A Whispered Name

by William Brodrick

  ‘Because Joseph would have gone anyway,’ replied the priest. ‘Because I thought it might buy the time. Because I hoped, with time, he’d get back, and live.’

  They were bound together: two men sharing their culpability in a necessary crime. The priest had sent him on his way; the officer had imposed the penalty when he got back. Neither of them could avoid what they’d done. Ah, dear God, thought Herbert. Who among us is ever free?

  ‘Joseph would like you to explain to Lisette why he did not stay with her, why he returned to the battalion.’

  Herbert felt a thump inside his temples. ‘Me? But I sent him into that clearing.’

  The priest nodded. He had nothing to add, nothing to help him on his way. But I don’t really know, cried Herbert in his mind. He wouldn’t desert his comrades: that was one answer. But it only scratched the surface. He’d saved a kid, yes. But even that description wasn’t sufficient. Flanagan had walked willingly towards his death. And however much the war had dehumanised him, Herbert had not reached that stage of freedom. Flanagan had taken one step beyond the hostilities, into a different landscape that only he could see, that to Tindall was a mirage caused by a jingling of the nerves. But Flanagan had glimpsed the peace. He’d seen bodies without regard to nationality, the land without boundaries. Perhaps the world without its history. Herbert couldn’t fathom the man. ‘Who did we bury this morning?’

  Father Maguire leaned his elbows on a plank and rested his chin on one hand. Eyeing the bottle on the floor he said, ‘A lad from Inisdúr.’

  The chaplain spoke as if he’d never heard of him, or the strange island that gave him birth.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Anselm drove away from the Birches Nursing Home, and Mr Shaw, in a torpor that seemed to absorb the light in his mind. He could not feel or think anything. By late evening he was roaming along quiet Suffolk lanes, passing through unfamiliar villages, his eyes alert for the solemn memorials he’d long ago ceased to notice. They were everywhere, usually in a market square or at the confluence of important roads. Some had three or four tiny wooden crosses on a bottom step, grouped together as though for comfort or company. Anselm saw them all as if for the first time. Abruptly he parked in a silent street of a village he did not know before a monument he’d almost missed.

  There was no central focus for the community. A few old weavers’ cottages and shops were stretched out along the road with a few tight lanes meandering between gable ends. It was a place to pass through rather than linger, the mullioned windows seemed to say. But on the way out, set back from the road within a low box hedge, Anselm had seen a tall granite cross and a small bunch of paper poppies in a jam jar.

  Wrapped in his monk’s rough cloak, Anselm stood in silence reading the inscriptions on the plinth. There were nine names in all for the Great War of 1914–1918, though he hadn’t seen as many houses in the village. Strong Suffolk names, conjuring up slow and steady men. Farmers, perhaps, because grain and beet fields rose gently behind the cross towards the skyline. Or weavers, from up the road. Anselm looked around, as if for help. Behind him was a half-timbered cottage with shell-pink plaster between the beams. There was an old well surrounded by fuchsias and, in the distance, a restored windmill gently turned its arms. They creaked across the century. This was the England those Suffolk men had fought and died for, as well as the mills and mines they’d never seen in Lancashire. As Sarah Osborne had said, they’d ploughed on for God, king, country, empire, justice, freedom, and for their waiting families. And here in a village whose name escaped Anselm’s notice, four men from the same home had not returned.

  Reading over the names of these nine noble men, it suddenly struck Anselm as inappropriate that Harold Shaw would never be commemorated in stone. He deserved an inscription for public memory. As did all those who’d fought and survived. But with Mr Shaw, along with three or four thousand others, there was a rough edge to their determination, and it required compassion rather than memorial, for there could be no public remembrance. They had been obliged to shoot one of their own and live in the aftermath … which was, in Mr Shaw’s case, the question he’d whispered to Anselm out of the blue, when they’d been talking happily of cheeky grandchildren and declining standards at school: ‘Why didn’t I shoot wide, Father? That’s the rub, then and now. Why didn’t I shoot two inches wide?’

