer had been partitioned into cubicles for the use of the clerks and medical orderlies. A corporal in the RAMC took their names, asked them whom they had come to visit, and then led them out of the foyer, opened a thick locked security door, and told them to go along the passageway to the office of the resident doctor on duty. Once they stepped into the corridor, the oak-and-steel door closed behind them with a thud.
“I don’t like one damn thing about this,” Fenton muttered.
Neither did Martin, but he refrained from saying so.
The doctor was a jovial heavy-set man of fifty who introduced himself as Major Wainbearing: “. . . trained as a general surgeon. . . . Became a specialist in brain disease . . . and then into psychoanalytic science, a field of medical endeavor barely scratched. . . . Learning a great deal from this war . . . quite a gold mine of neurasthenic ailments. . . .”
“It must be very interesting,” Martin said.
“Yes, it is.” Major Wainbearing leaned back in his comfortable chair in his spacious, pleasant office and smiled affably at the two men seated across from his desk. “Now, then, you are Mr. Rilke, I take it—Major Greville’s cousin.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And you, of course, are Colonel Wood-Lacy.”
No reply seemed necessary. Fenton fingered one of his shoulder tabs, tried to smile pleasantly, but found it impossible to do. The doctor folded his hands across his stomach and pursed his lips, a sudden frown appearing on his elderly cherub’s face.
“Major Greville was brought here as a clearly diagnosed neurasthenic. He was passive—no restraint was needed—but he was hallucinating. . . . Deep in conversation with a certain Second Lieutenant Baker . . . a rambling monologue on Blighty wounds and firing squads. Are either of you familiar with a Lieutenant Baker?” They shook their heads. “No matter. He was soon out of that form of shock and quite normal within a week. He has remained so. We walked out of the grounds last Monday and played a round of golf at the links in Glyn-Ceiriog.”
“How nice,” Fenton murmured.
“He did damn well, considering the appalling state of the greens. On the way back we stopped at a place and had tea. I told him how pleased I was at his progress and that I was prepared to release him from here and to recommend a medical discharge from the army. Cured, you understand, but obviously too—carefully balanced to risk further military duties. I told him to go to some quiet spot and avoid stress of all sorts.”
“Sound advice,” Fenton said with thinly veiled sarcasm.
“He told me, in his gentle way, that if I did such a thing he would contrive, in some unspecified manner, to kill himself.”
A wall clock chimed three dulcet tones.
“Do you think he was being serious?” Martin asked.
“Oh, no doubt in my mind at all. Quite a number of patients talk of suicide, but they are mostly impassioned threats, verging on the hysterical. It is the quiet, lucid statement of intent that we become concerned about.”
“Perhaps if we talk to him . . .” Fenton said.
“Yes, by all means do. He’s been looking forward to your visit. . . . The only two people he wishes to see. You know, his mother and his wife came here last month, but he stayed in his room and refused to come down to talk to them.” He reached out and pushed a button on his desk. “One of the orderlies will take you to him. He’ll be in the rec room, more than likely. And do stay for tea. We have a wizard pastry chef here.”
Men in gray dressing gowns and pajamas stood staring out of windows or walking aimlessly in the corridors. A few of the patients were in uniform, but the badges of their rank and emblems of their regiment had been removed.
“All officers here, I presume,” Martin said.
“Quite correct, sir,” the orderly replied. “The men have their own shell-shock hospitals.”
Martin noticed a tall gray-haired man who could easily have been a colonel or brigadier. He sat huddled in a corner with his hands firmly locked on top of his head. A younger man lay near him in a fetal position. Rank could mean nothing to those two, Martin thought, but class divisions had to be maintained no matter what the circumstances.
The rec room, with its banks of windows on three sides, was large and airy. It might have been a ballroom or music conservatory at one time, but now it was an untidy collection of sofas, chairs, card tables, and benches. A dozen men were in the room, the majority of them in uniform, reading or playing cards. One player’s hands shook so violently that he could barely hold on to his cards.
