A Fable

‘You wont say either way: that he is or is not that man?’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said. ‘I’ve got to believe in something.’

‘Even if only death?’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said. The old general turned to the American.

‘Captain?’ he said.

‘That puts us all in a fix, doesn’t it?’ the American captain said. ‘All three of us; I dont know who’s worst off. Because I didn’t just see him dead: I buried him, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. His name is—was—no, it cant be because I’m looking at him—wasn’t Brzonyi. At least it wasn’t last year. It was—damn it—I’m sorry sir—is Brzewski. He’s from one of the coal towns back of Pittsburgh. I was the one that buried him. I mean, I commanded the burial party, read the service: you know. We were National Guard; you probably dont know what that means——’

‘I know,’ the old general said.

‘Sir?’ the captain said.

‘I know what you mean,’ the old general said. ‘Continue.’

‘Yes sir.—Civilians, organised our own company ourselves, to go out and die for dear old Rutgers—that sort of thing; elected our officers, notified the government who was to get what commission and then got hold of the Articles of War and tried to memorise as much of it as we could before the commission came back. So when the flu hit us, we were in the transport coming over last October, and when the first one died—it was Brzewski—we found out that none of us had got far enough in the manual to find out how to bury a dead soldier except me—I was a sha—second lieutenant then—and I just happened to have found out by accident the last night before we left because a girl had stood me up and I thought I knew why. I mean, who it was, who the guy was. And you know how it is: you think of all the things to do to get even, make her sorry; you lying dead right there where she’s got to step over you to pass, and it’s too late now and boy, wont that fix her——’

‘Yes,’ the old general said. ‘I know.’

‘Sir?’ the captain said.

‘I know that too,’ the old general said.

‘Of course you do—remember, anyway,’ the captain said. ‘Nobody’s really that old, I dont care how——’ going that far before he managed to stop himself. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said.

‘Dont be,’ the old general said. ‘Continue. So you buried him.’

‘So that night just by chance or curiosity or maybe it was personal interest, I was reading up on what somebody would have to do to get rid of me afterward and make Uncle Sam’s books balance, and so when Br——’ he paused and glanced rapidly at the corporal, but only for a second, even less than that: barely a falter even: ‘—the first one died, I was elected, to certify personally with the M.O. that the body was a dead body and sign the certificate and drill the firing squad and then give the command to dump him overboard. Though by the time we got to Brest two weeks later, all the rest of them had had plenty of practice at it. So you see where that leaves us. I mean, him; he’s the one in the fix: if I buried him in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in October last year, then Colonel Beale couldn’t have seen him killed at Mons in 1914. And if Colonel Beale saw him killed in 1914, he cant be standing here now waiting for you to shoot him tomor——’ He stopped completely. He said quickly: ‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t——’

‘Yes,’ the old general said in his courteous and bland and inflectionless voice. ‘Then Colonel Beale was wrong.’

‘No sir,’ the captain said.

‘Then you wish to retract your statement that this is the man whose death you personally certified and whose body you saw sink into the Atlantic Ocean?’

‘No sir,’ the captain said.

‘So you believe Colonel Beale.’

‘If he says so, sir.’

‘That’s not quite an answer. Do you believe him?’ He watched the captain. The captain looked as steadily back at him. Then the captain said:

‘And that I certified him dead and buried him.’ He said to the corporal, even in a sort of French: ‘So you came back. I’m glad to see you and I hope you had a nice trip,’ and looked back at the old general again, as steadily as he, as courteously and as firm, a good moment this time until the old general said in French:

‘You speak my tongue also.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ the captain answered him. ‘No other Frenchman ever called it that.’

‘Do not demean yourself. You speak it well. What is your name?’

‘Middleton, sir.’

‘You have … twenty-five years, perhaps?’

‘Twenty-four, sir.’