Justice Hall (41 page)

14 June
Thank God for the Yanks. The Second Division had been set down not far from where we are now, troops fresh off the boat and spoiling for a fight, and when Jerry got to them, he bounced back like a rubber ball. Not at first, but once they had the feel of it, the Yanks dug in their heels and shoved back. They even retook Belleau Wood, and that seems to be about as far as Jerry’s getting this time. But it was close. If he’d had more troops, better supplies, he’d be strolling up the Champs élysées in the morning.
The guns must have given Iris and her friend Dan a few bad hours. I had a letter from her, one from home, and one from H. all in the same post today; no doubt they’d sat waiting for us until hdq. could spot where we’d ended up.
Lost only one man—head wound, but he’ll live to see Dover. One of the other fellows lost his entire platoon, taken prisoner when he was separated from them. Poor bastard, feels like he lost his mother. Or his sons.
23 June
Back up the line to shore up some weak places in the French fence. Sorry to lose my old batman, he was a great comfort, but I’m closer to H., although I haven’t seen her to talk to yet. Spotted her ambulance—I’m pretty certain it was her Ford—scrambling its way down a hill yesterday morning, but she didn’t see me, one khaki figure in a hundred.
Holiday’s over; we’re back in the thick of it. I wonder if Jerry’s listening to the nightingales right now. There certainly aren’t any around here, just rats.
Shelling heavy tonight, damn them. Makes my nerves jumpy, can’t help it. Not even knowing my green-eyed Hélène is near can stop the twitches.
Had a man go bad on us yesterday—not one of mine, thank God, but about a hundred yards up the line. His nerves just crumbled and he downed his rifle and ran. Took a bullet in the shoulder, with luck it’ll see him out of trouble, and nobody’s saying anything about the fact that he took it in the back. But he’ll have to live with knowing he deserted his mates in a pinch. Don’t know about him, whether that would trouble him or not, but I know that, once or twice, it’s been the only thing that’s kept me facing forward, knowing I’d have to live with the shame of abandoning men who counted on me.
Word is, we’ll be home by Christmas. They’ve been saying that since the first winter, I know, but this time it may be true. One way or another.
The padre’s just been through. Good man, name of Hastings, too old by far for this stunt but doesn’t complain, always a word of encouragement, especially for the young boys. A countryman, Surrey rather than Berkshire but close enough, had some interesting stories about water voles.
Beautiful full moon tonight, brighter than the Very lights. Anyone with nerve enough to peep over the top will catch a glimpse of our own version of the moon, all pitted and lifeless. I watch the real thing pass through the sky over the trench, and think about showing Hélène the lawns under a summer moon. The time Uncle Alistair took me out to Abbot’s Clump in the full moon to watch the hares dance. I couldn’t have been more than four at the time. Damn the Kaiser.
29 June
Front line for going on three weeks, don’t know how much longer the men can stand it. One private a week older than I am shot himself in the foot yesterday, trying for his Blighty. Only instead of a boat home, he’s in a hole, having missed his aim and hit an artery. Bled to death before they could get him on a stretcher. Probably just as well—it was obvious what he’d done, he’d have been court-martialled for it, and considering the current state of the fighting, probably been shot to discourage others from trying the same. Backs-to-the-wall time, there’s no doubt.
Pray God watch over all VAD drivers. Especially those with green eyes.
15 July
No doubt they’re partying in Paris today, dancing in the streets outside Aunt Iris’s apartment. Not too many bottles of champagne here. Plenty of Bastille Day fireworks, though. Had a blessed three days off the line, baths, warm food, the lice baked out of my clothes, and a chance to see Hélène. She managed to trade with another girl and we sat on a bombed-out building wall and talked and talked while the half moon lay over the poor wounded countryside. I told her about Justice Hall, how I want to show her every corner of it. The Pater’ll have a fit. Tried not to let H. know how much of a fit he’d have; time enough for that.
23 July, near mid-night
If we lose this bloody awful war, it won’t be because of the fighting men, it’ll be due to the incredible stupidity of the higher-ups. Still can’t believe it—full moon, huge thing brighter than a whole string of Very lights, and down comes the order to take out a wiring party. Insanity! Absolute, blithering idiocy. The men went to ice when they heard it, a sure sentence for the death of ten good men. But they were willing. They’d have done it, for me and for their fellows, but I was having none of it. The order had obviously been sent weeks before and gone astray. Even the daftest old general in London wouldn’t send out a wiring party under those circumstances—and when the line’s shifting daily and we hardly bother shoring up trenches because we’ll be out of ’em in a week? Why wire here at all. Nuts, I said, putting on my best Yank accent. Nuts to you, my men are standing down.
26th
