The Absolutist (34 page)

“You’ve put him out of commission for the next twenty-four hours,” he tells me, his temper appearing to lessen now.

“I know I hurt him, sir, yes.”

“That’s a bloody understatement,” he replies, stepping away, putting one hand down the front of his trousers and scratching deeply at his crotch without any embarrassment, before taking a seat, sighing to himself as he does so and running this same hand across his face. “I’m bloody exhausted, too,” he mutters. “Woken up for this? Still,” he adds, softening his tone, “I didn’t know you had it in you, Sadler, if I’m honest. And that fool needed to be taken down a peg or two, I know that much. I’d have done it myself, the amount of gyp he gives me. But I can’t, can I? Have to set an example to the men. Ignorant little bastard’s given me nothing but trouble since the day he got here.”

I stand at attention, slightly surprised by this turn of events. I haven’t imagined that I would be seen as a hero in Sergeant Clayton’s eyes, although he is a man who is generally impossible to read. He’ll probably turn on me again in a moment.

“But look here, Sadler,” he says. “I can’t let this type of thing go unpunished. You realize that, don’t you? It’s the thin end of the wedge.”

“Of course, sir,” I say.

“So, what am I to do with you?”

I stare at him, unsure if this is a rhetorical question or not.
Send me back to England?
I feel like saying, but resist, sure that it will only reignite his anger.

“You’ll spend the next few hours in confinement,” he says finally, nodding his head. “And you’ll apologize to Marshall in front of the men when he’s back on duty tomorrow. Shake his hand, say all’s fair in love and war, that sort of thing. The men need to see that you can’t just start punching each other like that without there being consequences.”

He looks towards the door and shouts out for Corporal Harding, who enters a moment later. He must have been standing outside all along, listening to the conversation.

“Take Private Sadler into confinement until sunrise, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” says Harding, and I can tell by the tone of his voice that he is uncertain what Clayton means by this. “Where should I put him, exactly?”

“In con-fine-ment,” the sergeant repeats, stretching out the syllables as if he’s speaking to an infant or a halfwit. “You understand English, man, don’t you?”

“There’s only the cell where we’re holding Bancroft, sir,” Harding replies. “But he’s meant to be in solitary.”

“Well, they can be in solitary together,” he snaps, ignoring the obvious contradiction as he waves us away. “They can nurse their grievances and get them out of their systems. Now get out of here, the pair of you. I have work to do.”

“You do realize that it’s the Germans you’re supposed to be fighting, not our own men, don’t you?”

“Very funny,” I say, sitting down on one of the bunks. It’s cold in here. The walls are damp and crumbling with earth; only a little light gets through from an opening near the ceiling and the barred cavity on the door.

“I must say I’m a bit surprised,” says Will, considering it, sounding amused despite the circumstances. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a scrapper. Were you like that in school?”

“On occasion. Like anyone else. Why, were you?”

“Sometimes.”

“And yet now you won’t fight at all.”

He smiles then, very slowly, his eyes focusing so tightly on mine that eventually I am forced to look away. “And is that what you’re here for really?” he asks me. “Was this all planned so you’d be thrown in here, too, and you might persuade me to change my mind?”

“I’ve told you exactly why I’m here,” I say, annoyed by the charge. “I’m here because that damn fool Marshall had it coming to him.”

“I don’t know him, do I?” he asks, frowning.

“No, he’s new. But look, let’s not worry about him. Clayton’s gone mad, anyone can see it. I think we can fight this thing if we try. We just need to talk to Wells and Harding and—”

“Fight what thing, Tristan?” he asks me.

“Well, this, of course,” I say in amazement, looking around me as if any further explanation were unnecessary. “What do you think I’m talking about? Your sentence.”

He shakes his head and I notice that he is trembling slightly. So he is afraid, after all. He does want to live. He says nothing for a long time and neither do I; I don’t want to rush him. I want to wait for him to decide on his own.

“I’ve had the old man in here a few times, of course,” he says finally, extending his hands out before him, turning them over to examine his palms as if he might find answers there. “Trying to get me to change my mind. Trying to get me to lift my gun again. It’s no good, I tell him, but he won’t wear it. I think he sees it as a slight on his own character.”

