by Philip Child
“Is it really necessary?”
“No one has been sent to hell for a long time, sir. Isn’t it time we made an example? A little old-fashioned discipline —”
“It’s against modern ideas to bully a man into the good life through fear. And besides, there are so few cases of downright, conscious, robust, unmitigated sin, these days. Modern psychological research has shown —”
“Souls are much as they have always been.”
“Well, have your demons stand by where they won’t be seen. … I think I know a better way. Sergeant, who is first?”
“A civilian, sir. We didn’t want to let him in. He insisted he had a right to see you.”
The sergeant (in official singsong): “Penuel Thatcher! Penuel Thatcher!”
An old man, stooped, uncertain of his walk, enters, supported by two RAMC orderlies. With eyes downcast, he totters to the bench; there, he straightens himself and, without waiting to be addressed, asks a question. Aged though he has become, his voice rings true in Daniel’s memory, and he recognizes his father.
“Are you, sir — Deity?”
The general: “No. God forbid! Mortal like yourself. Created by you in your deepest mind.”
“I wish to be judged.”
“I do not judge people. I help them to judge themselves.”
“Then I demand to be sent to a higher court.”
The general glances at his papers. “But you do not believe there is a higher court.”
In Pen’s expression, profound despair struggles with intellectual triumph. “Then there is no higher court!’
“That is not for me to say.… And now, sir. Who are you? What do you want?”
“I am Penuel Thatcher. I am of puritan stock. I am an upright man who eschewed evil. I want to know —”
“Ah, yes — I remember. You have thought of yourself as the modern Job. You are not without vanity — almost pride. You lack, however, one quality which Job possessed. You do not believe in God and yet you have led an upright life. Exactly. But why?”
“Because it was in me so to do.”
“You do not believe in God and yet you wish to be judged. Why?”
“I want an answer to tragedy.… I am an upright man. I have followed the spirit in me. That has not given me happiness. Sir, because of that I have destroyed my family; my wife I gave over to despair and death; my memory is a shame to my children. Did I do well? I demand judgment.”
The general, moved, turns to the officer at his right hand. “And you, colonel. What do you say?”
The colonel: “He is an upright man — one cannot send him to hell, but — Sir, you have quoted the Book of Job.… Will you, then, curse God?”
From the shadow in the corner of the room, Maud ’ s voice rings out suddenly. “Do not listen to him Penuel.… Sirs, this is my husband whom I understand strangers cannot know his heart, but I know it. He is an upright man. Where he goes I will go. If he is damned, I, too, will be damned.”
Penuel: “Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul. I would despise my life. This is one thing, therefore I said it. He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.… If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain? Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.”
The general: “Penuel Thatcher, you have read the signpost and chosen your road. Go down it. For one like you, doubt is a prodding spear ever at your back. Do you regret what it has driven you to? Are you ashamed of what you have done?”
“No, sir.”
“You are one who needs a goad to find his task. There is much for you to do. Go in doubt yet a little while.”
Like a shadow, Penuel vanishes, without seeing Daniel, without looking back.
The colonel: “I cannot understand a man like that. I prefer old-fashioned saints and old-fashioned sinners. One knows how to deal with them.… I distrust change.”
The general: “So do I, unless I plan it.”
“At any rate the next man is an old-fashioned sinner. Clearly a case for Satan.”
“Who is he?”
“A Russian by the name of Dolughoff. A hater of his fellows, an unrepentant lecher — and worse.”
“Send him in, sergeant.… Order there! Who is this? Where are your sentries, sergeant!”
At this moment, the door of the room bursts open with a bang. Through the doorway hurtle two figures in violent motion. The first of these, scarcely more than a boy, is a German soldier; following him — pursuing him with bayonet drawn back to strike, cursing, eyes blazing with bloodlust, is Geoffrey Tripp. “One more shot at the bastards! Christ, let me go!” Through the open door reverberates the distant rush-wrack-ak of drumfire.
“Halt!”
The syllable from the general cuts the atmosphere like the crack of a whip. “Seize him, sergeant. Bring him here.”
Trip is dragged, shouting and struggling, before the general. The German private, a dropped heap of clothes, cowers with twitching limbs. Tripp’s struggles grows less, a sane light comes into his eyes, he relaxes, stands to attention.
“Name?”
“Geoffrey Tripp, sir.”
“Well, Tripp. What did you want to kill him for?”
Tripp looks unbelievingly at the huddled human heap. “I — I don’t know, sir.”
“Look at him more closely, Tripp.”
Tripp looks. A circle of dirty red widens out from a tear in the back of the faded, blue-grey tunic.
“Why do you want to kill him twice, Tripp? Do you hate him, then?”
Tripp (in a low voice): “No, sir. Never saw him before today.”
“Stand at attention, Tripp! Brace up, man.… Now make your report.”
“I died fighting, sir! I am brave — but I was afraid, too.”
“Any harm in you, Tripp?”
