If you leave the land, Seosamh, death will claim you.
Meg had warned him in a dream. And she’d been right. Flanagan had taken a boat to the shattered place of trenches and broken roots like God’s dead fingers. He closed his eyes and, in his mind, heard the crunch of seashells as he ran away from the black cove. He heard Lisette crying, refusing to rise off her knees.
Flanagan loved her. And he always had done, from the days when Feiritéar had put a phrasing on desire. No … from before then, when he’d first seen something frail in the sea’s strength, when he’d watched the grasses shiver and mist rise off the rocks; when something violent in him had leapt out to touch what could not be touched. Somehow all these sensations had been gathered into Lisette, like the rain off the sea. He loved her.
A charred voice bounced off the cliffs behind Meg’s cottage. Seosamh, don’t leave the land. The terror had been a dream, that’s all.
Flanagan’s arm fell lower still, and one hand lightly touched Lisette’s head. Her hair was soft, like the push of a breeze; and at that instant of touching, an anguish greater than any suffering he’d known entered Flanagan; and it seeped into the pure place prepared for loving.
‘I have to go,’ said Flanagan, harshly. He came to his feet. ‘I’m expected at Black Eye Corner.’
Lisette rose, too, and brushed down her knees. Embarrassed, she took out a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her face. ‘You’ll need to explain yourself.’
‘Can I take some wine?’
Lisette entered the darkness beyond the sitting room and came back with three bottles in a cloth bag. ‘Let them breathe for an hour beforehand.’
Flanagan went swiftly upstairs to the first floor bedroom where Doyle was sleeping, the room he’d known since he’d spent all his leave at Pap’s. The sheets were bright in the darkness and smelled of soap. Flanagan sat on the edge of the mattress … and thought of Brendan at home … and Muiris downstairs, smoking his pipe in the corner, and Róisín sitting opposite, hands in her lap, dreaming, perhaps of the wonderful things Seosamh had seen. He touched Doyle’s head as if he were his little brother, wondering if he should wake him to explain that he’d never intended to stay. His profile was just discernible against the pillow – the boyish side that had first roused his confidence. One arm lay on the blankets, the palm cupped as if to receive a hand-out. Flanagan left him be. He drew Doyle’s army book from his breast pocket and put it on a washstand.
Lisette was waiting for him in the shadow of the stairwell. In silence, she led him through the kitchen to the back door. Flanagan stepped outside into the night. The rain had stopped and the sky seemed to throb. He turned around. She was on the other side of the frame, he knew, but he couldn’t see her. It was as though she’d already gone. He struggled to manage the swell between his heart and his mouth.
‘Watch the till,’ he mumbled, ‘The lad’s a thief.’
The presence in the darkness didn’t move.
Grief choked Flanagan and he stepped backwards.
‘Goodbye, Seosamh,’ came the gentle voice …
… the voice from the sea and the grass and the mist.
A voice that followed him through the rain … back to the station and on to another goods carriage; a voice that said ‘Goodbye, Seosamh’ again and again as he ran through the dawn, mile after mile from Abeele to God knows where, utterly lost. He was back in the shattered land. The abandoned land.
‘The fields will die,’ Meg had said in his dream.
2
Flanagan had acted with such conviction on meeting Doyle that he hadn’t given any clear thought to his route back to the front. Like all people going in one direction, he’d thought all he had to do was turn around and retrace his steps. But that wasn’t possible. He had to avoid the streams of wounded and dying, for he was one against their flow, now, straggling in daylight. Gathering his wits, he sought the position of the sun, to give him compass. A glimmering through the cloud and rain sent Flanagan northeast. He ran on lanes and across hedged fields, an eye to the light. This area had not been shelled but the earth around him steamed as if it had been poached: yellow scum clung to the edge of khaki pools and his feet slid through a pulp of grass and clay. Dripping cattle watched him from firmer ground.
‘Goodbye, Seosamh,’ murmured Lisette.
‘I shall save the other glass for your homecoming,’ snapped Mr Drennan, ‘however bitter the grape might turn.’
‘Death will claim you,’ said Meg, whispering now.
A widow, a dreamer and a seer: two banshees and a Fenian: each, in their own way, intoning the one song. Their voices rose out of the mist and sucking of the mud.
In the mid-afternoon Flanagan saw a barn by the side of a road. Exhaustion wouldn’t allow him to go any further. He stumbled through an open door and collapsed among dung and hay.
He woke with a start.
The gate had creaked. Flanagan just caught sight of a wrinkled face and a huge beret. Feet splashed through puddles, falling dull on reaching the grass.
With a pocket knife Flanagan quickly opened all three bottles of wine. And then he paused. A sense of ceremony gripped him, as if Mr Drennan had kicked open the door with that full second glass in one hand, and his own, empty, in the other, waiting to be filled.
‘’Tis a sacred drink, boy,’ Flanagan recited and, slowly, like a ritual cleansing, he poured the wine over his head. It ran down his cheeks, cutting into his eyes. His lips were folded in, and he breathed through his nose. When the first bottle was empty he moved on to the second and then the third. The strong smell brought back the fishermen from Brittany, men who would have known the flats of Guérande where Lisette had heaped salt with a long wooden rake. At the sound of a horse’s canter he put the bottle down and walked towards a kind of accomplishment.
Chapter Twenty-Six
On Parade
1
Shortly after lunchtime on the 14th September 1917, a signal from the legal boys at GHQ arrived on Duggie’s desk. Herbert sank on to a stool. Chamberlayne stared over the top of his typewriter.
‘I’ll read out the relevant passage,’ said the CO. ‘“The point raised on drunkenness and intention – that a drunken frolic may evince a lack of intention to evade duty in an otherwise reliable soldier – has no merit in this case. Flanagan did not absent himself because he was drunk but because he was sober. The episode with alcohol came after an absence of almost forty hours. This was implicitly accepted by Flanagan, though it was not formally brought out at the trial by the prosecutor. That officer might be reminded of his duty to adduce all relevant facts in a clear and comprehensible fashion. The review process should be concluded shortly.” It is signed by a Staff Major of no fighting consequence.’
Chamberlayne began typing: slow, light taps with a finger held like a dipstick. He said, ‘We go back into action in six days.’
The men would be warned the night before, hopefully when flushed with victory against the Lancashire Fusiliers, or enraged at having lost – either way emotionally prepared for the onslaught. How did Flanagan’s fate fit into that schema? Would he be the example to buck up the men’s resolve? Especially the new lot from Blighty, Canada, Australia, New Zealand … the four corners of the Dominion. They’d yet to find out what some men ran away from. The thought made Herbert tremble.
‘It’s in the hands of the Field Marshal, now,’ said Duggie, putting on his cap. ‘I need some fresh air. Edward, I’m expecting a call from Brigadier Pemberton at any moment. He’s a natural teacher, and he’ll want to satisfy himself that I understand the nature of “intention”. Unfortunately, you can’t find me.’
‘Indeed I cannot.’
Duggie nodded at Herbert and Angus, and both subordinates fell into step.
Outside the air was heavy and Herbert began to sweat. As Tomlinson promised, the bombardment had been turned up every day. The volume had gradually increased, as had the tension in the camp. The men were brittle. Duggie, however, exuded a s
ort of professional nonchalance. He sauntered among other men’s anxieties with a wink and the strike of a match over his pipe.
‘Well,’ said Duggie. ‘Do you know why two Irishmen took a breather when they should have been giving Fritz a headache?’
Herbert had given up, wearied by thinking and his efforts to draw Flanagan out of himself. ‘He’s told me everything from his life on Inisdúr to the day of his recruitment. And that’s where he’s stopped. Nothing about Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, and the rest. Nothing about active service. Just more and more about his bloody island of rock and mist and dried out weed …’
The barrage suddenly jumped a grade and Angus whined. Herbert wanted to kick the dog. Fear was contagious. It had to be stamped down. A match popped and the CO lit his pipe.
‘What the hell is Flanagan doing here?’ asked Herbert.
