The Summer Before the War (47 page)

“I'll be looking them over for injuries and any contagious infection,” said Hugh to the remaining guard. “Do you need to escort me?”

“I'll be able to see from right here, sir,” said the guard. His lip lost its curl of disdain, and he looked suitably anxious. “Contagion, sir? You be careful there, sir.”

Hugh made a cursory stop by two of the men. One had a nasty cut over his eye, suppurating at the edges. Hugh gave him a small bottle of iodine and a handful of gauze and told him to clean himself up. The soldier with the cigarette had trench foot as bad as Hugh had seen: strips of wrinkled white flesh peeling about the ankles, toes bleeding and black with broken scabs. A strong odor suggested the beginnings of gangrene. Hugh gave him a packet of morphine for the pain and a pair of clean wool socks to cover up the sight of the feet. If he were not shot in the morning, he would need a proper infirmary or risk losing his feet.

The other two seemed dirty but unhurt and were dozing comfortably, and Hugh moved on to his real objective, the corner of the pen where Snout lay crumpled and unconscious in a patch of weeds. He had a black eye, a split lip, and blood still seeped from his nose. When Hugh reached to turn him on his back, he groaned and struggled feebly.

“Keep still, Snout,” said Hugh. “It's me, Hugh Grange. I'm going to clean you up.” The boy nodded his head slowly. He kept his eyes closed, but tears leaked from under the lids and down his bloody cheeks. Hugh felt for broken bones and checked the boy for internal injuries. He had taken one or two blows to the stomach, but there was no blood under the skin. The soldiers who had dragged him away had made the boy pay for his struggling and lashing out.

Hugh used gauze and water from his canteen to wipe off the boy's face and then dabbed his cut lip with iodine and gave him a water-soaked pad to hold over his bruised eye. Finally, he helped him to sit up, his bony back propped against the stone wall.

“They shot Wolfie, sir,” said Snout, his lip trembling. “Is he dead, sir?”

“He's gone, Snout,” said Hugh. “He went quietly, like a good dog. You should be proud of how you trained him.”

“It were all him, sir,” said Snout. “I didn't do nothing but buckle him to his cart.”

“I'm sorry,” said Hugh.

“He made me feel brave, sir,” said Snout. “The war is nothing like they say it will be.”

“I know what you mean,” said Hugh. “It's not quite the glorious classic epic of Virgil, is it? But you needn't be ashamed of feeling fear, Snout.”

“Miss Nash gave me her own Virgil,” said Snout. Hugh closed his eyes a moment to better hold on to a fleeting image of Beatrice's face, conjured in a ruined sheep pen. “But it got blown up,” he added.

“Right now, you are in a lot of trouble, Snout,” said Hugh, opening his eyes and doing his best to snap both of them back to the present circumstances. “Do you know you hit Lieutenant Bookham?”

“Did I?” said Snout, looking astonished. “He's a good man, the Lieutenant. Always gives Wolfie the crusts off his sandwiches.” The boy seemed to fall asleep, and Hugh shook his arm gently.

“I need you to understand what is happening, Snout,” he said. “You need to be ready to face a court-martial in the morning.”

Snout's eyes opened and he smiled a dreaming smile. “Thank you for having us to tea, sir,” he said. “Wolfie liked it.” The boy fell fast asleep, and though Hugh shook him again, he would not wake up. Hugh laid him gently on the ground and took from his bag a small blanket, a paper bag containing a bread roll, and a canteen of water. He wrapped the blanket around the sleeping boy and tucked the supplies under it, hoping none of the other prisoners would notice. The boy breathed quietly, and his pulse was steady and strong. Hugh could do nothing more for the moment. Reluctantly he left Snout to sleep.

“The boy over there is underage and injured,” he told the guard at the gate. As they were speaking, the second guard returned with a large can of tea and a box of sandwiches. Hugh frowned at both guards. “He has also not yet been court-martialed. If anything happens to him I will hold you both responsible and you will answer to the Brigadier. Are we clear?” He left both guards muttering and suitably cowed—but whether by Hugh's own authority or by the mere mention of the Brigadier, he could not guess.

