Day 27 - 3232 words

‘My dear Ernest, I have some information that I must share with you. I cannot understand why I should feel compelled to set right the misconceptions of my idiot brother Basil, except that you and I have formed a bond that I never thought to feel with another human being, either waking or dreaming. It would be so much quicker for me to come to you and talk as we used to, in your visions or waking dreams, but my health is failing me, and I understand that you are in France. I have tried to reach out to you, but all I can see is clouds of thick white fog in which men are choking.  Where are you my dear son?
Basil has been informed that somehow Effie has been attacked. He has got it into his single-minded skull that Gabriel was the perpetrator of this violation on her innocence.  Did you know that he was home on leave at the very time of the attack? Basil tells me Gabriel did not go home once during that time, not even to see his poor Mama, but he was seen at several unsavoury parties.
Therefore perhaps it will come as no surprise to learn that Basil has decided that he got the worse of the bargain he made with your Mother – that Gabriel is the twin who has inherited my particular abilities and interests.  I should be pleased at this. I should be delighted at the idea that he will turn away from Gabriel, disinherit him, perhaps even disgrace him, while all the time you and I, Ernest, can follow the paths that we choose, down into the heart of darkness in the soul (if he has one) of man. And of woman. But, I am not pleased.
 I do not know what I am asking you to do to set this right. Or rather, I do know, but it is too much to ask. For if you tell Basil, who is of course now your Colonel, your CO,  that Gabriel is not evil, and has, as far as we know, committed no major crimes at all, then the cloak of darkness and madness falls around you.  Still, I have given you command of the facts, and it is said that a man in command of the facts will always choose the right course of action. Enough, or this letter will never catch the mail boat to France. I am as ever, your Father.’

‘Ernest, sweetheart. I hope that this letter finds you safe and well. I do hope you are a long way from the fighting. I do hope that you are being brave. I am writing to say that you and I parted on terms that were a bit, somewhat hasty. I am willing to reconsider and to accept your apology and to marry you. As soon as we can. Do please get a weekend pass and come home straight away. Pa has made all the arrangements. Hasty weddings are quite the fashion at the moment, due to the needs of the fighting men.  Best regards, Effie.’

Deep in the fighting country of the lowlands, Ernest screwed up both letters, and used them to attempt to light the tiny stove in his dug out quarters, fanning the embers with the paper first. The squall outside blew  back down the chimney, made from old tin cans, and bitter black smoke swirled around him. He hunched his back against the rain and breathed patiently on the feeble flames again.  He was wondering how long he could delay sending a reply to Effie. In anticipation of her letter, he had already written a note of acceptance and reconciliation. It was sewn into the lining of his coat, along with her engagement ring, which he would also return to her. The events of the next few weeks would determine when, and whether, he would get it dispatched.
As Ernest put a billy can of hot water on the stove, a signals despatcher bobbed his head in through the doorframe.
‘Sergeant Lowe?’
Ernest acknowledged his name and the salute.
‘Message for you from Captain Kerford, First Cavalry column.’
‘Thank you.’ Ernest read the message. ‘The response is –‘ I will be there with all speed’.’
But ‘all speed’ in these conditions was still a matter of weeks, rather than days. Ernest hitched a lift with every passing convoy, but soon discovered that most of his Army was, if not retreating, then wheeling round across the low countries, leaving Gabriel’s cavalry regiments exposed, cut off and seemingly abandoned to their fate. Accounts of the losses were staggering, but, Ernest reasoned, only to be expected when horses were charging machine guns.
At length he came to a chateau, requisitioned by the British General Staff. Ernest brushed himself up, as far as he could, and presented his name to Colonel Kerford, who was dining within. Ernest waited in the marble hallway, his knees beginning to buckle in response to the hunger that was gripping him as he smelled the Officer’s dinner being prepared. A batman saw Ernest’s reaction and recognised it, and brought Ernest a roast beef sandwich. Ernest looked at it in awe for a moment, before devouring it in a couple of bites.
Ernest calculated that he would have quite a wait, and that he would be brought in with the brandy and cigars. He was right. The room into which he was admitted was a small library or study, away from the dining room. Only the Colonel was there, with two brandy glasses. Ernest saluted, and then the two men shook hands. Ernest accepted the brandy, and had to remember not to down it in one. The Colonel was agitated, marching up and down the carpet as he spoke.
‘Ernest – I know that you have been a good friend, a loyal friend, of my son for many years. Others seem to have been leading him down all sorts of wrong paths, but you – you have always been on the level.’
Ernest looked at his boots, their shabbiness shaming the antique carpet.
‘And it seems that Gabriel – God, Ernest, I don’t know how to say this.’
‘You don’t need to say any more, Sir. Effie wrote to me.’
‘She did?’ said the Colonel, astonished.
‘She wrote to say that she wants to marry me as soon as possible, and that she no longer regards Gabriel as a friend. I have not had the time to ask her any more, nor will I pry into her reasons.’
Ernest gave the Colonel time to share what more he knew, or believed he knew, about Effie’s predicament, but he said nothing. Instead he swirled the brandy around in the glass. Ernest had to admit that in his place he would do the same.
‘Where is Gabriel, Sir? He sent me a signal requesting that I come to meet him as soon as I could. I was on my way to him when I was dropped off here. There’s not much intelligence on the ground, even as to the whereabouts of a whole regiment of horse.’
‘You don’t have to go, Ernest. You are under no obligation.’
‘He is a senior…’ began Ernest.
‘And I am his C.O.’ Colonel Kerford sat down. ‘The horse are cut off. I have given them orders that they are to make their own way in as good order as they can.’
‘But, without artillery support they will be cut down in minutes.’
‘That is Gabriel’s fault. His hotheaded actions have led to this.’
‘That’s not what I’ve heard on the ground, Sir.’ Ernest said, as smoothly as he could.
The Colonel raised an eyebrow, not deaf to the insolence in Ernest’s reply. ‘I admire your loyalty to him, but there is something wrong with my son that I cannot account for. He always has been in trouble, even when he was at school. I do not understand his impulses.’
‘ But you believe that you do, Sir.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘Some time ago, I had the honour of sorting, restoring and repairing your book collection. It was your wife’s idea, so that they would be ready for you in your country house, away from the effects of the Zellpin raids in London. I must have handled every book on your shelves a dozen times.’
Ernest watched the colour drain from Colonel Kerford’s face. Even his second glass of brandy could not restore him as he said, hesitantly. ‘How interesting for you. And what insights did you find in those neglected pages?’
‘Forgive me. I am a poorly self-educated bookseller, but I could not help noticing many works on natural history, on the study of Darwin and his theories, and even the works of Doctors Freud and Jung. I would hazard a guess that you are interested in the theories concerning man’s basic nature  - if there are certain traits we are born with, or if any – any unwanted behaviour is a result of our upbringing.’
‘Well well. How much of a man is revealed through his library.’
‘Indeed, Sir. And Gabriel is not what you think he is. I know, and I have been told, that he is a good man, there is nothing evil about him.’ Ernest got up and saluted, taking his leave. As Ernest turned the doorknob the Colonel said ‘Who told you – about Gabriel’s nature?’
Ernest smiled. ‘My Father’ he said, and left the room.

