by Pat Barker
‘All right, what?’
‘All right, I’ll consider it.’
‘I suppose most of them turn you into Daddy, don’t they? Well, I’m a bit too old to be sitting on Daddy’s knee.’
‘Kicking him on the shins every time you meet him isn’t generally considered more mature.’
‘I see. A negative transference. Is that what you think we’ve got?’
‘I hope not.’ Rivers couldn’t altogether conceal his surprise. ‘Where did you learn that term?’
‘I can read.’
‘Well, yes, I know, but its –’
‘Not popular science? No, but then neither is this.’
He reached for the book beside his bed and held it out to Rivers. Rivers found himself holding a copy of The Todas. He stared for a moment at his own name on the spine. He told himself there was no reason why Prior shouldn’t read one of his books, or all of them for that matter. There was no rational reason for him to feel uneasy. He handed the book back. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer something lighter? You are ill, after all.’
Prior leant back against his pillows, his eyes gleaming with amusement. ‘Do you know, I knew you were going to say that. Now how did I know that?’
‘I didn’t realize you were interested in anthropology.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘No reason.’
Really, Rivers thought, Prior was cuckoo-backed to the point where normal conversation became almost impossible. He was flicking through the book, obviously looking for something in particular. After a minute or so he held it out again, open at the section on sexual morality. ‘Do they really go on like that?’
Rivers said, as austerely as he knew how, ‘Their sexual lives are conducted along rather different lines from ours.’
‘I’ll say. They must be bloody knackered. I couldn’t keep it up, could you?’
‘I think my age and your asthma might effectively prevent either of us setting any records.’
‘Ah, yes, but I’m only asthmatic part of the time.’
‘You have to win, don’t you?’
Prior stared intently at him. ‘You know, you do a wonderful imitation of a stuffed shirt. And you’re not like that at all, really, are you?’
Rivers took his glasses off and swept his hand across his eyes. ‘Mister Prior.’
‘I know, I know, “Tell me about France.” All right, what do you want to know? And please don’t say, “Whatever you want to tell me.”’
‘All right. How did you fit in?’
Prior’s face shut tight. ‘You mean, did I encounter any snobbery?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not more than I have here.’
Their eyes locked. Rivers said, ‘But you did encounter it?’
‘Yes. It’s made perfectly clear when you arrive that some people are more welcome than others. It helps if you’ve been to the right school. It helps if you hunt, it helps if your shirts are the right colour. Which is a deep shade of khaki, by the way.’
In spite of himself Rivers looked down at his shirt.
‘Borderline,’ said Prior.
‘And yours?’
‘Not borderline. Nowhere near. Oh, and then there’s the seat. The Seat. You know, they sent me on a course once. You have to ride round and round this bloody ring with your hands clasped behind your head. No saddle. No stirrups. It was amazing. Do you know, for the first time I realized that somewhere at the back of their… tiny tiny minds they really do believe the whole thing’s going to end in one big glorious cavalry charge. “Stormed at with shot and shell,/Boldly they rode and well,/Into the jaws of death,/Into the mouth of hell…” And all. That. Rubbish.’
Rivers noticed that Prior’s face lit up as he quoted the poem. ‘Is it rubbish?’
‘Yes. Oh, all right, I was in love with it once. Shall I tell you something about that charge? Just as it was about to start an officer saw three men smoking. He thought that was a bit too casual, so he confiscated their sabres and sent them into the charge unarmed. Two of them were killed. The one who survived was flogged the following day. The military mind doesn’t change much, does it? The same mind now orders men to be punished by tying them to a limber.’ Prior stretched his arms out. ‘Like this. Field punishment No. 1. “Crucifixion.” Even at the propaganda level can you imagine anybody being stupid enough to order this?’
Either the position, or his anger, constricted his breathing. He brought his arms down sharply and rounded his shoulders. Rivers waited for the spasm to pass. ‘How was your seat?’
‘Sticky. No, that’s good. It means you don’t come off.’
A short silence. Prior said, ‘You mustn’t make too much of it, you know, the snobbery. I didn’t. The only thing that really makes me angry is when people at home say there are no class distinctions at the front. Ball-ocks. What you wear, what you eat. Where you sleep. What you carry. The men are pack animals.’ He hesitated. ‘You know the worst thing? What seemed to me the worst thing? I used to go to this café in Amiens and just across the road there was a brothel. The men used to queue out on to the street.’ He looked at Rivers. ‘They get two minutes.’
‘And officers?’
‘I don’t know. Longer than that.’ He looked up. ‘I don’t pay.’
Prior was talking so freely Rivers decided to risk applying pressure. ‘What were you dreaming about last night?’
‘I don’t remember.’
Rivers said gently, ‘You know, one of the distinguishing characteristics of nightmares is that they are always remembered.’
‘Can’t’ve been a nightmare, then, can it?’
‘When I arrived you were on the floor over there. Trying to get through the wall.’
‘I’m sure it’s true, if you say so, but I don’t remember. The first thing I remember is you listening to my chest.’