Hugh was lying on the ground in Daniel's tent, trying to ensure his greatcoat stayed in place on top of his blanket and pulling extra socks over his gloves against the bitter cold, when Daniel came into the tent drunk and shouting for joy.

“The sentences are commuted!” he said. “The regiment asked publicly to honor the occasion with clemency and the Brigadier did his full wise Solomon speech and got a standing ovation for his trouble.”

“I am so very relieved,” said Hugh. “Is the boy free?”

“I expect there'll have to be a hearing in the morning,” said Daniel. “But given the night's precedent, Harry has full faith we shall get him back in the ranks with a few weeks' pay docked for his impudence.”

“Who did the asking?” said Hugh. “Not you?”

“Oh, I kept well out of the Brigadier's sight,” said Daniel. “But Harry Wheaton actually took on the job. Threw in one or two entirely fraudulent Latin quotes and several metaphors involving fox hunting. God help him if anyone wrote it down—because I'm sure it would be unintelligible to those who were not drunk on champagne and good roast beef—but it did the trick.”

Dawn broke ugly and red in a sky swelling with dark clouds and so cold the mud froze in the rutted lanes and the water was solid in the washing jugs. Instead of birdsong, the boom of large artillery greeted the sun, and the encampment was soon full of urgent, shouting men, the stamping of horses, and roaring engines. As the sound of exploding shells and smoke began to drift down towards the village, Hugh, hurrying to the barn headquarters, wondered if perhaps the parade, and in particular the brass band, had been such a good idea. The Germans seemed to have recalibrated the range and direction of their artillery, and already a shell had landed in the river and another whistled overhead to explode in the already-ruined church.

Inside headquarters, the Brigadier had a scowl on his face that implied a headache of monumental size. He was not inclined to be flexible in his plans when it was suggested he leave immediately for safer ground.

“We will not win this war if we duck and cower at every fresh bombardment,” he said. “Let them understand that we are the oncoming tide and their efforts are no more than small boys tossing pebbles into the waves.”

“I would be derelict in my duty if I did not insist on taking appropriate measures to protect such a vital part of our command,” said Colonel Wheaton. “You and your aides must be able to command from a secure place.”

The Brigadier was not entirely immune to flattery. “Then let us adjourn to the cellar and make this quick,” he said. Tables and lanterns were quickly carried into the adjacent cellar, a small outbuilding half built into the ground, with thick stone walls and a roof of grass sod. Hugh moved quietly to where his cousin was standing with Harry Wheaton to ask what was happening.

“I'm afraid the Brigadier regrets the appearance of softness in offering clemency to the prisoners,” said Harry Wheaton. “Since he cannot go back on his word to the regiment, he has decided to make an example of the one prisoner who has not yet been sentenced and therefore did not receive clemency.”

“He's going to court-martial Snout,” said Daniel, his face white.

“Small room, so let's limit the numbers,” said the Brigadier. “You and I, Colonel, are technically enough to provide the necessary tribunal. I assume you have no qualms about dispensing discipline and seeing justice carried out?”

“No, sir,” said the Colonel. “But perhaps Captain Wheaton can join us as well? I believe three officers are preferred if they are available?”

“Very well,” said the Brigadier, but he did not look pleased to be challenged. “And you there, medical man,” he said, indicating Hugh. “We'll need a medical man to examine the prisoner and to pronounce death after any execution.”

“I would like to speak for the prisoner, sir,” said Hugh. “He is entitled to be represented.”

“If you wish to do so, you'll act as medical officer too,” said the Brigadier. “Otherwise we have no room for you.”

“Very well,” said Hugh.

“The officer who was struck must come down,” said the Brigadier. He looked particularly smug as he pretended no personal recollection of Daniel. “The chaplain can earn his keep, and my aide will take down the proceedings and fill out the papers. I think we are ready?”

Snout looked if anything younger than he had done in the early summer, when his biggest worry had been Latin declensions and money for sweets and cigarettes. He was thinner from the harsh winter, and his battered face had the lost expression of a child woken from sleep. His hands were bound with rope, and Hugh wondered that anyone could think it necessary to restrain this exhausted slip of a boy.

The Brigadier's aide sat the boy in a chair and removed his cap. Then he bound his ankles to the chair with a second rope.