Nobody saw the man in the top hat and cape enter the chateau. None of the staff, the soldiers wide awake on guard duty, or those sleeping bunked up in neat rows across the ballroom. He was not prevented from gliding into the Colonel’s sleeping quarters and making himself comfortable in the armchair beside the bed. When the Colonel woke, and saw the outline of the man against the window, somehow he knew that there was no point in calling for a guard.
‘Good morning, Basil’ said the man.
‘Who are you? How did you get in here?’
‘I am not here. You are dreaming.’
Colonel Kerford pinched himself, hard, and felt that the pain proved he was awake. Still, the room was hazy, somehow, and there seemed to be an unnaturally warm sunlight streaming through the window, making the dust dance in the shaft of light through the heavy curtains.
‘Come, Basil. You know who I am. You know I can’t really be in this room. You’ve made sure of that.’
‘Jay’ breathed Basil.
‘Brother. My dear twin, how good it is to see you again.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Apart from the pleasure of your company? I am dying, Basil. The long years of incarceration have taken the strength from me. I shall soon be gone. You will not be long after me, however. You know those dreams that you have had? The ones about rococo ceilings falling in upon you. Yes, look around you, brother. I can see your room only faintly, but I am sure that you are in a chateau of exquisite plaster work.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘No, no. It is a prediction. And a warning that we must make the most of the hours remaining to us all.’
‘By stopping this war, I suppose?’
‘My dear Basil, this war may have been started between a lunatic and a second-rate commander, but it will take more than our combined efforts to end it. No, I was thinking of something much closer to home. I was thinking of our sons – Oh, do forgive me, of my sons.’
‘Ernest was here.’
‘Yes. I can sense him. That’s how I managed to track you down.’ Jay Kerford got up and walked across the room, his outline shifting and dispersing as he did so.
‘He knows.’
‘Indeed he does. He found the sketches which you were foolish enough to keep. He made his way to me.’
‘He has seen you?’
‘He has. He felt the family bond between us, quite strongly. I was astonished at how much we had in common.’
‘You can have nothing in common with that fine young man. He has triumphed above his background. I regret that I had to leave him to make his way in poverty, but I cannot regret how he has turned out.’
‘Hmmm. I could say the same.  There is a side to your nephew Ernest that his hidden from you, because you are looking for all the faults in Gabriel.’
‘Gabriel, I fear, takes after you.’
‘And that is why you have deliberately sent him to his death?’
‘I have not! That is outrageous!’
‘I have seen the orders, Basil. I may only be able to follow this stupid conflict through reports in The Times, but I was an Officer Cadet too. I know how this strategy of yours works. I know the cavalry are a noble sacrifice. You are hoping to clear your family of any taint.’
The Colonel began to protest again, but his brother held up a hand, and continued. ‘And now Ernest is galloping over there to save him. What a conundrum. Which boy should we warn? I do like a good mystery. I always thought you had a flair for writing them. All the work you did to put the Police off my scent. The ‘Dear Boss’ letters were a work of great imagination.’
‘I am still appalled at myself for scheming to keep you from the gallows.’
‘And yet you did so. Because you saw through my eyes, then. Sometimes I knew what you were thinking as if the thoughts were my own. And that is the bond I have with Ernest. I can take a certain pride in his creation, for that alone.’
‘Pride? In Ernest? Surely he is everything you are not?’
‘Basil. I am going to tell you something. There is, I believe, little time for you to alter the way that events will unfold, and yet you need to know.  Where shall I start? Ah, yes - the duel that you believed Gabriel may have been involved with – you remember?’
‘A bad business. I know Gabriel was supposed to have been there.’
‘He was, but he was playing fair. Ernest, however, shot both Captain Harrington and his second, before their weapons were ready. There are a number of other  - I cannot find a delicate term – incidents – involving working girls, that Ernest can take the credit for. And finally, as you must by now have realised, it was Ernest, not Gabriel, who forced Effie into…well, into marrying him. Purely because he knows she does not love him.’ Kerford shrugged. ‘Really, I do not know if I pity the boy or admire him.’
‘My God…’ said the Colonel.
‘I doubt He will be of much comfort to you, but there we are. I believe that Rosalina’s anguish over which babe to part with came from the notion that if she could keep the ‘bad’ child with her, down among the drains and dregs, he would have less possibility to do any noticeable evil. A pretty conceit. I am not sure how well it worked out, are you?’
‘I always thought it was Gabriel. I have watched that boy so carefully, worried over every misdemeanour.’
‘Gabriel is well named. He is, like his mother, something of an angel.’
‘Jay – what can I do? How can I show him that I should have trusted him?’
‘Trust in him now. Trust that both young men will behave as they should from loyalty to each other, and that neither breeding nor upbringing play a part in their actions. We are far, too far, from this front line. Goodbye, brother. It would upset all my notions of the mechanism of this creation to suppose that we will meet again, on the other side of the veil, so take this as a final farewell.’
Colonel Kerford started to reply, but his brother’s shape faded into a shadow, which dissolved into a mist. He strode across his bedroom and flung open the door. ‘Orders! Get me a dispatch rider immediately!’
He returned to the desk and started to write a note. He began ‘my dearest Gabriel, you have always been as dear to me as any son could be to a Father’ but he got no further, for at that moment the first German cannonball  thundered into the room just a foot to his left. Colonel Basil Kerford had just time to pick up the note and stow it in his pocket, before he was knocked senseless to the floor by the second cannonball, which hit the fireplace and caused the ceiling to fall into the room, on top of his breathless body.

