The Absolutist

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 of him. He won’t see sunrise.”

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.”

“You haven’t heard, then?”

I shake my head but say nothing.

“Private Bancroft,” begins Wells, stressing each syllable as if it carries a great weight, “made an appointment for a conversation with Sergeant Clayton. He brought up that whole business of the German boy again. You’ve heard about that, I imagine?”

“Yes, sir,” I reply. “I was there when it happened.”

“Oh, that’s right. He did mention it. Anyway, he wanted Milton brought up on charges, insisted on it in no uncertain terms. The sergeant refused for what must be the third time of asking and this time the conversation grew rather heated between the two. The upshot of it all was that Bancroft surrendered his weapons to Sergeant Clayton and announced that he would take no further part in the campaign.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “What happens next?”

“Sergeant Clayton told him that he was an enlisted man and he could not refuse to fight. To do so would be a dereliction of duty for which he could be court-martialled.”

“And what did Will say?”

“Who’s Will?” Wells asks stupidly.

“Bancroft.”

“Oh, he has a Christian name, does he? I knew you two were friends.”

“I told you, we just bunked next to each other in training, that’s all. Look, are you going to tell me what’s happening with him or not?”

“Steady on, Sadler,” says Wells cautiously. “Remember who you’re addressing.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say, running a hand across my eyes. “I just want to know, that’s all. We can’t… we can’t afford to be another man down. The regiment…” I say half-heartedly.

“No, of course not. Well, Sergeant Clayton told him that he had no choice, he had to fight, but Bancroft announced that he no longer believed in the moral absolute of this war, that he felt the army was engaged in tactics which are contrary to the public good and God’s laws. Has he ever displayed a religious fervour, Sadler? I wonder whether that might explain this sudden rush of conscience.”

“His father’s a vicar,” I tell him. “Although I’ve never heard Bancroft talk about it much.”

“Well, either way it won’t do him much good. Sergeant Clayton told him that he couldn’t register as a conscientious objector out here, it was too late for that nonsense. No military tribunals to hear his case, for one thing. No, he knew what he was signing up for, and if he refuses to fight then we’re left with no alternative. You know what that is, Sadler. I don’t need to tell you what we do with feather men.”

I swallow and feel my heart pounding wildly in my chest. “You’re not sending him over the sandbags,” I ask. “A stretcher-bearer?”

“That was the general intention,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders, as if this is a perfectly normal thing. “But no, Bancroft wouldn’t have that either. He’s gone the whole hog, you see. Declared himself an absolutist.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“An absolutist,” he repeats. “You’re not familiar with the term?”

“No, sir,” I say.

“It’s one step beyond conscientiously objecting,” he explains. “Most of those men oppose the fighting part of things, the killing and so on, but they are willing to help in other ways, in what they might deem to be more humanitarian ways. They’ll work in hospitals or in GHQ or whatever. I mean, it’s terribly cowardly, of course, but they’ll do something while the rest of us risk life and limb.”

“And an absolutist?” I ask.

“Well, he’s at the far end of the spectrum, Sadler,” he tells me. “He won’t do anything at all to further the war effort. Won’t fight, won’t help those who are fighting, won’t work in a hospital or come to the aid of the wounded. Won’t do anything at all, really, except sit on his hands and complain that the whole thing’s a sham. It’s the thin end of the wedge, Sadler, it really is. Cowardice on the most extreme level.”

“Will is not a coward,” I say quietly, feeling my hands curling into fists beneath the table.

“Oh, but he is,” he says. “He’s the most frightful coward. Anyway, he’s registered his status so now the only thing left is to decide what to do with him.”

“And where is he now?” I ask. “Has he been sent back to England?”

“For an easy life? I should think not.”

“I should think that if he was he would be imprisoned,” I point out. “And I can’t imagine there would be anything easy about that.”

“Really, Sadler?” he says doubtfully. “The next time you’re crawling on your belly across no-man’s-land with the bullets whizzing past your head, wondering when you’re going to be picked off like Martin Moody, you just remember those words. I expect at such a moment you might rather relish a couple of years in Strangeways.”

“So is that where he’s gone?” I ask, already feeling heartsore at the idea that I might not see him again, that like Peter Wallis, Will and I parted as enemies and I might die without our ever being reconciled.

“Not yet, no,” says Wells. “He’s still here at camp. Locked up at Sergeant Clayton’s discretion. Court-martialled.”

“But there hasn’t been a trial yet?”

“We don’t need a trial out here, Sadler, you know that. Why, if he was to lay down his gun during the fighting itself he’d be shot by the battle police for cowardice. No, there’s a big push coming over the next twenty-four hours and I’m sure he’ll come to his senses before then. If he agrees to get back into the thick of it, all will be forgotten. For now, at least. He may have to answer for it at a later date, of course, but at least he’ll live to tell his side of the story. He’s lucky, when you think about it. Were it not for the fact that every last man has been helping with the advancement or working on entrenchment he would have been shot by now. No, we’ll hold on to him where he is for the time being and send him out when the battle begins. He’s full of fine talk about never fighting again, of course, but we’ll knock that out of him in time. Mark my words.”

I nod but say nothing. I’m not convinced that anyone could ever knock anything out of Will Bancroft once he has an idea in his head, and want to say so but keep my peace. After a moment, Wells drains his mug and stands up.

“Well, I’d better get back to it,” he says. “Are you coming, Sadler?”

“Not quite yet,” I say.

“All right, then.” He starts to walk away, then turns back and stares at me, narrowing his eyes again. “Are you sure that you and Bancroft aren’t friends?” he asks me. “I always thought you were thick as thieves, the pair of you.”

