part0009

The first time, he found he couldn’t open his eyes, and his surroundings seemed removed at a great distance. He thought he could make out a rhythmic clack that might be the mechanism of a train, but he felt nothing, as though he were cocooned in cotton wool. Rather than try and concentrate, it was easier and more agreeable to slide again from consciousness.

The second time, he did open his eyes. There was grey light, and a roof close above him, of metal or possibly canvas; his view was swimming and it was hard to judge. He perceived motion, heard a rumble that might have been an engine. Keeping his eyes open was unpleasant, so he shut them. He lay for a while listening, and other noises came: the crow of a cockerel, what sounded like loud hammering far off, and the wet whirr of wheels in mud. But staying awake was too demanding. He let himself sink once more.

The third time, Forrester came round properly, albeit by slow gradations. Before he had felt sick, a queasiness permeating from the pit of his stomach. Now he was merely listless and uncommonly tired. He was lying in a bed, and he had been undressed, his clothes replaced with cotton pyjamas. His mouth tasted bitter, and he was glad to find a tumbler of water beside the bed, a pitcher next to that. He drank down two full glasses.

The room was plain, the walls plastered rather than papered. In the opposite corner, a wardrobe and chest of drawers were arranged in a right angle. Above the chest of drawers was a shelf, currently empty, and to its left were two doors, one larger than the other. Forrester guessed that the smaller, in the leftmost wall, might lead off into a bathroom. The sole window, behind him, was high and narrow. What light it allowed was drab and feeble, and the main illumination came from an oil lamp set on the bedside cabinet, currently turned down low.

Forrester had no way to divine the hour. It could as easily have been mid-morning or early evening. He had an impression of having slept for a long time, but that was likely a side-effect of Timperley’s sedative. At any rate, he felt rotten. And while he was tempted to blame that squarely on whatever Timperley had pumped into him, Forrester suspected there might be something more fundamentally wrong. For all that he was fully awake, he felt apart from his surroundings. His body and forehead were clammy, his throat and lungs scoured. Combined with the pain in his leg, those symptoms were enough to make him quite dejected.

He lay motionless. Rest is best , he thought, and then the idiotic rhyme battered inside his skull, like a moth trapped in a lampshade. The truth was that he’d have preferred to get up and explore, but he ached, he was weak and ill, and it was good to be immobile. Rest is best , his thoughts clamoured endlessly, and Forrester couldn’t bring himself to disagree.

Time passed. The light at the window dimmed to a square of charcoal grey. He was close to dozing again when he heard the rap of boot heels on creaking wood and then three rough taps on the door. “Are you awake, sir?”

“I’m awake,” Forrester conceded, and promptly set himself choking.

There was a rattling from the other side of the door, and it swung inward. A young man in uniform filled the entrance. Forrester discerned a sergeant’s chevrons on his arm. “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” the sergeant said.

His voice was harsh, with a flattening of the vowels and exaggeration of consonants that made each word snappish. His face had, somehow, the same properties: thick, dark hair, beetling brows, and the rigorous angles of nose and cheeks gave him an incessant glower.

With an effort, Forrester stilled his heaving lungs. “You’re not disturbing me,” he said, though the statement was undermined by the wet rattle from his chest.

“The major asks if you’d be up to coming downstairs for a talk?” the sergeant enquired.

Forrester didn’t feel well enough for a meeting, yet nor did he like the prospect of relinquishing an opportunity to gain some answers. “I think so. But am I to meet the major in my nightclothes?”

“Your uniform’s off being washed, but there’s a fresh one in the wardrobe,” the sergeant explained. “Should I stay and give you a hand with changing, sir?”

“I’m sure I can manage,” Forrester told him, swinging his legs out of bed. The bare boards were cold under his naked soles.

The sergeant paced into the room, snatched up two objects that had lain invisible against the foot of the bedstead, and propped them beside Forrester: a pair of crutches. “These may help.” Then he hurried out, closing the door behind him.