  Martin had been right, thought Anselm, driving aimlessly between wild hedges, past the warming lights of low houses. He’d said that Flanagan’s trial had taken place in an interlude – or some such phrase – during the battle for Passchendaele. Thousands of men had died, and thousands more were about to die. Between these two apocalyptic harvests, one man had sat in a schoolroom at Oostbeke, his life in the balance. This had been Joseph Flanagan’s moment. Martin didn’t think that he’d survived. And neither, for different reasons, did David Osborne. Both of them had been right. But everyone had been so utterly wrong: Joseph Flanagan had made a very different kind of sacrifice known only to himself. Herbert had probably learned of its scale in the early hours of the morning, when it was too late, and when an eighteen-year-old Harold Shaw was waiting in a barn near a copse of trees.

  Instinct took Anselm along certain lanes, guiding him towards the familiar shambles of rooftops belonging to Larkwood Priory, the place where Herbert had come to rest in his own aftermath. A place he had helped to build. Twinkling lights from the corridor lit up a row of rounded windows. A single steeple pierced the night sky, releasing a faint shower of stars over St Leonard’s Field, the bluebell walk, and the lake with a statue of Our Lady at its centre. Looking at it now, Anselm knew with depth and certainty that while Larkwood was Herbert’s lasting memorial, it belonged also to Joseph Flanagan: the man whose name would never lie among the great fallen. Upon leaving Mr Shaw, Anselm had sat in his parked car and checked the Battalion War Diary for the early morning of the 15th September 1917. There was no reference to the execution. It had been business as usual. Drill for all Companies. Musketry. A cancelled football practice. Flanagan wasn’t even there for the attention of a thin-skinned censor.

  At the gatehouse, Anselm left the engine running while he manhandled the gate. As he leaned against the ironwork, he thought: Who had come and wept near Herbert’s grave? Edward Chamberlayne, the only survivor of the trial? Anselm couldn’t think of anyone else. But why had Herbert called him Flanagan? The old man had kept back from the cemetery of white crosses and trees, his face hidden by a thick white beard; he’d been dressed out of season in a heavy jacket woven from wonderful greens and blues. He’d almost vanished into nature. Kate Seymour had been disenchanted but he’d been broken.

  The questions and impressions tailed Anselm into the chapel like stray cats crying out for attention. No sooner had he sat down than they fled, scared off by the appearance of someone else in Anselm’s mind: Owen Doyle. The photograph had been a stark image, and Anselm saw it now in the darkness. The scarred forehead. The raised eyebrow. He’d been old yet young. And he’d come back to the front where his commanding officer had turned a blind eye to his absence … that’s what must have happened. What was the point of sending Doyle to another common-or-garden chair? The regiment had already been punished. Twelve men like Harold Shaw had just been sentenced to a lifetime’s remorse.

  Unable to pray, Anselm simply waited for the memories of the day to fall away like so many autumn leaves. As they tumbled down, a feeling very like grief welled up from his depths. His image of Herbert had changed. It was no longer simple or clean. Like a betrayal, he acknowledged the disappointment on Kate Seymour’s face and his compassion for the unknown man was roused to flame. In his spirit, he reached up to a kind of wintry heaven, his heart’s eye on the monumental sacrifice of Joseph Flanagan. He’d saved Owen Doyle who, two weeks later, would die near Glencorse Wood.

  Part Five

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Farewell to Arms

  1

  There’d been a promotion at Division, so there was an
opening for a man with soft hands, explained Chamberlayne. They’d sent a Brigade Major to check that his nails were cleaned and trimmed before confirming the appointment. His self-mockery was bitter and sincere. He pursued the theme while packing his things into a crate for vegetables.

  ‘A going-away present,’ said Herbert, plonking the Old Orkney on the table.

  Chamberlayne picked it up and read the label. ‘Where did you get this from?’

  ‘Father Maguire.’

  ‘The teetotaller?’

  Herbert nodded.

