Elizabeth Speller - The Return of Captain John Emmett

Laurence had no idea where it was going: but he was simultaneously apprehensive and eager to hear the rest of what Byers had to tel. 'Please,' he said, 'you've no idea how useful this is. I won't pass on al the details.'

He hoped Byers' evident loyalty to Calogreedy would keep him talking, rather than asking himself why Laurence needed the details if he was not intending to use them.

Byers took out a crumpled handkerchief. For a second Laurence thought he was going to cry and felt a flash of embarrassment, but the young man simply rubbed the lenses of his glasses. 'What started it was that, the first evening, I was there when Tucker was seling some German stuff. Most of it was the usual: belt buckles, badges. He had a ring and a watch with its glass smashed, a beautiful thing, an officer's probably, but it stil went, and a pen, and a couple of photographs of some Fräuleins, that he'd nicked from dead men's pockets, and some letters nobody could read in that funny writing of theirs. Oh and some fancy drawers and a hair ribbon he'd taken off a French lass. But some of it was plain disgusting and that's what everybody wanted to buy. He had some colar flashes stiff with blood and then he'd got something in a little jar of inky liquid. He handed it over to me, saying, "You'l like this, Byers, it's right up your street." I thought at first it was some sort of smal animal he'd pickled, but then from the grin on his face I knew it was something much worse. I shook it a little and then I saw what it was.' He stopped, looking uncomfortable. 'It was a part of a German. His thing. Organ. It was stinking. I almost dropped it there and then. Of course it could have been anybody's if we'd stopped to think. After al, there were enough dead bodies about, but he'd got them al faling over each other to have it. Even Watkins who was forever talking about sinners and helfire.

'Anyway, he's asking for bids, and some of them are offering money and some are trying to trade for tobacco or sweets or saucy pictures. The young lad—his eyes are on stalks. You can see Watkins wants the drawers but there's the Holy Book holding him back, and Dusty is offering for different combinations of stuff, but Tucker keeps adding or subtracting according to what he chooses. Finaly they agree, but I can see Tucker's added up the total wrong. So I correct him. I mean, that's what I'm good at. The look he gives me. Wel, of course he was trying to cheat them. Not for the money but as a game. But I didn't know him then, did I? I hadn't taken to him on account of his being too chummy with the young soldiers, but I didn't know what a sick bastard—sorry, again, sir, but it's the truth—he was. And then some of the men start to laugh and I know I've had it.

'Two days later the rumour that's been going round—that some young officer, who they've had locked up in the guardhouse, and who'd been done for being a coward, has been sentenced to death—turns out to be true. Tucker comes in late, happy as Larry, tels us he's looking for volunteers for a squad. Of course he doesn't mean "volunteer" and he doesn't get any. Wel, only Dusty, who's half-witted and would put his hand up to go over the top in a tutu armed with a stick of Brighton rock if an NCO asked him. The others don't like it. The one with nerves is shaking. Two of them know the officer. I don't, of course.

'He wants ten but he'l settle for seven and a burial party. There were a lot of men on sick, granted, but I knew it would only be a matter of time until he picked on me. And it was. He played about, pretending he wanted X or Y, who turned out to be puking up somewhere or on leave, and then he said, "Oh Byers, just the man.

You like doing officers favours. Wel, you can do this one a favour by shooting straight." Bastard,' Byers muttered, almost to himself.

'That night they bileted us in the farm, the one you can see in the photograph. Nobody slept much, bar Dusty who snored the whole night through. What with that and Watkins reading aloud from his bible, and the cold, and the prospect of what was to come, it was a horrible night. Too long and too short at the same time, if you know what I mean. For once Tucker was in with us. Just lay on his back, no trouble to anyone for once, not sleeping: you could see the glow of his cigarette in the half-dark. Captain Emmett came in about six. He looked pretty sick too.'

And this Brabourne, was he part of the squad, then?' asked Laurence.

'No. He didn't pitch up until we were about to do it. Just in time to take our photograph, I suppose.'

Laurence was puzzled. 'But what was he doing there?'

'I was told that he was part of the trial. The one who's put in to defend someone but never gets them off. But I mean, Mr Brabourne, they might as wel of shot the man right there.'

Laurence saw they'd arrived at the point which he should have clarified to start with.

'And the prisoner was?'

'Mr Hart. Another lieutenant.'

Laurence realised that he'd increasingly expected to recognise the name, whatever it turned out to be, but Hart meant nothing to him. 'Hart?' he repeated, blankly.

Byers looked unhappy. 'Whatever he'd done, and Vince said he'd left them al in a ditch, being shot at, and done a runner and been found stark bolock naked spouting balderdash, he was brave enough in the end. We were hanging around for a while beforehand; that's probably when Brabourne got his picture. It was a dark morning, a bit of snow, not light enough at first. Then Emmett gives us a little speech, though you can tel his heart's not in it: about how sometimes duty asks strange and difficult things of us just as necessary as fighting the Germans. Chin up. Soon be over. That kind of thing. Probably read it in his officer handbook.

'Tucker marches us off. It's stil sleeting and my boots have a hole in them. I remember thinking I shouldn't be noticing this now. The captain comes over, says,

"Al right, lads?" I hear myself saying, "My boots are leaking." It just come out. Captain Emmett gives me a hard look. There's a post, and some rope. Wel, you must know how it goes. Tucker puts me on the end next to him. So as he can have fun watching me, no doubt. Then he mixes the rifles.'

'Mixes the rifles?'

'You must know. Being an officer.' He looked incredulous. 'Shift your rifles about. Of course it means you're not firing with the weapon you're used to. Not that I'd fired more than twice anyway.'

'I'm sorry—I misunderstood.'

But truthfuly Laurence had never given it any thought; it had seemed at first like an uncharacteristicaly humane idea but of course it would be a shambles in its effect. And by the time a man was shooting a felow soldier, his sensibilities were probably past protecting. By the time he'd been six months in France, he would be pretty wel inured to most of war's surprises.

'Then Tucker loads them; supposedly one's a blank, that's what they tel you, but if it was, I knew I wasn't getting it; Tucker was way too chipper with me.

Dusty lights a ciggie behind a hand and Captain Emmett shouts at him to put it out. Then we're al silent. It's just breathing and sloshing as we stomp our feet up and down to keep warm. Watkins starts muttering, "I know that my redeemer liveth." Tucker says, "No he don't, Watkins. Not here." Then Tucker must have heard something because we al have to stand to attention. And then we see them, and I thought I was going to pass out, my heart was racing so fast in my chest. Tucker's looking like it's the best thing he's seen in ages.'

Byers faltered. His shoulders rose and fel a couple of times.

'The lieutenant's stumbling along with his hands tied behind his back. The padre—one of the young ones, gripping his book and not lifting his eyes from the page, though you'd have thought he'd have known the words by heart—walks a little in front of him, reading prayers. The two men who'd been guarding him are either side and the APM—I suppose to execute an officer they needed to do it right—folowing on.'