Rivers got up, replaced his chair against the wall and came back to the bed. ‘I can’t force you to accept treatment if you don’t want it. You do remember the nightmares. You remember them enough to walk the floor till two or three o’clock every morning rather than go to sleep.’
‘I wish the night staff didn’t feel obliged to act as spies.’
‘Now that’s just childish, isn’t it? You know it’s their job.’
Prior refused to look at him.
‘All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘It isn’t fair to say I don’t want treatment. I’ve asked for treatment and you’ve refused to give it me.’
Rivers looked blank. ‘Oh, I see. The hypnosis. I didn’t think you were serious.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be serious? It is used to recover lost memory, isn’t it?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘So why won’t you do it?’
Rivers started to speak, and stopped.
‘I can understand, you know. I’m not stupid.’
‘No, I know you’re not stupid. It’s just that there’s… there’s a certain amount of technical jargon involved. I was just trying to avoid it. Basically, people who’ve dealt with a horrible experience by splitting it off from the rest of their consciousness sometimes have a general tendency to deal with any kind of unpleasantness in that way, and if they have, the tendency is likely to be reinforced by hypnosis. In other words you might be removing one particular symptom – loss of memory – and making the underlying condition worse.’
‘But you do do it?’
‘If everything else has failed, yes.’
Prior lay back. ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’
‘In your case not everything else has failed or even been tried. For example, I’d want to write to your CO. We need a clear picture of the last few days.’ Rivers watched Prior’s expression carefully, but he was giving nothing away. ‘But I’d have to go to the CO with a precise question. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s no point bothering him with a vague inquiry about an unspecified period of time.’
‘No, all right’
‘So we still need you to remember as much as possible by conventional means. But we can leave it till you’re feeling better.’
‘No, I want to get on with it.’
‘We’ll see how you feel tomorrow.’
After leaving Prior, Rivers walked up the back staircase to the tower and stood for a few moments, his hands on the balustrade, looking out across the hills. Prior worried him. The whole business of the demand for hypnosis worried him. At times he felt almost a sense of foreboding in relation to the case, though he wasn’t inclined to give it much credence. In his experience, premonitions of disaster were almost invariably proved false, and the road to Calvary entered on with the very lightest of hearts.
MR MACPHERSON With regard to the case of Second Lieutenant Sassoon, immediately he heard of it, he consulted his military advisers, and in response to their inquiries he received the following telegram: A breach of discipline has been committed, but no disciplinary action has been taken, since Second Lieutenant Sassoon has been reported by the Medical Board as not being responsible for his action, as he was suffering from nervous breakdown. When the military authorities saw the letter referred to, they felt that there must be something wrong with an extremely gallant officer who had done excellent work at the front. He hoped hon. members would hesitate long before they made use of a document written by a young man in such a state of mind, nor did he think their action would be appreciated by the friends of the officer. (Cheers.)
Rivers folded The Times and smiled. ‘Really, Siegfried, what did you expect?’
‘I don’t know. Meanwhile…’ Sassoon leant across and pointed to the front page.
Rivers read. ‘“Platts. Killed in action on the 28th April, dearly loved younger son, etc., aged seventeen years and ten months.”’ He looked up and found Sassoon watching him.
‘He wasn’t old enough to enlist. And nobody gives a damn.’
‘Of course they do.’
‘Oh, come on, it doesn’t even put them off their sausages! Have you ever sat in a club room and watched people read the casualty list?’
‘You could say that about the breakfast room here. Sensitivity t-to what’s going on in France is not best shown by b-bursting into t-tears over the c-casualty list.’ He saw Sassoon noticing the stammer and made an effort to speak more calmly. ‘The thing for you to do now is face the fact that you’re here, and here for at least another eleven weeks. Have you thought what you’re going to do?’
‘Not really. I’m still out of breath from getting here. Go for walks. Read.’
‘Will you be able to write, do you think?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ll write if I have to sit on the roof to do it.’
‘There’s no prospect of a room of your own.’
‘No, I know that.’
Rivers chose his words carefully. ‘Captain Campbell is an extremely nice man.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed. What’s more, his battle plans are saner than Haig’s.’
Rivers ignored that. ‘One thing I could do is put you up for my club, the Conservative Club. I don’t know whether you’d like that? It’d give you an alternative base at least.’
‘I would, very much. Thank you.’
‘Though I hope you won’t exclude the possibility of making friends here.’
Sassoon looked down at the backs of his hands. ‘I thought I might send for my golf clubs. There seem to be one or two keen golfers about.’
‘Good idea. I’ll see you three times a week. It’d better be evenings rather than mornings, I think – especially if you’re going to play golf. Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays?’
‘Fine.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’ve got nothing else on.’
‘Eight thirty, shall we say? Immediately after dinner.’
Sassoon nodded. ‘It’s very kind of you.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ He closed his appointments book and pulled a sheet of paper towards him. ‘Now I need to ask a few questions about your physical health. Childhood illnesses, that sort of thing.’
‘All right. Why?’
‘For the admission report.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘I don’t usually include any… intimate details.’
‘Probably just as well. My intimate details disqualify me from military service.’
Rivers looked up and smiled. ‘I know.’
