A Whispered Name (17 page)

His
mind blank, his emotions numbed, Flanagan dipped a field dressing into a pool
of bloody water and thrust it against Doyle’s face. The brat fought back,
howling with terror, but Flanagan had the strength of a God. He’d made a
decision that set him above this arbitrary universe. He dragged Doyle, weeping
and deranged, all the way back to the RAP, where he told Father Maguire what
had happened out there in the rain. For a few, flashing seconds they argued
about the right word to describe it. They quickly settled on
nochtadh
—
a disclosure. Either way Flanagan had made up his mind. He was going to Lisette
Papinau’s. ‘Just do as I ask,’ he begged. The chaplain splashed off into the
shadows to get Doyle’s number. When he came back, ill with worry he listed the
lad as injured. ‘But not me,’ hissed Flanagan. ‘Just him. That’s important: It
was then, on hearing the sketch of Flanagan’s plan, that the mainlander
muttered, ‘Listen, man, your only chance is drink.’ Hastily and shivering,
Flanagan wrapped his arm with the second field dressing. As the familiar words
came out of the darkness, he bowed his head.

‘Nár
lagaí Dia do lámh.’
May God not weaken your hand.

It
lacked the whack of the original.

Within
half an hour Flanagan and Doyle joined the utter chaos of injured troops moving
away from the front towards an Advanced Dressing Station.

Protected
by the crowds and madness, they smuggled themselves into a Red Cross ambulance
which took them through the rain to a Casualty Clearing Station at Abeele — an
awful, eight-hour rattling journey among cries and the silence of dying. There,
at Flanagan’s request, a nurse procured two clean uniforms. In the late
morning, washed and presentable, they slipped away to find a train. As usual it
pulled in bursting with troops for the Salient, the coach windows glazed with
body heat. More chaos, as the shining faces disembarked. And while the NCOs
shouted and stamped their ground, Flanagan and Doyle clambered on to a goods
carriage and hid among some crates.

As they
trundled towards the coast, Flanagan made a greater escape into memory He
talked of Inisdúr and the sharp smell of the tide, the steaming rocks, and the
labour of Muiris, his father. In a mist of longing he saw Róisín, his mother.
She was proud, holding Brendan’s little hand. Flanagan gasped his explanations.
It was like he was going home, at last.

Flanagan pressed a valve
on the tuba, reflecting that it was only on the train that he’d got a chance to
study the face of his accomplice. The talk of the island had sent Doyle to
sleep. Flanagan looked on the slumped head, slightly fearful, wondering if he’d
picked the wrong man.

Side on,
Doyle was boyish with an upturned nose and a top lip that curved gently
outwards, as if he was one of those Christmas angels or the bronze lad of so
many fountains — the tyke with the arched back, passing water into a marble
basin filled with pennies.

But
Doyle had stirred. His head had turned and his eyelids had opened for a moment.
And Flanagan had seen someone else. The brow was heavy, the eyes mature and
disconcerting: one was narrowed and vigilant, the other dull and unfeeling, as
if it could watch terrible things without rolling over. That impish nose showed
itself squat above uneven lips … all in all, a face that had been hit once
too often. Perhaps by hands like his own, with tattooed dots on each knuckle.

He was,
as Flanagan’s mother would have said, contrary. ‘Be careful, Seosamh, that one
can go either way’

Taking
a soft cloth he set to work on the bell, bringing up the shine till he saw his
own face across the trademark of Boosey and Company makers, 295 Regent Street,
London. His features were so distorted that he saw the man within: not a shape
but an assembly of attitudes: fear, determination, abandonment and hope: all
gathered into the grimace of someone who’d found a way out of senseless dying.

Chapter Eighteen

Mutiny.

1

‘There’s unrest in the
regiment,’ said Duggie, carelessly.

‘What
kind?’ Herbert felt queasy.

