by George Hagen
“Almost ready?” Hartwell shouted. Arthur nodded as his companion, having secured a cable to his howitzer, scrambled backwards to set it off from behind a small standing wall.
Arthur hoisted the second shell into the open muzzle of Number 3 gun, then ran to his position to set it off. His heart was beating loudly, and his senses seemed to sharpen with the impending urgency of his task—his footsteps crunched on pulverized brick, he heard the sharp report of rifle fire in the distance, and his left knee began shaking uncontrollably. To calm himself, he listed the simple order of his tasks: detonate gun, sprint to truck with Hartwell, drive towards Annequin. Which way was Annequin? Was it to the left or right? Never mind, he thought, Hartwell will know.
Another sound broke his concentration: a German biplane swooped over the dun landscape. Arthur guessed it was probably assessing the Allied retreat.
Hartwell's gun suddenly exploded with an unfamiliar crack. The assembly blew to pieces, sending a wheel spinning out of the pit while a large piece of the howitzer barrel revolved upwards. Arthur watched it rise slowly to its apogee. Then, as it fell, he realized it was going to land precisely where Hartwell lay.
“Hartwell!” he cried.
But no sooner had his warning been spoken than the howitzer's barrel struck the small wall, creating a dust cloud.
“Hartwell?”
There was no reply. Arthur tugged his telephone wire, ducked as his gun exploded, then without thinking to look overhead, ran to his friend. Halfway to the wall, he recognized part of Hartwell's torso in the dust. Then, he heard the vigorous chatter of the biplane's machine gun.
A strafe of bullets tore into the truck, igniting it with a thunderous pop, followed by a rain of metal. The plane veered up and around for a second run. Arthur stood still, confused. The order of his tasks had been sabotaged.
His throat stung from the burning cloud enveloping the truck. Something hot landed on his back, and he felt his tunic burning. He tore off his jacket with his satchel, seized a bicycle, and pedaled away, counting his own shrill breaths. When the road passed through a copse of fir trees, he felt the sublime relief of a rabbit in the undergrowth. In the pines, he couldn't hear the rifles. The whine of the plane subsided. There was a blessed and petrifying silence.
He emerged from the wood at a crossroads. The sun was now impossible to see behind a blanket of clouds. Arthur's compass had been in the satchel he had cast off. Not only might he run into the advancing German infantry but he had left his rifle behind. Where was Annequin? Perhaps he was riding to Sailly, or Noyelles. It was impossible to know, so he proceeded, hoping he would eventually see some familiar landmark.
After a few miles, Arthur entered a devastated town and spotted a steeple. The church appeared to be the only untouched structure. He remembered Martine's remark: Everybody still in the town goes there. Was this the church she attended on Sundays? It was a limestone structure, with Gothic windows and a central, stained-glass window—still gloriously intact.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of an ax hacking into wood.
“Halt,” cried a voice. Arthur turned and saw a soldier in a khaki serge uniform. A cigarette hung from his lower lip.
“Georgie?” he cried.
The soldier grinned. “Arthur Chapel! What the hell are you doing here?”
“I've lost my way. All the signs are gone!”
The debonair soldier grinned. “That's my job, chum. Destroy the signs to obstruct the enemy advance.” Georgie Goode indicated a sign he had hacked from the church wall. He offered Arthur a ride on his motorcycle back to the rest of his company.
“If you'll wait, I'll pick you up in ten minutes. I have one more sign on the Sailly road to take down.”
Arthur agreed to meet Georgie at the church of Saint-Agnant. He pedaled towards the church and rested his bicycle below the saints that stood above the Gothic doorway. Their gray faces seemed focused on the devastated city and the mournful column of black smoke on the horizon. Mar tine had told him that this church's crypt was the safest place to be during an attack. Arthur hesitated at the door and looked up—thinking of Martine, hoping to see one stone face with an expression of compassion. He needed to believe that fortune had brought him here for a reason.
