The Absolutist

by John Boyne

  “Because he’s a prisoner of war,” says Will. “What do you suggest we do. Let him go?”

  “No, of course I don’t bloody suggest we let him go,” says Milton sarcastically. “But we don’t need a weight like him around our necks. Let’s just get rid of him now and be done with it.”

  “You know we can’t do that,” says Will sharply. “We’re not murderers.”

  Milton laughs and looks around, indicating the number of dead Germans at our feet; there must be dozens of them. As he does so, I see the German boy looking, too, and I can tell from his eyes that he recognizes all of them, that some were his friends, that he feels lost without them. He is willing them back to life to protect him.

  “Was habt ihr getan?” asks the boy, turning and looking at Will, who—perhaps he suspects it—will be his protector, since he was the one who discovered him.

  “Be quiet,” says Will, shaking his head. “Sadler, can you take a look around and find some rope?”

  “We’re not tying him up, Bancroft,” insists Milton. “Stop playing the bloody saint, all right? It’s tedious.”

  “It’s not up to you,” replies Will, raising his voice. “He’s my prisoner, all right? I found him. So I’ll decide what’s to be done with him.”

  “Mein Vater ist in London zur Schule gegangen,” says the boy, and I look at him, willing him to stay quiet, since his appeals are only adding to the danger of the moment. “Piccadilly Circus!” he adds with fake cheer. “Trafalgar Square! Buckingham Palace!”

  “Piccadilly Circus?” asks Milton, turning on him in bewilderment. “Trafalgar fucking Square? What’s he talking about?” Without warning, he slaps him hard across the side of his face with the back of his hand, so hard that one of his rotten teeth—we all have rotten teeth—flies out and lands on one of the bodies.

  “Jesus Christ, Milton,” says Will, advancing on him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “He’s a German, isn’t he?” asks Milton. “He’s the bloody enemy. You know what our orders are. We kill the enemy.”

  “Not the ones we’ve captured, we don’t,” insists Will. “That’s what separates us, or it’s supposed to. We treat others with respect. We treat human life with—”

  “Oh, of course,” cries Attling, joining in now. “I forgot, your old man’s a vicar, isn’t he? You been drinking from the altar wine too long, then, Bancroft?”

  “Shut your mouth, Attling,” snaps Will, and Attling, a coward, does that very thing.

  “Look, Bancroft,” says Milton. “I’m not going to argue with you. But there’s only one way out of this.”

  “Will is right,” I say. “We tie him up now, we hand him over to Sergeant Clayton later and let him decide what’s to be done with him after that.”

  “Who bloody asked you, Sadler?” asks Milton, sneering at me. “Of course you’re going to say that. Bloody Bancroft says the moon is made of cheese and you say pass me the crackers, someone.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth, Milton,” says Will, advancing on him.

  “I’ll not shut my fucking mouth,” he replies angrily, looking at the two of us as if we are so inconsequential that he might swat us away with as little concern as when he hit the German boy.

  “Bitte, ich will nach Hause,” repeats the boy now, his voice breaking with emotion, and all three of us turn to him as he very slowly, very carefully, moves one hand towards the top pocket of his jacket. We watch him, intrigued. The pocket is so small and thin that it’s hard to imagine there could be anything in there, but a moment later he removes a small card and holds it out to us, his hand trembling as he does so. I take it first and look at it. A middle-aged couple smiling at a camera and a small blond boy, standing between them, squinting in the sunlight. It’s difficult to make out the faces as the photograph is rather grainy; it’s obviously been in his pocket for a long time.

  “Mutter!” he says, pointing at the woman in the picture. “Und Vater,” he adds, pointing at the man. I look at them and then at him as he stares up at us beseechingly.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” says Milton, grabbing him now by the shoulder and pulling him back towards him, taking a few steps back in the mud so that Will, Attling and I are standing on the opposite side of the trench to him. He pulls the pistol that Sergeant Clayton gave him from his belt and flicks it forward, checking that it’s loaded.

  “Nein!” cries the boy loudly, his voice breaking in terror. “Nein, bitte!”

  I stare at him desperately. He can’t be more than seventeen or eighteen years old. My age.

  “Put that away, Milton,” says Will, reaching for his rifle now, too. “I mean it. Put it away.”

  “Or what?” he asks. “What are you going to do, Vicar Bancroft? You going to shoot me?”

  “Just put the gun down and let the boy go,” he replies calmly. “For God’s sake, man, just think about what you’re doing. He’s a child.”

  Milton hesitates and looks at the boy and I can see that for a moment there is a degree of compassion in his expression, as if he is remembering the person he used to be before all this started, before he became the person standing before us now. But the German boy picks this moment to lose control of his bladder and a heavy stream of piss darkens the leg of his trousers, the leg pressed closest to Milton, who looks down and shakes his head in disgust.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake!” he cries again, and before any of us can do or say another thing, he lifts his pistol to the boy’s head, cocks the trigger—“Mutter!” cries the boy again—and blows his brains over the walls of the trench, splattering red across a sign that points eastwards and says FRANKFURT, 380 MEILEN.

