The Sons of Adam (16 page)

‘Are you all right, old fellow?’

‘Guy, look, I need to tell you right away. You may not know. It’s Tom. He’s dead.’

Guy’s face was initially impassive, before changing to something a little more sombre and concerned. He laid his cigar aside. ‘Killed? Alan, I’m so sorry. It’s a tragic loss.’

Guy’s words were so blank, so vague, that Alan felt a sharp jab of anger. ‘Tragic loss? For God’s sake, it’s beyond tragic. It’s a bloody disgrace. It’s a shame. It’s a damned bloody crime, that’s what it is.’

‘A crime? Alan, I did what I could. The brigadier was absolutely intent …’ Guy’s words faded out. He realised he had boobed and Alan was suddenly on the alert.

‘You were there? By God, of course you were. The brigadier’s council of war. You were there! When it was decided. You were there and you didn’t stop it.’

Guy drew heavily on his cigar and sank back in his chair, as though to invoke the protection accorded to invalids. ‘I couldn’t stop it, could I? I’m a major. The brigadier’s a brigadier. It was him that gave the order.’

‘But you knew the position. You knew that those gun posts were impregnable.’

‘And so did the brigadier. He knew it every bit as well as I did. Better.’ Guy had sat up again and his cigar was idle in his hand.

‘But you’re on the staff. You could have spoken out. You could have leaned on him or had somebody from HQ lean on him.’

Guy plucked at his collar, as though checking that it was straight. He was one hundred per cent engaged on the conversation. His normal languid confidence was nowhere to be seen. ‘The brig’s mind was made up. You know these types. Field Marshal Haig could have yelled at him and it’d have made no difference.’

‘But you didn’t try. Because it was Tom, you didn’t try.’

Guy’s voice rose in answer. ‘The fact was that Tom was the very best officer for the job. If anyone could have pulled it off, he could have. I thought it was a stupid mission and said so – not in so many words, of course – but if it was going to go ahead, then we chose the right man.’

Guy finished his sentence too quickly, as though with a consciousness that he’d boobed again. He plucked at his collar a second time. Alan noticed his brother’s discomfort and fastened on to it.

‘
We
chose?
We
? Who’s we? You and the brigadier …’ Alan paused only for a moment. Now, all of a sudden, with Tom not here, Alan was seeing something in Guy that Tom had always seen. It was as if that old intuitive communication was working one final time. ‘You suggested his name,’ he said in a whisper. ‘The brigadier announced his bloody stupid plan. You probably argued against it. But when the brigadier insisted, you suggested Tom. Don’t deny it, Guy. I know. I
know
.’

‘He
was
the best officer for the job. He was the outstanding choice.’

‘Oh, that’s true, I don’t doubt that’s true.’

‘It needed dash and pluck and sheer bloody-minded aggression. That was Tom.’

‘You hated him, Guy. He always said you did. And I never … I never … By God, you killed him. I’ll never –’

Alan shrank back, as if from a carcass. His mouth puckered in disgust. A couple of nurses were walking across the bottom of the schoolyard, their uniforms brilliant white in the afternoon sun. A doctor came running to catch up with them. His coat was white, but it was stained with blood, and didn’t catch the sun in the same way.

Alan was about to walk away, but Guy leaned out of his chair to grab his brother’s arm.

‘Wait! There’s something you don’t know.’

Alan wavered a moment, as Guy hesitated. ‘What? What don’t I know?’

‘My wound. I didn’t tell you how it happened.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Guy! One little flesh wound and you think you’re a bloody martyr! Grow up!’

Alan began to leave and this time Guy didn’t attempt to stop him. ‘Just remember, you don’t know everything,’ he shouted. ‘If you knew, you wouldn’t blame me. I did what I could.’

He shouted, but Alan didn’t respond.

At the bottom of the schoolyard, the same two nurses were walking back the way they’d come, slowly. The hospital was full of the stink of death.

The cardboard scale wavered and sank.

