Colonel Carmody was the name the prosecutor called him, and I had a strange confusion in my mind. Had I met him before, or did all his kind look alike? Apart from me and the guards and my four judges there was hardly anyone else there — no defence counsel, only the prosecuting major and a man, an army captain, who was called ‘the prisoner’s friend’. A rather odd name, for he was no friend of mine; we were total strangers. As for what he was meant to do, that still puzzles me, for he did absolutely nothing, except to smile at me occasionally, generally when the court-martial was being told that I was a disgrace, a coward and a deserter in the face of the enemy.
Even though this all happened nearly a week ago, I can still see his smile. Aimless. Rather vacant and hopeless. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t care, or was just there to make up some kind of quorum. If he was the prisoner’s friend, I think he should have been on my side, but I soon realised there would be no help from that direction.
When the court proceedings began, the prosecutor took only a few minutes to state this case against me.
‘The accused soldier left his post at a critical moment. He ignored orders to stay in the trenches and ran away from the impending attack in the most craven manner —’
‘I didn’t run,’ I called out, ‘I walked.’
‘The prisoner will be silent!’ the president of the court snapped, and he said if I could not be quiet I would be removed, then tried and sentenced in absentia. He told the prosecutor to continue.
‘… ran away in the most craven manner,’ the major repeated. ‘What’s more, as an experienced soldier and a member of the Australian and New Zealand forces, the so-called Anzacs, he was setting an appalling example to many new young recruits from Britain and our dominion nations. It was one of the most blatant cases of cowardice that one can imagine. After fleeing from the scene of battle…’
I wanted to protest again that I didn’t flee — but saw the president watching and waiting for this. Instead I shook my head to rebut the accusation. The ‘friend’ gave one of his vacuous smiles, the court president reprimanded me for making derogatory gestures that were in contempt, and the major continued his prosecution.
‘After fleeing from the scene of battle, he was seen by two military policemen. He was ordered to stop, but tried to attack them…’
I waved my arms and shook my head in objection at these lies, and this time the president ordered my wrists to be handcuffed behind my back so I would be prevented from doing this. I kept thinking that his face was somehow familiar, but from where I just couldn’t recollect. I knew one thing for certain; it was not a friendly face. It was becoming very clear that I had no friends at all in that courtroom.
‘The military policemen displayed great courage in resisting the attack. The accused then started to run away. They pursued him and in due course after a chase they captured him…’
All untrue! I wanted to shout. I was limping because my feet had blisters and I was trying to find a field hospital. How could two military policemen display great courage when I didn’t even try to attack them? Two of them with pistols, me without a weapon.
Why don’t they tell the truth here? I wanted to demand. Why don’t I have someone to defend me, instead of that captain who keeps smiling as if everything is going just the way it should? Why aren’t I allowed to speak? I ran away from those MPs because they tried to shoot me! I fell down, they gave me a working-over and shackled me, and later on they bashed me like a pair of vicious thugs.
‘That completes the case, Colonel President,’ the prosecutor said. ‘The evidence is conclusive.’
‘Indeed it is,’ the colonel asserted. ‘I also feel obliged to inform my fellow judges that this prisoner has a long history of insubordination and poor behaviour. He was once an NCO, a sergeant, reduced to the ranks for disobedience and wilful defiance of an order by a senior officer. He managed to get himself sent to Netley Hospital, which has an unfortunate history of sheltering certain shirkers. The prisoner is, in my opinion, the worst type of soldier. Abusive, rebellious, and finally showing his yellow streak — his utter cowardice — by this desertion of his comrades. The ultimate crime — abandonment of his military duty in the face of the enemy. I suggest there can be only one verdict, and I ask my fellow officers to give me their decision.’
I heard all this as though in a daze, feeling as if he might be speaking about someone else. Surely this wasn’t me! I was the bloke who left university to volunteer, the nineteen-year-old who was only scared of one thing — that he might miss the war, the big adventure. One of the original mob who fought at Gallipoli, and then for two years in France. I had a platoon full of mates who could testify that I’m not a coward, but of course they can’t be here. They’re all dead, and even if any were still alive I doubt if this court would wish to hear them.
I saw the officers conferring. It seemed to take less than a minute. Then they all turned and stared at me while the colonel cleared his throat.
‘The verdict is unanimous,’ he announced. ‘And there is only one punishment for this crime. You are sentenced to execution by firing squad. You will be taken from here to the prison, and kept there until the sentence is carried out.’
The president and the three officers rose, bowed, and left the room. The prosecuting major collected his papers and followed them. None of them even looked at me until the captain, ‘my friend’, gave a shrug and a smile as if to say he’d done his best.
Then the guards took me by the arms and tried to make me march, even though my legs were in irons. When I fell over I nearly brought them down with me. They kicked me before they forced me to get up, and said I was a piece of fucking garbage, better off dead, and that’d be taken care of in the next few days.
I couldn’t complain to the court, because the court had adjourned and left me to the mercy of these mongrels.
