The Absolutist by John Boyne
“There aren’t enough novels in the world already?” she asked, teasing me a little, and I laughed.
“A few more won’t hurt anyone,” I said. “I don’t know, I might not be any good, anyway.”
“But you’re going to try?”
“I’m going to try,” I agreed.
“Of course, Will was a great reader,” she said.
“Yes, I saw him with a book from time to time,” I said. “Sometimes one or two of the fellows might have brought something with them and it would get passed from hand to hand.”
“He was reading from the time he was three years old,” she told me. “And he tried his hand at writing, too. He wrote a completion for The Mystery of Edwin Drood in a most ingenious way when he was only fifteen.”
“How did it end?”
“In exactly the way that it should,” she replied. “Edwin came home to his family, safe and well. Eternal happiness ensues.”
“Do you think that’s the ending that Dickens intended?”
“I think it’s the ending Will believed would be the most satisfying. Why are we stopping?”
“This is Mrs. Cantwell’s boarding house,” I said, looking up the steps towards the front door. “I just have to collect my holdall. We can part here, if you like.”
“I’ll wait for you,” she said. “The station’s only across the road. Might as well make sure you get there safely.”
I nodded. “I’ll only be a minute or two,” I said, running up the steps.
Inside, Mrs. Cantwell was nowhere to be seen but her son, David, was behind the reception desk, consulting a chart, the tip of a pencil pressed to his tongue.
“Mr. Sadler,” he said, looking up. “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” I said. “I’ve just come to collect my holdall.”
“Of course.” He reached down and picked it up from behind the desk, passing it across to me. “Did you have a good day, then?”
“Yes, thanks,” I said. “We’ve settled everything regarding the bill already, haven’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, following me as I walked towards the door. “Will we be likely to see you again in Norwich?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, turning to smile at him. “I rather think this will be my one and only visit.”
“Oh dear. We didn’t disappoint you that much, I hope?”
“No, not at all. It’s just … Well, I don’t imagine my work will bring me through here again, that’s all. Goodbye, Mr. Cantwell,” I said, extending my hand, and he looked at it for a moment before shaking it.
“I want you to know that I tried to fight, too,” he said, and I nodded and shrugged. “They said I was too young. But I wanted it more than anything in the world.”
“Then you’re a fool,” I said, opening the door and letting myself out.
Marian took my arm as we made our way across to the station and I was both flattered and upset by the gesture. I had waited so long to write to her, spent so much time planning this meeting, and here I was, ready to return home, and I still had not steeled myself to tell her about her brother’s last hours. We walked in silence, though, and she must have been thinking the same thing, for it was only when we entered the station itself that she stopped, removed her arm and spoke again.
“I know he wasn’t a coward, Mr. Sadler,” she said. “I know that. I need to know the truth about what happened.”
“Marian, please,” I said, looking away.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. “Something that you have been trying to say all day but haven’t been able to. I can tell, I’m not stupid. You’re desperate to say it. Well, we’re here now, Tristan. Just the two of us. I want you to tell me exactly what it is.”
“I have to get home,” I said nervously. “My train—”
“Doesn’t go for another forty minutes,” she said, looking up towards the clock. “We have time. Please.”
I took a deep breath, thinking, Will I tell her? Can I tell her?
“Your hand, Tristan,” she said. “What’s the matter with it?”
I held it out flat in front of me and watched as the index finger trembled erratically. I watched it, interested, then pulled it away.
“I can tell you what happened,” I said finally in a quiet voice. “If you really want to know.”
“But of course I want to know,” she replied. “I don’t believe I can go on if I don’t know.”
I stared at her and wondered.
“I can answer your questions,” I said quietly. “I can tell you everything. Everything about that last day. Only I’m not sure that it will offer you any solace. And you certainly won’t be able to forgive.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, sitting down on a bench. “It’s the not knowing that is most painful.”
“All right, then,” I said, sitting next to her.
THE SIXTH MAN
France, September–October 1916
HOBBS HAS GONE MAD. He stands outside my foxhole and stares down at me, eyes bulging, before putting a hand over his mouth and giggling like a schoolgirl.
“What’s the matter with you?” I ask, looking up at him, in no mood for games. In reply he just laughs even more hysterically than before with uncontrollable mirth.
“Keep it down!” cries a voice from somewhere around the corner and Hobbs turns in that direction, his laughter stopping instantly, and he makes an obscene comment before running away. I think no more about it for now and close my eyes, but a few minutes later there’s an almighty commotion from further down the trench and it seems unlikely that I will be able to sleep through it.
Perhaps the war has ended.
I wander in the direction of the noise, only to find Warren, who’s been here about six or seven weeks, I think, and is a first cousin of the late Shields, being held back by a group of men while Hobbs cowers on the ground in the very definition of supplication. He’s still laughing, though, and even as some of the men move to pick him up, there’s an expression of fear on their faces, as if they’re not entirely sure what might happen if they touch him.
“What the devil’s going on?” I ask Williams, who’s standing beside me, watching the proceedings with a bored expression on his face.
