by John Boyne
“You haven’t heard, then?”
I shake my head but say nothing.
“Private Bancroft,” begins Wells, stressing each syllable as if it carries a great weight, “made an appointment for a conversation with Sergeant Clayton. He brought up that whole business of the German boy again. You’ve heard about that, I imagine?”
“Yes, sir,” I reply. “I was there when it happened.”
“Oh, that’s right. He did mention it. Anyway, he wanted Milton brought up on charges, insisted on it in no uncertain terms. The sergeant refused for what must be the third time of asking and this time the conversation grew rather heated between the two. The upshot of it all was that Bancroft surrendered his weapons to Sergeant Clayton and announced that he would take no further part in the campaign.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. “What happens next?”
“Sergeant Clayton told him that he was an enlisted man and he could not refuse to fight. To do so would be a dereliction of duty for which he could be court-martialled.”
“And what did Will say?”
“Who’s Will?” Wells asks stupidly.
“Bancroft.”
“Oh, he has a Christian name, does he? I knew you two were friends.”
“I told you, we just bunked next to each other in training, that’s all. Look, are you going to tell me what’s happening with him or not?”
“Steady on, Sadler,” says Wells cautiously. “Remember who you’re addressing.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I say, running a hand across my eyes. “I just want to know, that’s all. We can’t … we can’t afford to be another man down. The regiment …” I say half-heartedly.
“No, of course not. Well, Sergeant Clayton told him that he had no choice, he had to fight, but Bancroft announced that he no longer believed in the moral absolute of this war, that he felt the army was engaged in tactics which are contrary to the public good and God’s laws. Has he ever displayed a religious fervour, Sadler? I wonder whether that might explain this sudden rush of conscience.”
“His father’s a vicar,” I tell him. “Although I’ve never heard Bancroft talk about it much.”
“Well, either way it won’t do him much good. Sergeant Clayton told him that he couldn’t register as a conscientious objector out here, it was too late for that nonsense. No military tribunals to hear his case, for one thing. No, he knew what he was signing up for, and if he refuses to fight then we’re left with no alternative. You know what that is, Sadler. I don’t need to tell you what we do with feather men.”
I swallow and feel my heart pounding wildly in my chest. “You’re not sending him over the sandbags,” I ask. “A stretcher-bearer?”
“That was the general intention,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders, as if this is a perfectly normal thing. “But no, Bancroft wouldn’t have that either. He’s gone the whole hog, you see. Declared himself an absolutist.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“An absolutist,” he repeats. “You’re not familiar with the term?”
“No, sir,” I say.
“It’s one step beyond conscientiously objecting,” he explains. “Most of those men oppose the fighting part of things, the killing and so on, but they are willing to help in other ways, in what they might deem to be more humanitarian ways. They’ll work in hospitals or in GHQ or whatever. I mean, it’s terribly cowardly, of course, but they’ll do something while the rest of us risk life and limb.”
“And an absolutist?” I ask.
“Well, he’s at the far end of the spectrum, Sadler,” he tells me. “He won’t do anything at all to further the war effort. Won’t fight, won’t help those who are fighting, won’t work in a hospital or come to the aid of the wounded. Won’t do anything at all, really, except sit on his hands and complain that the whole thing’s a sham. It’s the thin end of the wedge, Sadler, it really is. Cowardice on the most extreme level.”
“Will is not a coward,” I say quietly, feeling my hands curling into fists beneath the table.
“Oh, but he is,” he says. “He’s the most frightful coward. Anyway, he’s registered his status so now the only thing left is to decide what to do with him.”
“And where is he now?” I ask. “Has he been sent back to England?”
“For an easy life? I should think not.”
“I should think that if he was he would be imprisoned,” I point out. “And I can’t imagine there would be anything easy about that.”
“Really, Sadler?” he says doubtfully. “The next time you’re crawling on your belly across no-man’s-land with the bullets whizzing past your head, wondering when you’re going to be picked off like Martin Moody, you just remember those words. I expect at such a moment you might rather relish a couple of years in Strangeways.”
“So is that where he’s gone?” I ask, already feeling heartsore at the idea that I might not see him again, that like Peter Wallis, Will and I parted as enemies and I might die without our ever being reconciled.
“Not yet, no,” says Wells. “He’s still here at camp. Locked up at Sergeant Clayton’s discretion. Court-martialled.”
“But there hasn’t been a trial yet?”
“We don’t need a trial out here, Sadler, you know that. Why, if he was to lay down his gun during the fighting itself he’d be shot by the battle police for cowardice. No, there’s a big push coming over the next twenty-four hours and I’m sure he’ll come to his senses before then. If he agrees to get back into the thick of it, all will be forgotten. For now, at least. He may have to answer for it at a later date, of course, but at least he’ll live to tell his side of the story. He’s lucky, when you think about it. Were it not for the fact that every last man has been helping with the advancement or working on entrenchment he would have been shot by now. No, we’ll hold on to him where he is for the time being and send him out when the battle begins. He’s full of fine talk about never fighting again, of course, but we’ll knock that out of him in time. Mark my words.”
