by David Lodge
We quickly left the camp behind, and drove through a lunar landscape of rugged moorland, torn and rutted by the tanks which crawled over it night and day like sluggish prehistoric monsters. Eventually we reached the rifle range, which was situated across a valley: on one side were the butts, on the other the firing points. There was no shelter, apart from an open-sided structure of corrugated iron, and a ramshackle latrine with no plumbing. The rain fell softly but unremittingly, and the prospect of spending a day in this bleak, inhospitable place began to look distinctly unattractive.
The party was divided into two parts: ‘C’ squad was detailed to man the butts, while the other two squads fired; later, we would have our turn. We wrapped ourselves in our groundsheets and trudged across the squelching grass to the butts. The butts consisted of a wide concrete trench, partially flooded with rainwater, which protected us from the rifle fire. Each target was manned by two men. It was raised by a pulley to be fired at. Between each round we signalled a bull, ‘inner’, ‘magpie’, ‘outer’, or miss, with various flags. After five rounds had been fired we lowered the targets and pasted over the holes with appropriately coloured pieces of paper. It was a slow, tedious business. Each man’s score was being recorded by frowning, pencil-licking N.C.O.s across the valley. Queries had to be answered by the antiquated field telephone. The novelty of the first few minutes, the temporary sense of danger as the bullets whined over our heads, soon gave way to damp boredom. Baker’s good humour melted away in the rain with his trouser creases, to be replaced by one of his wickedest tempers. It was rarely profitable to seek an explanation of Baker’s black moods, but I caught him stroking his cheek a few times, and a slight swelling there made me suspect toothache.
‘I think Baker’s got toothache,’ I said to Mike, as we hoisted our target above the trench.
‘Stop, you’re breaking my heart,’ he replied.
At half past twelve we ate our corned beef sandwiches with the hot sweet tea brought out by the Naafi van. At about half past two it was our turn to fire.
‘Have you ever fired a rifle before?’ Percy asked me, as we struggled across the valley, our sodden capes flapping round our knees.
‘Apart from the ·202 the other day, no.’ We should have had a practice at firing .303s a few days before coming out to the range, but at the last moment there had proved to be a shortage of ammunition. So for the majority of us this was our first experience of firing a proper weapon. Yet we were supposed to attain a certain standard of accuracy before passing out.
‘I hope I manage all right,’ said Percy. ‘I hope Baker doesn’t watch me. It’s just what he will do, of course. He’ll put me off completely.’
‘You’ll be all right, Percy. But watch your right shoulder. I believe the recoil can give you a nasty bruise.’
‘I’m left-handed,’ he said.
‘Well then, your left. What about you, Mike?’ I asked, turning to him. ‘You did pretty well at the small-bore range.’
‘I’ve done a bit of shooting in Ireland,’ he replied. ‘But not with these clumsy great things. I thought they went out with the Boer War.’
‘Higgins! Browne! Brady! not so much gab,’ called Baker from behind. ‘Get a bloody move on. We don’t want to be here all night.’ I glanced briefly over my shoulder. Baker was holding a khaki handkerchief to his jaw, and appeared to be in some pain.
When we reached the firing point, Baker curtly explained the procedure:
‘When it’s your turn to fire your name will be called. You go to Sergeant Box and he will give you a clip of five rounds. You will then take up your position ten paces behind one of those already preparing to fire. When he has finished you step forward and lie on the ground. On the command “Load!” you insert the clip into the magazine. On the command “Release Safety Catch!” you release your safety catch. At the command “Aim!” you aim your rifle at the bull of your target, taking care to align both sights. At the command “Fire!” you will fire one round and operate the bolt to eject the empty case. You will fire five rounds in this manner. Do not fire before the order is given. Do not fire more than one round at a time. When you have fired five rounds you will pick up the empty cases and return them immediately to Sergeant Box. Anyone who attempts to take away a live shell is liable to be court-martialled. Is that understood? Right. Let’s get the fugging thing over as quickly as possible.’