‘The same as you and I,’ replied Duggie. ‘He’s doing his bit. Or he was.’
Herbert agreed with Duggie but there were other facets to Flanagan’s motivation. He tried again. ‘I sometimes wonder if it’s really of Ireland that he speaks, or some inner world. He joined up for all the right reasons, but the most important impulse is an odyssey to a slip, away from three fields.’
Herbert kicked a stone and Angus ran after it, obedient to some half-remembered ritual. He brought it back, slobbering and defiant.
‘People enlist for all sorts of reasons.’ Duggie took a puff on his pipe. ‘It’s not always a rush to the Colours for England’s sake, or Belgium’s, for that matter. They run away from home, from prison, from an ordinary, boring life. But in the end initial motivations don’t matter. War plunges everyone into a drama about good and evil. For once in our lives the choice becomes clear. The lines are drawn and we dig in. Sometimes when I’m very, very drunk I wonder if no-man’s-land is our natural territory … the place we come to when we leave our childhood behind. It’s the Blighty we’ve lost, it’s the English meadow in our memory that’s not really England. It’s the world as it ought to be, and our life only makes sense in winning it back at any cost, if we redeem it from an invader.’ He struck another match and tugged at the air. ‘When I’m sober, it’s back to basics. My satisfaction lies in that to the best of my limited ability I’m doing what I can to bring this ghastly war to an end. But the other stuff helps me through. Poor Flanagan: he’s never been drunk, so he’s never known the consolation of madness.’
They’d attained the abbey. The gate was half-open and Herbert saw the white door at the end of the flagged path. For a moment he wanted to go inside. Ignoring the impulse he moved on, drawn by a racket in the carpenter’s barn. Fresh deliveries of timber were stacked high – inside and out the other side, visible through an open door on to a field of yellowing wheat. The saws were under way. Some extra hands had been brought in. They were measuring with a tape and ticking with a pencil while others took the marked wood to one of four benches where the lengths were cut to size. In the middle, arms folded, stood the master, lips pursed. Angus stared, shivering and uncomprehending.
Satisfied that he’d avoided Pemberton’s telephone call, Duggie returned resolutely to base. As soon as Herbert, Duggie and Angus entered the room, however, it was clear that Chamberlayne was rattled. ‘The Brigadier’s been on the line,’ he said. ‘He was very sympathetic. Wants to see you immediately. This arrived ten minutes after you’d gone.’ Chamberlayne held out another telegram.
Duggie read it in silence and folded the paper in four. ‘Call a parade at five this evening,’ he ordered, sharply. ‘Herbert, take another long walk.’
2
Herbert did not take a long walk. He arrived at 4.50 p.m. as the men were being knocked into shape. He knew a lot of their faces now. This was the reconstituted NLI. They were going to support a major offensive on the Menin Road. The four Companies were formed up, each flanking a central square of well-stamped ground. With the other Company commanders, Herbert stood in the centre, hands behind his back, legs slightly apart. His eye sought out Flanagan. He was at the corner of a front row, placed there by Mackie, who stood to one side. At 4.58 p.m. Duggie arrived, followed by Chamberlayne and the Assistant Provost Marshal, a man called Hooper. They strode resolutely to the line of officers waiting on the middle ground.
The bombardment cracked on and on, like millions of plates shattering on a tile floor.
At 5.00 p.m., Duggie nodded at the RSM. Joyce straightened his neck and boomed, ‘Private Flanagaaaaaaaaaan. One step forwaaaard.’
Flanagan obeyed, head erect, teeth visible.
Joyce took off Flanagan’s cap and placed it under his arm in a single sweeping gesture, at once dignified and momentous.
Hooper held out a sheet of paper and began his recitation. ‘On the first of September nineteen seventeen, four-eight-eight-eight Private Joseph Flanagan of this regiment was tried by Field General Court Martial at Oostbeke on a charge of desertion and found guilty.’
He stopped so that all the men could fix their eyes on the prisoner, and reflect. Far away, the barrage hammered and pumped iron, endless amounts of iron, into the trench systems beyond the Salient. Everyone listened, their nerves raw.
