A Whispered Name (14 page)

The
final document in the Flanagan file was dated the 11th September 1917. After
checking the denotation of the acronym, Anselm realised that it was an internal
request from one lawyer to another at GHQ … in the department where the file
had come to rest, complete with five recommendations. It read:

Please assess and
provide an argued response to Lt. Col. Hammond’s comments. If you concur with
the point on intention, the court should be reassembled to consider
de novo
the charge of desertion and, if necessary, the question of sentence.

It took
Anselm a few minutes to penetrate the implications of this text. Lt. Colonel
Hammond had raised a technical objection. He’d been concerned about Flanagan’s
state of mind. That point had been tacitly acknowledged by the Brigade
commander who nonetheless wanted ‘an example’. But the argument had found a
lawyer’s ear … perhaps the angry man with the brown crayon.

A
sudden turn, then, had come to pass in the fortunes of Joseph Flanagan. And
while the papers were ultimately ambiguous on the upshot, a tantalising
possibility remained: it was just possible that the court had reconvened and
had either acquitted Flanagan or reduced his sentence.

Anselm
closed the file.

How
did you survive?
he thought, dreamily his eyes on
the great weeping tree.

He’d been a bent figure,
treading slowly away from the aspens on a path that led to the monastery. It
was an abiding image for Anselm; and after lunch it sent him on to the path of
Kate Seymour’s research. They’d probably moved in step, so far. But she’d ended
up in a place where Anselm was yet to venture: the War Diary of the Adjutant
and Quartermaster General for Flanagan’s Division. She’d left behind a yellow
ticket by accident. Like a bookmark.

Anselm
quickly found the entry dated 17th September 1917. The hole was beneath a
title:
Courts Martial — Desertion
. Turning the page Anselm found a
reference to the event that had been suppressed:

AS OTHER CASES SIMILAR TO THE ABOVE HAVE OCCURRED, MEN ARE TO BE
WARNED THAT DRUNKENNESS IS NO EXCUSE FOR CRIME, AND IF A MAN GETS DRUNK AND
DELIBERATELY ABSENTS HIMSELF FROM AN IMPORTANT DUTY HE RENDERS HIMSELF LIABLE
ON CONVICTION TO THE FULL PENALTY FOR DESERTION.

The attention of
all ranks is to be drawn to this order.

Anselm returned to the
hole. A man had got drunk. He’d been executed. His name had been cut out. Even
as an ‘example’ he’d ceased to exist. ‘The matter is sensitive.’ Anselm could
hear the censor’s confiding tone, he could feel the pity-come-lately ‘Fellow
has a family damn it.’

Whatever
happened as a result of Lt. Colonel Hammond’s intervention, death had brushed
Flanagan by: he’d been one of the ‘other cases’. But what had happened to him
next? Once more Anselm turned to the Attorney General for guidance. Immediately
beneath the warning on drunkenness he found this notice:

It may be of use
to Officers to know that ‘Burberrys’ have established a Depot at: L. Chavatte,
10, Grande Place, Armentières.

This,
then, was where the trail into Joseph Flanagan’s secret history came to a halt:
with the appearance of the quintessential English raincoat.

Chapter Fifteen

A Jaunt to Margate

1

Herbert walked away from
the school knowing, with a punishing certainty, that he would never forget the
steps up to the main door, the white shutters on the chipped brick walls, the
black and white tiles, the parquet flooring, the rose wallpaper, the cracked
mirror between the columns, and the waxy yellow light a foot or so above the
ground.

Ahead,
marching on the lane from the encampment, was a column of troops. Three mounted
officers led the way Flanks of chestnut, black and grey glistened in the
sunlight. Occasionally the horses shook or tossed their heads, and light
flashed from the dripping bits. Straps jingled. Behind, like a monstrous khaki
centipede, came the men. They were heading up the line towards the artillery.
Steam shot from their nostrils.

