The Sons of Adam
The Sons of Adam
Harry Bingham
An epic tale of brothers divided, family rivalry, fortunes lost and won, set against the dramatic background of the early days of the oil industry.Two boys are raised as brothers. Alan is the son of the lord of the manor, with all the privileges which come with that birthright. The other, Tom, is the son of the gardener. Together, they learn to argue, fight and bond in friendship.Social difference divides their paths as adults but nothing can break their bond until a tragic misunderstanding occurs in the trenches of World War I. Now instead of the closest of friends they will be the bitterest of rivals in a burgeoning industry: oil.From the early days of drilling in Persia, to wildcatting in Texas, to the corridors of Whitehall and Washington, this is the story of two remarkable men and the very different women who loved them.
HARRY BINGHAM
The Sons of Adam
DEDICATION (#ulink_b95a9b44-c0ff-51df-91c3-90b6fc59ab9a)
To my beloved N,
My writing partner
May this marriage be laughing for ever, Today, tomorrow and all the hours of Paradise.
Rumi (1207–1273)
Contents
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Title Page (#ua5fb3683-546e-55ea-ae18-abcefff41c94)
Dedication (#u7536d64f-8f81-55b1-9e3b-428a301cd8be)
Prologue (#u02c5b12c-632f-59d4-a800-f0cef7fbd1ee)
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By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
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PROLOGUE (#ulink_25f6c4dc-09a9-59f2-a089-b0924ab5bfc3)
The Somme Battlefield, France, 23 August 1916
A man crawls forward on his belly. He’s covered with mud. It’s night-time.
The man is young, a British lieutenant. Although he moves carefully, there’s urgency in his movements, something breathless, something desperate. It’s a dangerous attitude at the best of times. Out here in no man’s land, just three dozen yards from German lines, the attitude seems almost suicidal.
For almost three minutes, the lieutenant moves in silence. Every now and then there is the crack of a rifle or the whine of bullets. He appears to ignore them. Eventually, he comes to a shallow shellhole and rolls down into it. He catches his breath a moment, then shouts.
‘Tom! Tommy! Tom Creeley!’
For a moment, the night is silent. A scrappy moon plays hide-and-seek. Earth and flint scrape beneath the lieutenant’s boots. In the distance, big guns thump the horizon.
Then a voice answers. It’s no more than a groan, but the lieutenant is instantly alert.
‘Tom? Tommy? Is that you?’
His hope is painfully evident. He climbs quickly out of the shellhole in the direction of the voice. He wriggles forwards, hardly concerned to keep his head and body low.
Within forty seconds, he has covered almost thirty yards. The voice belongs to a young boy, a British infantryman, horribly wounded in legs and belly. The boy is obviously dying.
A look passes across the lieutenant’s face. It’s one of painful disappointment. Whoever this boy is, it isn’t Tom Creeley. But the look passes.
‘All right, sonny,’ says the lieutenant. ‘I’ve come to get you home.’
The boy’s face is shockingly white in the moonlight. ‘I’m hurt pretty bad, sir.’ His voice is a whimper. He is afraid of death.
‘Hurt? Nothing too bad, son. We’ll get you patched up in no time and on a train back to England. How’s that?’
‘Oh, yes, sir! Oh, yes!’
The lieutenant nods. In one hand, he holds a canteen of water to the boy’s mouth. ‘Drink this.’ The boy drinks. As he does so, the lieutenant’s other hand snakes round in the mud, holding a revolver. The boy lowers the canteen. His eyes are grateful.
‘Good lad,’ says the lieutenant. He holds his gun to within an inch of the boy’s head and fires. The boy drops back, dead.
The lieutenant lies low for a minute or so, then briskly searches the boy’s pockets for any personal papers. He takes whatever there is, then, once again, flattens himself against the earth. He lifts his head and shouts.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom Cree-leeeeeee?’
And this time there’s no answer. No answer at all.
PART ONE (#ulink_6af27eaa-1fec-5030-9d4d-c36c47df8447)
Rise early, work hard … strike oil.
J. Paul Getty
1 (#ulink_070e0b81-4410-594d-8609-d2f662aa1ca4)
Whitcombe House, Hampshire, 23 August 1893
The beginning?
To hell with beginnings. Beginnings are excuses, apologies for failure. If things turned out disastrous – and they did – then that had everything to do with the way three young men chose to behave, nothing to do with the way things started out.
On the other hand, people are only human. Once a ball starts rolling it’s hard to stop it. A beginning is a beginning, and on this occasion, the beginning wasn’t just bad.
It was awful.
It happened like this.
A small boy, a seven-year-old, stands in a kitchen. He’s building himself a blackberry pudding as big as his head. The cook stands by, face red in the firelight, managing pots of water boiling on the stove, a newly made pot of coffee steaming to the side. The scene is domestic, quiet, happy.
Upstairs, the little boy’s mother, Lady Pamela Montague, is in labour for the fourth time. Of her first three children, only one – the blackberry-pudding-guzzling Guy – survived more than a few weeks. She and her husband, Sir Adam, are understandably anxious this time, but everything is proceeding normally. The doctor and midwife are in attendance.
So far, so nothing.
No births. No deaths. No hatreds. And best of all: no beginnings.
But, in a second, that changed.
All of a sudden there was a bang at the door, the jiggle of a latch, a blast of cool air. A tiny girl flitted in, as though blown by the wind. A sweep of rain washed the step behind her.
‘Please miss, please sir, please help.’ The tiny girl bobbed and curtsied, desperate with anxiety. ‘My ma’s ill. She’s having a baby, only it’s got stuck, and she says she can’t, and she’s gone as white as anything, and my dad said to run to the big house for help as fast as I could, and please miss, please miss, please miss.’
Mrs White, the cook, brought the girl further into the light.
‘Are you Jack Creeley’s little girl, dear?’
‘Please, miss. Yes, miss. Sally Creeley, and my ma’s having a baby and –’
‘Well, dear, it never rains but it pours. You just pop yourself down while I go and speak to Sir Adam. If you want you can –’
Guy stopped her.
It wasn’t a big interruption, but it was a decisive one. He raised his hand, like a man stopping a horse.
‘No need, Cookie. I shall tell him myself.’ He lifted his pudding, the coffee for his father, then turned to the little girl. ‘You can go back home and when the doctor is no longer wanted here, he can come to you. For the time being, he’s required here.’
He set off up the stairs. As he did so, he muttered to himself, ‘Oh, and it’s five guineas the visit, by the way, and someone to take care of his horse.’
Once upstairs, he set down his trophies. Coffee for his father, blackberry pud for himself. He said nothing about Sally Creeley. He said nothing about the little girl’s mother. In the seven years he’d been alive in the world, Guy Montague had learned that there are two sorts of people: those who can afford doctors and those who can’t. It seemed like a simple lesson, the most obvious thing in the world.
He finished his pudding, concealed a belch, and went to bed.
That night, after a twelve-hour labour, Pamela Montague gave birth to a healthy baby boy, a bawling little bundle with lungs like steam-bellows. The birth proved to be perfectly simple. No complications. No difficulties at all.
The same night, in one of the short rows of cottages that housed the estate workers, a young man, Jack Creeley, was forced to watch as his wife screamed through the night, helped only by a couple of untrained girls from the village. In the end, Creeley himself ran up to the big house and begged to speak to Sir Adam. As soon as Sir Adam heard the man’s story, he sent doctor and midwife racing across to the cottages.
Too late. A simple breech birth, which any doctor or any midwife could have simply and speedily corrected, had exhausted the mother and complicated the baby’s position. The doctor, acting quickly, made the incisions that enabled him to deliver the baby by Caesarean section. The doctor was a good one, skilled and decisive. A baby boy was delivered, healthy and screaming, into the little cottage bedroom.
Healthy but motherless.
Poor Betsy Creeley, just twenty-six years old, was exhausted even before the operation began. She lost too much blood and never recovered consciousness. By the time dawn broke on 24 August, the little boy’s mother was dead.
And there it was.
Two births.
One death.
One selfish act with terrible consequences.
A beginning.
2 (#ulink_8977863a-fa5d-5937-8206-3679b50e4a54)
Jack Creeley couldn’t keep his son, of course.
He was a single working man with a little girl already dependent on him. In the short term, there were local women happy to help out, but in the longer term, he could see no option other than to ask his sister – now living ninety miles away in Devon – to take both the girl and the baby. His sister would certainly agree, but Devon might as well have been the other side of the world for all that Jack would ever see them. He felt like a man living with the pain of a triple bereavement.
But help was closer than he thought.
Up at the big house, Sir Adam and Lady Pamela had a worry of their own. Their new-born son, Alan, had a cough. Not a big one. In fact, it was quite definitely a minor one. The midwife said the cough was normal. The doctor agreed. Sir Adam agreed. But it was a cough. Pamela had already lost two children under the age of six weeks and she was terrified of losing a third.
Sir Adam spent a day thinking things through before making his suggestion. His wife agreed instantly and Sir Adam went to approach Jack Creeley. His proposal was this.
Jack Greeley’s young boy, christened Thomas after his maternal grandfather, would be taken in by the Montagues. He and the tiny Alan Montague would grow up as brothers. They would share rooms, toys, schooling – everything. In Sir Adam’s words, the infant Tom ‘would grow up as one of our own. He would in all ways be brother to our own son Alan. You, of course, will still be his father. He’ll call you Father and me Uncle. You’ll see Tom whenever you wish, just say the word.’
For Jack Creeley, the offer was far too good to refuse. It meant his son would grow up in sight and sound of his father. It gave the poor man some good thing to snatch from the wreckage his life had so suddenly become. He said yes.
For the Montagues, the new arrangement brought only benefits. There was guilt, of course. Guy’s behaviour had been unforgivable – and he had been well beaten for it. On a more constructive side, offering a home to Tom seemed like the least they could do.
But it was more than that. Pamela loved babies, and the borrowed child went some way to make up for the two she had lost. But what was more, something about Tom’s arrival seemed to work like a charm on the infant Alan. From the moment Tom’s crib arrived in the big house, Alan’s cough went away, never to return. All through the dangerous first years of childhood, neither Alan nor Tom was once affected by any serious illness.
Even better, and from the very first months, it became clear that the two boys were unusually close. As babies, their cribs stood in the same room. If, for any reason, one of the cribs were moved, the other baby would instantly wake up and scream. Likewise, when they were toddlers Tom began to be taken down to his father, Jack’s, cottage for regular visits. At first it was thought that Tom would prefer to go by himself, but any time the experiment was tried, the little boy would turn black in the face and knot his fists until Alan was allowed to come along too.
By the end of the century, the two boys were six and a half years old. They were thriving, happy, and healthy.
Alan had grown a fraction taller, Tom a fraction broader than the other. Alan was pale-haired, with eyebrows so blond you could hardly see them. Tom was already developing dramatic good looks: glossy, dark, curly hair with eyes of a startling blue. The boys were infinitely close. They went everywhere together. Their communication was so close, they often appeared to read each other’s thoughts.
Visitors to the house invariably mistook them for twins (not identical, of course), and after a while the Montagues stopped bothering to correct them. The boys were twins. Born the same night, reared in neighbouring cribs, suckled at the same breasts. The boys were twins. The only difference was that one called Sir Adam ‘Father’, the other referred to him as ‘Uncle’. The difference is a small one, even tiny. But that wasn’t the point.
Even the smallest things can grow big enough to kill.
3 (#ulink_3dd74e5f-8cfb-5870-a2b3-51b6e8a1aade)
New Year’s Day 1901.
In the newly sanded stable yard, horses and huntsmen milled in impatient circles. Frost glittered from the clock-tower. Hounds pawed the ground, anxious to be off.
Tom Creeley, seven and a half years old, wasn’t yet old enough to ride with the hunt, and he was annoyed. For the last half-hour, he’d hung around the stable yard with Alan. The two boys attempted to scrounge one of the glasses of sherry that were being passed amongst the horsemen. They’d stolen hot pastries from the kitchen to feed to the dogs. But Tom was still annoyed. He wanted to ride and wanted to hunt.
‘I’m going in,’ he announced.
On the way back in, he passed close by Guy’s grey mare. The mare bristled at something, and stepped backwards, knocking into Tom.
Guy turned in the saddle. ‘I’m so sor –’ he began, before seeing who it was. ‘Careful, brat,’ he said, flicking his whip so Tom could feel the rush of air above his head.
Tom scowled. There was no love lost between the two boys. Guy was a bully, Tom his target. But Tom was a fighter, who gave as good as he got. On this occasion, Tom dodged away from the whip, braying as he did so. The braying sound was a carefully chosen insult. As a boy, Guy had been nervous of horses and had been taught to ride on a donkey. Tom, as fearless on horseback as he was in most other situations, was already confident on Sir Adam’s sixteen-hand hunters.
‘Stable boy!’
But Guy’s last insult bounced off Tom’s back. Tom was gone to search for new entertainment.
His first trip was down to the kitchen: usually good for warm food and interesting gossip. But today his luck was out. He’d been spotted pinching the pastries and right now he wasn’t welcome. Tom thought about getting Alan and going down together to Tom’s father’s cottage. Jack Creeley had been teaching the two lads how to poach: how to tickle trout, how to set traps for rabbits, how to move silently in the dark. But just as Tom made up his mind to go, he heard a noise from the library. He was puzzled. Sir Adam was with the hunt. So if not him, then who was it in the library? Tom pushed the door open.
The man bending over Sir Adam’s desk wasn’t much to look at. He was a plump, overtailored man, with a walrus moustache and a chalky complexion. He was bent over the telephone apparatus in the corner of the room, shouting down the speaking trumpet, the earpiece jammed hard against his head.
And he was shouting – shouting about money. Business, money, the purchase of rights, company incorporation. Tom’s feelings of restlessness disappeared in a flash. He was rooted to the spot, burning to hear more.
And why? Simply this. In the seven and a half years he’d been alive, he’d never heard a rich man talking about money. He’d heard his father talk about it. He’d heard servants talk about it. But to Uncle Adam and people of that class, the subject seemed to be unmentionable. It was as though, to people who were already rich, money was like air: something that surrounded you, something you didn’t have to think about. And already Tom knew he wasn’t like that. He knew that Guy would one day inherit Whitcombe House and all the surrounding fields and farms. He knew that Alan, somehow, was in the same position: not as lucky as Guy, but still all right. And Tom? He didn’t know. He dressed the same as Alan, he ate the same meals, he studied the same books, he played the same games. But Alan’s father was a gentleman. Tom’s father was not. Seven and a half years old, and Tom didn’t know where he stood.
Tom had seen enough. Seen but not heard. He knocked loudly at the already open door and strolled on in. The man looked up.
‘Why, hello!’
‘Hello.’
‘You must be young Alan, I suppose.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I’m Tom.’
‘Oh, Tom! Well, good morning, young man.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Knox D’Arcy. Robert Knox D’Arcy.’
Tom wrinkled his forehead: the name meant nothing. On the table in front of D’Arcy, maps were spread out, maps traced in wild contours of brown and pink, maps speckled with place names that sounded like something from The Arabian Nights. Tom peered at them curiously.
‘Where’s that?’
‘Persia, Western Persia and Eastern Mesopotamia, to be exact.’ The man smiled at Tom’s blunt interrogation.
‘Why? Are you going there?’
‘No. I’m looking for something.’
‘What?’
‘Oil.’
There was a short silence.
‘What?’
‘Oil.’
Tom wrinkled his forehead again. This time his puzzlement ran deeper. ‘If you need oil, we’ve got plenty in the kitchen.’
The Walrus laughed. ‘Not that sort. The sort you put in your motor-car.’
Tom was about to point out the blindingly obvious, that the village carrier would happily deliver cans of petrol to the door, but the Walrus continued.
‘Not because I need petroleum spirit, but because I want to make some money.’
‘Money?’
The Walrus nodded. ‘Money, young man. I hope to purchase the right to look for oil in Persia. If I find it, I’ll collect it up and bring it in ships back to England. When I get it here, I’ll sell it to anyone with a motor-car – anyone with an engine, in fact.’
Tom’s eyes were as wide as soup bowls. He couldn’t have said why, but he felt he was in the presence of some vastly important truth. He sat down, staring at the maps.
‘In Persia?’ he asked. ‘There’s oil in Persia?’
‘I certainly hope so.’
‘Where in Persia?’
‘Under the ground. Perhaps even one mile down.’
‘Like coal mines?’
‘Yes. A little bit like coal mines.’
‘And money? If you dig up some oil, you can make money?’
‘That’s my intention, young man.’
‘A lot? A lot of money?’
And then the Walrus did something that – just possibly – would change the course of Tom’s life for ever. He hoisted the little lad up onto the desk, then squatted down so their faces were on a level.
‘Young man, do you want to know a secret?’
Tom nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
The Walrus paused a moment. His face was sombre. ‘Oil is the future,’ he said. ‘Oil is the fuel for the new century. Cars will guzzle it. Ships will swallow it. Factories run off it. Whoever can find the oil will be rich. Not simply rich – they’ll be kings of the world.’
That evening, Tom spoke to Sir Adam.
‘Uncle, who is that new man? The friend of yours. Knox somebody.’
‘Knox D’Arcy?’ Sir Adam chuckled. ‘He told me the pair of you had had a chat. Mr D’Arcy is a friend of mine, a businessman.’
‘Does he know a lot about business?’
‘I should say so. He was an ordinary fellow, living out in Australia, when he came across two miners who told him they thought they’d found some gold.’
‘And?’
‘And they had. D’Arcy helped them make a business out of it. A very, very good one. He’s ended up one of the wealthiest men in England. One of the wealthiest men in the entire world.’
Tom’s eyes widened. ‘Uncle, he says that the best way to be rich is to look for oil. Is he right?’
Sir Adam laughed again. ‘If Mr D’Arcy says so, then Mr D’Arcy is almost certainly right.’
4 (#ulink_42d728a4-d592-5c28-ae6c-e462c53ebb10)
Right or wrong, D’Arcy was a betting man. Having accumulated one colossal fortune in gold, he was keen to plunge a vast chunk of it into the search for Persian oil.
But things weren’t that simple.
For one thing, no oil had ever been found in Persia. Or rather: there were numerous traces of it in the geology, but no one had ever sent down a drill and come up with oil. Not in Persia. Not in Mesopotamia. Nowhere in the entire peninsula of Arabia.
And there was a second problem. The kingdom of Persia itself. The country was a poor one, squashed between British India on the one hand, Mother Russia on the other. The two giants jostled for control. Obtaining the right to drill wasn’t simply a matter of commerce. It was a question of politics.
Hence Sir Adam.
Before settling back in England, Sir Adam had been a diplomat, rising to become the British ambassador in Tehran. He knew the Shah. He knew the country’s politics. He’d learned who mattered and who didn’t.
And that was why D’Arcy had come to Sir Adam that New Year’s Day. He had a proposition. The proposition was this: Sir Adam would help D’Arcy win an oil concession, giving D’Arcy the right to drill. In exchange, Sir Adam would earn a generous commission. Sir Adam, delighted with the adventure, agreed at once. He went to Tehran. He negotiated skilfully. He bribed the highest officials with gold, he bribed the lowest officials with paper. He even bribed the eunuch who brought the Shah his morning coffee.
Sir Adam did everything he needed to do.
And on 28 May 1901, he got what he wanted. He won the deal.
5 (#ulink_1ffae9b3-6c77-534a-80d3-bc1eb32cc8dd)
It was two months later. The family was at breakfast. Tom and Alan poked unhappily at their platefuls of porridge.
Then a footman came in with the mail. Normally, the mail would have been taken to Sir Adam’s study to wait for him there, but today Sir Adam was off to town and he couldn’t wait. He read a couple of letters in silence. Tom and Alan fidgeted with their porridge. Guy – who was no longer forced to eat the stuff – made a big show of filling his plate with kippers and scrambled eggs, as a way of annoying Tom. Pamela, who normally breakfasted in bed, came down to take a cup of tea and see her husband off. A little conversation moved in stops and starts. The wind outside creaked a shutter.
Then Sir Adam broke the silence.
‘Hello! Fancy that!’ He flung the letter down. ‘Very handsome of D’Arcy! Very handsome indeed!’
He was begging to be asked the news and Pamela was first to ask it.
‘D’Arcy, dear? What has he … ?’
‘The concession. He’s split off a chunk for us.’ He picked up the letter again. ‘“Delighted with your excellent work … blah, blah … Very happy to make you a small present … Gift … Drilling rights south of a line drawn from Bandar-e Deylam across to Persepolis.” Great heavens!’
But, surprised as Sir Adam might be, his surprise was as nothing compared to Tom’s. Tom was sitting bolt upright, white-lipped, open-eyed.
‘You mean to say we can drill there? By ourselves? We don’t have to ask anyone?’
Sir Adam laughed. ‘Yes, Tom. We have the drilling rights. We don’t have to ask anyone.’
‘Everywhere south of Persepolis? Anywhere we want?’
‘That’s right.’
‘The mountains,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the mountains.’
And he was right. Since his meeting with D’Arcy – and even more so since Sir Adam’s own involvement in Persian oil – Tom had become an oil obsessive and a Persia fanatic. He knew as much about the geography, climate, geology, tribes and politics of Persia as he’d been able to learn from Sir Adam’s library.
‘That’s right. The mountains of the Zagros. The wild country around Shiraz and the Rukna valley. Heavy work to look for oil there, I should think.’
Tom shook his head with an angry little flick. ‘There isn’t much chance of it there. The best places are further north.’
‘Well, you can’t expect the fellow to hand over his crown jewels. After all –’
‘But some.’
‘What?’
‘There is some chance. I didn’t say there wasn’t any chance.’
Sir Adam laughed at the youngster’s intensity. ‘Lord, Tommy! D’Arcy’s pocket is as deep as any, I believe, and I don’t think he’s ready for the expense of drilling there. I shouldn’t think that we –’
‘Can I have it then?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
The silence at the table grew suddenly cavernous. The family of five might as well have been breakfasting alone beneath the dome of St Paul’s.
‘Can I have it? The concession? If you don’t want it.’
Sir Adam smiled. Perhaps he’d been hoping to encourage Tom to drop the directness of his demand. Perhaps he’d been hoping to soothe away the sudden sense of danger that had for some reason arisen. In any case, he smiled.
It was the wrong thing to do. Something flared in Tom’s blue eyes. He pointed at Guy.
‘He gets the house and all the land. Alan gets – I don’t know – money? A farm or something?’
Tom was just about to turn eight and he was piecing together the facts from half-heard servants’ gossip. But he was more right than wrong.
Sir Adam looked stern. ‘Alan will get some money. And yes, there’s a little estate for him outside Marlborough. There’ll be some income from that.’
‘And? What about me? What do I get?’
Sir Adam licked his lips. Tom’s directness often came across as insolence. What was more, it was detestably ill-bred for anyone to talk this bluntly over breakfast – let alone a boy of eight. But, just as he was ready to speak a sharp rebuke, Pamela interrupted.
‘Well?’
She barely whispered the word. She did little more than shape her lips and breathe it. But Sir Adam heard it all right. He exchanged glances with his wife. The issue that Tom had raised was one that the two of them had often enough spoken about in private. Pamela wanted Tom’s share of the estate to be every bit the equal of Alan’s. Sir Adam, on the other hand, knew that his assets weren’t unlimited. Every penny he gave to Tom would have to be cut out of Alan’s or Guy’s inheritance. As he saw it, there was the issue of justice towards his sons. In his heart, he was unable to feel that his adopted son had the same rights as the children of his own flesh and blood.
‘Well?’ said Pamela again. ‘Or are you intending to drill there?’
Tom stared, as though the most important thing in the world had walked into the room and might be lost for ever if his concentration flickered even for a second.
‘Tommy, you wish to be an oilman, do you?’
‘Yes, Uncle.’
‘It’s no easy business.’
‘No, Uncle.’
‘It’s not enough to have a patch of land to drill on, you know. You need money and men and machines and –’
‘I know, Uncle. I know.’
Sir Adam gulped down his tea and stood up. He rumpled Tom’s hair. ‘An oilman, eh?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Well, good for you, Tommy. You’ve a fine piece of land to begin with.’
6 (#ulink_129512d2-7852-585b-8bed-d1b59d1dee9d)
Tom had his concession.
Not legally, of course – the boy was only eight, after all – but his all the same. For the first time in his life, he felt he had something equivalent to what Guy had, to what Alan had, to what Sir Adam had.
And not just equivalent. Better.
Because, young as he was, Tom had understood something from the very start. He couldn’t have put his understanding into words, but he understood it all the same. And he was right.
Because oil isn’t just oil, the way cabbages are only cabbages, or steel is only steel. Oil is more than a liquid. It’s more than another commodity. Oil isn’t precious, the way gold is, because it sparkles nicely and looks pretty on a lady’s neck.
Oil makes the world go round. Even in the opening decade of the twentieth century, its massive power was becoming visible. Cars ran off it. Ships burned it. Factories needed it. On land and sea, the world went oil-crazy. Navies were converted to burn oil. Armies packed their shells full of high explosive made with oil by-products. And every day chemists found new uses for it; speed records were being shattered with it; men dreamed of powered flight with it.
But even that wasn’t the reason why oil mattered.
The reason was this. Man doesn’t make oil; God does. If you’ve got a big enough field and a big enough bank account, you can build yourself an auto factory. Don’t like cars? Then get a bigger field and build yourself an airplane factory. Or start an airline. Build a store. Open a bank.
Oil isn’t like that. Not anyone can start up in the oil business. To start in oil, you’ve got to have some land that sits over an oilfield. No matter how rich you are, if you don’t own the drilling rights, you don’t have squat. And that’s the reason.
Oil isn’t just fuel, though it’s the best fuel in the world.
Oil isn’t just money, though it’s the closest damn thing to money that exists.
Oil is power, because everyone wants it and there’s only so much to go round.
‘Talibus orabat dictis arasque tenebat,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘cum sic orsa loqui vates.’
He walked around the schoolroom at Whitcombe House tapping out the rhythm of the Latin with his hands. Tom and Alan sat with their schoolbooks lying closed in front of them. They would have looked out of the windows, except that the schoolroom windows were pitched deliberately high, revealing nothing except a wide, bare square of sky. Tom yawned.
‘Sate sanguine divum, Tros Anchisiade, facilis descensus Averno,’ continued the schoolmaster. ‘Creeley, translate for me, if you please.’
Tom said nothing. He didn’t move to open his books.
‘Creeley, if you please.’
Silence.
The schoolmaster frowned. ‘Montague, then. Translate for me, if you would.’
Alan too sat like a stone, staring down at his desk. Unlike Tom, who actually enjoyed these moments, Alan found them difficult – difficult, but in this case essential.
‘Am I to understand that neither of you has prepared today’s lesson? Creeley? Montague?’
Then Tom spoke. ‘Please, sir, we would prefer to study Persian.’
Six minutes later, the two boys were standing in front of Sir Adam. A cane lay on the table in front of them. The cane was yellow and knobbled all the way along its length. It wasn’t an implement they’d seen used very much, but that didn’t mean it mightn’t be now. Tom and Alan stared at it unhappily.
‘You won’t learn your Latin?’ said Sir Adam.
Tom shook his head, slightly but definitely.
Alan echoed his twin’s gesture, but added, ‘We don’t mind learning Latin, Father, but we think it would be better to learn something useful as well.’
‘Persian? That’s your idea of useful, is it?’
The two boys exchanged glances. So close was their communication, they hardly had to speak to understand each other. It was a fact of life that the adults of the family needed to get used to. Alan nodded slightly to Tom, as though to confirm some invisible agreement.
‘It’s for the oil, you see,’ said Alan reasonably. ‘We’re going to need to speak the language.’
Sir Adam held his hand over his mouth. The two boys looked back at each other, then at the bamboo cane.
‘If you boys want to learn Persian, I suppose that might be arranged,’ said Sir Adam. ‘What I don’t like is the fact that you didn’t prepare your Latin lesson. That’s no way to win an argument.’
‘Oh, but we did,’ said Alan.
‘You did? That’s not what –’
‘Of course we did, Father,’ Alan interrupted, supplying a quick translation from the morning’s lesson. ‘We only said we didn’t because we didn’t think anyone would take notice of us otherwise.’
Sir Adam frowned. ‘You could have asked. If you had –’
‘I did ask,’ said Tom, interrupting. ‘Twice. Two weeks ago at breakfast. Again last week.’ He spoke with a kind of flat stubbornness; not exactly asking for trouble, but quite ready for it if it came. ‘You kept saying maybe.’
‘Very well, then. Persian it is. I shall give you the first few lessons myself, until I can find a schoolmaster to take over.’
‘Thank you, Father.’
It was Alan who spoke, but with the two boys it hardly mattered which of them said the words: each always spoke for them both.
‘Good. Then it’s back to your Latin. At least, I assume so. Unless you have any other ideas I should know about?’
His tone was sarcastic, but sarcasm has a habit of bouncing off eight-year-olds. The two boys exchanged glances again. This time, it was Tom’s turn to speak.
‘Thank you, Uncle, yes. We think it’s high time we learned some geology.’
Tom’s face looked perfectly innocent, but Sir Adam knew that the look concealed a will of steel. The older man was exasperated, but proud. Proud and fond. He rumpled the two boys’ heads.
‘Geology too, eh, Tommy? Very well then, geology too.’
7 (#ulink_a88544ad-2434-580a-a549-f7fc66a7019b)
For two long years, the drillers drilled.
1902 and 1903 passed away. Knox D’Arcy, by now a family friend, kept Sir Adam closely informed about his progress out in Persia. Sir Adam told Alan and Tom. Conditions were almost intolerable. Heat, dust, insects, equipment failures and disease were turning the search for oil into a nightmare. Costs spiralled wildly upwards. Even a man as rich as D’Arcy began to worry about the impact on his purse.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst was simply this: so far, two years and hundreds of thousands of pounds into the search, no oil had been found.
Tom somehow managed to maintain his enthusiasm, though each new disappointment was like a personal setback. The two boys stuck to their Persian studies, but when Sir Adam suggested that their lessons be reduced from three a week to just one, neither boy objected. Their geological studies continued for a while, then lapsed when their teacher moved abroad. Sir Adam didn’t seek a new teacher. The children didn’t ask that he did.
And then it changed.
One marvellous day, in January 1904, when the two boys were ten years old, a telegram came from Knox D’Arcy in London. ‘GLORIOUS NEWS,’ he cabled, ‘OIL AT LAST.’
Tom went wild.
When he saw the telegram, he let out a yelp of excitement so loud that the dogs were set barking as far away as the stable yard. Together with Alan, he set off on a dance of delight that sent him tearing right through the house, right through the grounds, down to his father’s cottage and then back again. Tom’s joyous energy lasted all that day.
At dinner that night, when Guy happened to admire the new gunroom that Sir Adam had installed, Tom nodded his young head and commented, ‘Yes, Uncle, you’ve done it very well. I shall do it like that in my country house, when I get it.’
8 (#ulink_dae1fc79-61e4-551b-af2c-4fb366f31ae2)
It was Guy who cracked first.
There was something about Tom’s new-found confidence that he couldn’t stand. The enmity that simmered between the two of them crackled and spat with renewed energy. Boiling point arrived one weekend in early February, when the house was full of guests – including the pretty young daughter of an earl, whom eighteen-year-old Guy was sweet on.
‘Fetch my horse, stable boy!’ said Guy, passing Tom in the hallway and casually reaching out to flick his ear.
Tom stopped dead.
‘Your horse?’
‘You heard me, stable boy. I feel like riding today.’
Tom’s face whitened. The seven-year age gap between the two of them had never held Tom back from a physical confrontation when necessary. He looked Guy up and down, from boots to head and back again. His gaze seemed to assess Guy truthfully for the very first time. Then he dropped his gaze. He shrugged and said, ‘If you like. I don’t mind. I’m going that way anyway.’ He sauntered off.
Guy couldn’t quite believe that Tom was going to do as he’d asked, but didn’t mind waiting to see. A group of house guests emerged from the drawing room and Guy strolled with them to the front of the house. Guy, in riding costume, stood and chatted. The earl’s daughter was there and Guy (slightly plump still, but charming and handsome enough to make up) stood swishing his whip and trying to impress her. She laughed a lot and blushed slightly when she caught his eye.
Then Tom arrived.
He had complied with Guy’s request to the letter – or very nearly. He had gone to the stable yard and saddled a mount. He led the animal in question by its bridle to the spot that Guy had indicated.
But it wasn’t Guy’s grey mare he led. It was the donkey Guy had learned to ride on, a dozen years before. Guy’s saddle and stirrups drooped ridiculously low off the donkey’s back. The animal was old now and nodded its head ludicrously as it walked, as though deliberately setting out to provoke laughter. Tom himself walked with the exaggerated dignity of an expensive manservant. He had even, absurdly, found a pair of white gloves from somewhere and an old footman’s cap.
‘Your horse, sir.’
The assembled house guests laughed and clapped at the spectacle. It seemed like a harmless comic turn, deserving its applause. But Tom hadn’t finished. He brought the horse close to Guy and his girl, before addressing the girl in a confidential whisper.
‘Excuse the donkey, ma’am. He learned to ride on one, you know. Poor chap’s just a little bit yellow.’
Guy was white with anger, but with an audience all around him he was forced to act as though he didn’t care. He laughed and clapped with the rest of them, before taking the donkey and heading back with it to the stables. After hanging around to milk the congratulations, Tom hurried off to join him.
‘I’ll kill you for this, you little brat,’ said Guy, without turning round to look.
‘Like you killed my mother, you mean?’ said Tom, who had long ago heard the story of his birth in the various versions that flew around the servants’ hall.
They had arrived at the stable yard. A couple of stable lads sniggered discreetly as they watched. Guy stopped. He flicked his whip at the stables and the big house beyond.
‘None of this is yours, you know. Not now. Not ever. Got that, garden boy?’
For a short while, that had appeared to be that, but Guy hadn’t forgiven, hadn’t forgotten.
Four days later, Guy was alone with Sir Adam in the billiard room. Sir Adam had just had news from Knox D’Arcy. The oil well in Persia was yielding just a hundred and twenty barrels a day, but there was great expectation of enlarging the strike to something far more lucrative. D’Arcy was already hopeful of finding City investors to share the risks and profits.
‘Must have increased the value of our own little bit of concession,’ remarked Guy.
‘Yes, I should suppose it has. I suppose once they’ve discovered even a little bit of oil, it makes it all the more likely that there’s more to be found.’
Guy, who was a decent billiards player, threw the three balls softly on to the table and began to knock them around with a cue. Sir Adam watched the game, but hardly played any more these days and was happy to drink his brandy and watch his son.
‘What will you do with the concession?’ asked Guy. ‘I suppose if you were going to sell, now would be the time.’
Sir Adam looked up in surprise. ‘Why, that’s hardly a fair question! It’s not really mine to sell. Little Tommy absolutely treasures the thing.’
Guy let out a small puff of laughter as he took his shot. The three balls, trapped on the same bit of baize, clattered round and round against each other. Guy straightened again and chalked his cue.
‘Little Tommy might absolutely treasure one of your paintings, Papa, but if it made commercial sense to sell it, then I dare say you would.’
‘I dare say, but the concession belongs to Tommy.’
‘Legally, Father? I’m surprised.’
‘No, no, no. Of course not legally. Morally. I told him he could have it.’
‘Did you? Really? As I recall, you told him it was a fine patch of land. That’s hardly the same thing.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Guy! I meant he could have it. He knew I meant it. The boy’s besotted with the damn thing.’ Sir Adam spoke sharply. Guy was his elder son and heir, but there were times when his behaviour wasn’t all it should have been. There were times when Sir Adam didn’t entirely like his own son.
‘Yes, Father,’ said Guy, ‘but, with respect, you’re missing the point. You gave him the land because you were certain it was worthless. If you had been sure it had been worth something, you wouldn’t have dreamed of conceding it like that.’
Sir Adam frowned, waving his brandy glass as though to brush his son’s point aside.
‘Well? Would you?’ Guy insisted.
‘No, I suppose I wouldn’t. But that’s hardly –’
‘Father, may I be blunt?’
‘It would seem you’re more than capable of it.’
‘The concession is yours. Legally yours. You let an eight-year-old boy dream about managing it because he clearly wanted to dream and you saw no reason why not. But now, against all probability, the concession may actually have a value. Suppose, sir, a syndicate of investors in London were prepared to pay something for the blasted thing. A hundred thousand pounds, let us say. What then? That would dwarf any settlement you’re able to make for Alan. I don’t think of myself in this matter, but it’s hard to avoid noticing that it would look like a very fine thing if your elder son and heir had barely greater expectations than the boy you rescued from the kitchen garden.’ Guy struck the balls savagely round the table. Again and again, the cue ball slammed the red into the pockets. The red disappeared with an abrupt clack of ivory against wood. ‘I think you have been very generous to young Tommy, Father. I’m not sure you’re holding Alan sufficiently in your thoughts.’
9 (#ulink_827b5a95-837d-5997-8fa0-f3107d2078e8)
From that point on, events ran a hideously predictable course.
Sir Adam, unable to put Guy’s comments out of mind, decided to write in confidence to his London stockbroker, asking him – discreetly – to try to gauge whether there was any value in the Persian concession. Sir Adam told Guy that he had done as much. Guy let a few days pass, then told Tom.
Angrier than he’d ever been in his life, Tom flew to Sir Adam.
‘Uncle?’
‘Tommy! Hello there!’
‘What’s this about the concession?’
Sir Adam liked and admired Tom. The boy had pluck, doggedness, flair and passion. But, in moments of fury, he could also be rude, even violently rude. Sir Adam frowned.
‘What’s what?’ Sir Adam’s voice should have sent a warning, but Tom was unstoppable.
‘What are you doing with my concession?’
‘It’s not your concession, Tom. It’s in my name as your guardian.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘What makes you think I’m doing anything at all?’
‘Guy.’
Sir Adam answered slowly, trying to keep his calm. He nodded. ‘At Guy’s suggestion, which was a good one, I am taking steps to discover if the concession has marketable value. It may well do, seeing as D’Arcy seems on the verge of a major discovery in a region not so very far from our own patch.’
‘My patch. My concession.’
Then Sir Adam got angry. Tom’s impertinence was too much.
‘It is not your concession, Tom, nor is anything else for that matter, unless and until I damned well give it to you.’
‘You did give it. You said.’
‘I said it was a fine patch of land and I hoped you’d have fun dreaming about it. The idea that it might come to be yours – might one day come to be yours – arose when I believed the property in question to be without value.’
Tom almost staggered backwards. He crashed back against a mahogany sideboard.
‘You gave it to me because you thought it was worth nothing?’ Tom half laughed to himself. ‘And you’ve taken it back, at Guy’s suggestion?’ He blinked and looked down at the sideboard, where there stood a vase and, next to it, a framed photograph of the family: Sir Adam, Pamela, Guy, Tom, Alan. ‘Thank you, Uncle. I understand.’
He nodded once as though confirming something to himself, then swept his hand along the sideboard, knocking the photo to the floor. Almost by accident, he also caught the vase and toppled that too. The blue and white china shattered with a hollow boom and littered the floor with its wreckage.
Tom stared briefly and unemotionally at the mess, before walking quickly out of the room.
10 (#ulink_f71ca196-c4b9-5ca0-af51-f8e6bdc9cb4a)
Alan paused at the door to the seed shed.
The building was invisible from the big house and the nearest gardeners were over the far side of the kitchen garden. Alan watched them go about their business, until he was sure that none of them was watching. Then he quickly slipped the catch and entered.
The wooden-built shed was about twenty-five feet long by only eight wide, with a line of windows running down the south side. Now, with winter ending, the workbenches were crammed with trays of compost, ready for the March sowing. The shed had a warm smell of earth and wood and growth and sunlight. A couple of mice scuttled away as Alan closed the door. Apart from the mice, there was total silence inside the shed. Once again, Alan checked he hadn’t been seen, then he raised his arms to one of the roof joists and swung himself up.
The roof space was narrow and only two and a half foot high at its highest. Boards lay loosely along the joists. Apart from some cobwebs and some rusty old garden tools, there was nothing up there. Nothing except Tom.
Alan squirmed forwards to join his twin.
‘Hello,’ said Tom.
Alan produced a paper packet containing bread, ham and cheese. ‘I’ve got apples in my pocket,’ he said.
Tom took the gift in silence. His eye asked a question of Alan and, without needing any further explanation, Alan answered it.
‘There’s an awful fuss,’ he said. ‘They’re looking for you everywhere. Everyone’s sure you’ve gone to your dad’s house. He’s saying not, of course, but I made them think so by pretending to try to get in there when I thought no one was watching. Only they were. I made sure.’
Tom nodded. Alan had done well. It hadn’t needed any secret signal to let Alan know his whereabouts. The two boys had maybe half a dozen favourite hiding places round the house and grounds. Alan had, by instinct, come first to the one where his twin lay hidden.
‘I won’t, you know,’ said Tom. ‘Not until …’
‘Yes, but he’s in an awful stew.’
The two boys’ conversation was always like this: all but incomprehensible to an outsider. Tom meant that he wouldn’t return to Whitcombe House until Sir Adam made the concession over to him properly and for good. Alan doubted that that would happen.
Tom looked at the other and grimaced. ‘I’ll be stuck here for ever then.’
They both laughed.
‘And what about the Donkey?’ Tom made a braying noise and pretended to jump on Alan. They laughed a second time, but Alan was uncomfortable as he answered.
‘Guy got a terrific dressing-down. Father said he’d been told in confidence. Guy said he thought you already knew. I don’t know if Father believed him.’
‘He always does.’
‘Probably.’
They slipped into silence for a while.
‘What’ll you do?’ asked Alan eventually.
‘Oh, I s’pose I’ll stay here for a day or two.’ Tom waved his hand airily round the tiny loft, as though it were an apartment he often rented for the summer.
‘Then what?’
‘It is my concession, you know.’ Tom rolled onto his elbow and looked directly at his twin.
Alan nodded.
‘But it is.’
‘I know. I said yes, didn’t I?’
‘No.’
‘I nodded. That’s the same.’
‘’Tisn’t.’
‘’Tis.’
‘Then say it. Go on then. Say it’s mine.’
‘Look, Father probably will give it in the end. It’s just Guy got him into a stew about it.’
‘There! See? You said he’ll give it in the end. He can’t do that, he’s already given it.’
‘Not with the legal bit as well,’ objected Alan. ‘I meant with the legal bit. I mean, I know it’s yours.’
Tom stared hard at the other, little spots of red appearing high on his cheeks. Then he rolled away, staring out of the tiny cobwebbed pane of glass that was his only window.
‘Then I s’pose I’ll have to go to Dad’s place. I’m old enough now.’
Tom didn’t spell out what he meant, but he didn’t have to. Alan understood. Tom meant that he’d go and live permanently with his father, away from Whitcombe House, away from Alan. The only thing that would stop him would be if Sir Adam backed down and made definite and permanent his gift of the concession.
Alan swallowed. He pretended to be calm, and began poking at the cobwebs with a bit of twig, while kicking his feet against the low roof just above. But he wasn’t calm. Tom was threatening to leave. Tom was implying that a quarrel over property was more important than the two boys’ friendship. He scooped up a bit of cobweb that had an insect caught in it: trapped and dying.
‘Look.’
‘So?’
Alan shrugged and scraped the insect off.
‘You know that vase?’
‘Yes.’
‘Apparently it was worth tons of money. About a thousand guineas, I should think. It didn’t help.’
‘So what? He shouldn’t have –’
‘You could say sorry.’
‘What!?’
‘Just to get him to calm down a bit. I only mean to make him calm down.’
‘You think I ought to say sorry?’
‘Look, he’s probably not going to sell the concession. He probably knows it’s yours really.’
‘Probably? D’you think you’re probably going to get your stupid farm or whatever? Do you think the Donkey is probably going to get everything else?’ Tom’s blood-spots had vanished now, leaving his face pale, and there was extraordinary intensity in his long-lashed blue eyes. As Tom looked at things, every time he challenged Alan to take sides, Alan tried to be nice but ended up taking his family’s cause. Even now, this late in the conversation, Alan hadn’t even said directly that the concession was Tom’s.
‘Anyway,’ cried Alan, ‘what does it matter? If I get the stupid old farm, then you can have half of it. You don’t think I wouldn’t share? Who cares about the stupid concession?’
It was a disastrous thing to say.
Tom stared for a full ten seconds at his twin, then looked away. He put the paper packet of food in his pocket, wriggled backwards to the gap in the boards, then swung the lower half of his body down. With his head still poking through into the roof space, he said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to my dad’s now. I don’t care if they see me. They can’t stop me, can they? Bye.’