The drizzle did not make for accurate shooting, and the general standard was low. Baker fretted and swore at the recumbent marksmen. We stood around on the wet hillside, awaiting our turn, fiddling apprehensively with the heavy rifles.
Mike and I were firing immediately after Percy, and we stood behind him, suffering with him. He was trembling with nerves as he lowered himself to the ground. Immediately, he had trouble getting the ammunition into the magazine. He tried to force it, his hand slipped, and a red gash appeared on the back of his hand.
‘For Christ’s sake, Higgins, can’t you even load the fugging thing?’ yapped Baker; and snatching the rifle from Percy’s nerveless fingers, he effortlessly pushed home the clip with the palm of his hand. He stood over Percy while the latter fumbled awkwardly with the safety catch which, as he was left-handed, was on the ‘wrong’ side for him.
‘Is the target moving, Higgins?’ Baker inquired sarcastically, as Percy took aim.
‘No, Corporal.’
‘Then what’s your bloody barrel waving about for?’
Percy steadied his arm, and one could sense the determination and concentration in his rigid figure.
‘Fire!’
The shots rattled out. After a pause the butts began to signal. Percy’s target indicated a miss. A spasm of pain crossed Baker’s face, and his hand went up to his jaw.
‘Get your finger out, Higgins,’ he said in a low, dangerous voice. ‘I’m warning you.’
Percy went on firing. Each time the red and white flag waved sadly over his target. Baker grew more and more in-sensed. For the last time he ordered ‘Fire!’ As the shots began to rattle out a Regular came up to Baker with a message.
‘Sergeant Box says the butts have rung up to say there are seven holes in number two target and what the fugginell are we playing at,’ he said with a grin. Baker went white with anger. With his boot he rolled Percy on to his back.
‘You stupid c——t, Higgins! You’ve been firing at the wrong target! That does it. I don’t want to see you again, you horrible man. You’re back-squadded. Some other poor fugger can try and make a soldier of you. I’ve had enough. Get out of my sight. Go on! Get out.’
Percy stumbled miserably between Mike and me, and we watched him dragging himself blindly up the hill through the rain. We couldn’t follow him, because Baker called us forward to take up our firing positions.
‘Jones!’ Baker called to the Regular who had brought the message. ‘Pick up that c——t’s empty cases.’
Sprawling on my damp groundsheet, I tried to put Percy out of my mind and concentrate on shooting accurately. I didn’t want to get back-squadded too. Jones, rooting in the grass at my side, was an irritating distraction.
‘Come on, Jones,’ called Baker.
‘There’s only four cases, Corporal,’ the soldier replied.
‘Oh Jesus! Go and get the——’
His words were cut short by a muffled explosion from behind us, followed by an anguished moan, terrifying because it seemed to come from a distance, and yet was clearly audible. There was a paralysed silence. Then Mike scrambled to his feet and, throwing down his rifle, began running like a stag up the hill.
‘Brady! What the——’ began Baker. But then he was running too, and we were all running.
We found Percy behind the foetid latrine, lying on his rifle, a horrible stain creeping swiftly through the turf around his body. Mike, with tears streaming down his cheeks, was lifting Percy’s face from the wet grass.
‘Act of Contrition, Percy,’ he was saying urgently. ‘Your Act of Contrition. “O my God, I am heartily so
rry for all my sins…”’
I knew what Mike was afraid of: suicide. The unforgivable sin. And it seemed as if Percy understood too, for he tried to shake his head. He made no sound, but his eyes bulged from their sockets, as if he were astonished by so much pain. Mike looked up at Baker.
‘You swine,’ he said softly.
Baker had suddenly become old and yellow and crumpled.
‘It was an accident,’ he said dully.
Mike opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly Percy murmured:
‘Accident.’
Baker straightened perceptibly. ‘You heard that,—it was an accident,’ he said in a dry, eager voice to the little group of terrified soldiers. ‘Higgins said it was an accident. You’re all witnesses to that.’