He entered, and a cool breeze enveloped him. How blessedly peaceful it was. An anguished, life-size statue of Jesus hung above the altar, gnarled toes nailed together with an iron spike. A phalanx of tin pipes marked the organ on the second level, to the right. The battered pews had cushions of worn velvet. The floorboards were dull and bowed.
Behind the apse, a small chamber lay with a desk and several shelves of books; a priest's black cassock was draped over a chair. A circular staircase led up to the organ but none to the crypt. Arthur circled the pews. After a second circuit, he noticed a rug behind the altar. He lifted a corner, but it was tacked to the floorboards. Spying a ring, Arthur pulled at it, and a hatch rose to reveal steps.
Scores of faces in the darkness peered up at him, but before he could react, he heard the growl of a truck. Arthur let the hatch fall and, running past the pews, peered through the stained-glass windows to see the progress of a vehicle manned with German soldiers, a machine gun mounted on its roof.
It halted outside the church. The soldier at the machine gun scanned the church, then spun around to survey the landscape behind him. Almost as soon as Arthur thought of Georgie Goode, he heard the rattle of a motorcycle speeding back along the Sailly road. In a moment, the two drivers spied each other.
Through the window Arthur saw a German lieutenant wave Georgie down. Georgie stopped and raised his hands, with the motorcycle still idling. As the German opened his door to climb out, Georgie tore forward, kicking the truck's door shut, and accelerated. The machine gunner spun around and fired at his back.
It happened so slowly: Georgie seemed to tumble from his motorcycle as if he had simply fallen asleep. The cigarette fell from his lips. His body slumped gently into a heap on the road while the machine continued forward until its front wheel twisted and the cycle spun side over side and struck a post.
Arthur ran to the apse, kneeled to the carpet, and pulled at the ring of the hatch, but it had been bolted. He considered pleading with the people below to open the hatch but knew he would imperil Martine and the others hiding down there. His eyes shifted to the cassock that was draped upon the chair. Quickly, he shed his uniform and slipped it on. Before he could appraise his appearance, he heard a voice call from the front of the church.
“1st da jemand?” cried a helmeted silhouette.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
“WHY NOT?” OSCAR REPLIED.
Tom had refused to discuss Mansworth's past.
“Because he is going to bring Arthur back from France.”
Oscar burst into laughter. “He promised that?”
“I have no choice but to believe him.”
“He's a liar,” said Oscar bitterly. “You'd be a fool to believe him. Don't you see, Tom? This is how he manipulates people. He's protecting his political future by silencing me. The last thing he'll do is bring Arthur back, because then you'd have no need of him.”
“I'm sorry, Oscar,” said Tom, “but Mansworth's my only hope.”
Oscar's amusement faded. “Look, I've a son in uniform too,” he said. “I know the desperation you feel, so I'll try to find out if Arthur's safe.”
tom took a nap that afternoon, but something caused him to sit bolt upright, eyes wide open, heart thumping in his chest. A fearsome panic gripped his throat. He couldn't speak, yet a torrent of awful thoughts gripped him. Which of his children was in danger?
He staggered about his room, drank water, unbuttoned his collar, threw open the window, and peered at the skyline. A dirigible hung over St. Paul's Cathedral. A horn blared, the sound ricocheting against the buildings. Was it a motorcar, or the Pendletons marching again?
There was a sudden knock at his door, and a note was pushed under it to announce the presence of a visit
or downstairs.
Tom found his father filling his pockets with pencils, matches, and any other items on the proprietress's counter.
“My boy! I thought I might propose dinner, if you are so inclined.”
Tom escorted the old man out of the hotel lobby while the other patrons stared at the carnival apparition with ramrod nose, wooden leg, and broad grin.
“Do I embarrass you, Tom?” Bedlam asked, as his son steered him across the street.
“Immensely,” replied Tom.
Bedlam chuckled. “When you are my age, you won't care about appearances or attitudes. People are stunted by their own prejudices,” he said merrily. “I hate no man, Tom. I am a man at peace. I expect nothing from anybody.”
“You expect me to pay for dinner,” Tom replied.
