Pat Barker - Toby's Room

Brooke was already on his feet.

‘Come on,’ he said, sharply. They heaved Warren on to the stretcher and set off along the crowded trench, Boiler at the front calling out ‘ Beep-beep! ’ to secure a passage. He seemed to have no nerves, Boiler. No nerves, no manners, no eyelashes, no bloody nothing, but still he survived. Stuck a tab end in his mouth, squinted through the smoke, foul-mouthed, fond of dirty jokes, laughed among the dying without a care in the world, apparently. Sentimental, though, about horses and mules.

At the back of the stretcher, Neville’s hands were rubbed raw, his thoughts scattered like pins. All he could think was: I mustn’t let him drop . And then he wanted to laugh, because what the hell did it matter whether they dropped him or not? Warren was past caring. Out of the front line they trudged, down the communication trenches, jam-packed with men crowding up for the counter-attack, bulky figures they were in the darkness, stamping and steaming like horses. Cigarettes everywhere, illuminating a mouth, a hand, an eye.

One more corner and they’d reached the regimental first-aid post. Tarpaulin had been rigged up over the entrance; the walking wounded queued underneath it, teeth chattering in blue faces, blackened wounds oozing blood. The slight wounds attempted jokes, but jerked like the others as a shell whizzed over.

Boiler pushed through the crowd, down the steps to the dugout where they set the stretcher down. Neville flexed his raw fingers and then, suddenly, in a great explosion of rage, kicked Warren in the ribs. The shock as his boot made contact travelled all the way up his body and reverberated inside his brain.

Brooke turned on him. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘What do I think I’m doing? You just risked four men’s lives for a corpse.’

‘Orders. We were ordered to get him back and we did.’ He glanced at the other stretcher-bearers and lowered his voice. ‘Look, I know you’re having a rough time but it’s no easier for the rest of us.’

Pointless saying anything. Anyway, all he wanted to do was sleep. The others were hunkered down against a wall, their hands hanging between their knees.

‘Right,’ Brooke said. ‘I want you to go across to C Company. They could do with a bit of help.’

He was gone before anybody could speak. Boiler began swearing steadily, inventively, under his breath. He was a great big bully-boy on the surface, but too used to doing what his betters told him to really protest. Not Neville. He pushed through the crowd into the back room, the operating theatre, if you could call it that. The low ceiling was hung with lamps, and despite the stench of blood, the place had a curious seedy glamour about it, halfway between a nightclub and an abattoir. Brooke was scrubbing his hands while two orderlies heaved a bleeding lump of meat on to the table.

‘Captain Brooke, sir.’

He was always correct, even formal, in front of the others. Brooke wiped his face on his sleeve, looking at Neville with smears of blood around his eyes.

‘You can’t just lend them out like that. They’re absolutely bloody knackered. Look at Wilkie, he’s dead on his feet.’

‘That was an order.’

They stared at each other. For a moment the prospect of head-on collision loomed, then Neville turned on his heel and went back into the other room. ‘Come on, lads.’ He dragged Wilkie to his feet, pushed the gas curtain aside and went out into the night.

Somewhere a tenor voice was singing: They didn’t believe me, they didn’t believe me …

Well, no, Neville thought, struggling to sit up in bed. Who the fuck would?

He could kill for a cigarette. Instead, he lay with his eyes closed, his mind ranging back through the furthest reaches of his dream. Lending them to another company when they were on their knees with exhaustion. Even now, looking back, he didn’t believe it.

That was the moment, he thought. After that, Brooke was the enemy.

Gillies settled one buttock on the edge of his bed. ‘You’re looking a lot better.’

‘Oh. Grown back, has it?’

‘Now then.’

Why did everybody in this fucking hospital talk to you as if you were three years old? ‘I just need to get out of this place. It’s driving me insane.’

‘You are allowed out, you know. It’s not a prison.’

‘Could I go into London?’

‘I’d try a walk round the grounds first.’

‘And the operation?’

‘Well, that was a very nasty infection you had. I’m afraid the first thing I’m going to have to do is remove the pedicle …’

‘ Remove it?’

‘It hasn’t taken. In fact it’ll slough off by itself in a few days —’

‘You mean, you have to start again?’

‘Afraid so. Things might look a bit worse initially …’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘I know, I’m sorry.’

‘Ah, well.’

After Gillies had gone, Neville sat looking round the ward, from face to face to face. Once, he and Brooke had watched some young officers, newly arrived from England, using beetroots on poles for target practice. Shouts of ‘Howzat?’ when somebody smashed the beetroot head to pieces. ‘Idiots,’ he’d said. But Brooke shook his head. ‘Don’t be too hard on them. They’ll learn, soon enough.’

Suddenly Neville pushed back the bedclothes and swung his feet on to the floor. When he first tried to stand he went dizzy and toppled back on to the bed. Getting dressed took the best part of an hour, but he managed it at last.

Staggering down the ward, he encountered his nemesis, Sister Lang- widge !. Wasn’t really called that, of course, but so far he’d managed not to learn her name.

‘Where do you think you’re going, Mr Neville?’

‘Mr Gillies says I have to have fresh air.’

And besides, you fucking ugly cow , he mouthed at her retreating back, I need a cigarette.

They’re letting me out , Neville’s note had said:

Just for one evening but it’s a start. There’s nobody I would rather spend my first evening of freedom with than you, my dear fellow. So, if you’re agreeable, I could pick you up from the Slade this Thursday at half past six. I believe you still work office hours? Of course if you’d prefer not to be seen with me, I shall quite understand …

Since when had he been Neville’s ‘dear fellow’? Neville must have many friends closer than Paul whom he could have arranged to meet, but there again, perhaps not. His capacity for offending people was legendary. And he’d chosen to have no visitors.

Refusing to be niggled by that sly dig about office hours, Paul finished work precisely at six, cleaned himself up and changed into the uniform he’d brought with him. Even with a stick and a limp it wasn’t wise to be seen on the streets in civilian dress. He wasn’t much looking forward to the evening, but it was the kind — the decent — thing to keep Neville company on his first venture into London. They’d find some back room in a pub somewhere and talk, he supposed, about painting. Now that Neville had been commissioned as a war artist, painting was, once again, a safe topic. And then, duty done, he could pour Neville on to the Sidcup train, and go home.

Neville was waiting near the reception desk. He was not in uniform, which surprised Paul a little, until he reflected that Neville had his face to vouch for him. Standing there in the shadows, like that, he became a figure of menace. Paul wished he would move, look round, say something, and yet, as Neville turned towards him, he had to brace himself for his second sight of that face.

Nothing. That was the first impression. A featureless, silvery oval hovering in the half-darkness, as if a deranged, wandering moon had somehow strayed into the building. Then he understood: Neville was wearing a mask.