Percy opened his mouth to speak again, but all that came out was a gush of blood. I turned aside and, leaning against the latrine wall, my fingers digging into the rusting corrugated iron, I was violently sick. When I turned back Sergeant Box was ordering the soldiers away from the scene; two soldiers who had fainted were being slapped into consciousness; Baker was nursing his jaw; Mike was crossing himself; and Percy was dead.
Percy performed one last, ironic service for us by his death, for our Basic Training ended with it.
The firing, of course, was abandoned immediately, but no one seemed to know what to do. Harassed N.C.O.s flapped about like startled poultry. We saw Booth-Henderson, summoned by the field-telephone from the butts, running clumsily up the hill towards us. Eventually he drove off in a jeep to find a call-box. Soldiers loitered in the drizzle, sucking on damp cigarettes, casting scared, surreptitious glances at Percy’s body, covered with a wet groundsheet.
‘A soldier’s death,’ said Mike bitterly. ‘A soldier’s bloody death.’ He didn’t say anything more.
Booth-Henderson returned after about twenty minutes, and said that we were ordered back to camp. We were herded into the coaches, and jogged back to Catterick in a stunned silence. In the warmth of the bus a strange, sickly smell of rotting vegetation emanated from our damp khaki. We passed an ambulance and two police cars going in the opposite direction.
‘There’s an ambulance,’ cried someone, as it passed. ‘They’re taking him to a hospital. Perhaps he’s not dead after all.’
‘Don’t be so bloody daft, man,’ retorted another. ‘There has to be a post-mortem. He’s dead all right, the poor bugger.’
The cleaning of rifles had been forgotten. We handed them back, still dirty and fouled, to the resentful armoury staff. Then we dispersed to our huts. Quietly, almost guiltily, the soldiers took their eating irons from their lockers and moved off to the cookhouse. I threw myself on my bed. The bout of vomiting had left me feeling weak and dizzy, and, callously, I was more concerned with my trivial distemper than with Percy’s death. Every time the image returned of the blood bubbling up in Percy’s throat like a hot spring, I retched. It was painful retching on an empty stomach, but I could not face the evening meal. I tried not to think about Percy’s death, standing like a stone-faced guard between my stomach and compassion. But, inevitably, Mike, who was lying beside me, broke his silence when we were left alone in the hut.
‘Well, what do you think about it?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a terrible thing. I’ve never seen death before. I feel sort of numb.’
‘Oh I’ve seen death before. It runs in our family,’ he replied, with grim, cracked humour. ‘But I don’t want to see a death like this again. It was like a murder. Baker killed Percy. He did everything but pull the trigger.’
‘You think it was suicide?’
‘No I don’t. It was an accident. But it wouldn’t have happened if Baker hadn’t got Percy into such a state of nerves and misery that he didn’t know what he was doing.’
‘What makes you so sure it wasn’t suicide?’
‘Percy said it was an accident, for one thing.’
I pondered for a while, and then observed:
‘But don’t suicides often say that?—try to make their deaths appear to be accidental?’
Mike frowned. ‘Yes, I know. My reasons for believing it was an accident probably won’t mean much to you. It’s simply that Percy was a Catholic. A convinced, practising Catholic. He knew that suicide is the ultimate sin of despair, that he would be risking his immortal soul. But I don’t expect you to understand that.’
‘I understand,’ I replied, slightly nettled. Why did Catholics always assume that their theology was beyond anyone else’s comprehension? Mike sat up and swung his legs to the floor.
‘Look, Jon,’ he said. ‘In one sense I would be pleased if it were suicide. There might be some chance of getting Baker to answer for his crimes then. But it wasn’t suicide. I’m convinced of that. And the only thing we can do for Percy now, is to make sure that the Coroner’s Court doesn’t bring in a verdict of suicide.’
‘What on earth can we do about it?’ I asked, surprised.
‘We’re key witnesses. Tomorrow probably, very soon anyway, the police or someone will be asking us questions and taking evidence. We mustn’t give any evidence that would suggest suicide.’
‘You’re not suggesting that we perjure ourselves?’
