Silent Parts

by John Charalambous

  In the early morning he’s taken aback to see her dressed for work. In some respects it makes sense. She has an outward routine, concerned friends. She would be missed. They must go on as before, hoping that the soldier will recover, hoping that yesterday’s upheaval and distress went unnoticed. She eats a quick breakfast and leaves without giving instructions, as if he will instinctively know what to do.

  He discovers that the soldier isn’t stretched out as he left him, but curled up in a more compact and natural pose. He doubts that he’s managed this himself. Colombe must be responsible, perhaps disturbed by his earlier appearance of discomfort. He sees too that his head is less damaged-looking, less lopsided, than he’d feared. And while bruises have seeped into the soft tissues of his face, night tears have cleansed his eyes of blood. Against all reason, he’s intimidated by his unblinking gaze, which is blue and mild and insinuatingly intimate. ‘We’re in this together,’ he seems to say. Worse, he has Harry thinking that none of this is an accident, though he can’t conceive of any design, unless it’s knotted into his own fear and truculence and as much a part of him as muscle and bone. He recalls the exquisite physicality of his rage. Who or what had he been protecting? Colombe’s geese? Their secret sovereignty? His liberty? Even gazing eye to eye with the soldier he doesn’t repent. His pacifist gropings are exposed as having been weak and ephemeral, but he sees no great contradiction in his behaviour. He deserted because he was scared. He struck the soldier because he was angry. These are separate acts. He faces them squarely. He is no part of Leviathan. He is his own heart and mind and violent hand, and no excuses. He smells urine. Beneath the blanket the soldier’s body is dormant, yet leaking. All that water poured so laboriously into his stomach! Probably it has kept him alive. Even so, it is undoubtedly a half-measure. If Colombe and her rubber tubing can stave off death, what might a modern hospital achieve? And in keeping him here, who is she protecting? Who is her first concern? Her troublesome foreigner? Or this great carcass protruding beyond the iron bed-end? He doubts there is much separating them. Certainly Colombe isn’t careful in her distinctions, endangering herself as readily for a thief as for a deserter. Yet he feels priggishly superior to the soldier, more deserving. He has considered himself in love. He has aspired to marriage. Honourable Harry. It must count for something. And if he’s not mistaken her devotion to the newcomer has its limits, else she’d have contrived some method of bringing him in to Rouen for treatment. Either way, she is running a risk. If he dies here in her house, what then? How would the authorities look on that?

  Which gives him a fresh appreciation of her determination to keep the man alive. He looks into the blind eyes and gradually manages to strip them of individual or social significance. They become mere organs, mechanisms. And with this understanding he is able to touch the face, to apply pressure between the jaws so the mouth opens. He inserts the tube, manipulating it gently over the tongue and down along the soft membrane of the gullet. The obstruction barely affects the man’s breathing. Also, it seems to suppress his coughing. There is not the physical protest Harry was dreading. Then down into the stomach. Who would have guessed that a life-saving act could be so irksome?

  In the afternoon he manages to sleep in a bedside chair. He dreams of the big deal-wood table at Albion. Everyone wears festive hats of tinsel and golden crepe. All the old faces are there, and all the generations, squeezed impossibly close. George carves while Sammy tells of a plum tree in the village (Warwickshire Droopers – best for jam) and Mary and his mother recite the canon of who likes what – no fat for Ethel, nearest the bone for Dick, just a skerrick for young John . . . Uncle Lew’s delight in mutton has him spouting, irreverently but largely unremarked, on the mystery of the Paschal Lamb – a set of tenets, he says, natural to the minds of barefoot tribesmen steeped in the practice of animal sacrifice, but a deep conundrum to civilised folk such as themselves. And though nothing is said that wouldn’t normally be said, Harry knows they are showing off for his French bride. For the occasion she has shed considerable weight and many years. Her face is smooth and downy. And when she speaks her English is correct without pedantry, an example and a quiet reproach to her coarser company. George’s grandson Dick, the rogue and darling of the family, cannot take his eyes off her, except to wink at Harry, man to man, admiringly and in surprised recognition of a dark horse.