After a wounded silence, Bedlam admitted that he was famished and begged his son not to insult him when his stomach was empty.
Tom chose the restaurant this time, an establishment with white linen tablecloths and attentive waiters. They were placed at a window table. Immediately Bedlam complained of the small helpings at London's finer restaurants.
“Have you eaten here before?” asked Tom.
“Well, no,” admitted his father.
“Then your complaint is premature,” replied Tom.
“In truth, it's not the size of the helpings that troubles me,” began Bedlam, “but that you owe me much more than dinner.”
“Oh?” said Tom. “What do I owe you?”
The old actor preened the strands of silver hair that fell to his shoulders and adopted a grave expression to match his words. “Forgiveness, of course.”
“Forgiveness?” Tom repeated.
Bedlam nodded, and his face took on a sentimental cast:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, and ask of thee forgiveness: and we'll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales.
He put his hands together and looked his son in the eye. “Forgive me, my boy. Make peace with me.”
Tom regarded the man with astonishment. “Father, you love no one but yourself. You're conceited and conniving. You've exploited me at every occasion. And, most of all, you ask for redemption without offering to change in any way!”
Bedlam shrugged. “I admit, my boy I am incapable of reform. I'm old, Tom, and too set in my ways.”
Then, to Tom's horror, the old man began to weep. His face took on a pitiful cast, tears rolled down his cheeks, and his shrill sobs turned the heads of the other restaurant patrons. “I dominate all conversations and draw every subject to myself. I consider my needs above all others.” He groaned. “I crave an audience, and adore the sound of my own voice. I'm a wretch, conceited, selfish, slothful.” He blew his nose on a table napkin. “Now, old Paddy claims these are vices, but I maintain they are an actor's strengths!” Bedlam dabbed at his eyes and summoned his pride with a heaving gasp. “But, I ask you, what sort of actor would I be if I didn't think myself worthy of an audience? What kind of actor hides his light under a bushel? Hmm? I would be a mussel, silent in the clay, buried among other mussels, in a vast mussel bed—still, silent, and ignored.”
Now he leaned forward to his son imploringly. “Accept me for my conceits, Tom. Please, if I die without redemption, without relief from my burden, what a tragedy it will be!”
Tom heard Audrey's voice in his head, counseling reconciliation, but how could he dispense with an anger nursed since boyhood? How could he forgive his father? The outrage that had burned in his chest for all these years was a vital sustaining force; it had driven him to bring up his children in defiance of his father's shabby betrayals and powered his convictions about marriage and moral decency. It was his very foundation. For all he knew, to forgive this man might rob his heart of the ability to beat.
“I cannot.”
“I beg you, Tom. I beg you.” The face across the table implored, eyes wide, mouth contorted like the mask of tragedy. “Give an old man what he asks.”
“What will you give me in return?”
“In return?” Now Bedlam looked startled. “What can I possibly give you?” he asked. “What have I to give?”
Tom brooded in silence. Eventually he replied, “I want to know what you did with my brother.”
“I would never have hurt a hair on that boy's head. I gave him to an esteemed gentleman who promised to find him a good home. That's all I know of him!”
“What esteemed gentleman?”
“You've met him: Tobias Griff.”
“Did Mr. Griff tell you where the baby went? Did he know his name? Was it Arthur Pigeon?”
Bedlam shook his head. “I never knew the name. Never wanted to know.”
“Why not?”
“I had failed, hadn't I?” The old man averted his eyes to study the tablecloth. “What father gives away his son? Hmmm? Better not to know. Mr. Griff said it was best that only he knew the child's origin and destination.” A feeble smile returned to the actor's face. “In my experience, the truth of any matter is a disappointment. Box office receipts, audience in attendance, income per annum. Best not to know. Ignorance is bliss.”
“I'd come to believe that my brother had perished, most probably of a broken heart,” said Tom. “If I am mistaken, I promise you, Father, I shall be delighted. I shall visit Mr. Griff forthwith!”