I nod but say nothing. I’m not convinced that anyone could ever knock anything out of Will Bancroft once he has an idea in his head, and want to say so but keep my peace. After a moment, Wells drains his mug and stands up.
“Well, I’d better get back to it,” he says. “Are you coming, Sadler?”
“Not quite yet,” I say.
“All right, then.” He starts to walk away, then turns back and stares at me, narrowing his eyes again. “Are you sure that you and Bancroft aren’t friends?” he asks me. “I always thought you were thick as thieves, the pair of you.”
“We just had bunks next to each other,” I say, unable to look him in the eye. “That’s all we are to each other. I barely know him really.”
To my astonishment, I see Will the following afternoon, seated alone in an abandoned foxhole near HQ. He’s unshaven and pale; there’s a lost expression on his face as he unsettles the dirt on the ground with the tip of his boot. I watch him for a moment without making my presence known to see whether he looks any different now that he has taken his great stand. It might be minutes later when he jerks his head up abruptly, then relaxes when he sees that it’s only me.
“You’re free,” I say as I approach him, not bothering with any greeting despite the fact that we haven’t laid eyes on each other for some time. “I thought they’d locked you away somewhere.”
“They have,” he tells me. “And they’ll take me back there in a bit, I dare say. There’s a meeting of some sort taking place in there and I expect they don’t want me to hear what they’re talking about. Corporal Wells told me to wait here until someone came to fetch me.”
“And they trust you not to run off?”
“Well, where do you think I might go, Tristan?” he asks, smiling at me and looking around. He has a point; it’s not as if there’s anywhere to run off to. “You don’t have a cigarette on you, by any chance? They took all mine away.”
I dig around in the pocket of my coat and h
and one across. He lights it quickly, his eyes closing for a moment as he takes the first draw of nicotine into his lungs.
“Is it very awful?” I ask.
“What?” he asks, looking up at me again.
“Being held like this. Wells told me what you’re doing. I expect they’re treating you horribly.”
He shrugs his shoulders and looks away. “It’s fine,” he says. “Most of the time they just ignore me. They bring me food, take me to the latrine. There’s even a bunk in there, if you can believe it. It’s a lot more comfortable than being left to rot in the trenches, I can promise you that.”
“But that’s not why you’re doing it, is it?”
“No, of course not. What do you take me for, anyway?”
“Is it because of the German boy?”
“He’s part of it,” he says, looking down at his boots. “But there’s Wolf, too. What happened to him. His murder, I mean. It just feels like we’ve all become immune to the violence. I’m of the opinion that Sergeant Clayton would fall to his knees and burst into tears if he heard that the war had come to an end. He loves it. You realize that, Tristan, don’t you?”
“He doesn’t love it,” I say, shaking my head.
“The man’s half mad. Anyone can see that. Babbling half the day. Great rages, then weeping fits. He needs to be carted off to the funny farm. But look, I haven’t asked how you are.”
“I’m fine,” I say, not willing to turn the conversation to me.
“You were ill.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were a goner at one point. The doctor didn’t give you much chance, anyway. Bloody fool. I told him you’d pull through. Said you were made of stronger stuff than he realized.”
I laugh abruptly, flattered by this, then look back at him in surprise. “You talked to the doctor?” I ask.
“Briefly, yes.”
“When?”
“Well, when I came to visit you, of course.”
“But they told me no one came to visit,” I tell him. “I asked and they seemed to think I was mad even to imagine it.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Well, I came.”
Three soldiers appear from around the corner, new recruits I haven’t seen before, and they hesitate when they see Will sitting there. They stare at him for a moment before one of them spits in the mud and the others follow suit. They don’t say anything, not to his face, anyway, but I can hear the mutters of “Fucking coward” under their breath as they pass by. Following them with my eyes I wait until they’re out of sight before turning back to Will.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says quietly.
I tell him to shove up and take a seat beside him. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that he visited me in the medical tent, about what that means.
“Don’t you think you could just put it all aside for now?” I ask. “These concerns of yours, I mean. Just until it’s all over?”
“But what good would that do?” he asks. “The point must be made while the fighting is still going on. Otherwise it’s entirely worthless. You must see that.”
“Yes, but if you’re not shot here for cowardice then they’ll ship you off back to England. I’ve heard what happens to feather men in jails back home. You’ll be lucky if you survive it. And after that, how do you think the rest of your life will turn out? You won’t be welcome in polite society, that’s for sure.”
“I couldn’t give two figs for polite society,” he replies with a bitter laugh. “Why would I, if this is what it represents? And I’m not a feather man, Tristan,” he insists. “This is not an act of cowardice.”
“No, you’re an absolutist,” I reply. “And I’m sure that you think it justifies everything if you can ascribe a clean word to it. But it doesn’t.”
Will turns and stares at me, taking the cigarette from his mouth and using his thumb and index finger to remove a flake of tobacco that’s trapped between his front teeth. He glances at it for a moment before flicking it into the dirt at our feet. “Why do you care so much, anyway?” he asks. “What good do you think it does talking to me here?”
