A Whispered Name (11 page)

‘I’ll
just make a statement, Sir.’

Flanagan
let his eyes drop from the vision behind Herbert, from whatever it was that had
drawn him away while the evidence was being marshalled against him. His head
remained bowed.

‘On
oath?’ asked Glanville in the same kind tone.

‘I
think not, Sir.’

Flanagan
stood up, his arms loose by his sides. His clear eyes slowly followed some
phantom pattern on the floor, moving closer and closer to the table where
Herbert sat. They rose deliberately towards him. When their eyes met Herbert’s
stomach pitched as if he’d been kicked.

I
saw you with Father Maguire
…
the day I shot Quarters
…

Herbert
felt faint. His eyes rolled as purple spots popped like fireworks in his
brain. Flanagan’s stare was remorseless. To escape him, Herbert focused on the
faded wallpaper: a repeated pattern of roses, bunch after bunch surrounded by
golden tendrils. His mother would have loved it. She’d loved his uniform, too.
You
can start a new tradition,
she’d whispered. He breathed out to disperse
the smoke of nausea. It was like that first, sickening cigarette.

‘Everything
said here today is true, Sir,’ said Flanagan, his breathing suddenly normal.
That’s what it was like, when the whistles screamed at zero hour. The anguish
could even turn into ecstasy when you stepped into the open, into the shrapnel
and the whining. ‘After I’d handed Major Dunne to the stretcher—bearers I set
off for the front line. It was terrible dark … raining like it did back home,
when a load comes off the sea, after weeks of the gathering. The sky and the
waves would join up, so —’ he slowly brought his hands together, frowning — ‘and
then for days it would pour, or rather … everything returned to water. The
land was part of the sea.’ His eyes were wide and heavy with suffering, and
Herbert recoiled from this man’s very private memory. ‘That was home, so …
and that’s what it was like after I said goodbye to Major Dunne, and I got
lost. I didn’t know my left from my right. I came upon this barn … just like
you heard … and in it I found some drink. I was upset from the bombing and
the death of Mr Agnew And cold I was and wet. I drank myself under, Sir. And
when I woke I drank some more. He paused to lick his lips, his calmness run
dry. Herbert, however, had latched on to Flanagan’s speech pattern. It wasn’t
quite English. Here and there the word order was striking, almost poetic, but
not deliberately so.
And cold I was and wet.
The peculiar phrase
unsettled Herbert: it named with refinement his own experience of abandonment.

You
spoke to Father Maguire in another language
…
a
kind of music
…
foreign to the filth and the dying
…

‘I came
to France in nineteen fifteen,’ continued Flanagan, his mouth clacking for lack
of spit. ‘I’ve always done my best, Sir, and I’m sorry for getting drunk this
once. If I’d left the bottle alone, I’d have probably found my Section … I
hadn’t run off, Sir. It won’t happen again, Sir.’

Flanagan
sat down, arms on his thighs, the hands slack between his legs. Remembering
himself, he straightened his back and knitted his fingers; his eyes swiftly
returned to that refuge over Herbert’s right shoulder. Throughout the statement
Glanville’s pencil had squeaked, oddly louder than the erratic grumbling of the
guns. After he’d checked his spelling he said, ‘Thank you. Since the statement
was not taken on oath, there will be no questions, am I right?’

Chamberlayne
gave one of his nods.

‘Given
what’s been said, there’s no need for a closing address —either from you or
Private Flanagan, and we will not require a summary of the evidence. The court
will now retire.’ Glanville checked his pocket watch and noted the time: 10.28
a.m.

The
sentry, sullen-faced throughout the trial, marched forward and escorted
Flanagan from the room. Boots crashed upon the tiles, the outside steps, and
the flags of the playground, and Herbert (with his ears) followed the accused
down more steps to the cellar beneath.

…
and
Father Maguire looked after that poor kid
…

‘We’ll
go next door,’ said Glanville to Chamberlayne, implying that he could stay put.
He shuffled his papers into a neat pile and plopped them on the red book.