  This sweetness quickly sours. He wakes to the soldier’s face. Nothing has changed. There is the same insensible calm, the same flow of rheumy tears. Harry goes to the kitchen and prepares a meal of root vegetables and a few scraps of bacon, cooking them over the fire. After it has cooled a little he pulps it with a wooden spoon and experiments to see whether it is fine enough to flow down the soldier’s tube. Yet he doesn’t feed him, regarding it as too great and dangerous a step, as something best left to Colombe. And since she’s due very soon he takes the pot of warm slop and installs himself dutifully beside his victim, who seems no better or worse for having been left. The blanket continues to rise and fall. A protruding hand remains curled and claw-like. His blind eyes go on seeping meaningless tears. Despite this unpleasantness, Harry is hungry. The pot steams at his feet and more than once he has to restrain himself.

  Colombe brings medicines and tonics – brown bottles containing cheap cure-alls. She lights candle stumps and inspects the soldier’s face, sweeping her fingertips over the rasping stubble. Yes, it has grown. She doesn’t look up but Harry imagines he’s being accused. Why hasn’t he shaved him?

  In a confusion of self-justification, he passes her the pot. Sniffing, she inserts a finger and tastes. He can’t say whether her curt nod amounts to approval. Declining to take the rubber tube – isn’t Harry capable of feeding him? – she hurries off to her room. He hears her rummaging in her clothes-chest, doubtless for her workskirt. A minute later his guesses are confirmed by the clank of her scythe on the back paving. The geese must be fed.

  The candles spit and fume and in the yellow light the soldier has the complexion of stained and much-handled ivory. Once more Harry manipulates the tube down his throat and into his stomach. First he doses him with a capful of each of the tonics. Then he half-fills the funnel with lukewarm stew and jigs it as an encouragement to gravity. It’s a slow process, and while he waits he sops bread in the pot, softening it for himself, since he has been unable to find any other food. In this way they share a meal, and the soldier seems as content as an unconscious man can seem. But an hour later, after Colombe has come to sit with them, he begins to spasm and cough. The suddenness of it is frightening. Harry wrenches his jaws open but his windpipe is clear. His skin is wet and hot as if he’s erupting from within, one last store igniting – and all to no purpose. He will simply burn until exhausted.

  It’s then that Colombe catches Harry with a look that he realises is her first true communication since discovering the soldier. Grim, collusive, almost humorous, she says everything in a glance. Aren’t we ridiculous, demanding a say! Aren’t we fools!

  But the soldier takes his time. He coughs and shudders and goes on living. He lives through into the dark morning – they can hear his breath long after the candles have vanished. Harry is aware of Colombe leaning drowsily against him. Her head weighs on his chest. Several times it occurs to him that in their devotion to this man they are like despairing parents, clinging to absurd hopes. Even in his sleep he remembers her look. Aren’t we fools!

  Daylight comes beaming in at the dirty window. Somehow the soldier has managed to wedge his face in under the pillow. Harry is concerned that he might have smothered – but no, he’s still warm and breathing quietly. While he admires his tenacity, he can’t see him lasting the morning. Colombe goes to her room and washes at the trough. She returns wearing yesterday’s unlaundered work-dress with its wafting odour of oil and gritty sweat. Her expression as she stands at the door is resigned. They have done their best, but their soldier can’t possibly last. So composed is she that h
e imagines she has the measure of the risks and uncertainties this entails, even if he doesn’t. Yet after she’s gone he has sole charge. He decides that this is preferable and just. Colombe has dirtied her hands quite enough.