Ernest rolled into a ditch as the first bombardment of the morning shattered the sky above him. He crawled along the length of it and reached the comparative shelter of the rear trenches. These had been deserted some days ago, and only the rats looked at him, unafraid, as he stamped his way between them. There was nothing to tell if he was in the German or the British lines; even the usual differences in trench construction did not show here, for these had been scraped out in haste and barely held together. Still, it was a place of safety for the moment. After taking a further turn he found a signpost- someone had written an arrow with ‘Berlin’ in one direction and another with ‘Piccadilly Circus’ pointing away from what must have been the front line, at some point. Then he saw a periscope that was still working. He pulled it free of the metal staples that held it against the trench wall and used it instead to look back towards the ridge to the East of the chateau. He could see little but smoke, but then for an instant he saw horses and riders, silhouetted against the sunrise.  Ernest slid back to the bottom of the trench and started raiding the corpses for working weapons and ammunition. As he did so he calculated distances, but when it came down to it he knew he had little option but to keep low and run. He needed to set off quickly, since anyone trying to shoot him would then still be looking into the rising sun, and hopefully that would give him the advantage that he needed.  Having selected the rampart that would send him over the top in the right direction, he checked his weapon, fixed his bayonet, and began to climb the ladder. But doing so on his own was an eerie experience, like climbing with a ghost army. Ernest had survived three previous forays towards the German lines, and his mind relived those moments of noise, whistles blowing around him, the endless guns, and all the small, personal noises made by men in fear, panic or exhilaration. This time there was nothing except the impersonal artillery bombardment overhead. Nobody knew where he was, or cared. He was not part of some major offensive, he was just one soldier, without his platoon, setting off on a foolish mission to save a brother who was not aware of that bond. As Ernest assessed his plan, he felt his legs growing weak, and he clung to the ladder in a moment of deep fatigue. Then he took one deep breath, and hauled himself up into the sunlight.