They
were in battalion HQ — the back room of a blacksmith’s forge, the enterprise
rendered useless upon the demise of the owner and his four sons at Verdun. The
widow and her only daughter now crept about in black, tending to the cares of
the British Army by the careful management of vegetables grown where the horses
used to wait. Chamberlayne had insisted on peacetime comforts, and to that end
had filched a desk from the post office, securing for Duggie a more imposing
specimen from a blown-out bank.

‘Among whom?’
pursued Herbert.

Chamberlayne
typed laboriously with one finger, not looking up. ‘Those who remain: He span
the roller three times, pulled out the document, and signed it through a quite
awful hush.

Herbert
had already suffered the stony salutes of the RSM and Private Elliot. There was
a ruthless obedience among the NCOs and men: no muttering or undertones of
complaint, just brute compliance with his orders. Flanagan’s conviction was
common knowledge among ‘those who remained’ and it had struck a nerve.

Chamberlayne
fed another sheet of paper into his typewriter. ‘A court martial subsequent to
the decimation of an entire regiment in twelve hours has not been received with
universal understanding by the rank and file,’ he observed, turning the roller
slowly to align the page. ‘But that is not the problem to which our Commanding
Officer refers. Do I address this one to Division, Sir?’

Duggie
nodded and Chamberlayne set about the usual preliminaries, hitting each key
with a jab of calculated uncertainty.

Herbert’s
stomach rolled as if he were at sea. The animosity had become personal,
focusing on himself. It was not unknown for men to finish off a hated officer
in no-man’s-land, among the litter of bodies. It could never be proved. He’d
once heard a tale of some rough nuts sticking a Mills bomb down the trousers of
a Second Lieutenant who thought he was Hannibal.

‘Joyce
came to see me this morning,’ said Duggie, sitting on the edge of Chamberlayne’s
desk. One leg began to swing. ‘He’s overheard some strong talk.’

‘Yes?’
Herbert squared himself.

‘Apparently
the men will be buggered before they’ll hand a win to the Lancashire Fusiliers.’

‘What?’

‘They
want to pull a team together for the Lambton Cup. They want to win it for the
old team.’

Herbert
flashed his rage at Chamberlayne for leading him on. The adjutant gave a
servant’s nod of gratitude and hit a full stop with a stiff index finger.

‘The
final will take place on the sixteenth,’ said Duggie. ‘That gives us two weeks
to field a team that can’t be beaten. I’d like you to sort out the players. There’s
some new boys from Blighty, but four of them come from Flanagan’s old section. Gibbons,
Pickering, Nugent, and Hudson. These are the ones he left near Black Eye
Corner. In fact, I’m transferring them to your Company Along with Elliot. Joyce
will be there, too. He says he’s a robust defender.’

‘Yes,
Sir,’ said Herbert, understanding at once the breadth of Duggie’s intentions.

‘I
think it would do you good to mingle with the men.’

Any
hostility thrown up by the trial had to be dealt with, but not on the level of
ideas and explanations. As ever, with the army it was a matter of solidarity
and mutual respect. And Duggie was sure that Joyce understood Herbert’s
position, just as Elliot understood that of Joyce, just as the rank and file
understood that of Elliot. The place to re-establish the bond between officer
and soldier was not the parade ground but the field of play.

The CO
gave Herbert the document that Chamberlayne had prepared. It was a memo setting
out the members of the squad and the practice times. Fourteen names were
listed, the last of whom was Joseph Flanagan.

‘Flanagan?’

‘Edward’s
idea.’

Chamberlayne
nodded, accepting the praise. But the CO’s decision was nonetheless
remarkable. It meant that Flanagan, for a certain time, would be released from
imprisonment … a condition that had already been relaxed through his
polishing of the regiment’s instruments. At that instant, Herbert realised
that Duggie had subtly changed. Something had broken inside him after the
annihilation of the battalion in August. The CO wanted to save his men … even
from a court material and its consequences.