  It’s the following night before Will approaches me again. I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in forty-eight hours. I must have eaten something rotten, too, because my stomach cramps are growing more severe by the hour. For once, when I see him, I don’t feel any excitement or hope, just tension.

  “Tristan,” he says, ignoring the three other men sitting near me. “Can we talk?”

  “I’m not well,” I say. “I’m resting.”

  “It’ll only take a minute.”

  “I said I’m resting.”

  He looks at me and his face grows a little kinder. “Please, Tristan,” he says quietly. “It’s important.”

  I sigh and pull myself to my feet. I wish to Christ I could resist him. “What is it?” I ask.

  “Not here. Come with me, will you?”

  He doesn’t wait for an answer, simply turns around and walks away, which irritates me in the extreme but of course I follow him. He doesn’t walk in the direction of the new reverse trench but further down the line to where a row of stretchers lie next to each other, the bodies atop them covered with the jackets of the fallen men.

  Taylor is under one of those coats; twelve-eight.

  “What?” I ask, when he stares back at me. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’ve spoken to the old man,” he tells me.

  “Sergeant Clayton?”

  “Yes.”

  “About what?”

  “You know bloody well about what.”

  I look at him, unsure for a moment what he means. He can’t have told him what we have done together, surely; we would both be court-martialled. Unless he’s trying to blame me for it, have me removed from the regiment? He sees the disbelief on my face, though, and flushes slightly, shaking his head quickly to disabuse me of the notion.

  “About the German boy,” he says. “About what Milton did to him.”

  “Oh,” I say, nodding slowly. “That.”

  “Yes, that. It was cold-blooded murder, you know it was. You saw it.”

  I sigh again. I’m surprised he wants to bring this up. I thought it was all over with. “I don’t know,” I say finally. “Yes, I suppose it was.”

  “Oh come on, there’s no suppose about it. That boy, that child, he was a prisoner of war. And Milton shot him dead. He wasn’t a threat in any way.”

/>   “It wasn’t right, Will, of course it wasn’t. But these things happen. I’ve seen worse. You’ve seen worse.” I offer him a brief, bitter laugh and look at the stretchers that surround us. “Look around, for pity’s sake. What does one more matter?”

  “You know why it matters,” he insists. “I know you, Tristan. You know the difference between right and wrong, don’t you?”

  I set my face like stone and stare at him, feeling angry that he dares to presume to know me at all after how he has behaved towards me. “What do you want from me, Will?” I ask him eventually, running the back of my hand across my tired eyes, my voice filled with exhaustion. “Just tell me, all right?”

  “I want you to back up my story,” he says. “No, that’s wrong. I want you to simply tell Sergeant Clayton what happened. I want you to tell him the truth.”

  “Why would I do that?” I ask, confused. “You just told me that you already have.”

  “He refuses to believe me. He says that no English soldier would behave in such a fashion. He brought Milton and Attling in and they both deny it. They agree that there was a German boy alive when they left us there but they claim that he tried to attack us and that Milton had no choice but to shoot him in self-defence.”

  “They say that?” I ask, both surprised and not surprised at the same time.

  “I’m for going to General Fielding about it,” continues Will. “But the old man says that’s out of the question without anyone else to corroborate my story. I’ve said that you saw it all.”

  “Jesus Christ, Will,” I hiss. “Why are you dragging me into this?”

  “Because you were there,” he cries. “My God, man, why am I even having to explain it to you? Now, will you back me up or won’t you?”

  I consider it for a moment and shake my head. “I don’t want to get involved,” I say.

  “You already are involved.”

  “Well, just leave me out of it then, all right? You’ve got some bloody nerve, Will, I’ll give you that. You’ve got some bloody nerve.”

  He frowns and looks at me, cocking his head a little to the side as he takes me in. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

  “You know precisely what it means,” I say.

  “Jesus Christ, Tristan. Are you telling me that because your feelings are bent out of shape, you’re going to lie to protect Milton? You’re going to do this to get back at me, are you?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. Why must you continually distort what I say? I’m saying that on the one hand I don’t want to get involved in this business because there’s too much going on and I can’t see what one extra dead soldier matters in the great scheme of things. And on the other hand—”

  “One extra—?” he begins, sounding amazed at the casual nature of my phrase, although no more appalled than I am to hear myself say it.

  “And on the other hand, since you’re finally deigning to speak to me, I want nothing to do with you, Will. Can you understand that? I want you to leave me alone, all right?”

  Neither of us says anything for a few moments and I know that this can go one of two ways now. He can grow aggressive with me or he can repent. To my surprise, he chooses the latter.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. Then, louder: “I’m sorry, all right?”

  “You’re sorry,” I repeat.

  “Tristan, can’t you see how difficult this is for me? Why do you always have to be so bloody dramatic about everything? Can’t we just … you know … can’t we just be friends when we’re lonely and soldiers the rest of the time?”

  “ ‘Friends’?” I ask, almost ready to laugh. “That’s your word for it, is it?”

  “For God’s sake, man,” he snaps, looking around nervously. “Keep your voice down. Anyone might hear.”

