Page 53 of These Old Lies

It was an abrupt change of topic, but considering the horror of Ned’s question, he could understand the desire to speak of other things for a few minutes.

“I won’t.”

“Mock me? I think decades of experience has shown that to be untrue.”

“Wear a uniform again,” Charlie answered.

“Of course you can. And don’t say something ridiculous about being old; I bet you’re still stronger than most men half your age.”

Charlie turned to face Ned, looking him straight in the eyes. “If the government extends the National Service requirements to those over forty, I’ll register as a conscientious objector.”

“You can’t be serious.” Yet even as Ned spoke, his most painful memoryflashed before his eyes. Charlie beside a crumbling wall, wrists slit.

“I already fought in my war to end all wars.” Charlie’s arms stayed crossed, a defiance mixed with wariness. “Killing another human is a line I won’t cross again.” Charlie shrugged as if trying to force himself to relax. “So maybe I’m not the right man to ask about war strategy.”

Counter arguments leapt to Ned’s lips. Their country was being invaded! The reports of the Third Reich’s march on Poland and France shredded any pacifist logic. Never mind that conscientious objectors were often fired from their jobs, spat on in the street, ostracised by family and friends. To declare as a conchie? Unfathomable.

Except wasn’t that fearlessness exactly the perspective Ned needed? Asked for?

“Or maybe you are exactly the man.” Ned met Charlie’s eyes, their defiant blue outshining any piece of art in this room.

They stayed like that, eyes locked. Habit told Ned to look away, but a deeper instinct forced him to stay planted here. Refuse to back down from his last statement.

Charlie’s mouth twisted, his shoulders relaxed, and he began to speak again, “In the twenty-five years I’ve known you, you’ve never once been indecisive. You may not like it, but you’ve already made your decision about the gases. Trust it.”

Ned opened his mouth to protest, but Charlie stepped towards him and kept talking. “You and I see things in that painting that others don’t. When it comes to whether to use gases… well, I wouldn’t want anyone else but a man who sees what you do making those decisions.” Even when he had expressly sought it out, Charlie’s ability to turn Ned’s world on its axis still shook him.

“What if you don’t agree with my advice?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Charlie shrugged. “I’ll argue with you. Probably call you some names. Expect you to make your case. And no matter what, respect you.”

“I can’t, I won’t, endorse the use of gases.” The words came out almost as a whisper, Ned barely able to hear his own voice. And then stronger. “Todo so would be to lose our humanity. Humanity that I already feel we are holding on to by a thread.”

Charlie nodded and did touch Ned this time, a pat on the shoulder. “I can’t imagine many will agree with you. For what it’s worth, I do.”

A band snapped in Ned’s chest, and for the first time since he’d received the Prime Minister’s request for advice on gas warfare, he could breathe properly. Charlie was right; Ned had known his answer the moment he had received the request, except there had been a niggling fear that he was a coward, too protected in his Whitehall bunker. That he had become what he loathed—a man at a desk who valued his own honour more than he valued the lives of the men sent out to fight.

“They’ll be passing white feathers out to us both.” Ned wasn’t actually sure that women did that anymore, shaming men skirting their duty.

“I’ll make a hat out of them,” Charlie said without missing a beat. He then turned to focus on a Pre-Raphaelite piece in the corner, giving Ned permission to pretend not to hear him. “You should come for dinner.”

Ned took a sharp intake of breath. The polite distance between them was a product of his own making. His decision to keep correspondence brief and impersonal, their face-to-face interactions infrequent.

Loving Charlie wasn’t something he actively chose to do; it was woven into his being. Whether they saw each other every day or waved across the street once in a blue moon, Ned could no more stop his feelings for this man than he could cut off his own arm. The one time he and Charlie had toyed with friendship, during a trip to France in ’32, had very nearly torn him apart. Ned had learned his lesson: forbidden fruit was a lot easier to resist when you weren’t being reminded of its taste.

19 An Invitation

London, 20 July 1932 / Charlie

The ball arched over the pitch, sending the Arsenal players scrambling as they tried to reach it. “Keep at it, chaps!” Charlie hollered.

“They’re going to need to do better than that if they expect to win the cup again,” Andrew Matthews replied. The two men stood at the pit in the bottom of the stands, right at the edge of the pitch.

“They’re finding their feet. Give them time.” Charlie clapped his old friend on the back.

As the crowd died down, Andrew turned to look at Charlie. “So, will you be joining us or not?”

Christ, not this again.