by Gert Ledig
The Major made a face. ‘The man was a deserter. It’s an open-and-shut case!’ he said.
‘We could have found thousands like him.’ The Captain thought of his driver. The bastard had left him in it.
The Commandant wrinkled his brow. ‘From the reports I have in to date, we have almost four thousand captured or dead. The Sergeant’s company, for instance, seems to have vanished. One more or less hardly matters!’
‘But that’s precisely why it does matter, sir.’
‘What do you want? The man is dead, theoretically. His next of kin have been informed. His name has been taken off the list of those entitled to rations. His number has been cancelled. Besides, every company commander will already have read out the order relating to his execution.’
‘An unpleasant thing to have to announce,’ said the Captain. The cylinder jingled. The moth was evidently dead set on dying.
‘And the critical thing in all that was the announcement.’
‘What if we give him a chance to desert?’
The Major shook his head. ‘How do you propose to do that? If the Sergeant isn’t shot, there’ll be talk. One day there’ll be an inquest, and I’ll have to come up with the body. As proof, so to speak. Then what do I do?’
‘Surely as Commander of fighting troops, you must have certain possibilities . . .’ The Major shook his head. ‘I’m not Commander of fighting troops any more. The breakthrough has been choked off.’ Suddenly he brought his fist down on the table. He screamed: ‘Your suggestion is treasonable!’ In his rage, he swatted one of the many pencils off the table. He loved pencils with the tenderness of a collector. He gave the order: ‘You’re going to shoot him!’
The cylinder jingled. The moth floated down. Once or twice more, it shrugged its singed wings.
‘Give the MP the order!’ asked the Captain.
The Major stooped to pick up the pencil and bobbed up again. ‘The MP may refuse. He knows no judgement was arrived at!’ He smiled a saccharine smile: ‘There’s one principal difference between you and the MP. That man is clean.’ An embarrassing silence ensued. The drone of a mosquito which had taken the moth’s place hovering round the lamp was the only sound in the room.
‘What do you mean?’ the Captain asked, a little reluctantly.
‘I have proof that your section left its position for no reason. If I put your name down in a report, you’re done for!’
The Captain felt the sweat come out on his brow. He had made a mistake. Now he remembered. He should have destroyed the time-chart. From the entries on that, anyone could see what had happened. The local HQ had a radio. Every incoming communication was taken down, with the time it was received. Probably a radio man in his sector had even broadcast: no contact with the enemy! But that was when he had withdrawn. In the order book it would say: Withdrawing under enemy pressure to point X. The fellow had known that all along.
‘Well?’ asked the Major.
‘Do you promise me . . .’
The local Commandant laughed like Father Christmas.
‘May I go now?’
‘You may. And – come and tell me after it’s all over.’
In the passageway that led out to the square, the Captain felt like a diver, walking over dry land with lead plates on his feet. The square lay in darkness. There was a dull grumbling coming from the direction of the Front. The barn loomed up towards him like a great ship. Involuntarily, he slowed his step. In an hour, he would be a murderer. Half an hour, if he was quick about it. It was like a bad play. He was sitting in the box, looking down on the stage. And all at once, he had been given a part. As a spectator, it hadn’t looked difficult. But the nearer his entrance came, the more nervous he got. Did he really have to play along? Yes. There was the time-chart. A harmless bit of bumf, a fiendish compact. Even if he got off lightly, he would still be stripped of his rank . . .
The engine of a car hummed in the darkness. Two tiny headlights felt their way across the square. The dipped lights looked like candles flickering in a graveyard on All Souls’. A pair of boots crunched on the gravel. All at once he was standing in front of the locked iron door of the barn. He knocked. The metal echoed like a drum.
‘Come on in,’ said the MP, as though it were an evening at a club. A storm lantern hung on the wall. It threw distorted shadows across the table. He couldn’t have imagined anything bleaker. Spider’s webs hung in the air. Straight away, they wrapped themselves about his face. When he wiped them away, he felt a spider on his hand. He shuddered with disgust. Great slabs of plaster had come off the walls. There was rubble underfoot. White patches of wall like the sheets in a morgue, hung up to dry. ‘Is it time?’ came the conspiratorial whisper of the MP.
