In Pale Battalions - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘Go back – to Egypt or France. It hardly matters where. There’ll be another big push this spring. I don’t expect to see it through.’

  ‘In a way, I envy you. I wish that I could face death on equal terms, with some semblance of equanimity.’

  I couldn’t forestall the trace of bitterness that entered my voice. ‘Isn’t that what you went to such lengths to avoid?’

  ‘Not really. I wish I could make you understand. Every choice was bound to bring misery, or death – or both. And every choice – but this one – would have left Mompesson the victor.’

  ‘Would that have mattered so much?’

  ‘I thought so. Now I’m not so sure. Whatever we do rebounds on others. That evening, after I’d read of his murder, I went to Mompesson’s flat in Knightsbridge. There was a policeman outside and a couple of journalists questioning a commissionaire. I stood on the other side of the road and watched them. It began to rain and any idle passers-by dispersed. One woman remained, on the same side of the road as me, staring up at the block. Thirtyish, elegantly dressed. When I glanced at her, I saw that she was weeping.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Somebody from a secret compartment of Mompesson’s life. What did we know of him, after all? A mountebank, a gambler, a fortune-hunter. He set his sights on my wife, my house and my name – and would have had them all. I was determined to stop him. That seemed to be all that mattered.’

  ‘But you didn’t stop him. You said so yourself. Somebody else did it for you.’

  ‘Which proves Mompesson’s point. He said the English were too old a race, effete, fatalistic, indecisive. In my case, it seems he was right.’

  We had come full circle and stood now beside the bench where we had started. The shock of seeing Hallows again, after all the doubting and seeking, had given place to a sapping disappointment. He was only, after all, what I had perversely believed him not to be: a shabby fugitive hounded by his own sense of failure. After all the subterfuge and struggle, he had shirked the challenge, had walked away and left another to kill Mompesson for him. And now a newly dug grave gave the lie to his year of cheated life.

  Hallows sighed and pulled his shoulders. ‘So that’s it, Tom. Bad, isn’t it? I’ve been lodging at a guest house in Niton, posing as an amateur paleontologist with a weak chest. Secretly, I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been here every day, hoping to see you.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because, if you came, I knew what it would mean. I knew it would mean you loved her.’

  He had touched a nerve. ‘What if I did? I thought you dead, for God’s sake. I did nothing …’ My voice died in my throat as I thought of Olivia. ‘Nothing … dishonourable.’

  ‘Of course not. But, now you’ve come, for her sake, won’t you let me do something for you … for both of us?’

  ‘What could you do … now?’

  ‘There is only one thing. You used to tell me you led an empty life. That you had no real family – or true friends. That the war was bearable because you had so little to go back to.’

  ‘That hasn’t changed.’

  ‘But you don’t want to die.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I do.’

  I stared at him. His expression was intent but unmoved, serious but entirely calm. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve had it, Tom. I’ve played out the string till there’s no slack left. Leonora is dead because of me. I deserted to protect her – and all I did was kill her with my child. I couldn’t even kill Mompesson. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I only understand that you’re right: you can’t dodge destiny.’

  ‘You can. I can do it for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You could wangle a transfer to another battalion, maybe another regiment – in a different sector. Couldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But to what purpose?’

  ‘Who would know you there?’

  ‘Nobody. I was hardly known in the third battalion by the time I got back last autumn. So many were dead.’

  ‘We’re about the same height. I could shave off my moustache. Nobody would doubt that I was you. I’m sure you’re right about another push this spring. Thousands will die. I want to die with them. I could do so in your name. You could go free, Tom. You could do what I dreamt of doing. You could walk away from this war. Mr John Willis of London has a healthy bank account now. He doesn’t appear on any official lists, so the war can’t touch him. He can do whatever he likes. When the war ends, he’ll still be alive. You could be him. What do you say?’

  ‘I say you’re mad. It would never work.’