Herbert
stumbled to the verge. He let them pass, not looking at their faces. But there,
at his feet, he saw Quarters above the mule. Closing his eyes he listened to
the stamp of feet knowing that, further on, the road would break down, that
they would reach the track of sinking sleepers, and then the duck-boards, and
finally the marketplace that would claim the greater part of them — without reference
to the quality of their lives, to the allocation of what had been decent and
what had been foul. The want of discrimination was almost a release for
Herbert: the dying would continue; blood would drop like water through
Glanville’s ceiling; maybe Flanagan was just another splash; maybe Herbert
would join him, with Glanville and his pocket watch. Merit had no place in this
mêlée.

The
carpenter wasn’t in singing mood. Herbert glanced inside the barn. Head bent
low, the craftsman carefully joined the mortise and tenon and then hammered
together another cross. A pile of sallow timber lay stacked against one wall.
Turning aside, Herbert’s eye caught on the wooden plaque of ‘Notre Dame des
Ramiers’. He slowed, remembering the unutterable beauty of the chant. After a
moment’s hesitation, Herbert pushed open the gate and walked towards the white
door.

The
abbey was cool and deeply silent. Beeswax filled the air. Despite the long
clear windows, the light was dim. A tiny red flame flickered like a beacon on a
distant headland. Way ahead, like guardians of the sanctuary, stood two large
wooden statues: on the left a man, to the right a woman, each with joined
hands. Stopping between them, Herbert thought of his parents. They’d mocked
Colonel Maude rather than show their disappointment. Within the monastery a
door banged and shuffling feet made a soft echo. And from a direction utterly
tangential to Herbert’s frame of mind — like the breaking of a window in an
adjoining property — came an intuitive certainty: what had happened that
morning at the Oostbeke school was gravely wrong.

2

When Herbert reached
Duggie’s billet he paused at the window The CO was sitting at a small card
table, furiously writing, watched by his dog, Angus. To one side lay the
Manual
of Military Law,
propped open with a stone. Spread out on the floor were
the trial papers. After knocking, Herbert entered and hovered by the empty
hearth. He chewed his lip while the ink pen scratched and scraped. When he’d
finished, Duggie held up the paper and blew upon it as though to revive a dying
flame.

‘Why
did you call me back from Boulogne?’ said Herbert, his voice dead and low Both
hands gripped the sides of his trousers. He felt like he was back before that
sanctuary flanked by his parents.

‘Because
I thought there was a chance you might see things differently’ said Duggie,
without turning around. With rapid finger movements he screwed the lid on to
his pen and placed it on the green baize, perfectly parallel to the table’s
edge.

Herbert
had only spoken to Duggie on one occasion about his departure from the 22nd
Lancers. Since then, the CO had never referred to it once. Sweat broke on
Herbert’s upper lip: that sensitivity was about to be compromised. Barely
audible, he said, ‘What do you mean, see things differently?’

Duggie
swivelled round on his stool. ‘I thought with your experience of … let me use
the word kindly … failure … you might have been circumspect about the
demands we place on our men. But you showed great courage. You faced up squarely
to the demands of duty.’

There
was no sarcasm in Duggie’s compliment. Only a certain sadness that one he
thought was weak had turned out to be strong. He’d taken a chance and lost.
Herbert was stunned. Duggie had warned the battalion almost every month that
the ‘full penalty’ of the law would be exacted for desertion, but now it
transpired he’d tried to circumvent the machinery of a court martial by placing
Herbert in a crucial position of responsibility.

‘I don’t
blame you, Herbert,’ he continued, ‘because you’ve done nothing wrong — any
more than I have. No one’s to blame for anything. That’s what I find so
disheartening. As I’ve got older —’ the phrase showed how a sense of life span
was reduced, for Duggie was in his mid-thirties — ‘I’ve come to notice that
with the great wrongs there’s rarely a scalp to hand. There’s never a sinner
when you want one.

Duggie
was a typical and well-loved CO. Tough but fair. He’d much prefer to wash
regimental linen in private, but in this case Division had found out; and they’d
told Brigade. And thus a trial on a capital charge had become inevitable.
Still, while Duggie would, if possible, support one of his boys, the attempt to
save a deserter was almost incredible. Herbert didn’t have to wait long to find
out why.

