The Passing Bells (61 page)

“Ugly-looking place,” Fenton muttered as the driver of the car pulled up in front of the iron gates and called out to the gatekeeper.

Martin, seated beside Fenton in the back, leaned forward to peer through the windshield.

“An old castle?”

“No, just some Victorian coal baron's idea of a fitting house for himself. Wales is littered with such monstrosities. All of them,” he added bitterly, “eminently suitable as lunatic asylums.”

The sprawling house became less forbidding when they drove up to it. The dark brickwork was mellowed by a sheen of ivy that covered many of the walls, and the window frames had been freshly painted white. The grounds were neatly pruned and mowed and the gravel drive freshly raked. It could have been the clubhouse of some ancient, noble golf club if it hadn't been for the ambulances and drab-colored army cars parked in front of it.

“I shall wait for you, shall I?” the driver asked in a singsong voice.

“Yes,” Fenton said. “We want to catch the London train at Llangollen at six-thirty.”

“Oh, yes, sir, can be done, I think. If you have a mind to it.”

“We do. I'm sure you can get a cup of tea if you can find the kitchens.”

“Oh, yes, sir, I know my way about it, sir. I have been here before and that is the truth, sir.”

“Nice little man,” Martin said as he walked beside Fenton to the front door, slowly, leaning on his cane. He used only one cane now—a major advance in his recovery.

“All the Welsh are pleasant, but independent as hell. I hope he remembers to wait for us.”

The once spacious foyer had been partitioned into cubicles for the use of the clerks and medical orderlies. A corporal in the RAMC took their names, asked them whom they had come to visit, and then led them out of the foyer, opened a thick locked security door, and told them to go along the passageway to the office of the resident doctor on duty. Once they stepped into the corridor, the oak-and-steel door closed behind them with a thud.

“I don't like one damn thing about this,” Fenton muttered.

Neither did Martin, but he refrained from saying so.

The doctor was a jovial heavy-set man of fifty who introduced himself as Major Wainbearing: “. . . trained as a general surgeon. . . . Became a specialist in brain disease . . . and then into psychoanalytic science, a field of medical endeavor barely scratched. . . . Learning a great deal from this war . . . quite a gold mine of neurasthenic ailments. . . .”

“It must be very interesting,” Martin said.

“Yes, it is.” Major Wainbearing leaned back in his comfortable chair in his spacious, pleasant office and smiled affably at the two men seated across from his desk. “Now, then, you are Mr. Rilke, I take it—Major Greville's cousin.”

“Yes, that's right.”

“And you, of course, are Colonel Wood-Lacy.”

No reply seemed necessary. Fenton fingered one of his shoulder tabs, tried to smile pleasantly, but found it impossible to do. The doctor folded his hands across his stomach and pursed his lips, a sudden frown appearing on his elderly cherub's face.

“Major Greville was brought here as a clearly diagnosed neurasthenic. He was passive—no restraint was needed—but he was hallucinating. . . . Deep in conversation with a certain Second Lieutenant Baker . . . a rambling monologue on Blighty wounds and firing squads. Are either of you familiar with a Lieutenant Baker?” They shook their heads. “No matter. He was soon out of that form of shock and quite normal within a week. He has remained so. We walked out of the grounds last Monday and played a round of golf at the links in Glyn-Ceiriog.”

“How nice,” Fenton murmured.

“He did damn well, considering the appalling state of the greens. On the way back we stopped at a place and had tea. I told him how pleased I was at his progress and that I was prepared to release him from here and to recommend a medical discharge from the army. Cured, you understand, but obviously too—
carefully
balanced to risk further military duties. I told him to go to some quiet spot and avoid stress of all sorts.”

“Sound advice,” Fenton said with thinly veiled sarcasm.

“He told me, in his gentle way, that if I did such a thing he would contrive, in some unspecified manner, to kill himself.”

A wall clock chimed three dulcet tones.

“Do you think he was being serious?” Martin asked.

