Regeneration (10 page)

‘No, I shouldn’t think so. Four doctors, thirty nurses. I think we might manage.’

‘Only I don’t want to be moved.’

Rivers helped him to pull up the sheets. ‘I thought you didn’t like it here?’

‘Yes, well, you can get used to anything, can’t you? Do you think I could have a towel tied to the bed?’

‘Yes, of course. Anything you want.’

‘Only it helps, you see. Having something to pull on.’

‘What was it like in France? The asthma.’

‘Better than at home.’

A shout of laughter from below. Charlie Chaplin in full swing. Rivers, following Prior’s gaze, saw the single lamp and the deep shadows, and sensed, with a premonitory tightening of his diaphragm, the breath-by-breath agony of the coming night. ‘I’ll see about the towel,’ he said.

He saw Prior settled down for the night. ‘I’ll be along in the morning,’ he said. Then he went to Sister’s room next door and left orders he was to be woken at once if Prior got worse.

7

__________

Sassoon woke to the sound of screams and running footsteps. The screams stopped and then a moment or two later started again. He peered at his watch and made out that it was ten past four.

Because of the rubber underlay, a pool of sweat had gathered in the small of his back. The rubbery smell lingered on his skin, a clinical smell that made his body unfamiliar to him. In the next bed Campbell snored, a cacophony of grunts, snorts and whistles. No screams ever woke
him.
On the other hand he himself never screamed, and Sassoon had been at Craiglockhart long enough now to realize how valuable a room-mate that made him.

Fully awake now, he dragged himself to the bottom of the bed, lifted the thin curtain and peered out of the window. Wester Hill, blunt-nosed and brooding, loomed out of the mist. And yesterday, he thought, shivering a little, his statement had been read in the House of Commons. He wondered what would happen next. Whether anything would happen. In any event there was a kind of consolation in knowing it was out of his hands.

He knew he was shivering more with fear than cold, though it was difficult to name the fear. The place, perhaps. The haunted faces, the stammers, the stumbling walks, that indefinable look of being ‘mental’. Craiglockhart frightened him more than the front had ever done.

Upstairs whoever-it-was screamed again. He heard women’s voices and then, a few minutes afterwards, a man’s voice. Rivers, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure. Quaking and comfortless, he propped himself up against the iron bedhead and waited for the dawn.

∗

Prior hauled himself further up the bed as Rivers came in. He closed the book he’d been reading and put it down on his bedside table. ‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘I can tell your footsteps.’

Rivers got a chair and sat down by the bed. ‘Did you manage to get back to sleep?’

‘Yes. Did you?’

Silence.

‘I wasn’t being awkward,’ Prior said. ‘That was
concern.’

‘I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep much after four anyway.’ He caught the flicker of interest. How quickly Prior pounced on any item of personal information.

‘Thanks for showing up.’

‘You hated it.’

Prior looked slightly disconcerted, then smiled. ‘I don’t suppose anybody’d
choose
to be seen in such a state. I don’t really see why they had to call you.’

‘They were afraid the fear might bring on another attack. Though in fact you seem to be breathing more easily.’

Prior took a trial deep breath. ‘Yes, I think I am. Do you know I detect something in myself. I…’ He stopped. ‘No, I don’t think I want to tell you what I detect.’

‘Oh, go on. Professional curiosity. I want to see if I’ve detected it.’

Prior smiled faintly. ‘No, you won’t have detected this. I find myself wanting to impress you. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t think it’s pathetic. We all care what the people around us think, whether we admit it or not.’ He paused. ‘Though I’m a bit surprised
my
opinion matters. I mean, to be quite honest, I didn’t think you liked me very much.’

‘There’s a limit to how warm you can feel about wallpaper.’

‘Oh, we’re back to that again, are we?’

Prior turned away, hunching his shoulders. ‘No-o.’

Rivers watched him for a while. ‘Why do you think it has to be like that?’

‘So that I… I’m sorry. So that
the patient
can fantasize freely. So that
the patient
can turn you into whoever he wants you to be. Well, all right. I just think you might consider the possibility that
this
patient might want you to be
you.’

