A Whispered Name (21 page)

Flanagan,
however, did learn something from Mr Drennan that he may not have wanted to
teach: that freedom is always purchased by disobedience. This wasn’t about the ‘politics
of tenure’. It was about personal identity. And Flanagan wanted to break from
the island’s ways, if only for a while. He’d seen a map — a guide to other
places than the one beneath your feet. It had spoken to him in a way that Lord
Kitchener’s appeal had not.

The
moment of decision was not chosen. It presented itself.

‘The
fields were hemmed in with walls,’ said Flanagan. ‘My father built them to some
strange design from his dreams. It was carefully done, balancing the large with
the small, arranging the weight in such a way as to bring beauty from strength.
They were patterned, like my mother’s quilts, but in stone. When the third
field had been enclosed, when the last stone had been laid, my father turned to
me and said, “And now we make a fourth field, for Brendan.” I took a breath. For
Brendan? He can make the yoke himself, that’s what I thought.’

At that
moment, opposite his father’s exultation, Flanagan decided to leave Inisdúr,
though of course it had nothing to do with the making of another field. After
supper, in the simple way of an islander, without preliminaries or ornament, he
told his parents he would leave for England in a week. Brendan had been sent
outside but he was listening at the window ‘I want to stretch my legs,’
Flanagan had said. There was labouring to be done over there, what with the
shortage of men away at the war. ‘I’ll be back in six months or so, he’d
pleaded, as his father, in the way of an islander, stomped from the room.

Word
went around the low, granite houses: ‘Seosamh is going away’ No one believed
that he’d come back. It was Drennan’s fault, some said. He’d given the boy
ideas. There was a kind of fear in their silence towards him. One woman gave it
voice. She lived alone on the far side of the island. Her husband had been
taken by the sea. Meg was her name.

‘The
house was alone in a cove surrounded by cliffs,’ said Flanagan. ‘The inside
walls were black from the soot. Her clothes were black and smelled of the fire.
Even her skin was black, from years of tending the turf in the grate. Sure, she
was half gone.’ He tapped his head and winked. ‘Well, there I was, on the
beach. The tide was out and I was gathering shells, something to take with me
to England, when I felt this hand grip my elbow I hadn’t heard her coming. God,
she was a sight: all bent over and black and dribbling. “Seosamh,” she said, “don’t
go.” She pulled me down to her level. “Don’t leave the land.” Dear God, what’s
she been eating, I thought … I told her to calm herself and have some tea.
But that night … that night I dreamt of Meg. And it was so … so real. I was
back on that beach, running away and her voice bounced off the cliffs, “The
fields will die.” The shells were sucking at my feet. “If you leave the land,
Seosamh, death will claim you.” I woke up with a cry, panting and covered with
sweat. My mother was there, by the bed, holding my hand. “I’m not
leaving,
Ma,”
I cried, “It’s six months, a fling, nothing more.

He was calm by the time
they reached the woods.

Herbert
wasn’t. Agitation had entered his blood. He felt accused: by Flanagan’s story
and his own. They’d come to a halt. On their left was a long, low barn. To
their right a track ran into the shadows towards a clearing. A mix of trees
crowded the verge. For a moment they stared into the leafy space, at the grass,
the sifted light, and a speckling of tiny mauve and yellow flowers at the mouth
of the path. Abruptly Herbert turned around and, though he walked, he was
fleeing the colour, as he’d once run from the chant. He’d no senses left that
were fit to receive beauty; what he had was contaminated. He’d been stirred,
too, by Flanagan’s mutiny It had been deeper than the poetry of his teacher,
deeper than the nationalist thought-out politics of self-determination, but
what had Herbert done? Had he ever reached that moment of necessary, liberating
disobedience?

