Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [113]
“And then over the winter the new generation of Tommies began to arrive, in a trickle at first, then in numbers. Strong young men from factories and farms, undergraduates and lower clerks, idealistic and patriotic and oh, how they died. The government trained them for their fathers’ wars, taught them how to handle themselves in honest battle, and then shipped them off to hell in the trenches.”
He blew out a breath, his eyes far away, seeing France nine years before. “One boy I remember, he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, a shining example of English manhood. He arrived with his papers in October of ’15, and instead of keeping him back until his regiment came off the front line they just passed him on. I was there when he reported for duty. The sergeant had just brewed tea, and was handing me a tin mug when we heard the noise of someone sloshing along the duckboards. We stuck our heads out from under the scrap of tarpaulin the sergeant had rigged as a shelter from the rain and saw this sopping-wet creature with a shiny new hat and mud to the thighs, stumbling up the trench. He spotted us under the flap and waded over to the dugout.
“And then the young fool stood to attention to return the sergeant’s salute. Straightened his back, and a sniper took him, right through that pretty new officer’s cap.
“And do you know, the sergeant laughed. It sounds utterly callous, but it was such an appalling irony, to see this fresh-faced, blue-eyed boy stand up proud to do his patriotic duty, before either of us could stop him. I still see it: The boy’s hand comes up and—pop! God takes off the top of his head. What could the sergeant do but laugh? And God forgive me, it was such a shock, for a moment I couldn’t help joining him. Twenty-one years of education and responsibility going into an erect spine at the wrong instant. God’s sense of humour can be brutal.
“That was the volunteer army. It got so the sight of a newly applied set of officers’ pips made my stomach heave, we lost so many young officers. It made me rage, that all their expensive training didn’t include the basic skills of survival. Not a gentlemanly trait, I assume, self-interest. They sent us children, and we offered them up to Moloch, and they sent us more. I had a boy die in my arms whose cheeks had less down on them than a ripe peach. He was fourteen, and the recruiter who’d accepted the lie about his age should have been shot.”
Hastings’ words had welled up like poison from a lanced boil, but at this last phrase he stumbled, remembering why we were here. After a minute he started again, the flow slower now but inexorable.
“We had three executions in the units I served with. I witnessed two of them. The first was a foul and bitter affair, a regular soldier in his late thirties who’d been drunk, got in an argument with his sergeant, and shot him. The man was charged with murder, and executed three weeks later. That was in April of 1915. Two of the men on the firing squad broke down during the summer, had to be transferred to less active duty before they were charged with some dereliction of duty as well. One of the men returned to the Front the next spring, the other I heard died of septicaemia from some minor wound left untreated, a year or so later.
“The second execution was in the winter of 1916. A private standing watch fell asleep on duty, and although he might have got away with ninety days’ field punishment, he’d been warned twice before. So they shot him. Pour encourager les autres, you know. I was off having a couple of rotted toes sawn off, so I didn’t have to sit with that one.” Hastings drew a shaky breath, and went on.
“Your duke’s nephew came to my attention in the late spring of 1918. Not that anyone knew he was a duke’s nephew—more than that, son and heir to one of the great dukedoms of the realm. Had I but known, oh, had he but