Free In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard Page B

appointment I was about to keep. In the Market Place, workmen were up ladders taking down bunting from the day before, stallholders were setting out their wares. And, in the turreted shadow of the Bishop’s Eye, Willis was waiting for me.
    “I’m glad you came,” he said. He looked gaunter still, and more sombre, in the bleached morning air.
    “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
    “No. I knew you would.”
    We walked through to the Bishop’s Palace and began to follow the footpath round the moat.
     
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    “To begin with,” he said after we’d gone a few yards, “I should tell you that Willis was not always my name. My real name is Franklin. I don’t suppose it means anything to you. The reason I no longer use it lies at the heart of my story. And what I’m about to tell you I’ve never told anyone else, nor ever will.” We walked round the moat, then up Tor Hill and back, then round to the cathedral. We walked and talked for hours. His story was, as he’d warned me, a long one. But I didn’t mind listening, didn’t even notice how tired I was becoming. He had come to me from the padlocked past and now I would follow wherever his words took me.
     

PART
TWO

one
    What shall I tell you about your father? Shall we descend together the spirals of his soul? Alas, we cannot. All that I can do is tell you what I know.
    What I know, of course, is not the same as what other people may know. What I know is one man’s knowledge of another, a facet, a view, a flawed memory of that brief time when we walked together in this world; a memory, for all that, of the finest man I ever knew.
    We met as fellow officers in the Great War: in a time and place where all beauties save friendship were ground into mud and blood, where there was no hope save what men like your father preserved for men like me.
    For I was not exceptional. I cannot claim foresight or wisdom beyond my years, then or now. The war was a great adventure, something not to be missed. Just imagine believing that, as I did, in 1914. I was a fool, but what twenty-two-year-old man is not? Did foolishness deserve such a reward? I think not.
    So let me tell you about the war—and about myself. I’d just come down from Oxford when it began and I was spending the summer at my uncle’s house in Berkshire. He was a chartered accountant, a tedious but prosperous man who funded my education after my father deserted us and my mother broke down. I never for-gave my uncle his generosity, nor he my fecklessness. I remember him taking me every week—with his unsmiling sense of duty—to 60

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    visit my mother at the asylum in Reading. Every week she was worse. Every week I wanted to see her less.
    A scholarship to Oxford seemed a merciful release from all that: a breath of fresh, heady air. I was easily intoxicated, easily taken in by the glamour and bombast. I suppose it was a wonderful time to be male, clever and British. But, God, I paid a heavy price for it. We all did.
    My mother died during my second term at Oxford and when I came down there was nothing—except my own lack of means—to tie me to my uncle. When the war came in early August, it was a godsend. I remember going up to town when the news came and celebrating—yes, celebrating—with some college friends. I’d been in the OTC at Oxford, so I was confident of getting a commission, and one of my uncle’s friends was a retired colonel in the Hampshire Light Infantry, which made them the obvious choice. My uncle put in a good word for me—I think he was pleased to see me go.
    Not that going was quite as quick or simple as I’d anticipated. It was the autumn before I had my lieutenancy confirmed and then there were six months’ training at Aldershot. I was worried at times that the war would be over before I got there. Amazing, isn’t it?
    How could I be so naïve? There was no hurry. The war would wait for me. Meanwhile, an officer’s pay gave me plenty