‘The
night before I left,’ resumed Flanagan, when Herbert dropped back, ‘I went to
see Mr Drennan. Again I went by the fields, avoiding the road. He was expecting
me. Normally he drank porter or poitín from his own still but this time on the
table was a neat white cloth. In the middle were a bottle of burgundy wine and
two glasses. I told him I’d taken the pledge, and he gave the table a whack and
he fairly flew off the handle: “This is not some cheap forbidden froth. ‘Tis a
sacred drink, boy. Take the glass and honour our parting.”‘

Herbert’s
parents had done much the same thing when he took his commission with the
Lancers. His father had opened a bottle given to him by his own father for such
a moment. When decanted it was found to be corked.

‘I said
I couldn’t, that I’d made a vow’ Flanagan was almost laughing. ‘So Mr Drennan
paced around, muttering and swearing, and finally he said, “A vow be damned.
Sit yourself down, so, and you can watch.” So I did. Slowly he poured the wine,
into his glass and into mine, and he said in a drone, “I’ll drink this one now.
The other I shall save for your homecoming, however bitter the grape might
turn.” He drained his glass in complete silence and he put mine on a shelf and
covered it with a writing slate.’

Herbert’s
father had poured the old vintage down the sink and opened something young and
fresh. They’d toasted youth and the coming of age and responsibility. Herbert
had been very happy Time seemed to stop, and Herbert suffered once more the joy
of that last night in the dining room, when the road from the front door was
clearly marked.

For
some reason, explained Flanagan, with another laugh, labour in England was not
a heresy against the Drennan canons of Irish orthodoxy The teacher had many
friends over there. When Flanagan left the cottage, he carried a letter of
introduction to a good man in Tyneside who ran a gang of boys on the shipyards.
A foreman with the power to hire and fire, a bad Gaelic speaker. The next
morning Flanagan left Inisdúr.

‘There
was a track from the slip to our farm,’ said Flanagan. ‘It wound through the
scatter of houses. As I walked away my mother watched from the window. My
father was alone, looking over the fields. Every now and then folk came out and
shook my hand. It was only when I got to the slip that I realised Brendan had
followed me … he was always following me, you know, and I was always walking
away But I didn’t wait for him. I’d been stunned by the sight of the crowd on
the walls.’

In 1913
Herbert’s mother and father, uncle, two aunts, four nephews and three nieces
had all come to the station in Keswick. His father had been speechless with
pride. His mother had maintained the firm, distant look that had built India at
the cost of immense social and cultural privation — her habitual look, in fact.
They’d all shaken hands and Herbert had left to join the regiment.

Corporal
Mackie jangled keys, held high like a lantern.

Herbert
blinked, surprised that they’d already reached the school at Oostbeke. At the
sound, Flanagan moved away from Herbert without another word. Obediently he
descended the steps towards the cellar, and Herbert found himself wanting to
call out, but there was nothing to say After securing the door, Mackie said, ‘Begging
your pardon, Sir, but why isn’t Flanagan locked up with the other arseholes?’

‘An
incisive question, Corporal,’ replied Herbert, his limbs heavy with rage. ‘I
imagine it’s because within the week we’re going to shoot him, and our CO
thinks he deserves some privacy beforehand.’

‘Of
course, Sir.’ Mackie saluted, content that he’d shown his disapproval.

He’d
swagger about that within half an hour, thought Herbert. He’d tell his mates
the officer had gone red in the face. The corporal marched off — he didn’t know
how to walk any more — and as he grew smaller, his arms swinging with
magnificent ease, Herbert realised his question hadn’t been answered. He still
hadn’t the faintest idea why Joseph Flanagan had joined the British Army.

3

Duggie Hammond was in the
courtyard, walking in a circle, hands behind his back. Angus charged ahead and
charged back again, his jaws slack, his limbs shaking. (The view of Tindall was
that he had shellshock. He’d been brought to the front on a visit with General
Lindsay A 5.9 came out of the blue and took out the brass hat, leaving the dog
behind. He’d been with Duggie ever since.) Herbert appraised the deranged
animal with pity. It had stopped running and was staring at the ground as
though it were a radio. The chickens stood well back.

‘I
received this communiqué from none other than the Assistant Adjutant General
for discipline, or, more likely, a servant thereof.’