  He grasped my left arm with sudden force. ‘I’d make it work. I wouldn’t come back – I promise you. I’m asking you to let me die for you.’

  When I looked at him, in that instant, I believed him. He meant what he said. And my only objection told its own story. It would never work – but what if it did? My own reaction shocked me: I was tempted. A chance to do what he had failed to do: walk away from the war. Walk away from the past and achieve what life could never offer: a clean break, a fresh start. He was right, after all. We had killed Leonora and the war was without end. As John Willis, I could go anywhere, be anyone. It was the only thing Hallows had and the only thing he didn’t want. A life for a life. The gift of a true friend.

  ‘How long would it take you to arrange to go back?’

  ‘A week at most.’

  ‘You’d sail from either Southampton or Portsmouth.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘You could write to me here – care of the village post office in Niton. If I knew where and when you were to embark, I could be there, waiting for you. We could slip away somewhere …’

  ‘There’s no need to spell it out.’

  ‘You’d have to – in the letter.’

  ‘There’ll be no letter. I won’t go down this road.’ I turned from him. On the other side of the churchyard, a rook flapped lazily away from Leonora’s grave. I closed my eyes and felt them sting with tears. It was absurd, unthinkable, preposterous, and yet …

  Hallows spoke from behind me. ‘I’ll wait for a letter. I’ll hope for one. It’s all I have left to hope for.’

  I turned back to face him. ‘If you’ve not heard from me by the end of the week, forget it.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘That’s all I’ll say. That’s all I can say. I must think.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Goodbye, then.’

  He held out his hand, but I did not shake it. To have done so would have implied not merely agreement but complicity. I walked away slowly down the path, wondering if I would ever see him again. At the gate, I looked back. He was still standing by the bench, gazing towards me, a distant, obscure stranger with no hint in his expression of the despair he felt or the hope he held out to me: a future unlooked for. I returned the gesture. Already, I knew I would see him again. But I walked away with a show of decisiveness, sustained by my own sense of disbelief.

  I moved through the next few days as a man in a dream. I went back to Aldershot and booked into a commercial hotel, then drifted into regimental HQ one morning and took a step into the irrevocable. Meredith, a malleable administrator in Transport and Movements, couldn’t understand my eagerness to return from leave. The battalion was, as expected, en route by leisurely train to Italy, there to take a ship for Egypt. He had no transfers to other battalions to offer at present. As for other regiments, he would, if I insisted, see what he could do. I insisted. Already, it was merely self-deception to suppose that I could turn back. I could have used up my leave and waited my turn. But I had done neither. Hallows’ offer had worked its way into my soul and found there a secret readiness to do as he suggested.

  After my first visit to Meredith, I trudged down to the regimental playing fields and watched some new recruits contesting a rugger match with all the desperate energy they would la
ter need in France. What was it, I wondered as I patrolled the touch-line, that Hallows was asking me to give up? The camaraderie of army life that was really only gallows humour and the fellowship of the condemned. A loving family that amounted to an absentee father, a dead mother and an emotionally retarded uncle. Even cousin Anthea would scarcely be inconsolable. Hallows had brought me the vicarious ties of his own tangled emotions and they had led us both to a fresh grave in Bonchurch. If I resisted, who would thank me? It would only be the conditioned reflex of a doubtful breeding, a breeding whose code would demand in the end, however skilfully evaded or bravely faced, the same pointless sacrifice.

  A cheer went up from the smattering of spectators: a try had been scored. Players clapped one another on the back. I thought of Lake, shot down before my eyes the summer before; of Warren – dogged, touchingly faithful Warren, dead like so many of these players would shortly be; of Cheriton, driven by some demon of his own or Olivia’s devising to end his life. I walked slowly away from the field and was sure now, for the first time.