‘The sentence of the Court was death.’
Hooper breathed in to raise his voice higher, to get above the shells. ‘The Commander-in-Chief has confirmed the sentence and it will be carried out in Oostbeke tomorrow morning at five forty-five a.m., eleventh instant.’
The ranks moved as if a wind had been thrown off the hop frames. Heads swung left and right. Flanagan stared ahead, as he’d done at his trial. That grimace of a smile didn’t change. Oh God, begged Herbert. Come down from heaven.
Blinking as if grit had struck him, Herbert watched a three-man escort march over to Flanagan’s Company lines. The Islander was in a daze. He had to be positioned and pushed by Mackie as if he was drunk. Herbert couldn’t watch any more. He glazed his eyes … and saw the white shutters on the chipped brick walls, the black and white tiles, the parquet flooring, and the rose wallpaper. He flung his head to one side, and saw something worse: the waxy yellow light behind a cellar vent a foot or so above the ground. When Herbert had calmed himself Duggie and Chamberlayne had gone, and the men had broken formation, released by the barked commands of the Sergeant-Majors. No one approached him. Except Joyce.
‘Excuse me, Sir.’ His voice was tight and his lips barely moved. The air shot through his nose.
‘Yes, Joyce?’
‘It’s not your fault, Sir.’ Air fired again like pistons out of synchronisation.
‘Thank you.’
‘Good day, Sir.’
‘Yes … good day, Joyce.’
Herbert tracked the stamp of explosions. For the first time since he’d come to the Western Front, it was simply a racket in Belgium. A greater fear had taken hold of him.
3
Herbert did not eat that evening. He kept away from the officers’ mess, knowing that the talk would be stiff and charged. They’d argue about the rights and wrongs of military punishments, of their need and their shame, of the Australians who didn’t have the death penalty but who fought just as well. He’d heard it all before, but never, never on a subject so close to home. He felt stranded. There was one road in Oostbeke. In one direction lay the tents and huts, the men on every side. In the other, stood the abbey … he found his feet heading towards the open gate without a bolt or a lock. He pushed open the door and stepped into the smell of wax and incense. Almost stumbling, he hurried to the accusing space between the two carved statues: the man and the woman of wood: the place where he’d felt the disappointment of his parents. He looked at them again, first left and then right. There was no blame there at all. Their faces were kind and smooth, their eyes closed in confident supplication. He’d entered another kind of space altogether.
Herbert fell on his knees and a violent pleading broke from his mouth. ‘God of the many things I cannot understand, please save him. Show yourself in this man’s story. Please, I beg you, save h
im.’
Herbert had nothing else to say. Vaguely comforted, he left the abbey. At the end of the narrow corridor open to the sky he saw the figure of Father Maguire, hiding this side of the gate, his face pressed into the stone while he wept.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
1
‘It was a disturbing visit,’ said Anselm to the Prior. ‘They quarrelled on every question of importance regarding the executions as a whole, yet each voice without the other would have been incomplete.’
They were sitting in the cloister on a ledge between two columns. The garth trapped that alluring stillness that had drawn men as varied as Herbert and Bede. Above, cloud streaked the sky like a half painted ceiling.
‘This is where things stand,’ said Anselm. He’d brought some structure to his research which gave an interpretation to the court martial. ‘External factors crowd around the Flanagan file – political events in Ireland, the Ypres campaign, mutiny, eugenics, racism – and against those momentous problems, you’d think that Flanagan would be shot. But internal factors disperse their importance. Someone weeded the file, not because he was dead but – I think – to hide the fact that he was alive. Reading between the lines of General Osborne’s diary, it seems that such an unlikely survival was thanks to Herbert’s intervention.’
It was tempting to say more. To share his thoughts on the ‘nine-on-ten, one-in-ten’ mercy-brutality argument. To dwell a moment on the increased chances of receiving a death sentence if one was Irish. To ponder the dark universe behind the statistics. But upon such questions Anselm’s mind had imploded. He’d found himself, appropriately, drawn away from the men of percentages to a man of flesh.
A Whispered Name Page 17
