The Absolutist (33 page)

“Up, that man!” shouts Clayton, rushing over to us now. “Sadler, push him up!”

I do it, I don’t even think of the consequences of my actions, but between us Clayton and I push the boy to the top of the ladder and there’s nowhere for him to go now but over and he falls on his belly, the possibility of a return to the trench out of the question. I watch as he slithers forward, his boots disappearing from my eye line, and I turn to Clayton, who is staring at me with insanity in his eyes. We look at each other and I think,
Look at what we have just done
, and then he returns to the side of the lines as Wells orders the rest of us upward and I don’t hesitate now, I climb the ladder and throw myself over and I stand tall, do not lift my rifle but stare at the chaos around me, and think,
Here I am, take me now, why don’t you? Shoot me
.

I’m still alive.

The silence is astonishing. Sergeant Clayton addresses forty of us, standing in pathetic lines that look nothing like the neat rows we learned to form in Aldershot. I know only a few of these men; they’re filthy and exhausted, some badly wounded, some half mad. To my surprise Will is present, standing between Wells and Harding, who each grip one of his arms as if there’s a possibility that he might run away. Will has a haunted look and he barely glances up from the ground; only once, and when he does he looks at me but doesn’t seem to recognize me. There are dark circles under his eyes and a raised bruise along his left cheek.

Clayton is shouting at us, telling us how brave we’ve been over the last eight hours, then condemning us as a bunch of
frightened mice the next. He was never completely sane, I think, but he’s lost it entirely now. He’s blabbering on about morale and how we’re going to win the war but refers to the Greeks rather than the Germans on more than one occasion and loses his train of thought over and over again. It’s clear that he shouldn’t be here.

I glance over towards Wells, the next most senior man, to see if he’s aware how damaged our sergeant has become, but he’s not paying much attention. It’s not as if he can do anything, anyway. Mutiny is impossible.

“And this man, this man here!” shouts Clayton then, marching over towards Will, who looks up in surprise as if he has barely registered that he is even present in the moment. “This man who refuses to fight this fucking coward what do you think of him men not like you is he taught better taught better than that I know I was the one who taught him makes all sorts of outrageous suggestions then pops his head down on a pillow in his cell while the rest of you brave lads are here to train because it’s only a few weeks before we head off to France to fight and this man this man here he says he’s not in the mood to kill but he was a poacher before or so I heard …”

And on and on and on interminably, none of it making any sense, no sentences, just a sequence of garbled words gathered together and thrown at us while he spits and spews out hatred.

He walks away, then a moment later walks back, pulls off a glove and slaps Will across the face with it. We’re immune to violence, of course, but the action takes each of us a little by surprise. It’s both tame and vicious at the same time.

“I can’t stand a coward,” says Clayton, slapping him again, hard, and Will’s head turns away from the beating. “Can’t stand to eat with one, can’t stand to talk to one, can’t stand to command one.”

Harding looks at Wells as if to ask whether they should intervene but Clayton has stopped now and turns back to the men, pointing at Will.

“This man,” he declares, “refused to fight during this evening’s attack. In light of this, he has been duly court-martialled and found guilty of cowardice. He will be shot tomorrow morning at six o’clock. That is how we punish cowards.”

Will looks up now but doesn’t seem to care. I stare at him, willing him to turn his head in my direction, but he doesn’t. Even now, even at this moment, he won’t allow me.

It’s night-time now, dark, surprisingly quiet. I make my way towards the reverse, where a group of medics are placing casualties on stretchers for transport home. I glance at them for only a few moments and see Attling and Williams, and Robinson with his head split open by a German bullet. On a stretcher next to him lies the body of Milton, the murderer of the German boy, dead now, too. There are only three of us left, Sparks, Will and I.

How have I survived this long?

I make my way towards the sergeant’s quarters and Wells is outside, smoking a cigarette. He looks pale and nervous. He takes a deep drag on the tab, sucking the nicotine far into his lungs, as he narrows his eyes and watches me approach him.

“I need to see Sergeant Clayton,” I tell him.

“I need to see Sergeant Clayton, sir,” he corrects me.

“It’s important.”