The Captain shook his head. He thought, I’m really not being spared anything here. The fellow will remember my face, and that makes a third man who knows about this, apart from me and the Major. Only now did he start to appreciate the monstrousness of it all.
The MP whispered: ‘The Commandant told me you would be coming for him.’
‘Why are you whispering?’ asked the Captain.
‘Pst,’ the MP put his finger to his lips. ‘He’s gone,’ he pointed up, into the darkness.
‘He’s gone,’ the Captain repeated, first stupidly and then with delight. It was the best thing he had ever heard. He giggled. He had known really all along that it was just a bad joke. The Sergeant was gone. The only possibility he hadn’t considered. He laughed aloud: he was an executioner who’d missed the boat. Some way would be found of sorting the thing with the time-chart as well.
The MP hissed: ‘Ssh! The Sergeant’s sleeping!’
The Captain felt a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head. ‘Can’t you express yourself a bit more clearly, man,’ he blustered.
‘He’s asleep,’ repeated the MP, aggrieved. He moved on to business: ‘I wouldn’t mind keeping his pistol. And you have to sign a receipt form for him here.’
‘A receipt?’
‘The regulations say I have to have a receipt if I hand over a prisoner.’ The Captain felt a chill down his spine. He dug his fingernails into his palms. Maybe the Major would like to have the ears as proof.
The MP held out a tattered-looking book: ‘Sign in here please.’
‘Later, later,’ said the Captain. What murderer signs his name, and in advance, for God’s sake?
The MP grumbled: ‘But he’s still alive.’
The Captain saw a steep staircase winding up into the darkness. Worn boards, cement dust, a rickety handrail. He thought: I have to go up there. He’s sleeping. How can a man sleep when he’s about to die?
The MP’s voice chimed in: ‘It would just be unpleasant later on, when it’s dealt with.’
The Captain made no reply. A shot must produce a vast echo in these ancient walls. The muzzle flash would light up the whole building. Maybe the bullet would miss. Then the Sergeant would certainly start yelling. And what if it turned into a tussle? In the fight for survival, a man is capable of anything.
‘If I don’t have a light, I’m not going to find him in the dark,’ he said reproachfully.
‘I’ll get him for you,’ offered the MP.
‘No, no. Not if he’s asleep . . .’
The MP looked perplexed: ‘But we’re going to have to wake him!’
The Captain hastily threw in: ‘I mean, I’ll do it while he’s asleep. That’s the best thing.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Are you saying I’ll have to go outside and do it?’
He made no use of the word ‘shoot’.
‘Yes. Orders from the local Commandant.’
‘How does he want that to happen?’ blurted the Captain, incredulously. ‘What am I going to say to the man?’
‘Ssh! Not so loud. I told him he’s being released tomorrow. That’s what I do with all of them.’
The Captain admired his cool. ‘All right, then, you go and get him.’ He felt cold sweat on his brow. The
re was no going back now. The storm lantern’s light flickered like a will o’ the wisp.
The MP went up the steps. The boards groaned under his feet. The jingle of keys. A cross squeak from the door. In the dark, a spot of loose plaster came off with a crash. The Captain almost jumped out of his skin. He heard indistinct muttering overhead. A second voice. Then some movement. A man sleepily got off his bed. The floor above bounced. Footfall came down the steps. The handrail began to tremble.
‘An officer’s come to take you away,’ the MP was saying. ‘Here he is,’ he heard suddenly from right next to him, and the Sergeant was standing in front of him. The Captain stared at the white patches on the wall.
‘My watch,’ he heard the Sergeant say. The MP replied:
‘I don’t have it.’
‘Yes, but it’s gone.’
‘Don’t you get cheeky with me,’ barked the MP.
The Captain thought he had never witnessed an uglier scene. He knew who had the watch. The MP’s behaviour had been conspicuous all along.
‘What about my belt? My pistol?’ asked the Sergeant.