After Sassoon had gone, Rivers got a case sheet from the stack on his side table, paused for a few moments to collect his thoughts, and began to write:
Patient joined ranks of the Sussex Yeomanry on Aug. 3rd, 1914. Three months later he had a bad smash while schooling a horse and was laid up for several months. In May 1915 he received a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He was in France from Nov. 1915 until Aug. 1916, when he was sent home with trench fever. He had received the Military Cross in June 1916. He was on three months’ sick leave and returned to France in Feb. 1917. On April 16th, 1917, he was wounded in the right shoulder and was in the surgical wards of the 4th London for four weeks and then at Lady Brassey’s Convalescent Home for three weeks. He then understood that he was to be sent to Cambridge to instruct cadets.
From an early stage of his service in France, he had been horrified by the slaughter and had come to doubt whether the continuance of the War was justifiable. When on sick leave in 1916 he was in communication with Bertrand Russell and other pacifists. He had never previously approved of pacifism and does not think he was influenced by this communication. During his second visit to France, his doubts about the justifiability of the War were accentuated; he became perhaps even more doubtful about the way in which the war was being conducted from a military point of view. When he became fit to return to duty, in July of this year, he felt he was unable to do so, and that it was his duty to make some kind of protest. He drew up a statement which he himself regarded as an act of wilful defiance of military authority (see The Times, July 31st, 1917). In consequence of this statement he was ordered to attend a Medical Board at Chester about July 16th, but failed to attend. It was arranged that a second Board should be held at Liverpool on July 20th, which he attended, and he was recommended for admission to Craiglockhart War Hospital for special treatment for three months.
The patient is a healthy looking man of good physique. There are no physical signs of any disorder of the Nervous System. He discusses his recent actions and their motives in a perfectly intelligent and rational way, and there is no evidence of any excitement or depression. He recognizes that his view of warfare is tinged by his feelings about the death of friends and of the men who were under his command in France. At the present time he lays special stress on the hopelessness of any decision in the War as it is now being conducted, but he left out any reference to this aspect of his opinions in the statement which he sent to his Commanding Officer and which was read in the House of Commons. His view differs from that of the ordinary pacifist in that he would no longer object to the continuance of the War if he saw any reasonable prospect of a rapid decision.
He had an attack of double pneumonia when 11 years old, and again at 14. He was at Marlborough College, where he strained his heart at football. He was for four terms at Clare College, Cambridge, where he read first Law and then History, but did not care for either subject. He left Cambridge and spent the following years living in the country, devoting his time chiefly to hunting and cricket. He took no interest in Politics. From boyhood he has written verses at different times, and during his convalescence from his riding accident in 1914 he wrote a poem called ‘The Old Huntsman’, which has recently been published with other poen under that title.
‘I gave Broadbent leave,’ Bryce said. ‘With some trepidation.’
‘Yes, he told me he was going to ask you.’
‘You know what he’s done? Gone off with his room-mate’s new breeches. Marsden’s furious.’
Ruggles said, ‘You mean this guy’s running round the hospital bare-assed frightening the VADs?’
‘No, he’s wearing his other breeches. And your idea of what might frighten a VAD is –’
‘Chivalrous,’ said Ruggles.
‘Naive,’ said Bryce. ‘In the extreme.’
‘Why is it always your patients, Rivers?’ asked Brock.
The MOs were sitting round a table in Bryce’s room over coffee, as they did twice a week after dinner. These gatherings were kept deliberately informal, but they served some of the same purposes as a case conference. Since everybody had now read The Times report, Bryce had asked Rivers to say a few words about Sassoon.
Rivers kept it as brief and uncontroversial as possible. While he was speaking, he noticed that Brock was balancing a pencil between the tips of his extremely long bluish fingers. Never a good sign. Rivers liked Brock, but they didn’t invariably see eye to eye.
A moment’s silence, after Rivers had finished speaking. Then Ruggles asked Bryce if the press had shown any interest. While Bryce was summarizing a conversation he’d had with the Daily Mail, Rivers watched Brock, who sat, arms folded across his chest, looking down his long pinched nose at the table. Brock always looked frozen. Even his voice, high, thin and reedy, seemed to echo across arctic wastes. When Bryce had finished, Brock turned to Rivers and said, ‘What are you thinking of doing with him?’
‘Well, I have been seeing him every day. I’m going to drop that now to three times a week.’
‘Isn’t that rather a lot? For someone who – according to you – has nothing wrong with him?’
‘I shan’t be able to persuade him to go back in less than that.’
‘Isn’t there a case for leaving him alone?’
‘No.’
‘I mean, simply by being here he’s discredited. Discredited, disgraced, apparently lied to by his best friend? I’d’ve thought there was a case for letting him be.’
‘No, there’s no case,’ Rivers said. ‘He’s a mentally and physically healthy man. It’s his duty to go back, and it’s my duty to see he does.’
‘And you’ve no doubts about that at all?’
‘I don’t see the problem. I’m not going to give him electric shocks, or or subcutaneous injections of ether. I’m simply asking him to defend his position. Which he admits was reached largely on emotional grounds.’