SUCH A GIFT
GOD HAD TAKEN SECOND LIEUTENANT DIETER WEEKS.
The captain had lost thirteen of his men in that day's advance, but his grief was spent mourning one man, the man who epitomized the spirit of the company, the man who had elevated the idiots, the vulgar scoundrels, the weak, and the dim-witted into a respectable group of fighters. It was a shameful admission, but just as a teacher has his pet, the captain had Dieter Weeks. The second lieutenant was as strong as a bull, argumentative (especially on the virtues of Schubert and Goethe), and insistent that Handel's Baroque operas were superior to anything written by an Italian. He was absurdly built, with an enormous trunk, a swelling gut, no buttocks to speak of, and a walk that was more stagger than stride. Malformed, stubborn, and noisy when he joined the company, Dieter Weeks had seemed a prime candidate to supervise the trench-digging crew. His surname, after all, was not even German.
One drizzling night he was sent on patrol to find a few men who were missing after an assault. The enemy began a fusillade to cut him down, and the man vanished in the fog. They had given him up for lost after three hours, but suddenly, out of the darkness, the captain heard someone whistling “Ombra mai fu.” When he whistled the tune back, the second lieutenant had sprung up with four other men and sprinted through enemy fire to the safety of their trench.
What a wondrous fool the fellow was! When every other man was shitting in his trousers before an attack, the second lieutenant's tuneless voice would start a melody, and soon the entire company would be humming. He was the mascot, the bumpkin, and the bravest of them all.
How many times had Weeks brought back a wounded man on his shoulders? Too many to count. He was no figure of beauty, but he was nimble and fast with his hands. He cheated at cards and could finish off the plate of an unwary cadet as it sat in his lap. And he was stubborn: he had once driven a sergeant into a fury by arguing that the world was flat. Dieter Weeks believed that God was a fiction and churches were a conceit built by the many for the elevation of the few. Furthermore, he claimed that meat sapped a man of his prowess, and a diet of potato and cabbage would give a fellow a mighty hard-on. His flatulence was legendary. No one would sit with him after dinner. Rumor was he once lit a fart that burned so brightly he was demoted for exposing his company's position to the enemy. Yet he earned his rank back a week later by rescuing a lieutenant trapped between trenches.
Why on earth would any God take a man like that?
When machine-gun fire ripped into him that morning, Weeks tumbled like a sack of potatoes, his belly spilling its contents into the mud. Oh, the awful sight of such a titan collapsing into meat and bones! When he cried out,
his throat turned scarlet and red bubbles burst from the black maw of his gaping neck. That was the end of the music. That was the end of the farting, whistling contrarian, and the end of his brothers' fighting spirit. Even the sergeant who lost the argument about the shape of the world wept for Dieter Weeks.
It was hard to feel victorious with Weeks gone. They were all sheep now. They would continue to sleep, salvage, and shore up their defensive line, like good soldiers, but the captain had no doubt that the enemy would come back for Béthune in a week or two, the lines would change again, and there would be plenty more Germans buried beside the second lieutenant.
But the sight of this church spire brought back the captain's fury— this tribute to the God who had let Dieter Weeks fall. With vengeance burning in his throat, the captain circled the buttresses and stonework, choking with renewed grief. Why should a structure dedicated to an indifferent God be intact when every man's home was shattered, every school, every hospital, every museum and library was in shambles?
Well, the first apostle of Dieter Weeks wouldn't tolerate it. The captain vowed to eat no more meat; it would be potatoes and cabbage for dinner. God was dead. And the earth was as flat as a mess plate.
“I want this building taken down,” he told his sergeant.
“The church, sir?”
“Yes, the church. I want it blown to pieces.”
The sergeant dusted one of the carved faces of the saints on the massive door with his woolen cap. “Imagine what people will say about us if we destroy it. It must be more than five hundred years old.”
But the captain was resolute. What better memorial to Dieter Weeks than to turn a monstrosity like this to rubble?
The sergeant made a final plea: “Let me warn the priest if he's here. We don't want to leave them with a martyr.”