Forrester soon regretted his impetuosity. Just getting his new clothes out was a trial; undressing and changing was nigh impossible. The crutches were more hindrance than help, and yet he couldn’t stand without them. In the end, he piled everything on the bed, sat down, and made a go of it that way. When he was finally done—and he could easily believe his labours had wasted a quarter of an hour—he called, “I’m ready.”

The door opened. “One thing first, sir,” the sergeant said as he pulled a glass vial from a pocket. “The major requests that you fill this. Standard practice for all new patients.”

It took Forrester a moment of incomprehension to appreciate what he was intended to do with the vial.

“There’s a water closet there,” the sergeant confirmed, tilting his head toward the second, smaller door. Then, registering Forrester’s crutches, he moved to open it for him.

Forrester struggled through, tapping the door shut with the tip of one crutch. Glancing about, he noted a toilet, washstand, and tin tub, and that the chamber had its own tiny window, which gave onto a steep bank of rooftops. Forrester’s initial reaction had been to doubt that he’d be able to perform the required function on demand. But he realised now that his bladder was achingly full, and that the challenge would be rather in imposing a measure of restraint.

Task successfully accomplished, it occurred to him that if the sample was for the purpose of medical checks as he assumed, they would be asking him for blood also. Only then did he become aware of the faint ache in the crook of his left arm. Sure enough, when he rolled the sleeve, he discovered a pinprick of red amid an areole of bruising. It must have been done while he was under the influence of Timperley’s concoction.

Back in his room, Forrester handed over the vial, and the sergeant returned it to his pocket. Then he led him through the other door and on down a tight, slant-roofed corridor, hesitating after every few steps for Forrester to catch up on his crutches. The corridor was undecorated, with a number of doors off to either side, and ended in a flight of stairs, which proved particularly onerous for Forrester. More than once he had to rely on the sergeant’s assistance.

They descended a single floor, to another passage. This one was decidedly different: lushly carpeted in brilliant red, with portraits and rococo designs of fruits and flowers in plasterwork along the walls. “Where are we?” Forrester wondered.

The sergeant, a little way ahead, said without looking back, “This is Sherston House.”

“And where is Sherston House?”

But the sergeant had halted outside a panelled door, and now was knocking. From inside, a voice exclaimed, “Come in.”

Opening the door, the sergeant motioned for Forrester to enter.

Forrester felt sudden trepidation, as though he were a schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s office. He was feverish and fatigued; the ordeal of dressing and the journey down had drained whatever energy he’d recovered from his enforced sleep. But it was too late for second thoughts. He stepped inside.

The room, an office, was stately but not large. The space was deeper than it was wide and receded toward a broad window and a desk, with bookcases occupying the left-hand wall and what remained of the rear. On the third wall hung three landscape paintings in gilt frames, all of them hunting scenes and distinctly dour. The scenery they portrayed, bleak moorlands under disastrous skies, might have been Scottish.

Behind the desk sat a man wearing officer’s casual dress, in a leather-bound chair the same maroon shade as the walls. The man was older than Forrester, perhaps around forty. His walnut-brown hair was sprinkled with grey about the temples. His countenance was basically austere, but the effect was softened by his eyes, which were gentle and alert, and by the unruliness of his moustache and striking eyebrows, which lent him a reassuring air of eccentricity.

He acknowledged Forrester with a slight smile, one that made its way easily to those placid brown eyes. “Do sit down, Lieutenant Forrester,” he said.

Forrester crossed to the chair before the desk, manoeuvred awkwardly into it, and fumbled to prop the crutches beside him.

The officer waited patiently. When Forrester had settled, he said, “Let me introduce myself. My name is Major Forbes, though you may call me Doctor Forbes, or doctor, or, if the informality doesn’t bother you, simply Forbes. I’m the senior medical officer of this establishment, Sherston House, where in all likelihood you’ll be staying for the next weeks.”

For some reason, this seemed to Forrester a lot to take in. “It’s good to meet you, doctor.”

Forbes smiled once more. It was remarkable how the expression softened his entire face. “That will suffice for the moment, but I really do prefer to be called by my name. Let’s hope you soon feel comfortable in doing so. In the meantime, will you permit me to put aside your rank and call you Forrester?”