“Lustful, sir. I can’t help it. I love life too much, I suppose. I usually act on impulse. I’ve stuck to my code, though — I’ve never let down a friend, violated a virgin, or forgiven an enemy. I treat tarts decently. ”
The general turns to the colonel. “Put him down in that column. He belongs to the great majority; something likeable about him.... I think you will admit, Tripp, that you are pretty raw stuff.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A throwback to the beast. We do not blame a tiger for liking to kill, or even a dog. But you are a man.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give him a little imagination next time, colonel. Give him as much as he can stand at this stage.… Get on with it, Tripp. Don’t let me see you in this condition again.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Sergeant.”
“Sir?”
“Send in Dolughoff next.”
Dolughoff enters, shuffling with fettered legs. He stands before the general, head thrown back, eyeing him as an equal.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Kindly tell these stupid fools that you’ve a message for me. I don’t like chains!”
The general looks at him broodingly. “You are charged in the first place with lechery, shameless, degrading, committed with deliberate intent to defile, and without regard for human integrity, either your own or others’.… Step forward, Dolughoff.”
The fetters clank. Dolughoff looks round him; the door is closed, armed men surround him, there is no escape. He composes his face to an air of specious frankness, though his eyes slide shiftily from one to the other of the two judges, searching their faces for a hint. “Not guilty. Oh, in the stupid technical sense — yes. But these laws cannot apply to me.”
“Here people tell the truth; you know that.”
“Sir, I am a proud man. Is it my fault if I was born with fifty scourging devils in my blood? If I was made that way, it was for a purpose.”
“You fough
t these devils?”
“I am a proud man and a man of dignity. Could I bear to be beaten everyday of my life.… I made them mine.”
“You are charged with hating people.”
“They hated me.… I put them out of my mind. I have had the courage to do what I liked and I have lived like a god; no one has ever had power to touch me.
“You lie, Dolughoff. You are charged with a crime that disproves what you have said. You are charged with a crime known to the Greeks as lipotaxia : desertion of one’s post in battle. At a moment when your fellow men, in mortal need, were depending on you, you were seen by a fellow officer, one Alastair Thatcher, attempting to shoot your brains out — and prevented. All your life you have been a miserable coward fleeing from yourself, trying to think that you lived like a god and could do whatever you liked, glorying in having no soul — so you thought! — hating people, and yet, in your hidden heart, wanting them to love you. And when at last your true self caught you and you had to face the maggot lying behind the likeness of a man, you tried to escape again — to death, like the coward you are, thinking that by killing the body you could cheat the soul.”
Dolughoff’s white face works. “I was sick of myself. I wanted to die. I was sick of myself. Sick!”
The general (softly): “Supposing you were told to take up your body and struggle with it.”
It is as if the words strike him a physical blow. For a moment he sags and drags down the arms holding him; then he begins to struggle against his fetters, against those holding him, with such despairing agony that Daniel Thatcher, watching, suffers with him.… Shaking one of his arms free, he snatches a revolver from the guard’s holster, raises it to his forehead, and fires.
The general’s expression does not change, he does not move. “Let go of his arms men.… Ah, yes, Dolughoff, you always thought you could kill your soul with a revolver.… Well, colonel?”
The colonel: “Let Satan have him. He is no use to God or to man.”
“That is hardly for us to say. Nor can we, who are mortal, say how much or how little he, an insane man, fought to save his soul.… Remanded for judgment to a higher court. Let him go by himself, men.”
Fettered, the irons making a dismal clanking, Dolughoff stumbles blindly toward the door alone. The door opens for him. Gasping and muttering incoherently, he pitches headlong through the opening into the darkness of the unlit firmament.
For a moment no one speaks. Daniel Thatcher, strength drained from him, covers his face with his hands.… The colonel’s voice breaks the silence, cloaking his feelings, his fear, with a tone bitterly ironical. “General, let us have someone who is more of a credit to the so-called human race.”
“Sergeant, bring in Charles Burnet.”
Charles strolls in, looking a little frightened, but determined to put a good face on the inevitable. With courteous dignity: “I trust I am not intruding, sir. I could come some other time.”
“Captain Charles Burnet,” says the general, referring to his papers. “Rather brave, rather gay, rather kindly, well-meaning , poetic temperament without being creative. Everything about you, sir, seems to be ‘rather.’ What are you doing here, anyway? No particular complexities to you that I can see. Why did you come to this court?”
“The fact is, I rather thought — well, isn’t there usually a judgment, er — a ceremony of some sort? … Of course, I’m guilty, I expect. I’ve never been a serious-minded person. Still, I’ve always been myself, and rather a cheerful soul, too, if I may say so. No real harm in me, I think.”
“And a great deal of good, I dare say. It’s not my job to judge you, captain. You are a routine case. You should have been handled downstairs. Why did you come here?”
“Well — call it intellectual curiosity, sir.”
