Читать книгу The Sons of Adam - Harry Bingham - Страница 45

Alan abandoned the search, which had become increasingly dangerous, increasingly pointless. Furthermore, he was exhausted beyond description. He didn’t in all honesty know if his body and lungs could bear another night of it. And then there was Guy. Alan got word of Guy’s wound and the hospital where he was being treated.

Alan faced facts. It was time to leave the front, to leave the battle, to give up on Tom for ever.

Two days later, Alan arrived in Rouen, at the school-turned-hospital where Guy was being treated. He made his way stiffly to the correct ward. Guy’s bed was empty: tumbled white sheets and nothing else. Alan stepped across to the booth where the ward sister sat.

‘Bonjour, madam. Je cherche Major Montague –’

Alan was about to continue, but the sister half turned to point, saw the empty bed, then interrupted.

‘Oh, là là! Comme il fume!’

She indicated a door out into what had once been the schoolyard. Alan walked out and found Guy sitting at ease in a cane chair, his bandaged leg covered with a thin green blanket and resting on a couple of packing cases marked ‘War Materials – Urgent’. He was wrapped in a cloud of cigar smoke and a three-day-old Times lay half read on his lap.

‘Guy!’ he said, feeling somehow anaesthetised and shell-shocked all at once. ‘How are you?’

The brothers embraced, as well as they were able, given Guy’s awkward sitting position.

‘Not bad, old boy, considering. Damn thing aches like the devil, that’s all.’

Although he had come to Rouen specifically to see Guy, now that he was here Alan could only think of Tom and Tom’s death, and the urgency of letting everyone in the world know, including Guy. But etiquette forbade him from raising the topic just yet. Guy was unwrapping some dressings and pointing out where the bullet had entered and where it had left, and exactly what damage it had done along the way. Alan found himself unable to understand anything his brother was saying. He didn’t even care particularly. The wound was minor and Alan had seen too many serious ones to be much perturbed.

‘How did it happen?’ he asked, when it was his turn to say something.

Guy shrugged the question away. ‘One of these things,’ he said. ‘Came clattering round the corner on my way back to the dressing station and ran right into the damned brigadier. He wasn’t best pleased with me, spattering his nice clean khakis with blood. Wanted a great big council of war that afternoon, and ordered me – ordered me, mark you – to get the wound cleaned and dressed, then report back to him for his precious get-together. I can tell you the doctors were a bit narked. They wanted to send me straight here; thought the brig’s attitude was a bit rich, frankly.’

‘Yes, I suppose.’

‘Not to mention that I was wearing your dratted tunic. I’ve had the thing cleaned, of course: you don’t want my blood all over it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes? You do want my blood on it?’ Guy raised his eyebrows.

‘I mean no.’

‘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.