And he was gone.
Away from the seed shed, away from the big house, away from the family that had brought him up.
11 (#ulink_29f8503c-a5ea-5c7a-a75e-7e10349c1033)
For twenty-four hours: stand-off.
In Tom’s eyes, Alan had said the worst thing he could have possibly said. ‘Who cares about the stupid concession?’ As far as Tom was concerned, Alan might as well have said, ‘Who cares if you’re a proper part of the Montague family or not?’
At the same time, as far as Alan was concerned, Tom had also committed the worst crime imaginable. As Alan saw it, Tom had placed a trivial argument about money and land over the best thing in the entire world: their friendship, their twinhood.
And so the quarrel persisted. Tom stayed at his father’s cottage. Alan stayed in the big house. For the first time since they’d been able to talk, they spent an entire day without speaking to each other. For the first time since they’d been able to walk, they spent an entire day without each other’s company.
On the evening of the following day, Alan slipped away early to bed.
To bed, but not to sleep. He opened his bedroom window, climbed quickly across the kitchen roofs, slid down a drainpipe and ran across the lawns and fields to Jack Creeley’s cottage. Once there, he tossed a pebble up at Tom’s window, saw it open, then scrambled quickly up the branching wisteria and tumbled in over the sill.
The room was lit by a single paraffin-wax candle. Tom was sitting on the bed with a boy’s magazine open in front of him. He nodded hello. Alan grinned back: the smile of a would-be peacemaker.
‘Well?’ said Tom.
Alan was momentarily confused. He didn’t know what Tom meant by his ‘Well?’ and he was taken aback by the loss of their normal invisible communication.
‘What do you mean?’ he said stupidly. ‘Well, what?’
‘You know. I mean I s’pose you’ve come to say sorry.’
‘What?!’
‘You heard.’
Alan was temporarily blank with astonishment. He knew perfectly well how remorseless his twin could be: remorseless and even cruel. But he’d never expected to feel the edge of it himself. Alan’s head jerked back.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘As a matter of fact, I came to see if you were sorry yet. Obviously not.’
Alan was still sitting on the ledge of the window and he swung his legs out of it again onto the wisteria branch. But he didn’t drop away out of sight. He hung there, half in, half out of the room, waiting for Tom to say something that would let him come back in. But he was disappointed.
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Obviously not.’
Alan shrugged. The shrug was meant to be a defiant, couldn’t-care-less affair, but the candle’s light was enough to show that his mouth and eyes obviously cared very much indeed.
‘Well then,’ said Alan, still hanging in the window.
‘Well then.’
The two boys stared at each other a few seconds longer. Eventually Tom looked away, back at his magazine. Alan found a lower hold for his feet, wriggled once, then dropped away out of sight.
Alan went straight home, but not to bed.
He climbed up onto the kitchen roof and lay there on his back, looking up at the starlight overhead. He was angry with Tom. As angry as he’d ever been. The two boys quarrelled often enough, but always made up quickly. When they fought, as they often did, their rules were simple.
Never submit.
Never give up.
While Tom was a little stronger, Alan had a longer reach. While Tom could be surprisingly fierce, Alan’s pride and determination always kept him in the fight to the very end. And then, when the fight was over, it was over. The two boys were the best of friends. They could be at each other’s throats one minute and walk away, calmly chatting, the next.
But this was different and Alan knew it. For two and a half hours, he lay on his back watching the stars wheel and turn. He went over everything in his mind. On the one hand, there was Tom’s temper and recklessness, and his stubborn refusal to compromise. On the other hand, there was Guy’s unkindness and Sir Adam’s unfairness. By the end of his long vigil, he’d made up his mind. It was he, Alan, who was going to have to do the impossible. It was he who was going to have to make things right.
Having made up his mind, he went to bed.
In the morning, after breakfast he spoke to Sir Adam.
‘Father, I want to ask you something.’
‘Yes?’
‘I think you should give Tom the concession. Properly. You did give it to him before, you know. I know you didn’t exactly say so, but everyone knew what you meant.’
Sir Adam sighed and bent down so that his face was on a level with his son’s.
‘But see here, Alan,’ Sir Adam said, ‘just suppose the thing turns out to be worth a fortune. It could be worth as much as Whitcombe House and all its land. It’s not that I don’t think that Tommy’s worth that. Of course he is. But there’s you and Guy to consider. How would you feel if Tommy was as rich as Mr D’Arcy and you were stuck with your very little patch in Marlborough?’
‘I shouldn’t care.’
‘Not now, maybe, but perhaps you would. These things do matter more as you grow, you know.’
‘Then give it to us.’ It was an idea of genius – the idea that had come to him last night on the tiles of the kitchen roof.
‘What?’
‘If that’s what you’re so worried about, then give the concession to me and Tom. Both of us. Only then you have to share the Marlborough place between us too. Then we’d be exactly the same, whatever happens.’
‘But …’
Sir Adam swallowed his protests. In the much more likely event that the concession was worthless, he’d be halving the property he’d set aside for his own blood-son. But, however much he felt this, he knew better than to argue the point with a passionate Alan.
‘Because we are the same, aren’t we, Father? Exactly the same.’
Of course you are, only –’
‘Well, there you go. Simple! Can I go and tell him now?’
‘It isn’t that simple. Your mother and I –’
‘Oh, don’t worry about her. I’ll go and talk to her.’
Alan ran off to his mother and argued the case with her. Although she said little, Alan quite correctly sensed that she was on his side.
‘I’ll talk it over with your papa,’ she promised.
She was as good as her word. That morning she spent an hour or two in patient argument with her husband. Sir Adam’s sticking point remained the likelihood that he’d be disinheriting Alan. Sir Adam was prosperous enough, but he certainly wasn’t vastly well off. Alan’s portion was never going to have been large and Sir Adam was anxious not to cut it in half. But Pamela was determined. She had some money of her own that had lain dormant with a City bank for many years. When she looked again at how much she had, it was much more than she’d believed. She insisted on adding her own money to Alan’s portion, but on condition that Sir Adam did as his son wanted.
And in the end he agreed.
By the end of that day, when lessons were finished, Sir Adam called Alan into his library.
‘Well, my boy, I’ve news for you.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve made certain arrangements, the upshot of which is that you and Tommy can share the farm and share the concession. Because of your mother’s generosity, there may even be a little money to go along with it as well.’
Alan stood open-mouthed, hardly daring to believe that he’d won. ‘Really, Father?’
‘Really.’
‘With all the legals and everything?’
Sir Adam smiled. ‘You’re ten and a half, my boy. So is Tommy. There’ll be time enough for the legal side when you’re of age. But if you mean, is my decision final, then yes it is.’
Alan breathed out a sigh of relief. It seemed an eternity since Tom had gone.
‘Thank you!’
‘Now, it’s up to you, young man, but there may be somebody you want to go and tell about this.’
Though it was still only spring, Sir Adam’s window was set half open. Alan paused an instant longer, as though to check that what he’d heard was real, not an illusion. Then he moved. He ran across the room, jumped through the open window, and went streaking across the lawns to find his twin.
He wasn’t disappointed.
Tom wasn’t simply pleased, he was ecstatic. And (from Alan’s point of view) what mattered most was that although Tom was delighted to have won his concession, his joy over the reunion with Alan was greater still. The twins were together again – stronger after the break, it appeared, than before it. With joint ownership of the concession, they became oil fanatics together. Oil was their obsession, the sign of what united them as twins. Whitcombe House welcomed Tom back.
Life resumed its normal course, only better.
That should have been it. Argument over. Done and dusted. Forgotten and forgiven.
And so it was. Almost. But when emotions run so high and for so long, they leave their mark.
Alan had learned a lesson – an almost unconscious one, perhaps, but one so deeply etched that he never forgot it. When Tom’s passions were aroused, he could be dangerous, irresponsible, uncompromising.
And Tom too had learned his lesson. When the chips were down, Alan had proved unreliable. Given the choice between Tom and family, Alan was a compromiser, an evader, an ally of divided loyalties.
The lessons had been learned and would never be forgotten.
And the oil?
Knox D’Arcy’s glorious news looked feebler and less glorious by the week. By the end of May, and despite all the efforts of the drilling team in Persia, the flow of oil dwindled and died. D’Arcy’s expenses continued to mount. The chances of finding oil anywhere – let alone in the twins’ stony stretch of mountains – seemed ever more remote. D’Arcy searched for new investors to share the strain.
It seemed that he had gambled vastly and lost utterly.
The two boys continued to learn their Persian and their geology. They continued to follow D’Arcy’s fortunes at the new drilling site of Masjid-i-Suleiman. Their fascination with the business continued unabated. In fact, if anything, with the oil concession now fairly and squarely shared between the two of them, their determination to explore for oil together was stronger than ever before. But, aged only ten, they’d already learned the most important lesson the oil business had to teach.
You could drill hard. You could drill well. You could drill in a place where oil was literally seeping from the ground.
And you could still fail.
Lose money.
Go broke.
PART TWO (#ulink_1a64c1d9-698e-5b27-963e-85ac9cea5297)
Do you know, brother, that you are a prince?
A son of Adam?
Jalal al-din Rumi (1207–1273)
12 (#ulink_29a1b89b-85b5-5977-9912-6cf1333d1a22)
It’s late June 1914.
The summer is a warm one, golden even. The international scene is peaceful. The tensions that have bubbled away in Europe for the last dozen or more years are certainly no worse than they have been and quite probably a good deal better.
Seven British warships have joined the German Imperial High Seas fleet for the Elbe Regatta: a week of racing, dancing, music and fireworks. When finally the British fleet steams away, the British admiral signals to his hosts: ‘Friends in the past and friends for ever.’
In Serbia, an archduke has been killed by an anarchist, but who cares? Serbia is Serbia, and in that part of the world, archdukes are two a penny.
Alan and Tom are grown men now, twenty-one years of age. Their future lies ahead of them, a sparkling ocean on which anything could happen.
Alan has grown into a tall man, pale blond hair, eyes of pale blue, eyebrows so fair you can hardly see them. He has his father’s lean hawkishness, though softened by hints of his mother: her smile, her appearance of mild worry.
Alan is at Oxford, finishing his final examinations. The exams have been gruelling and exhausting, but they’ll soon be over. His degree will be in Natural Science, a subject he has little time for, except that it allows him to specialise in his chosen field of geology.
Because D’Arcy’s adventures in oil hadn’t ended. He’d found his investors, he’d continued to drill. And in 1907, six years from first beginning, he struck oil.
Oil on a huge scale. No trickle this time, but a gush so vast that one of the world’s great companies was in the process of being built upon it. The company, now named Anglo-Persian, has a use for resourceful young geologists, and, as soon as September comes around, Alan will start work on the Persian-Mesopotamian border, scouting for oil. But that’s September. In between now and then, he has two clear months for riding, shooting and fishing in the country, and for balls and parties in London.
Tom, too, is doing well.
He’s shorter than Alan, but stronger, broad in the shoulder, glossy dark hair with a hint of curl. His face is almost picture-book handsome: wide, strong and with a dazzling smile that comes quickly and fades slowly. Unlike Alan, Tom is already highly experienced with the girls. It seems he’s never without them. Alan laughs about it, but also finds it embarrassing. Where Tom is a veteran, Alan is wholly inexperienced.
And there’s another way in which Tom is running ahead of Alan: in business.
Once his schooling was over, Tom rejected a possible scholarship to Oxford and instead won a position with the American giant, Standard Oil, in their London office. He’s doing well. Talented and energetic, he’s already building a name for himself as one of the most able young men in the company. Though Tom works hard, he joins up with Alan every weekend and they spend their time together either dancing and socialising in London, or riding and shooting in the country.
And Guy?
These days, Guy seems altogether less significant. The enmities of childhood appear to have faded. If the old hatreds haven’t exactly disappeared, they don’t make a lot of difference now. Tom is in London. Guy seems to be anywhere but. Guy is a soldier, a major, with a particular aptitude for staff work. Tom and Guy don’t see much of each other, aren’t likely to see each other much in the future. When their paths do cross, they are coldly polite.
But, meantime, summer 1914 is a golden one.
It’s one to be enjoyed, a time when the best thing in the world to be is a young Englishman with the future a sparkling ocean at his feet. Tom and Alan hardly feel the need to signal anything to each other, but if they did, they’d send the same signal as the British admiral in Kiel. ‘Friends in the past and friends for ever.’
The trouble with archdukes is that if you have one and you lose one, you can’t just say to hell with it, we’ll get another. So Austria, who happened to own the archduke in question, sent an ultimatum to Serbia, who stood accused of supporting the anarchists. Roughly speaking, the ultimatum said, ‘We’re very upset about our archduke and we’d like you to do some serious grovelling.’
So Serbia grovelled.
Serbia was little and Austria-Hungary was big, not to mention the fact that the Austrians and the Germans were best of friends and the Germans were well known to fancy a spot of military adventure. So Serbia grovelled. Profusely. Unreservedly. Embarrassingly.
But, unfortunately, if you fancy a spot of military adventure – if you’re all geared up for it, looking forward to it, been promising Auntie Helga a postcard from Belgrade – then a conciliatory reply isn’t necessarily enough to hold you back. So Austria declared war.
Now the trouble with starting wars is that your neighbours are apt to get a little nervous. Russia sat right next to strong Austria and mighty Germany, and it seemed that there was about to be a war on her doorstep. This made Russia a little twitchy, so she mobilised her troops, all six million of them.
Whoops! Here was Austria-Hungary hoping for a nice little war in its back garden, when all of a sudden the biggest country in Europe has mobilised its massive population and placed it on a war footing. Germany called on Russia to demobilise, but, as the Russians looked at it, that was a bit like the fox inviting the chicken to come out of the roost. Russia told the Germans to get lost, and Germany too got ready for war.
Now the trouble with Germany mobilising its army is that the French feel kind of twitchy. The French are a generous race with a well-deserved reputation for hospitality, but when you’ve had a few thousand uninvited guests marching through your capital city only a few decades before, you can be excused for getting nervous. What’s more, France had an alliance with Russia, and the Germans and Russians weren’t looking too friendly these days. Germany asked France to abandon her alliance with Russia, but France said no.
The way Germany saw things, if war was coming then it made a whole lot of sense to stay one step ahead of the game. And, say what you like about the Germans, when they set out to do a thing, by golly they do it thoroughly.
Looking back on it, neither Tom nor Alan nor anybody else could have explained why one more assassination in the assassination capital of the world should have triggered the largest armed conflict in world history. But, explicable or not, that’s precisely what happened.
Needing a quick victory in the west to ensure decisive gains in the east, Germany sent its troops into Belgium, destination Paris. The British – deeply reluctant to go to war, but equally reluctant to hand Europe over to the Germans – asked Germany kindly to leave Belgium alone. The Germans said no, and Britain too was at war.
13 (#ulink_9ca3bfa2-1a6c-518f-9174-a1526ab20d98)
May 1915.
The night sky rumbled with a general low thunder and the horizon sparkled with the flashes of shells bursting miles away to the north. The largest French farmhouse seemed to have given up the notion of farming anything and had turned itself into a kind of hotel instead. In the spacious kitchen, three or four wooden trestle tables were crowded with soldiers, each paying half a franc for a vast plateful of fried potatoes together with a scrap of bacon and a glass of watery beer.
Alan and Tom, only just arrived in France, blinked at the light and the noise, and stretched their legs, cramped after a two-day journey by boat, train and cart. They weren’t left alone for long. A pale-faced man – a corporal, from his uniform – came running up to them.
‘Mr Creeley, sir? Mr Montague?’
The twins nodded. They had signed up shortly after the outbreak of war. After months of training in England, and still longer months of sitting around in a gloomy transit camp outside Manchester, they had finally arrived in France. They were second lieutenants and would each command a platoon of soldiers as new to the game as they were. The two men were uncertain of their soldiering skills, sobered by the strangeness of the fiery horizon.
‘Company Commander wants to see you, sirs,’ said the NCO. ‘Wants to know why you didn’t arrive yesterday. We move up to the line tomorrow morning.’
The NCO ushered the two men into what had obviously once been the farmhouse’s creamery – idle now that there were no cows to make the milk. An oil lamp hung from a hook in the beamed ceiling and a uniformed major was bent over some papers, booted feet across a map-covered chest, drinking coffee. He looked up.
‘Filthy stuff, French coffee. D’you have any? English, I mean?’
The newcomers shook their heads. ‘Bacon, sir,’ said Alan. ‘And marmalade.’
‘Uh.’ The major grunted. ‘Coffee. Best thing to bring.’ He put down his paperwork with relief and stood up. He was surprisingly tall, and had muscular in-swinging arms that made him look a little monkey-like: strong and potentially dangerous. He stretched out a hand. ‘Wallace Fletcher.’ They shook hands. ‘Take a pew.’ The pew in question was a couple of planks over a collection of milk churns. ‘Why the hell weren’t you here yesterday?’
Alan began to explain, but Fletcher shut him up. ‘Military organisation. Contradiction in terms. Wonder is you’re here at all. We go up into the line tomorrow, relieve C Company.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Mr Creeley?’
Tom nodded. ‘Sir.’
Fletcher screwed up his face, appeared to assess his new subordinate, and made a grunt of reluctant approval. Then he looked at Alan.
‘Then you must be Montague, eh?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t have a brother do you? A major? One of our dear friends and brothers on the General Staff?’
Alan said he did.
‘Hmm!’ This time Fletcher’s grunt was disapproving. He picked up one of the sheets of paper from the stack in front of him and read out loud. ‘“It has come to our notice that in a number of companies the daily practice of rifle cleaning is not being correctly attended to … All company commanders … blah blah … regulation procedure … blah blah … inspections … blah blah. Please submit a report detailing … blah blah blah blah blah.”’ Fletcher dropped the paper with disgust. ‘Signed Major Guy Montague.’
There was a long moment’s silence. Alan was plainly uncomfortable. Tom, on the other hand, enjoyed the moment – or at least he did until it dawned on him that Guy was in France. He wasn’t precisely in command of Tom, but he was out here, in a position of authority, obliged to interfere. Once again, Guy’s shadow had come to fall over his life. Tom felt a surge of anger at the thought.
‘Want to know what the bloody trouble is?’ said Fletcher, at last.
‘Sir?’ said Alan.
‘My men keep firing their bloody rifles.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Makes ’em dirty. The rifles obviously, not the men. Men couldn’t get much dirtier.’
‘No.’
There was a pause. Then Alan began to defend his brother. ‘I believe my brother has no desire to –’
He would have continued, but Fletcher interrupted. ‘Oh, doesn’t matter. It’s all balls. I just tell ’em what they want to hear. Shiniest rifles in France. Cleaning drills five times daily. That sort of thing.’ He sat down, put his feet back on the chest, and started his second cup of the coffee that he so detested. ‘You’re new boys, I take it?’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Alan.
‘You’re not going to be too bloody useless, I hope?’
Alan’s eyes jerked in surprise at the question and the tone, but before he could find an answer, Fletcher interrupted again.
‘Don’t worry. Training’s a waste of time. The only soldiers in the battalion are me, the CO, the adjutant, two youngsters from Sandhurst, and a sergeant-major who thinks the whole New Army idea’s a bloody joke. Here’s all the training you need. If you see Fritz, kill him. Keep your own bloody head from being shot off. Keep your men out of trouble. And let the CO go on thinking he’s Lord God Almighty. Got it?’
There was a silence.
‘And the coffee,’ said Tom.
‘Damn right. And mind the bloody coffee.’
14 (#ulink_fdbd8b08-3188-5b96-90d6-5bdd379ffc9d)
Their introduction to the front line came all too soon.
‘Chalk. Lucky sods. Cushy first posting.’ Major Fletcher jabbed the bank at shoulder height and released a shower of white soil into the trench floor. ‘Dry as a stallion’s tit, even when it rains. You should see the bloody clay pits we lived in over winter. Two feet above the water line, three feet below. And Fritz taking a pop at you every time you tried to build the parapet an inch or two higher. Only buggers who enjoyed it were the rats.’
Alan kept silent. He and Tom were both shocked. They were shocked at the mud, the vermin, the maze of trenches, the danger that lurked in every gun slit, every weakness in the fortifications, every whistle of passing shells.
A little way beyond the dugout, lodged in the wire eighteen inches off the ground, there was a severed head. According to the British Tommies who had taken over this stretch of line, the head had once belonged to a French soldier killed by a shell blast. It would have been easy to release the object one night and dispose of it, but it had come to take on a kind of superstitious importance amongst the troops. The skull was known as Private Headley, and was treated as a regular member of the battalion. Food was tossed out to it, drinks thrown at it, even lighted cigarettes hurled as a kind of good luck offering.
‘And here’s your digs,’ said Fletcher, introducing Alan and Tom to their dugout. ‘You’ll want to get some more earth on that bloody roof of yours. It’s not going to stop a direct ’un, not built like it is at the moment. Any food, hang it up. If it’s on the floor, Brother Rat will have it and that’s against regulations. Corpses for them, food for us. Got that? Good men.’
Fletcher went, leaving the two young men alone in their new home. Tom looked at Alan. Alan looked at Tom.
Tom cracked a smile. ‘Well, brother, here we are.’
Alan nodded. ‘Yes. Here we are.’
They sat down on their beds, running their hands over the rough wooden walls, feeling the weight of earth above their heads. They remembered Fletcher’s comment that a direct hit would kill them both. They thought about the summer before and how impossible it seemed that that life would ever return.
But there was something else in the atmosphere as well. Something positive. The shocking reality of their new home made them feel more strongly than ever the bond between them. They had arrived on the front line, only a few dozen yards distant from an enemy that wanted to kill them. Their task was to do the same to the enemy. But they were brothers. More than brothers, they were twins. It seemed like no power on earth could break them apart.
The two men sat on their beds, stared at each other, and began, for no reason at all, to laugh and laugh and laugh.
15 (#ulink_93934d3e-ca62-57b6-8836-5501931d0a11)
It was nine weeks later.
Tom and Alan were novices no longer. They knew how to protect their men, how to harass the enemy, how to lead a patrol out in the dangerous silence of no man’s land. They had experienced rats, discomfort, shelling, gunfire, and the loss of men they knew. But one thing was still unknown to them. They hadn’t faced serious action and all that does to a man. Not yet.
But that was about to change.
Tom drew back the sacking that curtained the men’s dugout. The smell of unwashed bodies and burnt cork raced out, followed by the quieter odours of kerosene and tobacco smoke. Half the men already had their faces blackened, the other half were fighting over a single shaving mirror or letting their mates do it for them. One man had his face marked with love-hearts and messages to his girlfriend. Another had his face covered with obscenities.
‘Widdecombe,’ snapped Tom, ‘get this man’s face properly blacked. And you, Tinsey, get away from that chalk unless you want to make Fritz think you’re a blasted ghost.’
The men fell quickly into order, under Tom’s eye. He counted them. There were eight.
‘Corporal, how many men d’you make it?’
‘Eight, sir.’
‘Where the hell is the last man?’
‘Last man, sir? Eight’s what Major Fletcher –’
‘Private Headley? Where is he?’
The dugout filled with laughter at Tom’s joke, but he wasn’t done yet.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he added. ‘As a matter of fact, I believe I told him to go on a-head.’
Shrieks and howls of laughter followed this witticism, which was already being repeated to the dullards of the platoon. Tom’s rapport with his men had been more or less instant from the start, and though they were thoroughly nervous now, they were high-spirited as well.
And yet, for all his joking, Tom was acutely worried, not for himself but for Alan. Earlier that day, at company mess, Fletcher had asked for volunteers.
‘We need a chap to lead a recce party. Purpose of the recce is to find the gaps in the bloody wire – assuming there are any bloody gaps, that is – then come home. On the way back you’ll drop a trail of lime for the other lads to follow later on. If you can avoid making a bloody hullabaloo while you’re at it, we would appreciate it. The raiders will follow the trail, skip lightly through the holes in the wire, and give Fritz a faceful of bayonet before he’s woken up. Got it? Who’s game?’
Alan and Tom were, of course, both game.
‘New boys, can’t wait to get at it, eh?’
Neither man answered.
‘Anything to get Colonel Jimmy his DSO, what? Jolly good. That’s what we all want.’ Colonel James ‘Jimmy’ McIntosh was the battalion commander – and a man who, according to rumour, was desperate for a medal. There were faint smiles around the table as Fletcher continued. ‘Montague, you take charge of the recce. I’m in command of the raid. Creeley, you’ll be my second. Any problems, you take over. All clear?’
It had been perfectly clear. Both men nodded, grave and subdued at the thought of what was coming.
Then Fletcher had paused, his expression torn between the desire to say something and the feeling that he shouldn’t. The mess waited breathlessly for the outcome.
‘Hmm – Montague – I don’t suppose your brother Guy will be out hunting Fritz tonight – might find the shock was too much for him, eh? Face some bullets, for a change – any case, better things to do, I expect – the King’s rifles to keep clean – don’t mean that – does a good job, I’m sure – anyway, that’s what I mean, he’ll be proud of you, what? First mission and all that.’
Fletcher stumbled to a close. Everyone listened in astonishment. Fletcher had come very close to insulting Guy, almost accusing him of shirking danger. Of course, it was common enough for soldiers in the field to complain about those stuck away behind the lines, but Guy was Alan’s brother and Fletcher’s comments had gone beyond acceptable barrack-room humour.
Alan could see Tom’s smile grow wider and wider, and it was with a frosty voice that he said, ‘Thank you, sir. Yes, I hope he will be proud.’
‘Yes, yes, quite, quite,’ said Fletcher, quickly moving away from dangerous territory. His attention fastened with relief on a pair of rats copulating on his own private store of marmalade. ‘Rat ahoy!’ he cried, drawing his revolver. ‘On three, please, gentlemen. One … two … three.’ He led the others in a volley of gunfire, which left both rats dead in a glue of marmalade. ‘No lovemaking in company mess. Leave that sort of thing to the Frenchies.’
That had been eight hours ago.
Alan, having been chosen to go out first, would be the first to know real mortal danger. Tom would follow only after Alan was home.
Tom’s body hummed with a double nervousness. Once for himself and the danger he was about to face. A second time for Alan and the danger he was in right now.
Alan’s job was find gaps in the wire. Would there be any? Tom doubted it. Alan had strict instructions not to spend time cutting the wire, but Tom knew Alan. His twin would never let a troop of soldiers march up to an obstacle they couldn’t cross. Tom guessed that, even now, Alan would be on his belly, wirecutters raised, snip-snip-snipping at the deadly coils. A single noise or glimmer of moonlight could give away his position and his life.
Tom smoked cigarette after cigarette, extinguishing each one against the silvery sandbags in the parapet. The glowing tobacco charred its way through the sackcloth and released a tiny hiss of falling soil. ‘For God’s sake, look after yourself, brother. For God’s sake.’
A voice behind him made him jump.
‘What’s that? Eh?’ It was Fletcher.
‘Nothing, sir. Wondering where Montague is.’
Fletcher harrumphed. ‘Your men are ready?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then we leave in fifteen minutes. Tell your men.’
‘And Montague, sir?’
Fletcher shrugged, sinister in the moonlight. ‘Montague, Mr Creeley, will have to take his chances.’
16 (#ulink_1c4d11b4-51ba-51e0-9155-18edd8a19dfb)
The minutes passed.
Still no sign of Alan.
The fifteen minutes were up. Fletcher signalled that it was time to go.
One by one, they ascended the stumpy little ladder into no man’s land. Away from the claustrophobic tunnels and parapets of the trenches, the world seemed suddenly vast and shelterless. Ahead of him, Tom could see Fletcher’s ape-like figure and the dark shapes of his men. Tom, in charge of the second detachment, counted off thirty seconds then headed off in slow pursuit. Nowhere was there any sound louder than the muffled impact of boots on earth, the scrape of rifle butts along the ground. A couple of minutes went by, each one as long as a century.
Then something peculiar.
The soil under Tom’s hands began suddenly to glow white. He stopped for a second in astonishment. It was lime, shining in the moonlight. But if it was lime, then …
Alan bounded forwards out of the darkness, grinning. Tom suddenly realised how desperately worried he had been. It was all very well being twins – it was a friendship other people could never hope to match – but there was a downside too, which was simply this: Tom had more to lose.
He embraced Alan. ‘Look after yourself, brother. Whatever happens, look after yourself.’
Alan returned the embrace then pulled away. ‘I did. Now it’s your turn.’
Tom looked up. He had already delayed longer than he should. He crept off again along the trail of lime with his men, while Alan returned to British lines and safety.
The raiding party moved slowly onward. For a minute or two things continued to go well. The raiders were silent, invisible, undetected.
Then it happened.
Somewhere ahead of Tom, in Fletcher’s party, one of the Tommies slipped on the side of a shell crater and went slithering down to its muddy bottom. Though he swore, he swore quietly, but his equipment broke from his pack and rolled clanking down the short slope.
The noise rang out like a siren.
For a moment, Tom held his breath. He could feel everyone behind and ahead of him doing the same. The night air remained quiet.
Then a gun opened fire, a rifle, sounding repeatedly. Whether the rifleman was German or British was never quite clear, but it took just seconds for the German lines to light up with fire. Tom felt the sudden, shocking horror of finding himself under attack. For an instant, he felt dull, stupid, incapable of action.
He looked around. Over to his right, he saw a shellhole, deep and – for the moment – safe.
‘Get into the shellhole now,’ he screamed, using all his lung power to bend his soldiers to his will. The force of his voice shocked them into compliance.
The men piled into safety. Tom counted them in, then followed.
The German fire intensified. A rising flare lit up the night sky. With the utmost caution, Tom raised his head to look out. First he saw nothing. Then, lifting himself still further, he caught a glimpse of Fletcher’s crowd, shockingly far off, in a crater much closer to German lines, and witheringly exposed. The light of the flare faltered and died. Tom lowered his head, just as bullets began to spatter into the earth above and around him.
He looked at his men, who were sitting safe but terrified in the bottom of their crater. He began to speak, but the men were still distracted and shocked. One of them – Tinsey – was nodding his head and rhythmically chanting: ‘Stupid, fucking, German, bloody –’
Tom struck Tinsey hard on the arm. Tinsey stopped. The other men looked wildly at Tom.
‘Now listen, all of you. You men are to get back to shelter, as quickly and safely as you can.’ Another burst of fire interrupted his words. Tom was sprayed with earth and he assumed everyone else was too. ‘You will leave in pairs and move when I say the word, not before. You will run like hell. If you find any man wounded or hurt, you will not stop. You will just run.’ One of the men was struggling with a big clumsy satchel of hand-hurled Mills bombs. ‘Denning, leave that. Leave it! Just put it down, man. All you others, are you completely clear about what to do?’
They were clear. Detaching the men in pairs, Tom sent them running for safety. The shellhole emptied. Tom was alone.
Particles of chalk moved grittily beneath his tongue: soil put there by a German bullet. Anger lit a fuse in him.
‘You stupid bastards,’ he screamed. He screamed it at everyone. The Germans, Wallace Fletcher, Colonel Jimmy, the good-natured riflemen of his battalion. He was screaming at High Command, whose war this was. He was screaming at Guy, who’d never been under fire and probably never would be.
The shooting was still intense, but it was concentrated on the party further ahead, pinning them down, leaving them unable to move. They’d be finished off by mortar fire, come the morning. Shifting position, Tom noticed his foot knocking against young Denning’s bag of Mills bombs.
His tide of anger rose higher.
He picked up the satchel and began to run.
17 (#ulink_d360ea97-dab8-59dc-ad0b-845ddc0c2311)
It was three weeks later. Midday. The battalion had dropped back out of the front line, for two weeks of rest in the pretty village of Le Hamel, just six miles from the front.
Alan jogged along a narrow lane that wound down to a tiny stone-built cottage. His boots scuffed up the white dust that settled gently on the roadside flowers, poppies and saffron weed. As he reached a bend in the lane, Alan’s jog turned into a run. He ran up to the cottage and thumped on its crude wooden front door. From a window upstairs, he heard a voice.
‘Up here, old man.’
Tom had lived, but only just.
His anger had carried him all the way to within spitting distance of German lines. Once there, he’d thrown himself flat and begun hurling Mills bombs like a bowler at some demented cricket match. His fury kept him at it, aiming and throwing with an extraordinary intensity. What he managed to hit, nobody knew, but this much was certain: the fire that had swept over Fletcher’s men became scattered and confused. Fletcher seized his opportunity and raced home with his men: their lives saved.
Once Tom had finished his satchel of bombs, he’d done everything he could. His anger left him. Clarity returned.
Somewhere to the east, dawn was getting ready to light its lamps. Tom was so close to the German lines, he could hear their sentries break wind. Slowly and with infinite care, he’d backed away. As he’d crawled, he must have been hit, because he felt a sudden impact in his left arm, followed a few seconds later by the slip and slither of blood. He’d found a shellhole and tumbled into it. He’d put a dressing on the wound, closed his eyes a moment – then woke at noon with the sun high in a perfect sky and larks singing crystal in the echoing air.
He had no food or water.
The crater around him was hopelessly shallow.
So he’d lain there. All day, all through a golden evening into night. Then when darkness had fallen, he’d begun to crawl home, desperately weak. He would never have made it, except for Alan.
About three in the morning, Alan found him, stretched out unconscious, head pointing for British lines. He’d hooked a hand into his belt and dragged him home.
Alan crashed open the wooden cottage door, and leaped up the rough ladder leading into the loft. Tom lay on his bed, half-dressed, left arm in a clean white sling. He put down a book and smiled. Except for his wounded arm, he looked astonishingly fit and healthy. Soldiering had given Tom (and Alan supposed, himself as well) an extra edge to his physique: more hardness, more confidence. The two men clubbed hands together, a new gesture for them.
It was the first time they’d seen each other since the raid. They were changed men. They’d both experienced danger and death close at hand. They’d both come to understand fully what war might mean.
‘By God,’ said Alan, ‘so now we know what it’s all about.’
Tom nodded. ‘Yes. It was one hell of a night. Two nights, actually. I didn’t think I’d see a third.’
Alan nodded. Then his expression lightened and he released Tom’s hand. ‘Anything to bunk off duty, eh?’
‘One of my brighter ideas, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes, well, everyone has you marked down for an MC now. And a bloody well deserved one at that.’
He was pleased for Tom, of course. He knew that Tom deserved a Military Cross and would almost certainly get it. And yet … the twins had always been competitive. They’d competed as boys, competed as young men, and now seemed destined to compete as soldiers. And just as it had been Tom who’d more often won their wrestling matches, won their riding contests, won every attractive girl in Hampshire (or so it had seemed), now, once again, it was Tom who’d won the soldiering race. The fact shouldn’t have rankled, but it did, if only a little. Alan smiled carefully, anxious not to let any of this show.
But the two men were twins and they didn’t only rely on words.
Tom asked gently, ‘Does it bother you, brother?’
Alan shook his head. ‘You’re a good officer and a courageous one. It’s right these things are recognised.’
Tom pursed his lips. ‘Really? I don’t know if I am a courageous man, let alone a good one. I fell into a bloody fury that night. I pitched bombs at Fritz because Fritz was close enough to get hurt. If it had been our own High Command beyond the wire, Haig and French and all those other bastards, then I’d have killed the lot of them instead.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘You wouldn’t, you mean. If they wanted to reward decent courageous men with these baubles, they ought to be picking chaps like you.’
Alan smiled to acknowledge the compliment, but his eyes remained serious. ‘You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for. But it wouldn’t hurt you to fool around less. No one would like you the less for it.’
It was Tom’s turn to smile. He looked at his watch. ‘Talking of fooling,’ he said, ‘I’ve a little fool who’s waiting for me right now. But I’ll be back for supper, if you’d care to share it.’
‘A fool? You mean a – a girl? Good God, you don’t have a girl here, do you?’ Alan was shocked, then embarrassed, then annoyed with himself for being either.
‘A girl? Maybe.’ Tom laughed. His open smile and shiny unmilitary hair seemed like reminders of an already lost age, those untroubled years before the war.
‘Good God, you do!’
‘Yes, and do you know, you ought to find someone too. I can tell you, if there’s one consolation for a horrible spell in the trenches, then it’s an afternoon in bed with a little French fool.’
Alan blushed slightly. He was embarrassed by this kind of conversation, and he disliked it when he heard officers talking about prostitutes as though they were horses. ‘I’m not sure I could. Not with a …’ Alan let himself tail off rather than speak the word ‘prostitute’. ‘I don’t mean to be preachy.’
‘It’s true, though, all the same. There’s nothing to beat the comfort of a pretty French fool. I’m being perfectly serious. If you ever wanted me to help, I’d be happy to.’
‘I’m amazed you’re able to –’ Alan blushed. ‘Sometimes I come back from our time in the front and I find myself hardly able to eat, let alone … let alone, do that.’
‘I don’t always. But you can lie in a girl’s bed without making love and there’s still a damned lot of comfort in it … In bed, you don’t have to act the British officer. The girls here do understand, you know. It’s not as though they’re ignorant of what war does to a man.’
Still blushing deeply, Alan asked, ‘Look, do you … ? God, I don’t mean this badly, it’s just I really don’t know. When you … do you … ?’
‘I don’t pay, no. My pretty little fool doesn’t charge me, but I imagine she sees other men and if she does, she probably charges them. It’s only sex, you know. She doesn’t love me and I don’t love her. When the war ends, I expect she’ll marry a French farmer and be faithful to him all her days … I think she wants to help the war effort. This is her way and it’s a damned good one, if you ask me.’
Alan’s blush had settled down and made itself at home. Rose pink had made way for tomato, which had given up and handed over to beetroot. ‘I see. Thanks. I didn’t mean to … I wasn’t trying to …’
‘You weren’t trying to admonish me, I know.’ Tom got up, smiling. He squeezed the other man’s shoulder with understanding. ‘I’ll see you later. For supper.’
Alan nodded stupidly. ‘Of course. Later. For supper.’
Tom pulled a clean shirt over his damaged arm, ran his hands briefly through his curly hair, twinkled a smile – and left.
18 (#ulink_2f36f3be-be52-536c-9bf9-a91bdc877393)
The trouble with fate is that it leaves no tracks. Fate never looks like fate. It doesn’t come crashing into a person’s life with heavy bootprints and a smell of burning.
Instead, fate lives in the little things. A child’s fondness for blackberry pudding. A father’s slight unfairness between two boys. The chance results of battle. A tiny scrap of purple and white medal ribbon.
And that’s a pity. Because danger noticed is danger avoided. Because what is invisible can nevertheless be lethal. Because even the smallest things can grow up and destroy a life.
On 25 September 1915, the British mounted an assault at Loos. Six divisions attacked and were halted by devastating machine-gun fire. The following morning, in an effort to maintain momentum, two further divisions – fifteen thousand men, all of them volunteers – were sent forward in broad daylight, in parade-ground formation ten columns strong. The German gunners were simply astounded. Never had an easier target presented itself. They blazed away until their gun barrels were burning hot and swimming in oil. The men fell in their hundreds, but they continued to advance in good order, exactly as though all this were part of a plan, unknown to the enemy, but certain of success. And then the survivors reached the German wire. It was uncut, unscathed, impenetrable. Then and only then did they retreat.
Tom got his medal: the Military Cross, a little strip of white and purple stitched to his uniform tunic. He was proud of it, of course, but it sank quickly into the background. It no longer seemed important. But it was.
Alan and Tom heard about the massacre at Loos from Guy, on one of his rare visits to the reserve lines. It was a chilly day at the start of October. Alan and Tom had been lying on the roof of a dugout, smoking and watching an artillery team sweat as they dug in one of their thumping 60-pounders.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ said Guy, sitting down beside them without invitation. ‘Good to see our front-line troops straining every sinew.’
‘Go to hell, Guy,’ said Tom, neither looking up nor changing posture.
They chatted briefly about trivia, but it wasn’t long before Guy began venting his frustrations with the assault at Loos and the conduct of the war more generally. ‘Sir John French was a bloody fool – a decent chap but totally useless. Haig’s not like that. On tactics, gunnery, supply lines, all that kind of muck, he’s absolutely first rate, the very pattern of a modern general. But – my God! – he’s obsessed with attack. He literally doesn’t care about casualties. I’ve seen him in the bloody map room, hearing about the losses at Loos, the slaughter of the 21st and 24th, and his only reaction was to make changes to the ammunition supply arrangements. Not a hint of anything else. Nothing.’
‘Poor bastards,’ said Alan. ‘It makes it worse somehow that they were all volunteers.’
Guy nodded. ‘And damn short of officers now. Men too, of course, but the officers did the decent thing and made sure they got even more thoroughly killed than the men. They’ll be scouring the other divisions now, looking for chaps. Either of you boys fancy a change?’
Alan and Tom glanced at each other, sharing the same thought, but it was Alan that spoke it.
‘Neither or both, Guy, neither or both.’
The conversation ended there that day. Guy was soon off – efficient, reliable, thorough. But the issue wasn’t over, not by any means.
A few weeks later, when Alan and Tom had returned to the front line and after enough rain to make everyone miserable, Major Fletcher came splashing down the trenches in search of Tom.
‘Ah, there you are, Creeley. Duckboards are a bloody mess, slipping and sliding like a bloody vaudeville act. Get ’em sorted out.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘On second thoughts, you may not need to bother. The company’s been asked to find an officer to make good the losses for the 21st and 24th divisions. The word from on high is that you’d be just the chap. MC and all that. The men’ll respect you from the off.’
‘You want to transfer me?’ Tom’s voice was shocked, but also belligerent.
‘Not want to, old boy. God knows who they’ll give me in your place. Some bloody milliner from Bristol, I expect. Thinks a bayonet is a bloody crochet hook. Not forward march, forward stitch, more like. But no use in arguing. We answer to the King, the King answers to God, and God answers to Sir Douglas Haig. Yes sir, no sir, at the double sir.’
‘I won’t go.’
Fletcher suddenly caught the tone of Tom’s voice, the glare in his eye. Fletcher’s tone changed as well. ‘If you’re told to go, you will go, Creeley. And when you speak to me, you will address me as “sir”.’
‘Yes, sir, but may I say that I won’t go anywhere without Montague. I don’t mind going anywhere, but I go with him or not at all.’
‘You do not tell me what I may and may not do, Creeley. I’m putting your name forward to Colonel McIntosh tomorrow morning and to hell with you. And sort out those bloody duckboards.’
Tom let Fletcher go, then burst from his dugout.
‘Watkins,’ he yelled, ‘Watkins.’
A corporal came running.
‘Sir?’
‘Get those bloody duckboards sorted out. They’re sliding around like a vaudeville act. And if anyone asks for me, tell them I’m seeing the medics.’
He began to climb over the parapet to the rear, preferring the relatively open country between the trench systems to the muddy darkness of the trenches themselves. It was an unnecessarily dangerous route, but Tom was in no mood for caution.
‘Yes, sir … Should I tell them what’s wrong with you?’
Tom was already mostly gone from view, but he turned round to yell his answer. ‘Certainly you should. You should tell them I’ve got a bloody arse for a cousin.’
He disappeared into the night.
And if there had been any doubt before, there was none left now. Fate had set her trap. The three men – Alan, Tom and Guy – had acted as they were bound to act. What followed, however disastrous, was certain to happen. Only a miracle could save them now.
19 (#ulink_fc2ef910-0e7d-5e9d-8c53-39ea6e2c2655)
At two in the morning, a motorcycle roared up outside a pleasant residential street in Arras. Late in October, the gardens were nothing more than a collection of black and dripping twigs, bounded on the street side by iron railings. Out in the street, a silvery motor-car stood in quiet splendour.
Tom stopped the motorbike, slammed the garden gate open, and struck the lion’s head knocker on the front door with three or four crashing blows. A few seconds passed without response, and Tom struck again, smashing the stillness of the night.
‘C’est qui, ça? Mon Dieu, je viens, je viens.’
From outside, Tom could hear the heavy door being unlocked, and as soon as the last lock was turned, he thrust the door open and entered. He strode past the housekeeper – sleepy, outraged, in dressing gown and curling papers – and stormed upstairs. He didn’t know which room he was looking for and flung open doors and slammed them shut again, until he came to the front room of the first floor. There was Guy, in pyjamas and his uniform tunic, standing at his dressing table, checking his revolver. As the door crashed against the wall, Guy turned with his hand just inches from his gun.
‘Stay right there,’ cried Guy. ‘Don’t advance another step.’ His hand was on the gun now, altering its position on the dressing table so he could snatch it up easily.
‘Leave the gun alone, you fool,’ said Tom.
‘Why have you come here? Who gave you permission to leave your post?’ Guy was backing away from Tom, towards his bedside, where a candle flickered smokily.
