A Whispered Name (5 page)

‘Private
Flanagan’s trial took place on the first. This is interesting because the court
martial was evidently arranged at the earliest opportunity, a matter of days
after the offence, which might suggest that the army command wanted to find an
example’
— he paused, letting the sharpness of the word cut its meaning — ‘so if the
Commander-in-Chief felt that an execution was required to firm up resolve, then
the time to give the order was
before
the troops went back into the line
on the seventeenth. No one knows what happened. But the timing is not
propitious. As I said to your Prior, it’s unfortunate that Father Moore didn’t
leave a diary or testament of some kind, just a line to clear up the confusion
left in this little corner of history.’

In
something of a daze Anselm set about organising the remaining practicalities.
He booked a room in a B&B near the Public Record Office, though he hardly
listened to the directions. He was too distracted, his mind returning to the
long conversation that had developed with Martin about the Great War. What had
once been seared into the heart of a generation now required an exposition,
like Hastings or Waterloo. Martin described how for fifteen miles the Western
Front looped around the battered city of Ypres, creating a tongue of land that
projected into the German defences. It was called ‘the Salient’. The high water
table coupled with a fragile drainage system meant that the terrain was a kind
of moist putty. Constant bombing since 1914 had shattered not only Ypres, but
also the land. When it rained, the ground became a swamp. This was the place
that Herbert had never spoken about.

Hesitantly
Anselm knocked on the Cellarer’s door to obtain the means for travel and
subsistence. Cyril always behaved as if necessary expenditure was somehow
profligate and that by releasing funds he was being forced to participate in a
dubious enterprise. An industrial accident had left him with one arm,
overloading the other with gestures to support his remonstrations. Reluctantly
he counted out the bare minimum, slammed the money box lid and dismissed Anselm
with a curt demand for receipts. On leaving his office Anselm bumped into an atmosphere
as solid as the man.

‘Is it
true?’ challenged Bede. ‘Are you off to the PRO?’

Responsibilities
are sharply defined in a monastery. The kitchens, the laundry, the guesthouse,
the sacristy … the archives … all of them have a monk in charge, and generally
speaking people get very hot under the collar if someone treads on to their
patch. It’s to do with efficiency But trespass can also ignite the jealousies
that give an edge to community living.

‘I’d
have thought this was an archival matter,’ he panted.

‘The
Prior wants a legal angle:

‘Did
you volunteer your services?’ Sweat had gathered above his brows.

Anselm
didn’t even reply.

Ordinarily
these last two encounters would have vexed him, but now they were utterly
inconsequential. Among old soldiers (said Martin, mingling anecdote with fact)
the Salient was called Immortal because of its strategic importance, and for
the vast numbers of dead it claimed. At this small spot the hopes of the
opposing sides had collided in increasingly desperate attempts to break the
deadlock, to make the static war a mobile conflict. No price had been deemed
too high. For whoever broke through could launch a sweeping movement inland to
win the war. But it never happened. By 1917, he said, there were bodies in the
Salient reflecting the age of the conflict. Anselm had grimaced — not so much
at the idea, but because Martin had used an archaeologist’s phrase to
illuminate the past. It was an unavoidable technique when all that remained of
the bloodshed was an archive. The very exercise, however, revealed the acute
nature of Herbert’s problem. His silence wasn’t a species of lie. He’d
seen
the
geology of death and it had left him speechless. Confronted now by Bede’s
wounded feelings, Anselm couldn’t quite summon the sympathy Any more than he
could now understand Kate Seymour’s disappointment.

Even as
he knelt upon the floor of the nave to receive the Prior’s blessing and
commission — always given before a journey of any kind — Anselm sifted his
concerns, trying to shake off the chaff. By the time he dozed on the train as
it rattled across the gentle hills of Suffolk towards London, he was sure of
his objectives: what had happened to Joseph Flanagan? Why was a letter to
Harold Shaw in Herbert’s pocket? Who was Owen Doyle? Why were his identity tags
around Herbert’s neck? Why give the tags to someone called Flanagan? And, of
central importance, what was the event that bound these people together? The
meaning of the trial had to lie within these markers.