“We just had bunks next to each other,” I say, unable to look him in the eye. “That’s all we are to each other. I barely know him really.”

To my astonishment, I see Will the following afternoon, seated alone in an abandoned foxhole near HQ. He’s unshaven and pale; there’s a lost expression on his face as he unsettles the dirt on the ground with the tip of his boot. I watch him for a moment without making my presence known to see whether he looks any different now that he has taken his great stand. It might be minutes later when he jerks his head up abruptly, then relaxes when he sees that it’s only me.

“You’re free,” I say as I approach him, not bothering with any greeting despite the fact that we haven’t laid eyes on each other for some time. “I thought they’d locked you away somewhere.”

“They have,” he tells me. “And they’ll take me back there in a bit, I dare say. There’s a meeting of some sort taking place in there and I expect they don’t want me to hear what they’re talking about. Corporal Wells told me to wait here until someone came to fetch me.”

“And they trust you not to run off?”

“Well, where do you think I might go, Tristan?” he asks, smiling at me and looking around. He has a point; it’s not as if there’s anywhere to run off to. “You don’t have a cigarette on you, by any chance? They took all mine away.”

I dig around in the pocket of my coat and hand one across. He lights it quickly, his eyes closing for a moment as he takes the first draw of nicotine into his lungs.

“Is it very awful?” I ask.

“What?” he asks, looking up at me again.

“Being held like this. Wells told me what you’re doing. I expect they’re treating you horribly.”

He shrugs his shoulders and looks away. “It’s fine,” he says. “Most of the time they just ignore me. They bring me food, take me to the latrine. There’s even a bunk in there, if you can believe it. It’s a lot more comfortable than being left to rot in the trenches, I can promise you that.”

“But that’s not why you’re doing it, is it?”

“No, of course not. What do you take me for, anyway?”

“Is it because of the German boy?”

“He’s part of it,” he says, looking down at his boots. “But there’s Wolf, too. What happened to him. His murder, I mean. It just feels like we’ve all become immune to the violence. I’m of the opinion that Sergeant Clayton would fall to his knees and burst into tears if he heard that the war had come to an end. He loves it. You realize that, Tristan, don’t you?”

“He doesn’t love it,” I say, shaking my head.

“The man’s half mad. Anyone can see that. Babbling half the day. Great rages, then weeping fits. He needs to be carted off to the funny farm. But look, I haven’t asked how you are.”

“I’m fine,” I say, not willing to turn the conversation to me.

“You were ill.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you were a goner at one point. The doctor didn’t give you much chance, anyway. Bloody fool. I told him you’d pull through. Said you were made of stronger stuff than he realized.”

I laugh abruptly, flattered by this, then look back at him in surprise. “You talked to the doctor?” I ask.

“Briefly, yes.”

“When?”

“Well, when I came to visit you, of course.”

“But they told me no one came to visit,” I tell him. “I asked and they seemed to think I was mad even to imagine it.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Well, I came.”

Three soldiers appear from around the corner, new recruits I haven’t seen before, and they hesitate when they see Will sitting there. They stare at him for a moment before one of them spits in the mud and the others follow suit. They don’t say anything, not to his face, anyway, but I can hear the mutters of “Fucking coward” under their breath as they pass by. Following them with my eyes I wait until they’re out of sight before turning back to Will.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says quietly.

I tell him to shove up and take a seat beside him. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that he visited me in the medical tent, about what that means.

“Don’t you think you could just put it all aside for now?” I ask. “These concerns of yours, I mean. Just until it’s all over?”

“But what good would that do?” he asks. “The point must be made while the fighting is still going on. Otherwise it’s entirely worthless. You must see that.”

“Yes, but if you’re not shot here for cowardice then they’ll ship you off back to England. I’ve heard what happens to feather men in jails back home. You’ll be lucky if you survive it. And after that, how do you think the rest of your life will turn out? You won’t be welcome in polite society, that’s for sure.”

“I couldn’t give two figs for polite society,” he replies with a bitter laugh. “Why would I, if this is what it represents? And I’m not a feather man, Tristan,” he insists. “This is not an act of cowardice.”

“No, you’re an absolutist,” I reply. “And I’m sure that you think it justifies everything if you can ascribe a clean word to it. But it doesn’t.”

Will turns and stares at me, taking the cigarette from his mouth and using his thumb and index finger to remove a flake of tobacco that’s trapped between his front teeth. He glances at it for a moment before flicking it into the dirt at our feet. “Why do you care so much, anyway?” he asks. “What good do you think it does talking to me here?”

“I care for the same reason that you visited me in hospital,” I say. “I don’t want to see you making a terrible mistake that you will regret for the rest of your life.”

“And you don’t think that you’ll regret it?” he asks. “When this is all over and you’re safely back home in London, you don’t think that you’ll wake up with the pictures of all the men you’ve killed haunting your dreams? Do you actually mean to tell me that you’ll be able to move past it all? I don’t think you’ve given it any thought at all,” he adds, his voice growing colder now. “You talk of cowardice, you talk of feather men, and yet you direct your contempt at everyone but yourself. You can’t see that, can you? How it’s you who is the coward and not I? I can’t sleep at night, Tristan, for thinking of that boy pissing his pants just before Milton put the gun to his head. Every time I close my eyes I see his brains being splattered over the trench wall. If I could go back, I’d have put a bullet in Milton myself before he could kill the boy.”

“You’d have been shot for it if you had.”

“I’ll be shot anyway. What do you think they’re discussing back there? The lack of decent tea in the mess tent? They’re figuring out when’s the best time to be rid of me.”

“They won’t shoot you,” I insist. “They can’t. They have to hear your case.”

“Not out here they don’t,” he says. “Not in the field of battle. And who’d have turned me in if I had shot Milton? You?”

