Page 68 of These Old Lies
Charlie had to admit that he was sort of charmed by the idea of having a distant ancestor galloping around on a horse in armour, saving fair maidens.
“Did they come over the channel with William the Conqueror?” he asked.
“That, I don’t know. Perhaps they fought side by side at Hastings.”
Mediaeval war seemed so much more civilised compared to what they had lived through. The stained glass and carvings showed knights in armour engaging in battles of skill, not struggling to breathe through gas masks while waiting for the whistle of a shell to fall.
“I wonder whether Frank’s and Ellie’s children will go to Thiepval, and if it will feel as distant to them as Hastings feels to us. If they’ll ask how mencould have ever killed each other in battle.”
Ned turned to look at Charlie with renewed focus. “Do you really believe we fought the war to end all wars?”
“Of course I do. Fools like Pemberton might bluster, but people remember the loss, the horror. We just built a massive fucking gate to remember it.”
Ned absent-mindedly played with the last crusty end of the bread. “His Majesty’s Government committed to ten years of disarmament. That decade is up.”
Ned’s words were ice in Charlie’s veins. “The British people are stupid, but you can’t think we are that stupid?”
“I know that last time Europe plunged itself into a world war because a madman assassinated an Austrian prince. Only this past May, the president of France himself was shot dead in a literary salon.” Ned stared at the massive cathedral in front of them, which had seen nations rise and fall in its history. “We are on shaky ground. We used to think one million unemployed was a scandal, and it has been over two million for how long now? It’s no wonder communists and fascists run amuck.”
How was Charlie supposed to answer that? That there were desperate people didn’t surprise him; they were his neighbours and family. That Ned thought their desperation might plunge Britain,the world, back into war—that was impossible.
“May I ask a favour?” Ned asked, clearly changing the subject. “There was a place I wanted to visit, but I didn’t think I would have time.”
Charlie gathered up his jacket, more than happy to leave this disturbing conversation behind. “Where to?”
???
Ned directed Charlie to a cemetery outside of Amiens. Charlie didn’t need to understand the German on the intricate metal gate to know what the words forged over the entrance meant. “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge.”
Ned didn’t meet Charlie’s eyes. “You can stay in the car if you want.”
Without really thinking, Charlie reached for the door’s handle and stepped out, feeling the gravel crunch beneath his shoes.
The cemetery was nothing like the Imperial War Graves—no Stone of Remembrance, no Cross of Sacrifice. This cemetery was part of the landscape, rolling hills and a mix of wood and iron crosses marking each grave.
The rows stretching beyond imagination were the same, though.
Charlie swallowed hard, his eyes burning at this place reserved for the enemy, with grave after grave after grave of men he had never known, but had possibly killed.
For his part, Ned had removed a small piece of paper from his pocket and was counting the rows. He trotted off towards the middle of the crosses and Charlie hurried to follow. He felt like they were pirates following a map to buried treasure, counting out their paces.
Ned dropped to his knees so quickly Charlie almost walked into him. The grave looked identical to every other, except it clearly wasn’t, as Ned was rubbing at the inscription on the fragile wood cross. “Albert Beit von Speyer, right where your mother said you would be.”
Charlie stayed off to the side, not sure he wanted to get too close to any individual grave. “An acquaintance of yours?”
Ned sat back, brought his arms around his knees but showed no inclination of standing up.
“We were at Oxford together. Part of our whole set.”
Charlie knew a little about Ned's dead friends. Wealthy young men who had thought they had the world at their feet, who boldly sought out their officers’ commissions and died in a pointless war.
“Albert strolled into college the first week of term in 1911 without knowing a soul, absolutely certain of his own primacy. We were at each other’s throats debating the French Revolution before the first course was served. By the end of the term, I learned that no one else could manage to be as simultaneously hilarious and frustrating as Albert, and that I, in arguing with him, had become an advocate for a new, fairer social order.”
“Did you change his mind?”
“Not in the slightest. We disagreed about everything. He loved Wagner’s operas, for God’s sake!” Ned looked at Charlie as if this was something he should be shocked about. “We were so arrogantly naïve. The last letter I ever received from him arrived three weeks after war was declared. He told me to keep the book of poetry he had lent me, as he planned to visit England after Christmas. The irony was that I probably could have returned the book to him at Christmas in person. We were both sitting in freezing mud in Flanders by then.”
As a rule, Charlie didn’t talk about the war. He offered no explanations why he only smoked a specific brand of cigarettes, or what had caused the scars on his wrists. Yet, hearing Ned’s story brought a memory to Charlie’s lips. “I waited seven hours in the August sun to sign my enlistment papers. When I came home, my grandmother wouldn’t stop crying. She wailed and wailed, saying she would never see me again. Everyone kept telling her not to worry, that I would be home by Christmas. But there was nothing to be done, she was convinced. In the end she turned out to be right. She was already dead and buried for six months when I had my first leave back to London.” Charlie slid down to sit beside Ned, the grass warm from the day’s sun. “The war didn’t turn out the way anyone thought it would.”