In
fact, Anselm had listed the questions in five minutes. The issue that had
preoccupied him most was of a personal nature and quite incidental to his
mission. He approached it with something like reverence and fear: what had
happened to Herbert out there, in the fight for Passchendaele — an experience
so powerful that he should forever keep it secret?

Anselm
slept fitfully Occasionally he slipped into the depths, where he saw a kind,
wise face lined with happiness and pain. Even in slumber he knew that Herbert’s
secret was the key to Herbert the man — the man Anselm had found stranded in a
battered green Cortina: a monk who didn’t believe in accidents or the charms of
luck.

Part Two

Chapter Five

Execution

1

On the evening of the 25th
of August 1917 Captain Herbert Moore woke on the slope of a shell hole. He’d
hardly felt the blast. It had torn the sleeves off his raincoat, and part of
his jacket and shirt. He’d been crouching just behind Alistair … Major
Brewitt, the Company commander, a solicitor from Morpeth … who must have
taken the brunt. After the wallop, Herbert found himself prostrate with his
face against the dirt, vaguely aware that time had passed, that water was
creeping upon him; that he would have to move or he’d drown. It had been early
morning when the coal-box had whistled towards them … but now the light was
fading. He was alone on the edge of a black pool with oily swirls of red and
green. Rain chopped its surface and battered his face and arms. Explosions
thundered continuously, masking their personality, though nothing landed
anywhere near him. The German gunners behind Passchendaele Ridge must have
tweaked the gradient of fire, he thought, keeping pace with their enemy’s
advance. Herbert slid through a sludge of intestines and grit, hauling himself
into the open. Staring across the beaten land, he tried to gain his bearings …
he couldn’t see anyone else from the regiment. Abruptly like the coming of an
unforeseen mercy he fainted.

He
opened his eyes to the sound of a hoarse struggle. It was barely light. Rain
still pounded all around him, though the crump of explosions had reduced.
Crawling on all fours, Herbert made for a voice. In places his legs sank to his
thighs but he pulled himself free, leaning on bodies or shattered limbers, as
if he was getting out of the swimming pool in Keswick. The voice cried out to
God and Herbert came upon a mangled track of half sunk duckboards, recently
laid, he guessed. A team of engineers following the advance must have run out
of planking or caught a shell with their numbers on it. Herbert, still on his
hands and knees, peered ahead at a creamy quagmire and the face of Company
Quartermaster Sergeant Jimmy Tetlow He was up to his waist in mud behind a
jerking mule whose bray had become a whimper. The two of them were slowly
sinking. Just beyond, some twenty yards away the Zenderbeek river had
collapsed.

‘What
are you up to, Quarters?’ said Herbert. ‘This is no time for fooling around.’

‘Very
good to see you, Sir.’ His face was spattered with dirt but the skin around his
eyes was almost clean, giving him the look of a man who’d lost his goggles.

They’d
last seen each other before zero hour. Quarters’ job was to bring up rations
for the lads. The plan had been to meet on the Green Line, the battalion’s
third objective. Neither of them had made it. Dead animals and scattered
panniers revealed that the team had probably been hit by another coal-box. They
usually came in fours. One man and one animal had survived. Herbert’s temples
began to beat. Quarters was about two yards away both arms hooked over the
flank of the beast. Terror lit his eyes. Foam and mucus spurted from the mule.
All three of them were panting. Looking around him, Herbert saw a tangle of
barbed wire, weapons, cloth and limbs. He grabbed a rifle by the barrel and
reached out towards the drowning man … but the animal subsided slightly
taking them both fractionally away Herbert stepped into the morass and
instantly sank to his knee, falling to one side. By the time he’d dragged
himself on to the firmer heap the mule’s mouth was thrashing against the mud,
and Quarters was up to his chest.

‘Shoot
him, Sir,’ spat Quarters. ‘Don’t let him go down alive …

Herbert
aimed at the head, swore, and dropped the rifle: there was a man to be saved.
He tried to yank free a section of duck-board, but it wouldn’t budge … he
grabbed an arm on a torso, but it came away like a wing on an overcooked
chicken … in a panic, he grasped a length of barbed wire, shook it loose from
the heap and threw it across the short divide. Quarters’ hands flapped, his
fingers spread incredibly wide, but he got a hold. Herbert wound the wire
around his right arm and took a grip with his left hand. With all his strength
he pulled. His head arched back and he roared through his teeth. This man was
not going to die like a brute.