“Major Greville’s over there,” the orderly said. “At the corner table.”
Charles was in uniform, bent studiously over a writing tablet, and did not look up until they had walked up to the table and stood in front of him.
“Hello, chaps,” he said quietly. “Good of you both to come.”
“The least we could do, old boy,” Fenton said with forced affability.
“You look good, Charles,” Martin said.
“I feel very well,” he said gravely. “They say that I’m cured.”
“Yes,” Martin said. “The doctor was telling us.”
“Of course, they don’t say exactly what one has been cured of, but I suppose they know what they’re talking about. They do some quite remarkable things here in their quiet way. All through the gentle art of conversation. One simply talks. It supposedly clears the mind.”
Fenton pulled two chairs up to the table. “And now you may talk to us, if you’ll permit me to get right to the point.”
Charles capped his pen and set it down beside the writing pad.
“I’m sure you feel uncomfortable being here, Fenton.”
“Not in the least,” he said a little too quickly. “If I can help you in any way—”
“You can both help me . . . if you will.” Charles sorted through some neatly inscribed papers, folded two of the sheets, and placed them in envelopes. “I wrote a long letter to my father . . . and one to William at Charing Cross Hospital. Both were sent back to me unopened. There’s not much point in writing to William again. I doubt if he will understand, or forgive, what I did. Perhaps he will one day, but not now. I’ve written a shorter, more concise, explanation to Father, which I would appreciate your handing to him, Martin. He might feel obligated to at least open it if he receives it from you. The other letter is for Lydia, which you can post. It’s an apology—of sorts—for all manner of things. But I shan’t bore you with that. As for you, Fenton, I ask a favor.”
“Anything at all, old chap.”
Charles picked up the pen and toyed with it, rolling it across the table from hand to hand.
“I was committed without a hearing. The medical officer of Willie’s battalion judged me unsound of mind and I was sent here. Now, six weeks later, I am to be released as cured, handed a medical discharge from His Majesty’s Forces, and put quietly out to pasture. I’m sure that will please the War Office. They’re no more anxious to know why I shot Willie than my father is. The act of a temporary maniac. So be it.”
Fenton leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. “I don’t believe it was the act of a maniac and neither does anyone else . . . at least no one who has been in trenches. You snapped with the strain, Charles. Too many bloody weeks of having to stay calm in that hell. It took its toll. You didn’t know what you were doing, and the very best course of action at the moment would be for you to accept a medical discharge and regain your full strength of mind.”
“I have that now, Fenton. What I don’t have is any peace of mind. I may not have been very lucid after I shot Willie, but I knew why I shot him. It was a deliberate, premeditated act, and I want the reasons for it to be made a matter of record—if not public, at least official.”
“What sort of record are you talking about?”
“I’ve given this a lot of thought, Fenton . . . gone over it in my mind time and time again. I’ve been tracing my steps as it were, but backwards. The shooting of Wil
lie in the knee . . . the buying of the pistol . . . the feeling that someone was walking just behind me . . . those weeks in trenches, in and out with the battalion. . . . The men who shot themselves . . . or killed themselves . . . or prayed they’d get shot so they could get out of that trap.” He paused and shook his head groggily. “So damn many thoughts whirling through my head that it’s difficult to sort them all out in proper order, but I shall.”
“Maybe you’d like to take a rest,” Fenton suggested. “Lie down for a bit.”
“No . . . not yet. I must settle this first. I’m sure that Martin understands the need to put experiences down on paper so others can read them and share them. That’s the creed of a journalist, isn’t it, Martin? Seeing to it that events are kept alive.”
Martin exchanged puzzled glances with Fenton and then said, “Are you asking me to write an article about it?”
“No, not exactly. That wouldn’t suffice, would it? I mean to say, I doubt if many newspapers would want to print it . . . too defeatist. And even if it were printed in some anti-war paper, what would happen after it was read? Yesterday’s news . . . just an old scrap of newspaper blowing about in the gutters. What I want is a record . . . a transcript . . . The kind of transcript that you could provide, Fenton.”
