Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  “And come back for him?” Montieth’s pause seems to suggest that he’s not in favor of the idea but can’t think of a better one.

  Then Beverly is on his left side and Montieth is on the right and they’re dragging him along and the toes of his shoes are scuffing up the beach. He’s seen legless drunks carried like this, and men after being beaten senseless. He’s not sure which of these groups he belongs to, and also not sure that he justifies the creation of a third.

  “I think it’s a ring fort,” says Beverly, in response to something. “It will keep him out of sight.”

  He’s lying in the long grass. At a distance he can see an outline of beer bottles, maybe some empty cigarette packets. This must be a place where young people come for fun, out of sight of their elders. And this is where they will leave him, sheltered from the wind, cushioned by the grass.

  “Roddie, don’t go anywhere.”

  “He’s not going anywhere,” says Beverly.

  “We’ll back as soon as we can. Don’t make any noise.”

  “He’s not going to make any noise,” says Beverly.

  “Shut your gob, Beverly. What is wrong with you? It’s Roger Casement, for fuck’s sake.”

  And that’s the last he hears before he drops into sleep. He has made it home. He has made it to Ireland. And if he never wakes he will be all right, for his head is cradled gently and the grass, stirred by the night air, is caressing his cheek, and there is the harsh whispering of waves on the Strand and the raking of rock against rock at the brink of a cold sea and the rattle of some night bird’s wings. He is all right. He is better than that. He is home.

  XII

  Paris

  April 1916

  After Charlie’s death, Sarita had stayed in bed for two weeks and then one morning, arbitrarily, had appeared at breakfast. She wasn’t wearing black. Ward had watched her butter the toast. She gave it a look, as if it wasn’t friendly, before taking a bite.

  “I couldn’t stay in bed any longer,” she said in response, although he hadn’t asked her anything.

  In his mind he heard stiff upper lip and best to soldier on, but had nothing of his own to give. Sarita looked at him with mild disappointment, as if understanding the corners of his silence.

  “You know I thought if Charlie died, it would kill me. And here I am, breathing, eating.”

  “That’s good, Sarita.”

  “It is the most depressing thing I’ve ever learned. No matter what this life does to me, I will keep going. Just like that. I’ll survive anything.”

  “I count on your strength.”

  Sarita had shrugged, indifferent to Ward’s needs. “Herbie’s still out there.” She’d been suddenly disdainful of the toast. “We can’t just sit here in Paris.”

  “You have something in mind?”

  “I’m going with you to America.” Ward had been unaware that he himself was undertaking the trip. “I’m not worrying about Charlie anymore and I have to think of Herbie.”

  So they had gone to America. There, Sarita had brought out the black and had spoken so passionately about the man who had been Charlie, about his accomplishments and personality, of how he had not died in vain and that America, as a moral nation in support of all that was good, had to join the war. She would bring tears to Ward’s eyes and at these times he would forget that Charlie was his son, that he wasn’t just tapping into the gentle feeling of an alien grief that struck through eloquence.

  He had done his thing, had spoken of the plucky French who whistled in the cold mountains, sniped at, starved, low on ammunition and high on spirit. He talked of his own injuries, of how he had returned to his ambulance service in the Vosges, but thought he could do more good in America, here with the support of friends. He had lectured about the chicken and her nest in No-Man’s-Land. In London, he’d attended benefits arranged by Harmsworth, and felt the full flush of activity. But any hopes he’d held of life returning to normal have died. Even now, sitting in his Paris drawing room with the newspaper, he knows that he’s performing his role in a darker world and the food has lost its flavor, the wine its capacity to bring levity. He is all motion and motion without substance. He reads through the headlines, the battles, the lists of dead.

  Uprising in Ireland. Yes. There it is. The traitors to England and there it is. He reads about Casement’s arrest and they are just words, more print, more despairing fact. Captured in Kerry trying to land arms for the Germans, transported to the Tower of London, trial scheduled, execution probable. He folds the paper roughly, crumples it.