  Chamberlayne put the bottle in his crate. ‘To he who gives,’ he said solemnly, ‘much will be given. Isn’t that how it goes?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Detailed orders had come through from Division. At midnight on the 19th instant the 8NLI would join sixty-five thousand men from eighteen brigades for an assault at the Gheluvelt Plateau. The rehearsals were over: it was time for the show. They’d be alongside the East Yorkshires, Glanville’s lot – who, incidentally, had caught a sniper’s eye two days back. Stood up after breakfast and got a clip around the ear. The weather reports had also been leaked to Duggie. Rain was expected. This was hardly a secret. Clouds had been banking. The 8th was heading back to the mud and the mist and the screeching iron. The preparations had ended just when the sky turned black. It would be last August all over again.

  ‘I’m glad you’re out of it, Edward.’

  Chamberlayne didn’t reply.

  ‘Perhaps after the war we can meet up in Piccadilly and have a dreadful time.’ Herbert didn’t resent the string-pulling. These things happened in the army, as he well knew. And he didn’t share Chamberlayne’s scorn for the staff away from the line. General Osborne could hardly lead the charge with Lionel taking up the rear. Someone had to hang back and think through the aggressive gestures of an army, to make it a battle and not a brawl.

  ‘If I ever get back to England,’ said Chamberlayne, ‘I shall be taking a package boat to Canada. I have an uncle in British Columbia. He makes a fortune watching strapping fellows cut down trees that he bought for a song. I’ve been led to believe he needs a man of talent rather than application. It is a long way from Piccadilly. They call it the New World. I might even change my name. I’ll send you some syrup. They bleed the stuff from trees, would you believe that?’

  Flanagan’s execution lay between them like a swinging chain. The details had been promulgated that morning throughout the Army, though everyone at Oostbeke already knew. The men had taken it badly, nonetheless, and while few had cold-shouldered Herbert – that was Duggie’s achievement – they were bitter, to officers in general and to the administrators to whom Chamberlayne would shortly become a colleague. All this spleen had spilled into the football match to be played that afternoon. They were going to win back some pride. It was horrendous. The men would enter the line with as much guts and determination as ever, whether Flanagan had been spared or not. But his death had made all the difference to a game of footy. Did they appreciate that, in the lion’s den at GHQ? Did they realise that Flanagan’s death just might secure the Lambton Cup for the 8NLI? Chamberlayne would; and he’d bring the insight with him.

  ‘You’ll watch the match before you go?’ asked Herbert.

  ‘Oh yes. It’s going to be a right old ding-dong.’ He tossed a diary into the crate. ‘I’m told half the Lancashire boys are Irish and they’re out for blood. Behold the mystery of the British Regimental system –’ he held out his hands in mock astonishment – ‘it’s why, small as we are, we’ve conquered half the world; it’s why we’re so bloody good at what we do. We set brother against brother, father against son. You can’t beat a family who fights like that. They’re all out to show they’re better than their own kin. The enemy is neither here nor there.’

  Chamberlayne dropped his crate of belongings on to the floor. The only remaining objects on his desk were the telephone, the typewriter and the Flanagan file, waiting to be sent up to Brigade.

  ‘Did Tindall provide another death certificate?’ asked Herbert.

  ‘Did he hell.’

  ‘And the original?’

  ‘It stays in the bin, with a few other truths.’

  Herbert was amused by Chamberlayne’s complete indifference to the modus operandi of the administrative machine he was going to join. They’d kick him out just as surely as they had at Oxford. And he would bow at the door, ever so slightly higher than the authority to which he was a servant.

  ‘You know, Herbert,’ said Chamberlayne, thumbs tucked into his belt. ‘I’m no different to Doyle.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Spare me the team spirit in my hour of honesty. I’m being serious. The only difference between him and me is that I will get away with it. I may even get a medal for neat writing. They’ll catch him eventually.’

  And they very well might, despite the support of Lisette Papinau. The military police were everywhere. Especially in Étaples: it was right by a base training camp. All it would take was an informer – decent and law-abiding, he meant no pejorative overtones – and the boy would be brought back to his unit and sent winging in Flanagan’s direction.

  ‘Do you remember Doyle’s number?’ asked Chamberlayne, without much confidence.

  Herbert did, although he’d made no effort to learn it. ‘Six-eight-nine-zero.’

  All at once Chamberlayne flopped into a chair and reached for the telephone. ‘I’ll just make one last call to Brigade.’