Before I can answer this there’s a cry of “Bancroft!” from my left and I turn to see Harding, the new corporal sent over from GHQ as a replacement for Moody. “What do you think you’re doing? And who the hell are you?” he asks as I jump to my feet.

“Private Sadler,” I say.

“And why the devil are you talking to the prisoner?”

“Well, he was just sitting here, sir,” I say, uncertain of what crime I might have committed. “And I was passing by, that’s all. I didn’t know that he was in isolation.”

Harding narrows his eyes and looks me up and down for a moment as if he’s attempting to decide whether or not I am cheeking him. “Get back to the trench, Sadler,” he says. “I’m sure someone there must be looking for you.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, turning around and nodding at Will before I leave. He doesn’t acknowledge my farewell, just stares at me with a curious expression as I walk away.

Evening time.

A bomb falls somewhere to my left and knocks me off my feet. I hit the ground and lie there for a moment, gasping, wondering whether that’s the end of me. Have my legs been blown away? My arms dismembered? Are my intestines slipping out of my body and melting into the mud? But the seconds pass and I feel no pain. I press my hands to the soil and lift myself up.

I am fine. I am uninjured. I am alive.

I throw myself forward in the trench, looking left and right quickly to apprise myself of the situation. Soldiers are rushing past, filling positions three men deep along the front defence line, and Corporal Wells is at the end, shouting instructions at us. His arm rises and falls in the air as if he is chopping something, and as the first group steps back, the second takes a movement forward as the third, myself among them, lines up behind the second.

It’s impossible to hear what is being said over the noise of shelling and gunfire, but I watch, breathing in quick gasps, and I can see that Wells is giving quick instructions to the run of fifteen men in the front line who look at each other for a moment before ascending the ladder and, heads held firmly down, throwing themselves over the sandbags and into no-man’s-land, which is dark and lit up sporadically like a carnival.

Wells pulls a box-periscope down and stares through it, and I study his face, noticing the moments when he sees someone’s been hit, the quick expression of pain that spreads across his features, then he pushes it to one side as the next line steps forward.

Sergeant Clayton is among us now and he stands on the opposite side of the line to Wells and shouts instructions at the troops. I close my eyes for a moment. How long will it be, I wonder, two minutes, three, before I am over the sandbags, too? Is my life to end tonight? I’ve been over before and survived, but tonight… tonight feels different and I don’t know why.

I look in front of me and see a boy trembling. He’s young, untested, a new recruit. I think he arrived the day before yesterday. He turns around and stares at me as if I can help him and I can see that his expression is one of pure terror. He can’t be much younger than me, maybe he’s older, but he looks like a child, a little boy who doesn’t even know what he’s doing here.

“I can’t do it,” he says to me, his Yorkshire voice low and pleading, and I narrow my eyes and force him to focus on them.

“You can,” I tell him.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

More screams from either side of the line and now a body falls from above, almost from the heavens, and lands among us. It’s another of the new recruits, a lad I noticed not five minutes ago with a mop of prematurely grey hair, a bullet hole through his throat seeping blood. The boy in front of me cries out and takes a step back, almost pushing into me, and I shove him forward. I can’t be expected to deal with him, too, when my own life is about to end. It’s not fair.

“Please,” he says, appealing to me as if I have some control over what is happening.

“Shut up,” I say, no longer willing to play mother to him. “Shut the fuck up and step forward, all right? Do your duty.”

He cries and I shove him again and he’s at the base of the ladders now, standing in a row alongside a dozen or so others.

“Next line-up!” screams Sergeant Clayton and the soldiers place their feet nervously on the lowest rung of the ladders, holding their heads low so they do not peep over the top any sooner than they have to. My boy, the one in front of me, does, too, but he makes no move to ascend, keeping his right foot rooted firmly in the mud.

“That man!” screams Clayton, pointing at him. “Up! Up! Up now!”

“I can’t do it!” cries the boy, the tears streaming down his face now, and God help me I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough of all of this, if I am to die, then let it end soon but it can’t happen until my turn is called, so I press my hand beneath his buttocks and push him up the ladder, feeling his weight trying to force itself back against me. “No!” he cries, pleading with me, his body failing him now. “No, please!”

“Up, that man!” shouts Clayton, rushing over to us now. “Sadler, push him up!”

I do it, I don’t even think of the consequences of my actions, but between us Clayton and I push the boy to the top of the ladder and there’s nowhere for him to go now but over and he falls on his belly, the possibility of a return to the trench out of the question. I watch as he slithers forward, his boots disappearing from my eye line, and I turn to Clayton, who is staring at me with insanity in his eyes. We look at each other and I think, Look at what we have just done, and then he returns to the side of the lines as Wells orders the rest of us upward and I don’t hesitate now, I climb the ladder and throw myself over and I stand tall, do not lift my rifle but stare at the chaos around me, and think, Here I am, take me now, why don’t you? Shoot me.

I’m still alive.

The silence is astonishing. Sergeant Clayton addresses forty of us, standing in pathetic lines that look nothing like the neat rows we learned to form in Aldershot. I know only a few of these men; they’re filthy and exhausted, some badly wounded, some half mad. To my surprise Will is present, standing between Wells and Harding, who each grip one of his arms as if there’s a possibility that he might run away. Will has a haunted look and he barely glances up from the ground; only once, and when he does he looks at me but doesn’t seem to recognize me. There are dark circles under his eyes and a raised bruise along his left cheek.

Clayton is shouting at us, telling us how brave we’ve been over the last eight hours, then condemning us as a bunch of frightened mice the next. He was never completely sane, I think, but he’s lost it entirely now. He’s blabbering on about morale and how we’re going to win the war but refers to the Greeks rather than the Germans on more than one occasion and loses his train of thought over and over again. It’s clear that he shouldn’t be here.

