Apple Blossom Time (37 page)

He was writing, giving me only a fraction of his attention. ‘Mmm?’

‘Edwin Ansty.’

‘I don’t think…’

‘It was a long time ago.’ I could hear myself, breathy and apologetic: ‘1918. France. Edwin Ansty.’ Now I had his attention. He screwed the cap back on his fountain pen and laid it on the desk. ‘You were battalion MO and he was…’

‘No, really, I don’t think—’

‘I
know
you knew him. I’ve got letters.’

‘I don’t want—’

‘He said … he said you were a good chap.’

He pushed back his spectacles and massaged the bridge of his nose. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Something. Anything. Why did he die?’

‘I don’t know why he died. And that’s the truth.’

What a literal-minded man. I phrased my question a different way. ‘What had he been accused of?’

‘Of … of cowardice in the face of the enemy.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘I can’t be expected … it was a very long time ago … how can I remember…’

‘Please.’ I put my hand out and it nearly touched his across the desk before he pulled his back into his lap. ‘Please.’

*   *   *

‘I wish I didn’t have to … I wish you hadn’t come … these things are better left …

‘I remember … it was late August and we were beginning to roll the Germans back, taking control of almost all the ground we had lost in the enemy spring push. It was the beginning of the end of the war, though we didn’t know it. The soldier on the ground never sees the great plan. I suppose there was one. All you see, all you really believe in, is the few hundred yards spread out in front of you. All you care about is what happens today, or maybe tomorrow. All you think about is surviving until the next leave. Everything else is as remote as the moon … or the commander in chief.

‘The battalion was facing a German strong point – twenty yards of wire and concrete bunkers – that could be dominated from one of those bloody little hills, you know, hills with numbers that told you how far above sea level they were – Hill 60, Hill 62, I forget what number this one had. Molehills, really, you wouldn’t even notice them on a stroll across the common. But they were so
bloody
important. We had orders to take this one.

‘I was only the doctor, remember. I wasn’t there. I didn’t really know what was going on. I just patched and stitched – and hacked, if I had to.

‘Only a little hill, but we took it and then they threw us off it and then we took it again, up and down … a messy, messy business, close combat, cut and stab. I had a busy day. At the end of it, just before dark, your father crawled back into the lines. No-one had seen him since morning. What had happened? Where had he been? He wouldn’t say.

‘So of course, there was talk. Men who go missing during bloody battles do get themselves talked about. He was placed under arrest and court-martialled – but you knew that – and he never said a word. Never excused himself. Never explained.

‘No, not even when they passed sentence. I don’t suppose he had time to draw breath, it was all over so quickly. Only three officers are needed to hold a field general court martial, instead of the peacetime five. The CO appointed himself president of the court – I don’t know, I’m only a doctor, look it up in the
Manual of Military Law,
can’t you. He seemed to take it as a personal affront that he had to try one of his officers. Not many officers were shot, you know. Only another three, throughout the whole war, and one of those was sentenced for murder. Not that officers were more or less cowardly than the other ranks, just that their pals covered up for them more efficiently, I suspect. No-one covered up for your father, but then no-one could. No-one knew where he’d been.

‘We took over the upstairs room of the local
estaminet
– bit of a squeeze to hold a court martial in a dugout. They had to shove an iron double bed against the wall to push in a trestle table and a few chairs. What a farce. Trying a man for his life with a potty under the bed and a woman’s nightie hanging on a nail on the door. The three officers sat in a row at the table, hats on, swords in front of them. The CO, Major Carterton – he was second-in-command – and one of the company commanders, Handsworth – he was killed the following week, I seem to remember.

‘The adjutant prosecuted. Open and shut. Your father went out on the attack in the morning and no-one saw him until he came creeping back in the evening. No defence. No mitigating plea. He had a prisoner’s friend, of course, to speak for him. Rules are rules. A subaltern – Roding – Tim, or Tom, I forget. He was useless. A gibbering wretch. Couldn’t string two sensible words together. Not that a QC could have done any better, I imagine. Not when there was nothing to explain. What on earth can you do with a man who refuses to talk?