‘It was your idea to separate me from Alan, wasn’t it? You can’t bloody leave things alone, can you?’
‘It wasn’t my idea to slaughter the 21st and 24th. The poor bastards need officers. The idea at HQ is that we should give them chaps with a decent fighting record. Chaps like you.’
‘Alan’s every bit as good as me and you know it. Better. He looks after his men better than I do. He’ll keep his head better if it comes to an offensive. I personally don’t give a damn which division I serve in. I don’t care which pointless battle I’m sent to die in. But I will not be separated from Alan. Will not. Not by anyone and least of all by you.’
Guy had grown calmer now that his fear of an outright assault had passed. Something like his customary smirking crept back into his manner.
‘It wasn’t me that made the decision, was it? And though we need to bring in new officers, we don’t want to unsettle existing battalions, let alone take two officers from a single company. So it’s you or Alan, but not both. And that isn’t my decision, it’s Haig’s. You can go and argue it out with him, if you want. He’s just four streets away.’ He gave Tom the address.
Tom ignored the sneer. He paced around the room, which was of a pleasant size and pleasantly furnished – a far cry from the squalor of a front-line dugout. Tom fingered the silver-backed hairbrushes, which lay next to the revolver on the dressing table.
‘Alan thinks you don’t really hate me,’ he murmured. ‘He thinks it’s just an act you put on. But I know you better than that, Cousin Guy, and it’s because I know you that you hate me.’ Tom’s fingers had wandered from the hairbrushes to the gun. His thumb flicked the safety catch off, on, off, on, off, on.
‘Leave that,’ said Guy unsteadily.
‘I know who you are, Cousin Guy,’ said Tom again. He lifted the revolver, took the safety catch off and cocked it. He pointed it straight at Guy’s head. Guy was on the far side of the room, but it was an unmissable distance.
‘Put that down,’ said Guy, dry-mouthed. ‘Put it down. That’s an order.’
‘Down? Like this?’
Tom lowered the gun until it was pointing at Guy’s groin. The barrel gleamed dully in the meagre candlelight. The aim didn’t waver by even a fraction of an inch. Guy stood, mouth open, perfectly still, slightly on tiptoe, as though he could deceive the bullet into passing underneath him between his legs. Tom, meantime, looked hardly threatening; meditative, rather; calm. After a second or two, Tom dropped the gun back on the table behind him. The heavy metal clattered loudly on the waxed mahogany. Guy relaxed. His mouth closed and he came down from tiptoe.
‘You think I’m asking you a favour for my benefit,’ continued Tom, as though nothing had happened. ‘You think I’m asking because I can’t bear to be without Alan. That’s not true. Of course I want to be with him. He’s worth a hundred others, and he’s worth ten thousand like you – but he needs me, he needs me if he’s to survive this war. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is. You can do whatever the hell you want to me, Cousin Guy, but if you want to keep your brother, you’ll keep us together.’
‘You could be shot for this.’ Guy’s voice was husky, little more than a croak.
‘Oh, and one other thing. It’s no great odds to me, but I know Alan would prefer not to be separated from his men. He’s not quick to win their liking, but now he’s got it, he’d be desperately loath to start the whole business again from scratch. As they are now, his men would walk through fire for him.’
‘It really isn’t up to me.’
‘No. I don’t expect it is. But you’re a highly thought-of staff officer with the ear of General Haig. You can sort this out if you want to, just as you helped create this situation in the first place.’
‘I can’t promise anything.’
Tom smiled. His hand was on the door. ‘You don’t have to. When you wake up, you’ll remember that I deserted my post on the front line, stole a motorcycle, broke into your room, and pointed a loaded revolver at your head. So you’ll do everything you can, won’t you, cousin?’ Tom didn’t wait for an answer. He opened the door, and, for the second time that night, brushed aside the night-gowned housekeeper who had been listening at the door. His footsteps marched off across the landing and down the stairs. ‘Don’t forget, cousin, I know who you are.’
Ten seconds later, a motorcycle roared into life and shot off into the enclosing night.
It wasn’t long before Tom was proved right.
Five days later, Major Fletcher loped his way ape-like into Tom’s dugout.
‘Good news for you, Creeley. Mix-up at HQ. You’re sticking here instead of buggering off to the 21st. It’s a bloody shame from my point of view, though.’
‘I beg your pardon?!’
‘Won’t be able to get my millinery done for free. What? What? What?’
Fletcher roared with laughter at his joke and dug down amongst Tom’s belongings to find the bottle of whisky he kept there. Shellfire, heavier than usual that night, thumped the air and sent shock waves through the ground. Particles of chalk fell from the ceiling. Fletcher poured the whisky into a couple of mugs.
The earth quaked around them. They drank.
20 (#ulink_3fb2b68e-a657-59d9-a1e5-7b98315dc91b)
Incident and consequence. Cause and effect. Each effect becoming in its turn the trigger of a whole new cycle.
A trench raid. A medal honourably won. A need for officers. Guy seeking to separate Tom from Alan. Tom breaking in on Guy. A junior officer pointing a loaded gun at a senior officer’s head. The causes started out small, hardly visible even. But the effects were no longer so small.
And they were growing all the time.
Beechnuts crunched underfoot. It was the first hard frost of November and ice glittered on the empty twigs. The forest felt like a fairy-tale wood. The two men walked a good distance, chatting about a hundred things, but it was only when they were deep into the forest silence that Alan finally brought up the subject that had been plaguing him.
‘I happened to see Guy in the village the other day,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘He had some extraordinary story about you and that transfer to the 21st.’
‘Yes?’
‘That you thought he had been behind the transfer instruction in the first place, that you wanted him to reverse the decision.’
‘Perfectly true.’
‘And that you burst in on him waving a gun.’
Tom laughed. ‘Almost. I did burst in on him. I didn’t have a gun on me. He had one on his dressing table, which I think he’d started to load when he heard me come in downstairs. I did point that at him briefly. I don’t really know why.’
He was completely without embarrassment. Alan stared at him incredulously. ‘You aimed a loaded gun at him?’
‘Yes – at least I assume it was loaded. I didn’t really bother to check. Look at this.’ Tom eased some leaves aside with his toe and revealed the gleam of copper wire by a bare root. It was a trap laid for rabbits. ‘Neat job, eh? Here, what about this?’ Tom pulled a salami from his pocket that the two men had been intending to eat for lunch. Tom slipped the sausage through the loop of wire and drew the wire tight. He scattered leaves back as they had been before. Tom began to shake with laughter at the thought of the trapper returning to find his catch.
‘Tom! For God’s sake!’
‘What? I’d be damn pleased to trap a sausage.’
‘Not the trap, you idiot. Guy. You aimed a gun at him?’ Alan was shocked. He was also upset and torn, as he always was when Tom and Guy quarrelled.
‘Yes. I don’t think he enjoyed it much. But it did the trick, didn’t it?’
‘But for heaven’s sake! You can’t just go waving a gun at him. What in hell’s name did you think you were playing at?’
Tom’s nonchalant attitude suddenly disappeared. Alan had begun to shout and he had a tendency to sound preachy and schoolmasterly when he was angry about something. Tom never put up with that and he didn’t now.
‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he said coldly. ‘I think – no, that’s not right, I know – that your so-called brother wanted to see us separated, and I knew that I could frighten him into undoing the damage. What’s more –’
‘But you can’t just aim a gun at him.’ Alan was angry and his voiced was raised. ‘You have to learn some limits. Guy has his faults but he is my brother –’
‘Oh? He’s your brother, is he? So what the hell was he thinking of then, separating the two of us?’
‘You’ve no evidence that he ever wanted to separate –’
‘No, you’re quite right. And after all, as you point out, he is your brother so he couldn’t possibly wish to hurt you.’
‘Listen, whatever else he may or may not be, Guy is family – my family, I mean, and –’
‘Your family? Your family? What am I then? What am I? The fucking gardener’s boy?’ Tom was shouting, his breath building storm castles in the freezing air. He was extremely angry.
‘For God’s sake, Tom! Calm down! If you’d mentioned your suspicions to me I could have had a word. It didn’t need you to aim a bloody –’
‘And just possibly you’re wrong. Had you thought of that? Perhaps aiming a gun at his head was just precisely what was needed. Or is your bloody good nature going to get in the way of seeing straight every time there’s a problem?’
Up till now both men had been panting with the effort of the argument. They were shouting hard at each other and Alan had unconsciously picked up a stick as though intending to assault Tom with it.
They felt ready to murder each other.
And then, as so often in the past, the anger slid away as though it had never been. The bottom dropped out of their rage and calmness returned. Though he wouldn’t admit it – not even to himself, perhaps – Alan knew that Tom was right. Alan’s reliance on decency and fair play would never have had the impact on Guy that a loaded gun would have had.
‘Listen, old fellow,’ said Alan. ‘You and I have always been close. Closer to each other than to anyone else. Guy doesn’t get a look-in. But when all’s said and done, and whatever Guy did or didn’t do, I think –’
‘He did do it. I know he did.’
‘Well, even so, I could have spoken with him. It didn’t –’
‘And he’d have told you that the whole matter had nothing to do with him and you’d have believed him. You always do.’
They walked a few paces more in silence. Alan looked long and hard at some animal tracks. Hare. He could see fox tracks as well. If he listened carefully, he could hear the almost silent animals of the forest: the cautious footfalls of the deer, the quiet munching of the rabbits, the tapping of woodpeckers in the trees. He looked up.
‘Take care, brother,’ he said. ‘You play a dangerous game at times.’
Tom smiled brilliantly and gave an airy wave. ‘That’s what comes of being a gardener’s son. Nothing to lose.’
He was wrong, of course. And it wouldn’t be long before he knew it.
21 (#ulink_fe729a4b-045b-5860-82c6-e9ab2dd39746)
It was nine months later, 10 August 1916.
Alan and Tom were both alive, both intact. That was the good news.
Meanwhile, the war was continuing. The Battle of the Somme was in progress. In the last six weeks alone, a hundred thousand British soldiers had been killed or wounded. So far, Tom and Alan’s battalion had been kept out of the conflict, but that happy interval was about to end. The battalion was due to attack the very next day. The fighting would be as severe as anything the two men had ever experienced. Casualties were certain to be high. Perhaps colossal.
That was the bad news.
And, in a way, it was untrue to say that both men had survived intact. They hadn’t. They couldn’t. No man survives, life in the combat zone for very long. Nerves shred. Humanity frays. The spirit fails.
Of the two men, Alan had been worse affected. Devoted to his men, he often pushed himself too hard. Too serious to unwind easily, he found relaxation difficult. He smoked. He rode. He wrote letters home.
And he’d found a girl.
Called Lisette, she was pretty, dark-haired, smiling and kind. They’d met by accident one day in a village seven miles behind the lines, Ste Thérèse-sur-Tarne (‘Saint Tess’ to the men). He was billeted there. She was the daughter of one of the local farmers. Caught outside during a rainstorm, he helped her home. They ran into her farmhouse, shared some coffee, laughed together. She invited him back. And back. After three visits, he could take a hint. Excited and embarrassed in about equal measure, he undressed in her little bedroom. They made love. During the rest of the fortnight that Alan was in Saint Tess, they met on a further nine occasions, making love on eight of them.
The evening before the assault found the battalion sheltering in the wreck of what had once been a village. The officers’ mess was a ruined cellar, whose entrance was neatly flanked by two rows of shell cases, graduated in size, ranging up to the height of a man.
Tom was still Tom. He was handsome, brilliant, unmilitary, courageous. But over time, his outlook had blackened. He lounged against the cellar wall, barely protected by the sandbag parapet in front of him. He picked up a flint and threw it out beyond the sandbags.
‘A fine place to die,’ he commented.
‘For God’s sake!’
Alan jumped to find a piece of wood to ward off Tom’s unlucky words. A discarded crate lay nearby and Alan passed a chunk of it to Tom, who touched it absently. The side of the crate was marked in English: ‘Shell Motor Spirit’. Tom nodded at the marking and smiled.
‘Good choice.’
‘Let’s get out there right away, shall we?’ said Alan. ‘After the war, I mean. Not wait any longer.’ He meant get out to Persia, of course.
Tom laughed and shook his head.
‘What?’ said Alan defensively. ‘You can’t want to go back to Standard, can you? Lord knows, I couldn’t stand to be cooped up in somebody else’s office.’
Tom laughed again, kindly this time. ‘That’s not what I meant, old man. I meant … Look, you don’t think we’ll both survive this, do you?’ Tom spoke quietly, talking almost to himself. ‘But there are worse things, after all.’
‘Tom, for God’s sake!’
‘If I’m to die, I’ve decided to fight like a maniac first. Take a few Boche with me.’
‘Don’t speak like that. Don’t even think like that.’
Tom shrugged. ‘I haven’t always thought like that. This whole damned war is so stupid, I couldn’t see much purpose in trying to fight it hard. I still can’t, in a way, except that one has one’s self-respect to think of.’ He flicked his white and purple medal ribbon thoughtfully, then his tone changed again. ‘If I am killed, will you promise to do what you can in Persia?’
‘Of course.’
‘Drill. If there’s oil, you’ll find it. If there isn’t – well, at least you’ll have tried.’
‘We’ll find it together.’
‘You’re probably right. Dead or alive, I’ll be there in spirit. But promise me, brother. Your most sacred promise.’
‘I promise.’
‘And don’t give the damn thing away to a bunch of stupid stockmarket investors. I mean, you’ll have to at some point. But not straight away. Find the oil first.’
‘The oil first, if humanly possible.’
Tom gravely nodded his acceptance. ‘Good. Good man.’
The way he said it, it sounded like goodbye.
22 (#ulink_3d5768bd-20bc-5774-8025-a1f77528aa22)
The battalion moved off at eight that evening. Its goal: a full-frontal attack on enemy positions.
It was pitch-black and raining, and the ground was evil. Three times, artillery fire forced the company to flatten itself into whatever cover was available. Each time the shelling lifted, the company moved forwards again, leaving a small handful of wounded men behind. On one occasion, Alan was struck with a shell splinter, shaped like a goose quill, in his shoulder blade. An NCO lying in the ditch next to him tweaked it out with finger and thumb and threw it away. Neither man commented on the incident, or was even thinking about it five minutes later.
They reached their designated position shortly after midnight. The men ate rations from their packs and were given permission to rest until four.
The rain settled in and grew heavier. Time moved with agonising slowness.
At four o’clock, a thunder of British artillery opened up behind them, and they could hear the torrent of shells crashing down on German positions. The men listened in silence: half pleased at the thought of what the shells were doing to the enemy, half terrified because of what this implied for the coming offensive. Alan stayed with his men. Although Tom was close by, he might as well have been on another planet for all Alan knew of him.
Four thirty approached. The rain was beginning to fall more gently and a meagre grey light began testing its options on the eastern horizon. Alan’s eyes struggled to follow the luminous figures on his watch. The second hand swept remorselessly round. And finally, it was four thirty precisely. Alan raised his hand and dropped it: the signal to advance.
His men moved off. For several seconds, there was silence – beautiful silence. Then, almost simultaneously, three flares rose from the German-held salient. The flares disclosed what the German defenders already suspected. There was a trickle of rifle fire, then a din of machine guns, then the extraordinary violence of concentrated shelling. Air became metal. The noise was so indescribably loud that the sense of hearing fell away until it was almost like walking into silence.
Alan saw the men next to him hold their positions, just as they’d been drilled. No clustering together, no turning human lives into simple targets for German gunners. But the men walked as though into a gale. Bent over. Doubled up.
As he watched his men, he saw one of them struck full in the chest and sink to his knees with a soft ‘Ah!’ of release. Another man bent down, apparently to fiddle with his bootlaces, but he bent too far and slid to earth with dark red tongues of blood where his face should have been. All around, men were falling when they should be walking. Alan watched in mounting amazement and shock. His platoon was being destroyed, his beloved men massacred, soldierlike and courageous to the end.
Still they advanced.
Alan had no real recollection of the next few hours. Only by midday did the true situation unfold. The attack had largely failed. The attackers had bitten off a chunk of German line at huge cost. The two opposing artilleries screamed at each other. In the chaos of collapsed and broken trenches, both sides attempted to reconfigure their defences.
The day passed.
The list of known casualties was appalling. More than half of Alan’s men had been killed or wounded. So had all of his NCOs. So too with Major Fletcher, whose left arm had been torn off by a shell, and who had been found sitting upright in the mud, holding his arm between his knees, repeating endlessly, ‘My poor boys, my poor bloody boys …’
There was no word of Tom.
For two more nights and days the fighting continued. Alan was tired beyond tired, shattered beyond endurance. And then finally, he was given permission to rest.
The permission came in the form of a German Minenwerfer, which hurled through the air looking something like a flying dustbin, but a bin packed with enormous destructive power. The canister detonated twelve yards away on the unprotected side of the parapet. Afterwards, Alan thought he recalled seeing the flash of detonation before it reached him, but supposed he must have provided details of the explosion from his imagination.
And that was all.
The flash – then silence. No pain. No slow fade-out into unconsciousness. Simply a plunge into blackness. Total blackness.
And still no word of Tom.
23 (#ulink_b0c4564d-3001-592a-a9d1-3dacd370a6f4)
Alan woke in a tent full of iron beds and soldiers. The atmosphere was foetid with the smell of hot air under canvas and the odours of blood, iodine and unwashed clothes. Men in the tent next to Alan and in other tents and huts beyond groaned and called out in their sleep.
Alan stretched himself gingerly. He felt indescribably sore. Although nothing felt broken or missing, Alan knew that wounded men were often unaware how badly wounded they were. He wriggled in his narrow cot, trying to get an arm down to reach his feet under their coarse army-issue blankets. He was so stiff that the effort made him pant. He finally managed it, however, and ran his hand over his toes. Nothing.
He sank back in bed, temporarily satisfied. The men in the ‘moribund ward’ often had red labels tied to their toes to indicate their status. There seemed nothing like that here.
He slept.
At dawn, he woke again, when a doctor, a major in the RAMC, was making his rounds.
‘Am I hurt?’ said Alan. His mouth worked awkwardly – even his jaw ached like hell – and the words came out as if spoken by a foreigner. The doctor reached for a pulse. The pressure of his thumb was painful and Alan felt as if he could feel the passage of blood up and down his arm.
‘Hurt? Yes, that’s why you’re here.’ The doctor kept his thumb on Alan’s wrist a few moments longer. ‘You were caught in a shell blast. Cuts and bruises everywhere, a few places that needed stitching. But that’s on the outside. We can’t always tell what’s happened inside. The blast can kill without puncturing the skin. You’re to stay in bed here for twenty-four hours at least. If there’s no sign of any problems by then, we’ll release you to one of the general hospitals. But I don’t want to see you in the line again. Is that clear?’
Alan nodded. He felt a wave of relief and the urge to giggle. He shoved his head into his pillow to muffle any sound, and the doctor and nurse left in silence, too busy to pry.
24 (#ulink_6ee6dedd-c953-51a5-8aa8-5d6d74430ea4)
Two men from one of the New Army battalions of the Royal Scots escorted Alan to the hospital. Alan tried to thank them, but he couldn’t find the right words. He fell into bed and slept for six hours. When he woke, he ate, drank, then tried to sleep again.
He couldn’t.
His emotions were blocked, like a flood that has blocked its own path with a jam of fallen trunks, boulders and landslip. He was filled with an indescribable sense of loss. He thought about his beloved platoon, about Major Fletcher, about how nothing would ever be the same again. And he kept dreaming about Tom. He asked the nurses if they knew whether Lieutenant Creeley was alive, dead or wounded. They didn’t know.
For three days, he lay in hospital. As for his own well-being, it became clear that he wasn’t dying, that he wasn’t permanently crippled. The doctors advised plenty of rest and predicted complete recovery.
Alan wasn’t so sure. He’d never known himself to feel like this – or rather not to feel like this. He ate what he could (not much) and drank (a huge amount). He slept, fainted or dozed through sixteen hours in twenty-four. He could think clearly, or at any rate, he was able to answer correctly the questions put to him by the RAMC doctors: name, rank, place of birth, regiment. But his feelings were gone, both physical and emotional. He lay as if doused in an anaesthetic that reached all the way to his heart.
Then one morning, he woke up. For the first time, the images that swam around his consciousness resolved themselves into just two: Tom and Lisette. He had to know if Tom was dead or alive. He had to see Lisette.
He climbed out of bed, dressed, and went outside, falling four times and clutching at the walls of the hospital like a drunk. By chance, he found a transport captain he’d once had dealings with and was able to beg himself a ride to Saint Tess.
The village had changed. Lightly wounded men were everywhere. The Lincolnshires and London Irish, who’d been billeted there a few days before, had all gone now, either fighting or dead. There were new voices now: pink-faced boys from the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry and a company of fit-looking Canadians. A group of cows had broken into an apple orchard, and some of the Canadians were throwing the hard green apples at their flanks to try to cause a stampede.
Alan sat down in the village square. His body felt as though it had been dismantled and reassembled. A man in major’s uniform approached him: a good-looking officer with a drawn and tired expression. The major’s face lit up as he recognised Alan.
‘Alan, man! Thank God! What on earth … ?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ mumbled Alan. ‘Do I … ?’
‘Alan, it’s me. Guy. Your brother.’
‘Guy! Good God! You look …’
‘Are you all right, old man?’
‘Yes, perfectly, just a little muzzy. How do you do?’
‘Alan,’ you’ve been in hospital, have you? Did you take a knock?’
‘Something like that.’ Alan raised his hand and fluttered it down. ‘Wheeee-BANG!’
Guy looked his brother up and down, checking for signs of obvious injury. Apart from some violently coloured bruises, there was little enough.
‘Thank God you’re all right! I’ve been worried sick. Staff haven’t heard a straight word from anyone and all I knew was your crowd was in the thick of the whole bloody shemozzle. I got word that you’d been hit, but the RAMC weren’t able to tell me where you were, let alone how you were.’
The two brothers embraced. Later on, looking back on it, Alan was genuinely surprised by the warmth of Guy’s feeling.
‘And Tom? What about Tom? Where’s Tom? Don’t tell me –’
‘Alan, old chap, Tom’s absolutely fine. He made it up to German lines – unlike most of his men – and held on to his bit of trench despite a pretty nasty counterattack by Fritz. He was relieved three days ago, completely unhurt. He’s been going out of his mind trying to find out what happened to you.’
‘Thank God. Thank bloody Jesus. Thank … Thank … Thank … and he’s hurt, you say? How badly? How … ?’
‘No. Completely unhurt, I told you.’
Alan made a face, as though ready to argue. His breath came in hard pants that hurt his lungs.
‘Don’t you think you should still be lying down?’ said Guy. ‘Why the hell did the medics let you go anyway?’
‘The whole platoon went down? The poor bloody platoon!’ Alan was upset now. He began reciting the names of the men who’d been under Tom’s command.
‘Let’s get you home.’
‘Not hurt? Not wounded?’
‘Typical of the gardener’s boy, eh? No, completely unhurt. Not a scratch. Now come on back.’
Alan giggled in relief, but his emotions were still all over the place. He was laughing but could just as easily be crying. ‘Sounds like he’s the hero once again. You must have been pleased to see him. So pleased. Soooo pleased.’
‘Mmm,’ Guy agreed, without enthusiasm. Tom’s extraordinary record through four days of intense fighting had been somewhat muddied by a blazing row he’d had with one of the brigadier’s aides on the day of his return to the rear. Tom, incensed by the massacre he’d been in the middle of, had accused High Command of butchery. He’d more or less called Haig a murderer. It had taken Guy’s intervention to prevent Tom from getting into serious disciplinary trouble. ‘He can be a damn fool, that man. Now look, old chap, you’re looking awfully queer. Don’t you think you’d better –’
But Alan’s mood had become suddenly belligerent. ‘You’re the fool, a big bloody fool. And what’s worse, much worse, you’re a bloody staff officer fool.’
Guy’s voice tautened. He could see Alan was hardly himself, but it was dangerous territory that he was entering. ‘Alan, that’s enough –’
‘Bloody staff officers. Just as Tom says. Bloody, skulking, yellow, behind-the-lines, staff bloody –’
‘Stop it!’ Guy gripped his brother’s arm, attempting to swing him back round to the village. ‘I’m taking you home. You need some –’
‘No, I don’t.’ There was a roaring in his ears and a buzzy quality to his vision. He suddenly thought of Lisette, and wanted her with a passionate longing, rejoicing in the knowledge that if Tom was alive, then everything in the whole wide world would be all right. He pushed Guy away with both hands.
‘Don’t touch me. There’s someone I need to see … I have to go.’
Guy looked at his brother with sudden acuteness. ‘You’ve got a girl, have you? You?’
‘“I’ve got a little lady by the name of Sue,”’ sang Alan. ‘Not Sue actually, Lisette.’ He was babbling. He waved at the farmhouse where she lived. ‘Lisette, Lisette.’
‘That farm? The one just there, with the red-painted gables?’ Guy’s tone was half urgent, half incredulous.
‘That farm there.’
A delighted smile spread across Guy’s face. He released his grip so suddenly that Alan tottered and almost fell.
‘Go on then. Go.’
‘I’m going.’
‘Go to your precious Lisette. You’ll see just how precious she is. Her and your beloved twin.’
And Guy escorted Alan the two hundred yards to the farm. Before they were even halfway, Alan lost his desire to go there. He wanted to see Tom and he wanted to sleep. ‘Lisette will be there for me in the morning,’ he chanted.
But Guy’s determination was fixed. When Alan’s feet stumbled and dragged, Guy lifted him bodily, so anxious was he to get Alan to the farmhouse door. When Guy finally had Alan propped against the doorpost, he left him there, saying, ‘Go on, go in. I’m sure your arrival will be a delightful surprise. I’ll catch up with you later, old man. Toodle-oo.’
The farm door was never locked and Alan let himself in. The range was warm and a couple of cakes, yellow and creamy with egg, were cooling on the sideboard, a wire net over them. Lisette wasn’t there, probably out. Alan felt too happy to think. He was safe. Tom was safe. And nothing else in the whole world mattered.
There was some old coffee cooling in a pot. Alan drank it. The smell jerked at a memory. ‘Mind the bloody coffee’ – Major Fletcher – polished leather boots on a map-covered chest – loping monkey arms – ‘Keep your own bloody head from being shot off – then nothing: just a poor sod with his left arm loose between his knees and all his precious company lying dead about him.
Alan lifted the mesh from the cakes and stole a piece. It was good cake and he ate hungrily, before noticing that the cat was eating hungrily too. He chased the cat off and replaced the mesh. Upstairs, there was a sound: a creaking of floorboards and laughter. Of course! Idiot! Naturally, Lisette would still be upstairs. Why not? It was morning. What better place to be than bed?
Alan went upstairs, using his hands as well as his feet to avoid falling on the steep wooden staircase. The sound of laughter was louder now.
‘Lisette?’ Alan bounded along a corridor and burst through a door. ‘Lisette!’
The word died in his throat. There in bed lay not one person but two. Lisette and, next to her, naked and at home, was Tom.
25 (#ulink_fe5e9680-f3cc-5f51-a33f-e8a49d3d4bcb)
There was a moment’s silence. All three people were shocked. In that tiny gap of time, nothing had yet been said, no damage done, no lives ruined.
The moment didn’t last.
Alan’s emotions looped again. An indescribable fury surged through him. ‘You bastard!’ he screamed. ‘You thieving, sodding, bloody bastard!’
Alan flung himself at Tom, fists flailing, blind with hot tears of rage. Tom defended himself. Although Alan was hitting with all his strength, he was exhausted and weak, and his lungs were rasping for breath. Tom slid from bed, grabbed his clothes and attempted to hide from the hail of blows. He didn’t fight back.
‘You bastard! You steal every fucking thing that matters to me! Lisette was all I had! All I wanted was Lisette.’
‘Alan, old chap – steady on – I didn’t know you were coming back.’
‘Alain, tais-toi, sois sage!’ cried Lisette, frightened and appealing for calm.
‘Everything that ever matters.’
‘Jesus, brother. There’s no need. You can have her. I didn’t –’
‘I don’t want to have her because you say I can. I don’t want …’ Alan’s attack was hardly serious now. Tom struggled to get his trousers on, keeping Alan at a distance with his stronger right arm. Lisette helped as well as she could.
‘Guy was out there, wasn’t he? Why in hell didn’t he keep you away? He knew I was here.’
‘Guy? He knew, oh yes, he knew. He carried me here. Carried me. So I would know who you were. And I know now, all right. I know.’
Tom was dressed from the waist down now and had his hands on his boots. ‘Take care, Alan, take care what you say.’
Alan steadied himself with his back against the chalky lime-washed wall. Although his face was purple with bruises, adrenaline had given him more control than he’d had with Guy. His extreme shock and nervous collapse was no longer obvious. It was easy for Tom to mistake him for a man upset, but otherwise in control of his faculties.
‘What I mean is,’ said Alan, speaking as distinctly as he was able, ‘that Guy has been right about you all along. You have some fine things about you, no doubt, but in the end you’re the sodding little gardener’s boy. Please get your hands off my girl and get out of here.’
‘Alan, for God’s sake, be careful. Some things can’t be unsaid, you know.’
‘Alan, s’il te plaît, calm down, I’ll make you coffee, I’ll explain.’ Lisette implored Alan for calm, but the situation had travelled too far.
Alan tried to pull a revolver, but he managed to snag the barrel as he pulled it from its holster, and the gun clattered uselessly to the ground. Tom snatched the gun up and tossed it out of the window into the cattle trough below.
Alan lurched to the doorway and steadied himself on the doorpost. ‘Guy is my brother. You’re a gardener’s boy who fucks my girl.’ He shook his head. ‘And by the way, I’m never going to drill in Persia with you. Why would I? As far as I know, the concession belongs to the Montague family. It doesn’t belong to the fucking staff.’
He stumbled away, slipping on the fourth step of the staircase and crashing all the way to the bottom. He dragged himself back to the village, found an empty bed and fell into it. He was asleep within three seconds of his head hitting the pillow.
And here was the odd thing.
He slept well. He slept without dreams, without pain, without fogginess or delirium. It was a strange way to sleep the day the world collapsed.
26 (#ulink_18b1e2f8-2ba2-50d6-bf06-ebe73fd089c1)
Tom buttoned his shirt. His hands were shaking violently. His face was ash.
‘I didn’t know you were friends,’ said Lisette, begging pardon from the world. ‘I didn’t know … he was such a nice man, I really adored him.’
‘Don’t worry. Not your fault,’ said Tom in French, before adding in English, ‘Damnation. I had no idea he … Dammit, dammit.’
Tom sat on the bed and tried to calm down. Guy is my brother. You’re a gardener’s boy who fucks my girl. He pushed the words away, but what Alan had said was too big to be so easily dismissed. I’m never going to drill in Persia with you. Why would I? As far as I know, the concession belongs to the Montague family. It doesn’t belong to the fucking staff. Tom breathed heavily, trying to calm himself. Alan was shocked. Alan was upset. Alan was talking rot –
‘Will he be all right?’ said Lisette, interrupting his thoughts.
‘Look, he’s just come from battle. It’s awful up there. He’s a sensitive sod at the best of times, and as for girls, he’s never … well, I don’t think that before you, he’s even –’
‘No, never. I had to teach him everything.’
‘Shit!’ Tom was doubly angry because he felt guilty. He’d known Alan was seeing Lisette and until recently he’d been careful to avoid seeing her too. But the last three days had been from hell. Tom had known that Alan had been hit, but, like Guy, he’d had no end of a time finding out where Alan was and in what condition. When he’d finally heard that Alan was essentially fine, his relief had been overpowering. In some strange way, Tom had felt drawn to seek out Lisette, the one other person who had been truly intimate with Alan. He’d gone in search of her and charmed his way into her kitchen. He’d had no intention of making love with her, but Tom wasn’t very strong-willed in the matter of sex and, in any event, with Alan safely in hospital, it didn’t seem to matter all that much. He should have known better.
They were quiet a moment. Then Lisette kissed Tom on the earlobe. He smiled and stroked her shoulder.
‘Do you go with many other men?’ he asked.
She thumped him gently on the bicep. ‘Cochon.’ Pig.
‘But really?’
‘Some. A few.’
‘For money, I suppose?’
‘Usually. Not with him. Never with him.’
‘With me?’
She shook her head.
‘He had no idea, none at all … Look I’ll give him time to get over all this. Explain it. I’d better not see you again. I won’t if it means upsetting Alan.’
‘What is that about brothers? You are or you aren’t?’
Tom explained briefly, ending by saying ‘Guy’s his blood brother, I’m his real brother. He knows that. In solemn truth, he knows that.’
‘And will it be all right?’
Tom nodded, kicking his bare feet out on the unvarnished floorboards. He was annoyed with himself for his stupidity, but he was furious with Guy for provoking things. Anger boiled inside him, hot and dangerous.
‘Well? It will be all right?’
Tom sighed heavily. ‘Yes. It’ll be all right.’
And once again, he was wrong, dead wrong.
It was getting to be a habit.
27 (#ulink_2ad933a3-65db-5e09-8e49-8890d2c1a761)
It was the following day: 19 August.
Tom was back in the support trenches when the fighting resumed. He was making a report to brigade staff, short of sleep, and stained with sweat, blood and dirt. The sound of fighting ended the brief conference. Tom excused himself, received a brusque, ‘Carry on then, Creeley,’ and raced on up the line.
It was an evil day. It felt like the first cold day of autumn, with enough rain to have soaked everything and given the air a biting edge. A wicked little breeze carried the smoke of guns over the battlefield, until everything was seen through the greenish, cordite-smelling glow. The wet chalk was slippery and unreliable. The way ran uphill and the trench bottom had become a gutter for rainwater, mud, rats, and blood.
Tom made his way up the trench, fast but with care. He passed two men digging it out, trying to repair a collapsed parapet, and another man who was heaving a Lewis gun into place at the bottom end. Tom charged on past, and, going too fast round a corner, clattered into none other than Guy, who’d been running fast in the other direction.
It was an extraordinary coincidence: not that they should meet, but that they should meet in a trench. Guy, as a staff officer, hardly ever entered a front-line position, still less during a time of heavy combat. But, Tom remembered, the divisional telephone exchange had been completely smashed during earlier shelling, and he supposed the divisional staff must have been desperate to obtain a reliable picture of action on the ground.
Both Private Hemplethwaite, in charge of the Lewis gun, and Privates Jones and Carragher, who were then shovelling out the fallen trench, saw what happened next. The two officers had a blazing argument. The older officer was trying to push past and the younger man was physically restraining him, pushing and throwing him back against the wall of the trench. The noise of the shelling was too loud to catch any words, but it was clear that they were shouting at each other.
The younger man began hitting the other. Hard, forceful slaps, which the other man defended himself against by putting his arms to his face. The older man kept trying to get past. The older man didn’t once offer any violence at all to the younger.
Then it happened.
All three men were absolutely unanimous on the fact. The younger man drew his revolver. He pointed it at the other man’s head. The older man drew back, making a gesture of surrender. The younger man was still shouting. He seemed extraordinarily angry. The noise of battle continued to drown the sounds. Then the younger man lowered his gun until it was pointing at the other’s groin, or thereabouts. There was a shot. The shot was perfectly deliberate and at close range. A bloody rosette leaped into the khaki flannels. The older man jumped backwards as the bullet tore into his thigh. The younger man, a lieutenant, holstered his revolver, took one last furious look at the other and tore onwards up the line. Dark blood began to soak down the older man’s leg.
And that was it.
Tom raced away up the trench. Guy came staggering down, his face white as a sheet, incoherent with shock, anger, and fear.
28 (#ulink_25a8867e-a81a-5a72-a89a-c72eda737a46)
The fighting remained fierce until nightfall.
On a few bloodstained acres, too many men lay dead or dying. The air was heavy with the weight of shells and bullets. For the first time since coming to France, Tom found himself longing for the bullet wound that would send him home to England, away from the fighting.
Night came.
Tom posted sentries, praying that the Germans were as exhausted as their opponents. He desperately wanted whisky, but was pleased not to have any. This night of all nights, he’d be too likely to get drunk, when the last thing he needed was a muzzy head.
He was furious with Guy.
Furious. Far from relieving his feelings, the incident in the trenches had simply added to his fury. He’d shot Guy and hadn’t even killed him. Tom’s anger remained hopelessly unsatisfied, but his action had now put him into a position where Guy could, and quite likely would, have Tom court-martialled. There was only one sentence for firing on a superior officer and that was death. Tom knew that there were witnesses and he certainly wouldn’t be able to rely on their discretion. Perhaps Tom’s outstanding war record would make a difference, but Guy was a major and so often these things depended on rank …
Again and again that night, Tom relived the incident. He never once regretted firing on Guy, but his fingers curled round the butt of his revolver and he imagined a hundred times the same incident with a different outcome: Guy struck not in the thigh, but in the chest; Guy not harmlessly wounded, but killed outright.
Tom stayed on duty for the first sentry shift. So much had happened, he needed time to think. Somewhere in the afternoon’s fighting, he had crushed his pack of cigarettes, but he carefully extricated a couple of the flattened paper tubes and delicately reconstructed them into something smokable. He lit up, throat aching for the taste of warm tobacco.
‘Mr Creeley?’
‘Yes?’
By the brief flare of his match, Tom could see a man’s face – silver-haired but young, grey moustache beneath youthful blue eyes.
‘Captain Morgan. Just sent across from the Warwickshires to give you lads support.’
The two men shook hands and Tom handed over the last of his battered cigarettes, lighting it before passing it across.
‘Support?’ said Tom, mumbling through his cigarette. ‘God knows we need it.’
‘Look here. I’ve got some rather rotten news. I’d best spill it. The brigadier wants to sweep the Boche off the salient for good. His idea is, if we can storm their machine-gun posts, we can dare to risk a general assault.’
‘The brigadier is a murderous bloody-minded lunatic’
Captain Morgan laughed, embarrassed at Tom’s bluntness, but hardly denying the charge. ‘Your name came up,’ he said.
‘Came up to do what?’
The captain grimaced. ‘The guns.’
‘To storm their machine guns?’
‘Yes. I think it’s a damn fool idea myself, but the brigadier seems blessedly keen on it.’
‘It’s lunatic.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, old fellow – bearer of bad tidings and all that. The brigadier wanted you to take a dozen men. Use your own initiative on how to proceed, then get started at once. I’ll follow with a full company to support you the moment you’ve put a stop to those guns.’
Morgan handed over a packet containing written orders that confirmed his summary. Tom read the papers, then tossed them away.
‘My initiative? My initiative tells me that the brigadier’s lost his bloody marbles.’
The captain swallowed. Even to a newcomer, it was fairly clear that the brigadier’s orders were virtually impossible to fulfil.
‘I can’t say I don’t feel for you, old man. I’d have put my own name forward, except that I really don’t know the ground here. I must say, I thought the chap who put your name forward was a bit of a bounder. It’s not really the sort of thing that one fellow volunteers another fellow for.’
‘Who put my name forward?’
Captain Morgan paused. He had said more than he should and was kicking himself for it. ‘Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s really not my –’
‘But you did. Who was it?’
Captain Morgan paused again, taking a long drag on his cigarette. He burned the tobacco down half an inch, then dropped the butt fizzing into the mud. ‘All right, old man. I wouldn’t normally say, but given the circs and everything … It was a chap called Montague. Mr Montague. I didn’t get the first name.’
‘Mister Montague?’ Tom was horrified. ‘A subaltern, my age?’
‘Yes. What? You have a lot of Montagues, do you?’
‘Not a major? We have a lieutenant and a major Which one?’
‘Lieutenant, old man. One star on his shoulder, that’s all. Positive sighting and all that. Definitely lieutenant.’
‘His leg? Was he wounded in the leg at all? A bad flesh wound, very recent? This afternoon?’
‘He was sitting down, old boy. I didn’t see his leg. But wouldn’t he be in hospital with a wound like that? He wouldn’t be sitting around with the brig, I don’t suppose.’
‘No. I suppose he wouldn’t.’ Tom was more shocked than he could give words to. There were two German machine-gun posts. One of them had been dug into the site of a deep shellhole, built up with sandbags and well wired all round. The other was one of the German gun posts that had survived pretty much undisturbed all through the fighting. The post had been built of poured concrete, ten feet thick and laced through with railway ties and steel bars. Attacking the posts was a short walk to suicide, nothing less. And Alan had wanted it. More even than the probability of his impending death – a fact which Tom treated as certain – what shocked him was that Alan wanted it.
Captain Morgan looked at Tom with a depth of feeling in his eyes. Beyond the makeshift parapet, some two hundred yards away the white concrete gun post shone pale in the moonlight. ‘I’m terribly sorry, old man. I do wish you the very best of British luck.’
‘Thank you.’
‘There’s nothing I can do, is there? Nothing you need?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Just … Look, for reasons I can’t explain, it matters to me very much indeed – more than I can possibly say – who suggested my name this afternoon. You’re perfectly sure it was a Lieutenant Montague?’
Pause.
In the distance a couple of shells boomed, and there was an answering snap of rifles.
‘Look, I was at Sandhurst four years ago, made captain last year. I know when to salute the pips and when to look for a salute myself. I’m absolutely positive, old man. I’m sorry.’
Tom nodded.
Another handshake. ‘I’d best leave you to it, then.’ Morgan began to walk away. A Very light shot up into the sky, and hung there, slowly dropping. The gloomy trench filled with its glow.
‘Excuse me, Captain,’ called Tom.
‘Yes?’ Morgan turned.
Tom held out his crumpled cigarette packet. ‘I’ve managed to crush these. You don’t have any by chance?’
Morgan felt in his tunic pocket. He had a packet of Woodbines intact and just slightly damp from a shower of rain earlier. ‘Take these, old man. You’re welcome.’
29 (#ulink_6debd770-48b5-5e52-b120-49a76221e455)
We’re the boys of the New Arm-ee.
We cannot fight,
We cannot shoot,
What bloody use are we?
But when we get to Berlin
The Kaiser he will say,
Hoch, hoch, mein Gott!
What a bloody fine lot
Are the boys from the New Arm-ee.
The song in one of its many versions drifted from the slimy dugout steps like the smell of something pleasant. The dugout was one of those captured from the Germans. It was well-built and, as far as these things ever were, comfortable. After a short pause, the song changed to something more melancholy.
Tom swallowed hard. Faced directly with the fact of his imminent death, his long-held attitude of carelessness began to desert him. He didn’t want to die. He was desperately keen to live. Perhaps he’d live through the night only to find himself court-martialled in the morning. But he didn’t care. He wanted to survive this night. After that, he’d take his chances.
And yet his death wasn’t the worst of it. Alan was. Of all people on earth, Alan Montague had put his name forward for the mission at hand. Tom knew he should never have slept with Lisette, yet Alan’s response was so coldly murderous. It was the worst side of Alan, multiplied and exaggerated. This was Alan the nobleman’s son, snobbish, self-righteous and detestable.
Tom felt like a stranger in a strange land.
He walked down the dugout steps. There were thirty men crammed down there, exhausted from the day’s fighting. Of the thirty, only three or four had had the energy to sing, and then only because there wasn’t enough space in the dugout for everyone to lie or even sit.
The men saw the look on Tom’s face, and they fell silent, immediately apprehensive. Those who were awake shook the ones who weren’t. The dugout came to life and the men stood leaning against the oozing walls or sat on rough wooden benches or on the ground. Light came from a pair of German acetylene lamps, which filled the dugout with their thick petrol fumes. The air was utterly foul, but homely. A couple of rats sat chewing something in the corner.
‘Raise your right hands, boys … Your right hand, Thompson, not both of them.’
The men silently obeyed.
‘Now lower your hands if you have nippers, any children at all.’
Sixteen hands remained aloft.
‘Put them down if you have a wife … I said a wife, Appleby, not a girl you screw when you’re in the mood.’
Ten hands plus Appleby: eleven.
Tom nodded. ‘You men come here, the rest of you carry on.’ There was complete silence, except for a low muttering as men clambered over each other to exchange positions. (‘Sorry mate’, ‘Careful, that’s my fucking hand you’re treading on’, ‘I’d’ve married the old cow, if I’d known’ …) Eventually the eleven men found their way to Tom – or eleven boys, to be more accurate, since their average age must have been under twenty-one. Tom’s orders required him to take a dozen men, but he’d disobey. A troop of fifty men couldn’t take the guns, and he’d be damned if he’d have more blood on his hands than he absolutely had to. Tom took eleven matches from the box in his breast pocket and broke the heads off two of them. He jumbled the sticks and poked the ends out between his thumb and hand.
‘Each man take a match.’