“Oh, no doubt in my mind at all. Quite a number of patients talk of suicide, but they are mostly impassioned threats, verging on the hysterical. It is the quiet, lucid statement of intent that we become concerned about.”

“Perhaps if we talk to him . . .” Fenton said.

“Yes, by all means do. He's been looking forward to your visit. . . . The only two people he wishes to see. You know, his mother and his wife came here last month, but he stayed in his room and refused to come down to talk to them.” He reached out and pushed a button on his desk. “One of the orderlies will take you to him. He'll be in the rec room, more than likely. And do stay for tea. We have a wizard pastry chef here.”

Men in gray dressing gowns and pajamas stood staring out of windows or walking aimlessly in the corridors. A few of the patients were in uniform, but the badges of their rank and emblems of their regiment had been removed.

“All officers here, I presume,” Martin said.

“Quite correct, sir,” the orderly replied. “The men have their own shell-shock hospitals.”

Martin noticed a tall gray-haired man who could easily have been a colonel or brigadier. He sat huddled in a corner with his hands firmly locked on top of his head. A younger man lay near him in a fetal position. Rank could mean nothing to those two, Martin thought, but class divisions had to be maintained no matter what the circumstances.

The rec room, with its banks of windows on three sides, was large and airy. It might have been a ballroom or music conservatory at one time, but now it was an untidy collection of sofas, chairs, card tables, and benches. A dozen men were in the room, the majority of them in uniform, reading or playing cards. One player's hands shook so violently that he could barely hold on to his cards.

“Major Greville's over there,” the orderly said. “At the corner table.”

Charles was in uniform, bent studiously over a writing tablet, and did not look up until they had walked up to the table and stood in front of him.

“Hello, chaps,” he said quietly. “Good of you both to come.”

“The least we could do, old boy,” Fenton said with forced affability.

“You look good, Charles,” Martin said.

“I feel very well,” he said gravely. “They say that I'm cured.”

“Yes,” Martin said. “The doctor was telling us.”

“Of course, they don't say exactly what one has been cured of, but I suppose they know what they're talking about. They do some quite remarkable things here in their quiet way. All through the gentle art of conversation. One simply talks. It supposedly clears the mind.”

Fenton pulled two chairs up to the table. “And now you may talk to us, if you'll permit me to get right to the point.”

Charles capped his pen and set it down beside the writing pad.

“I'm sure you feel uncomfortable being here, Fenton.”

“Not in the least,” he said a little too quickly. “If I can help you in any way—”

“You can both help me . . . if you will.” Charles sorted through some neatly inscribed papers, folded two of the sheets, and placed them in envelopes. “I wrote a long letter to my father . . . and one to William at Charing Cross Hospital. Both were sent back to me unopened. There's not much point in writing to William again. I doubt if he will understand, or forgive, what I did. Perhaps he will one day, but not now. I've written a shorter, more concise, explanation to Father, which I would appreciate your handing to him, Martin. He might feel obligated to at least open it if he receives it from you. The other letter is for Lydia, which you can post. It's an apology—of sorts—for all manner of things. But I shan't bore you with that. As for you, Fenton, I ask a favor.”

“Anything at all, old chap.”

Charles picked up the pen and toyed with it, rolling it across the table from hand to hand.

“I was committed without a hearing. The medical officer of Willie's battalion judged me unsound of mind and I was sent here. Now, six weeks later, I am to be released as cured, handed a medical discharge from His Majesty's Forces, and put quietly out to pasture. I'm sure that will please the War Office. They're no more anxious to know why I shot Willie than my father is. The act of a temporary maniac. So be it.”

Fenton leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. “I don't believe it was the act of a maniac and neither does anyone else . . . at least no one who has been in trenches. You snapped with the strain, Charles. Too many bloody weeks of having to stay calm in that hell. It took its toll. You didn't know what you were doing, and the very best course of action at the moment would be for you to accept a medical discharge and regain your full strength of mind.”

“I have that now, Fenton. What I don't have is any
peace
of mind. I may not have been very lucid after I shot Willie, but I knew why I shot him. It was a deliberate, premeditated act, and I want the reasons for it to be made a matter of record—if not public, at least official.”

