The Soldier's Song (35 page)

‘Bloody hell,’ he cried, blinking back tears and taking Stephen’s hand in his. ‘Look who’s come back from the bloody dead.’

Stephen squeezed his hand for all he was worth, only half sure it was real. He squeezed and squeezed and tried to speak, but nothing came out – only a strangled sob. Then another, and another, until his whole body was racked and he could hardly breathe.

‘There, there, old man,’ Nightingale laughed, still holding his hand. ‘It’s all right now, you’re safe. You’re safe, Stephen.’

‘What about a nice cup of tea?’ Nurse Winslow asked and, with hardly a pause, she answered for him, ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Of course you would.’

Stephen watched her fussing around the little room, shifting the water pitcher half an inch to the left, fidgeting with the curtains. He knew his silence made her nervous. She was like a trapped bird, flitting to and fro and chattering incessantly. But if she stopped, she’d have to face up to the fact that he couldn’t answer.

‘You must be tired after all your exercise. A cup of tea would be just the thing.’ She tugged at an invisible crease in the coverlet and smiled at him. He smiled back. It was all he could do. Grin and nod, or shake his head. No words would come – not since they’d dragged him into that trench three weeks ago and he’d tried to gather the last of his strength to answer Nightingale. He’d been so desperate to speak, to say something, anything, but nothing would come, not even a grunt. Nothing when the stretcher-bearers came to carry him to the regimental aid post, and then dropped him as the morning hate from the Germans caught them in the open. Nothing when Nightingale came to see him at the casualty clearing station and fell fast asleep in the chair beside his bed. But by then he’d given up trying to speak and just fumbled for his pocketbook and pen. He wrote a note and then thumped Nightingale’s knee to wake him up. Nightingale yawned and looked blearily at the grubby piece of paper, then nodded.

‘Right you are,’ he said, and stood up, looking like a lost child in the middle of all the cots and stretchers, ‘I’ll let her know, don’t you worry.’ And then he’d bent down to shake Stephen’s hand, and that was the last time he’d seen him.

Three weeks on and he was in London. His leg had been washed and stitched and bandaged and now stuck stiffly out in front of his wheelchair. Sometimes it hurt – a deep, throbbing pain, like a pulse inside his knee – and sometimes it itched furiously. But the doctors said there was no infection and it was healing. With that knowledge he put up with the morning exercises they made him do, back and forth along the parallel bars, back and forth until his arms ached with the effort and sweat was dripping off his brow. But the muteness was beginning to trouble him. It was beginning to look recalcitrant. Sometimes even Nurse Winslow let her mask slip and he would catch her looking at him with a mixture of pity and exasperation.

‘A cup of tea, then,’ she said, half to herself. ‘A cup of tea, and then a wash and a shave. We’ll have to have you looking your best for when that nice girl comes to see you.’

He smiled again – but there was nothing forced about it this time. Lillian was coming. It was true. He hadn’t dreamed it yesterday, or the day before. She came every day, on the tube from Holland Park. Every day for the last two weeks. Just to think of it put joy in his heart. As long as she was there, he didn’t care if he never spoke again.

‘Why don’t I leave you sitting by the window while I fetch your tea?’ Nurse Winslow asked, ‘Then you can look out at the gardens. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Of course you would.’

She pushed his chair over to the window and went out, closing the door gently behind her. The hospital was in London, but the view across the broad green swath of Kensington Gardens made it feel like the countryside. The hospital had its own spacious gardens too, with a neatly tended lawn sprinkled with patients lounging in deckchairs or walking in the late autumn sun. It should have been a comforting scene, except he saw the war in everything now. The straight privet hedges were like built-up trenches, and the newly dug earth in the flowerbeds had the same spewy texture as a fresh shell crater. With a sinking feeling, he tried to push these images from his mind, but he knew he wouldn’t escape. Next came the throbbing in his head, the metallic taste in his mouth. These were the harbingers, and with them the bursting sensation, as if he was going to explode in a fit. He closed his eyes, trying to ward it off, but it was too late. In his mind’s eye was the same peaceful scene, but then a cluster of shells whistled down into the grounds. Five-nines, puffing black smoke with a little orange heart of fire. One, two, three. The manicured turf was torn to pieces, divots flying in every direction. The men were ripped apart, broken and shredded and flung into the air, and his hands flew to his mouth, trying to stifle a silent scream.