  “Herbert?” asks Sarita.

  “Well, they’ve got him. And he’ll be hanged.”

  Sarita blinks a few times but keeps her true thoughts to herself, searching for some words that will not betray her feelings. “Will they not shoot him, like Pearse and Plunkett and the others?”

  “Traitors are hanged.” Ward doesn’t know what this feeling is. It is an out-of-body sensation. “There will be a trial. He has his supporters.”

  “He could be pardoned.”

  “They should hang him.”

  Sarita has her hand covering her mouth.

  Ward says, “We’ll have to change Roddie’s name.”

  She watches Ward, her face sympathetic and tentative.

  Ward says, “He can be Rodney Sanford Ward.”

  Sarita nods and gets up quickly, bumping the small table, upsetting her teacup. She walks quickly to the window and presents him with her back. He thinks she’s crying but is incapable of getting up to see, or even asking. “Casement’s death will solve nothing, Herbert.”

  “Sarita, there is such a thing—”

  “It’s just another body.”

  A week passes in a distraction of conflicting emotion, but what must be done is at least clear. Ward will have to list the change of Roddie’s name in the papers. That much he can do, although it’s impossible to distance himself from the evidence of his long friendship with Casement. The letters from Casement’s friends have already started to arrive, letters assuming that Ward will come to his aid. Alice Green is raising money for Casement’s defense and has asked how much Ward would like to contribute. He hides this correspondence from Sarita, ushering it quickly from his desktop to the fire.

  The telephone is ringing in the hallway. There is Beatrice at the door. “Captain Nelson would like to speak with you,” she says in her country French.

  Who is this Captain Nelson? “Tell him it is not a good time and that I will ring him back.”

  “He says it is urgent.”

  Sarita is suddenly alert. “I’ll take it.” She follows Beatrice into the hallway. He hears her voice, a bright, “Oh my God. Yes, yes of course. We will be there as soon as we can. Yes. Allow me to get my husband, who I’m sure will wish to speak to you, given the circumstances.”

  Sarita presents herself in the doorway. She looks stunned.

  “Sarita,” he says. “What is it?”

  “It’s Herbie.” She shakes her head in disbelief and there is something wild in her demeanor. “He’s here.”

  “Here?”

  “He’s in Paris.”

  The chauffeur takes the major roads, the familiar roads. Captain Nelson had not offered much information. Herbie and one other have walked out of Germany, sneaking across the Swiss border. The boy is in good health, although extremely fatigued. His appearance might startle, as he’s very thin.

  Ward holds Sarita’s cold hand. They are both silent, as if reacting to some good news might inadvertently scare it off. Captain Nelson had said that Herbie has been in questioning since his delivery to Paris. Ward can sense the disbelief of the authorities that such a slight soldier could make it all the way across enemy lines, especially as he is the first to do it. They are concerned that Herbie is a spy, which is ridiculous, but the escape is unbelievable.

 
The war office has high ceilings, marble floors, a sense of permanence, although just months ago it was a bank. Sarita is looking at the desks, the office doors, spinning around as if making the wrong choice will cause Herbie to vanish. The officer running the reception makes a quick call and rings off. “Sergeant Peal will take you up,” he says.

  Ward follows Sarita following Sergeant Peal up the stairs. She’s looking around his broad shoulders, as if he’s moving too slowly. They stop at an office and Sergeant Peal raps three strong times. A voice calls out, Enter. And Peal opens the door.

  There is Captain Nelson standing behind his desk. There, standing by the window in an ill-fitting jacket and rough trousers, his hair in disarray, looking like he’s twelve years old, is Herbie.

  There’s a moment where no one moves. Herbie says, “Hello.”

  Sarita shouts something that is neither a name nor a word and then she’s on the boy, holding him tightly, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides. There’s a ferocious weeping coming out of her and Captain Nelson seems shocked at the violence of her emotion. She has her face buried into Herbie’s chest. Her words are sorting themselves and she seems to be saying You’re back, You’re back, over and over, but it’s muffled through Herbie’s shirt and the crying. Herbie looks over at Ward with a clumsy smile and says, “Hello, Father.”