“He probably doesn’t want to have to report to General Fielding that one of his own men refuses to fight.”

“And an Aldershot man at that,” he replies, his head cocked a little to the side as he smiles at me. “The disgrace of it!”

“Things have changed. Milton’s dead, for one thing,” I say, wondering whether this particular piece of intelligence has made its way here. “So it doesn’t matter any more. You can’t bring him to justice, no matter what you do. You can give all this up.”

He thinks about this for a moment, considers and dismisses it. “I’m sorry to hear he’s dead,” he tells me. “But it doesn’t change anything. It’s the principle that matters.”

“It’s not, actually,” I insist. “It’s life and death that matters.”

“Then perhaps I can take it up with Milton in a couple of hours’ time.”

“Don’t, Will, please,” I say, horrified by his words.

“I hope there aren’t any wars in heaven.”

“Will—”

“Can you imagine it, Tristan? Getting away from all this only to find that the war between God and Lucifer continues up above? I’d have a difficult time refusing Him, wouldn’t I?”

“Look, stop being so bloody flippant. If you offer to get straight back into the thick of it then the old man will let you off. He needs every soldier he can get his hands on. Yes, you might be prosecuted when the war is over but at least you won’t be dead.”

“I can’t do it, Tris,” he says. “I’d like to, I really would. I don’t want to die. I’m nineteen years old, I have my whole life in front of me.”

“Then don’t die,” I say, approaching him. “Don’t die, Will.”

He frowns a little and looks up at me. “Don’t you have any principles, Tristan?” he asks me. “Principles for which you would lay down your life, I mean.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “People, perhaps. But not principles. What good are they?”

“This is why things have always been complicated between us, you see,” he tells me. “We’re very different people, that’s the
truth of it. You really don’t believe in anything at all, do you?

While I—”

“Don’t, Will,” I say, looking away.

“I don’t say it to hurt you, Tristan, really I don’t. I just mean that you run away from things, that’s all. From your family, for example. From friendships. From right and wrong. But I don’t, you see. I can’t. I’d like to be more like you, of course. If I was, there’d have been more chance that I would have got out of this bloody mess with my life.”

I can feel the anger bubbling inside me. Even now, even at this moment, he chooses to patronize me. It makes me wonder why I ever felt a thing for him.

“Please,” I say, trying not to let my growing resentment overwhelm me, “just tell me what you want me to do to put this madness to an end. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“I want you to go to Sergeant Clayton and tell him that Milton killed that boy in cold blood. Do that if you really mean what you say. And while you’re at it, tell him what you know about Wolf’s murder.”

“But Milton is dead,” I insist. “And so is Wolf. What’s to be gained by such a thing?”

“I knew you wouldn’t.”

“But it wouldn’t mean anything,” I tell him. “Nothing would be gained.”

“Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?”

I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. “What irony?” I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap.

“That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.”

I stand up and walk away from him, remove myself to the furthest corner of the room. “You’re just being cruel now,” I say quietly.

“Am I? I thought I was being honest.”

“Why must you always be so cruel?” I ask.

“It’s something I’ve learned here,” he tells me. “You’ve learned it, too. You just don’t realize it.”

“But they’re trying to kill us, too,” I protest, standing up again now. “You’ve been in the trenches. You’ve felt the bullets flying past your head. You’ve been out in no-man’s-land, crawling around among the dead bodies.”

“Yes, and we do the same to them, so doesn’t that make us just as bad as them? I mean it, Tristan. I’m interested to know. Give me an answer. Help me to understand.”

“You’re impossible to talk to,” I say.

“Why?” he asks, sounding genuinely bewildered.

“Because you will believe whatever it is you choose to believe and you won’t hear any argument about it one way or the other. You have all these opinions which help define you as a better man than anyone else, but where are your high-minded principles when it comes to the rest of your life?”

“I don’t think I’m better than you, Tristan,” he says, shaking his head. He looks at his watch and swallows nervously. “It’s getting closer.”

“We can put a stop to it.”