‘All right.’

‘All right, what?’

‘All right, I’ll consider it.’

‘I suppose most of them turn you into Daddy, don’t they? Well, I’m a bit too old to be sitting on
Daddy’s
knee.’

‘Kicking him on the shins every time you meet him isn’t generally considered more mature.’

‘I see.
A negative transference.
Is that
what you think we’ve got?’

‘I hope not.’ Rivers couldn’t altogether conceal his surprise. ‘Where did you learn that term?’

‘I can
read.’

‘Well, yes, I know, but its –’

‘Not popular science? No, but then neither is this.’

He reached for the book beside his bed and held it out to Rivers. Rivers found himself holding a copy of
The Todas.
He stared for a moment at his own name on the spine. He told himself there was no reason why Prior shouldn’t read one of his books, or all of them for that matter. There was no rational reason for him to feel uneasy. He handed the book back. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer something lighter? You are ill, after all.’

Prior leant back against his pillows, his eyes gleaming with amusement. ‘Do you know, I
knew
you were going to say that. Now how did I know that?’

‘I didn’t realize you were interested in anthropology.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘No reason.’

Really, Rivers thought, Prior was cuckoo-backed to the point where normal conversation became almost impossible. He was flicking through the book, obviously looking for something in particular. After a minute or so he held it out again, open at the section on sexual morality. ‘Do they really go on like that?’

Rivers said, as austerely as he knew how, ‘Their sexual lives are conducted along rather different lines from ours.’

‘I’ll say. They must be bloody knackered.
I
couldn’t keep it up, could you?’

‘I think my age and your asthma might effectively prevent either of us setting any records.’

‘Ah, yes, but I’m only asthmatic
part
of the time.’

‘You have to
win,
don’t you?’

Prior stared intently at him. ‘You know, you do a wonderful imitation of a stuffed shirt. And you’re not like that at all, really, are you?’

Rivers took his glasses off and swept his hand across his eyes.
‘Mister Prior.’

‘I know, I know, “Tell me about France.” All right, what do you want to know? And
please
don’t say, “Whatever you want to tell me.”’

‘All right. How did you fit in?’

Prior’s face shut tight. ‘You mean, did I encounter any snobbery?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not more than I have here.’

Their eyes locked. Rivers said, ‘But you did encounter it?’

‘Yes. It’s made perfectly clear when you arrive that some people are more welcome than others. It helps if you’ve been to the right school. It helps if you hunt, it helps if your shirts are the right colour. Which is a
deep
shade of khaki, by the way.’

In spite of himself Rivers looked down at his shirt.

‘Borderline,’ said Prior.

‘And yours?’

‘Not borderline. Nowhere near. Oh, and then there’s the seat.
The Seat.
You know, they sent me on a course once. You have to ride round and round this bloody ring with your hands clasped behind your head. No saddle. No stirrups. It was amazing. Do you know, for the first time I realized that somewhere at the back of their…
tiny tiny
minds they really do believe the whole thing’s going to end in one big glorious
cavalry charge.
“Stormed at with shot and shell,/Boldly they rode and well,/Into the jaws of death,/Into the mouth of hell…” And all. That. Rubbish.’

Rivers noticed that Prior’s face lit up as he quoted the poem.
‘Is
it rubbish?’

‘Yes.
Oh, all right, I was in love with it once. Shall I tell you something about that charge? Just as it was about to start an officer saw three men smoking. He thought that was a bit too casual, so he confiscated their sabres and sent them into the charge unarmed. Two of them were killed. The one who
survived was flogged the following day. The military mind doesn’t change much, does it? The same mind now orders men to be punished by tying them to a limber.’ Prior stretched his arms out. ‘Like this. Field punishment No. 1. “Crucifixion.” Even at the propaganda level can you imagine anybody being
stupid
enough to order
this?’

Either the position, or his anger, constricted his breathing. He brought his arms down sharply and rounded his shoulders. Rivers waited for the spasm to pass. ‘How was your seat?’

