“Oh, no. I don’t think so.” Boy stopped. He shook his head. “I think you’re wrong there. No, no. It’s me she loves. It always was. I’m her special brother. Her guardian. She told me so herself.”
“Oh, yes—of course. I forgot.” Steenie hesitated. On the terrace above them he could just see the figure of Freddie, wandering back and forth in a desultory way. Steenie waved his arms desperately. Freddie, looking the wrong way, did not see this wave. Steenie wondered if he dared to shout. No, perhaps it was better not to shout. It might startle Boy.
Boy was now staring at the trees of the birch grove. “Freddie’s birthday,” he said. “We had a picnic—do you remember? It was here, wasn’t it? Yes. It was. I remember, I was sitting just over there, and Constance was behind me, under those trees—”
“Yes. That’s right. We had champagne—pink champagne.” Steenie squeezed Boy’s arm. He edged away a few paces. He waved his arms again in the air; still Freddie did not see him.
“I know. Look, Boy, there’s Freddie now. Just up by the house. Why don’t I go and fetch him? Then we could all sit here for a while and … and remember the picnic, all Freddie’s presents, what we had to eat. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Boy?”
“Good idea. You fetch him. I’ll just sit down here and wait. Have another pipe, maybe. This is very good tobacco. I bought it in London. Not that terrible army-issue stuff …”
Boy sat down beneath a tree. The Pomeranian, bored now, also sat down. A small white puff of fur; it sat there, tongue lolling, looking out toward the lake. Steenie backed off a few more paces. He walked ten yards, looked back. Boy had his tobacco pouch out; he was beginning the process of stuffing the pipe.
Steenie began to run. He ran another ten yards. He waved his arms. He was half-blinded with tears. What was the
matter
with Freddie—had he gone blind? He waved again; he risked a small shout. Freddie looked up; Steenie gave a sob of relief. He increased his pace, his London coat flapping, his London shoes slipping on the grass.
“Freddie,” he called. “Freddie, for God’s sake.”
Freddie began to walk toward him. Steenie stumbled, righted himself, ran faster still. His scarf fell off; he dropped his gloves. He waved his arms once more in a kind of wild semaphore, and finally—how long it took—Freddie seemed to pick up this signal of distress. He, too, began to run. Steenie cannoned into him a few yards below the terrace. He clutched at Freddie’s coat. He had been running uphill and was panting so badly he could scarcely speak.
“Freddie—oh, Freddie, come—quickly—”
“What the hell is it? Steenie, calm down—”
“It’s Boy. Freddie, please. Just come. It’s terrible. He’s sitting down there. He’s probably talking to himself. He’s mad—totally mad. Look, just come—I’ll explain later. Oh, Freddie, it was horrible. He just keeps talking, on and on—he says these mad things. I’ve had to listen … It went on for hours. Freddie, please—”
“Where is he?”
“Down there, by the birch grove. He’s having a pipe. I thought I’d never get him back to the house. He went on and on—Freddie, all these mad things. He thinks he killed Shawcross—”
“What?”
Freddie, who had begun to run back down the slope, stopped.
“He does. He does. Freddie—it’s the war. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. What’s the matter?”
Steenie, running to catch up with Freddie, had just seen his brother’s face.
“Oh, my God,” Freddie said.
Steenie, turning, saw what Freddie had seen. It was there below him, a tableau: Boy, the gun, and Constance’s dog. The dog, a tiny white spot from where they stood, was still sitting in the same place; Boy was not. He was standing perhaps twelve feet from the animal, his gun raised; it was clear, both to Steenie and to Freddie, that he had the dog in his sights.
“He’s going to shoot it. Freddie, he’s going to shoot it. Do something—do something quickly. Call to him, Freddie, attract his attention, wave—”
Freddie opened his mouth. No sound came out. He waved his arms. Steenie waved his arms. They managed, between them, a feeble cry. They started forward again, then stopped. They had heard the shout.
It was a great shout, a huge shout. It cracked the air, bent the trees, snapped the thin crust of ice on the lake. All the rooks rose up from the branches of the trees and swirled above the woods in a panic of smoke. Boy lifted his head; he watched them wheel, turn, settle. He had told Constance he would shout for her, and now it was done. The bayonet-charge shout—he had promised her that: the shout designed to curdle the enemy’s blood, the shout so loud it could be heard in London, on a train north. That shout.