The men obeyed, and two ended up with the broken-headed sticks: one sandy-haired, stout but strong, and with a confident look to him; the other was a typical inner-city recruit, poorly fed, short – hardly even five foot four – with a long, pale face. Tom didn’t recognise them. Because of the casualties it had suffered so far, the company had been strengthened with other men of the battalion, men Tom didn’t yet know.
‘Sorry, lads, I haven’t got to know your names yet.’
‘Stimson, sir,’ said the sandy-haired lad.
‘Hardwick, sir. The boys call me Shorty,’ said the other.
‘And what would you like me to call you?’
‘Shorty, sir, I suppose. Seems more natural now, like.’
Tom nodded. He took Morgan’s cigarette pack from his pocket and offered the two lads cigarettes. They all three lit up.
‘Now I’ve got good news for you both. I’ve chosen you for a mission, which is going to be difficult and dangerous, but which will mean a medal for each of you, and a thumping great amount of home leave, if I can possibly arrange it. Here’s what we have to do …’
30 (#ulink_fe168ff3-3012-5bf3-bcb2-19e7f1131085)
Alan woke up in pain.
Somewhere there was danger; horror even.
He grabbed his revolver and held it out into the darkness, breathing heavily. He listened for shooting. There was nothing, only the continual thunder of distant guns. Half a minute passed. Alan tried to remember where he was.
He felt around him. He was lying on a straw mattress on an iron bedstead.
He could remember Guy sitting with him for some time during the day – or had it been the day before? He was still muzzy and couldn’t remember. He could hear the rustle of straw under him and the quiet sounds of the village beyond the window: a horse grazing, a mechanic trying to start a motorbike. He groped for a match, lit it, then found a candle and lit that.
He stared around the little room, looking for danger. There was nothing. He uncocked his revolver and laid it down.
But waking up had brought no peace. His heart was still beating a hundred and twenty beats to the minute and the sense of appalling tragedy was still with him. He’d have blamed his dreams, except that his sleep had been dreamless and the sense of disaster was stronger now he was awake.
Alan remembered his quarrel with Tom. Pain and anger flashed through him. Tom’s conquest of Lisette had seemed like a deep and deliberate insult. Although Alan had been three-parts delirious when he’d assaulted Tom, he was still deeply angry. But the flash passed. The quarrel was just a quarrel. Tom would apologise and mean it. Alan would take back everything he’d said and he’d mean it too. The quarrel was nothing.
Alan’s heart was racing with something else, something worse, something permanent. For a moment, he didn’t understand. And then he did.
Tom!
Something had happened to Tom.
Alan leaped from bed, found his trousers, groped round for his boots, but couldn’t find them. He remembered that Guy had taken them in an attempt to stop him from wandering, but there was a pair of hobnailed peasant’s shoes lying in the stable below and they would do. He grabbed his tunic, found the shoes, and ran out into the street. His body was absurdly weak still, especially his lungs, but his co-ordination had improved. He walked carefully across to the offices of the transport captain, hoping to borrow a horse.
The captain was there, bent over paperwork, swearing softly to himself. He looked up and broke into a smile. He liked Alan.
‘Well, well. Good evening to you, sir,’ he said, with a smart salute.
‘What?’ said Alan, returning the salute automatically.
‘I see you’ve got your just rewards at last,’ said the captain. ‘Thoroughly well deserved too, I might add.’
Alan looked down at his shoulder. He’d become a major while he’d slept. He shook his head, puzzled. ‘I’ve got my brother’s tunic, I don’t know how. I suppose he must have taken mine by mistake. Look here, can I borrow a horse? I’ll give it back in the morning.’
The captain whistled, sighed, looked at his infinite requisition dockets – but within ten minutes Alan had saddled up and was trotting his way through the darkness, heading for the front line, heading for Tom.
31 (#ulink_97893042-162c-5ea4-bdba-de3675547584)
The shooting, when it came, was sudden and clamorous. The guns were barely thirty feet away. By the light of the dim moon, Tom saw the courageous Stimson almost literally disappear as his body was shredded by the hail of bullets. A flare, which followed a second later, was enough to reveal Shorty Hardwick dropping to the ground, as his legs were bloodily cut away from beneath him. The firing continued. Tom reached for a Mills bomb and threw it.
That was the last thing he remembered.
32 (#ulink_fd0f0d24-275b-5aa7-8da7-85c1df2bd358)
Alan heard the shooting. It lasted for just a minute or two, then died. His horse began stumbling on the churned soil, rearing its head and sidling. He tethered the frightened horse to a shattered tree stump and continued by foot. The days of fighting had left the trenches in hopeless confusion. The ground was bare and shattered. The battlefield stunk of corpses and explosive.
He hurried, slithering down the poorly built trenches, bending double because of the weakness of the parapet. He hadn’t wound puttees over his borrowed shoes and they soon filled with stony mud. His co-ordination and strength were better; only his lungs remained atrocious.
He reached Tom’s section, and there he learned the dreadful worst. He heard of the brigadier’s murderous instructions. He heard that Tom had crept out into no man’s land with his two boys. That after half an hour of silence, the German lines had lit up with fire. That the nearer concrete gun post had opened up with its machine gun. That all three men were missing, presumed dead.
PART THREE (#ulink_474fae65-9b35-5049-94bf-d9ccf3e617fd)
But these still have my garment
By the hem
Earth of Shiraz, and Rukna’s
Silver stream
S’adi (Sheik Moslih Addin, 1184–1291)
33 (#ulink_9ebb42dd-eb7d-514e-88b3-7dcf8ec28196)
Alan stumbled from the dugout into the first chilly signs of dawn. Missing, presumed dead. The world was colossally altered. Alan could have lost both legs with infinitely more calmness than he could bear this hideous truth. Tom was missing, presumed dead.
A sentry was standing on the makeshift fire-step, his face blank with tiredness. ‘Any sign of life out there?’ Alan asked him. His voice was harsh and the pain in his lungs still seemed to be as bad as ever.
‘No, sir, nuffin’.’
‘Any wounded at all? Any cries for help?’
‘Well, sir …’ The sentry shrugged, as though the request was incomprehensible. ‘You’re always going to get wounded, like, I s’pose. Can’t say as how I listens to ’em overmuch.’
Alan wanted to strike the man hard in the face. His right arm actually ached to do it.
‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘Please try not to shoot me when I return.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The sentry had wanted to add something about the folly of leaving the trench as dawn approached, but there was an aggression in Alan’s manner that stopped him. Alan scrambled over the parapet and wormed his way incautiously forwards, right out to the heart of the battlefield’s horrors. The ground was littered with fragments of wire, shell canisters, human beings. A human face, detached from its skull, had floated to the surface of a puddle, and lay face up, leering at the sky. Alan noticed nothing; cared for nothing. He reached the spot where he thought Tom’s raid had come to grief and began to call out.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom Creeley?’
He was being desperately foolish. He was within simple sniping distance of the German lines.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom Creeley?’
There was no sound at all, no human voice, no groan. The German rifles, which could have blotted him from existence in a second, held their fire.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom!’
There was no answer. How could there have been? Tom had assaulted the German guns. The guns had spoken. Their word was final. Tom was missing, presumed dead.
34 (#ulink_da4dc98f-cbc2-539e-86f1-2c2d599c99bd)
Headache.
A crashing, pounding tyrant of a headache that swallowed all other sensation, all other feeling. For a long time, Tom lay with his eyes closed, aware of nothing but the monster raging in his head. But slowly, inevitably, life came back. Life and, with it, awareness.
Awareness of being alive. Awareness of pain mixed with numbness all the way up and down his left leg. Awareness of finding himself safe when everything in logic said he should have been dead.
He squeezed his eyes open. Above him there was a plank ceiling, sturdily and neatly constructed. Candlelight flickered on the boards. French mud poked between the cracks. The ceiling was a pleasure to look at. Tom let his mind wander among the only objects in his little universe: his headache, the pain in his leg, the planks overhead.
But life and understanding continued to return, bringing horror in their wake.
There was light coming from somewhere: a candle. Tom rolled over to look at it. It was stuck to the top of a British helmet, beaten crazily out of shape. Tom stared. The helmet was his, but why was it so badly misshapen … ? He felt his leg: it was badly wounded. The pain grew stronger.
He remembered more.
He remembered Stimson being blown away and Shorty Hardwick bloodily scythed to the ground. Stimson’s body had been between him and the shooting. Quite likely, Stimson’s death had been what allowed Tom to survive the onslaught almost unscathed. Poor bloody Stimson …
He closed his eyes again, possibly slept some more. When he woke up, his headache was still bad, but his mind was clearer. Clear enough to understand that the plank ceiling above his head was too neatly built to have been made by British hands. Clear enough to understand he was a prisoner of the Germans. Clear enough to remember that it was his twin, his brother, Alan Montague, who had wanted all this, who had sent him out to die, who had wanted him dead.
The friendship that had been the best thing in his life had turned to ash.
35 (#ulink_50b3fe38-f7ef-5a9a-a90b-d3fb59ce5c12)
Every night, for four nights, Alan searched for Tom.
He came to know no man’s land as no one was ever meant to know it. He found corpses, he found dying men, he found the wounded of both sides. The dying men he shot or drugged into insensibility with morphine. The wounded he dragged laboriously back to the trenches, before squirming out once again. He called a thousand times for Tom. He abandoned caution. He stood up on moonlit nights. He used the light of flares to survey the shell-ruined landscape. He shouted for his lost brother at the top of his voice.
The Germans heard and saw him, of course. Alan could hear the German sentries echoing his call – ‘Tom! Tom Creeley!’ – followed by bursts of laughter and the muttered sing-song voices of the Bavarian regiments. By removing cartridges from the ammunition belts of the machine guns, they could even get their guns to rap out the same rhythm. ‘TOM, Tom-MEE, Tom CREEEE-LEEE!’ But there was no rifle fire, and even the machine guns didn’t seem to be directed at him. From kindness, compassion, or perhaps just indifference, the Germans let the lunatic Englishman roam up and down the devastated land.
36 (#ulink_ef88d0e7-f91b-5eb7-986b-d2d8a20103da)
‘Komm, Tommy, komm!’
Tom had hardly regained full consciousness before he was plunged further into nightmare.
With his good leg on one side and a burly German arm helping him on the other, Tom was escorted down a maze of trenches to a field hospital. He was given a brusque examination and a tetanus injection. Then he was marched off to a farmyard where four other British prisoners were being held under guard, before all five of them were marched further into German-held France.
By the time they reached the prisoner-of-war holding camp, Tom was on the point of collapse. His wounded left leg felt as though it were on fire, and big surges of pain washed up and down his body, like an ocean tide trapped in a goldfish pond. The camp consisted of a group of gloomy tin huts encircled by barbed wire. There was a brief search at the gate – Tom’s cigarettes were removed, over his objections – and he was sent to a hut marked with the Red Cross. A nurse took a quick look at him, decided he wasn’t going to die in the night, and let him collapse exhausted onto a straw pallet. He closed his eyes but couldn’t sleep. Depression assailed him.
He was a prisoner of war.
Alan had tried to kill him.
On either count, he’d have preferred to die.
37 (#ulink_aa85ec0a-e8a6-5522-afd8-4daf20d8c7a0)
Alan abandoned the search, which had become increasingly dangerous, increasingly pointless. Furthermore, he was exhausted beyond description. He didn’t in all honesty know if his body and lungs could bear another night of it. And then there was Guy. Alan got word of Guy’s wound and the hospital where he was being treated.
Alan faced facts. It was time to leave the front, to leave the battle, to give up on Tom for ever.
Two days later, Alan arrived in Rouen, at the school-turned-hospital where Guy was being treated. He made his way stiffly to the correct ward. Guy’s bed was empty: tumbled white sheets and nothing else. Alan stepped across to the booth where the ward sister sat.
‘Bonjour, madam. Je cherche Major Montague –’
Alan was about to continue, but the sister half turned to point, saw the empty bed, then interrupted.
‘Oh, là là! Comme il fume!’
She indicated a door out into what had once been the schoolyard. Alan walked out and found Guy sitting at ease in a cane chair, his bandaged leg covered with a thin green blanket and resting on a couple of packing cases marked ‘War Materials – Urgent’. He was wrapped in a cloud of cigar smoke and a three-day-old Times lay half read on his lap.
‘Guy!’ he said, feeling somehow anaesthetised and shell-shocked all at once. ‘How are you?’
The brothers embraced, as well as they were able, given Guy’s awkward sitting position.
‘Not bad, old boy, considering. Damn thing aches like the devil, that’s all.’
Although he had come to Rouen specifically to see Guy, now that he was here Alan could only think of Tom and Tom’s death, and the urgency of letting everyone in the world know, including Guy. But etiquette forbade him from raising the topic just yet. Guy was unwrapping some dressings and pointing out where the bullet had entered and where it had left, and exactly what damage it had done along the way. Alan found himself unable to understand anything his brother was saying. He didn’t even care particularly. The wound was minor and Alan had seen too many serious ones to be much perturbed.
‘How did it happen?’ he asked, when it was his turn to say something.
Guy shrugged the question away. ‘One of these things,’ he said. ‘Came clattering round the corner on my way back to the dressing station and ran right into the damned brigadier. He wasn’t best pleased with me, spattering his nice clean khakis with blood. Wanted a great big council of war that afternoon, and ordered me – ordered me, mark you – to get the wound cleaned and dressed, then report back to him for his precious get-together. I can tell you the doctors were a bit narked. They wanted to send me straight here; thought the brig’s attitude was a bit rich, frankly.’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘Not to mention that I was wearing your dratted tunic. I’ve had the thing cleaned, of course: you don’t want my blood all over it.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes? You do want my blood on it?’ Guy raised his eyebrows.
‘I mean no.’
‘Are you all right, old fellow?’
‘Guy, look, I need to tell you right away. You may not know. It’s Tom. He’s dead.’
Guy’s face was initially impassive, before changing to something a little more sombre and concerned. He laid his cigar aside. ‘Killed? Alan, I’m so sorry. It’s a tragic loss.’
Guy’s words were so blank, so vague, that Alan felt a sharp jab of anger. ‘Tragic loss? For God’s sake, it’s beyond tragic. It’s a bloody disgrace. It’s a shame. It’s a damned bloody crime, that’s what it is.’
‘A crime? Alan, I did what I could. The brigadier was absolutely intent …’ Guy’s words faded out. He realised he had boobed and Alan was suddenly on the alert.
‘You were there? By God, of course you were. The brigadier’s council of war. You were there! When it was decided. You were there and you didn’t stop it.’
Guy drew heavily on his cigar and sank back in his chair, as though to invoke the protection accorded to invalids. ‘I couldn’t stop it, could I? I’m a major. The brigadier’s a brigadier. It was him that gave the order.’
‘But you knew the position. You knew that those gun posts were impregnable.’
‘And so did the brigadier. He knew it every bit as well as I did. Better.’ Guy had sat up again and his cigar was idle in his hand.
‘But you’re on the staff. You could have spoken out. You could have leaned on him or had somebody from HQ lean on him.’
Guy plucked at his collar, as though checking that it was straight. He was one hundred per cent engaged on the conversation. His normal languid confidence was nowhere to be seen. ‘The brig’s mind was made up. You know these types. Field Marshal Haig could have yelled at him and it’d have made no difference.’
‘But you didn’t try. Because it was Tom, you didn’t try.’
Guy’s voice rose in answer. ‘The fact was that Tom was the very best officer for the job. If anyone could have pulled it off, he could have. I thought it was a stupid mission and said so – not in so many words, of course – but if it was going to go ahead, then we chose the right man.’
Guy finished his sentence too quickly, as though with a consciousness that he’d boobed again. He plucked at his collar a second time. Alan noticed his brother’s discomfort and fastened on to it.
‘We chose? We? Who’s we? You and the brigadier …’ Alan paused only for a moment. Now, all of a sudden, with Tom not here, Alan was seeing something in Guy that Tom had always seen. It was as if that old intuitive communication was working one final time. ‘You suggested his name,’ he said in a whisper. ‘The brigadier announced his bloody stupid plan. You probably argued against it. But when the brigadier insisted, you suggested Tom. Don’t deny it, Guy. I know. I know.’
‘He was the best officer for the job. He was the outstanding choice.’
‘Oh, that’s true, I don’t doubt that’s true.’
‘It needed dash and pluck and sheer bloody-minded aggression. That was Tom.’
‘You hated him, Guy. He always said you did. And I never … I never … By God, you killed him. I’ll never –’
Alan shrank back, as if from a carcass. His mouth puckered in disgust. A couple of nurses were walking across the bottom of the schoolyard, their uniforms brilliant white in the afternoon sun. A doctor came running to catch up with them. His coat was white, but it was stained with blood, and didn’t catch the sun in the same way.
Alan was about to walk away, but Guy leaned out of his chair to grab his brother’s arm.
‘Wait! There’s something you don’t know.’
Alan wavered a moment, as Guy hesitated. ‘What? What don’t I know?’
‘My wound. I didn’t tell you how it happened.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Guy! One little flesh wound and you think you’re a bloody martyr! Grow up!’
Alan began to leave and this time Guy didn’t attempt to stop him. ‘Just remember, you don’t know everything,’ he shouted. ‘If you knew, you wouldn’t blame me. I did what I could.’
He shouted, but Alan didn’t respond.
At the bottom of the schoolyard, the same two nurses were walking back the way they’d come, slowly. The hospital was full of the stink of death.
38 (#ulink_fb958df3-5dc5-5996-8e66-c7a9c5552774)
The cardboard scale wavered and sank.
Tom stared at it with hungry eyes. His fellow prisoner of war, a Canadian from his uniform, cut a crumb off the left-hand slice of bread and transferred it to the other pan. The scale levelled out. The Canadian removed both slices and laid them on a cloth. There were five slices, all precisely equal. The Canadian withdrew his hands.
Tom reached for the slice nearest him, no matter that there was a woodchip clearly lurking in the black dough. The Canadian waited till everyone had chosen, then took the one piece remaining. The other men moved away. Tom didn’t.
‘Got the sawdust, huh?’
Tom shrugged.
‘New?’
Tom nodded.
This was his fourth day in Hetterscheidt, a prisoner-of-war camp a little way outside Düsseldorf. The camp was a bleak place of tin huts, bare earth, barbed wire, and guard posts. A thousand men lived there, sixty men to a bunkhouse. A stand of a dozen cold taps constituted the washing facilities for the entire camp. All men were made to work long hours and under constant supervision from the German guards, known as Wachposten. Tom himself had to smash rocks as raw material for a nearby soda factory.
But the accommodation wasn’t the problem. Nor were the taps. Nor was the work.
The food was.
One loaf of bread each day between five men and that was it. Nothing else. Tom was hungry already. For the first time in his life he’d encountered men close to starvation and he had just joined their ranks.
‘You can get to like the sawdust too,’ said the Canadian, folding his cardboard scale away into his bedding. ‘It’s something to chew on.’
There was something about the man that Tom instantly liked and trusted. ‘Tom Creeley,’ he said, holding his hand out and introducing himself properly.
The Canadian looked round with a smile. ‘Mitch Norgaard,’ he said. ‘Hi.’
They exchanged the information that prisoners always exchanged. Norgaard had been in Hetterscheidt since December 1915. Although in a Canadian regiment, Norgaard was actually an American citizen. He’d signed up because his mother was Belgian and he’d been appalled by the outrages committed by some German soldiers in Belgium during the first few days of the war.
‘So I figured I ought to sign up and let them commit outrages against me as well. I guess my plan worked even better than I hoped.’
‘You’re a Yank? I thought –’
‘Yeah, yeah. The Canadian regiments weren’t allowed to admit us. Well, they weren’t. But they did.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Tom filled Norgaard in on his own story: regiment, date of capture, work detail.
Norgaard nodded. ‘Red Cross?’ he asked.
Tom shook his head. ‘Missing, presumed dead,’ he said.
‘You’re kidding.’ Norgaard’s expression became deeply serious, as though Tom had just admitted to a terminal illness, which in a way he had. Most prisoners survived by supplementing their prison rations with parcels sent by the Red Cross from Geneva, but if you were recorded as ‘missing, presumed dead’ then the humanitarian bureaucracy had nothing to offer. ‘Thanks to your Royal Navy, Fritz can’t feed himself properly, let alone look after his prisoners. You won’t survive without food parcels.’
Tom shrugged and yanked at his waist. His belt was already fastened one notch tighter than normal and his trousers already beginning to balloon.
‘Friends and family?’ pursued Norgaard. ‘You should write. Get that “presumed dead” horseshit sorted out.’
Tom shook his head. ‘No.’
‘What the hell do you mean, no? You must have someone.’
Tom swallowed. He knew how serious his situation was, of course. But Alan had tried to kill him and he would be damned if he’d beg for help from the Montague family now. There was still his father, of course, but Tom knew how close Jack Creeley was to the Montagues, and writing to Jack was hardly different from writing direct to Sir Adam. He shook his head.
‘I won’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’d sooner die.’
39 (#ulink_73ff2145-715f-557f-9c7d-31414da90f4b)
It was the first cold day of autumn. There was only one fire in the room and Alan was cut off from its warmth by a long wooden table and the three well-padded bottoms that sat behind it.
The middle bottom belonged to a colonel in the RAMC. The two outer bottoms belonged to a pair of RAMC captains, ordinary family doctors who had joined up for the duration of the war. Between them, the three bottoms and their owners constituted a Medical Board, gathered to review Alan’s case, among many others.
‘Anderson?’ said the colonel.
‘No, sir. Montague.’
‘Not Mr Anderson?’ The colonel’s tone of voice implied Alan’s response was verging on insubordination.
‘I’m afraid not, sir, no. My name’s Montague. Captain Montague.’
And it was true. In acknowledgement of his services during the battalion’s tragic assault on German lines, Alan had been promoted to captain and recommended for the Military Cross.
‘Hmm … Ah! Montague.’ The colonel found the right papers. ‘Knocked about a bit by a shell. Nothing broken. Nothing hurt. Takes more than a Jerry shell to stop you, eh?’
Alan didn’t answer. It was now more than a month since Tom’s death and Alan was still in shock. It was as though the shell blast had never stopped ringing in his ears and heart. Worse than that, despite remaining under medical supervision away from the front line, his lungs seemed to grow worse by the day. But he hadn’t cared. In a self-destructive mood, he had asked the Medical Board to rate him A1, ‘fit for active service at the front’.
The colonel said, ‘You feel ready to go into the line once again?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Alan, conscious that he was lying.
‘And, of course, you’re desperate to take another crack at Jerry?’
Alan ignored the question, but the colonel didn’t need an answer. ‘Good man,’ he said, looking sideways at the two captains for their approval. But the captains were dubious.
‘Can you run without difficulty?’
‘Have you attempted to carry a heavy load?’
‘How well do you think you would tolerate the sound and concussion of shelling?’
‘Do you think you are capable of commanding men under severe conditions? Bear in mind that the safety of your men will depend upon you.’
Alan didn’t like to lie outright and his answers were visibly hesitant. The short interrogation ended.
‘Excuse us a second, would you, Montague?’ said the colonel, and proceeded to talk with his two colleagues in a low tone. Alan could hear the colonel saying, ‘What the devil are we here for, if not to get men back into active service?’ The two captains on either side were obviously disagreeing strongly, pointing at Alan’s recent medical records for evidence. Alan sat in the cold room, waiting for their verdict. He chafed his hands together for warmth.
Then the doctors stopped their muttering and the colonel spoke again.
‘Look here, Montague, we can’t quite agree. These chaps worry you may not be ready to face Fritz again just yet. Do you –’
But he was interrupted. Unseen by both the colonel and Alan, one of the captains lifted a file of paper and brought it slamming down onto the desk. The noise was like a pistol shot.
Although not consciously scared, Alan’s body was no longer under his control. He jumped about a yard into the air and when he came down he was white as chalk, shaking, wide-eyed. His breathing had the liquid gurgle of a gas victim.
There was a moment’s silence.
The only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire and the tortured sound of Alan’s lungs fighting for air.
The colonel nodded sadly. Thank you, Montague. That will be all.’
40 (#ulink_f7f14742-0e52-5d67-8f0f-5a47cf2cc625)
It was a week later.
Tom’s body grew thinner, his clothes grew baggier. His work at the soda factory grew ever more punishing as his body weakened. Every day, morning and evening, Mitch Norgaard told him to pick up a pen and write home asking for help. Every day, morning and evening, Tom said no. But on the seventh day, Tom caved in. Since there was nothing else to swallow, he swallowed his pride. He wrote home. He wrote to his father, Jack, and to Sir Adam and Lady Pamela.
He got no answer.
He wrote again.
Still no answer.
‘So what?’ said Norgaard. ‘Write again. Write to everyone you know. Write to everyone you’ve ever heard of. Go on writing till you get an answer.’
But Tom shook his head. War turns a man half crazy and prison camp is there to finish the process. Tom laid down his pen and never wrote again.
It was an error, understandable perhaps, but still horribly mistaken.
What Tom didn’t know was this. His first pair of letters was on a hospital ship bound for Dover when the ship was torpedoed and sunk. The second pair of letters was on a Red Cross lorry heading through the Black Forest to Switzerland. The lorry was set upon by hungry men hoping for food. The contents were ransacked. The letters were lost.
Tom would be ‘missing, presumed dead’ until the war ended or he died.
41 (#ulink_30d972e8-8b7d-5064-b91b-1d154ed53732)
‘Darling, boy!’ It was Pamela who met Alan off the train at Winchester. She hugged him tight, burying her face in his neck. When she at last released him, her face was wet. ‘My poor loves, my poor loves.’ She was crying for Tom, whom she’d loved as a mother, and crying for Alan, who’d lost a brother. Alan was unable to speak in reply.
At home, it was the same with his father, and with Tom’s father, Jack. They were pleased to see Alan, of course, but his presence only made Tom’s death more real.
‘He was the very best of officers and the very best of men,’ said Alan to Jack Creeley, when their voices had steadied.
‘Of course, he was – you and him both … And I say this war’s a dirty rotten stinking shame, lad, pardon me. You’ll have to pardon me for saying so, but anything that could take a man like him …’ Creeley’s voice crept out into silence.
Alan spent three weeks at home. Glorious autumn weeks, with the great elms blazing yellow and gold along their boughs.
It had turned out that the shell blast had done more damage than first realised. A needle-sharp splinter had burrowed through Alan’s chest, piercing both lungs. Almost invisible from the outside, the splinter had remained undetected by the original doctors. The longer the splinter had remained in place, the more damage it had done. An operation to remove it had been successful, but further surgery would be needed once he was strong enough. A couple of house guests, a pair of London debutantes, now working as nurses down in Southampton, silently left before his arrival, to give the patient all the rest and quiet he could get.
Alan arrived home so weak he had to be carried to bed. But in the glow of love and warmth, he began to heal. His lungs remained poor, but his body began to grow stronger again. Apart from his lungs, he felt almost whole.
But more painful than any physical damage was the mental scarring. Alan found it almost impossible to sleep in his first-floor bedroom. The wide windows and exposed position made him feel vulnerable to the shell and rifle fire that he continually expected. After three nights of struggling with his fears, he gave in, and took over a boxroom on the ground floor, built like a bunker and with a four-foot stone wall between him and the outside. He slept with a candle burning all night.
Across the hall, in the nursery, there was a large-scale map of the Zagros mountains: a map that Tom had put there fourteen years before. A blue pencil line in Tom’s wobbly nine-year-old hand marked out the family oil concession. Some nights when sleep was hard to come by, and the air laboured in and out of his struggling lungs, Alan took his candle and went into the nursery, staring at the rough contours of the map, in the mountains north of Shiraz. He had promised Tom he’d go there and find whatever there was to be found. Would it be oil or just dry earth? There was no way to find out, except the good old-fashioned way: with a drill.
Some mornings, when dawn had broken over the winter sky, he was still there in his nightshirt, with his candle, looking at the map and wondering, wondering …
It sometimes felt as though finding oil was the most important thing in the entire world.
42 (#ulink_7adadbef-df40-5cf6-9b63-04aa6a6df6c6)
Norgaard rolled over on his bunk and handed Tom a handful of acorns.
‘Pissed up against an oak tree on my way back from the factory today. I found these.’
Norgaard had a handful himself and he began cracking the shells and crunching up the nut inside. Tom did the same, chewing carefully. His stomach was beginning to balloon outwards, but all it held was painful wind. He tried vomiting sometimes, but all he had to vomit was stale air, and the retching brought no relief. Each time that happened, he thought of Alan Montague. Anger, bitterness and self-pity jammed together in a ball that hurt every bit as much as the wind in his belly.
‘What were you up to before the war?’ asked Norgaard, ‘and I’m not asking you to list your ten biggest ever meals.’
Tom grinned. Most conversations in the camp these days were about food, or soap, or beer, or the countless other tiny things of life. ‘Oil,’ he said. ‘I was in the oil business.’
‘You don’t say?’ Norgaard sat up, dropping his acorns into the blanket. ‘On the drilling side or … ? Hey, d’you even have oil fields in England?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Marketing. And no, the country’s as dry as a bone.’
‘Bet the King’s mad as all hell about that … Which company?’
‘Standard, actually. Standard of New Jersey.’
Tom expected the patriotic Norgaard to be pleased with his reply, but instead Norgaard pursed his lips and spat. ‘Goddamn Rockefeller. Ruined the industry for all of us. And dissolution was a bust. Standard of New Jersey, my ass.’
They continued to talk. Before the war, Norgaard had been an independent oilman, a driller with his own crew.
‘And every time we sent the drill bit down, we more than half expected to hit the smell of oil. Boy, I never sharpened the drill so carefully as when I was on my own thirty acres. Every single time you do it, you could find oil sands glistening on the end of the bit.’
‘Did you ever make a strike? For yourself, I mean.’
‘Twice, just twice.’
‘Yes?’
Tom’s hunger vanished, his thoughts of home, his anger with Alan. He was transfixed, the old addiction biting harder than hunger.
‘First time was a little well up near Bradford, Pennsylvania. First day, I pumped thirty barrels. Two weeks later, eighty-five. Four weeks later, no matter what I did, the well gave me ten barrels of oil, if I was lucky. I ended up selling that well for the price of a new pair of pants. Two miles down the road, on land I’d offered on but never clinched, a friend of mine made a strike. Three thousand barrels a week that son-of-a-bitch got out of there.’
Tom breathed out in awe. This was the sharp end of the oil industry, where luck, adventure and geology all met in one glorious mix. ‘And the second strike?’
‘Second strike was sweet as a dream. I called the well Old Glory right from the start. Drilling was as easy as slicing butter. Hit gas after two thousand feet. Three hundred feet later and we were bathing our feet with oil. Six hundred barrels a day, Old Glory produced at her best, God bless her.’
‘And?’ Tom knew that Norgaard was playing with him, but he couldn’t help but fall for the man’s game. ‘And?’
‘And John D. Rockefeller stole every last drop … He owned all the refineries in the area. The price he paid for oil wasn’t hardly worth the cost of hauling it. He sweated me out of what was mine, then bought the well off me when I came begging at his door. It ain’t enough to find the oil, Tom, it’s turning it into dollars that counts.’
Over the weeks and months that followed, Norgaard continued to tell Tom of his days as an oilman in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, and ‘never did get out west to California, but if all your kings and kaisers ever get tired of fighting each other, then that’s where you’ll find me, drilling for oil in my own back yard.’
Tom’s old addiction grew again. If he ever got out of prison camp, then he knew what he would do. He’d get into the oil business: not with Alan, but by himself. Not in Persia, but in America. And not relying on anybody else’s money or goodwill, but relying only on his brains, his guts, his determination to succeed.
Stuck away in prison though he was, it sometimes felt as though finding oil was the most important thing in the entire world.
43 (#ulink_9031570c-54ee-5c5a-97ac-8cad3547c7e6)
Alan grew stronger: strong enough for his second and final operation.
In February 1917, he was sent to a specialist hospital in Southampton. He was readied for surgery and given an anaesthetic. A nurse said, ‘Count to ten for me, please. One, two, three …’
He woke up dazzled by light.
There was a screen around his bed, a couple of doctors, a stout ward sister, and a pretty nurse in the background. The doctors were arguing over treatment and criticising the way the sutures had been applied. When they noticed that Alan was awake, they began asking him questions to test out the extent of his recovery.
What year was it?
‘Nineteen thirteen.’
What month?
‘No idea.’ Alan laughed at the idiocy of the question, hoping that the doctors would be able to see the funny side. They couldn’t.
What was his name?
‘Alan.’
Alan who?
‘Creeley. Alan Creeley.’
The doctors tutted to themselves, then vanished. The ward sister looked at Alan’s bedclothes with disapproval and tucked them in so tightly that she might have been packaging her patient for shipment overseas. Then she left too.
The pretty nurse, auburn-haired, freckled, and with lovely dancing blue eyes, drew closer to the bed. She loosened the bedclothes.
‘It’s not so tidy,’ she said, ‘but at least you can breathe.’
He smiled at her. ‘I don’t think the doctors liked me much.’
‘They don’t like anyone, not unless your injury is particularly interesting.’
‘I didn’t come up to snuff, then? I feel rather as though I’ve been run over by an omnibus.’
‘Well, the operation proved rather lengthy, I’m afraid. More than expected, but nothing that won’t heal. I’ve seen worse cases do well.’
Alan realised that it must have been her who had changed his dressings and bathed him. He reddened with an old-fashioned embarrassment.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve been here two years now and I’ve seen everything.’
‘Still …’
‘Still, nothing.’ She slipped a thermometer into his mouth, forcing him to cut his protest short. ‘Mutton stew or Scotch broth for lunch?’ she said. ‘Nod if you want mutton, shake if you want the soup. The mutton’s an absolute fright, by the way.’
He shook his head.
‘Good choice. I’ve telephoned your mother and father. They’ll be here this evening. I’ve told them you’ll be a bit muzzy, but you’d love to see them. I’ll find you some vases and sneak them away for you. Pamela’s bound to bring flowers, even if she has to strip the hothouse bare.’
‘Thank –’
‘Ah! Thermometer! Don’t talk!’
‘Oree. Unk-oo.’
She took his pulse. Her fingers felt delicious on his wrist, making the rest of his battered body feel like a truck was rolling over it. The white of her uniform seemed dazzling. He watched it rise and fall as she breathed. It was the most beautiful thing … he drifted off.
When his parents did arrive that evening, they were laden with armfuls of flowers, jars of honey, bottles of barley water, and from his father, when his mother was busy with the flowers) a flask of whisky and a handful of cigars.
‘Who was that nurse?’ he asked. ‘She spoke about you as though she knew you both.’
‘The nurse? Lottie, you mean? Reddish hair, blue eyes? But Alan, darling, I’ve told you ten times already. That’s Lottie Dunlop, one of the girls who’s been staying with us this year. A lovely girl. I’ve been longing for you to meet …’
44 (#ulink_4404d9ee-0fc6-534c-9f2f-c0784d83da9c)
‘Hier! Komm! Bitte schnell!’
The guard was elderly, silver-haired, Jewish. He was standing thirty yards away across the prison yard, beckoning at Tom.
Tom pointed to himself. ‘Ich? Me?’
The guard nodded.
Tom dragged himself over. A bitterly cold winter had passed into spring. Tom was still losing weight, certain now that he was dying of hunger. He was listless and apathetic. His belly stuck out, jammed tight with wind and emptiness. He caught up with the guard.
‘Ja?’
‘Hier. Ein Geschenk. Für dich.’ A present. For you.
Tom woodenly put out his hands. The guard gave him a bag of sugar, a couple of tins of goose fat, a jar of raspberry jam. Tom stared down at his treasures, hardly able to understand. The guard tried to explain further. Tom couldn’t properly follow the Jew’s accented German, but it was something to do with a Red Cross parcel that had arrived for a man recently dead. The guard had seen Tom’s state and wanted to help. Tom was so grateful – so shocked – he began to sob out thanks, like a child at Christmas. The guard waved away the thanks, told Tom to eat slowly, and left.
The gift was like a second chance at life.
Tom was tempted to wolf the lot, but knew his stomach would quickly revenge itself on him if he did. He ate the goose fat and the jam over five days and took a spoonful of sugar with a mug of cold water morning and evening. His stomach complained, but his painful wind reduced. For the first time in months, Tom felt nearly human. And, as a human, he felt ready for action.
Speaking to Norgaard in the quiet of the camp that evening, he made a proposal.
‘Let’s escape,’ he said.
45 (#ulink_a87c21eb-1317-528d-b792-4e315ad8d47a)
Alan recovered and Lottie Dunlop nursed him. One morning, as his brain fought its way out of its post-operation fog, he sat up in bed and tried to thank her.
‘Thank you so much for everything,’ he said. ‘I do apologise for not saying so earlier. I must have seemed very brutish. It was the anaesthetic, I suppose.’
‘Of course it was.’
‘Well, sorry anyway. It was ungentlemanly.’
She snorted out through her nose and began to clear away his tray of food.
‘You must think me very stupid,’ he said.
She stood upright, leaving his tray where it was. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. So far in this conversation you’ve called yourself a brute, ungentlemanly and now stupid. In the past couple of days, you’ve said sorry because you had dressings that needed changing. You’ve apologised for causing trouble – by which I assume you meant being honourably wounded in the service of your country. And when I tried to pay you the compliment of noticing your Military Cross you told me that you hadn’t earned it. So far, Captain Montague, I’m beginning to conclude that you’re a great nincompoop.’
He smiled. ‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry again? What is it this time?’
‘Very well then, not sorry … Miss Dunlop, may we start again? I’m Captain Alan Montague and I’m perfectly delighted to make your acquaintance.’
She bobbed in an exquisite curtsy and offered him her hand. ‘Charlotte Dunlop,’ she said. ‘Do call me Lottie.’
For six weeks, Alan recovered. At first he was embarrassed that he should be cared for so intimately by a friend and guest of his parents. Then, later, as he became well enough to be pushed round the hospital in a wheelchair, he began to understand what Lottie’s day-to-day job involved. The wing of the hospital in which she worked dealt with some of the worst cases coming over from France. She handled men who had lost both legs, who had been blinded or deafened, men whose lungs had been three-quarters destroyed by gas, who coughed black blood each time they tried to breathe too deeply. Compared with the things Lottie saw each and every day, Alan’s personal embarrassment at being bathed seemed so trivial.
They became friends.
At the end of her daily duties, Lottie came to find Alan, bringing two steaming great mugs of tea and a slice of cake from home. He learned how she had been on holiday in France when the war broke out. She’d extended her stay, ‘not wanting to travel back while the fighting was still going on – my goodness, how strange it feels to remember that now’. Staying in a hotel at Boulogne, she’d encountered some of the wounded men of the original Expeditionary Force and stayed to help. She’d been appalled by what she’d seen to begin with – ‘I must have been a very sheltered little girl, I’m afraid. I hadn’t imagined … I hadn’t even imagined what it could have been like’ – but came to find something like a vocation in her bloodstained trade. ‘I came back from France for Mummy and Daddy’s sake, but I insisted on at least coming here –’ she meant the Centre for the Very Seriously Wounded – ‘as I couldn’t stand to have become one of those ghastly debs who take a few temperatures and change a few dressings, then think they’ve earned themselves a letter of thanks from the King.’
And he, in return, told her all about himself. He found he was able to speak to her about the fighting with something approaching candour. After all, for every horror he had seen, she had heard of things every bit as bad. She had even, he reflected, witnessed more deaths at close quarters, since perhaps one-third of the men who passed through her hands were too badly injured to survive and her job kept her by their sides until the bitter end.
‘When you were concussed, you used to moan a lot in your sleep,’ she said. ‘You called out for mother – everyone does,’ she added quickly, ‘everyone – but also for Tom. That would be Tom Creeley, I suppose? The boy you grew up with.’
‘Yes, though that doesn’t quite say it. Tom was my twin. I couldn’t have been closer to him if he’d been my flesh and blood. For a few days after his death, I quite lost my head. I almost willed myself to die.’
She nodded. ‘That’s quite common, actually. It is a phase. It does pass.’
‘It has passed, I think. I miss Tom every moment – does that sound absurd? It’s true, though – but I don’t feel that my life has to end because of it. Actually, I’m getting rather keen on life.’
She smiled at him. Her smile seemed like the most beautiful thing in the world.
‘Me too, my dear captain. Me too.’
46 (#ulink_d93bd643-30cb-523a-8c95-4a3af0c5399b)
The escape attempt was a complete success and a total failure.
One morning in May 1917, Tom found an opportunity to throw a handful of grit into the engine that drove the soda factory’s principal conveyor belt. The machinery choked and died. Sabotage was instantly suspected, and prisoners were informed that working hours would be extended until dusk that night. It was what Tom had wanted.
That evening, as he and Mitch Norgaard passed a wood on their way home, they broke from the column of prisoners and ran for their lives into the sheltering trees. Some shots rang out. Still they ran.
Norgaard was hit once in the leg. He could have stopped. Tom would have stopped there with him. But the thought of further captivity was too much for the noble-hearted American. ‘Freedom!’ he shouted. ‘Freedom!’ He ran on and Tom ran with him.
Into disaster.
As appalling luck would have it, a group of German guards on their way home from camp was passing through the woods. Tom and Norgaard ran almost into them. A shot cracked out. Norgaard was hit again and fell dead. The rifles swung around to Tom.
He thought seriously about running on. He thought about choosing death by gunfire over death by starvation. He thought about it, but decided against. He raised his hands, and – wearily, wearily – plodded towards the guns.
This was the success: that Mitch Norgaard would never know captivity again.
Here was the failure: that Tom would, as likely as not, never know anything else.
Tom’s punishment was lenient: one month in solitary confinement on half-rations. When, at the end of the month, he was brought before the camp commandant, his legs were thin, his arms scrawny, his belly jammed tight with hunger. He had lived almost a year in prison. He supposed he would die there.
The commandant frowned.
‘No punishments. Satisfactory work record. Not so sick as many. Why try to escape? You were lucky not to be shot.’ The commandant spoke German, a little quicker than Tom could easily understand.
‘Lucky? Why lucky?’ said Tom. He was dizzy from long confinement, lack of daylight, and the delirium of near-starvation. The German word for stomach shoved its way into his mind. ‘Magen. Mein Magen.’
The commandant snorted, then turned to one of the Wachposten at his side in order to issue a series of rapid instructions. Then, using French, he spoke to Tom. ‘I have changed your work detail. We need more help on the farms. You will be ready at five o’clock, to be on the farm by six thirty. You will give me your word of honour that you will not attempt to escape again. Understand?’
Tom understood – and on that day Tom’s war ended, or at least the brutal uncertainty over living or dying.
As the commandant had known, it was easy for any man working on a farm to keep himself alive. If Tom sowed barley, he ate a handful of the grain. When he split turnips for the sheep, he kept a moon-shaped slice for himself. When he carried the tubs of porridge to the pigs and calves, he slurped up some of the mixture from the bottom, where the oats were thickest. In autumn, at harvest time, he chomped on fresh apples, concealed some of the waxy potatoes in his tunic, had a pocket of wheat bulging in his trousers.
For the first time since being taken prisoner, Tom remembered what it was like to be happy.
To be happy and to survive.
47 (#ulink_bf171dea-4c54-5a53-adc5-76c542ecf887)
Alan too survived the war.
When his health returned, he went back to France. But not to the front line. Not to the fighting. With a rare flickering of intelligence, the War Office had the sense to transfer Alan to an outfit known as the Military Fuels Procurement Office in Paris.
Alan had had very little idea of what was involved until he got there and met his superior, a cheerful lieutenant colonel with a quick smile and a booming laugh.
‘Secret of success,’ said the lieutenant colonel. ‘Fritz thought he was going to win this war because his railways were better. We know we’re going to win, because our motor transport is better. Our lads came to France with just eighty vehicles to call their own. By the end of next year, we’ll have two hundred thousand, between us and the Frogs. That’s not to mention hundreds of tanks, thousands of aircraft, plus whatever the Yanks bring with ’em. But you know the best part about it all? It’s this. There’s no point Fritz trying to build lorries to keep up with us, because he’s got no oil to put in ’em. That’s our job here. Getting the fuel to the boys who need it. If we get it right, we’ll win the war.’
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Harry Bingham
An epic tale of brothers divided, family rivalry, fortunes lost and won, set against the dramatic background of the early days of the oil industry.Two boys are raised as brothers. Alan is the son of the lord of the manor, with all the privileges which come with that birthright. The other, Tom, is the son of the gardener. Together, they learn to argue, fight and bond in friendship.Social difference divides their paths as adults but nothing can break their bond until a tragic misunderstanding occurs in the trenches of World War I. Now instead of the closest of friends they will be the bitterest of rivals in a burgeoning industry: oil.From the early days of drilling in Persia, to wildcatting in Texas, to the corridors of Whitehall and Washington, this is the story of two remarkable men and the very different women who loved them.
