The Return of Captain John Emmett

'Suddenly I was a giant. We could go down an open trench and the men would be undercover, walking upright, and I'd have to bend down for safety. I needed to stoop to hear my sergeant if there was a bombardment. Then, in the first serious action, I put my pipe in my pocket and while we're heads down, crossing no-man's land, my jacket starts to smoulder. Gave me the nickname Fiery, of course. Even when I was moved, the name stuck. Trench humour. It must have run in the family: my brother Diggory started his war in Egypt, shifting mummies to Europe to turn them into paper—using the dead to make paper to replace the shortages caused by kiling people. Though in my family, war was safer than peace. We're both alive. Our father died in 1906 in the Salisbury train crash; his father, a planter, bit of a black sheep, disappeared without trace in the eruption of Krakatoa.'

Brabourne looked quite cheerful as he contemplated his legacy of disaster.

Laurence smiled. He had liked Byers' description of Brabourne and he liked him even more in the flesh.

'I had this sense of being at this realy momentous period in history and, what's more, right at its heart. I thought everyone at home would want to share it. I thought, in my innocence, that it was an opportunity.' He gestured with his cigarette. 'Spectacularly naive. But like everyone, I also thought it would soon be over and I was in a hel of a rush to get stuck in. I wanted to picture modern warfare with modern photography. Then, of course, it al became longer and tougher than any of us had dreamed, and I think taking photographs became a way for me to deal with things that were beyond anything I'd imagined. Or, at least, that's with the wisdom of reflection.' He grinned. 'I'm good on that. I'd had two warnings about taking photographs of sensitive subjects and I stil couldn't resist it.'

'Yes. I heard. About the camera,' said Laurence. He puled out of his inner pocket the photograph that Byers had identified as the firing squad. He slid it over the table and said nothing.

'God.' Brabourne picked it up. 'The very day. Hart. It's my picture. A bad one. It could be before or after. Not sure why I took it at al, realy. The light wasn't good enough.' He looked chary.

'Byers,' Laurence pointed, 'said it was before.'

'Right,' said Brabourne, nodding. 'I think I was mostly concerned with getting my picture before I was lynched. Though it seems to be coming into its own, ghastly as the scene is.'

'You obviously knew Lieutenant Hart,' said Laurence, 'but did you know John Emmett? Before, I mean?'

'Wel, yes and no. I'd never met him until then. But I had been in contact with him over something else.'

'Do you mind if I ask what? If it's not private?'

'It was another slightly frowned-upon activity. We both wrote poetry. Lots of us did—not just those chaps who've made their name now. Battalions of minor poets. I mean, you were hardly going to start producing a novel in those conditions. Emmett thought he'd pul some of the stuff together, circulate it. Same sort of diversion as mine with photography, I suppose. A bit like poor old Owen publishing The Hydra at Craiglockhart. Anyway, it got around. I can't remember when I heard of it—quite early on probably, because I think there were four anthologies and I got into number two. Emmett's mag was caled Distant Constellations to start with, and then in later copies it just became Constellations. But we always caled it DC. A slim first issue. The second was better produced because, I think, Emmett was on sick leave, then there were two more towards the end of the war. He was good. His details circulated by word of mouth and we could use noms de plume if we chose. The subterfuge wasn't because he was afraid, but because he didn't want to be stopped, especialy as some of the poetry got more critical of what was going on.

And maybe he was using army ink and paper. Probably made from the grave-wrappings of Nefertiti.'

Laurence pushed the photograph to one side and puled out the smal magazine Mary had given him.

'Good Lord. So you had one al the time.'

'Mary Emmett, John's sister, gave it to me. Is this one of the last issues?'

'Yes.' Brabourne looked again at the cover and blew his ash off it. 'It's the last one. He fel apart after that.'

He picked it up, turned the pages and showed a poem to Laurence; it was just two columns, headed 'Verdure' and 'Ordure'. Underneath were rhyming lists of loves and hates, wittily, if self-consciously grouped and cleverly rhymed.

'It's very—wel, Wyndham Lewis again,' said Brabourne. 'Avant-garde. Blast. Al that stuff. Better when it was original.' He turned over another page and grimaced. 'I can't say that revisiting my own youthful creation is always a great experience. Some of these poems stand up to the test of time. This one of mine was straining to do so even when I wrote it.'

Laurence folowed his eyes. 'You were Hermes?' he said.

'Oh yes. I saw myself as the messenger, bringing news from the front to ... wel, I'm not sure who to. My mother, perhaps? Hermes without a destination. More of a lost homing pigeon.' He turned back a few pages, pointed. 'That's John Emmett's work.'

He was Charon,' said Laurence.

'Charon the ferryman,' said Brabourne. 'How pleased my Classics master would be to know I remembered something. Rowing the dead to Hades.'

Chapter Twenty-four

'Why did you have to defend Hart anyway?'

Brabourne shrugged as he lit his cigarette. 'Wel, somebody had to. He was in my regiment. My father died when I was young but he'd been a barrister. KC in criminal law. Mostly to please my mother I was supposed to be going the same route. I was a pupil in chambers: Paper Court, strings puled, shoehorns applied.

Outcome, disappointment al round. I hated it and suddenly the war came and there was a way out. So I'd had some experience of advocacy, though not much. Fat lot of good it did Hart. Frankly they were only giving lip service to the conventions anyway.'

'Was the court martial fair?' asked Laurence. He wasn't sure whether any of this was relevant to John but having heard Byers' disturbing version of Hart's execution, he wanted to get a sense of the whole episode.