by Philip Child
Daniel: “Look toward me, Quentin. I am beside you.”
Quentin does not hear him.
Heavy footsteps clump toward them. Quentin lifts his head from his hands and eagerly summons the approaching night-hidden figure. “I summon you by the need of one soul for another in no man’s land. Speak to me!”
A gigantic form looms up. On his shoulder he carries a rifle. He stops before Quentin and orders arms with a smart rap on the pavement, waiting to be addressed.
Quentin: “Let us be friends. I am Quentin Pilgrim Thatcher. I am lost … and you?”
“I am Zero.”
Quentin, suddenly terrified, gabbles: “It seems to me, sir, we might have much in common. Yes. I confess I am not much good at friendship, but considering the unusual circumstances — Yes, a friendship cemented by the unusual circumstances in which we find ourselves —”
“Indeed? … It seems to me, chum, that your wireless sending set is out of order. I get nothing from you but static. You must really excuse me. In a great hurry. Duty to perform … you understand?”
“A duty?”
“I have to kill a Bavarian Jäger in Desire trench, X22d4–I, at precisely —” he looks at his wristwatch “— at precisely twenty hours, four minutes, and point nought one seconds.”
“A family man?”
“Can’t say I’m sure.… And now with your permission…? These engagements are very exactly timed. One must calculate the effect of the atmospheric pressure on the bullet to a fraction of a second.”
“Mr. Zero, who are you? Where are we going?”
“Sorry, I cannot explain. Sorry, I cannot wait. Good day, chum. Good day.”
The two cousins slowly climb a flight of steps leading to a colonnaded building, darkly isolated, menacing in its obscure solidity: the War Office. They are not alone. Motor ambulances drive up and stop; blanket-covered stretchers are lifted out from which protrude heavy, nail-studded boots. The stretchers are carried up the stairs and through the door, to disappear into a murky corridor. Quentin hesitates in front of the door. No one pays the least attention to him. He murmurs: “This must be the place. But what am I here for? Whom am I to see? What is it I want to find out? Perhaps it would come to me if I began to write a request on one of their army forms.… Supposing I did not enter … supposing I went back to the city.…” He turns uncertainly. Instantly, the street and the dim buildings on each side of the War Office are swallowed by a void. He turns about again, buttons the collar of his greatcoat as if suddenly chilled, and marches through the entrance. Daniel Thatcher follows.
Inside the door a warrant officer sits at a small desk with stacks of printed forms before him. Soldiers and civilians step up to the desk, fill in the forms, and are led away by messengers into the dark, musty mazes of the building. There is a babel of talk: explanation, confused remonstrance, objurgation. “If this isn’t just like the War Office! It chokes you to death with red tape. Last time I was here —” Quentin halts in front of the desk.
The warrant officer, with the air of a patient automaton, hands him a printed form. “Fill in this chit. State the nature of your business as briefly as possible.” Over Quentin’s shoulder, Dan can read the first few lines. Army Form XY094/030. Name — Rank — Religious Affiliation —
Quentin stares at it helplessly.
“Get on with it, my lad!” says the warrant officer briskly. “You are keeping the others waiting.”
“But I don’t know how to answer it.”
“Give me the chit. Now … name?”
“Quentin Pilgrim Thatcher.”
“Rank?”
“Private.… Formerly lieutenant.”
“Court-martialled . I see.… Age?”
“Twenty-two .”
“Twenty-two , what?”
“Twenty-two — sir.”
“That’s better.… Religion?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“No religion,” repeats the warrant officer scornfully, writing.
“Oh, no, sir, I shouldn’t like to say that. You see —”
“Make up your mind. You either have or you haven’t! … Next question — dead?”
Quentin looks at him uncertainly. “What’s the alternative, sir?”
His look is met with a cold, parade stare. “Dead,” says the warrant officer in a voice that repulses all argument, and he writes dead on the form. “Nature of your business?”
“Well, sir, I hoped you would tell me that.”
The warrant officer smacks his fist on the table. ‘You’re wasting my time!” He scans the army form superciliously. “‘No religion’; humph! … Look behind you and you’ll see three thousand soldiers of all ranks — field officers some of ’em — civilians, too — waiting their turn. And every one of them knows what he wants and where he belongs. It may not have occurred to you that there’s a war on.… And you have the — the sanctified audacity to come here ! Without knowing where you belong or what you want. Get on with it quickly — or get out !”
“I don’t belong anywhere, and I don’t know where ‘out’ is. But I want — I want —”
The warrant officer (with ominous patience): “Tell me, then, that is if you know anything at all, whom you are looking for.”
“That I can answer, sir. Myself.”
(Voices from behind. “Nah then, nah then, sergeant-major! ” … “Do we bloody well have to muck arahnd all the muckin’ night while this here muckin’ ex-orfcer makes up his muckin’ mind abaht sweet Fanny Adam? ”)
The warrant officer bends over his papers, and Quentin Thatcher, shadowed by Daniel, his friend, fades into the background, slips past the desk, and turns down the first dim corridor that presents itself. “If he can’t tell me that , then he jolly well doesn’t know his job. ‘Irregular and improper!’ How like the army. Muddle through on red tape, I suppose.”