I glance over towards Wells, the next most senior man, to see if he’s aware how damaged our sergeant has become, but he’s not paying much attention. It’s not as if he can do anything, anyway. Mutiny is impossible.

“And this man, this man here!” shouts Clayton then, marching over towards Will, who looks up in surprise as if he has barely registered that he is even present in the moment. “This man who refuses to fight this fucking coward what do you think of him men not like you is he taught better taught better than that I know I was the one who taught him makes all sorts of outrageous suggestions then pops his head down on a pillow in his cell while the rest of you brave lads are here to train because it’s only a few weeks before we head off to France to fight and this man this man here he says he’s not in the mood to kill but he was a poacher before or so I heard…”

And on and on and on interminably, none of it making any sense, no sentences, just a sequence of garbled words gathered together and thrown at us while he spits and spews out hatred.

He walks away, then a moment later walks back, pulls off a glove and slaps Will across the face with it. We’re immune to violence, of course, but the action takes each of us a little by surprise. It’s both tame and vicious at the same time.

“I can’t stand a coward,” says Clayton, slapping him again, hard, and Will’s head turns away from the beating. “Can’t stand to eat with one, can’t stand to talk to one, can’t stand to command one.”

Harding looks at Wells as if to ask whether they should intervene but Clayton has stopped now and turns back to the men, pointing at Will.

“This man,” he declares, “refused to fight during this evening’s attack. In light of this, he has been duly court-martialled and found guilty of cowardice. He will be shot tomorrow morning at six o’clock. That is how we punish cowards.”

Will looks up now but doesn’t seem to care. I stare at him, willing him to turn his head in my direction, but he doesn’t. Even now, even at this moment, he won’t allow me.

It’s night-time now, dark, surprisingly quiet. I make my way towards the reverse, where a group of medics are placing casualties on stretchers for transport home. I glance at them for only a few moments and see Attling and Williams, and Robinson with his head split open by a German bullet. On a stretcher next to him lies the body of Milton, the murderer of the German boy, dead now, too. There are only three of us left, Sparks, Will and I.

How have I survived this long?

I make my way towards the sergeant’s quarters and Wells is outside, smoking a cigarette. He looks pale and nervous. He takes a deep drag on the tab, sucking the nicotine far into his lungs, as he narrows his eyes and watches me approach him.

“I need to see Sergeant Clayton,” I tell him.

“I need to see Sergeant Clayton, sir,” he corrects me.

“It’s important.”

“Not now, Sadler. The sergeant’s asleep. He’ll have all three of us shot if we wake him before we have to.”

“Sir, something needs to be done about the sergeant,” I say.

“Something? What do you mean by that?”

“Permission to speak frankly, sir?”

Wells sighs. “Just spit it out, for Christ’s sake,” he says.

“The old man’s gone mad,” I say. “You can see it, can’t you? The way he beat up Bancroft earlier? And that kangaroo court martial? It shouldn’t even happen here, you know that. He should be taken back to GHQ, tried before a jury of his peers—”

“He was, Sadler. You were sick, remember?”

“It was done here, though.”

“Which is allowed. We’re in battle conflict. It’s extraordinary circumstances. The military handbook makes it clear that in these conditions—”

“I know what it says,” I tell him. “But come on, sir. He’s going to be shot in—” I look at my watch. “Less than six hours. It’s not right, sir. You know it’s not.”

“Honestly, Sadler, I don’t care,” says Wells. “Ship him back, send him over the top, shoot him in the morning, it doesn’t matter a damn to me. Can’t you understand that? All that matters is the next hour and the one after that and the one after that and the rest of us staying alive. If Bancroft refuses to fight, then let him die.”

“But, sir—”

“Enough, Sadler. Go back to your foxhole, all right?”

I can’t sleep; of course I can’t. The hours pass and I watch the horizon, willing the sun not to rise. At about three o’clock I walk through the trench, my mind elsewhere, barely looking at where I’m going, when I stumble over a pair of outstretched feet and trip over, steadying myself quickly to avoid falling head first in the mud.

Looking behind me in a fury, I see one of the new recruits, a tall red-haired boy named Marshall, sitting up straight and pulling his helmet back from where he had placed it over his eyes while he slept.

“For God’s sake, Marshall,” I say. “Keep yourself tidy, can’t you?”

“And what’s it to you?” he asks, remaining in his seat and folding his arms as a challenge to me. He’s young, one of those boys who has yet to see any of his friends’ heads blown off before his eyes, and probably believes that the only reason this blasted war is still going on is because the likes of him have not yet been involved in it.

“What’s it to me is that I don’t want to trip over your feet and break my bloody neck,” I snap. “You’re a danger to everyone, sprawled out like that.”

He whistles through his teeth and shakes his head, laughing, and waves me away. He’s unlikely to allow himself to be challenged like this without response, particularly when some of the other new recruits are watching, too, spoiling for a fight, hoping for anything that might provide a break in their tedious routine.

“How about you get your head out of the clouds, Sadler, and then you won’t have any accidents?” he suggests, putting the helmet back over his eyes and pretending that he’s about to fall asleep again when I know, of course, that he is happy to keep his face covered until he’s sure how this particular interview is going to end. It isn’t something I plan, and even as I see my arm reach out I’m almost surprised by what I’m doing, but it takes only a moment for me to flip the helmet off his head and send it flying in a perfect arc through the air before it lands in a pile of mud, burying itself rim down so that it will need to be cleaned before being put back on his head.