HARRY BINGHAM
The Sons of Adam
DEDICATION (#ulink_b95a9b44-c0ff-51df-91c3-90b6fc59ab9a)
To my beloved N,
My writing partner
May this marriage be laughing for ever, Today, tomorrow and all the hours of Paradise.
Rumi (1207–1273)
Contents
Cover (#u3a4f42c6-4726-5f5e-8ec6-c1250122ec29)
Title Page (#ua5fb3683-546e-55ea-ae18-abcefff41c94)
Dedication (#u7536d64f-8f81-55b1-9e3b-428a301cd8be)
Prologue (#u02c5b12c-632f-59d4-a800-f0cef7fbd1ee)
Part One (#ubc605dbd-77fe-5440-8b1e-b74bf101421f)
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PROLOGUE (#ulink_25f6c4dc-09a9-59f2-a089-b0924ab5bfc3)
The Somme Battlefield, France, 23 August 1916
A man crawls forward on his belly. He’s covered with mud. It’s night-time.
The man is young, a British lieutenant. Although he moves carefully, there’s urgency in his movements, something breathless, something desperate. It’s a dangerous attitude at the best of times. Out here in no man’s land, just three dozen yards from German lines, the attitude seems almost suicidal.
For almost three minutes, the lieutenant moves in silence. Every now and then there is the crack of a rifle or the whine of bullets. He appears to ignore them. Eventually, he comes to a shallow shellhole and rolls down into it. He catches his breath a moment, then shouts.
‘Tom! Tommy! Tom Creeley!’
For a moment, the night is silent. A scrappy moon plays hide-and-seek. Earth and flint scrape beneath the lieutenant’s boots. In the distance, big guns thump the horizon.
Then a voice answers. It’s no more than a groan, but the lieutenant is instantly alert.
‘Tom? Tommy? Is that you?’
His hope is painfully evident. He climbs quickly out of the shellhole in the direction of the voice. He wriggles forwards, hardly concerned to keep his head and body low.
Within forty seconds, he has covered almost thirty yards. The voice belongs to a young boy, a British infantryman, horribly wounded in legs and belly. The boy is obviously dying.
A look passes across the lieutenant’s face. It’s one of painful disappointment. Whoever this boy is, it isn’t Tom Creeley. But the look passes.
‘All right, sonny,’ says the lieutenant. ‘I’ve come to get you home.’
The boy’s face is shockingly white in the moonlight. ‘I’m hurt pretty bad, sir.’ His voice is a whimper. He is afraid of death.
‘Hurt? Nothing too bad, son. We’ll get you patched up in no time and on a train back to England. How’s that?’
‘Oh, yes, sir! Oh, yes!’
The lieutenant nods. In one hand, he holds a canteen of water to the boy’s mouth. ‘Drink this.’ The boy drinks. As he does so, the lieutenant’s other hand snakes round in the mud, holding a revolver. The boy lowers the canteen. His eyes are grateful.
‘Good lad,’ says the lieutenant. He holds his gun to within an inch of the boy’s head and fires. The boy drops back, dead.
The lieutenant lies low for a minute or so, then briskly searches the boy’s pockets for any personal papers. He takes whatever there is, then, once again, flattens himself against the earth. He lifts his head and shouts.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom Cree-leeeeeee?’
And this time there’s no answer. No answer at all.
PART ONE (#ulink_6af27eaa-1fec-5030-9d4d-c36c47df8447)
Rise early, work hard … strike oil.
J. Paul Getty
1 (#ulink_070e0b81-4410-594d-8609-d2f662aa1ca4)
Whitcombe House, Hampshire, 23 August 1893
The beginning?
To hell with beginnings. Beginnings are excuses, apologies for failure. If things turned out disastrous – and they did – then that had everything to do with the way three young men chose to behave, nothing to do with the way things started out.
On the other hand, people are only human. Once a ball starts rolling it’s hard to stop it. A beginning is a beginning, and on this occasion, the beginning wasn’t just bad.
It was awful.
It happened like this.
A small boy, a seven-year-old, stands in a kitchen. He’s building himself a blackberry pudding as big as his head. The cook stands by, face red in the firelight, managing pots of water boiling on the stove, a newly made pot of coffee steaming to the side. The scene is domestic, quiet, happy.
Upstairs, the little boy’s mother, Lady Pamela Montague, is in labour for the fourth time. Of her first three children, only one – the blackberry-pudding-guzzling Guy – survived more than a few weeks. She and her husband, Sir Adam, are understandably anxious this time, but everything is proceeding normally. The doctor and midwife are in attendance.
So far, so nothing.
No births. No deaths. No hatreds. And best of all: no beginnings.
But, in a second, that changed.
All of a sudden there was a bang at the door, the jiggle of a latch, a blast of cool air. A tiny girl flitted in, as though blown by the wind. A sweep of rain washed the step behind her.
‘Please miss, please sir, please help.’ The tiny girl bobbed and curtsied, desperate with anxiety. ‘My ma’s ill. She’s having a baby, only it’s got stuck, and she says she can’t, and she’s gone as white as anything, and my dad said to run to the big house for help as fast as I could, and please miss, please miss, please miss.’
Mrs White, the cook, brought the girl further into the light.
‘Are you Jack Creeley’s little girl, dear?’
‘Please, miss. Yes, miss. Sally Creeley, and my ma’s having a baby and –’
‘Well, dear, it never rains but it pours. You just pop yourself down while I go and speak to Sir Adam. If you want you can –’
Guy stopped her.
It wasn’t a big interruption, but it was a decisive one. He raised his hand, like a man stopping a horse.
‘No need, Cookie. I shall tell him myself.’ He lifted his pudding, the coffee for his father, then turned to the little girl. ‘You can go back home and when the doctor is no longer wanted here, he can come to you. For the time being, he’s required here.’
He set off up the stairs. As he did so, he muttered to himself, ‘Oh, and it’s five guineas the visit, by the way, and someone to take care of his horse.’
Once upstairs, he set down his trophies. Coffee for his father, blackberry pud for himself. He said nothing about Sally Creeley. He said nothing about the little girl’s mother. In the seven years he’d been alive in the world, Guy Montague had learned that there are two sorts of people: those who can afford doctors and those who can’t. It seemed like a simple lesson, the most obvious thing in the world.
He finished his pudding, concealed a belch, and went to bed.
That night, after a twelve-hour labour, Pamela Montague gave birth to a healthy baby boy, a bawling little bundle with lungs like steam-bellows. The birth proved to be perfectly simple. No complications. No difficulties at all.
The same night, in one of the short rows of cottages that housed the estate workers, a young man, Jack Creeley, was forced to watch as his wife screamed through the night, helped only by a couple of untrained girls from the village. In the end, Creeley himself ran up to the big house and begged to speak to Sir Adam. As soon as Sir Adam heard the man’s story, he sent doctor and midwife racing across to the cottages.
Too late. A simple breech birth, which any doctor or any midwife could have simply and speedily corrected, had exhausted the mother and complicated the baby’s position. The doctor, acting quickly, made the incisions that enabled him to deliver the baby by Caesarean section. The doctor was a good one, skilled and decisive. A baby boy was delivered, healthy and screaming, into the little cottage bedroom.
Healthy but motherless.
Poor Betsy Creeley, just twenty-six years old, was exhausted even before the operation began. She lost too much blood and never recovered consciousness. By the time dawn broke on 24 August, the little boy’s mother was dead.
And there it was.
Two births.
One death.
One selfish act with terrible consequences.
A beginning.
2 (#ulink_8977863a-fa5d-5937-8206-3679b50e4a54)
Jack Creeley couldn’t keep his son, of course.
He was a single working man with a little girl already dependent on him. In the short term, there were local women happy to help out, but in the longer term, he could see no option other than to ask his sister – now living ninety miles away in Devon – to take both the girl and the baby. His sister would certainly agree, but Devon might as well have been the other side of the world for all that Jack would ever see them. He felt like a man living with the pain of a triple bereavement.
But help was closer than he thought.
Up at the big house, Sir Adam and Lady Pamela had a worry of their own. Their new-born son, Alan, had a cough. Not a big one. In fact, it was quite definitely a minor one. The midwife said the cough was normal. The doctor agreed. Sir Adam agreed. But it was a cough. Pamela had already lost two children under the age of six weeks and she was terrified of losing a third.
Sir Adam spent a day thinking things through before making his suggestion. His wife agreed instantly and Sir Adam went to approach Jack Creeley. His proposal was this.
Jack Greeley’s young boy, christened Thomas after his maternal grandfather, would be taken in by the Montagues. He and the tiny Alan Montague would grow up as brothers. They would share rooms, toys, schooling – everything. In Sir Adam’s words, the infant Tom ‘would grow up as one of our own. He would in all ways be brother to our own son Alan. You, of course, will still be his father. He’ll call you Father and me Uncle. You’ll see Tom whenever you wish, just say the word.’
For Jack Creeley, the offer was far too good to refuse. It meant his son would grow up in sight and sound of his father. It gave the poor man some good thing to snatch from the wreckage his life had so suddenly become. He said yes.
For the Montagues, the new arrangement brought only benefits. There was guilt, of course. Guy’s behaviour had been unforgivable – and he had been well beaten for it. On a more constructive side, offering a home to Tom seemed like the least they could do.
But it was more than that. Pamela loved babies, and the borrowed child went some way to make up for the two she had lost. But what was more, something about Tom’s arrival seemed to work like a charm on the infant Alan. From the moment Tom’s crib arrived in the big house, Alan’s cough went away, never to return. All through the dangerous first years of childhood, neither Alan nor Tom was once affected by any serious illness.
Even better, and from the very first months, it became clear that the two boys were unusually close. As babies, their cribs stood in the same room. If, for any reason, one of the cribs were moved, the other baby would instantly wake up and scream. Likewise, when they were toddlers Tom began to be taken down to his father, Jack’s, cottage for regular visits. At first it was thought that Tom would prefer to go by himself, but any time the experiment was tried, the little boy would turn black in the face and knot his fists until Alan was allowed to come along too.
By the end of the century, the two boys were six and a half years old. They were thriving, happy, and healthy.
Alan had grown a fraction taller, Tom a fraction broader than the other. Alan was pale-haired, with eyebrows so blond you could hardly see them. Tom was already developing dramatic good looks: glossy, dark, curly hair with eyes of a startling blue. The boys were infinitely close. They went everywhere together. Their communication was so close, they often appeared to read each other’s thoughts.
Visitors to the house invariably mistook them for twins (not identical, of course), and after a while the Montagues stopped bothering to correct them. The boys were twins. Born the same night, reared in neighbouring cribs, suckled at the same breasts. The boys were twins. The only difference was that one called Sir Adam ‘Father’, the other referred to him as ‘Uncle’. The difference is a small one, even tiny. But that wasn’t the point.
Even the smallest things can grow big enough to kill.
3 (#ulink_3dd74e5f-8cfb-5870-a2b3-51b6e8a1aade)
New Year’s Day 1901.
In the newly sanded stable yard, horses and huntsmen milled in impatient circles. Frost glittered from the clock-tower. Hounds pawed the ground, anxious to be off.
Tom Creeley, seven and a half years old, wasn’t yet old enough to ride with the hunt, and he was annoyed. For the last half-hour, he’d hung around the stable yard with Alan. The two boys attempted to scrounge one of the glasses of sherry that were being passed amongst the horsemen. They’d stolen hot pastries from the kitchen to feed to the dogs. But Tom was still annoyed. He wanted to ride and wanted to hunt.
‘I’m going in,’ he announced.
On the way back in, he passed close by Guy’s grey mare. The mare bristled at something, and stepped backwards, knocking into Tom.
Guy turned in the saddle. ‘I’m so sor –’ he began, before seeing who it was. ‘Careful, brat,’ he said, flicking his whip so Tom could feel the rush of air above his head.
Tom scowled. There was no love lost between the two boys. Guy was a bully, Tom his target. But Tom was a fighter, who gave as good as he got. On this occasion, Tom dodged away from the whip, braying as he did so. The braying sound was a carefully chosen insult. As a boy, Guy had been nervous of horses and had been taught to ride on a donkey. Tom, as fearless on horseback as he was in most other situations, was already confident on Sir Adam’s sixteen-hand hunters.
‘Stable boy!’
But Guy’s last insult bounced off Tom’s back. Tom was gone to search for new entertainment.
His first trip was down to the kitchen: usually good for warm food and interesting gossip. But today his luck was out. He’d been spotted pinching the pastries and right now he wasn’t welcome. Tom thought about getting Alan and going down together to Tom’s father’s cottage. Jack Creeley had been teaching the two lads how to poach: how to tickle trout, how to set traps for rabbits, how to move silently in the dark. But just as Tom made up his mind to go, he heard a noise from the library. He was puzzled. Sir Adam was with the hunt. So if not him, then who was it in the library? Tom pushed the door open.
The man bending over Sir Adam’s desk wasn’t much to look at. He was a plump, overtailored man, with a walrus moustache and a chalky complexion. He was bent over the telephone apparatus in the corner of the room, shouting down the speaking trumpet, the earpiece jammed hard against his head.
And he was shouting – shouting about money. Business, money, the purchase of rights, company incorporation. Tom’s feelings of restlessness disappeared in a flash. He was rooted to the spot, burning to hear more.
And why? Simply this. In the seven and a half years he’d been alive, he’d never heard a rich man talking about money. He’d heard his father talk about it. He’d heard servants talk about it. But to Uncle Adam and people of that class, the subject seemed to be unmentionable. It was as though, to people who were already rich, money was like air: something that surrounded you, something you didn’t have to think about. And already Tom knew he wasn’t like that. He knew that Guy would one day inherit Whitcombe House and all the surrounding fields and farms. He knew that Alan, somehow, was in the same position: not as lucky as Guy, but still all right. And Tom? He didn’t know. He dressed the same as Alan, he ate the same meals, he studied the same books, he played the same games. But Alan’s father was a gentleman. Tom’s father was not. Seven and a half years old, and Tom didn’t know where he stood.
Tom had seen enough. Seen but not heard. He knocked loudly at the already open door and strolled on in. The man looked up.
‘Why, hello!’
‘Hello.’
‘You must be young Alan, I suppose.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I’m Tom.’
‘Oh, Tom! Well, good morning, young man.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Knox D’Arcy. Robert Knox D’Arcy.’
Tom wrinkled his forehead: the name meant nothing. On the table in front of D’Arcy, maps were spread out, maps traced in wild contours of brown and pink, maps speckled with place names that sounded like something from The Arabian Nights. Tom peered at them curiously.
‘Where’s that?’
‘Persia, Western Persia and Eastern Mesopotamia, to be exact.’ The man smiled at Tom’s blunt interrogation.
‘Why? Are you going there?’
‘No. I’m looking for something.’
‘What?’
‘Oil.’
There was a short silence.
‘What?’
‘Oil.’
Tom wrinkled his forehead again. This time his puzzlement ran deeper. ‘If you need oil, we’ve got plenty in the kitchen.’
The Walrus laughed. ‘Not that sort. The sort you put in your motor-car.’
Tom was about to point out the blindingly obvious, that the village carrier would happily deliver cans of petrol to the door, but the Walrus continued.
‘Not because I need petroleum spirit, but because I want to make some money.’
‘Money?’
The Walrus nodded. ‘Money, young man. I hope to purchase the right to look for oil in Persia. If I find it, I’ll collect it up and bring it in ships back to England. When I get it here, I’ll sell it to anyone with a motor-car – anyone with an engine, in fact.’
Tom’s eyes were as wide as soup bowls. He couldn’t have said why, but he felt he was in the presence of some vastly important truth. He sat down, staring at the maps.
‘In Persia?’ he asked. ‘There’s oil in Persia?’
‘I certainly hope so.’
‘Where in Persia?’
‘Under the ground. Perhaps even one mile down.’
‘Like coal mines?’
‘Yes. A little bit like coal mines.’
‘And money? If you dig up some oil, you can make money?’
‘That’s my intention, young man.’
‘A lot? A lot of money?’
And then the Walrus did something that – just possibly – would change the course of Tom’s life for ever. He hoisted the little lad up onto the desk, then squatted down so their faces were on a level.
‘Young man, do you want to know a secret?’
Tom nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
The Walrus paused a moment. His face was sombre. ‘Oil is the future,’ he said. ‘Oil is the fuel for the new century. Cars will guzzle it. Ships will swallow it. Factories run off it. Whoever can find the oil will be rich. Not simply rich – they’ll be kings of the world.’
That evening, Tom spoke to Sir Adam.
‘Uncle, who is that new man? The friend of yours. Knox somebody.’
‘Knox D’Arcy?’ Sir Adam chuckled. ‘He told me the pair of you had had a chat. Mr D’Arcy is a friend of mine, a businessman.’
‘Does he know a lot about business?’
‘I should say so. He was an ordinary fellow, living out in Australia, when he came across two miners who told him they thought they’d found some gold.’
‘And?’
‘And they had. D’Arcy helped them make a business out of it. A very, very good one. He’s ended up one of the wealthiest men in England. One of the wealthiest men in the entire world.’
Tom’s eyes widened. ‘Uncle, he says that the best way to be rich is to look for oil. Is he right?’
Sir Adam laughed again. ‘If Mr D’Arcy says so, then Mr D’Arcy is almost certainly right.’
4 (#ulink_42d728a4-d592-5c28-ae6c-e462c53ebb10)
Right or wrong, D’Arcy was a betting man. Having accumulated one colossal fortune in gold, he was keen to plunge a vast chunk of it into the search for Persian oil.
But things weren’t that simple.
For one thing, no oil had ever been found in Persia. Or rather: there were numerous traces of it in the geology, but no one had ever sent down a drill and come up with oil. Not in Persia. Not in Mesopotamia. Nowhere in the entire peninsula of Arabia.
And there was a second problem. The kingdom of Persia itself. The country was a poor one, squashed between British India on the one hand, Mother Russia on the other. The two giants jostled for control. Obtaining the right to drill wasn’t simply a matter of commerce. It was a question of politics.
Hence Sir Adam.
Before settling back in England, Sir Adam had been a diplomat, rising to become the British ambassador in Tehran. He knew the Shah. He knew the country’s politics. He’d learned who mattered and who didn’t.
And that was why D’Arcy had come to Sir Adam that New Year’s Day. He had a proposition. The proposition was this: Sir Adam would help D’Arcy win an oil concession, giving D’Arcy the right to drill. In exchange, Sir Adam would earn a generous commission. Sir Adam, delighted with the adventure, agreed at once. He went to Tehran. He negotiated skilfully. He bribed the highest officials with gold, he bribed the lowest officials with paper. He even bribed the eunuch who brought the Shah his morning coffee.
Sir Adam did everything he needed to do.
And on 28 May 1901, he got what he wanted. He won the deal.
5 (#ulink_1ffae9b3-6c77-534a-80d3-bc1eb32cc8dd)
It was two months later. The family was at breakfast. Tom and Alan poked unhappily at their platefuls of porridge.
Then a footman came in with the mail. Normally, the mail would have been taken to Sir Adam’s study to wait for him there, but today Sir Adam was off to town and he couldn’t wait. He read a couple of letters in silence. Tom and Alan fidgeted with their porridge. Guy – who was no longer forced to eat the stuff – made a big show of filling his plate with kippers and scrambled eggs, as a way of annoying Tom. Pamela, who normally breakfasted in bed, came down to take a cup of tea and see her husband off. A little conversation moved in stops and starts. The wind outside creaked a shutter.
Then Sir Adam broke the silence.
‘Hello! Fancy that!’ He flung the letter down. ‘Very handsome of D’Arcy! Very handsome indeed!’
He was begging to be asked the news and Pamela was first to ask it.
‘D’Arcy, dear? What has he … ?’
‘The concession. He’s split off a chunk for us.’ He picked up the letter again. ‘“Delighted with your excellent work … blah, blah … Very happy to make you a small present … Gift … Drilling rights south of a line drawn from Bandar-e Deylam across to Persepolis.” Great heavens!’
But, surprised as Sir Adam might be, his surprise was as nothing compared to Tom’s. Tom was sitting bolt upright, white-lipped, open-eyed.
‘You mean to say we can drill there? By ourselves? We don’t have to ask anyone?’
Sir Adam laughed. ‘Yes, Tom. We have the drilling rights. We don’t have to ask anyone.’
‘Everywhere south of Persepolis? Anywhere we want?’
‘That’s right.’
‘The mountains,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the mountains.’
And he was right. Since his meeting with D’Arcy – and even more so since Sir Adam’s own involvement in Persian oil – Tom had become an oil obsessive and a Persia fanatic. He knew as much about the geography, climate, geology, tribes and politics of Persia as he’d been able to learn from Sir Adam’s library.
‘That’s right. The mountains of the Zagros. The wild country around Shiraz and the Rukna valley. Heavy work to look for oil there, I should think.’
Tom shook his head with an angry little flick. ‘There isn’t much chance of it there. The best places are further north.’
‘Well, you can’t expect the fellow to hand over his crown jewels. After all –’
‘But some.’
‘What?’
‘There is some chance. I didn’t say there wasn’t any chance.’
Sir Adam laughed at the youngster’s intensity. ‘Lord, Tommy! D’Arcy’s pocket is as deep as any, I believe, and I don’t think he’s ready for the expense of drilling there. I shouldn’t think that we –’
‘Can I have it then?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
The silence at the table grew suddenly cavernous. The family of five might as well have been breakfasting alone beneath the dome of St Paul’s.
‘Can I have it? The concession? If you don’t want it.’
Sir Adam smiled. Perhaps he’d been hoping to encourage Tom to drop the directness of his demand. Perhaps he’d been hoping to soothe away the sudden sense of danger that had for some reason arisen. In any case, he smiled.
It was the wrong thing to do. Something flared in Tom’s blue eyes. He pointed at Guy.
‘He gets the house and all the land. Alan gets – I don’t know – money? A farm or something?’
Tom was just about to turn eight and he was piecing together the facts from half-heard servants’ gossip. But he was more right than wrong.
Sir Adam looked stern. ‘Alan will get some money. And yes, there’s a little estate for him outside Marlborough. There’ll be some income from that.’
‘And? What about me? What do I get?’
Sir Adam licked his lips. Tom’s directness often came across as insolence. What was more, it was detestably ill-bred for anyone to talk this bluntly over breakfast – let alone a boy of eight. But, just as he was ready to speak a sharp rebuke, Pamela interrupted.
‘Well?’
She barely whispered the word. She did little more than shape her lips and breathe it. But Sir Adam heard it all right. He exchanged glances with his wife. The issue that Tom had raised was one that the two of them had often enough spoken about in private. Pamela wanted Tom’s share of the estate to be every bit the equal of Alan’s. Sir Adam, on the other hand, knew that his assets weren’t unlimited. Every penny he gave to Tom would have to be cut out of Alan’s or Guy’s inheritance. As he saw it, there was the issue of justice towards his sons. In his heart, he was unable to feel that his adopted son had the same rights as the children of his own flesh and blood.
‘Well?’ said Pamela again. ‘Or are you intending to drill there?’
Tom stared, as though the most important thing in the world had walked into the room and might be lost for ever if his concentration flickered even for a second.
‘Tommy, you wish to be an oilman, do you?’
‘Yes, Uncle.’
‘It’s no easy business.’
‘No, Uncle.’
‘It’s not enough to have a patch of land to drill on, you know. You need money and men and machines and –’
‘I know, Uncle. I know.’
Sir Adam gulped down his tea and stood up. He rumpled Tom’s hair. ‘An oilman, eh?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Well, good for you, Tommy. You’ve a fine piece of land to begin with.’
6 (#ulink_129512d2-7852-585b-8bed-d1b59d1dee9d)
Tom had his concession.
Not legally, of course – the boy was only eight, after all – but his all the same. For the first time in his life, he felt he had something equivalent to what Guy had, to what Alan had, to what Sir Adam had.
And not just equivalent. Better.
Because, young as he was, Tom had understood something from the very start. He couldn’t have put his understanding into words, but he understood it all the same. And he was right.
Because oil isn’t just oil, the way cabbages are only cabbages, or steel is only steel. Oil is more than a liquid. It’s more than another commodity. Oil isn’t precious, the way gold is, because it sparkles nicely and looks pretty on a lady’s neck.
Oil makes the world go round. Even in the opening decade of the twentieth century, its massive power was becoming visible. Cars ran off it. Ships burned it. Factories needed it. On land and sea, the world went oil-crazy. Navies were converted to burn oil. Armies packed their shells full of high explosive made with oil by-products. And every day chemists found new uses for it; speed records were being shattered with it; men dreamed of powered flight with it.
But even that wasn’t the reason why oil mattered.
The reason was this. Man doesn’t make oil; God does. If you’ve got a big enough field and a big enough bank account, you can build yourself an auto factory. Don’t like cars? Then get a bigger field and build yourself an airplane factory. Or start an airline. Build a store. Open a bank.
Oil isn’t like that. Not anyone can start up in the oil business. To start in oil, you’ve got to have some land that sits over an oilfield. No matter how rich you are, if you don’t own the drilling rights, you don’t have squat. And that’s the reason.
Oil isn’t just fuel, though it’s the best fuel in the world.
Oil isn’t just money, though it’s the closest damn thing to money that exists.
Oil is power, because everyone wants it and there’s only so much to go round.
‘Talibus orabat dictis arasque tenebat,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘cum sic orsa loqui vates.’
He walked around the schoolroom at Whitcombe House tapping out the rhythm of the Latin with his hands. Tom and Alan sat with their schoolbooks lying closed in front of them. They would have looked out of the windows, except that the schoolroom windows were pitched deliberately high, revealing nothing except a wide, bare square of sky. Tom yawned.
‘Sate sanguine divum, Tros Anchisiade, facilis descensus Averno,’ continued the schoolmaster. ‘Creeley, translate for me, if you please.’
Tom said nothing. He didn’t move to open his books.
‘Creeley, if you please.’
Silence.
The schoolmaster frowned. ‘Montague, then. Translate for me, if you would.’
Alan too sat like a stone, staring down at his desk. Unlike Tom, who actually enjoyed these moments, Alan found them difficult – difficult, but in this case essential.
‘Am I to understand that neither of you has prepared today’s lesson? Creeley? Montague?’
Then Tom spoke. ‘Please, sir, we would prefer to study Persian.’
Six minutes later, the two boys were standing in front of Sir Adam. A cane lay on the table in front of them. The cane was yellow and knobbled all the way along its length. It wasn’t an implement they’d seen used very much, but that didn’t mean it mightn’t be now. Tom and Alan stared at it unhappily.
‘You won’t learn your Latin?’ said Sir Adam.
Tom shook his head, slightly but definitely.
Alan echoed his twin’s gesture, but added, ‘We don’t mind learning Latin, Father, but we think it would be better to learn something useful as well.’
‘Persian? That’s your idea of useful, is it?’
The two boys exchanged glances. So close was their communication, they hardly had to speak to understand each other. It was a fact of life that the adults of the family needed to get used to. Alan nodded slightly to Tom, as though to confirm some invisible agreement.
‘It’s for the oil, you see,’ said Alan reasonably. ‘We’re going to need to speak the language.’
Sir Adam held his hand over his mouth. The two boys looked back at each other, then at the bamboo cane.
‘If you boys want to learn Persian, I suppose that might be arranged,’ said Sir Adam. ‘What I don’t like is the fact that you didn’t prepare your Latin lesson. That’s no way to win an argument.’
‘Oh, but we did,’ said Alan.
‘You did? That’s not what –’
‘Of course we did, Father,’ Alan interrupted, supplying a quick translation from the morning’s lesson. ‘We only said we didn’t because we didn’t think anyone would take notice of us otherwise.’
Sir Adam frowned. ‘You could have asked. If you had –’
‘I did ask,’ said Tom, interrupting. ‘Twice. Two weeks ago at breakfast. Again last week.’ He spoke with a kind of flat stubbornness; not exactly asking for trouble, but quite ready for it if it came. ‘You kept saying maybe.’
‘Very well, then. Persian it is. I shall give you the first few lessons myself, until I can find a schoolmaster to take over.’
‘Thank you, Father.’
It was Alan who spoke, but with the two boys it hardly mattered which of them said the words: each always spoke for them both.
‘Good. Then it’s back to your Latin. At least, I assume so. Unless you have any other ideas I should know about?’
His tone was sarcastic, but sarcasm has a habit of bouncing off eight-year-olds. The two boys exchanged glances again. This time, it was Tom’s turn to speak.
‘Thank you, Uncle, yes. We think it’s high time we learned some geology.’
Tom’s face looked perfectly innocent, but Sir Adam knew that the look concealed a will of steel. The older man was exasperated, but proud. Proud and fond. He rumpled the two boys’ heads.
‘Geology too, eh, Tommy? Very well then, geology too.’
7 (#ulink_a88544ad-2434-580a-a549-f7fc66a7019b)
For two long years, the drillers drilled.
1902 and 1903 passed away. Knox D’Arcy, by now a family friend, kept Sir Adam closely informed about his progress out in Persia. Sir Adam told Alan and Tom. Conditions were almost intolerable. Heat, dust, insects, equipment failures and disease were turning the search for oil into a nightmare. Costs spiralled wildly upwards. Even a man as rich as D’Arcy began to worry about the impact on his purse.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst was simply this: so far, two years and hundreds of thousands of pounds into the search, no oil had been found.
Tom somehow managed to maintain his enthusiasm, though each new disappointment was like a personal setback. The two boys stuck to their Persian studies, but when Sir Adam suggested that their lessons be reduced from three a week to just one, neither boy objected. Their geological studies continued for a while, then lapsed when their teacher moved abroad. Sir Adam didn’t seek a new teacher. The children didn’t ask that he did.
And then it changed.
One marvellous day, in January 1904, when the two boys were ten years old, a telegram came from Knox D’Arcy in London. ‘GLORIOUS NEWS,’ he cabled, ‘OIL AT LAST.’
Tom went wild.
When he saw the telegram, he let out a yelp of excitement so loud that the dogs were set barking as far away as the stable yard. Together with Alan, he set off on a dance of delight that sent him tearing right through the house, right through the grounds, down to his father’s cottage and then back again. Tom’s joyous energy lasted all that day.
At dinner that night, when Guy happened to admire the new gunroom that Sir Adam had installed, Tom nodded his young head and commented, ‘Yes, Uncle, you’ve done it very well. I shall do it like that in my country house, when I get it.’
8 (#ulink_dae1fc79-61e4-551b-af2c-4fb366f31ae2)
It was Guy who cracked first.
There was something about Tom’s new-found confidence that he couldn’t stand. The enmity that simmered between the two of them crackled and spat with renewed energy. Boiling point arrived one weekend in early February, when the house was full of guests – including the pretty young daughter of an earl, whom eighteen-year-old Guy was sweet on.
‘Fetch my horse, stable boy!’ said Guy, passing Tom in the hallway and casually reaching out to flick his ear.
Tom stopped dead.
‘Your horse?’
‘You heard me, stable boy. I feel like riding today.’
Tom’s face whitened. The seven-year age gap between the two of them had never held Tom back from a physical confrontation when necessary. He looked Guy up and down, from boots to head and back again. His gaze seemed to assess Guy truthfully for the very first time. Then he dropped his gaze. He shrugged and said, ‘If you like. I don’t mind. I’m going that way anyway.’ He sauntered off.
Guy couldn’t quite believe that Tom was going to do as he’d asked, but didn’t mind waiting to see. A group of house guests emerged from the drawing room and Guy strolled with them to the front of the house. Guy, in riding costume, stood and chatted. The earl’s daughter was there and Guy (slightly plump still, but charming and handsome enough to make up) stood swishing his whip and trying to impress her. She laughed a lot and blushed slightly when she caught his eye.
Then Tom arrived.
He had complied with Guy’s request to the letter – or very nearly. He had gone to the stable yard and saddled a mount. He led the animal in question by its bridle to the spot that Guy had indicated.
But it wasn’t Guy’s grey mare he led. It was the donkey Guy had learned to ride on, a dozen years before. Guy’s saddle and stirrups drooped ridiculously low off the donkey’s back. The animal was old now and nodded its head ludicrously as it walked, as though deliberately setting out to provoke laughter. Tom himself walked with the exaggerated dignity of an expensive manservant. He had even, absurdly, found a pair of white gloves from somewhere and an old footman’s cap.
‘Your horse, sir.’
The assembled house guests laughed and clapped at the spectacle. It seemed like a harmless comic turn, deserving its applause. But Tom hadn’t finished. He brought the horse close to Guy and his girl, before addressing the girl in a confidential whisper.
‘Excuse the donkey, ma’am. He learned to ride on one, you know. Poor chap’s just a little bit yellow.’
Guy was white with anger, but with an audience all around him he was forced to act as though he didn’t care. He laughed and clapped with the rest of them, before taking the donkey and heading back with it to the stables. After hanging around to milk the congratulations, Tom hurried off to join him.
‘I’ll kill you for this, you little brat,’ said Guy, without turning round to look.
‘Like you killed my mother, you mean?’ said Tom, who had long ago heard the story of his birth in the various versions that flew around the servants’ hall.
They had arrived at the stable yard. A couple of stable lads sniggered discreetly as they watched. Guy stopped. He flicked his whip at the stables and the big house beyond.
‘None of this is yours, you know. Not now. Not ever. Got that, garden boy?’
For a short while, that had appeared to be that, but Guy hadn’t forgiven, hadn’t forgotten.
Four days later, Guy was alone with Sir Adam in the billiard room. Sir Adam had just had news from Knox D’Arcy. The oil well in Persia was yielding just a hundred and twenty barrels a day, but there was great expectation of enlarging the strike to something far more lucrative. D’Arcy was already hopeful of finding City investors to share the risks and profits.
‘Must have increased the value of our own little bit of concession,’ remarked Guy.
‘Yes, I should suppose it has. I suppose once they’ve discovered even a little bit of oil, it makes it all the more likely that there’s more to be found.’
Guy, who was a decent billiards player, threw the three balls softly on to the table and began to knock them around with a cue. Sir Adam watched the game, but hardly played any more these days and was happy to drink his brandy and watch his son.
‘What will you do with the concession?’ asked Guy. ‘I suppose if you were going to sell, now would be the time.’
Sir Adam looked up in surprise. ‘Why, that’s hardly a fair question! It’s not really mine to sell. Little Tommy absolutely treasures the thing.’
Guy let out a small puff of laughter as he took his shot. The three balls, trapped on the same bit of baize, clattered round and round against each other. Guy straightened again and chalked his cue.
‘Little Tommy might absolutely treasure one of your paintings, Papa, but if it made commercial sense to sell it, then I dare say you would.’
‘I dare say, but the concession belongs to Tommy.’
‘Legally, Father? I’m surprised.’
‘No, no, no. Of course not legally. Morally. I told him he could have it.’
‘Did you? Really? As I recall, you told him it was a fine patch of land. That’s hardly the same thing.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Guy! I meant he could have it. He knew I meant it. The boy’s besotted with the damn thing.’ Sir Adam spoke sharply. Guy was his elder son and heir, but there were times when his behaviour wasn’t all it should have been. There were times when Sir Adam didn’t entirely like his own son.
‘Yes, Father,’ said Guy, ‘but, with respect, you’re missing the point. You gave him the land because you were certain it was worthless. If you had been sure it had been worth something, you wouldn’t have dreamed of conceding it like that.’
Sir Adam frowned, waving his brandy glass as though to brush his son’s point aside.
‘Well? Would you?’ Guy insisted.
‘No, I suppose I wouldn’t. But that’s hardly –’
‘Father, may I be blunt?’
‘It would seem you’re more than capable of it.’
‘The concession is yours. Legally yours. You let an eight-year-old boy dream about managing it because he clearly wanted to dream and you saw no reason why not. But now, against all probability, the concession may actually have a value. Suppose, sir, a syndicate of investors in London were prepared to pay something for the blasted thing. A hundred thousand pounds, let us say. What then? That would dwarf any settlement you’re able to make for Alan. I don’t think of myself in this matter, but it’s hard to avoid noticing that it would look like a very fine thing if your elder son and heir had barely greater expectations than the boy you rescued from the kitchen garden.’ Guy struck the balls savagely round the table. Again and again, the cue ball slammed the red into the pockets. The red disappeared with an abrupt clack of ivory against wood. ‘I think you have been very generous to young Tommy, Father. I’m not sure you’re holding Alan sufficiently in your thoughts.’
9 (#ulink_827b5a95-837d-5997-8fa0-f3107d2078e8)
From that point on, events ran a hideously predictable course.
Sir Adam, unable to put Guy’s comments out of mind, decided to write in confidence to his London stockbroker, asking him – discreetly – to try to gauge whether there was any value in the Persian concession. Sir Adam told Guy that he had done as much. Guy let a few days pass, then told Tom.
Angrier than he’d ever been in his life, Tom flew to Sir Adam.
‘Uncle?’
‘Tommy! Hello there!’
‘What’s this about the concession?’
Sir Adam liked and admired Tom. The boy had pluck, doggedness, flair and passion. But, in moments of fury, he could also be rude, even violently rude. Sir Adam frowned.
‘What’s what?’ Sir Adam’s voice should have sent a warning, but Tom was unstoppable.
‘What are you doing with my concession?’
‘It’s not your concession, Tom. It’s in my name as your guardian.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘What makes you think I’m doing anything at all?’
‘Guy.’
Sir Adam answered slowly, trying to keep his calm. He nodded. ‘At Guy’s suggestion, which was a good one, I am taking steps to discover if the concession has marketable value. It may well do, seeing as D’Arcy seems on the verge of a major discovery in a region not so very far from our own patch.’
‘My patch. My concession.’
Then Sir Adam got angry. Tom’s impertinence was too much.
‘It is not your concession, Tom, nor is anything else for that matter, unless and until I damned well give it to you.’
‘You did give it. You said.’
‘I said it was a fine patch of land and I hoped you’d have fun dreaming about it. The idea that it might come to be yours – might one day come to be yours – arose when I believed the property in question to be without value.’
Tom almost staggered backwards. He crashed back against a mahogany sideboard.
‘You gave it to me because you thought it was worth nothing?’ Tom half laughed to himself. ‘And you’ve taken it back, at Guy’s suggestion?’ He blinked and looked down at the sideboard, where there stood a vase and, next to it, a framed photograph of the family: Sir Adam, Pamela, Guy, Tom, Alan. ‘Thank you, Uncle. I understand.’
He nodded once as though confirming something to himself, then swept his hand along the sideboard, knocking the photo to the floor. Almost by accident, he also caught the vase and toppled that too. The blue and white china shattered with a hollow boom and littered the floor with its wreckage.
Tom stared briefly and unemotionally at the mess, before walking quickly out of the room.
10 (#ulink_f71ca196-c4b9-5ca0-af51-f8e6bdc9cb4a)
Alan paused at the door to the seed shed.
The building was invisible from the big house and the nearest gardeners were over the far side of the kitchen garden. Alan watched them go about their business, until he was sure that none of them was watching. Then he quickly slipped the catch and entered.
The wooden-built shed was about twenty-five feet long by only eight wide, with a line of windows running down the south side. Now, with winter ending, the workbenches were crammed with trays of compost, ready for the March sowing. The shed had a warm smell of earth and wood and growth and sunlight. A couple of mice scuttled away as Alan closed the door. Apart from the mice, there was total silence inside the shed. Once again, Alan checked he hadn’t been seen, then he raised his arms to one of the roof joists and swung himself up.
The roof space was narrow and only two and a half foot high at its highest. Boards lay loosely along the joists. Apart from some cobwebs and some rusty old garden tools, there was nothing up there. Nothing except Tom.
Alan squirmed forwards to join his twin.
‘Hello,’ said Tom.
Alan produced a paper packet containing bread, ham and cheese. ‘I’ve got apples in my pocket,’ he said.
Tom took the gift in silence. His eye asked a question of Alan and, without needing any further explanation, Alan answered it.
‘There’s an awful fuss,’ he said. ‘They’re looking for you everywhere. Everyone’s sure you’ve gone to your dad’s house. He’s saying not, of course, but I made them think so by pretending to try to get in there when I thought no one was watching. Only they were. I made sure.’
Tom nodded. Alan had done well. It hadn’t needed any secret signal to let Alan know his whereabouts. The two boys had maybe half a dozen favourite hiding places round the house and grounds. Alan had, by instinct, come first to the one where his twin lay hidden.
‘I won’t, you know,’ said Tom. ‘Not until …’
‘Yes, but he’s in an awful stew.’
The two boys’ conversation was always like this: all but incomprehensible to an outsider. Tom meant that he wouldn’t return to Whitcombe House until Sir Adam made the concession over to him properly and for good. Alan doubted that that would happen.
Tom looked at the other and grimaced. ‘I’ll be stuck here for ever then.’
They both laughed.
‘And what about the Donkey?’ Tom made a braying noise and pretended to jump on Alan. They laughed a second time, but Alan was uncomfortable as he answered.
‘Guy got a terrific dressing-down. Father said he’d been told in confidence. Guy said he thought you already knew. I don’t know if Father believed him.’
‘He always does.’
‘Probably.’
They slipped into silence for a while.
‘What’ll you do?’ asked Alan eventually.
‘Oh, I s’pose I’ll stay here for a day or two.’ Tom waved his hand airily round the tiny loft, as though it were an apartment he often rented for the summer.
‘Then what?’
‘It is my concession, you know.’ Tom rolled onto his elbow and looked directly at his twin.
Alan nodded.
‘But it is.’
‘I know. I said yes, didn’t I?’
‘No.’
‘I nodded. That’s the same.’
‘’Tisn’t.’
‘’Tis.’
‘Then say it. Go on then. Say it’s mine.’
‘Look, Father probably will give it in the end. It’s just Guy got him into a stew about it.’
‘There! See? You said he’ll give it in the end. He can’t do that, he’s already given it.’
‘Not with the legal bit as well,’ objected Alan. ‘I meant with the legal bit. I mean, I know it’s yours.’
Tom stared hard at the other, little spots of red appearing high on his cheeks. Then he rolled away, staring out of the tiny cobwebbed pane of glass that was his only window.
‘Then I s’pose I’ll have to go to Dad’s place. I’m old enough now.’
Tom didn’t spell out what he meant, but he didn’t have to. Alan understood. Tom meant that he’d go and live permanently with his father, away from Whitcombe House, away from Alan. The only thing that would stop him would be if Sir Adam backed down and made definite and permanent his gift of the concession.
Alan swallowed. He pretended to be calm, and began poking at the cobwebs with a bit of twig, while kicking his feet against the low roof just above. But he wasn’t calm. Tom was threatening to leave. Tom was implying that a quarrel over property was more important than the two boys’ friendship. He scooped up a bit of cobweb that had an insect caught in it: trapped and dying.
‘Look.’
‘So?’
Alan shrugged and scraped the insect off.
‘You know that vase?’
‘Yes.’
‘Apparently it was worth tons of money. About a thousand guineas, I should think. It didn’t help.’
‘So what? He shouldn’t have –’
‘You could say sorry.’
‘What!?’
‘Just to get him to calm down a bit. I only mean to make him calm down.’
‘You think I ought to say sorry?’
‘Look, he’s probably not going to sell the concession. He probably knows it’s yours really.’
‘Probably? D’you think you’re probably going to get your stupid farm or whatever? Do you think the Donkey is probably going to get everything else?’ Tom’s blood-spots had vanished now, leaving his face pale, and there was extraordinary intensity in his long-lashed blue eyes. As Tom looked at things, every time he challenged Alan to take sides, Alan tried to be nice but ended up taking his family’s cause. Even now, this late in the conversation, Alan hadn’t even said directly that the concession was Tom’s.
‘Anyway,’ cried Alan, ‘what does it matter? If I get the stupid old farm, then you can have half of it. You don’t think I wouldn’t share? Who cares about the stupid concession?’
It was a disastrous thing to say.
Tom stared for a full ten seconds at his twin, then looked away. He put the paper packet of food in his pocket, wriggled backwards to the gap in the boards, then swung the lower half of his body down. With his head still poking through into the roof space, he said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to my dad’s now. I don’t care if they see me. They can’t stop me, can they? Bye.’
And he was gone.
Away from the seed shed, away from the big house, away from the family that had brought him up.
11 (#ulink_29f8503c-a5ea-5c7a-a75e-7e10349c1033)
For twenty-four hours: stand-off.
