Regeneration (26 page)

Rivers went very still. This was the first time Burns had volunteered any information at all about France. Even in Craiglockhart, where he couldn’t altogether avoid talking about it, the bare facts of his war service had had to be prised out of him.

‘You know, you’ll be writing letters and suddenly you realize you’ve written the same name twice.’

Rivers said carefully, ‘That must be one of the worst jobs.’

‘You get used to it. I did it for eighty per cent of the company once.’

A long silence. Rivers was beginning to think he’d dried up, but then he said, ‘That was the day before the Somme. They got out there, and there was this bloody great dyke in the way. You couldn’t see it from the trench because there were bramble bushes round it. And it wasn’t on the map. Everybody bunched up, trying to get across it. German machine-gunners had a field day. And the few who did manage to get across were cut to pieces on the wire. General came round the following day. He said, “My God, did we really order men to attack across that?” Apparently we were intended to be a diversion from the main action. Further south.’

Slowly, Burns began to talk. He’d been promoted captain at the age of twenty-one, and this promotion coincided with the run-up to the Somme campaign. In addition to all the other
strains, he’d been aware of a widespread, though unvoiced, opinion in the company that he was too young for the command, though in length of service he had been senior.

The story was one Rivers was well used to hearing: healthy fear had given way to indifference, and this in turn had given way to a constant, overwhelming fear, and the increasing realization that breakdown was imminent. ‘I used to go out on patrol every night,’ Burns said. ‘You tell yourself you’re
setting a good example,
or some such rubbish, but actually it’s nothing of the kind. You can’t let yourself know you want to be wounded, because officers aren’t supposed to think like that. And, you see, next to a battle, a patrol is the best chance of getting a good wound. In the trenches, it’s shrapnel or head injuries. On patrol, if you’re lucky, it’s a nice neat little hole in the arm or leg. I’ve seen men cry with a wound like that.’ He laughed. ‘Cry for joy. Anyway, it wasn’t my luck. Bullets went round me, I swear they did.’ A pause. ‘It was going to happen anyway, wasn’t it?’

‘The breakdown? Oh yes. You mustn’t attribute breaking down to that one incident.’

‘I went on for three days afterwards.’

‘Yes, I know.’

They talked for over an hour. Near the end, after they’d been sitting in silence for a while, Burns said quietly, ‘Do you know what Christ died of?’

Rivers looked surprised, but answered readily enough. ‘Suffocation. Ultimately the position makes it impossible to go on inflating the lungs. A terrible death.’

‘That’s what I find so horrifying. Somebody had to
imagine
that death. I mean, just in order to invent it as a method of execution. You know that thing in the Bible? “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth”? I used to wonder why pick on that? Why his
imagination?
But it’s absolutely right.’

Rivers, going downstairs to make the tea, thought that a curious thing had happened during that conversation. For the first time, Burns had been able to put the decomposing corpse into some kind of perspective. True, he hadn’t managed to talk about it, but at least it hadn’t prevented him, as it so often had in the past, from talking about other, more bearable aspects of
his war experience. Yet, at the same time, Rivers’s own sense of the horror of the event seemed actually to have increased. It
was
different in kind from other such experiences, he thought, if only because of the complete disintegration of personality it had produced. He was very fond of Burns, but he could discern in him no trace of the qualities he must have possessed in order to be given that exceptionally early command. Not that one could despair of recovery. Rivers knew only too well how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem of the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay. Burns was young, after all. If today really marked a change, a willingness to face his experiences in France, then his condition might improve. In a few years’ time it might even be possible to think of him resuming his education, perhaps pursuing that unexpected interest in theology. Though it was difficult to see him as an undergraduate. He had missed his chance of being ordinary.

16

__________

Rivers arrived back at Craiglockhart in the late afternoon of yet another stormy day. This autumn seemed to have a store of such days, slapping them down remorselessly, one after the other, like a fortune-teller with a deadly pack of cards. The trees had already shed their leaves. They blew across the tennis courts and, when Rivers pushed open the swing doors, accompanied him into the hall.

Where a football match seemed to be in progress. A knot of struggling backs and thighs gradually unravelled, as they became aware of him standing there. On the black and white tiled floor lay a mud-brown, pork-pie hat, evidently belonging to a visitor. Rivers looked round the group and found Sassoon. ‘Careful with that hat, Sassoon,’ he said, and passed through on his way to his office.

Behind him, a much subdued Sassoon picked up the hat, punched it into some semblance of its former shape, and restored it to the peg. The other footballers slunk away.

Bryce was standing at the window of his room, looking out over the leaf-littered tennis courts. Pausing in the doorway, Rivers thought he looked older, but then he turned, and seemed as full of energy as ever.

‘Did you get my letter?’ Rivers asked.

‘I did.’

‘I’ve said I’ll wait and see how things turn out.’

‘Take it, for God’s sake. It’s quite
obvious
how things are going to turn out. I don’t expect to be here next month.’ He smiled. ‘Of course they might appoint
you.’

Rivers shook his head. ‘No, they won’t do that. I’m too identified with you.’

‘
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?