It’s been a week. We’re in a cell block, us garbage who are condemned to death. There are others besides me. Ten of us when I came here, all British except for one Indian and a New Zealander. One went yesterday, another two this morning. We could hear the boots march in unison past our cells, the sound of command that called the firing squad to attention, a cry of despair from one lad, God knows which one, the shouted order to fire, then a volley of shots and distant voices. I suppose they were checking if the poor devils were dead. Once there was the sound of a pistol shot. If they’re not sure, they say it is kind to put a bullet through the brain, just in case. Kind! What fucking tripe! My cousin in the bush used to say the same when they were culling sheep or cattle.
The first day I got my kitbag returned to me; not much in it except some dirty clothes and my notebook.
‘You won’t want no clean clothes,’ one of the guards said, ‘cos you won’t have no time to change into ‘em. And as for this book, I dunno about this. What’s in it?’
‘Just a sort of diary,’ I told him, trying not to appear too anxious.
‘Nothing special.’
I was scared he was going to impound it, probably tear it up or burn it to show his power, but to my surprise he shrugged and said I could keep it. Might occupy my time until it was my turn. Which could be any time, tomorrow or the next day.
But it hasn’t been tomorrow or the next day. One week so far. I spend much of the time writing, trying to remember things to put down, hoping the stub of this pencil will last as long as I do.
Don’t worry, it’ll be soon, the guards keep telling me. Tomorrow or the next day is like a refrain. They love to scare you, to watch your eyes when they say this, hoping to see the fear.
Meanwhile others die. It’s been going on every day, the culling and the killing. Can’t do too many each day, for the army says it must be done at dawn. I wonder why it must be dawn? Is that a good time to cull and kill? Do they get the rest of the day off, the soldiers who make up the firing squad? And is it true only one or two have real bullets up the spout, the rest have blanks, so nobody knows who did the killing? I find I spend time o
ccupying myself with these strange questions, which have come to seem quite important.
Another week. Nine of the men who were in here — all found guilty because I don’t think anyone before these courts is ever found innocent — are now dead. Their crimes ranged from desertion to some pathetic cases. A young lad being absent from the front-line for two days because he was cut off and had lost his way and his memory — he was shot. So was another bloke for hitting an officer. Killed for that. Then there’s one poor bastard of a Tommy who was shot for refusing to wear his cap. I thought it had to be a rotten sort of joke, but it seems it is true. He was charged with disobeying a lawful command, given personally by his senior officer. Akin to mutiny, they called it. He pleaded guilty, the silly bugger, but only because he was persuaded it was the best thing to do to get the trial over and done with. He never dreamt they’d shoot him. Nineteen years old, he was. Shot because he ‘antagonised’ an officer. Are they all raving mad, or just mad with power? What kind of army is it that’d shoot a young kid for such a trifling offence, and what sort of a cold awful bastard is the general who signed the deed of execution?
For a while I’ve been alone in the death cells. Then two others came here — one a Canadian, the other Scottish. The Scot was hard to understand with his thick brogue when he did decide to talk, which wasn’t often; most of the time he was singing and laughing and chatting to himself. Crazy as a loon. Hardly aware he was in here, or what would happen to him. Kept singing ‘Loch Lomond’ and Gaelic things, mournful as a dark wet Sunday. Singing his poor head off when they took him out, still singing till the shots stopped him in the last chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. They let him get almost to the end… ‘should auld acquaintance be forgot’… then they killed him. But not quite!
God, the sounds he made before the pistol shot reminded me so much of Wilfred’s poem, the one he read to me at Netley. Sassoon said forget Shakespeare, read Owen. I can still remember Wilfred’s young and angry face as he spoke the words written after a friend died from a gas attack. Sweet Jesus, it was so vivid and so bloody savage.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
[It is sweet and right to die for your country.]
The Canadian didn’t believe they could execute him. Said he was a dominion soldier, not British, and they didn’t have the right. Told me his government would have a whole heap to say; they wouldn’t stand for it. I didn’t like to tell him about the Indian or the New Zealander who’d gone out the door. Or that I’d heard of other Canadians being executed. The Canadian army isn’t even told — or so the guards say. It’ll be the same with me. Nobody will bother to get on a soapbox about a cowardly deserter… which is what that colonel at the trial called me. I keep on feeling I’ve met him before, but I can’t remember when or where.
The Canadian did give me some other news. He said there was a great big new push at a place called Le Hamel, and the Aussies were right in it. That they were pleased, because the whole five AIF divisions — it seems we’re down to only five divisions now because of the losses — are grouped as a single army under the command of General Monash. An Australian in command at long last. Thank Christ — and good on him!
No more bloody dreadful old Haig with his horrible plans of containment. The Canuck said Monash had a new plan — to bring up supplies by tanks, so the troops would not be burdened down. Make a nice change that, I said — we always had to carry too much stuff. Made us like packhorses or mules. It slowed us up, but how would High Command know such a thing, that mob sitting on their fat bums in their comfortable armchairs at headquarters, moving us about like pieces on a chessboard. They’d never have bothered to even think of it. But Monash would, I said.