“Oh?” Fenton said. “And what sort of transcript is that?”
“Why, the official transcript of my court-martial, of course . . . for maiming, quite literally, a brother officer.”
Fenton could merely stare at him. Martin gripped his cane and tapped it gently against the floor. A tall ruddy-faced man with Kitchener mustaches who had been pacing restlessly from one end of the room to the other suddenly strode up to the table, hands jammed into the pockets of his dressing gown.
“Now look here, Randall,” he shouted, staring hard at Charles. “Get brigade artillery on the blower right away. Tell the bastards that they’re fifty yards short and are hitting D Company . . . quite wasting the attack. . . . Quite wasting it, sir!”
“I’ll do it right away, Colonel,” Charles said in a flat, tired voice.
“See that you do!” the man said. “Bloody scrimshankers!”
“We get a lot of that here,” Charles said after the man had strolled away, apparently satisfied and at peace. “There’s a young chap in my room—a second lieutenant I imagine, judging by his age. Spends most of his time seated on his bed with the coverlet thrown over his head. Still in his dugout at Delville Wood and won’t come out until the shelling stops. Not much older than William. Only thing is, Fenton . . . Willie would never have broken down. Too strong and brave for that. The best sort of man England can produce. Willie would have gone over the top like a shot, whistle in mouth and revolver in hand. He might have cleared our wire . . . gone ten, perhaps fifteen yards . . . and then died . . . for absolutely no purpose at all. Just like Roger.”
Fenton licked dry lips, reached out, and gripped Charles by the wrist.
“Tell all that to Martin. Tell him everything that went through your mind before you pulled the trigger. Tell him everything that happened on the Somme . . . every damn horror that drove you to scuppering your own brother. He’ll send it to America and a newspaper will print it. That’s the only record you need. Don’t ask for a court-martial, because you’ll never get it.”
Charles shook his head stubbornly. “I’d get a hearing, at least, wouldn’t I? A hearing to see if a court-martial was justified. They would keep a transcript of it. . . . .War Office document number whatever . . . inquiry into the shooting of Second Lieutenant William Greville by Major Charles Greville. One day, after the war, Willie could take it out of the archives and read it.”
Fenton withdrew his hand and sat back stiffly in his chair. “I think you’re bonkers, Charles. A man can’t ask for his own court-martial.”
“No,” Charles said, “of course not, but you could demand that one be held. I told you I’d thought this out. It may be stretching a legal point, but you were technically my superior officer at the time. I was on leave and my new orders hadn’t reached me yet. The Windsors were attached to your brigade.”
A bell rang for tea and someone in the room cried out in terror, “Gas! Gas!” Someone else said soothingly, “It’s all right, Smithy . . . all right, lad.”
“It happens every time they ring that bloody bell.” Charles sighed. “I do wish they’d install something less strident.”
“Now look here, Charles,” Fenton said firmly. “The brass aren’t fools. They’d know something was fishy if I put in such a request.”
“Not request, Fenton . . . demand. You have that right and the Judge Advocate General’s office would be forced to hold a hearing. I hate to sound like a barracks room lawyer, but there it is. King’s regulations.”
He looked pleased with himself, and Fenton’s scowl deepened.
“You want a forum. That’s it, isn’t it, Charles? You just want to stand up before a panel and a stenographer and voice your outrage at what went on over there.”
“At what’s still going on,” Charles said, so quietly they could barely hear him. “And will continue to go on . . . and on . . . and on. Yes. That is precisely what I want.” He folded his hands, the fingers as white as the writing paper they rested on.
“Christ,” Fenton said, pushing back his chair and standing up. “You’re asking a lot of me.”
“Yes.”
“As a soldier I should turn you down flat, but I’m more than that, aren’t I? I’m your friend. This won’t change a damn thing. It’s just a gesture that no one is going to appreciate, but if it will give you some kind of peace, then I’ll do it.”
