A Whispered Name

by William Brodrick

  ‘The Flanagan file stands out in several respects,’ said Martin. ‘But the first clue to its significance is the timing.’

  The court martial took place during a lull in the battle for Passchendaele, the name of a village that would henceforth be associated with carnage and unimaginable suffering. Herbert’s unit had just carried out a costly attack east of Langemarck. His regiment, and several others, had withdrawn to Oostbeke, near Poperinghe. For the next two weeks – between 2 and 17 September 1917 – they prepared intensively for an engagement on the Menin Road.

  ‘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 ma
n 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.

  From somewhere behind – among the shadows, the rain and dismemberment – Herbert heard splashing and the low grunts of a working party. The engineers were back, laying the route to Passchendaele.

  2

  Still on his hands and knees, Herbert followed some stretcher-bearers back to the old front line. He pushed and slopped his way through the grid of communication trenches jammed with bulky shadows clinking and steaming like cattle. At the reserve trenches he made for the RAP – Regimental Aid Post – a dugout covered by an oily canvas flap. Outside the entrance a length of Wilson canvas had been hitched between the parapet and the parados, creating an improvised corridor. The entire trench was jammed with the wounded. Blood spouted black and shiny into the faces of the helpers, their hands flapping as though a fire raged out of control. The whimpering, the cries, the gurgling and the swearing filled the horrendous gaps between each explosion. Grinding his teeth, Herbert slumped to the ground and entered oblivion, a pit so very different from sleep.

  He woke to the stab of a hypodermic needle. Somehow he’d been moved under the shelter and dumped upon a crate. The artillery had died down. Captain Oliver Tindall, the Regimental Medical Officer, was mumbling to the RC Chaplain from Brigade, Father Maguire.

  ‘… but I always wanted to be a vet,’ said Tindall, resentfully. ‘My father pushed me to become a doctor. Said it was more worthwhile.’ He’d become the unit’s RMO six months earlier, freshly qualified from medical school. At the time, his predecessor had lain freshly dead in a crater, along with the then Anglican chaplain, who was yet to be replaced. With a steady hand, the priest held a lantern over the wounds while Tindall fiddled roughly with a bandage.

  ‘It’s the same job.’ Herbert heard his own voice. There was a pause, as if he’d interrupted a confession.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ objected Tindall.

  ‘What’s the difference?’ asked Herbert, looking up.

  The medic’s mouth tightened. A firm nose descended from a prominent brow. The chin had a deep cleft in the centre. He glanced at the priest as if for support. Embarrassed he said, ‘You’ve got a soul.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Herbert, stupidly. His head dropped and his eyes glazed at the mud lit by the lantern, at the caked puttees wrapped around his shins.

  Tindall groaned. He’d forgotten to bring a safety pin. His feet splattered into the darkness and, after a moment, Herbert felt a hand
on his neck. It stayed there, warm and heavy. He wouldn’t look up: he’d shot a man who didn’t drown: he wouldn’t face a priest, now or ever again. Shadows jigged and the roof flapped in a freezing swell. When Tindall returned empty-handed he did what his predecessor would have done in the first place: tear the bandage and tie a bow. Once the left hand had been treated Herbert was sent to the Advanced Dressing Station further back from the line; there he’d be registered again and sent further away, to a Casualty Clearing Station. He didn’t see the need, but the system had kicked in: he’d been tagged by the RMO and a form had been filled out. If he left the tramlines thereafter, it was called desertion. Everyone knew the rules of the game and what happened when you broke them.

  When Herbert splashed out of the corridor, a thin shimmer of light had given shape to the low seeping cloud. Suddenly shells whooshed and whined overhead, aimed a mile or so away to shake up the reinforcements, but Herbert’s stomach still lurched to one side. In front of him, a thin figure grovelled against the trench wall, a crimson dressing held with both hands against his eyes. He was sobbing.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Herbert, watching the shoulders heave, ‘you’re out of it now. You’re going home.’

  He reached over but the soldier recoiled at the first pat. Herbert dredged up some pity from the obscurity of his soul, for the collar bone had felt small and flimsy, even through the weight of his uniform: and while all bones were flimsy and ready to splinter, that sudden sensation of a bone still growing had stirred a recollection in Herbert … of playing fields and bruises to the shin. He looked at the shorn head, and the shadow above the vertebrae where it joined the skull. That terrible awareness of what men were made of – brains, lungs, a stomach, jelly – revealed itself, yet again, as a blasphemy. These were things no man was ever meant to see. Again Herbert stared at the nape of the soldier’s neck. What are we doing bringing our youth to a place where it is better to be blind?