  Ward wakes into the moment. He salutes Captain Nelson, who salutes back. “Lieutenant Ward,” says Nelson.

  And Ward says something, but who can know? He wants to go home.

  “. . . and I’m sure that you understand that we still haven’t received a satisfactory explanation as to how Lieutenant Ward managed to circumvent a series of enemy patrols—”

  “Captain Nelson, I am not going home without my son. I don’t have a choice. Perhaps you can think of a way of extricating him from his mother, but I can’t. And despite his proven skills at escape, neither can Lieutenant Ward.”

  “We’ve lost Charlie,” says Herbie, an attempt at a whisper, but Sarita’s making so much noise it’s audible to all, “Charlie is dead.”

  Sarita manages some calm. She raises her eyes to meet Herbie’s. “I know,” she says. “I know.”

  Sarita insists on running the bath herself. She checks the temperature, and it’s really hot, hotter than most people would tolerate but just how Herbie likes it. She can hear Herbie chatting with his father, his laughter in the hallway, and it sets her off crying again. She hears Herbie say, Will you tuck me in tonight, Father? They must be making fun of her.

  He enters the bathroom with a lit cigarette and takes a powerful drag, burning it down to his knuckles.

  “The water’s hot,” says Sarita.

  “Fantastic,” says Herbie

  “Is there something in particular you want for dinner? And don’t ask for oysters.”

  Herbie begins to undress. “Villiers must have already started dinner.” He undoes the first button but can pull the shirt over his head after that and tosses it on the chair. “I’m actually missing vegetables.” His ribs stand out. His spine is knobbed up the center of his back.

  “She’s making stew, mutton, with the white wine. I can have her put in extra carrots.”

  “Sounds unbelievably good.”

  “All right.” Sarita heads for the door.

  “Don’t go. Why don’t you stay?” He’s now naked and he slides into the tub. “You can light me a cigarette. And I know you know how because Charlie told me you smoke.”

  “In that case,” says Sarita, “I’ll have one with you.” She pushes Herbie’s clothes onto the floor and takes the seat. She reaches to the cabinet across the sink where there are some matches and a packet of cigarettes—Philip Morris’s Bond Street—that she keeps there because, on occasion, she will have one while lying in the tub. She knocks the soap into the sink as the soap dish will serve as an ashtray. Herbie responds to her casual arranging with an approving laugh of disbelief.

  “You have to tell me,” she says, handing him a lit cigarette, “how you made it out of Germany alive.”

  “I’m going to have the same problem with you that I did with Nelson, because I’m really not sure how I did. It makes it hard to explain.”

  “Just tell me what happened.” She lights her own cigarette and takes a contemplative puff.

  “They were transferring all the Russian and English officers. We had managed to get some civilian clothes from the French orderlies. There was a yellow stripe down the back of the jacket and we just removed it. And there was some sort of map, more of a sketch made from memory, which showed the area. The train was headed from Vohrsbach to Heidelberg, bringing us close to the Swiss border. They loaded us into three carriages with guards on either end.”

  “What was the plan?”

  “Well, there wasn’t one. There were four of us with civilian clothes that we were wearing under our great coats, and we’d agreed to go in pairs. We decided to wait for a good moment and then escape. The train pulled in to some small town and the Russians struck up a conversation with the guards. They spoke some German, which was good. And while the guards were distracted, the four of us went to the middle car and climbed out. The window got stuck halfway, so it was a bit of a squeeze. I was with Champion and we watched the two other men go first. I don’t know what happened to them. But Champion and I went out the window and sort of began walking off in the other direction. Since I broke my leg in the crash, I have a limp, so that explained why I was out of uniform. Champion tried to look bow-legged.”

  “That worked?”