In Tom’s eyes, Alan had said the worst thing he could have possibly said. ‘Who cares about the stupid concession?’ As far as Tom was concerned, Alan might as well have said, ‘Who cares if you’re a proper part of the Montague family or not?’
At the same time, as far as Alan was concerned, Tom had also committed the worst crime imaginable. As Alan saw it, Tom had placed a trivial argument about money and land over the best thing in the entire world: their friendship, their twinhood.
And so the quarrel persisted. Tom stayed at his father’s cottage. Alan stayed in the big house. For the first time since they’d been able to talk, they spent an entire day without speaking to each other. For the first time since they’d been able to walk, they spent an entire day without each other’s company.
On the evening of the following day, Alan slipped away early to bed.
To bed, but not to sleep. He opened his bedroom window, climbed quickly across the kitchen roofs, slid down a drainpipe and ran across the lawns and fields to Jack Creeley’s cottage. Once there, he tossed a pebble up at Tom’s window, saw it open, then scrambled quickly up the branching wisteria and tumbled in over the sill.
The room was lit by a single paraffin-wax candle. Tom was sitting on the bed with a boy’s magazine open in front of him. He nodded hello. Alan grinned back: the smile of a would-be peacemaker.
‘Well?’ said Tom.
Alan was momentarily confused. He didn’t know what Tom meant by his ‘Well?’ and he was taken aback by the loss of their normal invisible communication.
‘What do you mean?’ he said stupidly. ‘Well, what?’
‘You know. I mean I s’pose you’ve come to say sorry.’
‘What?!’
‘You heard.’
Alan was temporarily blank with astonishment. He knew perfectly well how remorseless his twin could be: remorseless and even cruel. But he’d never expected to feel the edge of it himself. Alan’s head jerked back.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘As a matter of fact, I came to see if you were sorry yet. Obviously not.’
Alan was still sitting on the ledge of the window and he swung his legs out of it again onto the wisteria branch. But he didn’t drop away out of sight. He hung there, half in, half out of the room, waiting for Tom to say something that would let him come back in. But he was disappointed.
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Obviously not.’
Alan shrugged. The shrug was meant to be a defiant, couldn’t-care-less affair, but the candle’s light was enough to show that his mouth and eyes obviously cared very much indeed.
‘Well then,’ said Alan, still hanging in the window.
‘Well then.’
The two boys stared at each other a few seconds longer. Eventually Tom looked away, back at his magazine. Alan found a lower hold for his feet, wriggled once, then dropped away out of sight.
Alan went straight home, but not to bed.
He climbed up onto the kitchen roof and lay there on his back, looking up at the starlight overhead. He was angry with Tom. As angry as he’d ever been. The two boys quarrelled often enough, but always made up quickly. When they fought, as they often did, their rules were simple.
Never submit.
Never give up.
While Tom was a little stronger, Alan had a longer reach. While Tom could be surprisingly fierce, Alan’s pride and determination always kept him in the fight to the very end. And then, when the fight was over, it was over. The two boys were the best of friends. They could be at each other’s throats one minute and walk away, calmly chatting, the next.
But this was different and Alan knew it. For two and a half hours, he lay on his back watching the stars wheel and turn. He went over everything in his mind. On the one hand, there was Tom’s temper and recklessness, and his stubborn refusal to compromise. On the other hand, there was Guy’s unkindness and Sir Adam’s unfairness. By the end of his long vigil, he’d made up his mind. It was he, Alan, who was going to have to do the impossible. It was he who was going to have to make things right.
Having made up his mind, he went to bed.
In the morning, after breakfast he spoke to Sir Adam.
‘Father, I want to ask you something.’
‘Yes?’
‘I think you should give Tom the concession. Properly. You did give it to him before, you know. I know you didn’t exactly say so, but everyone knew what you meant.’
Sir Adam sighed and bent down so that his face was on a level with his son’s.
‘But see here, Alan,’ Sir Adam said, ‘just suppose the thing turns out to be worth a fortune. It could be worth as much as Whitcombe House and all its land. It’s not that I don’t think that Tommy’s worth that. Of course he is. But there’s you and Guy to consider. How would you feel if Tommy was as rich as Mr D’Arcy and you were stuck with your very little patch in Marlborough?’
‘I shouldn’t care.’
‘Not now, maybe, but perhaps you would. These things do matter more as you grow, you know.’
‘Then give it to us.’ It was an idea of genius – the idea that had come to him last night on the tiles of the kitchen roof.
‘What?’
‘If that’s what you’re so worried about, then give the concession to me and Tom. Both of us. Only then you have to share the Marlborough place between us too. Then we’d be exactly the same, whatever happens.’
‘But …’
Sir Adam swallowed his protests. In the much more likely event that the concession was worthless, he’d be halving the property he’d set aside for his own blood-son. But, however much he felt this, he knew better than to argue the point with a passionate Alan.
‘Because we are the same, aren’t we, Father? Exactly the same.’
Of course you are, only –’
‘Well, there you go. Simple! Can I go and tell him now?’
‘It isn’t that simple. Your mother and I –’
‘Oh, don’t worry about her. I’ll go and talk to her.’
Alan ran off to his mother and argued the case with her. Although she said little, Alan quite correctly sensed that she was on his side.
‘I’ll talk it over with your papa,’ she promised.
She was as good as her word. That morning she spent an hour or two in patient argument with her husband. Sir Adam’s sticking point remained the likelihood that he’d be disinheriting Alan. Sir Adam was prosperous enough, but he certainly wasn’t vastly well off. Alan’s portion was never going to have been large and Sir Adam was anxious not to cut it in half. But Pamela was determined. She had some money of her own that had lain dormant with a City bank for many years. When she looked again at how much she had, it was much more than she’d believed. She insisted on adding her own money to Alan’s portion, but on condition that Sir Adam did as his son wanted.
And in the end he agreed.
By the end of that day, when lessons were finished, Sir Adam called Alan into his library.
‘Well, my boy, I’ve news for you.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve made certain arrangements, the upshot of which is that you and Tommy can share the farm and share the concession. Because of your mother’s generosity, there may even be a little money to go along with it as well.’
Alan stood open-mouthed, hardly daring to believe that he’d won. ‘Really, Father?’
‘Really.’
‘With all the legals and everything?’
Sir Adam smiled. ‘You’re ten and a half, my boy. So is Tommy. There’ll be time enough for the legal side when you’re of age. But if you mean, is my decision final, then yes it is.’
Alan breathed out a sigh of relief. It seemed an eternity since Tom had gone.
‘Thank you!’
‘Now, it’s up to you, young man, but there may be somebody you want to go and tell about this.’
Though it was still only spring, Sir Adam’s window was set half open. Alan paused an instant longer, as though to check that what he’d heard was real, not an illusion. Then he moved. He ran across the room, jumped through the open window, and went streaking across the lawns to find his twin.
He wasn’t disappointed.
Tom wasn’t simply pleased, he was ecstatic. And (from Alan’s point of view) what mattered most was that although Tom was delighted to have won his concession, his joy over the reunion with Alan was greater still. The twins were together again – stronger after the break, it appeared, than before it. With joint ownership of the concession, they became oil fanatics together. Oil was their obsession, the sign of what united them as twins. Whitcombe House welcomed Tom back.
Life resumed its normal course, only better.
That should have been it. Argument over. Done and dusted. Forgotten and forgiven.
And so it was. Almost. But when emotions run so high and for so long, they leave their mark.
Alan had learned a lesson – an almost unconscious one, perhaps, but one so deeply etched that he never forgot it. When Tom’s passions were aroused, he could be dangerous, irresponsible, uncompromising.
And Tom too had learned his lesson. When the chips were down, Alan had proved unreliable. Given the choice between Tom and family, Alan was a compromiser, an evader, an ally of divided loyalties.
The lessons had been learned and would never be forgotten.
And the oil?
Knox D’Arcy’s glorious news looked feebler and less glorious by the week. By the end of May, and despite all the efforts of the drilling team in Persia, the flow of oil dwindled and died. D’Arcy’s expenses continued to mount. The chances of finding oil anywhere – let alone in the twins’ stony stretch of mountains – seemed ever more remote. D’Arcy searched for new investors to share the strain.
It seemed that he had gambled vastly and lost utterly.
The two boys continued to learn their Persian and their geology. They continued to follow D’Arcy’s fortunes at the new drilling site of Masjid-i-Suleiman. Their fascination with the business continued unabated. In fact, if anything, with the oil concession now fairly and squarely shared between the two of them, their determination to explore for oil together was stronger than ever before. But, aged only ten, they’d already learned the most important lesson the oil business had to teach.
You could drill hard. You could drill well. You could drill in a place where oil was literally seeping from the ground.
And you could still fail.
Lose money.
Go broke.
PART TWO (#ulink_1a64c1d9-698e-5b27-963e-85ac9cea5297)
Do you know, brother, that you are a prince?
A son of Adam?
Jalal al-din Rumi (1207–1273)
12 (#ulink_29a1b89b-85b5-5977-9912-6cf1333d1a22)
It’s late June 1914.
The summer is a warm one, golden even. The international scene is peaceful. The tensions that have bubbled away in Europe for the last dozen or more years are certainly no worse than they have been and quite probably a good deal better.
Seven British warships have joined the German Imperial High Seas fleet for the Elbe Regatta: a week of racing, dancing, music and fireworks. When finally the British fleet steams away, the British admiral signals to his hosts: ‘Friends in the past and friends for ever.’
In Serbia, an archduke has been killed by an anarchist, but who cares? Serbia is Serbia, and in that part of the world, archdukes are two a penny.
Alan and Tom are grown men now, twenty-one years of age. Their future lies ahead of them, a sparkling ocean on which anything could happen.
Alan has grown into a tall man, pale blond hair, eyes of pale blue, eyebrows so fair you can hardly see them. He has his father’s lean hawkishness, though softened by hints of his mother: her smile, her appearance of mild worry.
Alan is at Oxford, finishing his final examinations. The exams have been gruelling and exhausting, but they’ll soon be over. His degree will be in Natural Science, a subject he has little time for, except that it allows him to specialise in his chosen field of geology.
Because D’Arcy’s adventures in oil hadn’t ended. He’d found his investors, he’d continued to drill. And in 1907, six years from first beginning, he struck oil.
Oil on a huge scale. No trickle this time, but a gush so vast that one of the world’s great companies was in the process of being built upon it. The company, now named Anglo-Persian, has a use for resourceful young geologists, and, as soon as September comes around, Alan will start work on the Persian-Mesopotamian border, scouting for oil. But that’s September. In between now and then, he has two clear months for riding, shooting and fishing in the country, and for balls and parties in London.
Tom, too, is doing well.
He’s shorter than Alan, but stronger, broad in the shoulder, glossy dark hair with a hint of curl. His face is almost picture-book handsome: wide, strong and with a dazzling smile that comes quickly and fades slowly. Unlike Alan, Tom is already highly experienced with the girls. It seems he’s never without them. Alan laughs about it, but also finds it embarrassing. Where Tom is a veteran, Alan is wholly inexperienced.
And there’s another way in which Tom is running ahead of Alan: in business.
Once his schooling was over, Tom rejected a possible scholarship to Oxford and instead won a position with the American giant, Standard Oil, in their London office. He’s doing well. Talented and energetic, he’s already building a name for himself as one of the most able young men in the company. Though Tom works hard, he joins up with Alan every weekend and they spend their time together either dancing and socialising in London, or riding and shooting in the country.
And Guy?
These days, Guy seems altogether less significant. The enmities of childhood appear to have faded. If the old hatreds haven’t exactly disappeared, they don’t make a lot of difference now. Tom is in London. Guy seems to be anywhere but. Guy is a soldier, a major, with a particular aptitude for staff work. Tom and Guy don’t see much of each other, aren’t likely to see each other much in the future. When their paths do cross, they are coldly polite.
But, meantime, summer 1914 is a golden one.
It’s one to be enjoyed, a time when the best thing in the world to be is a young Englishman with the future a sparkling ocean at his feet. Tom and Alan hardly feel the need to signal anything to each other, but if they did, they’d send the same signal as the British admiral in Kiel. ‘Friends in the past and friends for ever.’
The trouble with archdukes is that if you have one and you lose one, you can’t just say to hell with it, we’ll get another. So Austria, who happened to own the archduke in question, sent an ultimatum to Serbia, who stood accused of supporting the anarchists. Roughly speaking, the ultimatum said, ‘We’re very upset about our archduke and we’d like you to do some serious grovelling.’
So Serbia grovelled.
Serbia was little and Austria-Hungary was big, not to mention the fact that the Austrians and the Germans were best of friends and the Germans were well known to fancy a spot of military adventure. So Serbia grovelled. Profusely. Unreservedly. Embarrassingly.
But, unfortunately, if you fancy a spot of military adventure – if you’re all geared up for it, looking forward to it, been promising Auntie Helga a postcard from Belgrade – then a conciliatory reply isn’t necessarily enough to hold you back. So Austria declared war.
Now the trouble with starting wars is that your neighbours are apt to get a little nervous. Russia sat right next to strong Austria and mighty Germany, and it seemed that there was about to be a war on her doorstep. This made Russia a little twitchy, so she mobilised her troops, all six million of them.
Whoops! Here was Austria-Hungary hoping for a nice little war in its back garden, when all of a sudden the biggest country in Europe has mobilised its massive population and placed it on a war footing. Germany called on Russia to demobilise, but, as the Russians looked at it, that was a bit like the fox inviting the chicken to come out of the roost. Russia told the Germans to get lost, and Germany too got ready for war.
Now the trouble with Germany mobilising its army is that the French feel kind of twitchy. The French are a generous race with a well-deserved reputation for hospitality, but when you’ve had a few thousand uninvited guests marching through your capital city only a few decades before, you can be excused for getting nervous. What’s more, France had an alliance with Russia, and the Germans and Russians weren’t looking too friendly these days. Germany asked France to abandon her alliance with Russia, but France said no.
The way Germany saw things, if war was coming then it made a whole lot of sense to stay one step ahead of the game. And, say what you like about the Germans, when they set out to do a thing, by golly they do it thoroughly.
Looking back on it, neither Tom nor Alan nor anybody else could have explained why one more assassination in the assassination capital of the world should have triggered the largest armed conflict in world history. But, explicable or not, that’s precisely what happened.
Needing a quick victory in the west to ensure decisive gains in the east, Germany sent its troops into Belgium, destination Paris. The British – deeply reluctant to go to war, but equally reluctant to hand Europe over to the Germans – asked Germany kindly to leave Belgium alone. The Germans said no, and Britain too was at war.
13 (#ulink_9ca3bfa2-1a6c-518f-9174-a1526ab20d98)
May 1915.
The night sky rumbled with a general low thunder and the horizon sparkled with the flashes of shells bursting miles away to the north. The largest French farmhouse seemed to have given up the notion of farming anything and had turned itself into a kind of hotel instead. In the spacious kitchen, three or four wooden trestle tables were crowded with soldiers, each paying half a franc for a vast plateful of fried potatoes together with a scrap of bacon and a glass of watery beer.
Alan and Tom, only just arrived in France, blinked at the light and the noise, and stretched their legs, cramped after a two-day journey by boat, train and cart. They weren’t left alone for long. A pale-faced man – a corporal, from his uniform – came running up to them.
‘Mr Creeley, sir? Mr Montague?’
The twins nodded. They had signed up shortly after the outbreak of war. After months of training in England, and still longer months of sitting around in a gloomy transit camp outside Manchester, they had finally arrived in France. They were second lieutenants and would each command a platoon of soldiers as new to the game as they were. The two men were uncertain of their soldiering skills, sobered by the strangeness of the fiery horizon.
‘Company Commander wants to see you, sirs,’ said the NCO. ‘Wants to know why you didn’t arrive yesterday. We move up to the line tomorrow morning.’
The NCO ushered the two men into what had obviously once been the farmhouse’s creamery – idle now that there were no cows to make the milk. An oil lamp hung from a hook in the beamed ceiling and a uniformed major was bent over some papers, booted feet across a map-covered chest, drinking coffee. He looked up.
‘Filthy stuff, French coffee. D’you have any? English, I mean?’
The newcomers shook their heads. ‘Bacon, sir,’ said Alan. ‘And marmalade.’
‘Uh.’ The major grunted. ‘Coffee. Best thing to bring.’ He put down his paperwork with relief and stood up. He was surprisingly tall, and had muscular in-swinging arms that made him look a little monkey-like: strong and potentially dangerous. He stretched out a hand. ‘Wallace Fletcher.’ They shook hands. ‘Take a pew.’ The pew in question was a couple of planks over a collection of milk churns. ‘Why the hell weren’t you here yesterday?’
Alan began to explain, but Fletcher shut him up. ‘Military organisation. Contradiction in terms. Wonder is you’re here at all. We go up into the line tomorrow, relieve C Company.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Mr Creeley?’
Tom nodded. ‘Sir.’
Fletcher screwed up his face, appeared to assess his new subordinate, and made a grunt of reluctant approval. Then he looked at Alan.
‘Then you must be Montague, eh?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t have a brother do you? A major? One of our dear friends and brothers on the General Staff?’
Alan said he did.
‘Hmm!’ This time Fletcher’s grunt was disapproving. He picked up one of the sheets of paper from the stack in front of him and read out loud. ‘“It has come to our notice that in a number of companies the daily practice of rifle cleaning is not being correctly attended to … All company commanders … blah blah … regulation procedure … blah blah … inspections … blah blah. Please submit a report detailing … blah blah blah blah blah.”’ Fletcher dropped the paper with disgust. ‘Signed Major Guy Montague.’
There was a long moment’s silence. Alan was plainly uncomfortable. Tom, on the other hand, enjoyed the moment – or at least he did until it dawned on him that Guy was in France. He wasn’t precisely in command of Tom, but he was out here, in a position of authority, obliged to interfere. Once again, Guy’s shadow had come to fall over his life. Tom felt a surge of anger at the thought.
‘Want to know what the bloody trouble is?’ said Fletcher, at last.
‘Sir?’ said Alan.
‘My men keep firing their bloody rifles.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Makes ’em dirty. The rifles obviously, not the men. Men couldn’t get much dirtier.’
‘No.’
There was a pause. Then Alan began to defend his brother. ‘I believe my brother has no desire to –’
He would have continued, but Fletcher interrupted. ‘Oh, doesn’t matter. It’s all balls. I just tell ’em what they want to hear. Shiniest rifles in France. Cleaning drills five times daily. That sort of thing.’ He sat down, put his feet back on the chest, and started his second cup of the coffee that he so detested. ‘You’re new boys, I take it?’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Alan.
‘You’re not going to be too bloody useless, I hope?’
Alan’s eyes jerked in surprise at the question and the tone, but before he could find an answer, Fletcher interrupted again.
‘Don’t worry. Training’s a waste of time. The only soldiers in the battalion are me, the CO, the adjutant, two youngsters from Sandhurst, and a sergeant-major who thinks the whole New Army idea’s a bloody joke. Here’s all the training you need. If you see Fritz, kill him. Keep your own bloody head from being shot off. Keep your men out of trouble. And let the CO go on thinking he’s Lord God Almighty. Got it?’
There was a silence.
‘And the coffee,’ said Tom.
‘Damn right. And mind the bloody coffee.’
14 (#ulink_fdbd8b08-3188-5b96-90d6-5bdd379ffc9d)
Their introduction to the front line came all too soon.
‘Chalk. Lucky sods. Cushy first posting.’ Major Fletcher jabbed the bank at shoulder height and released a shower of white soil into the trench floor. ‘Dry as a stallion’s tit, even when it rains. You should see the bloody clay pits we lived in over winter. Two feet above the water line, three feet below. And Fritz taking a pop at you every time you tried to build the parapet an inch or two higher. Only buggers who enjoyed it were the rats.’
Alan kept silent. He and Tom were both shocked. They were shocked at the mud, the vermin, the maze of trenches, the danger that lurked in every gun slit, every weakness in the fortifications, every whistle of passing shells.
A little way beyond the dugout, lodged in the wire eighteen inches off the ground, there was a severed head. According to the British Tommies who had taken over this stretch of line, the head had once belonged to a French soldier killed by a shell blast. It would have been easy to release the object one night and dispose of it, but it had come to take on a kind of superstitious importance amongst the troops. The skull was known as Private Headley, and was treated as a regular member of the battalion. Food was tossed out to it, drinks thrown at it, even lighted cigarettes hurled as a kind of good luck offering.
‘And here’s your digs,’ said Fletcher, introducing Alan and Tom to their dugout. ‘You’ll want to get some more earth on that bloody roof of yours. It’s not going to stop a direct ’un, not built like it is at the moment. Any food, hang it up. If it’s on the floor, Brother Rat will have it and that’s against regulations. Corpses for them, food for us. Got that? Good men.’
Fletcher went, leaving the two young men alone in their new home. Tom looked at Alan. Alan looked at Tom.
Tom cracked a smile. ‘Well, brother, here we are.’
Alan nodded. ‘Yes. Here we are.’
They sat down on their beds, running their hands over the rough wooden walls, feeling the weight of earth above their heads. They remembered Fletcher’s comment that a direct hit would kill them both. They thought about the summer before and how impossible it seemed that that life would ever return.
But there was something else in the atmosphere as well. Something positive. The shocking reality of their new home made them feel more strongly than ever the bond between them. They had arrived on the front line, only a few dozen yards distant from an enemy that wanted to kill them. Their task was to do the same to the enemy. But they were brothers. More than brothers, they were twins. It seemed like no power on earth could break them apart.
The two men sat on their beds, stared at each other, and began, for no reason at all, to laugh and laugh and laugh.
15 (#ulink_93934d3e-ca62-57b6-8836-5501931d0a11)
It was nine weeks later.
Tom and Alan were novices no longer. They knew how to protect their men, how to harass the enemy, how to lead a patrol out in the dangerous silence of no man’s land. They had experienced rats, discomfort, shelling, gunfire, and the loss of men they knew. But one thing was still unknown to them. They hadn’t faced serious action and all that does to a man. Not yet.
But that was about to change.
Tom drew back the sacking that curtained the men’s dugout. The smell of unwashed bodies and burnt cork raced out, followed by the quieter odours of kerosene and tobacco smoke. Half the men already had their faces blackened, the other half were fighting over a single shaving mirror or letting their mates do it for them. One man had his face marked with love-hearts and messages to his girlfriend. Another had his face covered with obscenities.
‘Widdecombe,’ snapped Tom, ‘get this man’s face properly blacked. And you, Tinsey, get away from that chalk unless you want to make Fritz think you’re a blasted ghost.’
The men fell quickly into order, under Tom’s eye. He counted them. There were eight.
‘Corporal, how many men d’you make it?’
‘Eight, sir.’
‘Where the hell is the last man?’
‘Last man, sir? Eight’s what Major Fletcher –’
‘Private Headley? Where is he?’
The dugout filled with laughter at Tom’s joke, but he wasn’t done yet.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he added. ‘As a matter of fact, I believe I told him to go on a-head.’
Shrieks and howls of laughter followed this witticism, which was already being repeated to the dullards of the platoon. Tom’s rapport with his men had been more or less instant from the start, and though they were thoroughly nervous now, they were high-spirited as well.
And yet, for all his joking, Tom was acutely worried, not for himself but for Alan. Earlier that day, at company mess, Fletcher had asked for volunteers.
‘We need a chap to lead a recce party. Purpose of the recce is to find the gaps in the bloody wire – assuming there are any bloody gaps, that is – then come home. On the way back you’ll drop a trail of lime for the other lads to follow later on. If you can avoid making a bloody hullabaloo while you’re at it, we would appreciate it. The raiders will follow the trail, skip lightly through the holes in the wire, and give Fritz a faceful of bayonet before he’s woken up. Got it? Who’s game?’
Alan and Tom were, of course, both game.
‘New boys, can’t wait to get at it, eh?’
Neither man answered.
‘Anything to get Colonel Jimmy his DSO, what? Jolly good. That’s what we all want.’ Colonel James ‘Jimmy’ McIntosh was the battalion commander – and a man who, according to rumour, was desperate for a medal. There were faint smiles around the table as Fletcher continued. ‘Montague, you take charge of the recce. I’m in command of the raid. Creeley, you’ll be my second. Any problems, you take over. All clear?’
It had been perfectly clear. Both men nodded, grave and subdued at the thought of what was coming.
Then Fletcher had paused, his expression torn between the desire to say something and the feeling that he shouldn’t. The mess waited breathlessly for the outcome.
‘Hmm – Montague – I don’t suppose your brother Guy will be out hunting Fritz tonight – might find the shock was too much for him, eh? Face some bullets, for a change – any case, better things to do, I expect – the King’s rifles to keep clean – don’t mean that – does a good job, I’m sure – anyway, that’s what I mean, he’ll be proud of you, what? First mission and all that.’
Fletcher stumbled to a close. Everyone listened in astonishment. Fletcher had come very close to insulting Guy, almost accusing him of shirking danger. Of course, it was common enough for soldiers in the field to complain about those stuck away behind the lines, but Guy was Alan’s brother and Fletcher’s comments had gone beyond acceptable barrack-room humour.
Alan could see Tom’s smile grow wider and wider, and it was with a frosty voice that he said, ‘Thank you, sir. Yes, I hope he will be proud.’
‘Yes, yes, quite, quite,’ said Fletcher, quickly moving away from dangerous territory. His attention fastened with relief on a pair of rats copulating on his own private store of marmalade. ‘Rat ahoy!’ he cried, drawing his revolver. ‘On three, please, gentlemen. One … two … three.’ He led the others in a volley of gunfire, which left both rats dead in a glue of marmalade. ‘No lovemaking in company mess. Leave that sort of thing to the Frenchies.’
That had been eight hours ago.
Alan, having been chosen to go out first, would be the first to know real mortal danger. Tom would follow only after Alan was home.
Tom’s body hummed with a double nervousness. Once for himself and the danger he was about to face. A second time for Alan and the danger he was in right now.
Alan’s job was find gaps in the wire. Would there be any? Tom doubted it. Alan had strict instructions not to spend time cutting the wire, but Tom knew Alan. His twin would never let a troop of soldiers march up to an obstacle they couldn’t cross. Tom guessed that, even now, Alan would be on his belly, wirecutters raised, snip-snip-snipping at the deadly coils. A single noise or glimmer of moonlight could give away his position and his life.
Tom smoked cigarette after cigarette, extinguishing each one against the silvery sandbags in the parapet. The glowing tobacco charred its way through the sackcloth and released a tiny hiss of falling soil. ‘For God’s sake, look after yourself, brother. For God’s sake.’
A voice behind him made him jump.
‘What’s that? Eh?’ It was Fletcher.
‘Nothing, sir. Wondering where Montague is.’
Fletcher harrumphed. ‘Your men are ready?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then we leave in fifteen minutes. Tell your men.’
‘And Montague, sir?’
Fletcher shrugged, sinister in the moonlight. ‘Montague, Mr Creeley, will have to take his chances.’
16 (#ulink_1c4d11b4-51ba-51e0-9155-18edd8a19dfb)
The minutes passed.
Still no sign of Alan.
The fifteen minutes were up. Fletcher signalled that it was time to go.
One by one, they ascended the stumpy little ladder into no man’s land. Away from the claustrophobic tunnels and parapets of the trenches, the world seemed suddenly vast and shelterless. Ahead of him, Tom could see Fletcher’s ape-like figure and the dark shapes of his men. Tom, in charge of the second detachment, counted off thirty seconds then headed off in slow pursuit. Nowhere was there any sound louder than the muffled impact of boots on earth, the scrape of rifle butts along the ground. A couple of minutes went by, each one as long as a century.
Then something peculiar.
The soil under Tom’s hands began suddenly to glow white. He stopped for a second in astonishment. It was lime, shining in the moonlight. But if it was lime, then …
Alan bounded forwards out of the darkness, grinning. Tom suddenly realised how desperately worried he had been. It was all very well being twins – it was a friendship other people could never hope to match – but there was a downside too, which was simply this: Tom had more to lose.
He embraced Alan. ‘Look after yourself, brother. Whatever happens, look after yourself.’
Alan returned the embrace then pulled away. ‘I did. Now it’s your turn.’
Tom looked up. He had already delayed longer than he should. He crept off again along the trail of lime with his men, while Alan returned to British lines and safety.
The raiding party moved slowly onward. For a minute or two things continued to go well. The raiders were silent, invisible, undetected.
Then it happened.
Somewhere ahead of Tom, in Fletcher’s party, one of the Tommies slipped on the side of a shell crater and went slithering down to its muddy bottom. Though he swore, he swore quietly, but his equipment broke from his pack and rolled clanking down the short slope.
The noise rang out like a siren.
For a moment, Tom held his breath. He could feel everyone behind and ahead of him doing the same. The night air remained quiet.
Then a gun opened fire, a rifle, sounding repeatedly. Whether the rifleman was German or British was never quite clear, but it took just seconds for the German lines to light up with fire. Tom felt the sudden, shocking horror of finding himself under attack. For an instant, he felt dull, stupid, incapable of action.
He looked around. Over to his right, he saw a shellhole, deep and – for the moment – safe.
‘Get into the shellhole now,’ he screamed, using all his lung power to bend his soldiers to his will. The force of his voice shocked them into compliance.
The men piled into safety. Tom counted them in, then followed.
The German fire intensified. A rising flare lit up the night sky. With the utmost caution, Tom raised his head to look out. First he saw nothing. Then, lifting himself still further, he caught a glimpse of Fletcher’s crowd, shockingly far off, in a crater much closer to German lines, and witheringly exposed. The light of the flare faltered and died. Tom lowered his head, just as bullets began to spatter into the earth above and around him.
He looked at his men, who were sitting safe but terrified in the bottom of their crater. He began to speak, but the men were still distracted and shocked. One of them – Tinsey – was nodding his head and rhythmically chanting: ‘Stupid, fucking, German, bloody –’
Tom struck Tinsey hard on the arm. Tinsey stopped. The other men looked wildly at Tom.
‘Now listen, all of you. You men are to get back to shelter, as quickly and safely as you can.’ Another burst of fire interrupted his words. Tom was sprayed with earth and he assumed everyone else was too. ‘You will leave in pairs and move when I say the word, not before. You will run like hell. If you find any man wounded or hurt, you will not stop. You will just run.’ One of the men was struggling with a big clumsy satchel of hand-hurled Mills bombs. ‘Denning, leave that. Leave it! Just put it down, man. All you others, are you completely clear about what to do?’
They were clear. Detaching the men in pairs, Tom sent them running for safety. The shellhole emptied. Tom was alone.
Particles of chalk moved grittily beneath his tongue: soil put there by a German bullet. Anger lit a fuse in him.
‘You stupid bastards,’ he screamed. He screamed it at everyone. The Germans, Wallace Fletcher, Colonel Jimmy, the good-natured riflemen of his battalion. He was screaming at High Command, whose war this was. He was screaming at Guy, who’d never been under fire and probably never would be.
The shooting was still intense, but it was concentrated on the party further ahead, pinning them down, leaving them unable to move. They’d be finished off by mortar fire, come the morning. Shifting position, Tom noticed his foot knocking against young Denning’s bag of Mills bombs.
His tide of anger rose higher.
He picked up the satchel and began to run.
17 (#ulink_d360ea97-dab8-59dc-ad0b-845ddc0c2311)
It was three weeks later. Midday. The battalion had dropped back out of the front line, for two weeks of rest in the pretty village of Le Hamel, just six miles from the front.
Alan jogged along a narrow lane that wound down to a tiny stone-built cottage. His boots scuffed up the white dust that settled gently on the roadside flowers, poppies and saffron weed. As he reached a bend in the lane, Alan’s jog turned into a run. He ran up to the cottage and thumped on its crude wooden front door. From a window upstairs, he heard a voice.
‘Up here, old man.’
Tom had lived, but only just.
His anger had carried him all the way to within spitting distance of German lines. Once there, he’d thrown himself flat and begun hurling Mills bombs like a bowler at some demented cricket match. His fury kept him at it, aiming and throwing with an extraordinary intensity. What he managed to hit, nobody knew, but this much was certain: the fire that had swept over Fletcher’s men became scattered and confused. Fletcher seized his opportunity and raced home with his men: their lives saved.
Once Tom had finished his satchel of bombs, he’d done everything he could. His anger left him. Clarity returned.
Somewhere to the east, dawn was getting ready to light its lamps. Tom was so close to the German lines, he could hear their sentries break wind. Slowly and with infinite care, he’d backed away. As he’d crawled, he must have been hit, because he felt a sudden impact in his left arm, followed a few seconds later by the slip and slither of blood. He’d found a shellhole and tumbled into it. He’d put a dressing on the wound, closed his eyes a moment – then woke at noon with the sun high in a perfect sky and larks singing crystal in the echoing air.
He had no food or water.
The crater around him was hopelessly shallow.
So he’d lain there. All day, all through a golden evening into night. Then when darkness had fallen, he’d begun to crawl home, desperately weak. He would never have made it, except for Alan.
About three in the morning, Alan found him, stretched out unconscious, head pointing for British lines. He’d hooked a hand into his belt and dragged him home.
Alan crashed open the wooden cottage door, and leaped up the rough ladder leading into the loft. Tom lay on his bed, half-dressed, left arm in a clean white sling. He put down a book and smiled. Except for his wounded arm, he looked astonishingly fit and healthy. Soldiering had given Tom (and Alan supposed, himself as well) an extra edge to his physique: more hardness, more confidence. The two men clubbed hands together, a new gesture for them.
It was the first time they’d seen each other since the raid. They were changed men. They’d both experienced danger and death close at hand. They’d both come to understand fully what war might mean.
‘By God,’ said Alan, ‘so now we know what it’s all about.’
Tom nodded. ‘Yes. It was one hell of a night. Two nights, actually. I didn’t think I’d see a third.’
Alan nodded. Then his expression lightened and he released Tom’s hand. ‘Anything to bunk off duty, eh?’
‘One of my brighter ideas, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes, well, everyone has you marked down for an MC now. And a bloody well deserved one at that.’
He was pleased for Tom, of course. He knew that Tom deserved a Military Cross and would almost certainly get it. And yet … the twins had always been competitive. They’d competed as boys, competed as young men, and now seemed destined to compete as soldiers. And just as it had been Tom who’d more often won their wrestling matches, won their riding contests, won every attractive girl in Hampshire (or so it had seemed), now, once again, it was Tom who’d won the soldiering race. The fact shouldn’t have rankled, but it did, if only a little. Alan smiled carefully, anxious not to let any of this show.
But the two men were twins and they didn’t only rely on words.
Tom asked gently, ‘Does it bother you, brother?’
Alan shook his head. ‘You’re a good officer and a courageous one. It’s right these things are recognised.’
Tom pursed his lips. ‘Really? I don’t know if I am a courageous man, let alone a good one. I fell into a bloody fury that night. I pitched bombs at Fritz because Fritz was close enough to get hurt. If it had been our own High Command beyond the wire, Haig and French and all those other bastards, then I’d have killed the lot of them instead.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘You wouldn’t, you mean. If they wanted to reward decent courageous men with these baubles, they ought to be picking chaps like you.’
Alan smiled to acknowledge the compliment, but his eyes remained serious. ‘You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for. But it wouldn’t hurt you to fool around less. No one would like you the less for it.’
It was Tom’s turn to smile. He looked at his watch. ‘Talking of fooling,’ he said, ‘I’ve a little fool who’s waiting for me right now. But I’ll be back for supper, if you’d care to share it.’
‘A fool? You mean a – a girl? Good God, you don’t have a girl here, do you?’ Alan was shocked, then embarrassed, then annoyed with himself for being either.
‘A girl? Maybe.’ Tom laughed. His open smile and shiny unmilitary hair seemed like reminders of an already lost age, those untroubled years before the war.
‘Good God, you do!’
‘Yes, and do you know, you ought to find someone too. I can tell you, if there’s one consolation for a horrible spell in the trenches, then it’s an afternoon in bed with a little French fool.’
Alan blushed slightly. He was embarrassed by this kind of conversation, and he disliked it when he heard officers talking about prostitutes as though they were horses. ‘I’m not sure I could. Not with a …’ Alan let himself tail off rather than speak the word ‘prostitute’. ‘I don’t mean to be preachy.’
‘It’s true, though, all the same. There’s nothing to beat the comfort of a pretty French fool. I’m being perfectly serious. If you ever wanted me to help, I’d be happy to.’
‘I’m amazed you’re able to –’ Alan blushed. ‘Sometimes I come back from our time in the front and I find myself hardly able to eat, let alone … let alone, do that.’
‘I don’t always. But you can lie in a girl’s bed without making love and there’s still a damned lot of comfort in it … In bed, you don’t have to act the British officer. The girls here do understand, you know. It’s not as though they’re ignorant of what war does to a man.’
Still blushing deeply, Alan asked, ‘Look, do you … ? God, I don’t mean this badly, it’s just I really don’t know. When you … do you … ?’
‘I don’t pay, no. My pretty little fool doesn’t charge me, but I imagine she sees other men and if she does, she probably charges them. It’s only sex, you know. She doesn’t love me and I don’t love her. When the war ends, I expect she’ll marry a French farmer and be faithful to him all her days … I think she wants to help the war effort. This is her way and it’s a damned good one, if you ask me.’
Alan’s blush had settled down and made itself at home. Rose pink had made way for tomato, which had given up and handed over to beetroot. ‘I see. Thanks. I didn’t mean to … I wasn’t trying to …’
‘You weren’t trying to admonish me, I know.’ Tom got up, smiling. He squeezed the other man’s shoulder with understanding. ‘I’ll see you later. For supper.’
Alan nodded stupidly. ‘Of course. Later. For supper.’
Tom pulled a clean shirt over his damaged arm, ran his hands briefly through his curly hair, twinkled a smile – and left.
18 (#ulink_2f36f3be-be52-536c-9bf9-a91bdc877393)
The trouble with fate is that it leaves no tracks. Fate never looks like fate. It doesn’t come crashing into a person’s life with heavy bootprints and a smell of burning.
Instead, fate lives in the little things. A child’s fondness for blackberry pudding. A father’s slight unfairness between two boys. The chance results of battle. A tiny scrap of purple and white medal ribbon.
And that’s a pity. Because danger noticed is danger avoided. Because what is invisible can nevertheless be lethal. Because even the smallest things can grow up and destroy a life.
On 25 September 1915, the British mounted an assault at Loos. Six divisions attacked and were halted by devastating machine-gun fire. The following morning, in an effort to maintain momentum, two further divisions – fifteen thousand men, all of them volunteers – were sent forward in broad daylight, in parade-ground formation ten columns strong. The German gunners were simply astounded. Never had an easier target presented itself. They blazed away until their gun barrels were burning hot and swimming in oil. The men fell in their hundreds, but they continued to advance in good order, exactly as though all this were part of a plan, unknown to the enemy, but certain of success. And then the survivors reached the German wire. It was uncut, unscathed, impenetrable. Then and only then did they retreat.
Tom got his medal: the Military Cross, a little strip of white and purple stitched to his uniform tunic. He was proud of it, of course, but it sank quickly into the background. It no longer seemed important. But it was.
Alan and Tom heard about the massacre at Loos from Guy, on one of his rare visits to the reserve lines. It was a chilly day at the start of October. Alan and Tom had been lying on the roof of a dugout, smoking and watching an artillery team sweat as they dug in one of their thumping 60-pounders.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ said Guy, sitting down beside them without invitation. ‘Good to see our front-line troops straining every sinew.’
‘Go to hell, Guy,’ said Tom, neither looking up nor changing posture.
They chatted briefly about trivia, but it wasn’t long before Guy began venting his frustrations with the assault at Loos and the conduct of the war more generally. ‘Sir John French was a bloody fool – a decent chap but totally useless. Haig’s not like that. On tactics, gunnery, supply lines, all that kind of muck, he’s absolutely first rate, the very pattern of a modern general. But – my God! – he’s obsessed with attack. He literally doesn’t care about casualties. I’ve seen him in the bloody map room, hearing about the losses at Loos, the slaughter of the 21st and 24th, and his only reaction was to make changes to the ammunition supply arrangements. Not a hint of anything else. Nothing.’
‘Poor bastards,’ said Alan. ‘It makes it worse somehow that they were all volunteers.’
Guy nodded. ‘And damn short of officers now. Men too, of course, but the officers did the decent thing and made sure they got even more thoroughly killed than the men. They’ll be scouring the other divisions now, looking for chaps. Either of you boys fancy a change?’
Alan and Tom glanced at each other, sharing the same thought, but it was Alan that spoke it.
‘Neither or both, Guy, neither or both.’
The conversation ended there that day. Guy was soon off – efficient, reliable, thorough. But the issue wasn’t over, not by any means.
A few weeks later, when Alan and Tom had returned to the front line and after enough rain to make everyone miserable, Major Fletcher came splashing down the trenches in search of Tom.
‘Ah, there you are, Creeley. Duckboards are a bloody mess, slipping and sliding like a bloody vaudeville act. Get ’em sorted out.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘On second thoughts, you may not need to bother. The company’s been asked to find an officer to make good the losses for the 21st and 24th divisions. The word from on high is that you’d be just the chap. MC and all that. The men’ll respect you from the off.’
‘You want to transfer me?’ Tom’s voice was shocked, but also belligerent.
‘Not want to, old boy. God knows who they’ll give me in your place. Some bloody milliner from Bristol, I expect. Thinks a bayonet is a bloody crochet hook. Not forward march, forward stitch, more like. But no use in arguing. We answer to the King, the King answers to God, and God answers to Sir Douglas Haig. Yes sir, no sir, at the double sir.’
‘I won’t go.’
Fletcher suddenly caught the tone of Tom’s voice, the glare in his eye. Fletcher’s tone changed as well. ‘If you’re told to go, you will go, Creeley. And when you speak to me, you will address me as “sir”.’
‘Yes, sir, but may I say that I won’t go anywhere without Montague. I don’t mind going anywhere, but I go with him or not at all.’
‘You do not tell me what I may and may not do, Creeley. I’m putting your name forward to Colonel McIntosh tomorrow morning and to hell with you. And sort out those bloody duckboards.’
Tom let Fletcher go, then burst from his dugout.
‘Watkins,’ he yelled, ‘Watkins.’
A corporal came running.
‘Sir?’
‘Get those bloody duckboards sorted out. They’re sliding around like a vaudeville act. And if anyone asks for me, tell them I’m seeing the medics.’
He began to climb over the parapet to the rear, preferring the relatively open country between the trench systems to the muddy darkness of the trenches themselves. It was an unnecessarily dangerous route, but Tom was in no mood for caution.
‘Yes, sir … Should I tell them what’s wrong with you?’
Tom was already mostly gone from view, but he turned round to yell his answer. ‘Certainly you should. You should tell them I’ve got a bloody arse for a cousin.’
He disappeared into the night.
And if there had been any doubt before, there was none left now. Fate had set her trap. The three men – Alan, Tom and Guy – had acted as they were bound to act. What followed, however disastrous, was certain to happen. Only a miracle could save them now.
19 (#ulink_fc2ef910-0e7d-5e9d-8c53-39ea6e2c2655)
At two in the morning, a motorcycle roared up outside a pleasant residential street in Arras. Late in October, the gardens were nothing more than a collection of black and dripping twigs, bounded on the street side by iron railings. Out in the street, a silvery motor-car stood in quiet splendour.
Tom stopped the motorbike, slammed the garden gate open, and struck the lion’s head knocker on the front door with three or four crashing blows. A few seconds passed without response, and Tom struck again, smashing the stillness of the night.
‘C’est qui, ça? Mon Dieu, je viens, je viens.’
From outside, Tom could hear the heavy door being unlocked, and as soon as the last lock was turned, he thrust the door open and entered. He strode past the housekeeper – sleepy, outraged, in dressing gown and curling papers – and stormed upstairs. He didn’t know which room he was looking for and flung open doors and slammed them shut again, until he came to the front room of the first floor. There was Guy, in pyjamas and his uniform tunic, standing at his dressing table, checking his revolver. As the door crashed against the wall, Guy turned with his hand just inches from his gun.
‘Stay right there,’ cried Guy. ‘Don’t advance another step.’ His hand was on the gun now, altering its position on the dressing table so he could snatch it up easily.
‘Leave the gun alone, you fool,’ said Tom.
‘Why have you come here? Who gave you permission to leave your post?’ Guy was backing away from Tom, towards his bedside, where a candle flickered smokily.
‘It was your idea to separate me from Alan, wasn’t it? You can’t bloody leave things alone, can you?’
‘It wasn’t my idea to slaughter the 21st and 24th. The poor bastards need officers. The idea at HQ is that we should give them chaps with a decent fighting record. Chaps like you.’