  Pause.

  ‘Murray? Good morning. This is the eighth Battalion NLI. We’ve just had word that one of The Lambeth Rifles has bought it.’

  Pause.

  ‘Six-eight-nine-zero Private Owen Doyle.’

  Pause.

  ‘Haven’t the faintest idea. Didn’t ask and I don’t care. Someone checked his tags. I’m just doing the decent thing.’

  Pause.

  ‘A shell, I presume. There wasn’t much left.’

  Pause.

  Chamberlayne looked at the receiver as if it had just belched in his ear. He thought for a long moment and then said, very clearly, ‘Northwest of Glencorse Wood.’

  Pause.

  ‘Sorry, old son, no can do. The idiot buried both tags in lieu of the body. A sort of hamster ritual in the garden of war. Hadn’t quite grasped their intended purpose. A slow sort. You don’t have them at Brigade.’

  Pause.

  ‘Murray, nothing is complicated. It’s as simple as falling off a log. Just inform my opposite number in The Lambeth Rifles and send a note to Division. They’ll tell the grave people.’

  Chamberlayne popped the telephone back on its hook. ‘That should slow the hunters down.’

  Herbert’s mouth had fallen open. ‘What have you just done?’

  ‘Completed what Flanagan began. It’s the price of my own escape. Now I can go to Canada and watch those trees fall without a bomb in sight and without the slightest stain on my conscience.’

  2

  Herbert collected his travel pass from Duggie. In his pocket was the letter from Flanagan to Lisette. He’d been given leave to visit Étaples, though he had to be back sharpish for the move to the front on the 18th. They stood awkwardly in the yard. Yet again the execution linked two men with weighty arms, a hand on each of their shoulders.

  ‘Of course, you’ll miss the match.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘The Lancashires haven’t a chance. The men could eat nails.’

  ‘Pity they can’t bite, Sir. But it’s a sensible rule.’

  The dog with glassy eyes lay by a wall, its tongue hanging out like a tie from the bottom of a jumper. Hens with red necks strutted back and forth, their chests inflated with pomp and wrath. Since entering this yard, Herbert had never looked at the RSM in quite the same way.

  ‘Remember what I said,’ counselled Duggie, ‘none of this was your fault.’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  Duggie swung his arms behind his back, the hands slapping as they m
et. ‘Please pass on to this lady my sincere condolences.’ The gesture was a familiar one: that was how he spoke to the men when sending them towards the green line, knowing many would not return. He understood that this woman’s war would never end.

  ‘Of course, Sir. And thank you, Sir.’

  Duggie sniffed a sardonic laugh. ‘What for?’

  ‘Your care of the regiment, Sir. And of me.’

  ‘Go on, clear off.’

  Duggie held out his hand and Herbert seized it with sudden affection. ‘Goodbye, Sir.’

  Should I tell him that I will not come back? Does he know that I no longer belong beside men like him? That I belong with Flanagan? Does he see the terror in my own eyes, that I am lost again, as I was when I came upon Quarters, and that I feel like another Doyle? Back then, Herbert couldn’t tell north from south. But now the hand on the moral compass had popped off its spool. And if that wasn’t enough, Herbert felt a most awful weariness: from the killing and the responsibility of having killed … from the churned up fields, and the endless rumpled cloth, the grey among the brown and blue. He couldn’t go on. He looked squarely at his CO and he saw there a savage recognition. Duggie knew these ghosts, and he was trusting Herbert to drive them out, to drown them in Étaples.

  ‘Bring me back a stick of rock, will you?’

  He spoke to Herbert’s reclaimed honour and Herbert saluted, facing disgrace once more, only this time beyond repair.

  ‘It’s not a French tradition, Sir.’

  Herbert’s hand fell. He could not conceive of a return. The men would be betrayed, yes, but he had never deserved them. The sight of Flanagan dumped on the straw had broken Herbert’s resolve. You can’t lead men in that condition. Herbert left his CO with the shell-shocked dog and the hens, wondering if the Commander-in-Chief appreciated that shooting your own only helped the other side.

  3