“What sort of record are you talking about?”

“I've given this a lot of thought, Fenton . . . gone over it in my mind time and time again. I've been tracing my steps as it were, but backwards. The shooting of Willie in the knee . . . the buying of the pistol . . . the feeling that someone was walking just behind me . . . those weeks in trenches, in and out with the battalion. . . . The men who shot themselves . . . or killed themselves . . . or prayed they'd get shot so they could get out of that trap.” He paused and shook his head groggily. “So damn many thoughts whirling through my head that it's difficult to sort them all out in proper order, but I shall.”

“Maybe you'd like to take a rest,” Fenton suggested. “Lie down for a bit.”

“No . . . not yet. I must settle this first. I'm sure that Martin understands the need to put experiences down on paper so others can read them and share them. That's the creed of a journalist, isn't it, Martin? Seeing to it that events are kept alive.”

Martin exchanged puzzled glances with Fenton and then said, “Are you asking me to write an article about it?”

“No, not exactly. That wouldn't suffice, would it? I mean to say, I doubt if many newspapers would want to print it . . . too defeatist. And even if it were printed in some anti-war paper, what would happen after it was read? Yesterday's news . . . just an old scrap of newspaper blowing about in the gutters. What I want is a record . . . a transcript . . . The kind of transcript that you could provide, Fenton.”

“Oh?” Fenton said. “And what sort of transcript is that?”

“Why, the official transcript of my court-martial, of course . . . for maiming, quite literally, a brother officer.”

Fenton could merely stare at him. Martin gripped his cane and tapped it gently against the floor. A tall ruddy-faced man with Kitchener mustaches who had been pacing restlessly from one end of the room to the other suddenly strode up to the table, hands jammed into the pockets of his dressing gown.

“Now look here, Randall,” he shouted, staring hard at Charles. “Get brigade artillery on the blower right away. Tell the bastards that they're fifty yards short and are hitting D Company . . . quite wasting the attack. . . . Quite wasting it, sir!”

“I'll do it right away, Colonel,” Charles said in a flat, tired voice.

“See that you do!” the man said. “Bloody scrimshankers!”

“We get a lot of that here,” Charles said after the man had strolled away, apparently satisfied and at peace. “There's a young chap in my room—a second lieutenant I imagine, judging by his age. Spends most of his time seated on his bed with the coverlet thrown over his head. Still in his dugout at Delville Wood and won't come out until the shelling stops. Not much older than William. Only thing is, Fenton . . . Willie would never have broken down. Too strong and brave for that. The best sort of man England can produce. Willie would have gone over the top like a shot, whistle in mouth and revolver in hand. He might have cleared our wire . . . gone ten, perhaps fifteen yards . . . and then died . . . for absolutely no purpose at all. Just like Roger.”

Fenton licked dry lips, reached out, and gripped Charles by the wrist.

“Tell all that to Martin. Tell him everything that went through your mind before you pulled the trigger. Tell him everything that happened on the Somme . . . every damn horror that drove you to scuppering your own brother. He'll send it to America and a newspaper will print it. That's the only record you need. Don't ask for a court-martial, because you'll never get it.”

Charles shook his head stubbornly. “I'd get a hearing, at least, wouldn't I? A hearing to see if a court-martial was justified. They would keep a transcript of it. . . . .War Office document number whatever . . . inquiry into the shooting of Second Lieutenant William Greville by Major Charles Greville. One day, after the war, Willie could take it out of the archives and read it.”

Fenton withdrew his hand and sat back stiffly in his chair. “I think you're bonkers, Charles. A man can't ask for his own court-martial.”

“No,” Charles said, “of course not, but you could demand that one be held. I told you I'd thought this out. It may be stretching a legal point, but you were technically my superior officer at the time. I was on leave and my new orders hadn't reached me yet. The Windsors were attached to your brigade.”

A bell rang for tea and someone in the room cried out in terror, “Gas! Gas!” Someone else said soothingly, “It's all right, Smithy . . . all right, lad.”