The Sons of Adam. Harry Bingham
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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.’