  “It must have. Champion is South African, so he was mumbling at me in Afrikaans, and I was javohling back at him and trying to look German. We wanted to run but knew we couldn’t. I kept thinking I was going to get shot. But neither of us was. And we somehow walked into Switzerland.”

  “How long did it take you?”

  “Days. We didn’t have much food. We spent a night in a German guardhouse, which was a risk, but it was cold. And then a Swiss border guard outside of Bergen saw us and brought us in. We were about to wander back into Germany.”

  They hold a benevolent, sweet silence. Sarita says, “Joyce Nicholson is very happy to know that you’ve escaped.”

  “Is she?”

  Herbie sits still in the tub. He reaches over to Sarita and puts out his cigarette in the soap dish that she has rested on her knee. “I miss Charlie,” he says.

  “I do too.”

  “You know they’re not going to send me back. They say I’m ruined by proximity to the Germans, that POWs make bad killers because they know the enemy.”

  “Really?”

  “They’re right. I don’t want to shoot any Germans. I’m to be sent to Northolt as a flight instructor. And I picked up some Russian in the camp, so I’ll be teaching Russians how to fly.”

  Herbie had asked after Casement at dinner. What followed was an awkward silence. No doubt Sarita will fill him in on what has happened during his time in a German camp. And the two will likely indulge in maudlin sympathies.

  Ward will not grieve for Casement. He will not share with him that decent feeling that he has assigned to his eldest son. Because of this, he has no line of thought, but just the knowledge that his friend is no longer his friend, that this man who was once all things noble and admirable to him is in a cell somewhere awaiting judgment. Ward knows what to say, he has his lines. Hang him. He is a traitor. He is a disgrace. He rolls these out without feeling, envying Sarita her surreptitious perusal of the newspapers, her sadness. But he is stuck, like a car spinning its wheels in a rut. People will ask him his opinion. What happened to the great man, the great friend, who was not only a brother to Ward but also an embodiment of the joyful, youthful past?

  He will probably come up with something about Casement’s obvious mental illness, not to solicit forgiveness, because Ward knows Casement too
well to think that he would not rise above his frailty to follow a noble idea—that he thought that terrorizing the English was what he had to do, what he believed in, even as Ward’s sons were in the line of fire. It is as if Casement had stood on the field in Flanders and held that rifle, aimed it at Charlie’s head, and pulled the trigger. Casement had made that assessment. He had made that choice. And there is the old conversation in his mind, that fragile psychic bond that Ward has always felt with Casement, as if he can hear him on some remote wavelength sending him messages, his thoughts lifting from the prison cell and crossing the Channel, reaching Ward, saying forgive me, forgive me, over and over, but Ward cannot. Casement is a traitor, and if not to England, than to his brother, this brother, who loved him more than anyone.

  Ward can hear Sarita chatting in the hallway with Villiers. Of course the likelihood of oysters is remote, but if they are available, take all and hope they’re fresh, spare no expense. And Cricket will be arriving in the afternoon, on the first boat to France after learning of Herbie’s arrival. The sheets on her bed are clean but should be changed regardless because they might be dusty. Herbie will be back in England soon enough, so Sarita has managed to put off Sanford and Roddie for the moment.

  Despite Herbie’s upbeat demeanor, he’s still in fragile health. He’s smoking over a pack a day, but maybe it’s too early to suggest he cut back. Dimples says she’s put a pound cake in the mail, which will make Herbie happy, as butter and flour are hard to come by. So all are accounted for, except for Charlie. Charlie, who is buried in Flanders, along with others, in an unmarked grave. Charlie, whose spirit should not be at rest, but who has ceased to exist so completely that even the memories are beginning to seem stiff, as if Charlie is a mere paper cutout of who the boy was. Better the screaming spirit begging for his bones to be brought home, beating at the window, than this impossible stillness: the doorbell that does not ring, the clothes still in the closet, the boxing gloves quiet on the peg, this one-sided conversation with his boy Charlie that will continue to the end of Ward’s days.