Tom stared at it with hungry eyes. His fellow prisoner of war, a Canadian from his uniform, cut a crumb off the left-hand slice of bread and transferred it to the other pan. The scale levelled out. The Canadian removed both slices and laid them on a cloth. There were five slices, all precisely equal. The Canadian withdrew his hands.

Tom reached for the slice nearest him, no matter that there was a woodchip clearly lurking in the black dough. The Canadian waited till everyone had chosen, then took the one piece remaining. The other men moved away. Tom didn’t.

‘Got the sawdust, huh?’

Tom shrugged.

‘New?’

Tom nodded.

This was his fourth day in Hetterscheidt, a prisoner-of-war camp a little way outside Düsseldorf. The camp was a bleak place of tin huts, bare earth, barbed wire, and guard posts. A thousand men lived there, sixty men to a bunkhouse. A stand of a dozen cold taps constituted the washing facilities for the entire camp. All men were made to work long hours and under constant supervision from the German guards, known as
Wachposten.
Tom himself had to smash rocks as raw material for a nearby soda factory.

But the accommodation wasn’t the problem. Nor were the taps. Nor was the work.

The food was.

One loaf of bread each day between five men and that was it. Nothing else. Tom was hungry already. For the first time in his life he’d encountered men close to starvation and he had just joined their ranks.

‘You can get to like the sawdust too,’ said the Canadian, folding his cardboard scale away into his bedding. ‘It’s something to chew on.’

There was something about the man that Tom instantly liked and trusted. ‘Tom Creeley,’ he said, holding his hand out and introducing himself properly.

The Canadian looked round with a smile. ‘Mitch Norgaard,’ he said. ‘Hi.’

They exchanged the information that prisoners always exchanged. Norgaard had been in Hetterscheidt since December 1915. Although in a Canadian regiment, Norgaard was actually an American citizen. He’d signed up because his mother was Belgian and he’d been appalled by the outrages committed by some German soldiers in Belgium during the first few days of the war.

‘So I figured I ought to sign up and let them commit outrages against me as well. I guess my plan worked even better than I hoped.’

‘You’re a Yank? I thought –’

‘Yeah, yeah. The Canadian regiments weren’t allowed to admit us. Well, they weren’t. But they did.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Tom filled Norgaard in on his own story: regiment, date of capture, work detail.

Norgaard nodded. ‘Red Cross?’ he asked.

Tom shook his head. ‘Missing, presumed dead,’ he said.

‘You’re kidding.’ Norgaard’s expression became deeply serious, as though Tom had just admitted to a terminal illness, which in a way he had. Most prisoners survived by supplementing their prison rations with parcels sent by the Red Cross from Geneva, but if you were recorded as ‘missing, presumed dead’ then the humanitarian bureaucracy had nothing to offer. ‘Thanks to your Royal Navy, Fritz can’t feed himself properly, let alone look after his prisoners. You won’t survive without food parcels.’

Tom shrugged and yanked at his waist. His belt was already fastened one notch tighter than normal and his trousers already beginning to balloon.

‘Friends and family?’ pursued Norgaard. ‘You should write. Get that “presumed dead” horseshit sorted out.’

Tom shook his head. ‘No.’

‘What the hell do you mean, no? You must have someone.’

Tom swallowed. He knew how serious his situation was, of course. But Alan had tried to kill him and he would be damned if he’d beg for help from the Montague family now. There was still his father, of course, but Tom knew how close Jack Creeley was to the Montagues, and writing to Jack was hardly different from writing direct to Sir Adam. He shook his head.

‘I won’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’d sooner die.’

It was the first cold day of autumn. There was only one fire in the room and Alan was cut off from its warmth by a long wooden table and the three well-padded bottoms that sat behind it.

The middle bottom belonged to a colonel in the RAMC. The two outer bottoms belonged to a pair of RAMC captains, ordinary family doctors who had joined up for the duration of the war. Between them, the three bottoms and their owners constituted a Medical Board, gathered to review Alan’s case, among many others.

