A Whispered Name (27 page)

That detail was more
important than Anselm at first appreciated.

For it
completely changed the complexion of the meeting that had taken place between
Flanagan and Doyle in September 1917. Sensing the advance of a presentiment,
Anselm carefully aligned his pencil in the middle of his notebook, not wanting
to disturb the idea taking shape. Perhaps their association goes back much,
much further. Could it be that the ‘Doyle’ of The Lambeth Rifles had hailed
from the same part of Ireland as Flanagan?

Anselm
stared at the children playing in the yard. Boys crowding together. Girls in
smaller groups. Worlds apart, for the moment …

‘Had
Flanagan met Doyle before?’ said Anselm, out loud. ‘Possibly’ he replied,
concluding that it didn’t really matter. The meeting between the two men in
no-man’s-land could not have been planned in advance. It had to be a
coincidence, because Flanagan had been
sent back
from Black Eye Corner
with a wounded officer. There was no way his presence in the reserve trenches
could have been foreseen.

Another
possibility struck Anselm — the second hypothesis — Flanagan and ‘Doyle’ weren’t
friends. They didn’t know each other. But they were bound by a strong sense of
Irish identity. Anselm sighed and turned to the window Mrs Holden had corralled
some boys and was wagging a finger. The girls were grouped, too, and loving the
show. On a step to one side a little boy swung a hand bell and the children
formed straggling lines according to their class. Within minutes desk lids
banged, doors closed and Mrs Holden stood smiling at Anselm, her keen intellect
interested to know if Anselm’s trip had been worth the bother.

‘Yes,’
said Anselm, ‘but not in the way I expected. I’d hoped to find a specific name
linked to Owen Doyle, but instead I’ve found myself on the ground of his birth,
and that has changed my outlook.’

They
walked back to the foyer and Anselm paused at the display cabinet with the
pictures of Industrial Bolton. In the centre was a photo of a strong-looking
man, a headmaster of the school from the war years through to the twenties. Mr
Anthony Lever. His ink pen and pocket watch were like relics, reminders of life
before the flood of computers and the digital timepiece. Anselm’s eye caught on
the open book.

‘That
is a very interesting document,’ said Mrs Holden.

‘What
is it?’ asked Anselm, quietly dismayed. He’d started reading some of the
entries, checking the age against the offence and the outcome.

‘It’s
the Punishment Book. Offence and consequence are noted, just like daily
attendance. Repeated infractions led to the cane. But if someone did something
very serious, the entire school was obliged to witness the punishment. The boy
— always a boy — was hit at the end of assembly after a short discourse on his
misconduct. I once met an old man, a former pupil, who told me his trousers had
been pulled down while he stood on the top step. He had to bend over while he
was whacked. I misunderstood the point of the story however. He wholly approved
and went on to say that when they had the birch there was no thieving in
Bolton.’

‘Ah.’

‘I’ve
met other pupils who think differently But all schools were like that back then
— many far stricter than ours. The social expectation of conformity and duty
was high, and rather simple. Everyone knew where they stood and what happened
if you moved out of line.’

Anselm
read some of the ages: eight, eleven … and the date on the page: February
1906. ‘May I see it?’

Five
minutes later Anselm was back in Mrs Holden’s office. He was flushed with both
excitement and compassion. Owen Doyle’s name featured significantly between
1905 and 1907. And in that penultimate year before his death, so did someone
else. The two were paired on no less than seven occasions for the same offence:
dirty hands and nails.

Mrs
Holden then checked once more the registers in which Owen Doyle’s truancy had
featured so significantly and there, sure enough, was the boy who, Anselm was
quietly sure, had one day enlisted in The Lambeth Rifles using Doyle’s name. He
was called John Lindsay.

Anselm
watched her industry from a very great distance. He gazed through and beyond
her on to England’s green and pleasant land. He thought of those many mills and
the deep tunnels spreading for miles beneath the ground in search of coal. He
thought of men and women who couldn’t read or write, of bent heads, both
English and Irish, their nationality lost in the sweat and the clatter and the
grime. Labour was their nation state. And he thought of poor Owen Doyle, beaten
with a stick because his parents hadn’t checked his hands were clean before
they went to work at four in the morning.