“For God’s sake, man!” he cries, jumping up and looking at me with a mixture of anger and frustration in his eyes. “What do you want to go and do a thing like that for?”

“Because you’re a fucking idiot,” I reply.

“Fetch my helmet for me,” he says, his voice growing lower now in barely concealed fury. I’m aware of a few of the men gathering and can hear the sound of matches being struck as cigarettes are lit, something to keep the hands busy as they settle down for the entertainment.

“You can fetch it yourself, Marshall,” I reply. “And next time, look lively when a superior officer passes by you.”

“A ‘superior officer’?” he asks, bursting out laughing. “And there was me thinking that you were just a lowly private like me.”

“I’ve been here longer,” I insist, the words sounding wretched even to my ears. “I know a lot more about who’s who and what’s what than you do.”

“And if you want to keep knowing what’s what, I’d suggest you fetch my helmet for me,” he adds, smiling, his yellow teeth disgusting to observe.

I feel my lips twist themselves into a sneer. I’ve known boys like him before, of course. Bullies. I’ve seen them at school and I’ve seen them ever since and I’ve had enough of them. The wound on my arm, the one the doctors say doesn’t even exist, is giving me unholy pain and I am so consumed with frustration over what is happening to Will that I can hardly keep my thoughts straight.

“I notice you show no signs of fighting,” he says after a moment, looking around at the gathered men for support. “Another one of them, are you?”

“Of who?” I ask.

“Like that pal of yours, what’s his name, Bancroft?”

“That’s right,” comes a voice from a few feet away, another of the new recruits. “You have him there, Tom. Bancroft and Sadler have been thick from the start, so I’ve been told, anyway.”

“And are you a feather man like him?” asks Marshall. “Afraid to fight?”

“Will is not afraid to fight,” I say, stepping forward now until I can smell his stinking breath.

“Oh, it’s ‘Will,’ is it?” he asks, laughing contemptuously at me. “‘Will’ is a brave man, is he? Easy to be brave when you’re locked up safely, given three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. Maybe you’d like to join him there, Sadler, is that what it is? Or do you prefer ‘Tristan’? Think this would all be a lot more fun if you and he were cuddled up together, the pair of you, playing smash and grab under the blankets?”

He turns to grin with his friends at this and they in turn burst into laughter at his pathetic joke, but it’s enough for me and in a second my fist has made contact with his jaw and I send him flying off his feet with as much precision as I did the helmet a few moments before. His head crashes against one of the timbers of the trench wall as he falls, but it doesn’t take him long to recover his senses and he’s up and on me as the men’s cries turn into cheers and jeers; they shout loudly when one of us lands an effective punch, laugh in our faces when we stumble or mis-hit in the mud. It becomes something of a free-for-all, Marshall and I lashing out in the confined space with the grace of a pair of pugnacious chimpanzees. I’m barely aware of what’s taking place but it feels as if months of internalized pain are suddenly pouring out and, without realizing that I am securing a victory, I find myself astride him, punching him time and time again in the face, pushing him further into the mud.

There he is, his face, pulling back in the schoolroom after I kissed him.

And there, coming from behind his butcher’s counter, placing an arm around my shoulders, telling me that it would be better for all if I was killed over there.

And there, embracing me by the stream at Aldershot before pulling his clothes together and running away with a look of contempt and revulsion.

And there again, somewhere in the back of the lines, telling me that it was all a mistake, men just sought comfort where they could find it at times like this.

I punch at every one of them and Marshall takes the blows and the world seems very black even as I feel arms pulling me from behind, dragging me off the boy and lifting me to my feet as the men cry, “Enough, enough, for God’s sake, man, enough! You’ll kill him if you’re not careful!”

“You’re a bloody disgrace, Sadler, you realize that, don’t you?” asks Sergeant Clayton, stepping around from behind his desk and coming a little too close to me for comfort. His breath stinks and I notice a twitch at his left eye and the fact that he appears to have shaved only the left-hand side of his face.

“Yes, sir,” I say. “I’m aware of it.”

“A bloody disgrace,” he repeats. “And you an Aldershot man. A man that I trained. How many of you are left now, anyway?”

“Three, sir,” I say.

“It’s two, Sadler,” he insists. “We don’t count Bancroft. The yellow-bellied bastard. Two of you left, and this is how you conduct yourself? How are the new recruits expected to fight the enemy if they have the living shit beaten out of them by you?” His face is red and his tone grows more furious with every word.

“Obviously it wasn’t wise, sir,” I say.

“Not wise? Not wise?” he roars. “Are you trying to be funny with me, Sadler, because I promise you that if you even try any of that nonsense with me, I’ll have you—”

“I’m not trying to be funny, sir,” I say, interrupting him. “I don’t know what happened to me. I went a little mad, that’s all. Marshall just rubbed me up the wrong way.”

“Mad?” he asks, leaning forward and staring at me. “Did you say ‘mad,’ Sadler?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, don’t tell me you’re trying to get out of here on some spurious grounds of insanity because I won’t stand for that, either.”

“Out of where, sir?” I ask. “Out of your office?”

“Out of France, you bloody idiot!”

“Oh. No, sir,” I say. “Not at all. No, it was more of a temporary thing. I can only apologize. I tripped over him, words were exchanged, it all got a little heated. A bad mistake.”

“You’ve put him out of commission for the next twenty-four hours,” he tells me, his temper appearing to lessen now.

“I know I hurt him, sir, yes.”