Duggie
withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his tunic pocket and handed it to
Herbert, who read the text out loud: “‘The point helpfully raised on intention
and drunkenness regarding the offence of desertion is being considered by my
legal team. In the course of discussion on the subject it has been brought to
my attention, quite rightly that the cost of two field dressings ought to be
deducted from any pay due to the convicted prisoner. Please make the necessary
arrangements.”‘

Herbert
folded the page back into a neat square and offered it to Duggie as though it
lay upon a platter. Angus slumped exhausted on the ground, growling at the
chickens.

‘Herbert,
do you know the species of this creature?’

He
shook his head, utterly disinterested.

‘He’s
an Irish Setter.’

Voices
and footsteps approached. The seven other officers of the battalion had come to
Duggie’s billet for a nightcap. Over whisky the discussion quickly turned to
the unrest in Étaples. Apparently someone had been killed. An MP shot a Gordon
Highlander by accident and the crowd went crazy Despite the gravity of the
subject, Herbert’s mind was elsewhere. He was listening to that Gaelic music.
The foreign music he’d heard in the reserve trenches the night he’d shot
Quarters as he sank with a mule.

Chapter Twenty-Three

1

Sarah Osborne,
great-great-granddaughter of General Sir Ralph Spencer Osborne VC DSO,
commander of the Ninth Army between 1915 and 1918, lived with her father,
David, in the family home purchased by the general shortly after the armistice.
Then, as now, it was situated comfortably back from a quiet lane and surrounded
by several acres of land rented out to local farmers. This much, and clear
directions, Anselm learned from a village newsagent, having got lost on his way
to tea at four. The main entrance was beneath a portico supported by two Greek
columns. A fire crackled in the hall.

‘For
chatting and leaning upon,’ said Sarah, stroking a velvet padded rail that
framed the hearth. ‘They’re from the officers’ mess of the Cambridgeshires.
They became redundant after the MoD obliterated four hundred years of tradition
by amalgamating three regiments with nothing in common save an acknowledgement
that you can’t reduce an army’s size and increase its responsibilities at one
and the same time.’

Sarah
was in her early thirties, thought Anselm. Despite the pastoral calm of her
surroundings, she had a windswept look. Her hair was unruly thick with early
strands of grey held aside by a single wooden clip. When she spoke her face
barely moved. Her gait was strangely delicate, as though she were avoiding
broken glass on the carpet. Anselm followed her into the sitting room and was
immediately struck by the panelling of rich dark oak — all culled, it
transpired, from the mess in which several Osborne sons had learned the customs
of war. Anselm sank into a wonderfully soft armchair of faded chestnut leather.

‘My
father’s making the tea,’ said Sarah, propped on the edge of her matching seat,
one leg hooked elegantly behind the other. ‘I understand you’d like to talk
about the outcome of the Flanagan court martial?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can’t
really
help, I’m afraid,’ she said, apologetically ‘But I have a little something
for you … something I found among Ralph’s papers after I’d looked at the
Flanagan file myself. But first, let’s have some refreshment.’

The
door had opened while Sarah was speaking. A balding, slight man in a shapeless
suit bustled in pushing a clinking trolley laden with sandwiches and crockery
His high, dark eyebrows reversed the shape of his smiling mouth, giving his
face a jolly appearance.

‘You
come in the wake of Kate Seymour,’ said David, having introduced himself with
a vigorous handshake. ‘I understand you’ve met. ‘He placed a cup of tea on a
side table near Anselm. ‘Martin effected the introduction. Said she was a
private researcher and, like you, wanted to trace the missing pieces in Joseph
Flanagan’s trial.’ He fell back in an armchair. ‘Frankly we got the impression
she was connected to the family and wouldn’t say so.

Which
was hardly astonishing, he stressed. Often the relatives weren’t told about the
execution of a husband, father or son. It was just ‘died of wounds’ if they
were told at all. They found out, though, when a pension was stopped; when
there was no ‘dead man’s penny’. That’s when the shame began, and a great silence
without any commemoration.