I cannot fathom this. I can’t begin to understand. I’m going to wake up now and find it’s all one of those loopy dreams. They can’t be serious.
29th
This has gone beyond a joke. All right, I could have handled it better, and I understand that they have to stamp on anything that might loose the men from discipline. But this extreme a reaction? They’ll look like greater fools when the next level up sees what’s happening and sweeps it away.
The things they said in the so-called trial. I was so flabbergasted I could scarcely summon answers. “Fomenting a mutiny”? Lord, if anything the exact reverse—teaching the men that they can trust their officers not to issue insane orders. It’s a fragile trust, yes, so all the more reason to use common sense.
30th
Spent all the night shivering in the heat. I’m in an avalanche. I’m in a train going for a cliff. I’m going to be forced to bring in the Influence. Shameful admission of defeat, to drag in the family name, but I can’t see how else to stop the machinery. Maybe I should just take my punishment, even if it’s being strapped to a wheel for twenty-one days. Even if it’s gaol, surely I can do that? Being stripped of rank would be the worst. Oh, Hélène, what will you do when you find out? God, I hope I can continue to hide behind this name, to keep all this from the parents.
I keep thinking I’ll wake up. I don’t.
1 August
The Maj. appeared, late last night. Just heard about it, made him insane with wrath, went off to see what he could do short of invoking The Name. Still hopes of defusing the situation under its own power. I told him I’d take a field punishment if it satisfied officialdom’s honour, although the image of his fair-haired boy strapped up in the sun for the betterment of the regiment would probably kill Pater. I can’t even think about Mama.
I should have just hauled that bloody wire out there myself, ordered the men to stay behind, and strung it alone. Jerry might have missed a single figure out there, and I could have protected my men.
I just never imagined it might come to this. Oh, God, this is going to be the death of my parents, no matter how it turns out. A Hughenfort, convicted of refusing an order. Cowardice. Disgrace.
When I’m alone, I weep. The padre is here a lot, so I keep myself together for him. Thank God Hélène hasn’t come, I should collapse completely in the agony of it all. It would be a blessing if she heard nothing about it, until it is over. One way or another.
2 August, afternoon
Death? Shot, by my own men? No, that’s
God help me, I can’t
Unthinkable. I can’t think about it. My mind won’t
I’ve sent for the Major, he’ll put an end to this.
3 August, 4:30 a.m.
The Maj. sent a message that he’d come at two in the morning. I sent the padre away to get some rest, and so I could think. I knew that if the news had been good, he’d have sent it, not come himself.
The CinC himself, the Maj. told me, when he heard my true name, said he was sorry, that it was out of his hands. That discipline knows no titles. He’s right, of course, although I hadn’t thought the Army’s hold on the common soldier that precarious, to require such an iron grip over its junior officers. He stayed for a long time, from two nearly to dawn. We talked. We’d never really talked before, he never seemed my sort, but it was good to have at my side a man of my own people, an uncle who knew the land and the trees I loved from a child, who understood the difference between the upper lawns and the park, who’d seen the sun rise over The Circles, who had fished Justice Pond in the spring.
He promises me that the Pater and Mama needn’t be told. The letter’s nearly the same as for an honourable death, now. So grief, but no shame. No blot of cowardice on the name. No dark cloud over Justice Hall.
Under those circumstances, I can—I nearly wrote “live with this.” And I suppose I can, for the hours left me.
He left a few minutes ago. I asked McFarlane to give him my letters and papers, to hand them personally to my parents on his next leave, along with the letter I wrote to say good-bye and to introduce them to Hélène. This journal I’ve kept by me, as my private friend. I’ll ask the padre to send it home when Pater asks him for it. Pater shall have to judge whether or not Mother is strong enough.
Hélène, when you read this, know that you were in my thoughts to the end. Know that the only regret I hold is that my decision stole the years of joy we would have had together. Kiss my mother and father for me. I know you will love them, given time.
Dawn draws near. The padre prays with me, and sits in silence when I wish to add to these words. He is a good man. I asked him to read to me from the fifth chapter of Amos. He hesitated, and then did so. When he had finished, I saw tears in his eyes. I have none in mine. I feel only a chasm of regret deeper than any sapper’s tunnel, and fear—not of death, I am beyond that now, thank God, but fear that my body will fail me in the morning, and cringe from the wall. Why should shame be such a terrible threat, greater than death itself? A thing you can’t eat or drink, all-powerful in a man’s life. I suppose because, when it comes down to it, there is nothing but honour and pride.
It was a blessing to hear the word “Justice” from the padre’s mouth. For a moment, I was home again.
Here it comes. For those I love, for Justice, may I prove myself strong.
Justitia fortitudo mea est.
Gabriel Adrian Thomas Hughenfort
3 August 1918