‘Alan’s every bit as good as me and you know it. Better. He looks after his men better than I do. He’ll keep his head better if it comes to an offensive. I personally don’t give a damn which division I serve in. I don’t care which pointless battle I’m sent to die in. But I will not be separated from Alan. Will not. Not by anyone and least of all by you.’
Guy had grown calmer now that his fear of an outright assault had passed. Something like his customary smirking crept back into his manner.
‘It wasn’t me that made the decision, was it? And though we need to bring in new officers, we don’t want to unsettle existing battalions, let alone take two officers from a single company. So it’s you or Alan, but not both. And that isn’t my decision, it’s Haig’s. You can go and argue it out with him, if you want. He’s just four streets away.’ He gave Tom the address.
Tom ignored the sneer. He paced around the room, which was of a pleasant size and pleasantly furnished – a far cry from the squalor of a front-line dugout. Tom fingered the silver-backed hairbrushes, which lay next to the revolver on the dressing table.
‘Alan thinks you don’t really hate me,’ he murmured. ‘He thinks it’s just an act you put on. But I know you better than that, Cousin Guy, and it’s because I know you that you hate me.’ Tom’s fingers had wandered from the hairbrushes to the gun. His thumb flicked the safety catch off, on, off, on, off, on.
‘Leave that,’ said Guy unsteadily.
‘I know who you are, Cousin Guy,’ said Tom again. He lifted the revolver, took the safety catch off and cocked it. He pointed it straight at Guy’s head. Guy was on the far side of the room, but it was an unmissable distance.
‘Put that down,’ said Guy, dry-mouthed. ‘Put it down. That’s an order.’
‘Down? Like this?’
Tom lowered the gun until it was pointing at Guy’s groin. The barrel gleamed dully in the meagre candlelight. The aim didn’t waver by even a fraction of an inch. Guy stood, mouth open, perfectly still, slightly on tiptoe, as though he could deceive the bullet into passing underneath him between his legs. Tom, meantime, looked hardly threatening; meditative, rather; calm. After a second or two, Tom dropped the gun back on the table behind him. The heavy metal clattered loudly on the waxed mahogany. Guy relaxed. His mouth closed and he came down from tiptoe.
‘You think I’m asking you a favour for my benefit,’ continued Tom, as though nothing had happened. ‘You think I’m asking because I can’t bear to be without Alan. That’s not true. Of course I want to be with him. He’s worth a hundred others, and he’s worth ten thousand like you – but he needs me, he needs me if he’s to survive this war. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is. You can do whatever the hell you want to me, Cousin Guy, but if you want to keep your brother, you’ll keep us together.’
‘You could be shot for this.’ Guy’s voice was husky, little more than a croak.
‘Oh, and one other thing. It’s no great odds to me, but I know Alan would prefer not to be separated from his men. He’s not quick to win their liking, but now he’s got it, he’d be desperately loath to start the whole business again from scratch. As they are now, his men would walk through fire for him.’
‘It really isn’t up to me.’
‘No. I don’t expect it is. But you’re a highly thought-of staff officer with the ear of General Haig. You can sort this out if you want to, just as you helped create this situation in the first place.’
‘I can’t promise anything.’
Tom smiled. His hand was on the door. ‘You don’t have to. When you wake up, you’ll remember that I deserted my post on the front line, stole a motorcycle, broke into your room, and pointed a loaded revolver at your head. So you’ll do everything you can, won’t you, cousin?’ Tom didn’t wait for an answer. He opened the door, and, for the second time that night, brushed aside the night-gowned housekeeper who had been listening at the door. His footsteps marched off across the landing and down the stairs. ‘Don’t forget, cousin, I know who you are.’
Ten seconds later, a motorcycle roared into life and shot off into the enclosing night.
It wasn’t long before Tom was proved right.
Five days later, Major Fletcher loped his way ape-like into Tom’s dugout.
‘Good news for you, Creeley. Mix-up at HQ. You’re sticking here instead of buggering off to the 21st. It’s a bloody shame from my point of view, though.’
‘I beg your pardon?!’
‘Won’t be able to get my millinery done for free. What? What? What?’
Fletcher roared with laughter at his joke and dug down amongst Tom’s belongings to find the bottle of whisky he kept there. Shellfire, heavier than usual that night, thumped the air and sent shock waves through the ground. Particles of chalk fell from the ceiling. Fletcher poured the whisky into a couple of mugs.
The earth quaked around them. They drank.
20 (#ulink_3fb2b68e-a657-59d9-a1e5-7b98315dc91b)
Incident and consequence. Cause and effect. Each effect becoming in its turn the trigger of a whole new cycle.
A trench raid. A medal honourably won. A need for officers. Guy seeking to separate Tom from Alan. Tom breaking in on Guy. A junior officer pointing a loaded gun at a senior officer’s head. The causes started out small, hardly visible even. But the effects were no longer so small.
And they were growing all the time.
Beechnuts crunched underfoot. It was the first hard frost of November and ice glittered on the empty twigs. The forest felt like a fairy-tale wood. The two men walked a good distance, chatting about a hundred things, but it was only when they were deep into the forest silence that Alan finally brought up the subject that had been plaguing him.
‘I happened to see Guy in the village the other day,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘He had some extraordinary story about you and that transfer to the 21st.’
‘Yes?’
‘That you thought he had been behind the transfer instruction in the first place, that you wanted him to reverse the decision.’
‘Perfectly true.’
‘And that you burst in on him waving a gun.’
Tom laughed. ‘Almost. I did burst in on him. I didn’t have a gun on me. He had one on his dressing table, which I think he’d started to load when he heard me come in downstairs. I did point that at him briefly. I don’t really know why.’
He was completely without embarrassment. Alan stared at him incredulously. ‘You aimed a loaded gun at him?’
‘Yes – at least I assume it was loaded. I didn’t really bother to check. Look at this.’ Tom eased some leaves aside with his toe and revealed the gleam of copper wire by a bare root. It was a trap laid for rabbits. ‘Neat job, eh? Here, what about this?’ Tom pulled a salami from his pocket that the two men had been intending to eat for lunch. Tom slipped the sausage through the loop of wire and drew the wire tight. He scattered leaves back as they had been before. Tom began to shake with laughter at the thought of the trapper returning to find his catch.
‘Tom! For God’s sake!’
‘What? I’d be damn pleased to trap a sausage.’
‘Not the trap, you idiot. Guy. You aimed a gun at him?’ Alan was shocked. He was also upset and torn, as he always was when Tom and Guy quarrelled.
‘Yes. I don’t think he enjoyed it much. But it did the trick, didn’t it?’
‘But for heaven’s sake! You can’t just go waving a gun at him. What in hell’s name did you think you were playing at?’
Tom’s nonchalant attitude suddenly disappeared. Alan had begun to shout and he had a tendency to sound preachy and schoolmasterly when he was angry about something. Tom never put up with that and he didn’t now.
‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he said coldly. ‘I think – no, that’s not right, I know – that your so-called brother wanted to see us separated, and I knew that I could frighten him into undoing the damage. What’s more –’
‘But you can’t just aim a gun at him.’ Alan was angry and his voiced was raised. ‘You have to learn some limits. Guy has his faults but he is my brother –’
‘Oh? He’s your brother, is he? So what the hell was he thinking of then, separating the two of us?’
‘You’ve no evidence that he ever wanted to separate –’
‘No, you’re quite right. And after all, as you point out, he is your brother so he couldn’t possibly wish to hurt you.’
‘Listen, whatever else he may or may not be, Guy is family – my family, I mean, and –’
‘Your family? Your family? What am I then? What am I? The fucking gardener’s boy?’ Tom was shouting, his breath building storm castles in the freezing air. He was extremely angry.
‘For God’s sake, Tom! Calm down! If you’d mentioned your suspicions to me I could have had a word. It didn’t need you to aim a bloody –’
‘And just possibly you’re wrong. Had you thought of that? Perhaps aiming a gun at his head was just precisely what was needed. Or is your bloody good nature going to get in the way of seeing straight every time there’s a problem?’
Up till now both men had been panting with the effort of the argument. They were shouting hard at each other and Alan had unconsciously picked up a stick as though intending to assault Tom with it.
They felt ready to murder each other.
And then, as so often in the past, the anger slid away as though it had never been. The bottom dropped out of their rage and calmness returned. Though he wouldn’t admit it – not even to himself, perhaps – Alan knew that Tom was right. Alan’s reliance on decency and fair play would never have had the impact on Guy that a loaded gun would have had.
‘Listen, old fellow,’ said Alan. ‘You and I have always been close. Closer to each other than to anyone else. Guy doesn’t get a look-in. But when all’s said and done, and whatever Guy did or didn’t do, I think –’
‘He did do it. I know he did.’
‘Well, even so, I could have spoken with him. It didn’t –’
‘And he’d have told you that the whole matter had nothing to do with him and you’d have believed him. You always do.’
They walked a few paces more in silence. Alan looked long and hard at some animal tracks. Hare. He could see fox tracks as well. If he listened carefully, he could hear the almost silent animals of the forest: the cautious footfalls of the deer, the quiet munching of the rabbits, the tapping of woodpeckers in the trees. He looked up.
‘Take care, brother,’ he said. ‘You play a dangerous game at times.’
Tom smiled brilliantly and gave an airy wave. ‘That’s what comes of being a gardener’s son. Nothing to lose.’
He was wrong, of course. And it wouldn’t be long before he knew it.
21 (#ulink_fe729a4b-045b-5860-82c6-e9ab2dd39746)
It was nine months later, 10 August 1916.
Alan and Tom were both alive, both intact. That was the good news.
Meanwhile, the war was continuing. The Battle of the Somme was in progress. In the last six weeks alone, a hundred thousand British soldiers had been killed or wounded. So far, Tom and Alan’s battalion had been kept out of the conflict, but that happy interval was about to end. The battalion was due to attack the very next day. The fighting would be as severe as anything the two men had ever experienced. Casualties were certain to be high. Perhaps colossal.
That was the bad news.
And, in a way, it was untrue to say that both men had survived intact. They hadn’t. They couldn’t. No man survives, life in the combat zone for very long. Nerves shred. Humanity frays. The spirit fails.
Of the two men, Alan had been worse affected. Devoted to his men, he often pushed himself too hard. Too serious to unwind easily, he found relaxation difficult. He smoked. He rode. He wrote letters home.
And he’d found a girl.
Called Lisette, she was pretty, dark-haired, smiling and kind. They’d met by accident one day in a village seven miles behind the lines, Ste Thérèse-sur-Tarne (‘Saint Tess’ to the men). He was billeted there. She was the daughter of one of the local farmers. Caught outside during a rainstorm, he helped her home. They ran into her farmhouse, shared some coffee, laughed together. She invited him back. And back. After three visits, he could take a hint. Excited and embarrassed in about equal measure, he undressed in her little bedroom. They made love. During the rest of the fortnight that Alan was in Saint Tess, they met on a further nine occasions, making love on eight of them.
The evening before the assault found the battalion sheltering in the wreck of what had once been a village. The officers’ mess was a ruined cellar, whose entrance was neatly flanked by two rows of shell cases, graduated in size, ranging up to the height of a man.
Tom was still Tom. He was handsome, brilliant, unmilitary, courageous. But over time, his outlook had blackened. He lounged against the cellar wall, barely protected by the sandbag parapet in front of him. He picked up a flint and threw it out beyond the sandbags.
‘A fine place to die,’ he commented.
‘For God’s sake!’
Alan jumped to find a piece of wood to ward off Tom’s unlucky words. A discarded crate lay nearby and Alan passed a chunk of it to Tom, who touched it absently. The side of the crate was marked in English: ‘Shell Motor Spirit’. Tom nodded at the marking and smiled.
‘Good choice.’
‘Let’s get out there right away, shall we?’ said Alan. ‘After the war, I mean. Not wait any longer.’ He meant get out to Persia, of course.
Tom laughed and shook his head.
‘What?’ said Alan defensively. ‘You can’t want to go back to Standard, can you? Lord knows, I couldn’t stand to be cooped up in somebody else’s office.’
Tom laughed again, kindly this time. ‘That’s not what I meant, old man. I meant … Look, you don’t think we’ll both survive this, do you?’ Tom spoke quietly, talking almost to himself. ‘But there are worse things, after all.’
‘Tom, for God’s sake!’
‘If I’m to die, I’ve decided to fight like a maniac first. Take a few Boche with me.’
‘Don’t speak like that. Don’t even think like that.’
Tom shrugged. ‘I haven’t always thought like that. This whole damned war is so stupid, I couldn’t see much purpose in trying to fight it hard. I still can’t, in a way, except that one has one’s self-respect to think of.’ He flicked his white and purple medal ribbon thoughtfully, then his tone changed again. ‘If I am killed, will you promise to do what you can in Persia?’
‘Of course.’
‘Drill. If there’s oil, you’ll find it. If there isn’t – well, at least you’ll have tried.’
‘We’ll find it together.’
‘You’re probably right. Dead or alive, I’ll be there in spirit. But promise me, brother. Your most sacred promise.’
‘I promise.’
‘And don’t give the damn thing away to a bunch of stupid stockmarket investors. I mean, you’ll have to at some point. But not straight away. Find the oil first.’
‘The oil first, if humanly possible.’
Tom gravely nodded his acceptance. ‘Good. Good man.’
The way he said it, it sounded like goodbye.
22 (#ulink_3d5768bd-20bc-5774-8025-a1f77528aa22)
The battalion moved off at eight that evening. Its goal: a full-frontal attack on enemy positions.
It was pitch-black and raining, and the ground was evil. Three times, artillery fire forced the company to flatten itself into whatever cover was available. Each time the shelling lifted, the company moved forwards again, leaving a small handful of wounded men behind. On one occasion, Alan was struck with a shell splinter, shaped like a goose quill, in his shoulder blade. An NCO lying in the ditch next to him tweaked it out with finger and thumb and threw it away. Neither man commented on the incident, or was even thinking about it five minutes later.
They reached their designated position shortly after midnight. The men ate rations from their packs and were given permission to rest until four.
The rain settled in and grew heavier. Time moved with agonising slowness.
At four o’clock, a thunder of British artillery opened up behind them, and they could hear the torrent of shells crashing down on German positions. The men listened in silence: half pleased at the thought of what the shells were doing to the enemy, half terrified because of what this implied for the coming offensive. Alan stayed with his men. Although Tom was close by, he might as well have been on another planet for all Alan knew of him.
Four thirty approached. The rain was beginning to fall more gently and a meagre grey light began testing its options on the eastern horizon. Alan’s eyes struggled to follow the luminous figures on his watch. The second hand swept remorselessly round. And finally, it was four thirty precisely. Alan raised his hand and dropped it: the signal to advance.
His men moved off. For several seconds, there was silence – beautiful silence. Then, almost simultaneously, three flares rose from the German-held salient. The flares disclosed what the German defenders already suspected. There was a trickle of rifle fire, then a din of machine guns, then the extraordinary violence of concentrated shelling. Air became metal. The noise was so indescribably loud that the sense of hearing fell away until it was almost like walking into silence.
Alan saw the men next to him hold their positions, just as they’d been drilled. No clustering together, no turning human lives into simple targets for German gunners. But the men walked as though into a gale. Bent over. Doubled up.
As he watched his men, he saw one of them struck full in the chest and sink to his knees with a soft ‘Ah!’ of release. Another man bent down, apparently to fiddle with his bootlaces, but he bent too far and slid to earth with dark red tongues of blood where his face should have been. All around, men were falling when they should be walking. Alan watched in mounting amazement and shock. His platoon was being destroyed, his beloved men massacred, soldierlike and courageous to the end.
Still they advanced.
Alan had no real recollection of the next few hours. Only by midday did the true situation unfold. The attack had largely failed. The attackers had bitten off a chunk of German line at huge cost. The two opposing artilleries screamed at each other. In the chaos of collapsed and broken trenches, both sides attempted to reconfigure their defences.
The day passed.
The list of known casualties was appalling. More than half of Alan’s men had been killed or wounded. So had all of his NCOs. So too with Major Fletcher, whose left arm had been torn off by a shell, and who had been found sitting upright in the mud, holding his arm between his knees, repeating endlessly, ‘My poor boys, my poor bloody boys …’
There was no word of Tom.
For two more nights and days the fighting continued. Alan was tired beyond tired, shattered beyond endurance. And then finally, he was given permission to rest.
The permission came in the form of a German Minenwerfer, which hurled through the air looking something like a flying dustbin, but a bin packed with enormous destructive power. The canister detonated twelve yards away on the unprotected side of the parapet. Afterwards, Alan thought he recalled seeing the flash of detonation before it reached him, but supposed he must have provided details of the explosion from his imagination.
And that was all.
The flash – then silence. No pain. No slow fade-out into unconsciousness. Simply a plunge into blackness. Total blackness.
And still no word of Tom.
23 (#ulink_b0c4564d-3001-592a-a9d1-3dacd370a6f4)
Alan woke in a tent full of iron beds and soldiers. The atmosphere was foetid with the smell of hot air under canvas and the odours of blood, iodine and unwashed clothes. Men in the tent next to Alan and in other tents and huts beyond groaned and called out in their sleep.
Alan stretched himself gingerly. He felt indescribably sore. Although nothing felt broken or missing, Alan knew that wounded men were often unaware how badly wounded they were. He wriggled in his narrow cot, trying to get an arm down to reach his feet under their coarse army-issue blankets. He was so stiff that the effort made him pant. He finally managed it, however, and ran his hand over his toes. Nothing.
He sank back in bed, temporarily satisfied. The men in the ‘moribund ward’ often had red labels tied to their toes to indicate their status. There seemed nothing like that here.
He slept.
At dawn, he woke again, when a doctor, a major in the RAMC, was making his rounds.
‘Am I hurt?’ said Alan. His mouth worked awkwardly – even his jaw ached like hell – and the words came out as if spoken by a foreigner. The doctor reached for a pulse. The pressure of his thumb was painful and Alan felt as if he could feel the passage of blood up and down his arm.
‘Hurt? Yes, that’s why you’re here.’ The doctor kept his thumb on Alan’s wrist a few moments longer. ‘You were caught in a shell blast. Cuts and bruises everywhere, a few places that needed stitching. But that’s on the outside. We can’t always tell what’s happened inside. The blast can kill without puncturing the skin. You’re to stay in bed here for twenty-four hours at least. If there’s no sign of any problems by then, we’ll release you to one of the general hospitals. But I don’t want to see you in the line again. Is that clear?’
Alan nodded. He felt a wave of relief and the urge to giggle. He shoved his head into his pillow to muffle any sound, and the doctor and nurse left in silence, too busy to pry.
24 (#ulink_6ee6dedd-c953-51a5-8aa8-5d6d74430ea4)
Two men from one of the New Army battalions of the Royal Scots escorted Alan to the hospital. Alan tried to thank them, but he couldn’t find the right words. He fell into bed and slept for six hours. When he woke, he ate, drank, then tried to sleep again.
He couldn’t.
His emotions were blocked, like a flood that has blocked its own path with a jam of fallen trunks, boulders and landslip. He was filled with an indescribable sense of loss. He thought about his beloved platoon, about Major Fletcher, about how nothing would ever be the same again. And he kept dreaming about Tom. He asked the nurses if they knew whether Lieutenant Creeley was alive, dead or wounded. They didn’t know.
For three days, he lay in hospital. As for his own well-being, it became clear that he wasn’t dying, that he wasn’t permanently crippled. The doctors advised plenty of rest and predicted complete recovery.
Alan wasn’t so sure. He’d never known himself to feel like this – or rather not to feel like this. He ate what he could (not much) and drank (a huge amount). He slept, fainted or dozed through sixteen hours in twenty-four. He could think clearly, or at any rate, he was able to answer correctly the questions put to him by the RAMC doctors: name, rank, place of birth, regiment. But his feelings were gone, both physical and emotional. He lay as if doused in an anaesthetic that reached all the way to his heart.
Then one morning, he woke up. For the first time, the images that swam around his consciousness resolved themselves into just two: Tom and Lisette. He had to know if Tom was dead or alive. He had to see Lisette.
He climbed out of bed, dressed, and went outside, falling four times and clutching at the walls of the hospital like a drunk. By chance, he found a transport captain he’d once had dealings with and was able to beg himself a ride to Saint Tess.
The village had changed. Lightly wounded men were everywhere. The Lincolnshires and London Irish, who’d been billeted there a few days before, had all gone now, either fighting or dead. There were new voices now: pink-faced boys from the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry and a company of fit-looking Canadians. A group of cows had broken into an apple orchard, and some of the Canadians were throwing the hard green apples at their flanks to try to cause a stampede.
Alan sat down in the village square. His body felt as though it had been dismantled and reassembled. A man in major’s uniform approached him: a good-looking officer with a drawn and tired expression. The major’s face lit up as he recognised Alan.
‘Alan, man! Thank God! What on earth … ?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ mumbled Alan. ‘Do I … ?’
‘Alan, it’s me. Guy. Your brother.’
‘Guy! Good God! You look …’
‘Are you all right, old man?’
‘Yes, perfectly, just a little muzzy. How do you do?’
‘Alan,’ you’ve been in hospital, have you? Did you take a knock?’
‘Something like that.’ Alan raised his hand and fluttered it down. ‘Wheeee-BANG!’
Guy looked his brother up and down, checking for signs of obvious injury. Apart from some violently coloured bruises, there was little enough.
‘Thank God you’re all right! I’ve been worried sick. Staff haven’t heard a straight word from anyone and all I knew was your crowd was in the thick of the whole bloody shemozzle. I got word that you’d been hit, but the RAMC weren’t able to tell me where you were, let alone how you were.’
The two brothers embraced. Later on, looking back on it, Alan was genuinely surprised by the warmth of Guy’s feeling.
‘And Tom? What about Tom? Where’s Tom? Don’t tell me –’
‘Alan, old chap, Tom’s absolutely fine. He made it up to German lines – unlike most of his men – and held on to his bit of trench despite a pretty nasty counterattack by Fritz. He was relieved three days ago, completely unhurt. He’s been going out of his mind trying to find out what happened to you.’
‘Thank God. Thank bloody Jesus. Thank … Thank … Thank … and he’s hurt, you say? How badly? How … ?’
‘No. Completely unhurt, I told you.’
Alan made a face, as though ready to argue. His breath came in hard pants that hurt his lungs.
‘Don’t you think you should still be lying down?’ said Guy. ‘Why the hell did the medics let you go anyway?’
‘The whole platoon went down? The poor bloody platoon!’ Alan was upset now. He began reciting the names of the men who’d been under Tom’s command.
‘Let’s get you home.’
‘Not hurt? Not wounded?’
‘Typical of the gardener’s boy, eh? No, completely unhurt. Not a scratch. Now come on back.’
Alan giggled in relief, but his emotions were still all over the place. He was laughing but could just as easily be crying. ‘Sounds like he’s the hero once again. You must have been pleased to see him. So pleased. Soooo pleased.’
‘Mmm,’ Guy agreed, without enthusiasm. Tom’s extraordinary record through four days of intense fighting had been somewhat muddied by a blazing row he’d had with one of the brigadier’s aides on the day of his return to the rear. Tom, incensed by the massacre he’d been in the middle of, had accused High Command of butchery. He’d more or less called Haig a murderer. It had taken Guy’s intervention to prevent Tom from getting into serious disciplinary trouble. ‘He can be a damn fool, that man. Now look, old chap, you’re looking awfully queer. Don’t you think you’d better –’
But Alan’s mood had become suddenly belligerent. ‘You’re the fool, a big bloody fool. And what’s worse, much worse, you’re a bloody staff officer fool.’
Guy’s voice tautened. He could see Alan was hardly himself, but it was dangerous territory that he was entering. ‘Alan, that’s enough –’
‘Bloody staff officers. Just as Tom says. Bloody, skulking, yellow, behind-the-lines, staff bloody –’
‘Stop it!’ Guy gripped his brother’s arm, attempting to swing him back round to the village. ‘I’m taking you home. You need some –’
‘No, I don’t.’ There was a roaring in his ears and a buzzy quality to his vision. He suddenly thought of Lisette, and wanted her with a passionate longing, rejoicing in the knowledge that if Tom was alive, then everything in the whole wide world would be all right. He pushed Guy away with both hands.
‘Don’t touch me. There’s someone I need to see … I have to go.’
Guy looked at his brother with sudden acuteness. ‘You’ve got a girl, have you? You?’
‘“I’ve got a little lady by the name of Sue,”’ sang Alan. ‘Not Sue actually, Lisette.’ He was babbling. He waved at the farmhouse where she lived. ‘Lisette, Lisette.’
‘That farm? The one just there, with the red-painted gables?’ Guy’s tone was half urgent, half incredulous.
‘That farm there.’
A delighted smile spread across Guy’s face. He released his grip so suddenly that Alan tottered and almost fell.
‘Go on then. Go.’
‘I’m going.’
‘Go to your precious Lisette. You’ll see just how precious she is. Her and your beloved twin.’
And Guy escorted Alan the two hundred yards to the farm. Before they were even halfway, Alan lost his desire to go there. He wanted to see Tom and he wanted to sleep. ‘Lisette will be there for me in the morning,’ he chanted.
But Guy’s determination was fixed. When Alan’s feet stumbled and dragged, Guy lifted him bodily, so anxious was he to get Alan to the farmhouse door. When Guy finally had Alan propped against the doorpost, he left him there, saying, ‘Go on, go in. I’m sure your arrival will be a delightful surprise. I’ll catch up with you later, old man. Toodle-oo.’
The farm door was never locked and Alan let himself in. The range was warm and a couple of cakes, yellow and creamy with egg, were cooling on the sideboard, a wire net over them. Lisette wasn’t there, probably out. Alan felt too happy to think. He was safe. Tom was safe. And nothing else in the whole world mattered.
There was some old coffee cooling in a pot. Alan drank it. The smell jerked at a memory. ‘Mind the bloody coffee’ – Major Fletcher – polished leather boots on a map-covered chest – loping monkey arms – ‘Keep your own bloody head from being shot off – then nothing: just a poor sod with his left arm loose between his knees and all his precious company lying dead about him.
Alan lifted the mesh from the cakes and stole a piece. It was good cake and he ate hungrily, before noticing that the cat was eating hungrily too. He chased the cat off and replaced the mesh. Upstairs, there was a sound: a creaking of floorboards and laughter. Of course! Idiot! Naturally, Lisette would still be upstairs. Why not? It was morning. What better place to be than bed?
Alan went upstairs, using his hands as well as his feet to avoid falling on the steep wooden staircase. The sound of laughter was louder now.
‘Lisette?’ Alan bounded along a corridor and burst through a door. ‘Lisette!’
The word died in his throat. There in bed lay not one person but two. Lisette and, next to her, naked and at home, was Tom.
25 (#ulink_fe5e9680-f3cc-5f51-a33f-e8a49d3d4bcb)
There was a moment’s silence. All three people were shocked. In that tiny gap of time, nothing had yet been said, no damage done, no lives ruined.
The moment didn’t last.
Alan’s emotions looped again. An indescribable fury surged through him. ‘You bastard!’ he screamed. ‘You thieving, sodding, bloody bastard!’
Alan flung himself at Tom, fists flailing, blind with hot tears of rage. Tom defended himself. Although Alan was hitting with all his strength, he was exhausted and weak, and his lungs were rasping for breath. Tom slid from bed, grabbed his clothes and attempted to hide from the hail of blows. He didn’t fight back.
‘You bastard! You steal every fucking thing that matters to me! Lisette was all I had! All I wanted was Lisette.’
‘Alan, old chap – steady on – I didn’t know you were coming back.’
‘Alain, tais-toi, sois sage!’ cried Lisette, frightened and appealing for calm.
‘Everything that ever matters.’
‘Jesus, brother. There’s no need. You can have her. I didn’t –’
‘I don’t want to have her because you say I can. I don’t want …’ Alan’s attack was hardly serious now. Tom struggled to get his trousers on, keeping Alan at a distance with his stronger right arm. Lisette helped as well as she could.
‘Guy was out there, wasn’t he? Why in hell didn’t he keep you away? He knew I was here.’
‘Guy? He knew, oh yes, he knew. He carried me here. Carried me. So I would know who you were. And I know now, all right. I know.’
Tom was dressed from the waist down now and had his hands on his boots. ‘Take care, Alan, take care what you say.’
Alan steadied himself with his back against the chalky lime-washed wall. Although his face was purple with bruises, adrenaline had given him more control than he’d had with Guy. His extreme shock and nervous collapse was no longer obvious. It was easy for Tom to mistake him for a man upset, but otherwise in control of his faculties.
‘What I mean is,’ said Alan, speaking as distinctly as he was able, ‘that Guy has been right about you all along. You have some fine things about you, no doubt, but in the end you’re the sodding little gardener’s boy. Please get your hands off my girl and get out of here.’
‘Alan, for God’s sake, be careful. Some things can’t be unsaid, you know.’
‘Alan, s’il te plaît, calm down, I’ll make you coffee, I’ll explain.’ Lisette implored Alan for calm, but the situation had travelled too far.
Alan tried to pull a revolver, but he managed to snag the barrel as he pulled it from its holster, and the gun clattered uselessly to the ground. Tom snatched the gun up and tossed it out of the window into the cattle trough below.
Alan lurched to the doorway and steadied himself on the doorpost. ‘Guy is my brother. You’re a gardener’s boy who fucks my girl.’ He shook his head. ‘And by the way, I’m never going to drill in Persia with you. Why would I? As far as I know, the concession belongs to the Montague family. It doesn’t belong to the fucking staff.’
He stumbled away, slipping on the fourth step of the staircase and crashing all the way to the bottom. He dragged himself back to the village, found an empty bed and fell into it. He was asleep within three seconds of his head hitting the pillow.
And here was the odd thing.
He slept well. He slept without dreams, without pain, without fogginess or delirium. It was a strange way to sleep the day the world collapsed.
26 (#ulink_18b1e2f8-2ba2-50d6-bf06-ebe73fd089c1)
Tom buttoned his shirt. His hands were shaking violently. His face was ash.
‘I didn’t know you were friends,’ said Lisette, begging pardon from the world. ‘I didn’t know … he was such a nice man, I really adored him.’
‘Don’t worry. Not your fault,’ said Tom in French, before adding in English, ‘Damnation. I had no idea he … Dammit, dammit.’
Tom sat on the bed and tried to calm down. Guy is my brother. You’re a gardener’s boy who fucks my girl. He pushed the words away, but what Alan had said was too big to be so easily dismissed. I’m never going to drill in Persia with you. Why would I? As far as I know, the concession belongs to the Montague family. It doesn’t belong to the fucking staff. Tom breathed heavily, trying to calm himself. Alan was shocked. Alan was upset. Alan was talking rot –
‘Will he be all right?’ said Lisette, interrupting his thoughts.
‘Look, he’s just come from battle. It’s awful up there. He’s a sensitive sod at the best of times, and as for girls, he’s never … well, I don’t think that before you, he’s even –’
‘No, never. I had to teach him everything.’
‘Shit!’ Tom was doubly angry because he felt guilty. He’d known Alan was seeing Lisette and until recently he’d been careful to avoid seeing her too. But the last three days had been from hell. Tom had known that Alan had been hit, but, like Guy, he’d had no end of a time finding out where Alan was and in what condition. When he’d finally heard that Alan was essentially fine, his relief had been overpowering. In some strange way, Tom had felt drawn to seek out Lisette, the one other person who had been truly intimate with Alan. He’d gone in search of her and charmed his way into her kitchen. He’d had no intention of making love with her, but Tom wasn’t very strong-willed in the matter of sex and, in any event, with Alan safely in hospital, it didn’t seem to matter all that much. He should have known better.
They were quiet a moment. Then Lisette kissed Tom on the earlobe. He smiled and stroked her shoulder.
‘Do you go with many other men?’ he asked.
She thumped him gently on the bicep. ‘Cochon.’ Pig.
‘But really?’
‘Some. A few.’
‘For money, I suppose?’
‘Usually. Not with him. Never with him.’
‘With me?’
She shook her head.
‘He had no idea, none at all … Look I’ll give him time to get over all this. Explain it. I’d better not see you again. I won’t if it means upsetting Alan.’
‘What is that about brothers? You are or you aren’t?’
Tom explained briefly, ending by saying ‘Guy’s his blood brother, I’m his real brother. He knows that. In solemn truth, he knows that.’
‘And will it be all right?’
Tom nodded, kicking his bare feet out on the unvarnished floorboards. He was annoyed with himself for his stupidity, but he was furious with Guy for provoking things. Anger boiled inside him, hot and dangerous.
‘Well? It will be all right?’
Tom sighed heavily. ‘Yes. It’ll be all right.’
And once again, he was wrong, dead wrong.
It was getting to be a habit.
27 (#ulink_2ad933a3-65db-5e09-8e49-8890d2c1a761)
It was the following day: 19 August.
Tom was back in the support trenches when the fighting resumed. He was making a report to brigade staff, short of sleep, and stained with sweat, blood and dirt. The sound of fighting ended the brief conference. Tom excused himself, received a brusque, ‘Carry on then, Creeley,’ and raced on up the line.
It was an evil day. It felt like the first cold day of autumn, with enough rain to have soaked everything and given the air a biting edge. A wicked little breeze carried the smoke of guns over the battlefield, until everything was seen through the greenish, cordite-smelling glow. The wet chalk was slippery and unreliable. The way ran uphill and the trench bottom had become a gutter for rainwater, mud, rats, and blood.
Tom made his way up the trench, fast but with care. He passed two men digging it out, trying to repair a collapsed parapet, and another man who was heaving a Lewis gun into place at the bottom end. Tom charged on past, and, going too fast round a corner, clattered into none other than Guy, who’d been running fast in the other direction.
It was an extraordinary coincidence: not that they should meet, but that they should meet in a trench. Guy, as a staff officer, hardly ever entered a front-line position, still less during a time of heavy combat. But, Tom remembered, the divisional telephone exchange had been completely smashed during earlier shelling, and he supposed the divisional staff must have been desperate to obtain a reliable picture of action on the ground.
Both Private Hemplethwaite, in charge of the Lewis gun, and Privates Jones and Carragher, who were then shovelling out the fallen trench, saw what happened next. The two officers had a blazing argument. The older officer was trying to push past and the younger man was physically restraining him, pushing and throwing him back against the wall of the trench. The noise of the shelling was too loud to catch any words, but it was clear that they were shouting at each other.
The younger man began hitting the other. Hard, forceful slaps, which the other man defended himself against by putting his arms to his face. The older man kept trying to get past. The older man didn’t once offer any violence at all to the younger.
Then it happened.
All three men were absolutely unanimous on the fact. The younger man drew his revolver. He pointed it at the other man’s head. The older man drew back, making a gesture of surrender. The younger man was still shouting. He seemed extraordinarily angry. The noise of battle continued to drown the sounds. Then the younger man lowered his gun until it was pointing at the other’s groin, or thereabouts. There was a shot. The shot was perfectly deliberate and at close range. A bloody rosette leaped into the khaki flannels. The older man jumped backwards as the bullet tore into his thigh. The younger man, a lieutenant, holstered his revolver, took one last furious look at the other and tore onwards up the line. Dark blood began to soak down the older man’s leg.
And that was it.
Tom raced away up the trench. Guy came staggering down, his face white as a sheet, incoherent with shock, anger, and fear.
28 (#ulink_25a8867e-a81a-5a72-a89a-c72eda737a46)
The fighting remained fierce until nightfall.
On a few bloodstained acres, too many men lay dead or dying. The air was heavy with the weight of shells and bullets. For the first time since coming to France, Tom found himself longing for the bullet wound that would send him home to England, away from the fighting.
Night came.
Tom posted sentries, praying that the Germans were as exhausted as their opponents. He desperately wanted whisky, but was pleased not to have any. This night of all nights, he’d be too likely to get drunk, when the last thing he needed was a muzzy head.
He was furious with Guy.
Furious. Far from relieving his feelings, the incident in the trenches had simply added to his fury. He’d shot Guy and hadn’t even killed him. Tom’s anger remained hopelessly unsatisfied, but his action had now put him into a position where Guy could, and quite likely would, have Tom court-martialled. There was only one sentence for firing on a superior officer and that was death. Tom knew that there were witnesses and he certainly wouldn’t be able to rely on their discretion. Perhaps Tom’s outstanding war record would make a difference, but Guy was a major and so often these things depended on rank …
Again and again that night, Tom relived the incident. He never once regretted firing on Guy, but his fingers curled round the butt of his revolver and he imagined a hundred times the same incident with a different outcome: Guy struck not in the thigh, but in the chest; Guy not harmlessly wounded, but killed outright.
Tom stayed on duty for the first sentry shift. So much had happened, he needed time to think. Somewhere in the afternoon’s fighting, he had crushed his pack of cigarettes, but he carefully extricated a couple of the flattened paper tubes and delicately reconstructed them into something smokable. He lit up, throat aching for the taste of warm tobacco.
‘Mr Creeley?’
‘Yes?’
By the brief flare of his match, Tom could see a man’s face – silver-haired but young, grey moustache beneath youthful blue eyes.
‘Captain Morgan. Just sent across from the Warwickshires to give you lads support.’
The two men shook hands and Tom handed over the last of his battered cigarettes, lighting it before passing it across.
‘Support?’ said Tom, mumbling through his cigarette. ‘God knows we need it.’
‘Look here. I’ve got some rather rotten news. I’d best spill it. The brigadier wants to sweep the Boche off the salient for good. His idea is, if we can storm their machine-gun posts, we can dare to risk a general assault.’
‘The brigadier is a murderous bloody-minded lunatic’
Captain Morgan laughed, embarrassed at Tom’s bluntness, but hardly denying the charge. ‘Your name came up,’ he said.
‘Came up to do what?’
The captain grimaced. ‘The guns.’
‘To storm their machine guns?’
‘Yes. I think it’s a damn fool idea myself, but the brigadier seems blessedly keen on it.’
‘It’s lunatic.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, old fellow – bearer of bad tidings and all that. The brigadier wanted you to take a dozen men. Use your own initiative on how to proceed, then get started at once. I’ll follow with a full company to support you the moment you’ve put a stop to those guns.’
Morgan handed over a packet containing written orders that confirmed his summary. Tom read the papers, then tossed them away.
‘My initiative? My initiative tells me that the brigadier’s lost his bloody marbles.’
The captain swallowed. Even to a newcomer, it was fairly clear that the brigadier’s orders were virtually impossible to fulfil.
‘I can’t say I don’t feel for you, old man. I’d have put my own name forward, except that I really don’t know the ground here. I must say, I thought the chap who put your name forward was a bit of a bounder. It’s not really the sort of thing that one fellow volunteers another fellow for.’
‘Who put my name forward?’
Captain Morgan paused. He had said more than he should and was kicking himself for it. ‘Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s really not my –’
‘But you did. Who was it?’
Captain Morgan paused again, taking a long drag on his cigarette. He burned the tobacco down half an inch, then dropped the butt fizzing into the mud. ‘All right, old man. I wouldn’t normally say, but given the circs and everything … It was a chap called Montague. Mr Montague. I didn’t get the first name.’
‘Mister Montague?’ Tom was horrified. ‘A subaltern, my age?’
‘Yes. What? You have a lot of Montagues, do you?’
‘Not a major? We have a lieutenant and a major Which one?’
‘Lieutenant, old man. One star on his shoulder, that’s all. Positive sighting and all that. Definitely lieutenant.’
‘His leg? Was he wounded in the leg at all? A bad flesh wound, very recent? This afternoon?’
‘He was sitting down, old boy. I didn’t see his leg. But wouldn’t he be in hospital with a wound like that? He wouldn’t be sitting around with the brig, I don’t suppose.’
‘No. I suppose he wouldn’t.’ Tom was more shocked than he could give words to. There were two German machine-gun posts. One of them had been dug into the site of a deep shellhole, built up with sandbags and well wired all round. The other was one of the German gun posts that had survived pretty much undisturbed all through the fighting. The post had been built of poured concrete, ten feet thick and laced through with railway ties and steel bars. Attacking the posts was a short walk to suicide, nothing less. And Alan had wanted it. More even than the probability of his impending death – a fact which Tom treated as certain – what shocked him was that Alan wanted it.
Captain Morgan looked at Tom with a depth of feeling in his eyes. Beyond the makeshift parapet, some two hundred yards away the white concrete gun post shone pale in the moonlight. ‘I’m terribly sorry, old man. I do wish you the very best of British luck.’
‘Thank you.’
‘There’s nothing I can do, is there? Nothing you need?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Just … Look, for reasons I can’t explain, it matters to me very much indeed – more than I can possibly say – who suggested my name this afternoon. You’re perfectly sure it was a Lieutenant Montague?’
Pause.
In the distance a couple of shells boomed, and there was an answering snap of rifles.
‘Look, I was at Sandhurst four years ago, made captain last year. I know when to salute the pips and when to look for a salute myself. I’m absolutely positive, old man. I’m sorry.’
Tom nodded.
Another handshake. ‘I’d best leave you to it, then.’ Morgan began to walk away. A Very light shot up into the sky, and hung there, slowly dropping. The gloomy trench filled with its glow.
‘Excuse me, Captain,’ called Tom.
‘Yes?’ Morgan turned.
Tom held out his crumpled cigarette packet. ‘I’ve managed to crush these. You don’t have any by chance?’
Morgan felt in his tunic pocket. He had a packet of Woodbines intact and just slightly damp from a shower of rain earlier. ‘Take these, old man. You’re welcome.’
29 (#ulink_6debd770-48b5-5e52-b120-49a76221e455)
We’re the boys of the New Arm-ee.
We cannot fight,
We cannot shoot,
What bloody use are we?
But when we get to Berlin
The Kaiser he will say,
Hoch, hoch, mein Gott!
What a bloody fine lot
Are the boys from the New Arm-ee.
The song in one of its many versions drifted from the slimy dugout steps like the smell of something pleasant. The dugout was one of those captured from the Germans. It was well-built and, as far as these things ever were, comfortable. After a short pause, the song changed to something more melancholy.
Tom swallowed hard. Faced directly with the fact of his imminent death, his long-held attitude of carelessness began to desert him. He didn’t want to die. He was desperately keen to live. Perhaps he’d live through the night only to find himself court-martialled in the morning. But he didn’t care. He wanted to survive this night. After that, he’d take his chances.
And yet his death wasn’t the worst of it. Alan was. Of all people on earth, Alan Montague had put his name forward for the mission at hand. Tom knew he should never have slept with Lisette, yet Alan’s response was so coldly murderous. It was the worst side of Alan, multiplied and exaggerated. This was Alan the nobleman’s son, snobbish, self-righteous and detestable.
Tom felt like a stranger in a strange land.
He walked down the dugout steps. There were thirty men crammed down there, exhausted from the day’s fighting. Of the thirty, only three or four had had the energy to sing, and then only because there wasn’t enough space in the dugout for everyone to lie or even sit.
The men saw the look on Tom’s face, and they fell silent, immediately apprehensive. Those who were awake shook the ones who weren’t. The dugout came to life and the men stood leaning against the oozing walls or sat on rough wooden benches or on the ground. Light came from a pair of German acetylene lamps, which filled the dugout with their thick petrol fumes. The air was utterly foul, but homely. A couple of rats sat chewing something in the corner.
‘Raise your right hands, boys … Your right hand, Thompson, not both of them.’
The men silently obeyed.
‘Now lower your hands if you have nippers, any children at all.’
Sixteen hands remained aloft.
‘Put them down if you have a wife … I said a wife, Appleby, not a girl you screw when you’re in the mood.’
Ten hands plus Appleby: eleven.
Tom nodded. ‘You men come here, the rest of you carry on.’ There was complete silence, except for a low muttering as men clambered over each other to exchange positions. (‘Sorry mate’, ‘Careful, that’s my fucking hand you’re treading on’, ‘I’d’ve married the old cow, if I’d known’ …) Eventually the eleven men found their way to Tom – or eleven boys, to be more accurate, since their average age must have been under twenty-one. Tom’s orders required him to take a dozen men, but he’d disobey. A troop of fifty men couldn’t take the guns, and he’d be damned if he’d have more blood on his hands than he absolutely had to. Tom took eleven matches from the box in his breast pocket and broke the heads off two of them. He jumbled the sticks and poked the ends out between his thumb and hand.
‘Each man take a match.’
The men obeyed, and two ended up with the broken-headed sticks: one sandy-haired, stout but strong, and with a confident look to him; the other was a typical inner-city recruit, poorly fed, short – hardly even five foot four – with a long, pale face. Tom didn’t recognise them. Because of the casualties it had suffered so far, the company had been strengthened with other men of the battalion, men Tom didn’t yet know.