‘Of course not. It’s just a question of emphasis. We mustn’t emphasize Baker’s persecution of Percy. We must play down any possible motives for suicide. It goes against the grain, I know; I’d like to see Baker rot in Hell. But we must do it.’
‘I don’t know …’ I muttered doubtfully. Mike’s motives, as far as I could follow them, seemed to derive from a curious mixture of materialism and eschatology. ‘I mean, I don’t see how whatever we do is going to affect Percy——’
‘Of course not, from your point of view,’ Mike cut in angrily. ‘To you he’s just dead.’
‘No, I mean from your point of view. Surely, theologically, whatever we decide happened won’t affect his destiny in the next world, if there is one.’
Mike fumbled impatiently with a packet of cigarettes. He omitted to offer me one.
‘The trouble with you Agnostics is that you regard theology as a kind of cold mathematical science like economics. It’s not like that at all. First of all let me make it quite clear that I’m not attempting to disguise a suicide. I don’t believe Percy committed suicide, though I think there’s a considerable risk that the law will reach that opinion. You say that wouldn’t affect Percy’s eternal destiny. Well, in a way you’re right. He’ll have to answer for his actions whatever we make of them. But it isn’t quite as simple as all that. Our Church is made up of the Church militant, the Church suffering, and the Church triumphant,—that is the faithful on earth, the faithful in purgatory, and the faithful …’
‘In Heaven. Yes. I do know a little about Christianity you know.’ Mike grinned, and relaxed a little. He tossed me a cigarette.
‘Well, all these three parts of the Church are very closely connected by prayer and mutual help. We invoke the saints to intercede for us; we offer up masses for the repose of the souls of the faithful; and when they get to Heaven they intercede for us. Now if a soul slips out of this system of prayer and mutual help it’s a great pity. If Percy is stigmatized as a suicide, there’ll be no requiem mass, no masses for the repose of his soul. He’ll be buried in unconsecrated ground, without a prayer said over his body. He’ll be regarded as a shameful chapter in the history of a very old and devout Catholic family. We have a great affection for our dead. It would be tragic if Percy were denied that affection.’ He paused.
‘Well,’ I said, anxious to placate him. ‘I don’t really understand you, but I’ll do what I can, short of lying.’
‘Good man!’ He got to his feet, and reached for his sodden cape.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To church.’
‘Won’t you need a pass?’
‘Fugg the pass.’
It was the first, and the last time I heard him use the word. I recalled him explaining it to Percy. Throwing his cape round
his shoulders he went out into the rain. I heard him squelching past the window.
The other occupants of the hut began to drift back from tea. Someone came round giving back the beer-money that had been collected for an eve-of-passing-out booze-up planned for the next evening. I decided to go over to the Y.M.C.A. Canteen for a cup of coffee. When I returned there were only a couple of incorrigible bullers at work. No one felt like sitting there polishing brass in the presence of Percy’s empty bed, and already there was a rumour that the passing-out parade was cancelled. I was asleep before Mike came in.
The next morning’s parade was later than usual. We hung about in the hut until 8.30, when Sergeant Box appeared, and hurried us on to the square. But there was no inspection. A number of names were called out, Mike and mine among them, and we were ordered to fall out and line up at the side of the square. We were marched off to the Orderly Room, while the rest of the squad were taken on a cross-country run by one of the P.T. instructors.
Baker was waiting outside the Orderly Room, looking tense and pale. From the veranda the Adjutant explained to us that we were to be interviewed by the Coroner’s Clerk in connection with the death of Trooper Higgins. Baker went in first, and was inside for a long time. We stood at ease on the veranda, the object of curious glances from passing soldiers. A small, bullet-headed lad under detention was picking up leaves by hand from the lawns and flower beds which, bordered with whitewashed stones, encircled the Orderly Room. He edged his way up to the veranda.
‘Got a fag, mate?’ he whispered.
As Mike’s hand went to his pocket the regimental policeman overseeing the prisoner rapped a command, and the prisoner shuffled off with a rueful grin.