  I can tell that I have unsettled him. He looks as if he wants to say something to me in return and takes a step towards me, a hand lifting slightly towards my face, then changes his mind, and retreats as if we barely know each other.

  “I want you to come with me,” he says. “I want us to go to Sergeant Clayton right now where you will tell him exactly what happened with the German boy. We will report it and insist that the matter be referred to General Fielding.”

  “I won’t do it, Will,” I say unequivocally.

  “You realize that if you don’t, then the matter is at an end and Milton will have got away with it?”

  “Yes,” I say. “But I don’t care.”

  He stares at me long and hard, swallows, and when he finally speaks again his voice is quiet and exhausted. “And that’s your last word on the matter?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I tell him.

  “Fine,” he says, nodding his head in resignation. “Then you leave me with no choice.”

  And with that, he takes his rifle off his shoulder, opens the magazine, empties the bullets into the mud, and places the gun on the ground before him.

  Then he turns around and walks away.

  UNPOPULAR

  OPINIONS

  Norwich, 16 September 1919

  MARIAN AND I had lunch in the window seat of the Murderers public house on Timber Hill. The incident with Leonard Legg had been put behind us, although the bruise on my cheek served as a reminder of what had taken place outside the café.

  “Is it sore?” asked Marian, noticing me touch the bump gingerly with my finger to test for pain.

  “Not really. It might be tender tomorrow.”

  “I am sorry,” she said, trying not to smile at my discomfort.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Still, it’s not on and I shall tell him so next time I see him. He’s probably gone off somewhere to lick his wounds. We won’t see him again today if we’re lucky.”

  I hoped that would be the case and busied myself with my food. In the time it had taken us to walk there we had avoided controversial topics and settled for bland small talk instead. Now, as I finished my lunch, I remembered that I knew very little of what Will’s sister actually did here in Norwich.

  “You didn’t mind meeting me on a weekday?” I asked, looking up. “You were able to take time away from your job, I mean?”

  “It wasn’t difficult,” she replied with a shrug. “I work mostly in a part-time capacity. And it’s all voluntary, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if I show up or not. Well, no, that’s not right. I only mean that it doesn’t affect my standard of living since I’m not being paid.”

  “Can I ask what you do?”

  She pushed away the last of her pie with a grimace and reached for a glass of water. “I work mostly with ex-servicemen like yourself,” she told me. “Men who’ve been through the war and are having difficulty coming to terms with their experiences.”

  “And that’s a part-time position?” I asked, a flicker of a smile on my lips, and she laughed and looked down.

  “Well, I suppose not,” she admitted. “The truth is I could work with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and I still wouldn’t even scrape the surface of what needs doing. I’m really only a dogsbody, of course, for the doctors, who actually know what they’re doing. I suppose it’s what you’d call emotionally draining. But I do what I can. It would be better if I was a professional.”

  “Perhaps you could train as a nurse?” I suggested.

  “Perhaps I could train as a doctor,” she replied, correcting me. “It’s not such an outlandish idea, surely, Tristan?”

  “No, of course not,” I said, blushing slightly. “I only meant—”

  “I’m teasing you. There’s no need to feel so awkward. But if I could go back a few years I certainly would have trained for medicine. I’d have liked to become involved in a study of the mind.”

  “But you’re still a young woman,” I said. “It’s not too late, surely? In London—”

  “In London, of course,” she said, interrupting me and throwing her hands in the air. “Why is it that everyone from London a
lways believes it to be the centre of the universe? We do have hospitals here in Norwich, too, you know. And we have injured boys. Quite a few of them, in fact.”

  “Of course you do. I seem to keep putting my foot in it, don’t I?”

  “It’s very difficult for women, Tristan,” she explained, leaning forwards. “Perhaps you don’t fully realize that. You’re a man, after all. You have it easy.”

  “You believe that, do you?”

  “That it’s difficult for women?”

  “That I have it easy.”

  She sighed and gave a noncommittal shrug. “Well, I don’t know you, of course. I can’t speak for your particular circumstances. But trust me, things are not as difficult for you as they are for us.”

  “The last five years might make a lie of that statement.”

  Now it was her turn to blush. “Yes, of course you’re right,” she said. “But leave the war aside for a moment and examine our situation. The way in which women are treated in this country is almost unbearable. And, by the way, don’t you think that half of us would have gladly fought alongside the men in the trenches had we been allowed? I know I would have been out there like a shot.”

  “I sometimes think that it’s wiser to leave action and discussion to men.”

  She stared at me; she could not have looked more surprised had I jumped on the tabletop and burst into a rendition of “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag.”

  “I beg your pardon?” she said coldly.

  “No,” I said, laughing now. “Those aren’t my words. They’re from Howards End. Have you read Forster?”

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “And I shan’t if that’s the type of rot he comes out with. He sounds like a most objectionable sort.”

  “Only it’s a woman who utters the line, Marian. Mrs. Wilcox says it at a lunch thrown in her honour. Rather appals the company, if I remember correctly.”

  “I told you I don’t read modern novels, Tristan,” she said. “Leave the action and discussion to men, indeed! I never heard such a thing. This Mrs. Wilton—”

  “Wilcox.”