He bent his head again, shouldered the gun once more, set his sights on the dog. Above him, Steenie and Freddie saw him do this. The dog, a stupid dog, took no notice of the gun.
Boy had begun to shake. This happened now. The shakes were not always controllable, even after a shout. Boy frowned. He glanced up at the figures of his brothers, who were running and waving their arms.
“Go away,” Boy shouted, so that he could get on with the business of killing the dog. He lifted the gun again. His brothers did not go away. They continued to run and wave their arms in the air and cry out. Boy turned his back.
He walked back a few feet, out of sight, to the place in which Constance had been seated on the day of the picnic. Ignoring the dog now, he considered this place, where the roots of the birches made ruts in the ground. He patted the pocket of his jacket, which contained the note to his mother: one note for Constance, one note for Gwen—that had seemed right.
He hoped he had explained it clearly enough in his note. He knew it was important not to make a mess of this—which sometimes people did, with the most horrible consequences. He did not want to blow his jaw off, or let the gun slip so he took a gut wound; his mother would be distressed by that. What he wanted to do—and he was sure he had explained it to her, very clearly—was blast his brains out of his skull with one sure clean shot, so there was nothing left. It was possible, of course, that if he went back to the trenches, the Germans would do this for him. That could not be relied upon, however, whereas this could.
His mother would understand. Boy leaned forward. He positioned the Purdey so the shoulder of the gun was wedged and firm in a rut. He leaned it toward him and looked down the barrels. He smoothed the silver mounts, engraved with the design his father had chosen all those years before. He opened his mouth and wriggled gently, so the tips of the barrels were wedged between his teeth and the roof of his mouth.
Constance’s dog gave a small whine. Boy thought his brothers might be close now, because they had stopped shouting. It was not really fair to make them watch. Forget the dog—he had better be quick.
The gun tasted sour, of iron and oil. It made him gag, pressing down on his tongue. Steenie and Freddie, who had stopped short some twenty yards away, saw Boy retch. He repositioned the gun. Freddie took one step forward. He lifted his hand. Steenie found he could not move. He was sure it would be all right—even then. Boy was in such an awkward position; the gun might slip at any instant; it would be difficult to pull the trigger downward rather than back; Boy’s hand was unsteady; Boy was, always had been, a lousy shot.
This is not happening,
said a clear voice in Steenie’s mind. (It was Steenie’s first experience of shock.) He waited for Boy to drop the gun, straighten up.
He will jerk at the trigger, not squeeze,
Steenie thought.
He always does.
Steenie opened his mouth to say Boy’s name. It would not be pronounced. He stared at Freddie. He watched the muscles of his brother’s face move. Freddie’s mouth could not say the name either. It made an O of air. The same idea came to them, at the same moment: Steenie saw it form in Freddie’s eyes; Freddie saw it form in his.
They both turned back to Boy at the same instant. The name that always made him alert, that had never failed to check him.
“Francis—”
They said it in unison. Their tone was exactly right. It was quiet, sensible, and firm.
Boy appeared to listen. Both syllables hung in the air. Steenie could still hear them, almost see them, when Boy (well trained, if not a good shot) squeezed the trigger, and the birthday gun went off.
From my mother’s diaries:
General Hospital 1,
Saint-Hilaire,
March 21, 1917
I
T IS SIX DAYS
since I lost a patient, but this evening the Canadian died. I want to write down his name. It was William Barkham. His family came from Devonshire, but sold up and went to farm in Saskatchewan, in a place called Fort Qu’Appelle. It is a very small place, and their farm’s address is a box number. I have written to his mother there.
I knew that he would die: He had trench foot, and the doctors amputated badly. They had seared the wound with tar; he was then three days at the field station. The gangrene was advanced before he reached here. I knew there was no hope.
He talked to me for an hour before he died. He told me about that farm at Fort Qu’Appelle. They farmed wheat. They kept two cows, some bantams, and some chickens. The farm was near a lake; in the winter mornings, when he rose early for the milking, he used to walk by the lake and watch the sun rising. The ice was three feet thick; it stayed all winter, from November to March. When he was a child his father taught him to skate on that lake, and when he was a man he skated there with his girl. Except—I suppose he was not really a man. He joined up when he was eighteen. He was nineteen yesterday.