“It’s Hobbs,” he says, not even bothering to look at me. “Looks like he’s lost the plot. Came over to Warren while he was asleep and took a piss on him.”
“Jesus Christ,” I say, shaking my head and reaching into my pocket for a cigarette. “Why on earth would he do such a thing?”
“God knows,” shrugs Williams.
I watch the entertainment until two of the medics arrive and coax Hobbs to his feet. He starts babbling to them in some unfamiliar dialect and they take him away. As he turns the corner out of sight I hear him raise his voice again, shouting out the names of English kings and queens from Harold onwards in perfect order, a hangover from his schooldays perhaps, but his voice grows fainter around the House of Hanover and disappears altogether just after William IV. He’s taken to the medical tent, I presume, and from there will be shipped back to a field hospital. He’ll either be left there to rot or be cured of his ailment and sent back to the Front.
Thirteen of our number gone, seven left.
I return to my foxhole and manage to sleep for a little while longer, but when I wake, just as the sun is beginning to go down, I find that I am shaking uncontrollably. My whole body is in spasm and although I have been cold since the day I arrived in France, this is something entirely different. I feel as if I’ve been laid out in a snowdrift for a week and the frost has entered my bones. Robinson finds me and is taken aback by the sight.
“Jesus Christ,” I hear him say, then, raising his voice, he calls out, “Sparks, come and take a look at this!”
A few moments of quiet, then a second voice.
“His number’s up.”
“I saw him not an hour ago. He seemed all right.”
“Look at the colour o
Soon, I’m transported to the medical tent and find myself lying on a bunk for the first time in I know not how long, covered with warm blankets, a compress placed about my forehead, a makeshift drip tied to my arm.
I float in and out of consciousness, waking to find my sister, Laura, standing over me, feeding me something warm and sweet-tasting.
“Hello, Tristan,” she says.
“You,” I reply, but before I can continue the conversation, her pretty features dissolve into the far rougher, unshaven visage of a medic, one whose eyes have sunk further and further into the back of his skull, giving him the appearance of the walking dead. I lose consciousness again, and when I finally come to, I find a doctor standing over me, and next to him, unable to control his irritation, is Sergeant Clayton.
“He’s no good to you,” the doctor is saying, checking the fluid in my drip and tapping the tube sharply with the index finger of his right hand. “Not at the moment, anyway. Best thing for him is to be shipped back home for convalescence. A month or so, no more than that. Then he can come back.”
“For God’s sake, man, if he can convalesce there he can convalesce here,” insists Clayton. “I’ll not send a man back to England for bed rest.”
“He’s been lying here for almost a week, sir. We need the bed. At least if he goes home—”
“Did you not hear me, Doctor? I said I will not send Sadler home. You told me yourself that he’s showing signs of improvement.”
“Improvement, yes. But not recovery. Not a full recovery, anyway. Look, I’m happy to sign the documentation for the transfer if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“This man,” insists Clayton, and I feel his fist slamming down hard against the blanket, bruising my ankle as it connects with it, “has nothing wrong with him, nothing compared to those who have already lost their lives. He can stay here for the time being. Feed him up, rehydrate him, get him back on his feet. Then send him back to me. Is that understood?”
A long silence, then what I take to be a frustrated nod of the head. “Understood, sir.”
I turn my head on the pillow. The hope of a return home had been held out to me for a few moments, then snatched away. As I close my eyes and drift off again I begin to wonder whether the entire scenario has even happened; perhaps it was a dream and I am just waking up now. This sense of confusion continues throughout most of the day and night that follow, but the next morning, as I wake to the sound of rain pelting down on the canvas tent in which we injured many lie, I feel the fog lifting from my mind and know that whatever has been wrong with me has been alleviated, at least, if not cured.
“There you are, Sadler,” says the doctor as he sticks a thermometer in my mouth. He reaches a hand beneath the sheets as he waits for the reading, putting a hand over my heart carefully to find my pulse, feeling for what I hope is a steady rhythm. “You look better. You have a bit of colour in your cheeks at least.”
“How long have I been here?” I ask.
“A week today.”
I exhale and shake my head in surprise; if I’ve been in bed for a week, then why do I still feel so tired?
“I think you might be over the worst of it. We thought we were going to lose you at first. You’re a fighter, aren’t you?”
“I never used to be,” I say. “What have I missed, anyway?”
“Nothing,” replies the doctor, laughing a little. “The war’s still going on, if that’s what you’re worried about. Why, what did you expect to miss?”
“Has anyone been killed?” I ask. “Anyone from my regiment, I mean.”
He takes the thermometer from my mouth and stares at it, then turns to look at me with a curious expression on his face. “Anyone from your regiment?” he asks. “No. Not since you’ve been in here. None that I’m aware of. It’s been fairly quiet out there. Why do you ask?”
I shake my head and stare at the ceiling. I’ve been sleeping for most of the past two days but want more. I feel as if I could sleep for another month if I was offered the chance.
“Much better,” says the doctor cheerfully. “Temperature’s back to normal. Or as normal as it gets out here, at any rate.”