  All morning the soldier is still. Harry supposes he’s subsiding into a quiet death, because he seems to have lost the capacity even to cough. Several times he supposes the moment has come and gone, only to detect a faint breath. It strikes him that he should pre-empt events and dig a grave. So a little before midday he goes out into the sun and surveys the rose-plots, finally selecting a secluded area a hundred yards from the road. He scratches a shallow trench with a three-pronged garden fork – the only halfway suitable implement he can find. He claws out the soil with his hands then jabs and scratches again. In a couple of hours, blowing and heaving in the heat, he achieves a depth of eighteen inches.

  But when he enters once more through the kitchen he discovers that the soldier isn’t ready for burying. He hears his voice, a gravelly mumbling that is almost conversational. He creeps to the bedroom door, looking in just as the soldier stretches his leg. The man’s eyes are closed, like someone dreaming. And after a silence his mumbling resumes. His tone is relaxed, as if he’s making some banal observation to a friend. Harry dares not enter.

  Arriving home in the twilight, Colombe finds him in her kitchen and sees from his face that something pleasing has occurred. He puts his finger to his mouth, bidding her to be silent and listen. She hears the soldier at once, still droning and muttering as he has been all afternoon. She rushes to his room and lavishes on him all the solicitous words she has been saving up. He doesn’t respond or acknowledge that he’s being spoken to, but their voices are somehow complementary, if only because they speak the one baffling language.

  Colombe comes out later when the soldier is quiet. Having brought back fresh supplies from town, she makes a stew and she and Harry sit together at the fire watching the pot. He senses her discomfort. Though the soldier is far from lucid, she does not want him to hear them talking. It’s best that he should have no hint that there is a third person in her house. And in any case, it transpires that she has only one thing to say to Harry. She draws close and whispers, speaking very slowly and carefully. He doesn’t need her prodding. He sees for himself that it is time to go. She gives his knee two valedictory pats. What’s most distressing, she remains full of the joy of having resurrected the soldier, and isn’t the least gloomy at losing her Australian. Ladling stew into the soldier’s bowl, she sees him staring at her and shrugs with eloquent finality. Then she goes next door.

  After eating alone Harry gathers up his greatcoat. Already his mind is pulling away. The night is obligingly dark. He listens for a moment longer to her sweet, pattering goose-talk, then leaves her house.

  thirty-two

  For two days he is confined in a tiny wooden hut – six feet by six feet, just enough room for a pail and a plank bed. The only source of light is a ventilation slit at floor level, meshed over with pigeon wire to keep out vermin. If he lies flat on the boards he can get a view of about ten feet of bare earth but can’t see the other huts or the boundaries of the compound. Three times daily another prisoner, rarely the same individual, and always scrupulously silent, brings him a meal of bread or hard tack. He no longer asks for tea – not on the menu. He drinks cloudy water from an enamel mug and tries to disregard the smell. Mornings and afternoons he hears the other prisoners stamping on the parade ground, the Red Caps bellowing or shrilling on their brass whistles. No one comes to question him, though once, late in the afternoon of the first day, someone slides open the spy-hole and gives him a quick once-over.

  Then on the second evening he has a visitor, a lieutenant of the Mechanical Transport Service called Foster. Tanned and robust-looking, and at the same time quietly affable, he offers his hand like a civilian – a friendly egalitarian grip that makes it clear he’s not about to stand on rank. He grimaces at the cramped quarters and settles his lighted kerosene lamp on the floor. They sit at either end of the bed, the smell of day-old urine rising from the pail.

  ‘They’ve asked me to assist you,’ says Foster. A flat voice, in the spirit of the barracks, but unable to mask a gentle upbringing. His manner is vaguely reluctant, as if he thinks that in an ideal world no one should be called on to pry into the private business of a stranger. ‘A matter of regulations. A lot of blokes aren’t comfortable speaking for themselves.’

  By blokes, Harry understands, he means ‘rankers’.

  ‘You’re a lawyer, Sir?’

  ‘Heavens no!’

  Harry waits for an explanation but none comes. He notices that among the lieutenant’s badges is a gold wound-bar. It’s slightly crooked, the stitching large and untidy. He doesn’t know whether this is affectation or genuine indifference.