Each morning when he finished the milking, he walked back to the farm; his mother cooked him griddlecakes and bacon. He saw her at the end; he spoke her name when he was dying. There was something he wanted to tell her; he clasped my hand very tight; I could see the words in his eyes, but he couldn’t speak them. He was in great pain, and being silenced. It made me very angry.
I wanted a miracle. I wanted to put my hand on him and feel the life come back. I prayed—but nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. There are no more miracles, and God does not listen to my prayers. Perhaps there is no God, and I had to come here to learn that. I think I prefer to believe that, than to believe in the God I see here every day, in the hospital wards, a God who turns his back on an only son, a boy of nineteen, a God who spares no one and never intervenes. Surely he could give some sign—is that so much to ask? Just one resurrection.
I thought I could not cry anymore—I could not even cry when they told me about Boy. Yet I cried tonight for William Barkham, and that made me angry too. Tears are useless. They give no comfort to the dying. Tears are an indulgence.
Some of the nurses take laudanum, for the tears. I will not do that. Wexton says that eventually you reach a place that is not beyond the tears, but in them. Maybe he is right. I am still waiting.
Yesterday Wexton brought me a present at the hospital. It was a haggis. He was given it by a Scotsman. We boiled it in a kettle on a primus stove, and shared it with the nurses on this ward. One slice each. I owe Wexton my life. I also owe Wexton my thanks. He has arranged for me to reach my destination after all: Next week, our transfer comes through. We leave for Étaples on Monday.
“Étaples. Didn’t I tell you I could fix it?”
They stood outside the railway station; the train that had brought them was already steaming away into the distance. A crowd of people, still pushing through the barriers: several other nurses, some French and Belgian soldiers, an old woman dressed in black, carrying a crate of chickens. Jane turned, and there in the distance, just as Wexton had promised her, was Étaples, her destination.
A huge encampment, like a small city: rows and rows of Nissen huts, fields of khaki tents, a parade ground. Jane narrowed her eyes; she could just discern the figures of men, small as ants: They were drilling.
Part of her view was blocked by a large woman standing a few feet away. She was at least six feet tall, with the shoulders of a man and a bosom like the prow of a battleship. The woman wore an unfamiliar uniform, including belted greatcoat, jacket, and tie. On her head was a hat like a basin, pulled low over her eyes and cropped hair. Evidently she had recognized them, for as Wexton spoke, she stepped forward.
“Wexton,” she barked.
Wexton jumped, as well he might, dropped both cases, and swung around with a beam of pleasure.
“Winnie!” He ignored her outstretched hand and kissed her. The giantess blushed scarlet. “Winnie, you’ve come to meet us! How kind. You must meet Jane Conyngham. Jane, this is Winnie. You remember, I told you? Winnie’s a WAAC.”
“How do you do?” Winnie extended her huge hand once more and grasped Jane’s in a painful grip. “WAAC Clerical Division, actually. And as a matter of fact,
I
fixed it. Welcome to Étaples. Give me her bag, Wexton. Good Lord, is this all you have? It’s as light as a feather.”
“Winnie is a woman of influence.” Wexton regarded her with pride. “Better watch out for her. How are you, Winnie?”
“In the pink. In the pink. Good to see you again, Wexton. Good to meet you, Jane. Do you like to be called Jane, or do you prefer surnames? I prefer surnames myself, so I’ll call you Conyngham, I expect. See how things go. See if you last the course. See if I take to you. You may call me Winnie, though. Everyone does. I’m the controller, Regimental Base Depot Two—which is officer ranking, in case you don’t know, but they don’t give us fancy titles because the men wouldn’t like it. If you need me, just ask for Winnie the WAAC—that’ll find me. I work for Colonel Hunter-Coote. One of the old brigade. An absolute sweetie. Got him well trained. Eats out of my hand. So, any problems, any trouble with that matron, and you come to me. She and I have crossed swords already. On a number of occasions. Right—all ready? Off we go then. It’s just over a mile. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”
She turned and set off at a smart pace. Wexton and Jane exchanged glances.