Duggie
slid off the desk and led Herbert outside on to the road. In the distance the
guns rumbled, forever erratic and monotonous. To the right another battalion
was marching to the front; to the left, in the distance, charabancs lined the
verge. They’d brought fresh batches of men from Poperinghe and Abeele for the
rehearsals that would begin in earnest later that morning. It was as though
Herbert and Duggie were at a still point between this coming and going.

‘Division
is pushing this one through,’ said Duggie, referring to Flanagan’s case. ‘He
was tried within three days of being caught. They’ll decide his fate in the
same breath. We’ll know before we go up the line. That gives you time to find
out what really happened with Doyle in Étaples.’

‘But
why me?’

‘Because
I think you might thank me for it in the years to come.

2

Herbert spent the morning
in a nearby village, attending a lecture for officers on the coming operation.
A severe Brigade Major called Tomlinson pointed with a long cane at a model of
the battlefield made of plaster-of-Paris. It had been painted a muddy brown,
and there were various bright flags on cocktail sticks identifying key
objectives. Red, yellow, blue, green. It reminded Herbert of a golf course. The
attack would take place along an eight-mile front. The sector relevant to
Herbert was at the Menin Road, where the 8th and other units would provide
flanking fire to an Australian division.

‘This
is a four-step operation,’ said Tomlinson, uttering each word with exaggerated
clarity. ‘Between each stage there will be three days of consolidation and
three days of preparation. That constitutes a six-day interval.’

It
sounded so very easy.

‘We
anticipate subdued resistance,’ he continued, rocking on his heels. ‘The
bombardment will be colossal. Three and a half million shells have been set
aside. It will open on the thirteenth. It will increase in density with each
successive day It will inch across the German defence territory removing
machine-gun emplacements and wire. It will—’

‘Tell
Jerry that we’re coming,’ chipped in an Australian Colonel. Everyone laughed,
including Tomlinson. It was an old joke. But, as Tomlinson observed, the old
ones were always the best.

They’re
a rebellious lot, the Aussies, thought Herbert. Even the officers.

3

In the late afternoon,
when the men were enjoying Extended Order drill, Herbert went to collect
Flanagan. His plan was to walk to the field of play before the rest of the team
arrived. Corporal Mackie was standing like a statue at the door. As soon as
Herbert stood among the gleaming silver, he coughed and said, ‘Do you play
football?’

Herbert
had expected resentment — masked, of course — but discernible nonetheless, as
it was with Joyce and the rest. But Flanagan showed nothing more than the
customary reserve borne from their difference in rank and station.

‘Well,
now, Sir, I played it once with a cabbage.’

‘A
cabbage?’

‘Yes,
Sir. It’s a French thing, Sir.’

‘Ah.’

Herbert
explained that, notwithstanding such novel tuition, Lieutenant-Colonel Hammond
expected Flanagan to make a sterling contribution to the winning of the Lambton
Cup for the battalion. Bemused, as one might expect from a man sentenced to
death, Flanagan pledged his enthusiasm, if not his talent, to the objective. On
that understanding, Herbert led the prisoner into the lane. Having dismissed
Mackie, they were alone.

Throughout
Tomlinson’s lecture Herbert had been unable to conjure up a conversation that
might approach the Étaples incident. Instead, he began with a question he’d
often thrown at a new face, to welcome them to his Company ‘Where are you from,
Private?’

‘The
plains of Banba,’ said Flanagan, ‘Ireland.’

Banba.
The reference surprised Herbert. It revealed learning. Uncertain of himself,
and who he was dealing with, Herbert escorted Flanagan towards the clump of
trees that had been visible from the schoolroom. The football pitch had been
laid out in a nearby field.

‘Whereabouts
in Banba?’ asked Herbert, his voice as detached as Major Tomlinson’s.

‘An
island, Sir … on the west coast.’

‘When
did you last see it?’

‘An age
ago, Sir.’

‘Really?’
said Herbert. ‘Didn’t you see its reflection in a cracked mirror?’