“Thank you,” Charles said, staring at his hands. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
Fenton sat in brooding silence during the ride to the railway station at Llangollen. It had started raining again, and the dark hills and crags of north Wales looked sinister in the gloom. They barely caught the London-bound train as it stopped briefly on its run from Holyhead. The carriages were filled with Irish troops from County Down and Antrim, most of them sporting bits of orange cloth in their hatbands to show their contempt for the “wearin’ o’ the green.” They were all in boisterous spirits. Out of training camp at last, heading for the war: “Look out, Kayzer Bill!”
“Bloody idiots,” Fenton muttered as he slumped into a seat in a virtually empty first-class compartment. An Irish colonel and his adjutant were the only other occupants, and the colonel glanced up curiously from a newspaper.
“Did you address me, sir?”
“No, sir, I did not. I was discussing the weather with my friend.”
“Yes. A man can drown in Wales when it rains. And the Taffies have the gall to say Belfast is wet!”
“I suppose you had no choice,” Martin said quietly after the Irish colonel had turned back to his paper. “He obviously has a fixation about this court-martial thing and if you had turned him down—”
“He might have killed himself. That thought had some slight effect on my decision.”
“What happens now?”
Fenton drummed his fingers on the window ledge and stared at his own reflection in the rain-streaked glass.
“I send in my—demand through the proper channels, and the Judge Advocate’s office will set a hearing date. Before that happens there will be a few gentlemanly calls from various staff brigadiers in Whitehall, asking me to reconsider my action. I shall decline to do so on the grounds that I consider the shooting of one officer by another bad form. There will be a hearing, and Charles will be permitted to talk for as long as he wishes in order to explain, justify, or defend his act. The panel will then deliberate for a second or two and rule that no court-martial is warranted because of the mental condition of the accused. Charles will then be sent back to the hospital and quietly discharged from the service. Rather a waste of everyone’s time, isn’t it?”
“Reading about this frog general in the Standard,” the Irish colonel said, looking up. “Nivelle . .
. hero of Verdun, they call him. Claims to have a plan that’ll crush Fritz in twenty-four hours. Twenty-four years is more like it. The poor sod.” He turned pages and immersed himself in the sporting news.
“And the war goes on,” Fenton said wearily. “I’m glad Charles is out of it.”
“But he isn’t out of it, is he? It’s all spinning around in his brain. You were right in saying that he’s seeking some kind of peace, and if his hearing will give it to him it won’t be a waste of everyone’s time.”
“No, I suppose you’re right.”
“Would they allow me to be there? Not as a member of the press, but as Charles’s cousin?”
“No. They wouldn’t allow God himself to attend. There’ll be a panel of two or three officers . . . a clerk stenographer . . . Charles, and myself. Charles could request counsel, what’s known as a prisoner’s friend, but that would have to be a fellow officer and he doesn’t need one.”
“Please write me how it turns out . . . care of AP, rue Chambord. Will you do that?”
“Of course. When are you going back to Paris?”
“Sometime tomorrow. As you said, the war goes on.”
Wales had been corrosive to the spirit—so had writing up the request for court-martial. Both were behind Fenton now as he arrived at his mother’s house in Suffolk, where Winifred was staying. He found solace lying on the bed with her, his hands moving gently over the great bulge of her womb.
“We’re going to have a forty-pound baby. I swear it.”
“Twins,” she said. “At least I think so. I’m sure I can feel two distinct pairs of kicks.”
“Clever girl,” he murmured, kissing the taut skin. He could sense the life beating beneath the surface.
“Happy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want sons very badly?”
“I want children very badly . . . sons or daughters. I’ll leave that up to you. Surprise me.”
“Another few weeks.”
“Must be pure hell for you.”
“Not really . . . Just boring sitting around . . . and uncomfortable trying to walk. Your mother and Jinny wait on me hand and foot. I feel horribly pampered, like some grossly fecund queen bee. Do you think my body will ever get back into shape . . . or will I always be nothing but breasts and belly?”