They go down one dim corridor after another, meeting no one. Quentin meditates audibly upon his life. What is he? What does he, the homunculus Quentin Pilgrim Thatcher, “amount to”? Theories of damnation flit across his mind only to be rejected. No hell, he reflects, could be more degrading than that state of ignorance in which, throughout life, we pursue or are pursued by our fates. What has he learnt? And what has he done? He has learnt the futility of mere ideas, which are, he suspects, a mechanical form of cerebral activity fitfully disturbing nature’s quiet and empty vacuum merely while heat lasts, presently to be absorbed in the forgetfulness of eternity. And what has he done? He has, with some courage, devoted himself to an idea — but not unto death. Emotion, disturber of reason, which is God’s geometry, has thrown him off his course. Failure.… He, Quentin Thatcher, signifies nothing.
“And these three thousand standing in line who ‘know their own minds,’ what of them? Were they loyal to their theories? Not by a damn sight! Compromisers, every one of them. Lived simply for the sake of being alive.… Why didn’t I? Puritan, I suppose. Missed life by trying for it too hard. It would all have been so much simpler without the everlasting ‘why’?
“They live in their emotions, every one of them. Talk about love. Luv ! Sentimental twaddle. Let’s have some realism. Love is one-sided . Un qui baise et un qui tend la joue. A yearning and a bafflement, whether it’s for God or man. I always wanted to be above man’s condition. Be myself. Myself .… Must look into this further.”
Quentin, followed by Daniel, comes to the end of a corridor. Two doors face him. Over them is a placard reading: Quartermaster-General’s Department. Service of Love. On one door is inscribed the word sacred , on the other the word profane .
Quentin tries the door marked sacred . It is locked. He touches the handle of the door marked profane , and it flies open. He enters. Daniel follows. On the floor is a rag carpet, threadbare and very dirty. At one side of the room is a four-po
ster bed with brocaded valances and a counterpane. Louis Quinze chairs are piled on top of the counterpane. From a rat hole, two red eyes peer out at Quentin. He draws his revolver and shoots; the rat scurries away. He touches the counterpane. It is covered with dust. “That seems a pity,” Quentin remarks thoughtfully.
Hanging on the wall opposite the open door is a portrait in oils of a woman in eighteenth century costume, and Quentin exclaims: “Why, that is the portrait of Dan’s great-great-grandmother , the gipsy queen with the faraway look.… Pray, madam, do not look beyond me. Though, to be sure, I am not your flesh and blood, I have looked at you so often in Daniel’s company at Ardentinny in the old days that I almost feel as if I belonged to your family. I should like to ask you a question.”
The eyes of the gipsy lady do not alter their remote, intent focus.
“Tell me, madam, what you are gazing at.… Have you escaped?”
She does not speak, but (is it the illusion one has when gazing at a portrait?) her mouth seems to move with the ghost of a mocking smile.
“Perhaps if I, too, look where she is looking I may see what she sees.”
He turns his back to the portrait and gazes. He sees nothing but the imperturbable darkness in the corridor beyond the open door.
Quentin leaves the room with a heavy sigh. As he leaves it, he murmurs: “Daniel, if you had been either more of a friend or less, I shouldn’t have lost myself.”
Daniel speaks: “I did not understand, Quentin.” But Quentin does not hear him.
They come to a large blackboard ruled in columns. At the top, written in chalk, are the words: “The First Army has been ordered to press the enemy back toward the frontier. Zero hour, six o’clock tomorrow. The following of all ranks will be casualties and will report to this building immediately on death, bringing with them their crime sheets.” A long list of names follows, so long and so finely printed that it is difficult to make them out. Paralleling the list are two columns headed: Died a brave man. Died a coward. An attendant is making entries on these columns. There are many braves , few cowards .
Quentin stands before the board and ponders, “Shall I look? No. I shall know by tomorrow … or perhaps I shan’t.” Then with a sudden burst of fury: “If he knows all this beforehand, why does he permit it? I want to know! … My eyes are opened. I used to fear emotion, thinking Deity was reason and law. But I was wrong. Life is short and it is valueless. As the generation of leaves, so is the generation of man. Imperturbable darkness closes round our footsteps.…”
Two professors in cap and gown pass, arguing. “Nonsense! Man is simply a physico-chemical machine, actuated by the ductless glands. Bravery, cowardice, faith, despair — these are simply meters to measure chemical secretions in the body.” … “My dear fellow, I do not agree. Man does not merely suffer the doom of existing. He masters it by accepting it and by creating within himself an existence which stands against destiny and apart from it by being conscious of it. ‘God’ is man’s co-operation with his destiny.” … “My poor colleague, I am afraid you are merely an unscientific philosopher.” … “And you, my dear fellow, are an unphilosophic scientist.”
Quentin: “Drunk with words! Scuttering round in libraries like rats in an oxygen tank! What do they know?”
They pass many shut doors from which issue muffled groans and words. Quentin mutters: “This is like a madhouse.” … His step is suddenly frozen to dead stop. “That voice! It is Dan’s sister.”