Forrester, who had warmed immediately to the major, nearly said, Call me Raff, that’s what my friends use . But the informality seemed inappropriate, if not to this particular situation then to their respective roles. “Of course.”

“So,” said Forbes, “I imagine you must have your share of questions. Would that be a fair assessment?”

“It’s definitely been a curious few hours,” Forrester admitted.

“Insomuch as I have any right to, I can only apologise for the manner in which you were conveyed here. I’m sure that, from your perspective, it wasn’t the most usual of journeys. ”

Forrester managed a weak smile of his own. “What’s usual these days? But we did come over at quite a lick.”

Forbes chuckled. “You mustn’t take that too personally. I fear you were unlucky enough to be caught up in some business that had nothing at all to do with you—or fortunate, perhaps, since that mishap greatly expedited your homeward journey. I think I can tell you, Forrester, though do keep it between us, that at the same time they were bringing you here, they were also moving a couple of fairly significant German brass who’d been picked up.”

It made sense, at least of their haste and of the impractically empty trains. He thought of Timperley and Torrance, probably on their way back toward France by now. “That explains why my chaperones were so enigmatic.”

“Yes,” agreed Forbes, “doubtless that’s partly the case. However, there does appear to have been a mix-up—or let’s say, rather, a degree of confusion. Apparently, the sergeant who travelled with you had been given one order, the doctor another, and neither was certain which was right.”

“They didn’t seem to be altogether on the same page,” Forrester granted.

Abruptly, Forbes grew serious, though with an undercurrent of abashment. “I believe Captain Timperley was scheduled to travel that day on business of his own, and somebody decided he might as well keep an eye on you. But you see, you were also meant to be under guard ... after the occurrence with your platoon, that is.”

Forrester’s heart was hammering. Under guard ? It was the unexpectedness that had thrown him, as if he had stepped, without realising, from a safe path into a mire. “I don’t understand,” he said. Hadn’t he asked if he was under arrest and been told he wasn’t? But then, who had responded, Timperley or Torrance? He felt nauseous again; it was hard to breathe, let alone to speak. “What do you mean, ‘the occurrence’? ”

Forbes poured a glass of water from a carafe on the desk and pushed it toward Forrester. “Please, drink this.”

For an absurd moment, Forrester was reminded of Timperley and of the injection and wondered if he could trust the water. Then he pushed the misgiving aside and drank.

“This must be difficult.” Forbes’s attention was on the surface of his desk rather than Forrester. “Frankly, in normal circumstances, I’d have given you a week to recuperate until I met with you.” Finally, he looked up, and it was as though he’d reached a conclusion in some prolonged internal debate. “Let me answer your question with another, if I may. How clearly do you recall the events of the night before last?”

Taken aback by the change of direction, Forrester said, “Clearly enough, I think.”

“And throughout that period—shall we say, from the point you went over the top to the time when you first received medical aid—were there any aspects that might make you doubt your memory, for example in regards to the order in which incidents transpired?”

Forrester forced himself to contemplate the matter seriously. He’d assumed his memories would be vivid, since the events they recorded had been so singular. But when he tested them, he found that Forbes was right: the details had already begun to blur and tangle. Hadn’t he been unconscious, more than once? And half-blinded by the murky goggles of his gas mask? Then there was the trauma of being shot, the chaos of the brief firefight, the dreadful blow of discovering Middleton.

“I have a reasonably good recollection,” he replied, “but I wouldn’t claim it to be perfect.”

“That’s what I thought,” Forbes said. “You see, I’m a neurologist and a psychiatrist by profession, and over the last couple of years, I’ve come to specialise in one particular phenomenon: the condition commonly and inadequately referred to as ‘shell shock’. And what I’m trying to tell you, Lieutenant Forrester, in admittedly round-about fashion, is that, based on your service record, I find it doubtful that you were in full possession of your faculties when you did what you did. Therefore, it’s my belief that you shouldn’t and cannot be held wholly responsible for your actions, or for their consequences.”

