Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
“That’s it, that’s my beauty. He’s a champion, this one. You should see the size of him. We’ve not had an insect in here for weeks. Come and have a look at him.”
Weir went over the uncemented paving that his father had laid down the middle of the greenhouse and knelt on the gravel next to him.
“You see there? In the corner?”
Weir heard a fat croak from the direction his father indicated. “Yes,” he said. “A fine specimen.”
His father backed out from under the seed boxes and stood up. “You’d better come on in then. Your mother’s at choir practice. Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”
“I sent a telegram. It must have got lost. I didn’t know until the day itself.”
“Well, never mind. We’ve had your letters. Maybe you’ll want a wash after your journey.”
Weir looked across at his father’s portly figure as they walked over the lawn. He wore a cardigan over his shirt, still with its stiff collar from the day at the office, and a dark, striped tie. Weir wondered if he was going to say any word of greeting. By the time they reached the French windows to the sitting room it was clear that the moment had passed.
His father said, “I’ll get the maid to make up a bed if you’re stopping.”
“If that’s all right,” said Weir. “Just for a night or two.”
“Of course it’s all right.”
Weir took his kitbag upstairs and went to the bathroom. The water roared in the pipes, stalled, gurgled with an airlock that shook the room, then thundered from the wide mouth of the tap. He dropped his clothes on the floor and sank into the bath. He expected that he would soon feel at home. He went to his old room and dressed carefully in flannel trousers and checked shirt: he was waiting for the moment when the familiar wash of normality would come over him and he would be restored to his old self; when the experiences of the last two years would recede into some clear perspective. He noticed that the clothes were too big on him. The trousers rested on his hipbones. He found some braces in a drawer and hitched them up. Nothing happened. The polished mahogany of the chest looked alien; it was hard to imagine that he had seen it before. He went to the window and looked down on the familiar view, where the garden ended by the cedar tree and the corner of the next-door house with its rear terrace and long drainpipe blocked the skyline. He remembered afternoons of childhood boredom when he had looked out at this view, but the familiar recollection did not bring back any sense of belonging.
When he went downstairs he found his mother had returned.
She kissed him on the cheek. “You look a bit thin, Michael,” she said. “What have they been feeding you on over in France?”
“Garlic,” he said.
“Well no wonder!” She laughed. “We got your letters. Very nice they were, too. Very reassuring. When was the last one we had?”
“About a fortnight ago. You’d moved, you said.” Weir’s father was standing by the fireplace, loading another pipe.
“That’s right,” said Weir. “We moved up from Beaucourt. We’re moving again soon, up toward Ypres. Near somewhere called Messines, where we were at the start. I’m not really supposed to tell you too much.”
“I wish we’d known you were coming,” said his mother. “We had our tea early so I could go to choir practice. There’s a bit of cold ham and tongue if you’re hungry.”
“That would be nice.”
“All right. I’ll get the maid to set it out in the dining room.”
“You’re too late for my tomatoes, I’m afraid,” said his father. “We had a champion crop this year.”
“I’ll ask the girl if she can find a bit of lettuce.”
Weir ate the meal alone in the dining room. The maid set a place with a glass of water and a clean napkin. There was a slice of bread and butter on the side plate. He swallowed quietly, the sound of his own chewing magnified by the lack of conversation.
Afterward he played cards with his parents in the sitting room until ten o’clock, when his mother said it was time for her to go to bed.
“It’s nice to see you all in one piece, Michael,” she said, as she gathered her cardigan around her and went to the door. “Don’t you two sit up talking all night.”
Weir sat facing his father across the fireplace.
“How’s the office?”
“It’s all right. The business doesn’t vary as much as you’d think.”
There was a silence. Weir could think of nothing to say.
“We’ll ask some people over if you like,” said his father. “If you’re stopping till the weekend.”
“All right. Yes.”
“I expect you’d like a bit of company after all … after, you know.”
“France?”
“Exactly. Make a change.”
“It’s been terrible,” said Weir. “I’ve got to tell you, it’s been—”
“We’ve read about it in the paper. We all wish it would hurry up and finish.”
“No, it’s been worse. I mean, you can’t imagine.”
“Worse than what? Worse than it says? More casualties, are there?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s … I don’t know.”
“You want to take it easy. Don’t get yourself upset. Everyone’s doing their bit, you know. We all want it to end, but we just have to get on with things in the meantime.”
“It isn’t that,” said Weir. “It’s … I wonder if I could have a drink?”
“A drink? What of?”
“A … glass of beer, perhaps.”
“We haven’t any in. There might be some sherry in the cupboard, but you wouldn’t want that, would you? Not at this time of night.”
“No. I suppose not.”
Weir’s father stood up. “You get yourself a good night’s sleep. That’s the best thing. I’ll ask the maid to get some beer tomorrow. We’ve got to build you up after all.”
He put out his hand and patted his son on the back of the left bicep. “Good night, then,” he said. “I’ll lock up.”
“Good night,” said Weir.
When he could no longer hear his father’s footsteps upstairs, he went to the corner cupboard and took out the two-thirds-full bottle of sherry. He went out into the garden and sat on a bench, where he lit a cigarette and raised the bottle in his trembling hand.