“You do not yet know enough to have it satisfied. Just how real are you, Captain Burnet? Oh, I admit you have a charming presence on the stage, but you are always acting the beau rôle , aren’t you? And doing it well, too — and that’s a good thing, in its way.… In the war you got a trifle more than you bargained for. You got a bit rattled, hurried your lines, and for an instant the audience went blank before you. Then you had an inkling — that is why you are here.”
“Perhaps,” Charles assents. “You must admit, sir, that I stuck it.”
The general agrees politely. “Nothing in life so well became you as your taking off. You have a good sense of exit.… Captain Burnet, you have always had sufficient money, passions that were not tyrannous, and superb health, haven’t you?”
“Yes, general, that’s true,” Charles admits thoughtfully.
“Then, sir, why in the name of common sense — Forgive me for being short with you, but you should not be wasting my time and you know it! But bless my soul, I can’t be harsh with you, you are such a charming fellow. And well loved, too, I believe.… Next, sergeant!”
The colonel (reflectively): “It is a strange thing, sir, that all those whom we have seen have come here through fear or because they want something.”
The general: “The love of Maud Thatcher for her husband?”
“Unselfish? Perhaps, or was it habit? Who knows? But do none of these moderns love something quite outside themselves?”
The general: “They have five good senses. The sixth is rudimentary, as yet. It is easy to love a human being, or perhaps even an idea; it is difficult to love a spirit.… Is there anyone else, sergeant?”
“A man who wants to be damned, sir.”
“An unusual wish, certainly. It suggests an unusual character. Bring him in.”
Quentin Pilgrim Thatcher enters, naked. His glance wanders over the officers without surprise or interest. His attitude indicates that there can be no thought or experience which he has not anticipated in his own mind.
“You are Quentin Pilgrim Thatcher?”
“I was, before I discarded all identity.”
“Your age?”
“Twenty-two — in years.”
“And you wished to be damned? Why?”
“Because I am nothing. Because to be damned is to pass into the nullity of the universe. Whilst we live we must contemplate our futility. That is hell. When we die, mercifully, we cease to be.”
The general (ironically): “All this has a very familiar ring.… Thatcher, why do you say you are nothing?
“Seeing clearly the greater loyalty. I turned my back upon it and chose the lesser. I knew that a man such as I was had to fight against the war, not simply because it brought suffering to the world but because it destroyed men’s love of life and faith in it. And by putting despair in its place, destroyed their spirits.… I did not persevere unto the end.”
“Other men believing as you believed have faltered, and have not been damned for it.”
“Mine was not the treachery of Peter but of Judas. Peter was a simple man, a follower, and he knew it; when he denied Christ, he could turn again and plod back over the bitter path. But Judas was a leader, a man of ten talents. He saw the truth and understood it. Judas hanged himself.”
“Why did you betray your belief?”
“I stood alone.”
“But you were not the only conscientious objector. You were imprisoned with others who thought as you did.”
“They were different from me. They had not fought in France. They were not my friends. My friends were in France.”
“Go on, Thatcher.”
“I could not find in myself the strength to stand alone. I lost my faith in life or in God — call it what you will. This bloodiness and filth and cruelty that I went to, lived in, and left only to think of the more — how could there be a plan working through it? How can there be? I tried to pray; I have always thought of prayer as the elevation of the soul to God. I have read of patriarchs in the old days beseeching God for a sign, and
in their despair beating their fists against a wall till the blood flowed. I never thought that I, a cold modern, an intellectual, could come to that.… But I did.”
The general (gently): “If a man tries to believe and cannot — do you think he is to blame?”
“Yes! Those things which we put into the mind’s well we must take out. In the pride of intellect one occupies the mind with doubts about the trivial points of dogma that do not matter. One dwells wilfully in materialism. Through lazy sluggishness one does not lift the soul, and presently, that other world grows dim and fades beyond recall. We make our thoughts, and the seeds we plant bear fruit a thousand fold.… I know .… For Peter this would not bring damnation. But I was gifted.”
The general meditates, his hand shading his eyes. Presently, he stirs and is about to speak, but as if dissatisfied with his thought, says nothing. Daniel Thatcher, a spellbound atom full of fear, present at the baring of a soul, attempts to read the thoughts of those sitting behind the bench. Not once before this moment has the general hesitated or changed his expression. Before those others, he has listened as if to old stories, which he knows by heart, that break off in the middle, and to which he can, if he wishes, add a sequel. But now, so it seems to Daniel, the general, too, is suffering with Quentin Thatcher, and in agony he is searching his heart for some pretext to be lenient, to be merciful.
The general (wearily): “What was this lesser loyalty to which you gave yourself?”
“I had cut myself off from those I respected. They were men with whom I had faced death. I went back to them.”
The general breathes a deep sigh. Is it of relief? “At least you have not betrayed your loyalty for thirty pieces of silver.… Will any of these friends speak for you?”
There is a long moment of silence, then Quentin answers: “None.”
Daniel Thatcher, bereft of strength by his friend’s denial of him, pulls himself to his feet and advances, every step a struggle through quicksand, toward the circle of light. There he flings out his arms to bar the path against the guards who are leading away Quentin.