The matron tapped twice on the door and, without waiting for an answer, stuck her head inside.

‘Miss Bryce is here to see you, doctor,’ she said, and Hardcastle grunted and looked up at the clock as he screwed the top back on his pen. Punctual to the minute, as usual.

‘Very well. Send her in,’ he stood up as Lillian walked in, reaching across to shake her hand. ‘Miss Bryce, how nice to see you again. Please, have a seat.’

Lillian sat and watched Hardcastle subside into his chair on the other side of his desk. Despite his outward politeness, she knew he wasn’t really pleased to see her. There was a mutual, if respectful, loathing. He thought she was a busybody and she, for her part, thought he was a very poor psychiatrist. He didn’t even look right: big and beefy, with a red face and thick, stubby fingers. In short, she thought he looked too stupid to be good at his job.

‘Well? How did you find him today?’ Hardcastle asked, though he knew from the look on her face what the answer would be. She wasn’t like the usual round of relatives who asked to see him. No yes doctor, no doctor, whatever you say doctor from her. A university lecturer, apparently – clever and completely self-possessed. She’d taken a leave of absence and come straight over the moment she found out where he was. An admirable show of devotion, he had to admit, but these weekly meetings were starting to become a bit of a pain in the arse.

‘Much the same as before,’ Lillian answered, making it sound like an accusation.

‘Well, as I’m sure you understand, it’s a very slow process.’

‘I’m sure it is, doctor.’

She was trying not to sound impatient – and she didn’t wish to appear ungrateful, because she was not. The relief, the blessed relief, of that telegram was still with her. She’d opened it with shaking hands and almost fainted when she read the two short lines. Then joy seized her and she ran to tell her mother and sister, hugging them both. It was only later that she thought of the letter, Stephen’s letter, still sitting unopened on her dressing table. After reading the notice in the newspaper she’d felt sick even to look at it, but now she ran upstairs like a girl, tore it open and laughed out loud to herself as she read it again and again.

‘A very slow process,’ Hardcastle said again, ‘but I’m sure we’ll get there eventually, if we all keep at it. Our man is a hero, after all. He’ll find his voice in the fullness of time.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, doctor,’ Lillian agreed. ‘It’s just that I wonder . . .’

‘Yes, Miss Bryce?’

She paused to gather her thoughts. How to tell this man that she didn’t think he was up to the job. That was the problem.

‘I wonder if we’ve explored every possible avenue. I mean, I’m sure there are alternative treatments that we haven’t tried.’

‘Alternative treatments? Of course there are alternatives. I understand Doctor Yealland is having remarkable success with his electric shock treatment.’

‘No,’ Lillian said flatly. ‘I’ve looked into Doctor Yealland’s so-called treatment. It’s nothing more than torture.’

Hardcastle was loath to agree with her, but he had to admit she had a point. He had seen Yealland administering his treatment and it had sickened him. Tying a man to a chair and applying electric shocks to the back of his throat until he started to speak was a long way from his idea of medicine.

‘Well then, I’m afraid . . .’ Hardcastle began, but he was thrown off by the piercing stare she gave him. ‘Look here,’ he said, spreading his hands on the desk, ‘I’ll admit, I’ve gone about as far as I can. Sometimes, in these cases, it’s just a question of waiting. Time heals all. But I’ll tell you what, there’s a chap I know who might be able to help. He’s done well with some of the more . . . intractable cases. Why don’t I give him a call and see if he can pop over?’

Lillian was pleased to see him blush when she smiled at him.

‘That would be very kind of you, doctor.’

That night he lay awake and thought about Lillian. Even when she wasn’t there, he liked to imagine what she might be doing. He thought about her walking under the trees, sitting on the train, or letting herself into her aunt’s house in Holland Park. He tried to recount to himself every second of her visit, from the moment he saw her come into the common room, to the moment she kissed him and left.