Silencing
the voices in his head, Herbert went down the room, to the chair used by the
accused. Turning on his heel, he looked to the place he himself had occupied.
To the left (over what had been Herbert’s right shoulder) was the cracked
mirror in the Greek temple frame. Glanville and Oakley both appraised him as
though he’d lost his senses. But Herbert was gazing elsewhere. The cracked
mirror was angled such that he could see through a window whose lace curtain
was missing. Herbert’s eyes watered with a longing for a world that had passed
away A reflection of its loveliness remained as a most awful reminder: between
the Doric pillars he picked out a low bank of distant trees, a blue sky and
scudding pink clouds. The morning mist had completely disappeared, burned away
by the one sun that had illuminated his childhood and left Quarters astride a
mule.

Chapter Twelve

1

Anselm read the evidence
of the trial in ten minutes. He’d studied it in fifteen. It had been delivered
— according to the record — in twenty-four. That was some going. He’d felt like
he was leaning over someone’s shoulder because the transcript, written in
pencil, had been scored here and there with brown and red crayon. These, he
assumed, had been added by two different people involved in the review process —
perhaps the lawyer (brown) checking for irregularities, and the
Commander-in-Chief (red) who would make a decision on sentence. Each colour was
like a window on to a different level of indignation. The most excited effort
had been reserved for ‘alcohol’, ‘wine’ and ‘drunk’. Each word had been
underlined twice, each time in red.

And
indignation settled upon Anselm.

Flanagan
was on trial for his life, unrepresented, before amateurs. Decent folk with the
awesome powers of a king. That had last happened in the Middle Ages. The
prosecution evidence wasn’t tested: no defence witnesses were called; no plea
of substance was made for leniency The only cross-examination of any force was
Herbert’s questioning of Private Elliot, the person who’d last seen Flanagan in
the reserve trenches. And that was a waste of time, because while the account
was inadmissible anyway (repeating the order of the Medical Officer that sent
Flanagan back to his unit) Flanagan cured the irregularity by accepting what
had been said — and that demolished whatever value might have been attached to
Herbert’s assault.

Testily
Anselm reached for the additional documents ordered by Martin and strode to the
Donk Shop. Phrases from the trial whirled through his mind. One in particular
baffled him:
And cold I was and wet.
It was a strange way to talk …

Beginning
with the Battalion War Diary, Anselm photocopied every entry between January
and September 1917, hoping that within the pages he’d find a route into
Flanagan’s mind. It was while leafing through the War Diary of the Adjutant and
Quartermaster General, however, that Anselm came to a surprised halt, knowing
that he must have stumbled upon something of significance. There, on the 17th
September 1917, like a bookmarker, was a yellow ticket. This one had Kate
Seymour’s name printed on it. She’d left it behind by accident.

Anselm
studied the page with growing confusion.

A
post—war censor had cut a square hole beneath the title ‘113.
Courts Martial
— Desertion.
’ Written in the margin was a tiny word: ‘weeded’. There was
literally nothing to be seen. Frowning, he copied it, along with a few
subsequent pages. He was trying to guess why Kate Seymour had come to examine
this material when the telephone rang.

‘The
map is ready’

They laid it on the table
overlooking the lake and the weeping willow.

Ypres
occupied a central position, roughly ten kilometres from Poperinghe. The
Salient had been drawn in red, curling to the right, round the city, and then
turning back again. Three small stickers — blue, yellow and green — had been
added, labelled respectively M, F and D.

‘I’ve
marked the positions of Moore, Flanagan and Doyle on the night of the
twenty-sixth August,’ said Martin, his finger tapping each letter. ‘You’ll see
that Doyle was beside the other two, separated by a brigade boundary. His unit
was due to move forward in support.’

Anselm
looked at F and D. They were bunched together on the map, whereas on the ground
they’d been world’s apart. Somehow they’d met up.

‘Where
was the Regimental Aid Post for the Northumberland Light Infantry?’ Anselm
misted his glasses and polished them on his scapular.