“I care for the same reason that you visited me in hospital,” I say. “I don’t want to see you making a terrible mistake that you will regret for the rest of your life.”
“And you don’t think that you’ll regret it?” he asks. “When this is all over and you’re safely back home in London, you don’t think that you’ll wake up with the pictures of all the men you’ve killed haunting your dreams? Do you actually mean to tell me that you’ll be able to move past it all? I don’t think you’ve given it any thought at all,” he adds, his voice growing colder now. “You talk of cowardice, you talk of feather men, and yet you direct your contempt at everyone but yourself. You can’t see that, can you? How it’s you who is the coward and not I? I can’t sleep at night, Tristan, for thinking of that boy pissing his pants just before Milton put the gun to his head. Every time I close my eyes I see his brains being splattered over the trench wall. If I could go back, I’d have put a bullet in Milton myself before he could kill the boy.”
“You’d have been shot for it if you had.”
“I’ll be shot anyway. What do you think they’re discussing back there? The lack of decent tea in the mess tent? They’re figuring out when’s the best time to be rid of me.”
“They won’t shoot you,” I insist. “They can’t. They have to hear your case.”
“Not out here they don’t,” he says. “Not in the field of battle. And who’d have turned me in if I had shot Milton? You?”
Before I can answer this there’s a cry of “Bancroft!” from my left and I turn to see Harding, the new corporal sent over from GHQ as a replacement for Moody. “What do you think you’re doing? And who the hell are you?” he asks as I jump to my feet.
“Private Sadler,” I say.
“And why the devil are you talking to the prisoner?”
“Well, he was just sitting here, sir,” I say, uncertain of what crime I might have committed. “And I was passing by, that’s all. I didn’t know that he was in isolation.”
Harding narrows his eyes and looks me up and down for a moment as if he’s attempting to decide whether or not I am cheeking him. “Get back to the trench, Sadler,” he says. “I’m sure someone there must be looking for you.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, turning around and nodding at Will before I leave. He doesn’t acknowledge my farewell, just stares at me with a curious expression as I walk away.
Evening time.
A bomb falls somewhere to my left and knocks me off my feet. I hit the ground and lie there for a moment, gasping, wondering whether that’s the end of me. Have my legs been blown away? My arms dismembered? Are my intestines slipping out of my body and melting into the mud? But the seconds pass and I feel no pain. I press my hands to the soil and lift myself up.
I am fine. I am uninjured. I am alive.
I throw myself forward in the trench, looking left and right quickly to apprise myself of the situation. Soldiers are rushing past, filling positions three men deep along the front defence line, and Corporal Wells is at the end, shouting instructions at us. His arm rises and falls in the air as if he is chopping something, and as the first group steps back, the second takes a movement forward as the third, myself among them, lines up behind the second.
It’s impossible to hear what is being said over the noise of shelling and gunfire, but I watch, breathing in quick gasps, and I can see that Wells is giving quick instructions to the run of fifteen men in the front line who look at each other for a moment before ascending the ladder and, heads held firmly down, throwing themselves over the sandbags and into no-man’s-land, which is dark and lit up sporadically like a carnival.
Wells pulls a box-periscope down and stares through it, and I study his face, noticing the moments when he sees someone’s been hit, the quick expression of pain that spreads across his features, then he pushes it to one side as the next line steps forward.<
br />
Sergeant Clayton is among us now and he stands on the opposite side of the line to Wells and shouts instructions at the troops. I close my eyes for a moment. How long will it be, I wonder, two minutes, three, before I am over the sandbags, too? Is my life to end tonight? I’ve been over before and survived, but tonight … tonight feels different and I don’t know why.
I look in front of me and see a boy trembling. He’s young, untested, a new recruit. I think he arrived the day before yesterday. He turns around and stares at me as if I can help him and I can see that his expression is one of pure terror. He can’t be much younger than me, maybe he’s older, but he looks like a child, a little boy who doesn’t even know what he’s doing here.
“I can’t do it,” he says to me, his Yorkshire voice low and pleading, and I narrow my eyes and force him to focus on them.
“You can,” I tell him.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t.”
More screams from either side of the line and now a body falls from above, almost from the heavens, and lands among us. It’s another of the new recruits, a lad I noticed not five minutes ago with a mop of prematurely grey hair, a bullet hole through his throat seeping blood. The boy in front of me cries out and takes a step back, almost pushing into me, and I shove him forward. I can’t be expected to deal with him, too, when my own life is about to end. It’s not fair.
“Please,” he says, appealing to me as if I have some control over what is happening.
“Shut up,” I say, no longer willing to play mother to him. “Shut the fuck up and step forward, all right? Do your duty.”
He cries and I shove him again and he’s at the base of the ladders now, standing in a row alongside a dozen or so others.
“Next line-up!” screams Sergeant Clayton and the soldiers place their feet nervously on the lowest rung of the ladders, holding their heads low so they do not peep over the top any sooner than they have to. My boy, the one in front of me, does, too, but he makes no move to ascend, keeping his right foot rooted firmly in the mud.
“That man!” screams Clayton, pointing at him. “Up! Up! Up now!”