“Did I have any visitors?”
“Why, who were you expecting—the Archbishop of Canterbury?”
I ignore his sarcasm and turn away. It’s possible that Will looked in on me from time to time; it’s not as if this doctor has been watching my bed twenty-four hours a day.
“So what’s next for me, then?” I ask.
“Back to active duty, I expect. We’ll give you another day or so. Look, why don’t you get up for a little bit? Go to the mess tent and get some food into you. Plenty of hot sweet tea if there’s any to be found. Then report back here and we’ll see how you’re getting along.”
I sigh and drag my body from the bed, feeling the weight of a full bladder pressing on my abdomen, and dress quickly before taking myself off to the latrine. As I open the flap of the tent and step out into the miserable, murky half-light, a great pool of water that has been sitting on the canvas above falls on me, drenching my head, and I stand there for a moment or two, a sodden mess, willing the elements to make me ill again so that I might return to the warmth and comfort of the medical tent.
But, to my disappointment, I only improve and am soon back on active duty.
*
Although I develop a rash on my arm later that day, which makes it feel as though it’s on fire, after spending another afternoon in the medical tent waiting to be seen I’m finally given a cursory examination and told that there’s nothing the matter with me, it’s all in my head, and I can go to the trenches.
In the evening, standing alone at my box-periscope, my rifle slung over my shoulder as I stare across no-man’s-land, I become convinced that there is a German boy of my own age standing on the opposite side, watching me. He’s tired and frightened; he’s spent every evening praying that he will not see us climbing over the sandbags because the moment we emerge from our muddy graves is the moment he will be forced to give the signal to his own comrades and the whole horrible business of engagement will begin.
No one mentions Will, and I am nervous about asking after him. Most of our original regiment are dead, or in Hobbs’s case sent to a field hospital, so there isn’t any reason why they should be thinking of Will. I am racked with loneliness. I haven’t laid eyes on him since before I became ill. After my refusal to report Milton to Sergeant Clayton, he studiously avoided me. Then I became sick and that was the end of that.
When a group of men are selected by Sergeant Clayton for a recce in the dead of night over the sandbags and towards the German defences, of the sixty who leave us, only eighteen return, a disaster by any standards. Among the dead is Corporal Moody, who has taken a bullet in the eye.
Later that same evening, I discover Corporal Wells sitting alone with a mug of tea, his head bowed over the table, and I feel unexpected sympathy for him. I’m unsure whether it’s appropriate to join him or not—we have never been particularly friendly—but I feel alone, too, and in need of company so I take the bit between my teeth, pour myself some tea, and stand before him.
“Evening, sir,” I say carefully.
It takes him a moment to look up and, when he does, I notice that there are dark bags forming under his eyes. I wonder how long it has been since he has slept. “Sadler,” he says. “Off duty, are you?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, nodding at the empty bench opposite him. “Would you rather be alone or can I join you?”
He stares at the emptiness as if unsure of the etiquette of the moment, but finally shrugs and indicates that I might sit down.
“I was sorry to hear about Corporal Moody,” I tell him after a suitable pause. “He was a decent man. He always treated me fairly.”
“I thought I’d better write to his wife,” he tells me, indicating the paper and pen before him.
“I didn’t even know he was married.??
“No particular reason why you should. But yes, he had a wife and three daughters.”
“Won’t Sergeant Clayton be writing to his wife, sir?” I ask, for that is the usual way these things work.
“Yes, I expect so. Only I knew Martin better than anyone else. I thought it might be best if I wrote, too.”
“Of course,” I say, nodding again, and as I lift my mug, I feel an unexpected weakness in my arm and spill tea across the table.
“For pity’s sake, Sadler,” he says, putting the paper and pen aside before they can be spoiled. “Don’t be so damn nervous all the time, it gets on my wick. How are you, anyway? All better?”
“Quite well, thank you,” I say, wiping the tea away with my sleeve.
“Thought we’d lost you at one point. Last thing we need, another man going down. There’s not a lot of your original Aldershot troop left, is there?”
“Seven,” I say.
“Six by my count.”
“Six?” I ask, feeling the blood drain from my face. “Who’s been killed?”
“Since you fell ill? No one as far as I know.”
“But then it’s seven,” I insist. “Robinson, Williams, Attling—”
“You’re not going to say Hobbs, are you? Because he’s been sent back to England. He’s in the nuthouse. We don’t count Hobbs.”
“I wasn’t counting him,” I say, “but that still leaves seven: Robinson, Williams and Attling, as I said, and Sparks, Milton, Bancroft and me.”
Corporal Wells laughs and shakes his head. “Well, if we’re not including Hobbs, then we’re not including Bancroft,” he tells me.
“He’s all right, isn’t he?”
“Probably in better condition than any of us. For the moment, anyway. But look here,” he adds, narrowing his eyes a little, as if he wants to get a better reading of me. “You and he were tight once, weren’t you?”
“We had the bunks next to each other at Aldershot,” I say. “Why, where is he? I’ve been keeping an eye out for him in the trenches ever since I came back to the line but there’s no sign of him.”