‘Sticky. No, that’s
good.
It means you don’t come off.’

A short silence. Prior said, ‘You mustn’t make too much of it, you know, the snobbery. I didn’t. The only thing that really makes me angry is when people at home say there are no class distinctions at the front. Ball-
ocks.
What you wear, what you eat. Where you sleep. What you carry. The men are pack animals.’ He hesitated. ‘You know the worst thing? What seemed
to me
the worst thing? I used to go to this café in Amiens and just across the road there was a brothel. The men used to queue out on to the street.’ He looked at Rivers. ‘They get two minutes.’

‘And officers?’

‘I don’t know. Longer than that.’ He looked up.
‘I don’t pay.’

Prior was talking so freely Rivers decided to risk applying pressure. ‘What were you dreaming about last night?’

‘I don’t remember.’

Rivers said gently, ‘You know, one of the distinguishing characteristics of nightmares is that they are always remembered.’

‘Can’t’ve been a nightmare, then, can it?’

‘When I arrived you were on the floor over there. Trying to get through the wall.’

‘I’m sure it’s true, if you say so, but I don’t remember. The first thing I remember is you listening to my chest.’

Rivers got up, replaced his chair against the wall and came back to the bed. ‘I can’t force you to accept treatment if you don’t want it. You
do
remember the nightmares. You remember them enough to walk the floor till two or three o’clock every morning rather than go to sleep.’

‘I wish the night staff didn’t feel obliged to act as
spies.’

‘Now that’s just childish, isn’t it? You know it’s their job.’

Prior refused to look at him.

‘All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘It isn’t fair to say I don’t want treatment. I’ve asked for treatment and you’ve refused to give it me.’

Rivers looked blank. ‘Oh, I see. The hypnosis. I didn’t think you were serious.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be serious? It
is
used to recover lost memory, isn’t it?’

‘Ye-es.’

‘So why won’t you do it?’

Rivers started to speak, and stopped.

‘I can understand, you know. I’m not stupid.’

‘No, I know you’re not stupid. It’s just that there’s… there’s a certain amount of technical jargon involved. I was just trying to avoid it. Basically, people who’ve dealt with a horrible experience by splitting it off from the rest of their consciousness sometimes have a general tendency to deal with any kind of unpleasantness in that way, and if they
have,
the tendency is likely to be reinforced by hypnosis. In other words you might be removing one particular symptom – loss of memory – and making the underlying condition worse.’

‘But you do do it?’

‘If everything else has failed, yes.’

Prior lay back. ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’

‘In your case not everything else
has
failed or even been tried. For example, I’d want to write to your CO. We need a clear picture of the last few days.’ Rivers watched Prior’s expression carefully, but he was giving nothing away. ‘But I’d have to go to the CO with a precise question. You understand that, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s no point bothering him with a vague inquiry about an unspecified period of time.’

‘No, all right’

‘So we still need you to remember as much as possible by conventional means. But we can leave it till you’re feeling better.’

‘No, I want to get on with it.’

‘We’ll see how you feel tomorrow.’

After leaving Prior, Rivers walked up the back staircase to the tower and stood for a few moments, his hands on the balustrade, looking out across the hills. Prior worried him. The whole business of the demand for hypnosis worried him. At times he felt almost a sense of foreboding in relation to the case, though he wasn’t inclined to give it much credence. In his experience, premonitions of disaster were almost invariably proved false, and the road to Calvary entered on with the very lightest of hearts.

MR MACPHERSON With regard to the case of Second Lieutenant Sassoon, immediately he heard of it, he consulted his military advisers, and in response to their inquiries he received the following telegram: A breach of discipline has been committed, but no disciplinary action has been taken, since Second Lieutenant Sassoon has been reported by the Medical Board as not being responsible for his action, as he was suffering from nervous breakdown. When the military authorities saw the letter referred to, they felt that there must be something wrong with an extremely gallant officer who had done excellent work at the front. He hoped hon. members would hesitate long before they made use of a document written by a young man in such a state of mind, nor did he think their action would be appreciated by the friends of the officer. (
Cheers.
)