“I want you to do the runes. Tell my fortune,” said Weir.
Stephen smiled at him. “You’re a hopeless devil, aren’t you? He wants me to tell him he’s going to survive,” he said to Ellis, who was watching from the bunk.
“Go on,” said Weir. “Don’t pretend you don’t believe in it. It was you who introduced me to it.”
Stephen stood up and walked to the gas curtain that hung over the entrance to the dugout. “Riley,” he shouted. “Get me a rat.”
While they waited, Stephen took a pack of cards from the wooden shelf by the door, some stubs of candle, and some sand. He made the shape of a pentangle on the table, placing several cards face down and linking them with trails of sand. He lit the candles and placed them at five equidistant points. He could feel Ellis’s eyes boring into him from behind.
“This is voodoo I invented to pass the long hours. Weir likes it. It makes him feel that somebody cares about him. It’s better to have a malign providence than an indifferent one.”
Ellis said nothing. He could not understand the relationship between the two men. The captain from the tunnel appeared to be always on the point of collapse while his own senior officer, Wraysford, seemed so calm that he was capable of being cruel to Weir, of saying anything without the other man protesting. Weir came shaking to the dugout for whisky and reassurance; he apparently depended on Wraysford’s coldness. Yet on occasions, late at night, Ellis had had the impression that there was another aspect to the men’s surly friendship. He looked down and saw Wraysford’s sunken eyes, black in the candlelight, and they seemed to be fastened on to Weir’s nervous conversation; they were locked on to Weir a
Riley came in carrying a rat by its tail. “Coker got him, sir. The cheese on the bayonet trick.”
Ellis looked at Riley with distaste. He was a very smart little man, always perfectly turned out. Ellis admired this in him, but found him obsequious and inclined to break the rules.
“Have a drink, Riley,” said Stephen. “Have some of this chocolate.”
Riley hesitated under Ellis’s gaze but accepted.
“Ellis?” said Stephen. “You going to risk a drink tonight? We wouldn’t have to carry you to bed. You could just lie there.”
Ellis shook his head. The shellfire was starting up outside. He could not yet distinguish between the howitzers and the guns, between the different sizes of the enemy artillery. He had studied the effects of shell blast in training, however. He had seen the destructive powers demonstrated on maps and on prepared ranges; he had drawn diagrams of the conical delivery of shrapnel and compacted blast of mortar. What he had not seen until the week before was the explosive effect on soft tissue, on the pink skin of two privates in his platoon who had been gathered up into a single sandbag by one of the others: he had watched the small joints of meat being dropped into the bag. When he heard the sounds of shellfire again he began to worry. The start he felt when the explosion went off was bearable; it was like a wave breaking, noisy but brief. Worse than that was the undertow of fear as the sound retreated. It seemed to suck and draw at him, leaving him a little weaker every time.
“They know what they’re aiming at tonight all right,” said Riley. “They’ve had planes over all week apparently.”
Stephen did not look up from the table. “Turn the lantern off now,” he said. “He likes this bit,” he said to Ellis. “It makes him feel afraid.”
He placed a small wooden figure he had carved in the middle of the pattern on the table. Its rough shape was caught by the flickering light of the candle flame. From his pocket he took a knife with a single, carefully sharpened blade. He sank it into the rat’s chest, between the forefeet, and dragged it down. He held the rat in his other hand and shook out the guts on to the table.
Weir, despite everything he had seen, was fascinated. The pile of spleen and liver lay greenish-red and warm in the sandy grain of the wood. Stephen stuck the knife into the cavity again and scraped out what remained. Weir leaned over the table and examined it.
“What does it mean?” he said.
Stephen laughed. “How should I know? It’s just a dead rat. Is that the bowel there? Yes, I think so. It’s been eating … What’s that? Is it flesh?”
“What was the name of those two men in your platoon?” said Weir.
“For Christ’s sake,” said Ellis. “This is disgusting. I’m going out. You should be ashamed of yourselves. This is what the bloody ignorant men do. You should be setting an example.”
“Who to?” said Stephen. “You?”
Ellis got off his bunk and stood up. Stephen pushed him back. “Sit down and watch.” Ellis perched reluctantly on the edge of the bed.
Stephen poked his knife into the guts. “The reading is doubtful,” he said. “It suggests a sound future provided you have nothing to do with women or with priests. If you do, then you could encounter problems.”
“What card is a priest?”
“A ten,” said Stephen. “Ten for the ten commandments. Queen is a woman.”
“And what should I hope for?”
Stephen pushed the knife into the mess on the table. “Peace. Even numbers. And your own number—four. You were born in April, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to turn the cards over now,” said Stephen. He inserted the tip of the knife under the card nearest him and flipped it over. It was an eight. “Good,” he said. The next was the four of hearts. Weir looked delighted. Stephen levered the next card slowly up. It was the two of clubs. “I think the Man Upstairs is on your side, Weir,” he said. The fourth card was the ace of hearts. “Peace,” said Stephen. “The ace represents power and stability. This is the best horoscope you could have.” He reached out his knife for the final card and flipped it over with a flourish. It was the four of diamonds.