Chapter Thirty-One

Rebellion

1

Herbert ran to Oliver
Tindall’s billet, a barn cleared of animals and serving now as a surgery. The
medic was lying on a camp bed, legs crossed, boots off, a newspaper held in the
air like a shelter from the rain. An oil lamp on the floor sent light upwards
on to the open pages. Packing cases of medical supplies lined the timber walls.
Metal dishes glinted on a table covered by a white cloth.

‘Oliver,
there’s an execution tomorrow, you know’

‘Yes.
Flanagan.’ He continued reading.

Herbert
snatched the paper and hurled it across the room. ‘He’s one of ours, don’t you
appreciate that?’

Tindall
sat up, baffled by Herbert’s rage, embarrassed by the show of this type of
feeling. ‘Steady on, Moore, old fellow,’ he said, swinging his legs around. ‘The
blighter did run off. Bloody hell, you sat on his court martial. I mean, I may
not see the charge and parry and all that, but I see the consequences.’ He
paused and gathered his pride. ‘You’ve not seen the RAP twenty minutes after
the whistle … it’s … it’s —’ indignation at Herbert’s impudence burst open
— ‘a slaughterhouse. You lot carry on running, throwing things, pulling a
trigger, stabbing and doing God knows what … on and on you go, but I stand
still.
I stand there while they bring the pieces back to me —’ he stood up, his
lips stretched tight, the cleft in his chin deep like a cut — ‘I hold them in
these miserable hands and their lives don’t even drain away there’s nothing
left … and I
stand
there … Do you hear me? … I stand there with cotton
wool and a needle and scissors and all around me is this
screaming:
the
screaming that you leave behind.’ He glared at Herbert — an astonishingly
different man who, seconds before, had been reading the paper — and bellowed, ‘So
don’t
you
come in
here
and tell
me
that one of
ours
deserves
my pity … not when he ran away.

Herbert
swayed on his feet, numbed by what he’d heard; wearied by his empathy He looked
at his own hands … and the finger that had pulled the trigger on Quarters.
The haunted face stared out of the mud with beseeching eyes and Herbert almost
collapsed. ‘I’m sorry, Oliver,’ he mumbled, sinking in a swoon. One hand
gripped a chair back and he sat down. The face withdrew.

‘So am
I, old man.’ The RMO spoke quietly finding calm. ‘This bloody war, I hate it.
It’s necessary, but I hate it. I spend my nights trying to link it all to some
bigger purpose, to something beyond a battle … but the war won’t end, I can’t
see the
end.’

‘Me
neither,’ said Herbert. His heart had raced but now it was falling back into
line. ‘Look, I didn’t come to lecture you. Just to remind you that you’re part
of the detail … you appreciate that?’

‘What?’
Tindall picked up the newspaper.

‘You
attend the execution.’

‘Do I?’
He rolled up the paper into a tight tube. ‘Doesn’t someone from Division do
that sort of thing?’

‘I’m
sorry, Oliver, it’s you,’ replied Herbert, despairing of the bureaucratic
machine, its hit and miss efficiency They should have shown the RMO the drill
before sending him into action. ‘You have to witness it, check that he’s dead,
and then write out a certificate for the file.’

‘Dear
God.’ Oliver threw the paper on his bed and put the oil lamp on the table. He
bent near the glass and raised the wick. ‘Er … what happens if he’s not?’

‘Not
what?’

‘Dead.’

‘You
check and see.’

‘How
the hell would I know?’

‘You do
what doctors do.’

‘Oh my
God. Then what?’

‘You
tell the OC firing party. He takes care of any complications.’

‘Yes,
of course. Obvious really Right-o. What time did Duggie say?’

‘The
where and the when are being revised as we speak,’ said Herbert. ‘Chamberlayne
will let you know within the hour.’

