Pat Barker - Regeneration

‘ Will you take it?’

‘I don’t know. Probably.’

More than probably, Rivers thought, returning to his own room. The thought of Craiglockhart without Bryce was intolerable. He sat behind his desk, and looked round the large, overfamiliar room. Whenever he’d come back before, he’d had an almost physical sense of the yoke settling on to his shoulders, beginning to chafe almost before he was into the building. Not this time. He looked at his crowded appointments book and actually managed to feel some affection for it. The offer of a job in London, with its prospect of more frequent contact with other anthropologists, had had the paradoxical effect of making him realize how much he enjoyed his work here. It had become of equal importance to him, and he’d begun to think of ways in which the two interests could combine. The condensation and displacement one encountered in the dreams of patients here — might not these mechanisms also be at work in the myth and ritual of primitive people? At any rate it was an idea worth exploring. But these new combinations only occurred because he no longer thought of his work here as an interruption of his ‘real’ work. Far from it, he thought, spreading his hands across his desk. The work he did in this room was the work he was meant to do, and, as always, this recognition brought peace.

‘… we actually drove past your place.’

‘You should’ve called in,’ Sassoon said. ‘Mother wouldn’t’ve stood on ceremony where you were concerned. She regards you as the Saviour of the Family Name. From the Disgrace of Pacifism.’

‘Prematurely, perhaps?’

No answer.

‘Have you been able to think…?’

‘I haven’t been able to think at all. Look, Rivers, I’ve never asked you for anything. I’ve never asked or expected to be treated any differently from anybody else.’

‘I should hope not,’ Rivers said. ‘I don’t know what the grounds would be.’

Sassoon came to an abrupt halt. ‘All right.’

‘No, what were you going to say?’

‘I was going to point out that the man in my room is driving me stark, staring mad, but it doesn’t matter.’

‘That could be grounds for a room change. If true. For you as for anybody else. What does he do? Does he sleep badly?’

‘Snores like a newborn baby, if newborn babies snore.’

‘So what does he do?’

‘Preaches the consolations of Theosophy in his own inimitable brand of pseudo-medieval English.’

‘I can see that might be irritating. Give me an example.’

‘Friend of mine, Ralph Greaves. He’s… Is! Was a good pianist. He’s just had one arm amputated, and the other’s almost useless. Do you know what Fothersgill said? “It will assist his spiritual development.”

‘Perhaps it would have been wiser not to tell him?’

Silence.

‘After all, you must’ve had some idea of the kind of response you were likely to get?’

‘I can’t keep it in all the time.’

‘Look, he’s due to be boarded soon. Surely you can put up with the inconvenience for another… what, ten days?’

‘We had a row this morning. I pointed out the casualties for September were 102,000 — official figures. He said, “Yes, Sassoon, the Celestial Surgeon is at work upon humanity.”’

Rivers sighed. He was thinking that Sassoon’s insistence of hammering home the bitter reality was probably not doing Fothersgill much good either. ‘What does he think about you? Do you know?’

‘I have a disturbed aura. Apparently.’

‘Really?’

‘Indigo. I’m glad somebody finds it amusing.’

‘I was just thinking how useful it would be. Instant diagnosis.’

‘I’ve woken him up once or twice.’

‘Nightmares?’

‘Not exactly.’

Sassoon was avoiding his eye, but then he often did at the beginning of interviews. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘Oh, it was nothing. I just… saw something I couldn’t possibly have seen.’

He thinks I’ll despise him for being irrational, Rivers thought. ‘I did once see… well, not see… hear something I couldn’t explain. It was on one of the Solomon Islands. On this particular island, the people believe the souls of the dead go to a bay at the other side — the spirits come up to the house in canoes and carry the dead person’s soul away. So you have a kind of wake, and on this particular night we were all crowded together, gathered round the corpse, waiting for the sound of paddles. The whole village was there, all these dark brown intently listening faces. And we listened too and asked questions in whispers. The atmosphere was unbelievable. And then a moment came when they heard the paddles. You saw this expression of mingled joy and grief spread over all their faces, and of course we heard nothing. Until the moment when the spirits were actually in the room, taking the soul away, and then the whole house was suddenly filled with whistling sounds. I could see all the faces. Nobody was making those sounds, and yet we all heard them. You see, the rational explanation for that is that we’d allowed ourselves to be dragged into an experience of mass hypnosis, and I don’t for a moment deny that that’s possible. But what we’d been told to expect was the swish of paddles. Nobody’d said anything about whistling. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a rational explanation. Only I don’t think that particular rational explanation fits all the facts.’

After Rivers had finished there was a pause. Then Sassoon said, with great difficulty, ‘What happened to me started with a noise.’

‘What sort of noise?’

‘Tapping. It started in Owen’s room and then when I went back to my own room it started again. Owen didn’t hear it. It didn’t bother me particularly, I just went off to sleep and… when I woke up, somebody was standing just inside the door. I knew who it was. I couldn’t see the face, but I recognized his coat.’ He paused. ‘Orme. Nice lad. Died six months ago.’

‘You said “once or twice”. The same man?’

‘No. Various people.’ A long silence. ‘I know this must sound like the the kind of thing I was seeing in London, but it isn’t. It’s… nothing like that. In London they were clutching holes in their heads and waving their stumps around. These are… very quiet. Very restrained.’ He smiled. ‘Obviously you get a better class of hallucination round here.’

‘What do you feel when you see them?’

Sassoon shrugged. ‘I don’t feel anything. At the time.’

‘You’re not frightened?’

‘No. That’s why I said they weren’t nightmares.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘Guilt.’

‘Do they look reproachful?’

Sassoon thought about it. ‘No. They just look puzzled. They can’t understand why I’m here.’

A long silence. After a while, Sassoon roused himself. ‘I wrote about it. I’m sorry, I know you hate this.’

Rivers took the sheet of paper: ‘I don’t hate it. I just feel inadequate.’

When I’m asleep, dreaming and drowsed and warm,

They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.

While the dim charging breakers of the storm

Rumble and drone and bellow overhead,

Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.

They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.

‘Why are you here with all your watches ended?

‘From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the line.’

In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;

And while the dawn begins with slashing rain

I think of the Battalion in the mud.

‘When are you going back to them again?

‘Are they not still your brothers through our blood?’