  * * *

  The following day, I looked in on Meredith again. If I really wanted it, he could fix an attachment to a Northumbrian regiment stationed at Ypres, where there was a temporary shortage of officers. But I would have to set off within a matter of days. As if listening to the speech of another man, I heard myself agree without hesitation. I posted a letter to Hallows the same morning.

  So we came to the appointed place and time. Southampton Town station, April 10th at the chill outset of a clear spring day. The long troop train had started from the Midlands the night before and I had boarded it at Aldershot as day was breaking. I was amongst strangers, most of whom were still asleep and would remain so until the train reached the docks. Nobody noticed me get off, or walk back along the platform and look up at a distant footbridge, where a single figure leant against the parapet and stubbed out a cigarette in confirmation that he had seen me.

  We met in a deserted reach of the goods yard, where steps from the footbridge led down to my level. I followed Hallows in silence to an empty workmen’s hut. There we exchanged clothes. Minutes later, we emerged, left the yard and made our way down a narrow road past the warehouses that flanked the station. Smoke billowed up above the sloping roofs as the troop train gathered steam.

  ‘The SS Belvedere in Empress Dock. Due to sail in an hour. From Le Havre, go by train to Poperinge. Then on to Ypres. You’re due with the 30th Northumbrians by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘How’s the uniform?’

  ‘An excellent fit. What about the suit?’

  ‘Not so bad.’

  ‘In the inside pocket you’ll find the key to the flat in Praed Street. Everything you need is there.’

  We came to a junction, where Hallows must have sensed I intended to leave him. We both stopped. ‘You won’t see me again, Tom. You realize that?’

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘We might have joked, or laughed, or simply talked, at another time, another parting. But not today. Not this last time.’

  ‘I’m sorry. There’s so much to say, yet so little I can say. What are we, Hallows, you and I?’

  ‘Friends, I hope.’

  ‘Much more than friends, I think.’ I shook his hand and turned to go, then stopped. At the last, I could not quite escape my own conscience. ‘One thing. One thing I meant to ask you in Bonchurch.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When you entered Meongate that night, last September, where else did you go, apart from the observatory?’

  ‘Nowhere else. I went straight there, by the back stairs. I knew it was a safe route at such a time.’

  ‘You didn’t … see Olivia?’

  He shook his head and seemed about to smile, but did not do so. Suddenly I sensed a secret advantage he had of me: how much he knew I could never quite be sure. ‘No, Tom. I didn’t see Olivia.’

  ‘And the observatory wasn’t locked?’

  ‘I told you. It never was. I had no key. Is it really so important?’

  ‘No. But this is. We could call a halt here, you know. We could still step back into our separate lives. You don’t have to go through with this.’

  ‘I can’t turn back now and I don’t want to. Let it go, Tom.’

  A cleaner had wedged open the doors of an inn on the corner of the street and was eyeing us now as she mopped the step. Somewhere nearby, a steam-hammer coughed into spluttering life. Then Hallows smiled and touched his cap and moved across the junction away from me. I watched him go without another word, down the straight road towards the docks; watched him as if it were me, as it could have been, in my uniform, my kit-bag over his shoulder, a receding figure slowly fading amidst the traffic of the day. Then the troop train lurched and juddered its slow length between us, where the rails crossed the street, and, when it had gone and its sluggish smoke dispersed, I saw that Hallows too had gone, vanished into a life of his choosing that carried with it my past.

  The loss that I felt then, the keen, gnawing emptiness that swept over me as I turned my back on all he embodied, was also the shock of total uncertainty. The friend who left me there also took me with him. It was a different man who walked up the curving road to the floating bridge across the river Itchen and climbed the slipway on the other side, a different man about to enter an unchartered future.

  It doesn’t matter where I was, or what I was doing, when, four months later, I saw the long-expected entry in the roll of honour. ‘Killed in action, 16th August 1917: FRANKLIN, 1st Lieut. Thomas Blaine, aged 25 years.’ Hallows had kept his promise.