Tindall
nodded, lowering the lamp’s wick a fraction. He closed one eye as if to be
absolutely sure of the measurement. The light dipped with the loss of flame. ‘Funny
isn’t it; I’ve handled the RAP at harvest time but I still don’t want to do
this. Even though I feel nothing for the blighter, it’s different, somehow’

Herbert
nodded. It was very different.

‘You
know, I always wanted to be a vet.’

‘Yes.
Goodnight, Oliver.’

‘Just
one thing, old man … none of this is your
fault,
you know You’ve done
your duty, that’s all.’

Herbert
left the medic and went in search of Father Maguire. He wasn’t in his billet,
or the abbey so Herbert went back to Duggie’s office. Somehow or other, all
this charging around helped, as if the frenzy might, by some miracle, prevent
the inevitable.

2

Chamberlayne was sitting
on the edge of his desk, the telephone mouthpiece thrust against his mouth. He
was listening, one foot tapping gently on the floor. Duggie sat with his legs
crossed, one hand scratching a cheek. Quietly he said, ‘It’s Brigade.’

‘I’m
afraid I can’t make it any clearer,’ said Chamberlayne, sympathetically ‘The
Company Commanders refuse. All of them.’

Chamberlayne
listened, nodding. ‘I’d have thought various offences meet the bill: Mutiny
Disobedience, Scandalous Conduct—’

Pause.

‘Murray
I’ve made a habit of never joking with intellectual subordinates; it causes
untold complications, and now is not the time to make an exception. Let me try
again. The officers of the eighth Battalion, Northumberland Light Infantry
refuse to organise a firing party, don’t you understand? You’re not going to
arrest them all, are you?’

Pause.

‘Good
evening, Major. I’m terribly sorry but Lieutenant Colonel Hammond is engaged
with Father Maguire, the Chaplain, and I’m most reluctant to interrupt their
conversation. It’s a spiritual matter, I believe.’

Pause.

‘Indeed,
Sir … of course, Sir … frequently Sir … in those circumstances, might I
be impertinent and offer some advice? I’m grateful, Sir. The problem is quite
simple. Flanagan has been with our battalion since nineteen fifteen. He’s been
in action countless times. He’s never taken home leave. He’s one of the survivors,
Sir. Good moral is not served, I respectfully suggest, by asking other veterans
or the new boys to shoot him, even if — in the end — he did let down his own
side.’

Pause.

‘Disgraceful
is the only word, Sir.’

Pause.

‘Quite.
You are wise, Sir. I suggest another regiment, Sir … I’ll tell him directly
Sir … goodnight, Sir.’

Chamberlayne
put the phone down and said, ‘Major Ashcroft will handle the firing party. But
we have to send the RMO. He says if the battalion hadn’t been wiped out in
August and we weren’t due back in the line, he’d tell Pemberton immediately As
things stand, he’ll let the matter drop.’

Duggie
stood up, hands behind his back. He knew that his tolerance of dissent was a
failure of leadership; that Pemberton would find out eventually; that his
military career was probably over.’ Fine. And now, gentlemen, understand
something: His gaze jumped from Chamberlayne to Herbert and back again. ‘This
is my battalion. It is my pride. There is nothing else I can do for Flanagan. I’ve
done too much already you both know that. We must all, now, stand side by side.
Flanagan will be shot tomorrow morning. We will then thrash the Lancashire
Fusiliers. And we will then go back into the line and do whatever is required
of us, at whatever cost.’ Duggie’s neck swelled with blood and his voice became
spare. ‘We will lead our men in the memory of those who’ve gone before.
Flanagan may rank among them, as far as I’m concerned. Look to him in any way
you like. But from now on he’s an example.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

The Vigil Begins

1

Chamberlayne told Herbert
that the Chaplain had gone to the cellar where Flanagan would spend his last
night. On a practical note, a detail from D Company had checked out the woods
referred to by Herbert. They’d followed the track and found a clearing open to
the sky A fence post had been procured from the carpenter and sunk into the
ground. Unfortunately it kept falling over when leaned on, so a chair had been
taken from the music depot and placed before it — rendering the timber quite
useless, but, to quote Chamberlayne, an aesthetic quality had been retained
that was wholly proper to the proceedings.