Plainly Forbes was seeking to mollify him, yet each word served instead to heighten Forrester’s consternation. “I’m grateful, sir. Only, I don’t know what these actions are that you think I should or shouldn’t be held responsible for.”

“Please understand,” Forbes said, “it’s not a question of what I think.” Now he looked more uncomfortable than ever. “However, I was referring to the deaths of the men under your command, and the fact that you fled the battlefield during the fighting.”

Suddenly, the glass, which Forrester had been raising to his lips, seemed preternaturally cold. The water in his throat was like ice, and its chill was spreading down to his stomach. So, the army thought he was a coward, and Forbes believed he had shell shock. He couldn’t say which was worse.

He drew a deep breath, and then, when that threatened to set him coughing, another. “I promise you, doctor,” he said, “in absolute honesty, I didn’t run away, and the majority of my men were alive when I left them. I admit I ordered a retreat. And that, in the confusion, the order didn’t get passed around as it should have—“

Forbes raised a hand. “Forrester, I’m not here to judge you. Nor do I have any interest in doing so. My concern is for your welfare and recovery. And if, as a side-effect of that, we can establish indubitably that you’ve done nothing blameworthy, I’d be glad to assist toward that goal in any way I can.”

Glancing downward, Forrester was surprised to note that his right hand was shaking where it rested in his lap. Was this his choice? To be treated as a mental invalid or risk punishment for an offence he was innocent of? Carefully, he replaced the glass on the desk, and surreptitiously covered his right hand with his left and gripped tight, hoping that Forbes hadn’t noticed.

Rationally, it was better that Forbes have faith in his own shell shock theory, and better if he could convince the army that he was correct. A court-martial was a precarious business, regardless of how clear-cut the evidence might be on the surface. Had the big push been sufficiently calamitous, there was the chance the brass would be on the hunt for scapegoats, and a trial might cost Forrester his rank or worse. In comparison, would it be so bad to endure treatment for a condition he didn’t have?

Yet the diagnosis appalled him. He’d seen more than enough of shell shock. Such as a corporal they’d had who, out of the blue, had begun to howl: an entirely animal sound, though eventually Forrester had realised that somewhere in that frantic, guttural racket he was calling for his mother. The man had screamed for hours, until he’d worn himself out, then he’d slept like a baby.

Forrester had witnessed men break, and break utterly. Never quite in the same way twice, but always the inner life erupting through the shell of the outer, like a mask splitting, and under it—horror. Fear. Terrible, fathomless weakness, made worse by the suspicion that it could as easily have been you as they.

Except that it wasn’t. Forrester had never fooled himself that his nerve was an infinite resource, or that he was immune where so many men, men stronger than he, had succumbed. Yet he knew in his heart that, however breakable he might be, he hadn’t broken. Maybe there’d been moments when he’d stared into the depths, but they hadn’t swallowed him.

“Doctor,” he said, “with the utmost respect, I don’t believe I’m suffering from shell shock. ”

Forbes pushed back in his chair. He seemed, Forrester thought, almost pleased with this repudiation, as though it were a gambit in a game that he’d already anticipated. “Men rarely believe, at first, that they’re suffering from a nervous illness. So much of our social conditioning goes against the idea. If we’re told something is unacceptable often enough, irrational as that judgement may be, we’ll go to considerable lengths to ignore its symptoms in ourselves.”

“I appreciate that,” Forrester said, “I do. Still, there’s been a part of me perpetually on the lookout.” He might never have consciously acknowledged that scrutiny, but now he recognised it for a fact. “If I’d snapped, I’d like to think I’d have known.”

“Well,” said Forbes breezily, “it isn’t for me to invent illnesses, only to cure them. Perhaps you’re right and your mind is perfectly intact. Perhaps that’s exactly what our investigations will turn up. But I have to tell you, Forrester, from what I’ve observed so far, that outcome is the least likely. I trust you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt when I say that, in my professional opinion, you are exhibiting signs of nervous illness—and moreover, that I can help you.”

It occurred to Forrester that he was beginning once more to feel really debilitated. Was that what Forbes had seen? Yet this conversation, this talk of illness and madness, was precisely what was weighing on him. He attempted a smile, though doing so felt as if his lips were contorting, and said, “Then I seem to have come to the ideal place.”