“Sir, is that really necessary?” asked Harry Wheaton. “He is no danger to us.”

“If the sentence is death, we shall carry it out immediately,” said the Brigadier. “No sense risking a whole firing squad in this bombardment.”

The chaplain disguised a choke as a clearing of the throat, and Daniel gasped, while Colonel Wheaton hurried to add, “Nothing will be decided until we have heard the evidence, of course.”

“Merely a precaution,” agreed the Brigadier. “Best to bind a prisoner while he's docile.”

The recitation of events was brutally swift, the Brigadier's reaction to mitigation equally concise.

“It matters not that you were unhurt, Lieutenant Bookham, or that you have a leader's natural inclination to protect your man,” said the Brigadier. “He was seen to strike you, and to ignore the striking of an officer would be disastrous to discipline and possibly lose us the war.”

“I submit he is underage and should not have been allowed to serve,” said Daniel.

“Again, not an excuse,” said the Brigadier. “You must agree with me, Colonel?”

“The boy volunteered with the full permission of his family,” said Colonel Wheaton. “Else I would not have taken him. Were there a petition from them for his return, I would consider it, but…”

“But there is not, so we have no grounds to consider him protected from usual military regulations,” said the Brigadier.

“Sir, as a medical officer, I find the boy to be unfit to stand this tribunal,” said Hugh. “I believe he is suffering from neurasthenia due to a blast from shelling.”

“If we excused the behavior of every soldier who has had his ears rung by an exploding shell, we should have no army left at all,” said the Brigadier. “I believe this anxiety has caused the boy to wander off several times?”

“It has, sir,” said Harry Wheaton. “But he is a good lad and would not have gone if he had been in his right mind. We can all attest to his good character.”

“A deserter as well as a mutineer,” said the Brigadier. “I'm sorry, but I find the evidence to be crystal clear in this case and the boy to be a malingerer and to be guilty of striking his superior officer in front of the ranks. He must be made an example of. Colonel Wheaton?”

“I very much regret that the boy's actions were so public as to be impossible to ignore,” said the Colonel. “I agree he is guilty, but I do recommend clemency.”

“As do I,” said Harry Wheaton. “The Brigadier's actions last night brought great honor to the regiment and boosted morale for all ranks. I trust the Brigadier will continue his wise and just course this grim morning.”

“So we are unanimous,” said the Brigadier. “Unfortunately, the clemency last night must not be extended lest it become known as weakness. I must be responsible for the discipline of my command, and as such, I sentence this boy to be executed.”

“No,” said Hugh. “It is monstrous.”

“Sentence to be carried out immediately, due to exigent circumstances.” The Brigadier looked to his aide, who was writing down the proceedings in an official log. The aide paused as if unsure how to document the sentence. “Immediate,” confirmed the Brigadier. “Get the boy some rum and let the chaplain speak to him.”

Snout had remained quiet through the proceedings, looking about him in a dazed manner. Now the aide brought him a flask and helped him to drink from it. He screwed up his face at the taste but drank with the greedy experience of a soldier who knows how the daily rum ration wards off the cold for a little while. The chaplain pulled up a chair next to him and began to speak a psalm in a quiet voice.

“You were very effective yesterday, Captain,” said the Brigadier quietly to Harry Wheaton. “Would you volunteer? I will call together a firing squad if necessary, but to risk twelve men under this bombardment seems inefficient.”

“He put down a dog yesterday,” said Daniel fiercely. He did not address the Brigadier as “sir,” and he stepped towards him with a look of determination.

Hugh stopped Daniel with an outstretched arm.

“I beg you to reconsider,” said Hugh. “The medical evidence is clear, and his age alone demands mitigation.”

“Not much difference between a dog and a traitor,” said the Brigadier calmly. “Deserters, malingerers—they are rabid curs and must be put down before they infect the rest of the pack.”

“Have you no compassion?” asked Daniel in the strangled voice of a man swallowing a violent emotion. “Must you strike at the boy to hurt me?”

Hugh stepped in front of Daniel and pushed him back by both shoulders. “Shut up!” he whispered, his voice fierce. “You will not give him the pleasure.”