“You fixed it,” said Weir in a voice that hoped for a denial.
Stephen shook his head.
“You knew what cards were on the table and you just made it up that that was what I needed.”
“Did you see me fix the pack?”
“No, but it’s obvious you did.”
“I don’t know why you make me go through this absurd performance if you’re not going to believe the results. Does Coker want his rat back, Riley?”
“I doubt it, sir.”
“You’d better get back. I’ll clear this up. Light the lantern on the way out, will you?”
There was a long silence after Riley left. Ellis took up his book and lit another cigarette. Weir stared at the tracks of the sand on the table as though mesmerized.
“Why are you so anxious to survive?” said Stephen.
“God knows,” said Weir. “It’s all I have, my life. In these conditions you just want to hold on to it. Perhaps I will do something with it later, perhaps it will all come clear.”
Stephen scrubbed the top of the table with a brush and a bucket the previous occupants had left behind. He felt vaguely ashamed.
Ellis looked down from his bed. “Most people in this war want to survive so that we can win it. We are fighting for our country.”
Weir looked up wide-eyed in the light of the relit lantern. Somehow he had managed to smear rat’s blood on his cheek. His mouth hung open incredulously. Stephen smiled.
“Well?” said Ellis. “Don’t you agree? That’s what we are fighting for, isn’t it? That’s why we tolerate it when we see those brave men suffer and die. We know they’ve done it for a good cause.”
Stephen said, “I went out on patrol the other day with a boy in your platoon, Ellis, and he was smoking some cigarettes called ‘Golden Future.’ Where did he get those from? They smelt like the stables in summer.”
“They come up with the rations,” said Ellis. “They have some very inventive names. ‘Glory Boys,’ ‘Rough Riders.’ But you haven’t answered my question.”
Stephen poured more whisky. He seldom drank more than two glasses, unless it was to keep Weir company. This night he had already drunk half a bottle. Perhaps it was merely to irritate Ellis. He could feel his tongue lying heavy in his mouth; his jaw had gone soft, so the words were difficult to frame.
“Weir, you love the place, don’t you?”
“I thought it stank when I went on leave,” said Weir. “Those fat pigs have got no idea what lives are led for them. I wish a great bombardment would smash down along Piccadilly into Whitehall and kill the whole lot of them.”
“Even your family?”
“Particularly my family. Particularly them. I tried to explain to them what it was like and do you know, my father was bored. He was actually bored with the whole thing. I would especially like a five-day bombardment on their street. And on the people who went on strike for more money in the factories when we were dying on a shilling a day.” Weir’s voice was shaking. “I would like to see them all walk into the enemy guns in long thin lines. For one shilling.” Saliva ran down his chin.
“What about you?” said Ellis to Stephen. “Are you as embittered as this man?”
Stephen had a false eloquence lent by drink; it could have led him to adopt any opinion with fluency. He said, “I can’t remember the country. Should we fight for fields and hedges and trees? Perhaps we should. Perhaps if they’re filled with the affections that people have brought to them, then they are worth dying for. And the mill towns where I used to visit factories, those sloping streets, and London with its docks and buildings—perhaps those bits of stone and mortar are worth more than the enemy’s bits of brick, in Hamburg or Munich. Perhaps if t
“Are you saying the land itself is worth more than the people and our way of life?” said Ellis.
“No.”
“Then what are you fighting for?”
Stephen said, “If I am fighting on behalf of anyone, I think it is for those who have died. Not for the living at home. For the dead, over here. Wilkinson, Reeves, and his brother, who disappeared. Disappeared into nothing. Byrne, caught on the wire. I am fighting for him.” His voice thickened and he clenched his fists. “And all those others. I knew them. Studd and what-was-his-name, the fair-haired man with him, they were always together. Christ, I can’t even remember his name.”
Weir said, “Don’t worry about it. As long as you know who the men are now.”
“Yes, I do, of course I do. That platoon still exists in some way. Petrossian and … Brennan, of course. And the new men. There’s one called Goddard. There’s Barlow and Coker. And lots of others. They’re all right. What was Brennan’s friend called? He bled so much. Douglas. You don’t lose so many underground.”
“We’ve lost our fair share. Tyson at Beaumont-Hamel as well as the people in the tunnels. But I’m not going to die.”
Weir’s eyes took on a blue gleam as the night progressed, ignited by hope and intoxication. What remained of his hair stuck out above his ears in thin, fair wisps. His voice rose higher in his excitement.
“And don’t look so sceptical. Don’t tell me you never believed in any sort of magic power,” he said.
Stephen was drunk enough to be confessional. His temporary fluency had gone, but was replaced by honesty. “I used to when I was a boy. We used to try to raise dead spirits. I tried to find fortune-tellers at fairs. I wanted to believe that I had some important destiny. I wanted to have a make-believe world because I couldn’t bear to live in the real one.”
The dugout shook with the impact of a nearby shell.
Weir looked surprised. “Even then?”