Forbes reclined deeper into his overstuffed chair. “That’s the attitude! And you’ll fit in well here. We’ll make you very comfortable. Oh, but that reminds me, we’re regrettably rather a backwater. The post is a hit-and-miss affair and we’ve only the one telephone, which is reserved for staff use. Nevertheless, if there’s anyone you’d like to get a message to, I’ll do my best to ensure it reaches them. It may be a while before we can allow you visitors; in the interests of fairness, we adhere to a strict rota. But at least you can assure them you’re safe.”

“No,” Forrester said, “there’s no one I need to contact.”

“No family? No sweetheart?”

“Certainly no sweetheart. And not much in the way of family. My father didn’t know I was in France, so it wouldn’t make a deal of difference to him to know I was back.”

“And your mother?”

“My mother’s dead,” Forrester said, more forcefully than he’d intended.

“I’m sorry.” Forbes looked genuinely rueful.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s all a touch fresh. She died just prior to the war breaking out, and we were quite close.”

Forbes nodded. “But you’re not close to your father?”

“Not in the least.”

“You hold him accountable?”

“For your mother’s death,” Forbes clarified.

Forrester started. “No, I wouldn’t say that. At any rate, not directly. I suppose that in the long term I blame him for dragging her down.” He didn’t know why he was admitting this. Talking openly about family affairs was wholly outside of his nature. Yet Forbes had a certain receptive passivity that made doing so unusually easy. “They were completely different. There’s no conceiving of what could have brought them together. My mother was Italian, and she was very ... very full of life, you might say. My father apparently came to regard that quality as objectionable and grew intent on stifling it at every opportunity.”

Forbes paused a moment, as though to digest this rush of information. Then he said, “I was curious about that name. One doesn’t come across a great many Englishmen named Rafael. I imagined it might be after the painter.”

“Nothing so dignified, I’m afraid. I’ve a grandfather called Rafael somewhere, for whom I’m named—or did have. He may well be dead. I lost all contact with that side of the family when ... when mother...”

The pain in his lungs had been rising steadily. Now, it clogged his throat altogether. Forrester gasped for air, and when he couldn’t find any, began to choke.

Immediately Forbes was on his feet and rushing to Forrester’s side. He clasped his left bicep and rubbed between his shoulder blades until the wracking coughs abated. Then he ushered the glass of water back into Forrester’s hand and helped him guide it to his lips. Forrester drank the remaining contents down in sips, and slowly the choking subsided to a metallic rasp, like iron filings clattering in a tin.

“I’ve overtaxed you,” Forbes declared. He was leaning against a corner of the desk, brows knitted with worry. “That’s bad doctoring. I’ll have Sergeant Campion escort you to your room. But before you go, Forrester, there’s one favour I must ask of you.”

“Of course,” Forrester managed.

“I hate to bring it up, but aside from the usual rigours of military discipline, we have a single rule, a rule of my own devising: I’d prefer you not to speak of your time at the front with your fellow inmates. It’s for your good and theirs both. There are men here whose recuperation relies on not thinking about what they’ve been through, and a minute’s loose talk can jeopardize a month of recovery.”

“I understand.” He had no desire to talk about the war, or so much as to consider it.

Perhaps having read his reaction, Forbes said, “You may even find yourself to be one of those men. We’ll know better once we start your treatment. If not, you’ll have whatever occasion you require to discuss your experiences with me. I guarantee you that I’m an excellent listener. In the meantime, however, I’ll have to ask for your assurance that you’ll be discreet.”

“I give you my word,” Forrester agreed.

“That’s decent of you. But remember, if you ever should feel that you need to talk, no matter the hour, just say so, and I or one of the other staff will make ourselves available to you. It’s no good you bottling things up either.”

“I’ll do that.” Forrester had had enough. He liked Forbes, but the man was being almost too solicitous, as though there were some particular response he hoped for. Maybe he was still concerned that Forrester might say something inappropriate, or maybe he was eager for him to open up about the war.