This Canadian seems to know a hell of a lot. Maybe he’s a spy, I tell him, and we both laugh. Just a deserter, he says. Then he tells me he even joined up with a bunch of deserters of different nationalities who live rough in the empty sand hills out near Dunkirk, on the coast. I’ve never heard of this before, but he swears it’s true. A whole mob of them — there’s even some Germans who skipped from their side. They’ve got guns, plenty of food, and after a few attempts to round them up, nobody bothers any more. They’re like a sort of gang who come into the towns after dark and steal all the supplies they need. But he started to feel bad about it, and like a dill came back, gave himself up and confessed, and they found him guilty after a ten-minute trial.
‘You got ten minutes?’ I said. ‘You must be important. Mine felt more like five.’
The Canadian says Monash has a brand-new plan to recapture Villers-Bretonneux, and to use the Australian Flying Corps to bomb Le Hamel and the valley behind it. I’d really like to be there with them. I wish they’d let me out of here so I could die there among Australians, with my own kind.
He went on talking about these battles that were taking place, and I didn’t know half the names. But I did remember Villers-Bretonneux.
‘I was there,’ I said.
‘Where?’
‘Villers-Bretonneux. We captured it.’
‘When?’
‘Months ago… Sometime this year. I can’t remember when, but I was there.’
‘Well, maybe you did,’ the Canadian replied as if he didn’t believe me, ‘but if you did then someone else fucked up — because your guy Monash has to go there and try to capture it back again.’
It was nice to talk to someone instead of having to listen to Scottish ballads all the time, but they took him the next day. He fought the guards — they didn’t like it, so they gave him a belting, knocked him down and kicked him, then had to tie him up. It was when he was all trussed like a turkey that he started to cry. He said his family would never live down the disgrace, they’d have to move from the town they’d lived in all their lives. It wasn’t fair, he kept shouting — which it certainly wasn’t, but a guard hit him in the guts with a rifle butt, and when they dragged him out he was vomiting and crying so much he couldn’t speak. And a few minutes later came the command and the shooting, and then I was the only one left in the execution block.
*
I don’t know how much time has gone by. Could be weeks. It feels like it. I know the sun rises and it sets, but on days when there’s no sunshine it’s like night in here, so I lose track of the exact number of passing days. I know one thing, the guards are annoyed that I’m still alive. They don’t like having to be made to look after one person, and every single morning they do a threatening march towards my cell, like a culling-killing squad about to eliminate the next one. They make it sound as if they are coming for me. They like to tell me that since I’m the only one left, I must be next. They go into the details about how the others died. They enjoy telling me about it: that some screamed, some prayed, some cried or shit their pants. These guards are sadistic bastards — they like to see that I’m afraid. But the strange thing is I’m not sure I am. All my real friends are long dead, all the poor buggers caged in these cells with me are gone — I no longer know how I really feel about living, or if I even care.
Except for never being able to go back to Jane. I care about that, but she feels a lifetime away and I don’t even have a photo to remind me how she looked. I don’t know my feelings about the boy — I still think his name was Richard, though I’m not certain — I can’t tell how I feel because I’ve never seen him. I don’t know what he looks like. I do know he’s three years old, born the day we la
nded at Gallipoli in 1915, so that makes him three, but the baby photos are all I had, and they were lost. I desperately want to go home and see him. I want to pick him up and hug him. It’s not right to be the proud father of a three-year-old son and never be able to hug him.
Today I had visitors. The cell door was pushed open and a guard brought in two men. Two officers in Australian uniform, which was a surprise. One had an insignia and a cross that showed he was a padre. The other was a medical officer.
‘Do you remember me, Private Conway?’ the padre asked.
‘No, sir, I don’t think so,’ I replied.
He told me he was Chaplain Packard of the First Division, and then I knew the name. He was in Gallipoli and at Pozieres. Buried plenty of mates of mine. I could even remind him of his nickname.
‘Pack Up Your Troubles Packard? Was that you?’
‘That was me, son,’ he said with a grin. ‘I doubt if you ever came to my church parades, but I was sure you’d know the cheeky song they used to sing about me.’
I remembered, I told him, and sang it:
Pack up your troubles, for its old Packard,
Drumming up a church parade,
Don’t let him buryyer in God’s Square Mile,
Just duck hoys, that’s the style…
The other officer was a major. He watched this while trying not to show impatience. When I’d finished he briskly shook hands with me.
‘I’m Major Cornwall, Stephen. Tim Cornwall, M.O. of the First. We’re here because the news is pretty bloody bad. They’re saying that you’ll be executed tomorrow.’
‘Shit,’ I said. From him it had more veracity than the predictions and taunts of the guards.
‘Shit indeed,’ he replied. ‘A very shitty business altogether.’
Barbed Wire and Roses Page 26