‘It’s
no use, I’m done for … oh, God help me … oh, Mum …’ cried Quarters.

‘Just
hold on,’ Herbert muttered, his arms hot but painless.

The
mule jerked violently snorting and spitting as its head slowly sank, the mud
oozing into the open jaws. Quarters still had one hand wrapped in wire. The
other was out of sight, on the submerged flank of the drowning mule. He tried
desperately to raise himself but he just went further down, jerking with the
spasms of the beast. Herbert thrust out his jaw and yanked hard but the force
made him spin and slide. The wire fell slack and Quarters slumped … his chin
dropping on to the face of the swamp.

‘Shoot
me,’ he spluttered. ‘Don’t let me drown … shoot me …

With
the wire still embedded in his arm, Herbert picked up the rifle and aimed at
Quarters, his finger on the trigger.

‘Shoot
straight, sir.’ He snarled, baring his teeth like the animal that had drowned.

But
Herbert’s hand wouldn’t move. His fingers were paralysed. He blinked and spat
and began to pant and heave. The barrel first wavered and then began to swing
from side to side. The light had almost gone now A faint glamour lingered on
the dirt. Jimmy Tetlow’s pale skin around the eyes was eerily bright. The fall
of the rain was like applause.

‘Shoot.’
The voice was weak now, and pleading like a child.

‘Forgive
me, Quarters,’ said Herbert in a faltering parade ground tone.

All
that stamping of the feet — the ritual of extended order drill, the barked
commands to ‘left wheel’ and ‘right wheel’ — it helped you stamp on your own
sensibility. He lowered his aim into the mud beneath the chin and pulled the
trigger. Quarters took the thump without a sound. Mud and water splashed over
his face, blanking the patches round the eyes. He sighed and his mouth fell
open. Herbert watched … waiting for him to descend into the Salient. But he
didn’t move. He’d come to a halt. Herbert licked the dirt on his lips and
dropped the rifle. His right arm and left hand began to burn. He raised them as
if they belonged to someone else and saw the wire embedded in his flesh … it
linked him to Jimmy Tetlow’s clenched fist. At once he felt cold and wet and
shivered.

‘Go
down, Jimmy’ he pleaded, teeth chattering. ‘In the name of God, go down.’

But deep
in the morass Quarters had found firmer ground, perhaps a tree stump, a heap of
sand bags, a vein of bodies from ‘15, who could tell. Herbert stared at the
open mouth. Normally the food rations were brought up on limbers, but Quarters
had organised a mule pack because of the wet ground. He’d said, ‘See you on the
Green Line.’ Nothing would have stopped him. Before the war he’d been a
fisherman with his own boat. He’d sailed out of North Shields on the Tyne.
Twice he’d been thrown overboard. Herbert didn’t know much else. That’s what it
was like … you picked up potted histories of life before enlistment. Everyone
became the snappy outline of a life on hold.

‘Please
go down, Quarters …’

The
rain grew heavier, drilling into the ragged land. Herbert fell back, trying to
face-off the sky but he couldn’t keep his eyes open. His arm and hand throbbed
but deep inside, deep in the numb place beyond the reach of the war, where
finer feeling had found a refuge, where the killing and the brawling was still
somehow strange, he felt a stab of pain, like a nail in the pulp of a tooth. He
shuddered with a most terrible agony Herbert moaned and tried to crawl away but
the wire in his arm tugged at Tetlow’s grip. With a scream of pain he tore
himself free and span to one side … and his flying limb struck part of the
litter of no-man’s-land, a revolver. He sat upright, wiping the weapon on his
torn trousers. Licking his lips, feeling a kind of smoke billowing in his mind,
he placed the barrel against his head and pulled the trigger. The hammer
scraped back and … jammed. Herbert stared at the gun as if the cartridge had
just fired. He felt nothing … he noticed his own breathing but inside he was
dead; as dead as Alistair Brewitt from Morpeth or Quarters from North Shields.