‘You
won’t know this,’ said Duggie, ‘but after Flanagan left Mr Tindall he went to
Étaples.’

It
sounded as though he’d gone to Margate for an ice cream. Herbert dropped on to
the edge of Duggie’s bed, his mouth open.

‘He
denies it,’ protested Duggie, ‘and it wouldn’t have done him any favours if he’d
owned up … but it looks very likely that he got to the coast and back again
in pretty sharp order.’

‘What
the hell for?’

‘I don’t
know It seems he teamed up with a Paddy from another brigade, buggered off and
then changed his mind.’

Herbert
studied the frown among the speckled sores. ‘You don’t believe that.’

‘No, I
don’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because
the whole story doesn’t hang together,’ he admitted. ‘Prior to this fling,
Flanagan had never touched a drop of booze in his life. He’s a Pioneer … some
Catholic thing. Maguire, the chaplain, is one of ‘em too. They pledge to stay
dry for life. Can’t imagine it, frankly Not my sort of God. The point is, this
lad sees action at Aubers Ridge, the Somme and Arras and it’s only now he needs
a stiff drink with another son of Erin. Doesn’t make sense.

‘You
mean he lied?’

‘I mean
he hid the truth.’

Herbert
let his chin sink to his chest. He wanted to shout, as he’d done in the abbey A
jaunt to Margate? This parallel narrative, if genuine, would have removed the
slim defence implied by Flanagan’s statement — that he’d got lost. And yet,
ironically, this was Duggie’s reason for attempting to upset the court martial.

‘If we’re
going to shoot him before breakfast,’ explained Duggie, ‘we ought to do it for
the right reason.’

With a
low groan Herbert covered his face. Through spread fingers he watched Duggie on
all fours, grunting as he gathered the trial papers. He couldn’t bring himself
to help, to get down there on the boards. When Duggie was upright he tied the
bundle securely with a length of white cotton tape. Later in the day
Chamberlayne would collect it, and off the case would go, first stop Brigade.
It was as though some great, unknown truth would shortly slip away never to be
understood. Duggie made a tilt with his head and they went outside into the
courtyard, followed by Angus.

The sun
was high and warmed their necks. It was crazy: after all that rain, they were
heading for a drought. For a while they talked of football and the Lambton Cup.
The regiment had struggled through the early stages of the competition but had
managed to secure a place in the final against the Lancashire Fusiliers. While
the team had always suffered ‘injuries,’ this time none of the team had
survived August.

‘I’m
conceding the match,’ said Duggie. ‘I couldn’t look at that cup if we won it.’

Angus whimpered,
his tongue wet and horribly long. He’d been ‘a parting gift’ from a General and
was a familiar figure to the men, almost a mascot. Though he had his own gas
mask, he stayed behind moaning when the battalion went into the line.

‘By the
way,’ resumed Duggie, ‘I’ve just written my recommendation. It’s a bit cheeky
really’ He drew a pipe from his top pocket and pressed the shank into the
corner of his mouth. ‘It’s important not to do things directly so I’ve
advocated imprisonment, but observed, in passing, that when intention is of the
essence of a crime —’ he struck a match, puffed and squinted — ‘drunkenness may
justify the court taking a lenient view of an otherwise serious offence. And on
that basis, I’ve floated the idea that our boy should’ve been found guilty of “absence
without leave”, despite the charge of desertion.’ He examined the chewed
mouthpiece. ‘If some legal bod picks up the ball the court might be reassembled
… which would open the door to the lesser offence, and a different sentence.’

‘I’m
sorry’ said Herbert, hot at his own failure to dodge and weave; angry that he
and Glanville should have worked harder at Sandhurst; irritated that Oakley
hadn’t been the one who’d sat the exam, ‘I don’t quite follow’

“‘Intention”
is the key’ said Duggie, jamming the pipe back in the corner of his mouth. ‘If
a steady respectful soldier absents himself through a drunken frolic, the court
can reasonably conclude that he did not really
intend
to desert. It’s in
the manual. Page twenty-three: