William Faulkner - A Fable

‘Indubitably, Madame,’ the old general said. ‘Your spoon——’

‘It vanished. Dont ask me where. Ask them. Or better: have some of your corporals and sergeants search them. It’s true there are two of them beneath whose garments even a sergeant would not want to fumble. But none of them would object.’

‘No,’ the old general said. ‘More should not be demanded of corporals and sergeants beyond the simple hazard of military life.’ He spoke the aide’s name.

‘Sir,’ the aide said.

‘Go to the scene. Find the gentlewoman’s spoon and return it to her.’

‘I, sir?’ the aide cried.

‘Take a full company. On your way out, let the prisoners come in. —No: first, the three officers. They are here?’

‘Yes sir,’ the aide said.

‘Good,’ the old general said. He turned toward his two confreres, started to speak, paused, then spoke to the civilian; when he did so, the civilian began to rise from his seat with a sort of startled and diffuse alacrity. ‘That should take care of the spoon,’ the old general said. ‘I believe the rest of your problem was the complaint of the three strange women that they have no place to sleep tonight.’

‘That; and——’ the mayor said.

‘Yes,’ the old general said. ‘I will see them presently. Meanwhile, will you take care of finding quarters for them, or shall——’

‘But certainly, General,’ the mayor said.

‘Thank you. Then, goodnight.’ He turned to the woman. ‘And to you also. And in peace; your spoon will be restored.’ Now it was the mayor who was swept, carried—the magpie this time in a flock of pigeons or perhaps hens or maybe geese—back toward the door which the aide held open, and through it, the aide still looking back at the old general with his expression of shocked disbelief.

‘A spoon,’ the aide said. ‘A company. I’ve never commanded one man, let alone a company of them. And even if I could, knew how, how can I find that spoon?’

‘Of course you will find it,’ the old general said. ‘That will be the fourth miracle. Now, the three officers. But first take the three strange ladies to your office and ask them to wait there for me.’

‘Yes sir,’ the aide said. He went out and closed the door. It opened again; three men entered: a British colonel, a French major, an American captain, the two juniors flanking the colonel rigidly down the rug and to rigid attention facing the table while the colonel saluted.

‘Gentlemen,’ the old general said. ‘This is not a parade. It is not even an inquiry: merely an identification.—Chairs, please,’ he said without turning his head to the galaxy of staff behind him. ‘Then the prisoners.’ Three of the aides brought chairs around; now that end of the room resembled one end of an amphitheatre or a section of an American bleachers, the three generals and the three newcomers sitting in the beginning of a semi-circle against the bank of aides and staff as one of the aides who had fetched the chairs went on to the smaller door and opened it and stood aside. And now they could smell the men before they even entered—that thin strong ineradicable stink of front lines: of foul mud and burnt cordite and tobacco and ammonia and human filth. Then the thirteen men entered, led by the sergeant with his slung rifle and closed by another armed private, bare-headed, unshaven, alien, stained still with battle, bringing with them still another compounding of the smell—wariness, alertness, just a little of fear too but mostly just watchfulness, deploying a little clumsily as the sergeant spoke two rapid commands in French and halted them into line. The old general turned to the British colonel. ‘Colonel?’ he said.

‘Yes sir,’ the colonel said immediately. ‘The corporal.’ The old general turned to the American.

‘Captain?’ he said.

‘Yes sir,’ the American said. ‘That’s him. Colonel Beale’s right—I mean, he cant be right——’ But the old general was already speaking to the sergeant.

‘Let the corporal remain,’ he said. ‘Take the others back to the ante-room and wait there.’ The sergeant wheeled and barked, but the corporal had already paced once out of ranks, to stand not quite at attention but almost, while the other twelve wheeled into file, the armed private now leading and the sergeant last, up the room to the door, not through it yet but to it, because the head of the file faltered and fell back on itself for a moment and then gave way as the old general’s personal aide entered and passed them and then himself gave way aside until the file had passed him, the sergeant following last and drawing the door after him, leaving the aide once more solus before it, boneless, tall, baffled still and incredulous still but not outraged now: merely disorganised. The British colonel said:

‘Sir.’ But the old general was looking at the aide at the door. He said in French:

‘My child?’

‘The three women,’ the aide said. ‘In my office now. While we have our hands on them, why dont——’

‘Oh yes,’ the old general said. ‘Your authority for detached duty. Tell the Chief-of-Staff to let it be a reconnaissance, of—say—four hours. That should be enough.’ He turned to the British colonel. ‘Certainly, Colonel,’ he said.

The colonel rose quickly, staring at the corporal—the high calm composed, not wary but merely watchful, mountain face looking, courteous and merely watchful, back at him. ‘Boggan,’ the colonel said. ‘Dont you remember me? Lieutenant Beale?’ But still the face only looked at him, courteous, interrogatory, not baffled: just blank, just waiting. ‘We thought you were dead,’ the colonel said. ‘I——saw you——’

‘I did more than that,’ the American captain said. ‘I buried him.’ The old general raised one hand slightly at the captain. He said to the Briton:

‘Yes, Colonel?’

‘It was at Mons, four years ago. I was a subaltern. This man was in my platoon that afternoon when they … caught us. He went down before a lance. I.… saw the point come through his back before the shaft broke. The next two horses galloped over him. On him. I saw that too, afterward. I mean, just for a second or two, how his face looked after the last horse, before I—I mean, what had used to be his face——’ He said, still staring at the corporal, his voice if anything even more urgent because of what its owner had now to cope with: ‘Boggan!’ But still the corporal only looked at him, courteous, attentive, quite blank. Then he turned and said to the old general in French:

‘I’m sorry. I understand only French.’

‘I know that,’ the old general said also in French. He said in English to the Briton: ‘Then this is not the man.’

‘It cant be, sir,’ the colonel said. ‘I saw the head of that lance. I saw his face after the horses——Besides, I—I saw——’ He stopped and sat there, martial and glittering in his red tabs and badges of rank and the chain-wisps symbolising the mail in which the regiment had fought at Crecy and Agincourt seven and eight hundred years ago, with his face above them like death itself.

‘Tell me,’ the old general said gently. ‘You saw what? You saw him again later, afterward? Perhaps I know already—the ghosts of your ancient English bowmen there at Mons?—in leather jerkins and hose and crossbows, and he among them in khaki and a steel helmet and an Enfield rifle? Was that what you saw?’

‘Yes sir,’ the colonel said. Then he sat erect; he said quite loudly: ‘Yes sir.’

‘But if this could be the same man,’ the old general said.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said.

‘You wont say either way: that he is or is not that man?’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said. ‘I’ve got to believe in something.’