“What did you mean by ‘the rest of my life’?” he asks, looking across, his brow furrowed with irritation.

“You don’t need me to spell it out for you,” I say.

“I do, actually,” he says. “Tell me. If you have something to say, just say it. You may not get many more chances, so spit it out, for pity’s sake.”

“Right from the start,” I say, not hesitating for a moment. “Right from the start, you’ve behaved badly towards me.”

“Is that so?”

“Let’s not pretend otherwise,” I say. “We became friends back there in Aldershot, you and I. I thought we were friends, anyway.”

“But we
are
friends, Tristan,” he insists. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“I thought perhaps we were more than that.”

“And whatever gave you that impression?”

“Do you really need me to tell you?” I ask him.

“Tristan,” he says with a sigh, running his hand across his eyes. “Please don’t bring up that business again. Not now.”

“You speak of it as if it meant nothing.”

“But it did mean nothing, Tristan,” he insists. “My God. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you so emotionally crippled that you can’t understand what comfort is when it stands in front of you? That’s all it was.”

“ ‘Comfort’?” I ask, astonished.

“You must keep coming back to this, mustn’t you?” he says, growing angry now. “You’re worse than a woman, do you know that?”

“Fuck off,” I say, although my heart isn’t fully in it.

“It’s true. And if you continue to talk about this, I’m going to call Corporal Moody and ask him to lock you up somewhere else.”

“Corporal Moody is dead, Will,” I tell him. “And if you had been part of what was going on around here and not hiding away in this useful little cubbyhole of yours, you’d know that.”

This makes him hesitate. He looks away and bites his top lip.

“When did this happen?”

“A few nights ago,” I say, brushing it away as if it means nothing; this is how immune I have become to the fact of death. “Look, it doesn’t matter. He’s dead. Williams and Attling are dead. Milton’s dead. Everyone’s dead.”

“Everyone’s not dead, Tristan. Don’t exaggerate. You’re alive, I’m alive.”

“But you’re going to be shot,” I say, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. “That’s what happens to feather men.”

“I’m not a feather man,” he insists, standing up now and looking angry. “Feather men are cowards. I’m not a coward, I’m principled, that’s all. There’s a difference.”

“Yes, so you seem to believe. Do you know, if it had been a one-off, perhaps then I could have understood it. Perhaps I could have thought,
Well, it was the end of our training. We were worried, we were terrified of what lay ahead. You sought comfort where you could find it
. But it was you, Will. It was you who led me the second time. And then you looked at me as if I was something that repulsed you.”

“Sometimes you do repulse me,” he says casually. “When I think of what you are. And I realize that that’s what you think I am, too, and I know differently. You’re right. At such moments you do repulse me. Perhaps that’s your life. Perhaps that’s the way your destiny is to be shaped, but not mine. It’s not what I wanted. It never was.”

“Only because you’re a liar,” I say.

“I think you had better take care what you say,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “We are friends, Tristan; I like to think we are, anyway. And I shouldn’t like us to fall out. Not now. Not at this late stage.”

“I don’t want that either,” I insist. “You’re the best friend I have, Will. You’re … Well, look”—I have to say it; our time is running out—“does it matter at all that I love you?”

“For God’s sake, man,” he hisses, a thread of spittle falling from his mouth on to the ground. “Don’t speak like that. What if we were to be overheard?”

“I don’t care,” I say, coming over and standing before him. “Listen to me, just this once. When this is all over—”

“Get away from me,” he insists, shoving me aside, with more force than he might have intended, for I stumble hard on to the ground and fall on my shoulder, a stab of pain shooting through my body.

He looks at me and bites his lip as if he regrets that for a moment but then his expression reverts to one of coldness.

“Look, why can’t you just stay away from me?” he asks. “Why must you always be around? Why must you be always in my ear? To hear you say what you’ve just said, well, it turns my stomach, that’s all. I don’t love you, Tristan. I don’t even like you very much any more. You were there, that’s all it was. You were there. I feel nothing for you, except contempt. Why are you even in here? Did you orchestrate this? Did you fall over Marshall so that you would be dragged in here with me?”