“That’s a bloody understatement,” he replies, stepping away, putting one hand down the front of his trousers and scratching deeply at his crotch without any embarrassment, before taking a seat, sighing to himself as he does so and running this same hand across his face. “I’m bloody exhausted, too,” he mutters. “Woken up for this? Still,” he adds, softening his tone, “I didn’t know you had it in you, Sadler, if I’m honest. And that fool needed to be taken down a peg or two, I know that much. I’d have done it myself, the amount of gyp he gives me. But I can’t, can I? Have to set an example to the men. Ignorant little bastard’s given me nothing but trouble since the day he got here.”

I stand at attention, slightly surprised by this turn of events. I haven’t imagined that I would be seen as a hero in Sergeant Clayton’s eyes, although he is a man who is generally impossible to read. He’ll probably turn on me again in a moment.

“But look here, Sadler,” he says. “I can’t let this type of thing go unpunished. You realize that, don’t you? It’s the thin end of the wedge.”

“Of course, sir,” I say.

“So, what am I to do with you?”

I stare at him, unsure if this is a rhetorical question or not. Send me back to England? I feel like saying, but resist, sure that it will only reignite his anger.

“You’ll spend the next few hours in confinement,” he says finally, nodding his head. “And you’ll apologize to Marshall in front of the men when he’s back on duty tomorrow. Shake his hand, say all’s fair in love and war, that sort of thing. The men need to see that you can’t just start punching each other like that without there being consequences.”

He looks towards the door and shouts out for Corporal Harding, who enters a moment later. He must have been standing outside all along, listening to the conversation.

“Take Private Sadler into confinement until sunrise, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” says Harding, and I can tell by the tone of his voice that he is uncertain what Clayton means by this. “Where should I put him, exactly?”

“In con-fine-ment,” the sergeant repeats, stretching out the syllables as if he’s speaking to an infant or a halfwit. “You understand English, man, don’t you?”

“There’s only the cell where we’re holding Bancroft, sir,” Harding replies. “But he’s meant to be in solitary.”

“Well, they can be in solitary together,” he snaps, ignoring the obvious contradiction as he waves us away. “They can nurse their grievances and get them out of their systems. Now get out of here, the pair of you. I have work to do.”

“You do realize that it’s the Germans you’re supposed to be fighting, not our own men, don’t you?”

“Very funny,” I say, sitting down on one of the bunks. It’s cold in here. The walls are damp and crumbling with earth; only a little light gets through from an opening near the ceiling and the barred cavity on the door.

“I must say I’m a bit surprised,” says Will, considering it, sounding amused despite the circumstances. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a scrapper. Were you like that in school?”

“On occasion. Like anyone else. Why, were you?”

“Sometimes.”

“And yet now you won’t fight at all.”

He smiles then, very slowly, his eyes focusing so tightly on mine that eventually I am forced to look away. “And is that what you’re here for really?” he asks me. “Was this all planned so you’d be thrown in here, too, and you might persuade me to change my mind?”

“I’ve told you exactly why I’m here,” I say, annoyed by the charge. “I’m here because that damn fool Marshall had it coming to him.”

“I don’t know him, do I?” he asks, frowning.

“No, he’s new. But look, let’s not worry about him. Clayton’s gone mad, anyone can see it. I think we can fight this thing if we try. We just need to talk to Wells and Harding and—”

“Fight what thing, Tristan?” he asks me.

“Well, this, of course,” I say in amazement, looking around me as if any further explanation were unnecessary. “What do you think I’m talking about? Your sentence.”

He shakes his head and I notice that he is trembling slightly. So he is afraid, after all. He does want to live. He says nothing for a long time and neither do I; I don’t want to rush him. I want to wait for him to decide on his own.

“I’ve had the old man in here a few times, of course,” he says finally, extending his hands out before him, turning them over to examine his palms as if he might find answers there. “Trying to get me to change my mind. Trying to get me to lift my gun again. It’s no good, I tell him, but he won’t wear it. I think he sees it as a slight on his own character.”

“He probably doesn’t want to have to report to General Fielding that one of his own men refuses to fight.”

“And an Aldershot man at that,” he replies, his head cocked a little to the side as he smiles at me. “The disgrace of it!”

“Things have changed. Milton’s dead, for one thing,” I say, wondering whether this particular piece of intelligence has made its way here. “So it doesn’t matter any more. You can’t bring him to justice, no matter what you do. You can give all this up.”

He thinks about this for a moment, considers and dismisses it. “I’m sorry to hear he’s dead,” he tells me. “But it doesn’t change anything. It’s the principle that matters.”

“It’s not, actually,” I insist. “It’s life and death that matters.”

“Then perhaps I can take it up with Milton in a couple of hours’ time.”

“Don’t, Will, please,” I say, horrified by his words.

“I hope there aren’t any wars in heaven.”

“Will—”

“Can you imagine it, Tristan? Getting away from all this only to find that the war between God and Lucifer continues up above? I’d have a difficult time refusing Him, wouldn’t I?”

“Look, stop being so bloody flippant. If you offer to get straight back into the thick of it then the old man will let you off. He needs every soldier he can get his hands on. Yes, you might be prosecuted when the war is over but at least you won’t be dead.”

“I can’t do it, Tris,” he says. “I’d like to, I really would. I don’t want to die. I’m nineteen years old, I have my whole life in front of me.”

“Then don’t die,” I say, approaching him. “Don’t die, Will.”

He frowns a little and looks up at me. “Don’t you have any principles, Tristan?” he asks me. “Principles for which you would lay down your life, I mean.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “People, perhaps. But not principles. What good are they?”

“This is why things have always been complicated between us, you see,” he tells me. “We’re very different people, that’s the truth of it. You really don’t believe in anything at all, do you?

While I—”

“Don’t, Will,” I say, looking away.

“I don’t say it to hurt you, Tristan, really I don’t. I just mean that you run away from things, that’s all. From your family, for example. From friendships. From right and wrong. But I don’t, you see. I can’t. I’d like to be more like you, of course. If I was, there’d have been more chance that I would have got out of this bloody mess with my life.”