‘They’re staying here,’ replied the Captain in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own.
‘Wouldn’t you like to sign now?’ The MP held out the tattered book again.
‘No. Later. We have to go now.’
The Captain felt relieved to escape the light of the lantern. While the MP opened the iron door, the Sergeant shook his head and said: ‘Without a belt!’ The Captain thought he was being ridiculous. As they stepped outside, the booming of the Front sounded like the noise from a shunting yard. Red firelight lay over the forests. Their footfall echoed in the darkness.
The Captain suddenly felt in the grip of fear. It seemed to him the Sergeant was deliberately hanging back. In his agitation, he reached for his pistol holster. Opened it. Felt the cold steel, and took the weapon in his hand. He was certain that the Sergeant hadn’t observed his movement. In spite of that, his fear didn’t leave him, even though he was the stronger, with the weapon in his hand. Then he remembered that the pistol of course would have its safety catch on. You couldn’t slip that off in silence. It would give a click. The Sergeant would hear it. A new gulf opened at his feet. Either the Sergeant would know his killer was walking at his side, or else he would certainly make up his mind to flee. Isn’t anyone going to come, thought the Captain. He yearned for a voice, a stranger, anyone. Being alone like this with his victim was unendurable. And where should he do it? That question too remained unanswered. The forest was nearby. But he wasn’t capable of marching off into the forest alone with the Sergeant. The trees, the undergrowth, the branches hanging spectrally across the path, the night.
‘It’s time I got back to my company,’ said the Sergeant. He was still that half a step behind him. Was that savvy – or simplemindedness? Fear of death makes a man childish. While the Captain was thinking about what to say, the Sergeant asked him a question: ‘Where are we going, Captain?’
Unconsciously, the Captain must have been waiting for such a question. In spite of that, it caught him unprepared. Never had he had to come up with a lie so quickly as now. At least, not on such a scale.
‘One or two formalities,’ he said. He thought even that had given him away.
‘I need a record of the time I’ve been here. Otherwise, my company really would end up believing . . .’
The Sergeant spoke as one entitled to demand.
Just in that moment, the Captain took the catch off the pistol. He surprised himself. He had done it instinctively, while the Sergeant was speaking. He couldn’t quite comprehend such cold-bloodedness. Now he had removed the last obstacle in the path of murder. Just a little pressure of the finger . . . But what if he missed? They had crossed the square, and were approaching a building. There was a board in the way. The Captain tripped, and dropped his pistol. It clinked in the darkness against a rock. A miracle that it didn’t go off.
‘Your weapon,’ said the Sergeant.
The Captain didn’t answer. He began feverishly searching the ground. Sharp pebbles ripped his palms. Once, he thought he had found it, but it was just a smooth piece of metal.
‘Could this be it?’ The Sergeant stooped.
At that moment, the Captain felt like screaming. He couldn’t go on like this. ‘Don’t worry,’ he muttered. But already the Sergeant was crawling around by his side. Their hands touched. ‘Please let me look for it on my own,’ begged the Captain.
‘Here, I’ve found it!’ The Sergeant got to his feet. The Captain stayed down on the ground, exhausted. He saw the enormous shadow of the Sergeant looming over him. Something choked his chest. This is the end, he thought, and waited for a shot to fall. A fraction of a second, an eternity.
‘Here, sir,’ said the Sergeant.
What now? wondered the Captain. His legs could no longer hold him upright.
‘Captain.’
He reached out into the darkness. Groped for the man’s hand, and felt the muzzle of the pistol, pointed at his belly. Catch off. A gentle squeeze, and he would surely die. ‘The catch is off,’ he wanted to say. When the grip was finally back in his hand, he felt drunk. The square, the building – everything seemed to stagger towards him. He whispered: ‘Let’s go on a bit.’ Here there were huts either side of the road. Black, wind-skewed cabins. The Captain didn’t know where they were going.
‘Must I expect another punishment?’ asked the Sergeant, with unexpected suspicion. He laughed awkwardly. ‘There’s no knowing what to expect here.’