‘Anderson?’ said the colonel.

‘No, sir. Montague.’

‘Not Mr Anderson?’ The colonel’s tone of voice implied Alan’s response was verging on insubordination.

‘I’m afraid not, sir, no. My name’s Montague. Captain Montague.’

And it was true. In acknowledgement of his services during the battalion’s tragic assault on German lines, Alan had been promoted to captain and recommended for the Military Cross.

‘Hmm … Ah! Montague.’ The colonel found the right papers. ‘Knocked about a bit by a shell. Nothing broken. Nothing hurt. Takes more than a Jerry shell to stop you, eh?’

Alan didn’t answer. It was now more than a month since Tom’s death and Alan was still in shock. It was as though the shell blast had never stopped ringing in his ears and heart. Worse than that, despite remaining under medical supervision away from the front line, his lungs seemed to grow worse by the day. But he hadn’t cared. In a self-destructive mood, he had asked the Medical Board to rate him A1, ‘fit for active service at the front’.

The colonel said, ‘You feel ready to go into the line once again?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Alan, conscious that he was lying.

‘And, of course, you’re desperate to take another crack at Jerry?’

Alan ignored the question, but the colonel didn’t need an answer. ‘Good man,’ he said, looking sideways at the two captains for their approval. But the captains were dubious.

‘Can you run without difficulty?’

‘Have you attempted to carry a heavy load?’

‘How well do you think you would tolerate the sound and concussion of shelling?’

‘Do you think you are capable of commanding men under severe conditions? Bear in mind that the safety of your men will depend upon you.’

Alan didn’t like to lie outright and his answers were visibly hesitant. The short interrogation ended.

‘Excuse us a second, would you, Montague?’ said the colonel, and proceeded to talk with his two colleagues in a low tone. Alan could hear the colonel saying, ‘What the devil are we here for, if not to get men back into active service?’ The two captains on either side were obviously disagreeing strongly, pointing at Alan’s recent medical records for evidence. Alan sat in the cold room, waiting for their verdict. He chafed his hands together for warmth.

Then the doctors stopped their muttering and the colonel spoke again.

‘Look here, Montague, we can’t quite agree. These chaps worry you may not be ready to face Fritz again just yet. Do you –’

But he was interrupted. Unseen by both the colonel and Alan, one of the captains lifted a file of paper and brought it slamming down onto the desk. The noise was like a pistol shot.

Although not consciously scared, Alan’s body was no longer under his control. He jumped about a yard into the air and when he came down he was white as chalk, shaking, wide-eyed. His breathing had the liquid gurgle of a gas victim.

There was a moment’s silence.

The only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire and the tortured sound of Alan’s lungs fighting for air.

The colonel nodded sadly. Thank you, Montague. That will be all.’

It was a week later.

Tom’s body grew thinner, his clothes grew baggier. His work at the soda factory grew ever more punishing as his body weakened. Every day, morning and evening, Mitch Norgaard told him to pick up a pen and write home asking for help. Every day, morning and evening, Tom said no. But on the seventh day, Tom caved in. Since there was nothing else to swallow, he swallowed his pride. He wrote home. He wrote to his father, Jack, and to Sir Adam and Lady Pamela.

He got no answer.

He wrote again.

Still no answer.

‘So what?’ said Norgaard. ‘Write again. Write to everyone you know. Write to everyone you’ve ever heard of. Go on writing till you get an answer.’

But Tom shook his head. War turns a man half crazy and prison camp is there to finish the process. Tom laid down his pen and never wrote again.

It was an error, understandable perhaps, but still horribly mistaken.

What Tom didn’t know was this. His first pair of letters was on a hospital ship bound for Dover when the ship was torpedoed and sunk. The second pair of letters was on a Red Cross lorry heading through the Black Forest to Switzerland. The lorry was set upon by hungry men hoping for food. The contents were ransacked. The letters were lost.