I can feel the anger bubbling inside me. Even now, even at this moment, he chooses to patronize me. It makes me wonder why I ever felt a thing for him.

“Please,” I say, trying not to let my growing resentment overwhelm me, “just tell me what you want me to do to put this madness to an end. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“I want you to go to Sergeant Clayton and tell him that Milton killed that boy in cold blood. Do that if you really mean what you say. And while you’re at it, tell him what you know about Wolf’s murder.”

“But Milton is dead,” I insist. “And so is Wolf. What’s to be gained by such a thing?”

“I knew you wouldn’t.”

“But it wouldn’t mean anything,” I tell him. “Nothing would be gained.”

“Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?”

I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. “What irony?” I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap.

“That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.”

I stand up and walk away from him, remove myself to the furthest corner of the room. “You’re just being cruel now,” I say quietly.

“Am I? I thought I was being honest.”

“Why must you always be so cruel?” I ask.

“It’s something I’ve learned here,” he tells me. “You’ve learned it, too. You just don’t realize it.”

“But they’re trying to kill us, too,” I protest, standing up again now. “You’ve been in the trenches. You’ve felt the bullets flying past your head. You’ve been out in no-man’s-land, crawling around among the dead bodies.”

“Yes, and we do the same to them, so doesn’t that make us just as bad as them? I mean it, Tristan. I’m interested to know. Give me an answer. Help me to understand.”

“You’re impossible to talk to,” I say.

“Why?” he asks, sounding genuinely bewildered.

“Because you will believe whatever it is you choose to believe and you won’t hear any argument about it one way or the other. You have all these opinions which help define you as a better man than anyone else, but where are your high-minded principles when it comes to the rest of your life?”

“I don’t think I’m better than you, Tristan,” he says, shaking his head. He looks at his watch and swallows nervously. “It’s getting closer.”

“We can put a stop to it.”

“What did you mean by ‘the rest of my life’?” he asks, looking across, his brow furrowed with irritation.

“You don’t need me to spell it out for you,” I say.

“I do, actually,” he says. “Tell me. If you have something to say, just say it. You may not get many more chances, so spit it out, for pity’s sake.”

“Right from the start,” I say, not hesitating for a moment. “Right from the start, you’ve behaved badly towards me.”

“Is that so?”

“Let’s not pretend otherwise,” I say. “We became friends back there in Aldershot, you and I. I thought we were friends, anyway.”

“But we are friends, Tristan,” he insists. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“I thought perhaps we were more than that.”

“And whatever gave you that impression?”

“Do you really need me to tell you?” I ask him.

“Tristan,” he says with a sigh, running his hand across his eyes. “Please don’t bring up that business again. Not now.”

“You speak of it as if it meant nothing.”

“But it did mean nothing, Tristan,” he insists. “My God. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you so emotionally crippled that you can’t understand what comfort is when it stands in front of you? That’s all it was.”

“‘Comfort’?” I ask, astonished.

“You must keep coming back to this, mustn’t you?” he says, growing angry now. “You’re worse than a woman, do you know that?”

“Fuck off,” I say, although my heart isn’t fully in it.

“It’s true. And if you continue to talk about this, I’m going to call Corporal Moody and ask him to lock you up somewhere else.”

“Corporal Moody is dead, Will,” I tell him. “And if you had been part of what was going on around here and not hiding away in this useful little cubbyhole of yours, you’d know that.”

This makes him hesitate. He looks away and bites his top lip.

“When did this happen?”

“A few nights ago,” I say, brushing it away as if it means nothing; this is how immune I have become to the fact of death. “Look, it doesn’t matter. He’s dead. Williams and Attling are dead. Milton’s dead. Everyone’s dead.”

“Everyone’s not dead, Tristan. Don’t exaggerate. You’re alive, I’m alive.”

“But you’re going to be shot,” I say, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. “That’s what happens to feather men.”

“I’m not a feather man,” he insists, standing up now and looking angry. “Feather men are cowards. I’m not a coward, I’m principled, that’s all. There’s a difference.”

“Yes, so you seem to believe. Do you know, if it had been a one-off, perhaps then I could have understood it. Perhaps I could have thought, Well, it was the end of our training. We were worried, we were terrified of what lay ahead. You sought comfort where you could find it. But it was you, Will. It was you who led me the second time. And then you looked at me as if I was something that repulsed you.”

“Sometimes you do repulse me,” he says casually. “When I think of what you are. And I realize that that’s what you think I am, too, and I know differently. You’re right. At such moments you do repulse me. Perhaps that’s your life. Perhaps that’s the way your destiny is to be shaped, but not mine. It’s not what I wanted. It never was.”

“Only because you’re a liar,” I say.

“I think you had better take care what you say,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “We are friends, Tristan; I like to think we are, anyway. And I shouldn’t like us to fall out. Not now. Not at this late stage.”

“I don’t want that either,” I insist. “You’re the best friend I have, Will. You’re… Well, look”—I have to say it; our time is running out—“does it matter at all that I love you?”

“For God’s sake, man,” he hisses, a thread of spittle falling from his mouth on to the ground. “Don’t speak like that. What if we were to be overheard?”

“I don’t care,” I say, coming over and standing before him. “Listen to me, just this once. When this is all over—”

“Get away from me,” he insists, shoving me aside, with more force than he might have intended, for I stumble hard on to the ground and fall on my shoulder, a stab of pain shooting through my body.

He looks at me and bites his lip as if he regrets that for a moment but then his expression reverts to one of coldness.