‘I was called to testify. I’d examined him, you see, to find out if there was any medical reason for his behaviour. The CO was fair, give him his due. I did my best. I reminded the court of your father’s exemplary record, of his MC, of how long he’d been in France, under what terrible conditions. But so had we all. There was no getting away from it – he was as sane as anyone in that room, whatever that might mean. I couldn’t fudge that.

‘So the trial ended. I remember looking across the room and realizing that your father really didn’t
believe
that it could happen to him. He was so calm. He still had faith in the system, in the good will of his fellows – amazing, isn’t it?

‘I don’t know what he expected. A slap on the wrist. Prison. Not death, I’m sure.

‘To pronounce a sentence of death, the court has to be unanimous. But how could it not be? With the CO as president, Carterton licking his … boots … and a junior officer imagining what his life could be like if he held out on his own, perhaps salving his conscience by relying on the commendation to mercy.

‘A court martial works in a peculiar way. If the finding is Not Guilty, or a punishment within the authority of the president, the prisoner is told straight away. Anything else – cashiering or long imprisonment or death – and the sentence has to be confirmed by a higher authority. For the death penalty, only the commander-in-chief’s signature will do. If you’re lucky, the court will add a commendation to mercy and so will the reviewing officers, all the way up the chain. If you’re lucky. So, at the end, if you’re not told what’s going to happen to you, you know it’s something serious. And you have to wait. A couple of weeks, perhaps. In the summer of 1918, a new procedure was introduced – the secret envelope.

‘Secret envelope? Don’t you know? The court couldn’t state outright that the sentence was death, because it hadn’t been confirmed, so a secret envelope was slipped to the prisoner telling him that he was going to be shot. Can you imagine – the suspense, the fear, until confirmation came through? When perhaps it wasn’t going to happen at all. It was meant to be kindness, but it was pretty near to torture. One poor devil cut his throat while he was waiting – before the verdict was quashed.

‘And
still,
I swear, Edwin didn’t believe it could happen. He knew what penalty is laid down for cowardice in the face of the enemy – death or such lesser punishment as the Army Act sanctions – and he didn’t believe …

‘I was with him the night the sentence was promulgated. The doctor gets called on for all sorts of unsavoury tasks. In this case, I think there is a fear that the prisoner will faint or have a fit or something. Got to keep the victim healthy, so you can shoot him in the morning. The adjutant read out the sentence and he was crying. “I’m sorry, Edwin – I can’t believe it’s come to this – I’m so sorry.”

‘And then your father knew – not until then, I swear – that it was hopeless. The heart went out of him. He rocked, I remember, as though he was going to fall. I put out my hand to catch him, but he held on to the table instead. “Not your fault, Jack,” he said to the adjutant. “No-one to blame but me.” I gave him a shot of morphia to take away the shock, with the promise of another one in the morning. It was all I could do. That’s what doctors are for, isn’t it? To make the best of things? Patch up other people’s mistakes?

‘My God, he was only a boy. But they were all boys – how many? – three hundred odd over the four years, I think, dragged out into a cold dawn and hooked on to a post or tied on to a chair, so that they couldn’t move and spoil the firing squad’s aim. It’s a sort of common sense, I suppose. Much crueller to make a mess of it.

‘No, I didn’t see it. They took him away. Just before first light, a party arrived with a closed vehicle – two provost sergeants, a provost officer and another doctor from the headquarters staff. They took him away. I don’t know where. No-one ever told me anything.

‘And when it was over, the … the proceedings were usually published in Routine Orders, to make sure everyone knew. No, I didn’t actually see it myself. I had better things to do than scrutinize bits of paper.

‘That’s all. I don’t know. No, there’s nothing more I can tell you. I’m sorry, it’s distressing for you. Look, I don’t know … Will you see yourselves out? I wish you hadn’t come. What good does it do…?’

*   *   *

On the way home, I stared out of the train window, reluctant to face Martin, reluctant to face the truth. I’d come to the end of the search. I knew as much as anyone, as much as anyone still alive, that is. And that wasn’t enough. I knew what, but I didn’t know why. I knew how, but I didn’t know where.

I stared fiercely at the blurred, passing countryside. If I closed my eyes, I could see my father being led away to his death. Just before dawn, as the cocks were crowing.