“Not now, Sadler. The sergeant’s asleep. He’ll have all three of us shot if we wake him before we have to.”

“Sir, something needs to be done about the sergeant,” I say.

“Something? What do you mean by that?”

“Permission to speak frankly, sir?”

Wells sighs. “Just spit it out, for Christ’s sake,” he says.

“The old man’s gone mad,” I say. “You can see it, can’t you? The way he beat up Bancroft earlier? And that kangaroo court martial? It shouldn’t even happen here, you know that. He should be taken back to GHQ, tried before a jury of his peers—”

“He was, Sadler. You were sick, remember?”

“It was done here, though.”

“Which is allowed. We’re in battle conflict. It’s extraordinary circumstances. The military handbook makes it clear that in these conditions—”

“I know what it says,” I tell him. “But come on, sir. He’s going to be shot in—” I look at my watch. “Less than six hours. It’s not right, sir. You know it’s not.”

“Honestly, Sadler, I don’t care,” says Wells. “Ship him back, send him over the top, shoot him in the morning, it doesn’t matter a damn to me. Can’t you understand that? All that matters is the next hour and the one after that and the one after that and the rest of us staying alive. If Bancroft refuses to fight, then let him die.”

“But, sir—”

“Enough, Sadler. Go back to your foxhole, all right?”

I can’t sleep; of course I can’t. The hours pass and I watch the horizon, willing the sun not to rise. At about three o’clock I walk through the trench, my mind elsewhere, barely looking at where I’m going, when I stumble over a pair of outstretched feet and trip over, steadying myself quickly to avoid falling head first in the mud.

Looking behind me in a fury, I see one of the new recruits, a tall red-haired boy named Marshall, sitting up straight and pulling his helmet back from where he had placed it over his eyes while he slept.

“For God’s sake, Marshall,” I say. “Keep yourself tidy, can’t you?”

“And what’s it to you?” he asks, remaining in his seat and folding his arms as a challenge to me. He’s young, one of those boys who has yet to see any of his friends’ heads blown off before his eyes, and probably believes that the only reason this blasted war is still going on is because the likes of him have not yet been involved in it.

“What’s it to me is that I don’t want to trip over your feet and break my bloody neck,” I snap. “You’re a danger to everyone, sprawled out like that.”

He whistles through his teeth and shakes his head, laughing, and waves me away. He’s unlikely to allow himself to be challenged like this without response, particularly when some of the other new recruits are watching, too, spoiling for a fight, hoping for anything that might provide a break in their tedious routine.

“How about you get your head out of the clouds, Sadler, and then you won’t have any accidents?” he suggests, putting the helmet back over his eyes and pretending that he’s about to fall asleep again when I know, of course, that he is happy to keep his face covered until he’s sure how this particular interview is going to end. It isn’t something I plan, and even as I see my arm reach out I’m almost surprised by what I’m doing, but it takes only a moment for me to flip the helmet off his head and send it flying in a perfect arc through the air before it lands in a pile of mud, burying itself rim down so that it will need to be cleaned before being put back on his head.

“For God’s sake, man!” he cries, jumping up and looking at me with a mixture of anger and frustration in his eyes. “What do you want to go and do a thing like that for?”

“Because you’re a fucking idiot,” I reply.

“Fetch my helmet for me,” he says, his voice growing lower now in barely concealed fury. I’m aware of a few of the men gathering and can hear the sound of matches being struck as
cigarettes are lit, something to keep the hands busy as they settle down for the entertainment.

“You can fetch it yourself, Marshall,” I reply. “And next time, look lively when a superior officer passes by you.”

“A ‘superior officer’?” he asks, bursting out laughing. “And there was me thinking that you were just a lowly private like me.”

“I’ve been here longer,” I insist, the words sounding wretched even to my ears. “I know a lot more about who’s who and what’s what than you do.”

“And if you want to keep knowing what’s what, I’d suggest you fetch my helmet for me,” he adds, smiling, his yellow teeth disgusting to observe.

I feel my lips twist themselves into a sneer. I’ve known boys like him before, of course. Bullies. I’ve seen them at school and I’ve seen them ever since and I’ve had enough of them. The wound on my arm, the one the doctors say doesn’t even exist, is giving me unholy pain and I am so consumed with frustration over what is happening to Will that I can hardly keep my thoughts straight.