‘Here,
in the reserve trenches,’ said Martin, pointing behind M and F.

‘If
someone left the Salient for Étaples on the coast,’ continued Anselm, ‘what
route would he take … to get there and back again within a day or so?’

Martin
didn’t answer that question for a long while. This was a fresh angle. He took
off his jacket and threw it on the chair. After tweaking each cuff he tapped a
confluence of lines south of Poperinghe. ‘There was a railway depot here … at
Abeele … that’s one route. This was quite a busy area.’ He stubbed the map,
louder than before. ‘There was an airfield … and a number of Casualty
Clearing Stations.’

‘What
were they?’

‘Field
Hospitals,’ replied Martin, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

A look
of gathering comprehension sharpened his smooth face.

‘Serious
casualties were moved from a Regimental Aid Post to an Advanced Dressing
Station and then to a Casualty Clearing Station.

At the
time of a battle the system all but collapsed. It was mayhem.’

He
glanced sideways. ‘But it was a sure route away from the front.’

‘Where’s
Elverdinghe?’ asked Anselm, checking the coast around Étaples.

Martin
pointed elsewhere, to a village not far from Ypres … not that far from the
reserve trenches of the Northumberland Light Infantry.

Well,
well. You came back,
thought Anselm, with an intake
of breath. You went to the coast, but
you came back.
You were arrested a
couple of miles from the front.

‘Can I
just rehearse the evidence?’ enquired Anselm, wrinkling his face. He needed to
hear his own voice, to thresh his impressions, to spit out the husks.

There
was a Gilbertine quality to Martin, the man who lived deep inside himself He
spoke mainly when it was necessary, and now he gave no reply.

Anselm
wasn’t going to dwell on the trial’s flaws, and God knows there were many: from
inadmissible evidence to an abject failure by the Prosecution to call the
relevant witnesses (Father Maguire, Lieutenant Tindall, the stretcher—bearers —
those who’d spoken to Flanagan and had been the last to see him). No, Anselm
wouldn’t focus on these defects because none of them mattered. Flanagan, defending
himself, had admitted everything and questioned no one. Anselm’s energy lay
rather with the undisputed facts.

‘What
bothers me is the shape of the evidence without reference to the Étaples
material,’ began Anselm, nudging his glasses. ‘It’s neat. Too neat for a
partial record of what actually happened. There should be ragged edges. Tears
that show some facts are missing. There aren’t any Save, perhaps, the field
dressings which are not accounted for and the phenomenon of wine in a barn.’

‘The
wine?’

‘Yes,
it’s too good to be true.’ He wafted away the notion impatiently ‘It’s
convenient.
Anyway the French keep wine in a cellar. I imagine the Belgians are no
different:

Anselm’s
finger plotted a crow’s flight upon the map, moving ponderously from Black Eye
Corner, to Abeele, to Étaples, before coming back to Elverdinghe. It was a kind
of round trip. ‘Let’s just add the Étaples material to the evidence given to
the court. Let’s just see what sort of picture emerges.

Hands
hidden behind his scapular and hooked into his belt, Anselm ambled round the
room. On occasion he kicked imaginary conkers, as if he were in the woods at
Larkwood. Every so often his gaze moved to Martin for confirmation when he was
unsure of a detail. He spoke rather quietly.

Flanagan
leaves his unit after midnight on the morning of the 26th August (said Anselm).
By 1.45 a.m. he reaches the Regimental Aid Post. He’s last seen at 2.00 a.m.
Doyle then makes an appearance before the same MO at 3.49 a.m. and at that
point he enters the system of tagging and treatment. ‘An eye injury,
apparently,’ recalled Anselm. Martin nodded. Doyle
and Flanagan
are then
accosted thirteen hours later in Étaples, sixty odd miles away ‘From which we
conclude that the two men must have met some time after 2.00 a.m. The where,
when and how is anybody’s guess.’ By the evening of next day Flanagan — alone
once more — is back near Ypres with three bottles of wine. Anselm leaned over
the map.