  PART THREE

  ONE

  WE HAD RETURNED to the Bishop’s Palace and were standing by the low wall skirting the moat, gazing at the mottled reflections in the water of the palace walls and the trees beyond. Willis had finished his story, yet my thoughts remained trapped within it. Should I have been happy that my parents had been shown to be the faithful, loving people I had always wanted to believe? – or sad that fate and its sundry human instruments had laid waste their lives and for so long crippled my own? I could not tell. There was no answer in the face of the firm, surviving witness who stood beside me, nor consolation in the placid, slowly rippling water.

  Willis had answered all the questions that had dogged my childhood: the identity of the pretty lady, the whereabouts of my mother’s grave, the full story of the Meongate murder. He had given me back a real father and a loyal mother. He had exposed Olivia’s lies. Yet it wasn’t enough.

  I felt disabled by his story, somehow paralysed, incapable of an ordered response. I had always wanted to believe that Captain the Honourable John Hallows was my father and Willis had assured me that he was. Yet the image of him as the unstained, incorruptible war hero was gone in return. To discover the real man behind a carved, respected name is, as I should have known, to view a flawed soul. And my mother? Acquitted at last of every one of Olivia’s accusations, she had deserved and rewarded my love. Yet she was not the pretty lady I had waved goodbye to at Droxford railway station.

  ‘Payne told me you’d grown up at Meongate,’ Willis said at last. ‘I don’t understand why. I can’t believe Grace Fotheringham would have abandoned you. So why did the Powerstocks take you back?’

  It was true: the stone never stopped rolling. In dispelling one mystery, Willis had created another. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I have no certain memory of Miss Fotheringham at all. I have no memory of a time when I wasn’t at Meongate.’

  ‘She was never mentioned?’

  ‘Never. Nor was I ever told where my mother was buried. Olivia saw to it that the disgrace of my supposed illegitimacy was never forgotten.’

  ‘She would have seen to it that nobody’s sins were forgotten – except her own.’

  ‘You hated her?’

  ‘Oh yes. But my hatred rewarded her. She preferred it to indifference – even to worship, I suspect. She was …’

  ‘An evil woman?’

/>   ‘Perhaps. But you are better placed to judge her than I am.’

  ‘I have no fond memories or her, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Yet she took you in. She cared for you even after your grandfather’s death.’

  ‘Technically, yes. But if you knew the kind of life I endured at her hands, you wouldn’t think taking me in was anything other than an act of cruelty.’

  He swung round to look at me, suddenly disturbed; moved, it seemed, by my last remark more than he had been by his own story. ‘I would like to hear of it, Leonora.’ He pulled himself up and looked back towards the moat. ‘If I may call you Leonora?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well then, if you can bear to speak of it, I would like to hear your story.’

  Only the extent and candour of his own account can explain my willingness, indeed my desire, to tell him of my life. I had previously told nobody other than Tony as much as I told John Willis, the passing stranger, that afternoon in Wells. One secret, of course, I withheld from him as I had from my husband: my part in Sidney Payne’s death. Otherwise, all the griefs and traumas of my years at Meongate tumbled into words as we walked and talked together.

  By the time I’d finished, we were at Priory Road railway station; Willis was about to take his leave. He’d collected his bag from the Red Lion and walked with me through the crowded streets. The station itself was full of schoolchildren, capering and calling in the afternoon sunshine. We went to the far end of the platform, sat on a bench, and waited for the next train to Witham. There, I knew, he would join a main-line train, but, incredibly, I’d not thought to ask where his journey would end.

  Willis himself was strangely silent. My story seemed to leave him as uncertain of response as his own had me. I looked at him, sitting erect beside me on the slatted bench, and struggled to see him for the two men he was: the young, sensitive, courageously confused officer plunged into the treacherous currents of life at wartime Meongate – and the old, lean, anonymous man in gabardine and battered trilby, struggling against the habits of ingrained solitude to pay his due to a dead friend’s only daughter.