Harry Bingham - The Sons of Adam

‘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.

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.