“Look, why can’t you just stay away from me?” he asks. “Why must you always be around? Why must you be always in my ear? To hear you say what you’ve just said, well, it turns my stomach, that’s all. I don’t love you, Tristan. I don’t even like you very much any more. You were there, that’s all it was. You were there. I feel nothing for you, except contempt. Why are you even in here? Did you orchestrate this? Did you fall over Marshall so that you would be dragged in here with me?”

He steps forward and slaps me on the face; not a punch, as he might deliver to another man, but a slap. My head turns with the force of it but I’m stunned into silence and inaction.

“Are you expecting something from me, Tristan? Is that what it is?” he continues. “Because you’re not going to get it. Understand that, can’t you?”

And now he slaps me again and I let him.

“Do you think I would have anything to do with a man like you?”

Right in front of me now, he slaps me for a third time; my right cheek is inflamed with pain but still I cannot hit him back.

“My God! When I think of what we’ve done together it makes me sick. Do you realize that? It makes me want to retch.”

A fourth slap and now I rush at him, seeing red, ready to pounce, ready to punch him in my anger, but he misinterprets my actions and pushes me away and I fall again on my bruised shoulder and this time it hurts like hell.

“Get off me!” he shouts. “Jesus Christ, Tristan, I’m about to die and you want one last go at me for old times’ sake, is that it? What kind of man are you, anyway?”

“That’s not what I—” I begin, stumbling back to my feet.

“Fucking hell!” he snaps, leaning over me. “I’m about to die! Can’t you just leave me alone for five fucking minutes to get my thoughts together?”

“Please, Will,” I say, tears of anger spilling down my cheeks as I reach for him. “I’m sorry, all right? We’re friends—”

“We’re not fucking friends!” he shouts. “We were never friends! Can’t you understand that, you fool?” He marches to the door and bangs on it repeatedly, shouting through the bars. “Get him out of here!” he yells, pushing me against the door. “I want a few minutes’ peace before I die.”

“Will,” I say, but he shakes his head; still, he pulls me to him one last time.

“Listen to me,” he says, whispering in my ear. “And remember what I tell you: I am not like you. I wish to fuck I had never met you. Wolf told me all about you, told me what you were, and I stayed your friend out of pity. Because I knew that no one else would be your friend. I despise you, Tristan.”

I feel dizzy. I never would have believed that he could be so cruel but he seems to mean every word that he is saying. I feel tears coming to my eyes. I open my mouth but find I have no words for him. I want to lie on my bunk, my face to the wall, pretending that he doesn’t exist, but at that moment I hear footsteps running down towards our door, a key in the lock. It opens. And two men step inside and stare at us both.

I stand in the courtyard for what seems an age, feeling as if my head will explode. There’s a fireball of fury within me. I hate him. All he made me do, all he said to me. The way he led me on. I feel a searing pain in my shoulder from where he knocked me off my feet twice, and my face is tender from his slaps. I look back towards where he remains locked up, with Corporal Harding and the chaplain. I want to go back down there, grab him by the neck and bang his head on the stone floor until his brains have spilled out. I want him to fucking die. I love him but I want him to fucking die. I can’t live in a world where he exists.

“I need one more!” shouts Sergeant Clayton to Wells.

But Wells shakes his head. “Not me,” he says.

I look in front of me at the firing squad already assembled—the sun has risen, it’s six o’clock—five men in a row, a gap for the sixth.

“You know I can’t, sir,” says Wells. “It has to be an enlisted man.”

“Then I’ll do it myself!” roars Clayton.

“You can’t, sir,” insists Wells. “It’s against regulations. Just wait. I’ll go back to the trench and find someone. One of the new boys, someone who doesn’t know him.”

I don’t recognize the five boys lined up to shoot Will. They look terrified. They look clean. Two of them are visibly shaking.

I march over to them and Clayton looks at me in surprise. “You need a sixth man?” I ask.

“No, Sadler,” says Wells, staring at me in astonishment. “Not you. Go back to the trenches. Find Morton. Send him to me, all right?”

“You need a sixth man?” I repeat.

“I said not you, Sadler.”

“And I said I’ll do it,” I say, picking up the sixth rifle as the hatred courses through my veins. I twist my jaw to relieve some of the pain in my cheek but it feels like he’s slapping me again every time I do so.

“There we are, then,” snaps Sergeant Clayton, giving the signal to the guardsman to open the door. “Bring him up. It’s time.”

“Sadler, think about this, for God’s sake,” hisses Wells, grabbing me by the arm, but I brush him off and take my place in line. I want his fucking head on a plate. I check the round, lock it in place. I stand between two boys, ignoring them both.

“Corporal Wells, get out of the way,” snaps Sergeant Clayton, and then I see him, I see Will being led up the steps by the guardsman, a black mask placed over his eyes, a piece of red cloth pinned above his heart. He walks hesitantly until he is standing at the stoop. I stare at him, I remember everything, I hear his words in my ears and it is all I can do not to rush at him and tear him limb from limb.

Sergeant Clayton gives the order for us to stand to attention, and we do, six men side by side, rifles raised.

What are you doing? I think, a voice of reason in my head, a voice pleading with me to think about what I’m doing. A voice I choose to ignore.

“Take aim!” cries Clayton, and in that moment, Will, brave to the last, whips his blindfold away, wanting to face his killers as they gun him down. His expression is one of fear but strength, too, resilience. And then he notices me standing in line and his expression changes. He is shocked. He stares. His face collapses.

“Tristan,” he says, his last word.

And the command comes, and the index finger of my right hand presses on the trigger and, in a heartbeat, six guns have discharged, mine as quickly as anyone’s, and my friend lies on the ground, unmoving, his war over.

Mine about to begin.