“I notice you show no signs of fighting,” he says after a moment, looking around at the gathered men for support. “Another one of them, are you?”

“Of who?” I ask.

“Like that pal of yours, what’s his name, Bancroft?”

“That’s right,” comes a voice from a few feet away, another of the new recruits. “You have him there, Tom. Bancroft and Sadler have been thick from the start, so I’ve been told, anyway.”

“And are you a feather man like him?” asks Marshall. “Afraid to fight?”

“Will is not afraid to fight,” I say, stepping forward now until I can smell his stinking breath.

“Oh, it’s ‘Will,’ is it?” he asks, laughing contemptuously at me. “ ‘Will’ is a brave man, is he? Easy to be brave when you’re
locked up safely, given three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. Maybe you’d like to join him there, Sadler, is that what it is? Or do you prefer ‘Tristan’? Think this would all be a lot more fun if you and he were cuddled up together, the pair of you, playing smash and grab under the blankets?”

He turns to grin with his friends at this and they in turn burst into laughter at his pathetic joke, but it’s enough for me and in a second my fist has made contact with his jaw and I send him flying off his feet with as much precision as I did the helmet a few moments before. His head crashes against one of the timbers of the trench wall as he falls, but it doesn’t take him long to recover his senses and he’s up and on me as the men’s cries turn into cheers and jeers; they shout loudly when one of us lands an effective punch, laugh in our faces when we stumble or mis-hit in the mud. It becomes something of a free-for-all, Marshall and I lashing out in the confined space with the grace of a pair of pugnacious chimpanzees. I’m barely aware of what’s taking place but it feels as if months of internalized pain are suddenly pouring out and, without realizing that I am securing a victory, I find myself astride him, punching him time and time again in the face, pushing him further into the mud.

There he is, his face, pulling back in the schoolroom after I kissed him.

And there, coming from behind his butcher’s counter, placing an arm around my shoulders, telling me that it would be better for all if I was killed over there.

And there, embracing me by the stream at Aldershot before pulling his clothes together and running away with a look of contempt and revulsion.

And there again, somewhere in the back of the lines, telling me that it was all a mistake, men just sought comfort where they could find it at times like this.

I punch at every one of them and Marshall takes the blows and the world seems very black even as I feel arms pulling me from behind, dragging me off the boy and lifting me to my feet as the men cry, “Enough, enough, for God’s sake, man, enough! You’ll kill him if you’re not careful!”

“You’re a bloody disgrace, Sadler, you realize that, don’t you?” asks Sergeant Clayton, stepping around from behind his desk and coming a little too close to me for comfort. His breath stinks and I notice a twitch at his left eye and the fact that he appears to have shaved only the left-hand side of his face.

“Yes, sir,” I say. “I’m aware of it.”

“A bloody disgrace,” he repeats. “And you an Aldershot man. A man that
I
trained. How many of you are left now, anyway?”

“Three, sir,” I say.

“It’s two, Sadler,” he insists. “We don’t count Bancroft. The yellow-bellied bastard. Two of you left, and this is how you conduct yourself? How are the new recruits expected to fight the enemy if they have the living shit beaten out of them by you?” His face is red and his tone grows more furious with every word.

“Obviously it wasn’t wise, sir,” I say.

“Not wise?
Not wise?
” he roars. “Are you trying to be funny with me, Sadler, because I promise you that if you even try any of that nonsense with me, I’ll have you—”

“I’m not trying to be funny, sir,” I say, interrupting him. “I don’t know what happened to me. I went a little mad, that’s all. Marshall just rubbed me up the wrong way.”

“Mad?” he asks, leaning forward and staring at me. “Did you say ‘mad,’ Sadler?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, don’t tell me you’re trying to get out of here on some spurious grounds of insanity because I won’t stand for that, either.”

“Out of where, sir?” I ask. “Out of your office?”

“Out of France, you bloody idiot!”

“Oh. No, sir,” I say. “Not at all. No, it was more of a temporary thing. I can only apologize. I tripped over him, words were exchanged, it all got a little heated. A bad mistake.”