  ‘I’m not permitted to represent myself?’

  ‘Can if you want. You have the choice, a man of your background.’

  Background? Education perhaps. ‘But you wouldn’t advise it, Sir.’

  ‘No. Best to let someone else do the talking. It’s too easy to say the wrong thing. They don’t like soldiers with opinions. You’ve got to keep all that to yourself.’

  ‘I haven’t got any opinions. I got scared and I ran.’

  ‘Good. That’s what they like to hear.’

  The voice of experience. Yet Harry is sceptical. He can’t quite conceive of the lieutenant as an insider.

  ‘You’ve done this often, Sir – defending enlisted men?’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘Successfully?’

  ‘They’re both back with their units, if that’s what you mean. No jail sentences.’

  ‘You must have a knack.’

  Harry realises it’s an unfriendly remark, but the lieutenant doesn’t get haughty. ‘The knack is repentance. Are you prepared to plead guilty?’

  ‘I can hardly plead innocent.’

  ‘Quite.’ From his tunic pocket Foster removes a pencil and a small notepad. Down to business. ‘I’ll need to prepare an outline of events. Everything from day one. Places, people, dates and times. That story you told the provosts won’t do.’

  Harry looks down at his bony feet. He has anticipated this difficulty but can’t think of a way clear. The Red Caps to whom he surrendered had a standard form to complete. Where had he been? Paris. With whom had he associated? Unknown servicemen, mostly drunks. That he could remain undetected on a two-month drinking spree must have struck them as improbable. Still, they had a prisoner, a man on the circulated list of deserters.

  With sudden petulance Foster says, ‘If you won’t trust me . . . ’

  A naive reproach. The proposed exchange – trust for help – is plainly flawed. Surrender and they’ll go easy. On him maybe, but where’s that leave Colombe?

  ‘Good God, man,’ Foster groans, ‘they’ll take one look at you and know you’re lying. I can’t see you getting three steps to Paris. Not without someone taking you by the hand. The first thing they’ll ask you is “What’s her name?” They’re not stupid, Lambert. They’ve sorted out cleverer chaps than you.’

  No argument there. Though he can’t see why the lieutenant should immediately posit the existence of a woman. Has he heard something?

  ‘You may think it’s all very admirable, Lambert, keeping mum for some woman, but this is no three-act play. You’re in deep trouble. As I hear it they’ve got old Firth running the show. Major in the Veterinaries and a prick. How do you fancy ten years in Wormwood Scrubs?’

  At last Harry looks up, begging him to understand. But by now the lieutenant is truly annoyed.

  ‘If I were you I’d show a little humility! You’re not the only bloke ever bolted from this war. They do a dozen of your sort in a day. Play it straight and the worst you’ll get is a few weeks’ Number One, but just you muck them about and see what you
get! They shit on Clever Dicks, Lambert. Break them. Break them so they’re no good for the rest of their days. That’s the way it works and I wouldn’t like to see it happen to you. I’d take it personally. It’s not right and it’s unnecessary. So let’s start with April 6th.’

  The lieutenant pauses, trying to ascertain whether he has his cooperation. Without meeting his eye Harry shifts on the bed. The air is poisonous with kerosene fumes.

  ‘Six-thirty p.m. you’re told you’re going forward – is that correct?’

  Harry nods but Foster demands a more active participation. ‘Is that correct?’

  ‘Correct, Sir.’

  ‘And your company was paraded at 8:00 p.m., at which time your absence was noticed. One and a half hours. So we can safely say you deserted on a whim. The question is whether you spoke to anyone before you went? The court will be very interested in that.’

  ‘No one, Sir.’

  ‘You acted completely alone and unaided?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And you can’t think of anyone who might have had an inkling of what you had in mind?’

  ‘I didn’t know what I had in mind.’

  ‘Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. As I understand it you talked your way into the hospital compound and dug under the perimeter fence, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Then where?’

  ‘I went to the station.’