He knew he hadn’t been in good form when she arrived. That episode looking out across the garden had put him out of sorts. But it was a fine afternoon, and she’d suggested that they go and sit in the garden. Stephen had stiffened in his wheelchair, gripping the arms uneasily, but he hadn’t tried to stop her. He’d let her push him out onto the lawn, but when she stopped in the open air he had motioned her on towards a chestnut tree.

‘You’d prefer to sit in the shade?’ she asked, and dutifully pushed him there. He still sat uneasily, looking up now and then at the canopy of five-fingered leaves, only starting to yellow around the edges. It wasn’t shade he craved; it was cover.

Once they were settled, she’d brought out her writing pad. It was a big artist’s sketchbook that she brought with her every day, together with a handful of pencils. But she didn’t use it for drawing. Instead, she turned to a blank page, placed it in his lap and wrote a short formula:

2n + 1 = p + 2q

He’d frowned, trying to make sense of it. Numbers, letters, what did it mean? He shook his head and looked at her questioningly. She looked astonished.

‘Oh, Stephen, don’t tell me you don’t remember it. You must. It’s Lemoine’s conjecture.’

He shook his head. It was as if he’d never seen it before.

But she’d patiently written it out again, and added a few examples using real numbers. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a light came on. He took a pencil and wrote a few more himself, and then a similar formula. He wasn’t sure what it meant at first, it just popped into his head. But Lillian smiled and squeezed his arm.

‘Yes, yes. That’s it exactly. Very good, Stephen.’

And they went on like that for the rest of the afternoon. It bothered Stephen that he sometimes made mistakes, that sometimes he didn’t know what he was writing down. He felt like he was walking in a labyrinth, and at every turn he was presented with an array of doors to pass through. Most of the time he picked the right door to go through, but sometimes he didn’t, and Lillian had to correct him. Then disappointment settled over him like a cloud, and it was hard to shake. It didn’t used to be like that. He used to know the right door, instinctively, before he even tried to open it. He used to know not only the next door, but the three that came after it.

Of course, he’d already tried to explain this to Hardcastle, but he was sure he didn’t understand. He wrote on his notepad and showed him: ‘Not good at maths.’

Bemusement clouded Hardcastle’s heavy face, until Stephen added: ‘Used to be.’

Hardcastle had just shrugged.

‘It’ll pass,’ was all he said, before he pressed on with his analysis. It had turned into a routine: endless questions about the minutiae of the attack. His preparations, his men, what he saw, what he did. Crucially, what did he remember about the last few moments before the shell knocked him down? He’d been speaking before that, had he not? He’d been shouting orders, encouragement to his men. What had happened in those few seconds? He had to know. It had to be in there somewhere.

Stephen smiled bitterly to himself in the dark. He didn’t know. He’d been awake one moment, unconscious the next. That’s all he could remember. Hardcastle was blundering about and he knew it. All he could do was keep leading Stephen down the path to the same point, the same dead end. Every session was the same, and Stephen had started to resent those afternoons in his office. It wasn’t just Hardcastle’s lack of imagination, nor his inability to effect a cure – or just bloody
fix
him – but also the fact that Hardcastle wasn’t a soldier. Oh, he wore the uniform all right, but what the hell did he know? He’d never been to the front, he’d never been under fire. He didn’t know what it was
like.
How could he, when the horror he saw was second-hand? All he could do was tell him to try and put it out of his mind, but they both knew that was no bloody use.

Sleep usually wouldn’t come until the small hours. The nights were too quiet here and the silence took on an ominous weight, as if something dreadful were just about to happen. It helped to focus on the little sounds that were close by. As he lay awake with his fists clenched on the coverlet, he listened to Redfern snoring. His room-mate was an artillery captain who always slept underneath his bed, and his light, regular snore was soothing to Stephen’s ears, though he sometimes snorted awake with a little mewing cry. Sometimes too, he wet himself, but he mostly kept his madness safely bottled up under the bed.