   Iris spent two days in her cabin, immersing herself in this record of her unacknowledged son’s final months and struggling to come to terms with its wrenching emotions and its devastating implications.

The boy had been so alone. That was, I knew, what would hit her the hardest, at first anyway. Transferred from his original unit into another that was then in the heat of battle, and subsequently moved, then overrun, and finally split up and moved again, Gabriel had as much chance of forging friendships as someone attempting to thread a needle in an earthquake. His superior officers did not know him, the padre was sympathetic but ineffectual, and his girl was so rushed, she most likely did not even know of his plight until it was too late. Had he known that his true mother was in Paris, had he ever been told that his true father worked for one of the most powerful men in the British government, he might have sent word, and in an instant the waters of justice would have rolled down into that small and lonely cell and carried him away.

But—and the implications of this would come more slowly to the woman reading her son’s words—Gabriel Hughenfort was given one faint ray of hope, one man who was in a position to stop the juggernaut. Or so the boy believed. He put his hopes in “the Major,” trusted the man to be his advocate among the powerful, even gave that man his most precious letters, to be returned to the family. And the man had gone away, said nothing, kept or destroyed the letters, and finally—the cruellest twist of all—turned Gabriel’s own finely honed sense of responsibility and nobility against him, using the boy’s bred-in-the-bone consciousness of what it was to be a Hughenfort to keep him from crying the name aloud, using it as a shield to stay the bullets. Use your name, “the Maj.” had drilled into him that last bitter night, and you might save your life, but the cost? Disgrace for the family name forever. Stay silent, offer your life up to Honour, and no one need know. He had held before Gabriel the opportunity to emulate all those Hughenforts who had made the ultimate sacrifice, for one cause or another, to stand with pride beside those demanding ancestors on the walls. And Gabriel fell for it.

With the ashes of that betrayal in my mouth, it was no hardship to avoid the social whirl around the captain’s table during our crossing. I probably ate little more than Iris did, and the work I did during those two days, the paper on biblical deductions for the American journal, turned out considerably more caustic than I had originally intended.
Their minds were perverted,
I translated the story of Susanna and the elders;
Their thoughts strayed from the path of God, and they attended not to the demands of Justice.