They passed the huts, and reached an area that was part of the station. A great heap of wood, fuel for the locomotives. The ribs of a burned-out waggon. Somewhere off to the side, water was splashing into a container. The Captain felt himself walking over ballast, stumbling over rails. To his surprise, he heard himself reply:
‘I don’t want to leave you in the dark any more. Things are looking very bad for you.’ He spoke quite calmly. ‘It’s a matter of your life. The army has called for the ultimate penalty.’
The Sergeant stopped, startled. His breath came hard.
‘I thought I was being released back to my company.’
‘The MP lied to you.’
‘Then that’s . . .’ stammered the Sergeant. ‘No, no . . .’
The Captain felt him trying to come to grips with his shock. ‘Get lost!’ he suddenly screamed at him. ‘Run, man! Run for your life. It’s all I can do for you! Maybe you’ll find your way to the Russians. Move!’
For an instant there was silence. The Sergeant panted, and then he had settled himself. The Captain saw the shadow, heard the Sergeant’s feet on the ballast. He thought about the timetable. The fateful entries. And then he shot. Once, twice, his finger jerked back the trigger. The shots whipped out. The Sergeant screamed softly. By the light of the muzzle flash, he saw him crumple. The Captain continued to pull the trigger. Need, fear, rage, worked in his tendons. An empty click. He had emptied the magazine. With revulsion, he flung the weapon away. Tears streamed down his face. He turned, and staggered away.
‘A bath,’ he whispered. ‘I must take a bath!’ he suddenly screamed aloud, and with those words he never returned to reality. To his dying moment, it was said he had lost his mind from shellshock.
EPILOGUE
Three days later, a cold wind from the sea sucked all the warmth out of the forests. The swamps started to steam. Mists hung eerily over the low ground. The mosquitoes were no longer a problem. Autumn was in the air.
A few soldiers were standing in knee-high mist, before an open grave in the cemetery at Podrova. They had looked for their dead, and brought them to the cemetery.
A field-chaplain, who only days before had been preaching in a proper church, was enthusiastically doing the honours. He had come to the Front with fresh troops. In his initial bewilderment at what confronted him, he was still performing duties that, in a matter of weeks, he would leave to a layman. One of these duties was this burial. He laid his s
tole round his shoulders, fished a little cross out of his breast pocket, and opened his field-bible.
‘The Lord be with you,’ he began. His attention was divided between the soldiers and the words of Holy Writ. The soldiers’ faces reminded him of the colourless stone ornaments that look expressionlessly across graveyards. It wouldn’t be easy to touch their hearts.
‘For ever and ever, Amen,’ he said aloud. He saw a Major who wasn’t wearing boots. His feet were wrapped in sacking. White bandages gleamed through the rough brown cloth. He couldn’t see the face, as the man was staring into the grave.
‘My dear brothers in Christ,’ he said. ‘This is a sad occasion, on which we turn to God for support. Comrades have been taken from us. The Lord in his wisdom has willed it so.’ This was exactly what he had decided he would say in such a situation. ‘God is too great,’ he went on, ‘for us to discern His purpose. He calls, and we must follow. He is wise, and all-knowing. All we can do is to have faith, even though we do not understand!’ An NCO who was looking round at the edge of the forest in a bored way, obviously not listening, momentarily distracted him. ‘Even though we do not understand!’ he said again. Then he remembered what came next. ‘You see the sky over our heads, how lofty and exalted it is. You see the clouds above us! What are we by comparison! Modest little beings!’ He noticed a soldier with a dispatch case. He was the only one not to wear a new decoration on his chest, as if for some reason he’d been passed over at the award ceremony. ‘We must bear our sorrow with humility,’ said the padre. ‘Not inquire of God why He took one life, and spared another. God is silent and inscrutable. Only when we are returned to the earth of which we are made, will He come to us and say: There will be light! That comfort remains to us . . .’
The Major turned to the NCO: ‘I’ve got to go. My feet. It’s damned cold.’
The NCO nodded: ‘Lean on me, Major. I’ll help you.’