*   *   *

‘Guess what?’ Vee wrote. ‘I’m still here. Carlton is doing his best to get me entry to the US of A, but his government certainly is picky. Tidworth is a Godawful hole. Come and see me, before I go round the bend…’

*   *   *

Standing at the top of Station Road, looking down the slope of shabby shops towards Tidworth, I could see exactly what Vee had meant. On the opposite side of the Salisbury-Marlborough road, beyond the handful of thatched cottages, the line curved, red brick and blue slate barracks, each one identical to its neighbour, unchanged since the early days of the century. A banner hung across one door –
BRIDE RECEPTION
.

‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ snorted Vee. ‘A real gateway to paradise.’

‘There are so many women,’ Pansy remarked as we walked down the hill, and so there were – pregnant women, women pushing prams, women leading toddlers – scarcely a man in sight. A few GIs, rootless and jobless, mooched around with cigarettes drooping from their lips and their hands in their pockets. There seemed to be a baseball game going on in the stadium by the main road. As we passed, a couple of small boys disappeared down a culvert that led under the stadium wire. The Yanks were still good for a spot of free entertainment.

‘There’s thousands of us – GI brides. We’re all waiting for Uncle Sam to decide whether we’re fit to be allowed into his country. Only he’s very particular. He doesn’t want bad girls trapping his boys into marriage. So we have to wait while our morals are dusted down and inspected. Lectures on this. Lectures on that. Leaflets on how to behave ourselves when we meet our in-laws. Pep talks on how we mustn’t all expect an icebox and a coloured maid. It’s called processing and it makes me feel like a tin of corned beef. Tidworth is the waiting room to the promised land, yessir. They even inspect us for VD, because everyone knows there’s no such thing in the land of the free.’

I looked at Vee, trying to decide whether she was being flippant or bitter, but I couldn’t make up my mind. She was much the same – a little plumper, perhaps (she’d still not quite managed to lose the weight she’d put on before Carlton Junior’s birth), glossy, well groomed from her permed curls to her painted toenails. Pansy and I looked like a pair of country bumpkins. Yet there was an air of discontent about her, a restless, challenging swing to her walk. It didn’t suit her.

‘Christ, this is a real hole. Miles away from anywhere. Hardly any shops. Even two boiled eggs for breakfast is no consolation. It’s like being back in the bloody army again – rules and regulations – go this way, don’t go that way. If there’s one thing worse than living with a pack of women, it’s living with a pack of women and their squalling brats. Two of the girls in my barrackroom have already run back home to Mother. I tell you, if Carlton doesn’t pull a few strings soon and get me over the pond double quick, I’ll find myself another man who can. Only joking, love,’ she said quickly, seeing Pansy’s shocked face. ‘Tell you what – I’ll stand you coffee and doughnuts, how about that?’

We strolled along the lime-edged avenue towards Tedworth House, under a portico that led from a carriage turning circle, and into an elegant entrance hall with a sweeping staircase leading from it. The paintwork was scarred by careless boots. Initials had been scored into the plasterwork. The cornice had been stained by an upstairs flood.

‘Pretty nice, huh?’ said Vee. ‘Wonder what it was like to live here in the good old days. Fancy me moving in such grand circles. I tell you, I think about my gran’s shop in Leathermarket Street and then I look round here and I have to pinch myself. Come on, I could kill for a coffee.’

A room with sash windows to the floor and views across the park had been converted into a canteen. We queued at a long table where young men in overalls served coffee from an urn.

‘Morning, Heinz,’ Vee greeted the one who handled the milk jug. ‘How’re you today?’

‘I am very well, thank you,’ he answered in careful English. ‘How are you?’

He was squat and dark, not the least bit Aryan. Pansy was gaping and I suddenly realized that, despite five years of war, she had never actually seen a living German.

‘PoWs,’ Vee informed us in a loud, careless voice. ‘Rather sweet. Bit like prison trusties, I suppose. Still, they’ve got to earn their keep somehow.’

‘But why don’t we send them home?’ queried Pansy, looking back over her shoulder with sympathy. ‘Surely we can’t keep them now the war’s over.’

‘I expect we would if we could,’ I reassured her. ‘But we still haven’t managed to demob all our own men yet, let alone the enemy. And things are in such a mess in the east, some of them have nowhere to go, anyway.’