‘Sorry, lads, I haven’t got to know your names yet.’
‘Stimson, sir,’ said the sandy-haired lad.
‘Hardwick, sir. The boys call me Shorty,’ said the other.
‘And what would you like me to call you?’
‘Shorty, sir, I suppose. Seems more natural now, like.’
Tom nodded. He took Morgan’s cigarette pack from his pocket and offered the two lads cigarettes. They all three lit up.
‘Now I’ve got good news for you both. I’ve chosen you for a mission, which is going to be difficult and dangerous, but which will mean a medal for each of you, and a thumping great amount of home leave, if I can possibly arrange it. Here’s what we have to do …’
30 (#ulink_fe168ff3-3012-5bf3-bcb2-19e7f1131085)
Alan woke up in pain.
Somewhere there was danger; horror even.
He grabbed his revolver and held it out into the darkness, breathing heavily. He listened for shooting. There was nothing, only the continual thunder of distant guns. Half a minute passed. Alan tried to remember where he was.
He felt around him. He was lying on a straw mattress on an iron bedstead.
He could remember Guy sitting with him for some time during the day – or had it been the day before? He was still muzzy and couldn’t remember. He could hear the rustle of straw under him and the quiet sounds of the village beyond the window: a horse grazing, a mechanic trying to start a motorbike. He groped for a match, lit it, then found a candle and lit that.
He stared around the little room, looking for danger. There was nothing. He uncocked his revolver and laid it down.
But waking up had brought no peace. His heart was still beating a hundred and twenty beats to the minute and the sense of appalling tragedy was still with him. He’d have blamed his dreams, except that his sleep had been dreamless and the sense of disaster was stronger now he was awake.
Alan remembered his quarrel with Tom. Pain and anger flashed through him. Tom’s conquest of Lisette had seemed like a deep and deliberate insult. Although Alan had been three-parts delirious when he’d assaulted Tom, he was still deeply angry. But the flash passed. The quarrel was just a quarrel. Tom would apologise and mean it. Alan would take back everything he’d said and he’d mean it too. The quarrel was nothing.
Alan’s heart was racing with something else, something worse, something permanent. For a moment, he didn’t understand. And then he did.
Tom!
Something had happened to Tom.
Alan leaped from bed, found his trousers, groped round for his boots, but couldn’t find them. He remembered that Guy had taken them in an attempt to stop him from wandering, but there was a pair of hobnailed peasant’s shoes lying in the stable below and they would do. He grabbed his tunic, found the shoes, and ran out into the street. His body was absurdly weak still, especially his lungs, but his co-ordination had improved. He walked carefully across to the offices of the transport captain, hoping to borrow a horse.
The captain was there, bent over paperwork, swearing softly to himself. He looked up and broke into a smile. He liked Alan.
‘Well, well. Good evening to you, sir,’ he said, with a smart salute.
‘What?’ said Alan, returning the salute automatically.
‘I see you’ve got your just rewards at last,’ said the captain. ‘Thoroughly well deserved too, I might add.’
Alan looked down at his shoulder. He’d become a major while he’d slept. He shook his head, puzzled. ‘I’ve got my brother’s tunic, I don’t know how. I suppose he must have taken mine by mistake. Look here, can I borrow a horse? I’ll give it back in the morning.’
The captain whistled, sighed, looked at his infinite requisition dockets – but within ten minutes Alan had saddled up and was trotting his way through the darkness, heading for the front line, heading for Tom.
31 (#ulink_97893042-162c-5ea4-bdba-de3675547584)
The shooting, when it came, was sudden and clamorous. The guns were barely thirty feet away. By the light of the dim moon, Tom saw the courageous Stimson almost literally disappear as his body was shredded by the hail of bullets. A flare, which followed a second later, was enough to reveal Shorty Hardwick dropping to the ground, as his legs were bloodily cut away from beneath him. The firing continued. Tom reached for a Mills bomb and threw it.
That was the last thing he remembered.
32 (#ulink_fd0f0d24-275b-5aa7-8da7-85c1df2bd358)
Alan heard the shooting. It lasted for just a minute or two, then died. His horse began stumbling on the churned soil, rearing its head and sidling. He tethered the frightened horse to a shattered tree stump and continued by foot. The days of fighting had left the trenches in hopeless confusion. The ground was bare and shattered. The battlefield stunk of corpses and explosive.
He hurried, slithering down the poorly built trenches, bending double because of the weakness of the parapet. He hadn’t wound puttees over his borrowed shoes and they soon filled with stony mud. His co-ordination and strength were better; only his lungs remained atrocious.
He reached Tom’s section, and there he learned the dreadful worst. He heard of the brigadier’s murderous instructions. He heard that Tom had crept out into no man’s land with his two boys. That after half an hour of silence, the German lines had lit up with fire. That the nearer concrete gun post had opened up with its machine gun. That all three men were missing, presumed dead.
PART THREE (#ulink_474fae65-9b35-5049-94bf-d9ccf3e617fd)
But these still have my garment
By the hem
Earth of Shiraz, and Rukna’s
Silver stream
S’adi (Sheik Moslih Addin, 1184–1291)
33 (#ulink_9ebb42dd-eb7d-514e-88b3-7dcf8ec28196)
Alan stumbled from the dugout into the first chilly signs of dawn. Missing, presumed dead. The world was colossally altered. Alan could have lost both legs with infinitely more calmness than he could bear this hideous truth. Tom was missing, presumed dead.
A sentry was standing on the makeshift fire-step, his face blank with tiredness. ‘Any sign of life out there?’ Alan asked him. His voice was harsh and the pain in his lungs still seemed to be as bad as ever.
‘No, sir, nuffin’.’
‘Any wounded at all? Any cries for help?’
‘Well, sir …’ The sentry shrugged, as though the request was incomprehensible. ‘You’re always going to get wounded, like, I s’pose. Can’t say as how I listens to ’em overmuch.’
Alan wanted to strike the man hard in the face. His right arm actually ached to do it.
‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘Please try not to shoot me when I return.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The sentry had wanted to add something about the folly of leaving the trench as dawn approached, but there was an aggression in Alan’s manner that stopped him. Alan scrambled over the parapet and wormed his way incautiously forwards, right out to the heart of the battlefield’s horrors. The ground was littered with fragments of wire, shell canisters, human beings. A human face, detached from its skull, had floated to the surface of a puddle, and lay face up, leering at the sky. Alan noticed nothing; cared for nothing. He reached the spot where he thought Tom’s raid had come to grief and began to call out.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom Creeley?’
He was being desperately foolish. He was within simple sniping distance of the German lines.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom Creeley?’
There was no sound at all, no human voice, no groan. The German rifles, which could have blotted him from existence in a second, held their fire.
‘Tom? Tommy? Tom!’
There was no answer. How could there have been? Tom had assaulted the German guns. The guns had spoken. Their word was final. Tom was missing, presumed dead.
34 (#ulink_da4dc98f-cbc2-539e-86f1-2c2d599c99bd)
Headache.
A crashing, pounding tyrant of a headache that swallowed all other sensation, all other feeling. For a long time, Tom lay with his eyes closed, aware of nothing but the monster raging in his head. But slowly, inevitably, life came back. Life and, with it, awareness.
Awareness of being alive. Awareness of pain mixed with numbness all the way up and down his left leg. Awareness of finding himself safe when everything in logic said he should have been dead.
He squeezed his eyes open. Above him there was a plank ceiling, sturdily and neatly constructed. Candlelight flickered on the boards. French mud poked between the cracks. The ceiling was a pleasure to look at. Tom let his mind wander among the only objects in his little universe: his headache, the pain in his leg, the planks overhead.
But life and understanding continued to return, bringing horror in their wake.
There was light coming from somewhere: a candle. Tom rolled over to look at it. It was stuck to the top of a British helmet, beaten crazily out of shape. Tom stared. The helmet was his, but why was it so badly misshapen … ? He felt his leg: it was badly wounded. The pain grew stronger.
He remembered more.
He remembered Stimson being blown away and Shorty Hardwick bloodily scythed to the ground. Stimson’s body had been between him and the shooting. Quite likely, Stimson’s death had been what allowed Tom to survive the onslaught almost unscathed. Poor bloody Stimson …
He closed his eyes again, possibly slept some more. When he woke up, his headache was still bad, but his mind was clearer. Clear enough to understand that the plank ceiling above his head was too neatly built to have been made by British hands. Clear enough to understand he was a prisoner of the Germans. Clear enough to remember that it was his twin, his brother, Alan Montague, who had wanted all this, who had sent him out to die, who had wanted him dead.
The friendship that had been the best thing in his life had turned to ash.
35 (#ulink_50b3fe38-f7ef-5a9a-a90b-d3fb59ce5c12)
Every night, for four nights, Alan searched for Tom.
He came to know no man’s land as no one was ever meant to know it. He found corpses, he found dying men, he found the wounded of both sides. The dying men he shot or drugged into insensibility with morphine. The wounded he dragged laboriously back to the trenches, before squirming out once again. He called a thousand times for Tom. He abandoned caution. He stood up on moonlit nights. He used the light of flares to survey the shell-ruined landscape. He shouted for his lost brother at the top of his voice.
The Germans heard and saw him, of course. Alan could hear the German sentries echoing his call – ‘Tom! Tom Creeley!’ – followed by bursts of laughter and the muttered sing-song voices of the Bavarian regiments. By removing cartridges from the ammunition belts of the machine guns, they could even get their guns to rap out the same rhythm. ‘TOM, Tom-MEE, Tom CREEEE-LEEE!’ But there was no rifle fire, and even the machine guns didn’t seem to be directed at him. From kindness, compassion, or perhaps just indifference, the Germans let the lunatic Englishman roam up and down the devastated land.
36 (#ulink_ef88d0e7-f91b-5eb7-986b-d2d8a20103da)
‘Komm, Tommy, komm!’
Tom had hardly regained full consciousness before he was plunged further into nightmare.
With his good leg on one side and a burly German arm helping him on the other, Tom was escorted down a maze of trenches to a field hospital. He was given a brusque examination and a tetanus injection. Then he was marched off to a farmyard where four other British prisoners were being held under guard, before all five of them were marched further into German-held France.
By the time they reached the prisoner-of-war holding camp, Tom was on the point of collapse. His wounded left leg felt as though it were on fire, and big surges of pain washed up and down his body, like an ocean tide trapped in a goldfish pond. The camp consisted of a group of gloomy tin huts encircled by barbed wire. There was a brief search at the gate – Tom’s cigarettes were removed, over his objections – and he was sent to a hut marked with the Red Cross. A nurse took a quick look at him, decided he wasn’t going to die in the night, and let him collapse exhausted onto a straw pallet. He closed his eyes but couldn’t sleep. Depression assailed him.
He was a prisoner of war.
Alan had tried to kill him.
On either count, he’d have preferred to die.
37 (#ulink_aa85ec0a-e8a6-5522-afd8-4daf20d8c7a0)
Alan abandoned the search, which had become increasingly dangerous, increasingly pointless. Furthermore, he was exhausted beyond description. He didn’t in all honesty know if his body and lungs could bear another night of it. And then there was Guy. Alan got word of Guy’s wound and the hospital where he was being treated.
Alan faced facts. It was time to leave the front, to leave the battle, to give up on Tom for ever.
Two days later, Alan arrived in Rouen, at the school-turned-hospital where Guy was being treated. He made his way stiffly to the correct ward. Guy’s bed was empty: tumbled white sheets and nothing else. Alan stepped across to the booth where the ward sister sat.
‘Bonjour, madam. Je cherche Major Montague –’
Alan was about to continue, but the sister half turned to point, saw the empty bed, then interrupted.
‘Oh, là là! Comme il fume!’
She indicated a door out into what had once been the schoolyard. Alan walked out and found Guy sitting at ease in a cane chair, his bandaged leg covered with a thin green blanket and resting on a couple of packing cases marked ‘War Materials – Urgent’. He was wrapped in a cloud of cigar smoke and a three-day-old Times lay half read on his lap.
‘Guy!’ he said, feeling somehow anaesthetised and shell-shocked all at once. ‘How are you?’
The brothers embraced, as well as they were able, given Guy’s awkward sitting position.
‘Not bad, old boy, considering. Damn thing aches like the devil, that’s all.’
Although he had come to Rouen specifically to see Guy, now that he was here Alan could only think of Tom and Tom’s death, and the urgency of letting everyone in the world know, including Guy. But etiquette forbade him from raising the topic just yet. Guy was unwrapping some dressings and pointing out where the bullet had entered and where it had left, and exactly what damage it had done along the way. Alan found himself unable to understand anything his brother was saying. He didn’t even care particularly. The wound was minor and Alan had seen too many serious ones to be much perturbed.
‘How did it happen?’ he asked, when it was his turn to say something.
Guy shrugged the question away. ‘One of these things,’ he said. ‘Came clattering round the corner on my way back to the dressing station and ran right into the damned brigadier. He wasn’t best pleased with me, spattering his nice clean khakis with blood. Wanted a great big council of war that afternoon, and ordered me – ordered me, mark you – to get the wound cleaned and dressed, then report back to him for his precious get-together. I can tell you the doctors were a bit narked. They wanted to send me straight here; thought the brig’s attitude was a bit rich, frankly.’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘Not to mention that I was wearing your dratted tunic. I’ve had the thing cleaned, of course: you don’t want my blood all over it.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes? You do want my blood on it?’ Guy raised his eyebrows.
‘I mean no.’
‘Are you all right, old fellow?’
‘Guy, look, I need to tell you right away. You may not know. It’s Tom. He’s dead.’
Guy’s face was initially impassive, before changing to something a little more sombre and concerned. He laid his cigar aside. ‘Killed? Alan, I’m so sorry. It’s a tragic loss.’
Guy’s words were so blank, so vague, that Alan felt a sharp jab of anger. ‘Tragic loss? For God’s sake, it’s beyond tragic. It’s a bloody disgrace. It’s a shame. It’s a damned bloody crime, that’s what it is.’
‘A crime? Alan, I did what I could. The brigadier was absolutely intent …’ Guy’s words faded out. He realised he had boobed and Alan was suddenly on the alert.
‘You were there? By God, of course you were. The brigadier’s council of war. You were there! When it was decided. You were there and you didn’t stop it.’
Guy drew heavily on his cigar and sank back in his chair, as though to invoke the protection accorded to invalids. ‘I couldn’t stop it, could I? I’m a major. The brigadier’s a brigadier. It was him that gave the order.’
‘But you knew the position. You knew that those gun posts were impregnable.’
‘And so did the brigadier. He knew it every bit as well as I did. Better.’ Guy had sat up again and his cigar was idle in his hand.
‘But you’re on the staff. You could have spoken out. You could have leaned on him or had somebody from HQ lean on him.’
Guy plucked at his collar, as though checking that it was straight. He was one hundred per cent engaged on the conversation. His normal languid confidence was nowhere to be seen. ‘The brig’s mind was made up. You know these types. Field Marshal Haig could have yelled at him and it’d have made no difference.’
‘But you didn’t try. Because it was Tom, you didn’t try.’
Guy’s voice rose in answer. ‘The fact was that Tom was the very best officer for the job. If anyone could have pulled it off, he could have. I thought it was a stupid mission and said so – not in so many words, of course – but if it was going to go ahead, then we chose the right man.’
Guy finished his sentence too quickly, as though with a consciousness that he’d boobed again. He plucked at his collar a second time. Alan noticed his brother’s discomfort and fastened on to it.
‘We chose? We? Who’s we? You and the brigadier …’ Alan paused only for a moment. Now, all of a sudden, with Tom not here, Alan was seeing something in Guy that Tom had always seen. It was as if that old intuitive communication was working one final time. ‘You suggested his name,’ he said in a whisper. ‘The brigadier announced his bloody stupid plan. You probably argued against it. But when the brigadier insisted, you suggested Tom. Don’t deny it, Guy. I know. I know.’
‘He was the best officer for the job. He was the outstanding choice.’
‘Oh, that’s true, I don’t doubt that’s true.’
‘It needed dash and pluck and sheer bloody-minded aggression. That was Tom.’
‘You hated him, Guy. He always said you did. And I never … I never … By God, you killed him. I’ll never –’
Alan shrank back, as if from a carcass. His mouth puckered in disgust. A couple of nurses were walking across the bottom of the schoolyard, their uniforms brilliant white in the afternoon sun. A doctor came running to catch up with them. His coat was white, but it was stained with blood, and didn’t catch the sun in the same way.
Alan was about to walk away, but Guy leaned out of his chair to grab his brother’s arm.
‘Wait! There’s something you don’t know.’
Alan wavered a moment, as Guy hesitated. ‘What? What don’t I know?’
‘My wound. I didn’t tell you how it happened.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Guy! One little flesh wound and you think you’re a bloody martyr! Grow up!’
Alan began to leave and this time Guy didn’t attempt to stop him. ‘Just remember, you don’t know everything,’ he shouted. ‘If you knew, you wouldn’t blame me. I did what I could.’
He shouted, but Alan didn’t respond.
At the bottom of the schoolyard, the same two nurses were walking back the way they’d come, slowly. The hospital was full of the stink of death.
38 (#ulink_fb958df3-5dc5-5996-8e66-c7a9c5552774)
The cardboard scale wavered and sank.
Tom stared at it with hungry eyes. His fellow prisoner of war, a Canadian from his uniform, cut a crumb off the left-hand slice of bread and transferred it to the other pan. The scale levelled out. The Canadian removed both slices and laid them on a cloth. There were five slices, all precisely equal. The Canadian withdrew his hands.
Tom reached for the slice nearest him, no matter that there was a woodchip clearly lurking in the black dough. The Canadian waited till everyone had chosen, then took the one piece remaining. The other men moved away. Tom didn’t.
‘Got the sawdust, huh?’
Tom shrugged.
‘New?’
Tom nodded.
This was his fourth day in Hetterscheidt, a prisoner-of-war camp a little way outside Düsseldorf. The camp was a bleak place of tin huts, bare earth, barbed wire, and guard posts. A thousand men lived there, sixty men to a bunkhouse. A stand of a dozen cold taps constituted the washing facilities for the entire camp. All men were made to work long hours and under constant supervision from the German guards, known as Wachposten. Tom himself had to smash rocks as raw material for a nearby soda factory.
But the accommodation wasn’t the problem. Nor were the taps. Nor was the work.
The food was.
One loaf of bread each day between five men and that was it. Nothing else. Tom was hungry already. For the first time in his life he’d encountered men close to starvation and he had just joined their ranks.
‘You can get to like the sawdust too,’ said the Canadian, folding his cardboard scale away into his bedding. ‘It’s something to chew on.’
There was something about the man that Tom instantly liked and trusted. ‘Tom Creeley,’ he said, holding his hand out and introducing himself properly.
The Canadian looked round with a smile. ‘Mitch Norgaard,’ he said. ‘Hi.’
They exchanged the information that prisoners always exchanged. Norgaard had been in Hetterscheidt since December 1915. Although in a Canadian regiment, Norgaard was actually an American citizen. He’d signed up because his mother was Belgian and he’d been appalled by the outrages committed by some German soldiers in Belgium during the first few days of the war.
‘So I figured I ought to sign up and let them commit outrages against me as well. I guess my plan worked even better than I hoped.’
‘You’re a Yank? I thought –’
‘Yeah, yeah. The Canadian regiments weren’t allowed to admit us. Well, they weren’t. But they did.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Tom filled Norgaard in on his own story: regiment, date of capture, work detail.
Norgaard nodded. ‘Red Cross?’ he asked.
Tom shook his head. ‘Missing, presumed dead,’ he said.
‘You’re kidding.’ Norgaard’s expression became deeply serious, as though Tom had just admitted to a terminal illness, which in a way he had. Most prisoners survived by supplementing their prison rations with parcels sent by the Red Cross from Geneva, but if you were recorded as ‘missing, presumed dead’ then the humanitarian bureaucracy had nothing to offer. ‘Thanks to your Royal Navy, Fritz can’t feed himself properly, let alone look after his prisoners. You won’t survive without food parcels.’
Tom shrugged and yanked at his waist. His belt was already fastened one notch tighter than normal and his trousers already beginning to balloon.
‘Friends and family?’ pursued Norgaard. ‘You should write. Get that “presumed dead” horseshit sorted out.’
Tom shook his head. ‘No.’
‘What the hell do you mean, no? You must have someone.’
Tom swallowed. He knew how serious his situation was, of course. But Alan had tried to kill him and he would be damned if he’d beg for help from the Montague family now. There was still his father, of course, but Tom knew how close Jack Creeley was to the Montagues, and writing to Jack was hardly different from writing direct to Sir Adam. He shook his head.
‘I won’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’d sooner die.’
39 (#ulink_73ff2145-715f-557f-9c7d-31414da90f4b)
It was the first cold day of autumn. There was only one fire in the room and Alan was cut off from its warmth by a long wooden table and the three well-padded bottoms that sat behind it.
The middle bottom belonged to a colonel in the RAMC. The two outer bottoms belonged to a pair of RAMC captains, ordinary family doctors who had joined up for the duration of the war. Between them, the three bottoms and their owners constituted a Medical Board, gathered to review Alan’s case, among many others.
‘Anderson?’ said the colonel.
‘No, sir. Montague.’
‘Not Mr Anderson?’ The colonel’s tone of voice implied Alan’s response was verging on insubordination.
‘I’m afraid not, sir, no. My name’s Montague. Captain Montague.’
And it was true. In acknowledgement of his services during the battalion’s tragic assault on German lines, Alan had been promoted to captain and recommended for the Military Cross.
‘Hmm … Ah! Montague.’ The colonel found the right papers. ‘Knocked about a bit by a shell. Nothing broken. Nothing hurt. Takes more than a Jerry shell to stop you, eh?’
Alan didn’t answer. It was now more than a month since Tom’s death and Alan was still in shock. It was as though the shell blast had never stopped ringing in his ears and heart. Worse than that, despite remaining under medical supervision away from the front line, his lungs seemed to grow worse by the day. But he hadn’t cared. In a self-destructive mood, he had asked the Medical Board to rate him A1, ‘fit for active service at the front’.
The colonel said, ‘You feel ready to go into the line once again?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Alan, conscious that he was lying.
‘And, of course, you’re desperate to take another crack at Jerry?’
Alan ignored the question, but the colonel didn’t need an answer. ‘Good man,’ he said, looking sideways at the two captains for their approval. But the captains were dubious.
‘Can you run without difficulty?’
‘Have you attempted to carry a heavy load?’
‘How well do you think you would tolerate the sound and concussion of shelling?’
‘Do you think you are capable of commanding men under severe conditions? Bear in mind that the safety of your men will depend upon you.’
Alan didn’t like to lie outright and his answers were visibly hesitant. The short interrogation ended.
‘Excuse us a second, would you, Montague?’ said the colonel, and proceeded to talk with his two colleagues in a low tone. Alan could hear the colonel saying, ‘What the devil are we here for, if not to get men back into active service?’ The two captains on either side were obviously disagreeing strongly, pointing at Alan’s recent medical records for evidence. Alan sat in the cold room, waiting for their verdict. He chafed his hands together for warmth.
Then the doctors stopped their muttering and the colonel spoke again.
‘Look here, Montague, we can’t quite agree. These chaps worry you may not be ready to face Fritz again just yet. Do you –’
But he was interrupted. Unseen by both the colonel and Alan, one of the captains lifted a file of paper and brought it slamming down onto the desk. The noise was like a pistol shot.
Although not consciously scared, Alan’s body was no longer under his control. He jumped about a yard into the air and when he came down he was white as chalk, shaking, wide-eyed. His breathing had the liquid gurgle of a gas victim.
There was a moment’s silence.
The only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire and the tortured sound of Alan’s lungs fighting for air.
The colonel nodded sadly. Thank you, Montague. That will be all.’
40 (#ulink_f7f14742-0e52-5d67-8f0f-5a47cf2cc625)
It was a week later.
Tom’s body grew thinner, his clothes grew baggier. His work at the soda factory grew ever more punishing as his body weakened. Every day, morning and evening, Mitch Norgaard told him to pick up a pen and write home asking for help. Every day, morning and evening, Tom said no. But on the seventh day, Tom caved in. Since there was nothing else to swallow, he swallowed his pride. He wrote home. He wrote to his father, Jack, and to Sir Adam and Lady Pamela.
He got no answer.
He wrote again.
Still no answer.
‘So what?’ said Norgaard. ‘Write again. Write to everyone you know. Write to everyone you’ve ever heard of. Go on writing till you get an answer.’
But Tom shook his head. War turns a man half crazy and prison camp is there to finish the process. Tom laid down his pen and never wrote again.
It was an error, understandable perhaps, but still horribly mistaken.
What Tom didn’t know was this. His first pair of letters was on a hospital ship bound for Dover when the ship was torpedoed and sunk. The second pair of letters was on a Red Cross lorry heading through the Black Forest to Switzerland. The lorry was set upon by hungry men hoping for food. The contents were ransacked. The letters were lost.
Tom would be ‘missing, presumed dead’ until the war ended or he died.
41 (#ulink_30d972e8-8b7d-5064-b91b-1d154ed53732)
‘Darling, boy!’ It was Pamela who met Alan off the train at Winchester. She hugged him tight, burying her face in his neck. When she at last released him, her face was wet. ‘My poor loves, my poor loves.’ She was crying for Tom, whom she’d loved as a mother, and crying for Alan, who’d lost a brother. Alan was unable to speak in reply.
At home, it was the same with his father, and with Tom’s father, Jack. They were pleased to see Alan, of course, but his presence only made Tom’s death more real.
‘He was the very best of officers and the very best of men,’ said Alan to Jack Creeley, when their voices had steadied.
‘Of course, he was – you and him both … And I say this war’s a dirty rotten stinking shame, lad, pardon me. You’ll have to pardon me for saying so, but anything that could take a man like him …’ Creeley’s voice crept out into silence.
Alan spent three weeks at home. Glorious autumn weeks, with the great elms blazing yellow and gold along their boughs.
It had turned out that the shell blast had done more damage than first realised. A needle-sharp splinter had burrowed through Alan’s chest, piercing both lungs. Almost invisible from the outside, the splinter had remained undetected by the original doctors. The longer the splinter had remained in place, the more damage it had done. An operation to remove it had been successful, but further surgery would be needed once he was strong enough. A couple of house guests, a pair of London debutantes, now working as nurses down in Southampton, silently left before his arrival, to give the patient all the rest and quiet he could get.
Alan arrived home so weak he had to be carried to bed. But in the glow of love and warmth, he began to heal. His lungs remained poor, but his body began to grow stronger again. Apart from his lungs, he felt almost whole.
But more painful than any physical damage was the mental scarring. Alan found it almost impossible to sleep in his first-floor bedroom. The wide windows and exposed position made him feel vulnerable to the shell and rifle fire that he continually expected. After three nights of struggling with his fears, he gave in, and took over a boxroom on the ground floor, built like a bunker and with a four-foot stone wall between him and the outside. He slept with a candle burning all night.
Across the hall, in the nursery, there was a large-scale map of the Zagros mountains: a map that Tom had put there fourteen years before. A blue pencil line in Tom’s wobbly nine-year-old hand marked out the family oil concession. Some nights when sleep was hard to come by, and the air laboured in and out of his struggling lungs, Alan took his candle and went into the nursery, staring at the rough contours of the map, in the mountains north of Shiraz. He had promised Tom he’d go there and find whatever there was to be found. Would it be oil or just dry earth? There was no way to find out, except the good old-fashioned way: with a drill.
Some mornings, when dawn had broken over the winter sky, he was still there in his nightshirt, with his candle, looking at the map and wondering, wondering …
It sometimes felt as though finding oil was the most important thing in the entire world.
42 (#ulink_7adadbef-df40-5cf6-9b63-04aa6a6df6c6)
Norgaard rolled over on his bunk and handed Tom a handful of acorns.
‘Pissed up against an oak tree on my way back from the factory today. I found these.’
Norgaard had a handful himself and he began cracking the shells and crunching up the nut inside. Tom did the same, chewing carefully. His stomach was beginning to balloon outwards, but all it held was painful wind. He tried vomiting sometimes, but all he had to vomit was stale air, and the retching brought no relief. Each time that happened, he thought of Alan Montague. Anger, bitterness and self-pity jammed together in a ball that hurt every bit as much as the wind in his belly.
‘What were you up to before the war?’ asked Norgaard, ‘and I’m not asking you to list your ten biggest ever meals.’
Tom grinned. Most conversations in the camp these days were about food, or soap, or beer, or the countless other tiny things of life. ‘Oil,’ he said. ‘I was in the oil business.’
‘You don’t say?’ Norgaard sat up, dropping his acorns into the blanket. ‘On the drilling side or … ? Hey, d’you even have oil fields in England?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Marketing. And no, the country’s as dry as a bone.’
‘Bet the King’s mad as all hell about that … Which company?’
‘Standard, actually. Standard of New Jersey.’
Tom expected the patriotic Norgaard to be pleased with his reply, but instead Norgaard pursed his lips and spat. ‘Goddamn Rockefeller. Ruined the industry for all of us. And dissolution was a bust. Standard of New Jersey, my ass.’
They continued to talk. Before the war, Norgaard had been an independent oilman, a driller with his own crew.
‘And every time we sent the drill bit down, we more than half expected to hit the smell of oil. Boy, I never sharpened the drill so carefully as when I was on my own thirty acres. Every single time you do it, you could find oil sands glistening on the end of the bit.’
‘Did you ever make a strike? For yourself, I mean.’
‘Twice, just twice.’
‘Yes?’
Tom’s hunger vanished, his thoughts of home, his anger with Alan. He was transfixed, the old addiction biting harder than hunger.
‘First time was a little well up near Bradford, Pennsylvania. First day, I pumped thirty barrels. Two weeks later, eighty-five. Four weeks later, no matter what I did, the well gave me ten barrels of oil, if I was lucky. I ended up selling that well for the price of a new pair of pants. Two miles down the road, on land I’d offered on but never clinched, a friend of mine made a strike. Three thousand barrels a week that son-of-a-bitch got out of there.’
Tom breathed out in awe. This was the sharp end of the oil industry, where luck, adventure and geology all met in one glorious mix. ‘And the second strike?’
‘Second strike was sweet as a dream. I called the well Old Glory right from the start. Drilling was as easy as slicing butter. Hit gas after two thousand feet. Three hundred feet later and we were bathing our feet with oil. Six hundred barrels a day, Old Glory produced at her best, God bless her.’
‘And?’ Tom knew that Norgaard was playing with him, but he couldn’t help but fall for the man’s game. ‘And?’
‘And John D. Rockefeller stole every last drop … He owned all the refineries in the area. The price he paid for oil wasn’t hardly worth the cost of hauling it. He sweated me out of what was mine, then bought the well off me when I came begging at his door. It ain’t enough to find the oil, Tom, it’s turning it into dollars that counts.’
Over the weeks and months that followed, Norgaard continued to tell Tom of his days as an oilman in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, and ‘never did get out west to California, but if all your kings and kaisers ever get tired of fighting each other, then that’s where you’ll find me, drilling for oil in my own back yard.’
Tom’s old addiction grew again. If he ever got out of prison camp, then he knew what he would do. He’d get into the oil business: not with Alan, but by himself. Not in Persia, but in America. And not relying on anybody else’s money or goodwill, but relying only on his brains, his guts, his determination to succeed.
Stuck away in prison though he was, it sometimes felt as though finding oil was the most important thing in the entire world.
43 (#ulink_9031570c-54ee-5c5a-97ac-8cad3547c7e6)
Alan grew stronger: strong enough for his second and final operation.
In February 1917, he was sent to a specialist hospital in Southampton. He was readied for surgery and given an anaesthetic. A nurse said, ‘Count to ten for me, please. One, two, three …’
He woke up dazzled by light.
There was a screen around his bed, a couple of doctors, a stout ward sister, and a pretty nurse in the background. The doctors were arguing over treatment and criticising the way the sutures had been applied. When they noticed that Alan was awake, they began asking him questions to test out the extent of his recovery.
What year was it?
‘Nineteen thirteen.’
What month?
‘No idea.’ Alan laughed at the idiocy of the question, hoping that the doctors would be able to see the funny side. They couldn’t.
What was his name?
‘Alan.’
Alan who?
‘Creeley. Alan Creeley.’
The doctors tutted to themselves, then vanished. The ward sister looked at Alan’s bedclothes with disapproval and tucked them in so tightly that she might have been packaging her patient for shipment overseas. Then she left too.
The pretty nurse, auburn-haired, freckled, and with lovely dancing blue eyes, drew closer to the bed. She loosened the bedclothes.
‘It’s not so tidy,’ she said, ‘but at least you can breathe.’
He smiled at her. ‘I don’t think the doctors liked me much.’
‘They don’t like anyone, not unless your injury is particularly interesting.’
‘I didn’t come up to snuff, then? I feel rather as though I’ve been run over by an omnibus.’
‘Well, the operation proved rather lengthy, I’m afraid. More than expected, but nothing that won’t heal. I’ve seen worse cases do well.’
Alan realised that it must have been her who had changed his dressings and bathed him. He reddened with an old-fashioned embarrassment.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve been here two years now and I’ve seen everything.’
‘Still …’
‘Still, nothing.’ She slipped a thermometer into his mouth, forcing him to cut his protest short. ‘Mutton stew or Scotch broth for lunch?’ she said. ‘Nod if you want mutton, shake if you want the soup. The mutton’s an absolute fright, by the way.’
He shook his head.
‘Good choice. I’ve telephoned your mother and father. They’ll be here this evening. I’ve told them you’ll be a bit muzzy, but you’d love to see them. I’ll find you some vases and sneak them away for you. Pamela’s bound to bring flowers, even if she has to strip the hothouse bare.’
‘Thank –’
‘Ah! Thermometer! Don’t talk!’
‘Oree. Unk-oo.’
She took his pulse. Her fingers felt delicious on his wrist, making the rest of his battered body feel like a truck was rolling over it. The white of her uniform seemed dazzling. He watched it rise and fall as she breathed. It was the most beautiful thing … he drifted off.
When his parents did arrive that evening, they were laden with armfuls of flowers, jars of honey, bottles of barley water, and from his father, when his mother was busy with the flowers) a flask of whisky and a handful of cigars.
‘Who was that nurse?’ he asked. ‘She spoke about you as though she knew you both.’
‘The nurse? Lottie, you mean? Reddish hair, blue eyes? But Alan, darling, I’ve told you ten times already. That’s Lottie Dunlop, one of the girls who’s been staying with us this year. A lovely girl. I’ve been longing for you to meet …’
44 (#ulink_4404d9ee-0fc6-534c-9f2f-c0784d83da9c)
‘Hier! Komm! Bitte schnell!’
The guard was elderly, silver-haired, Jewish. He was standing thirty yards away across the prison yard, beckoning at Tom.
Tom pointed to himself. ‘Ich? Me?’
The guard nodded.
Tom dragged himself over. A bitterly cold winter had passed into spring. Tom was still losing weight, certain now that he was dying of hunger. He was listless and apathetic. His belly stuck out, jammed tight with wind and emptiness. He caught up with the guard.
‘Ja?’
‘Hier. Ein Geschenk. Für dich.’ A present. For you.
Tom woodenly put out his hands. The guard gave him a bag of sugar, a couple of tins of goose fat, a jar of raspberry jam. Tom stared down at his treasures, hardly able to understand. The guard tried to explain further. Tom couldn’t properly follow the Jew’s accented German, but it was something to do with a Red Cross parcel that had arrived for a man recently dead. The guard had seen Tom’s state and wanted to help. Tom was so grateful – so shocked – he began to sob out thanks, like a child at Christmas. The guard waved away the thanks, told Tom to eat slowly, and left.
The gift was like a second chance at life.
Tom was tempted to wolf the lot, but knew his stomach would quickly revenge itself on him if he did. He ate the goose fat and the jam over five days and took a spoonful of sugar with a mug of cold water morning and evening. His stomach complained, but his painful wind reduced. For the first time in months, Tom felt nearly human. And, as a human, he felt ready for action.
Speaking to Norgaard in the quiet of the camp that evening, he made a proposal.
‘Let’s escape,’ he said.
45 (#ulink_a87c21eb-1317-528d-b792-4e315ad8d47a)
Alan recovered and Lottie Dunlop nursed him. One morning, as his brain fought its way out of its post-operation fog, he sat up in bed and tried to thank her.
‘Thank you so much for everything,’ he said. ‘I do apologise for not saying so earlier. I must have seemed very brutish. It was the anaesthetic, I suppose.’
‘Of course it was.’
‘Well, sorry anyway. It was ungentlemanly.’
She snorted out through her nose and began to clear away his tray of food.
‘You must think me very stupid,’ he said.
She stood upright, leaving his tray where it was. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. So far in this conversation you’ve called yourself a brute, ungentlemanly and now stupid. In the past couple of days, you’ve said sorry because you had dressings that needed changing. You’ve apologised for causing trouble – by which I assume you meant being honourably wounded in the service of your country. And when I tried to pay you the compliment of noticing your Military Cross you told me that you hadn’t earned it. So far, Captain Montague, I’m beginning to conclude that you’re a great nincompoop.’
He smiled. ‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry again? What is it this time?’
‘Very well then, not sorry … Miss Dunlop, may we start again? I’m Captain Alan Montague and I’m perfectly delighted to make your acquaintance.’
She bobbed in an exquisite curtsy and offered him her hand. ‘Charlotte Dunlop,’ she said. ‘Do call me Lottie.’
For six weeks, Alan recovered. At first he was embarrassed that he should be cared for so intimately by a friend and guest of his parents. Then, later, as he became well enough to be pushed round the hospital in a wheelchair, he began to understand what Lottie’s day-to-day job involved. The wing of the hospital in which she worked dealt with some of the worst cases coming over from France. She handled men who had lost both legs, who had been blinded or deafened, men whose lungs had been three-quarters destroyed by gas, who coughed black blood each time they tried to breathe too deeply. Compared with the things Lottie saw each and every day, Alan’s personal embarrassment at being bathed seemed so trivial.
They became friends.
At the end of her daily duties, Lottie came to find Alan, bringing two steaming great mugs of tea and a slice of cake from home. He learned how she had been on holiday in France when the war broke out. She’d extended her stay, ‘not wanting to travel back while the fighting was still going on – my goodness, how strange it feels to remember that now’. Staying in a hotel at Boulogne, she’d encountered some of the wounded men of the original Expeditionary Force and stayed to help. She’d been appalled by what she’d seen to begin with – ‘I must have been a very sheltered little girl, I’m afraid. I hadn’t imagined … I hadn’t even imagined what it could have been like’ – but came to find something like a vocation in her bloodstained trade. ‘I came back from France for Mummy and Daddy’s sake, but I insisted on at least coming here –’ she meant the Centre for the Very Seriously Wounded – ‘as I couldn’t stand to have become one of those ghastly debs who take a few temperatures and change a few dressings, then think they’ve earned themselves a letter of thanks from the King.’
And he, in return, told her all about himself. He found he was able to speak to her about the fighting with something approaching candour. After all, for every horror he had seen, she had heard of things every bit as bad. She had even, he reflected, witnessed more deaths at close quarters, since perhaps one-third of the men who passed through her hands were too badly injured to survive and her job kept her by their sides until the bitter end.
‘When you were concussed, you used to moan a lot in your sleep,’ she said. ‘You called out for mother – everyone does,’ she added quickly, ‘everyone – but also for Tom. That would be Tom Creeley, I suppose? The boy you grew up with.’
‘Yes, though that doesn’t quite say it. Tom was my twin. I couldn’t have been closer to him if he’d been my flesh and blood. For a few days after his death, I quite lost my head. I almost willed myself to die.’
She nodded. ‘That’s quite common, actually. It is a phase. It does pass.’
‘It has passed, I think. I miss Tom every moment – does that sound absurd? It’s true, though – but I don’t feel that my life has to end because of it. Actually, I’m getting rather keen on life.’
She smiled at him. Her smile seemed like the most beautiful thing in the world.
‘Me too, my dear captain. Me too.’
46 (#ulink_d93bd643-30cb-523a-8c95-4a3af0c5399b)
The escape attempt was a complete success and a total failure.
One morning in May 1917, Tom found an opportunity to throw a handful of grit into the engine that drove the soda factory’s principal conveyor belt. The machinery choked and died. Sabotage was instantly suspected, and prisoners were informed that working hours would be extended until dusk that night. It was what Tom had wanted.
That evening, as he and Mitch Norgaard passed a wood on their way home, they broke from the column of prisoners and ran for their lives into the sheltering trees. Some shots rang out. Still they ran.
Norgaard was hit once in the leg. He could have stopped. Tom would have stopped there with him. But the thought of further captivity was too much for the noble-hearted American. ‘Freedom!’ he shouted. ‘Freedom!’ He ran on and Tom ran with him.
Into disaster.
As appalling luck would have it, a group of German guards on their way home from camp was passing through the woods. Tom and Norgaard ran almost into them. A shot cracked out. Norgaard was hit again and fell dead. The rifles swung around to Tom.
He thought seriously about running on. He thought about choosing death by gunfire over death by starvation. He thought about it, but decided against. He raised his hands, and – wearily, wearily – plodded towards the guns.
This was the success: that Mitch Norgaard would never know captivity again.
Here was the failure: that Tom would, as likely as not, never know anything else.
Tom’s punishment was lenient: one month in solitary confinement on half-rations. When, at the end of the month, he was brought before the camp commandant, his legs were thin, his arms scrawny, his belly jammed tight with hunger. He had lived almost a year in prison. He supposed he would die there.
The commandant frowned.
‘No punishments. Satisfactory work record. Not so sick as many. Why try to escape? You were lucky not to be shot.’ The commandant spoke German, a little quicker than Tom could easily understand.
‘Lucky? Why lucky?’ said Tom. He was dizzy from long confinement, lack of daylight, and the delirium of near-starvation. The German word for stomach shoved its way into his mind. ‘Magen. Mein Magen.’
The commandant snorted, then turned to one of the Wachposten at his side in order to issue a series of rapid instructions. Then, using French, he spoke to Tom. ‘I have changed your work detail. We need more help on the farms. You will be ready at five o’clock, to be on the farm by six thirty. You will give me your word of honour that you will not attempt to escape again. Understand?’
Tom understood – and on that day Tom’s war ended, or at least the brutal uncertainty over living or dying.
As the commandant had known, it was easy for any man working on a farm to keep himself alive. If Tom sowed barley, he ate a handful of the grain. When he split turnips for the sheep, he kept a moon-shaped slice for himself. When he carried the tubs of porridge to the pigs and calves, he slurped up some of the mixture from the bottom, where the oats were thickest. In autumn, at harvest time, he chomped on fresh apples, concealed some of the waxy potatoes in his tunic, had a pocket of wheat bulging in his trousers.
For the first time since being taken prisoner, Tom remembered what it was like to be happy.
To be happy and to survive.
47 (#ulink_bf171dea-4c54-5a53-adc5-76c542ecf887)
Alan too survived the war.
When his health returned, he went back to France. But not to the front line. Not to the fighting. With a rare flickering of intelligence, the War Office had the sense to transfer Alan to an outfit known as the Military Fuels Procurement Office in Paris.
Alan had had very little idea of what was involved until he got there and met his superior, a cheerful lieutenant colonel with a quick smile and a booming laugh.
‘Secret of success,’ said the lieutenant colonel. ‘Fritz thought he was going to win this war because his railways were better. We know we’re going to win, because our motor transport is better. Our lads came to France with just eighty vehicles to call their own. By the end of next year, we’ll have two hundred thousand, between us and the Frogs. That’s not to mention hundreds of tanks, thousands of aircraft, plus whatever the Yanks bring with ’em. But you know the best part about it all? It’s this. There’s no point Fritz trying to build lorries to keep up with us, because he’s got no oil to put in ’em. That’s our job here. Getting the fuel to the boys who need it. If we get it right, we’ll win the war.’
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Harry Bingham
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Триллеры
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: An epic tale of brothers divided, family rivalry, fortunes lost and won, set against the dramatic background of the early days of the oil industry.Two boys are raised as brothers. Alan is the son of the lord of the manor, with all the privileges which come with that birthright. The other, Tom, is the son of the gardener. Together, they learn to argue, fight and bond in friendship.Social difference divides their paths as adults but nothing can break their bond until a tragic misunderstanding occurs in the trenches of World War I. Now instead of the closest of friends they will be the bitterest of rivals in a burgeoning industry: oil.From the early days of drilling in Persia, to wildcatting in Texas, to the corridors of Whitehall and Washington, this is the story of two remarkable men and the very different women who loved them.