Joanna’s voice, high, urgent, cuts its way to them, through a shut door. “Mother, come quickly! Come quickly! ”
Daniel Thatcher and Quentin, his friend, rush to the door, vainly shoulder it, and pound the panels with their fists. “Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!” Beyond the door there is silence.
Quentin mutters in a strained voice: “Must find a way to break into these locked rooms.”
An abstracted, gloomy figure passes them, whispering to himself. “The Commander-in-Chief has a message for me. An important message. I can’t find him. It was an important message. A message …” his voice trails off.
Quentin: “I, too, want to see this Commander-in-Chief .”
They approach a door, inscribed: Private Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief. Do not disturb.
“For twenty-two years I’ve wanted to see this magnifico.” Quentin hurls himself against the door and bursts it open.
Inside the room there is a telephone switchboard. On the switchboard is a printed notice: “Out for lunch. Calls plugged through to warrant officer at the front entrance.” On the wall is a photograph of Satan loaded with chains. This figure stirs and comes to life; he addresses Quentin.
“Why have you starved me? I exist. I, too, was created. Do you think I was created simply to be starved!” He strains suddenly against his fetters, shrieking: “Out fiends! Cry war! There is no God.”
Quentin: “Someone has got to be responsible for this rotten mess. I am going to see that flunky at the entrance.”
Followed by Daniel, he strides purposefully through the murky corridors. The warrant officer looks up impatiently from his printed forms.
“You, again?”
“Yes. Give me that chit.” He writes: To see the Commander-in-Chief concerning certain defects in the cosmos.
“Well, why didn’t you say so before? The C-in-C won’t have time for you, but I shall send you to someone who will deal with you.… You realize, young man, what you are in for?”
“You mean — court martial? Hell and all the rest of it?”
“Perhaps.”
Some fleeting thought rising from Quentin’s soul twists his face with emotion and he tries vainly to speak. At length he says, “They cannot do more than brush me from the face of the world as if I had never existed. Do you think I should mind that?”
Rummaging amongst his papers, the warrant officer brings out a red slip. “It is usual to fill in this report on the Seven Deadly Sins. Pride, envy, gluttony, lechery, avarice, wrath, sloth. They have invented some new sins, but we haven’t the forms for them yet.… Which of these —”
“Pride,” Quentin interrupts brusquely.
“Pride,” the warrant officer repeats, dipping his pen in the inkwell. “Any others? Lechery, for instance?”
Quentin shakes his head. “It is my friend Daniel Thatcher whom you have in mind. Though a gentleman, he is strongly sexed. I should be obliged, sir, if you would give him a hand when he comes this way. He does not understand himself very well.”
The warrant officer hands the slip of paper to Quentin. “Take the first turning, then straight on until you find what you are looking for.”
They turn into a corridor so dark that they cannot see its walls. Other footsteps, hurrying or dragging back reluctantly, reverberate about them. Daniel hears the sound of his friend’s tread; he no longer sees him.
Then Quentin’s face becomes suddenly visible, caught in a beam of sunlight streaming through a window. Quentin goes to the window and looks out; Daniel looks over his shoulder. A field of yellow wheat ripe for reaping lies under a blue sky. A breeze winnows it gently and blows clean earth smells to them. Quentin speaks: “The way the breeze runs its fingers over the bending grain as though it were one with it. It is as if I had never really seen it before. I used to lie level with the stalks of wheat and imagine that they were part of me and I of them, and that their sap and mine came from the same hidden root. I did not mind being alone then.… I should like to remember this. Why do we see this when we are children and then forget? Why do we see it and care nothing for it, taking it for granted that it is ours? Why do we leave it and never see it again?”
He breathes deeply, then steeling himself, turns from the window. Once again darkness and the hurrying footsteps receive the two wanderers. They come to a door at the end of the corridor. It swings open before them. They enter.
The cause of the hammering now becomes clear to Daniel. Two wheeler-corporals are prising the lids off the coffins. They remove the lids, lift out the bodies, and seat them upright and rigid on the benches. Next to Daniel sits a staring row of these figures with wax-like , expressionless faces. They are all dead.
Horror-stricken , he jerks himself to his feet and stumbles to an empty pew nearer to the light. There, he can overhear the officers seated at the desk. The general speaks.…
“Have you the crime sheets there, sergeant? Had one or two unusual cases today. Some rebels, colonel. This man, now.… It’s odd how they all want to be shown , these days. There used to be a phrase in my youth. Faith is the — the — how does it go?”
Colonel: “‘… is the evidence of things not seen,’ is what you have in mind, sir. Trouble is, nowadays, most of them have too much evidence of things seen.”
“Yes. A great deal of fear in the world, nowadays.”
Colonel: “Now, sir, one more matter before we begin.… Er — knowing your opinions, I hesitate to mention it. But coming from the trenches today, I met Satan and he is very upset. He complains that hell is practically empty these days, and he protests about the quality of those war-damned souls who are sent to him. He claims that they are so blasé he can do nothing with them.… I took the liberty of bringing a battalion of demons. They are standing easy outside the courtroom. Also, prison vans and a lorry-load of fetters.”