And then suddenly it was over. The mangled words faded into silence, and a moment or two later, with an odd movement of the chest and stomach muscles like somebody taking off a too tight jumper, Hallet died.
Rivers reached the bedside before the family realized he was gone, closed the one eye, and from sheer force of habit looked at his watch.
‘6.25,’ he said, addressing Sister Roberts.
He raised the sheet as far as Hallet’s chin, arranged his arms by his sides and withdrew silently, leaving the family alone with their grief, wishing, as he pulled the screens more closely together, that he had not seen the young girl turn aside to hide her expression of relief.
On the edge of the canal the Manchesters lie, eyes still open, limbs not yet decently arranged, for the stretcher-bearers have departed with the last of the wounded, and the dead are left alone. The battle has withdrawn from them; the bridge they succeeded in building was destroyed by a single shell. Further down the canal another and more successful crossing is being attempted, but the cries and shouts come faintly here.
The sun has risen. The first shaft strikes the water and creeps towards them along the bank, discovering here the back of a hand, there the side of a neck, lending a rosy glow to skin from which the blood has fled, and then, finding nothing here that can respond to it, the shaft of light passes over them and begins to probe the distant fields.
Grey light tinged with rosy pink seeps in through the tall windows. Rivers, slumped at the night nurses’ station, struggles to stay awake. On the edge of sleep he hears Njiru’s voice, repeating the words of the exorcism of Ave.
O Sumbi! O Gesese! O Palapoko! O Gorepoko! O you Ngengere at the root of the sky. Go down, depart ye.
And there, suddenly, not separate from the ward, not in any way ghostly, not in fashion blong tomate, but himself in every particular, advancing down the ward of the Empire Hospital, attended by his shadowy retinue, as Rivers had so often seen him on the coastal path on Eddystone, came Njiru.
There is an end of men, an end of chiefs, an end of chieftains’ wives, an end of chiefs’ children – then go down and depart. Do not yearn for us, the fingerless, the crippled, the broken. Go down and depart, oh, oh, oh.
He bent over Rivers, staring into his face with those piercing hooded eyes. A long moment, and then the brown face, with its streaks of lime, faded into the light of the daytime ward.
Author’s Note
The reader may wish to know more about some of the historical characters encountered in this novel.
Colonel Marshall-of-the-Ten-Wounds was killed attempting to cross the Sambre-Oise canal, having led his men ‘without regard for his personal safety’. He was awarded a posthumous VC.
James Kirk, who paddled himself out on to the canal to give covering fire, was also awarded a posthumous VC.
Wilfred Owen’s MC, for gallantry in capturing an enemy machine-gun and inflicting ‘considerable losses’ on the enemy at the battle of Joncourt, was awarded after his death.
Rivers drew on his Eddystone data in several published papers, but the major joint work he and Hocart planned was never written. His notebooks are in the Rare Manuscripts Department of Cambridge University Library.
Njiru, Kundaite, Namboko Taru, Namboko Emele, Nareti, Lembu and the captive child are also historical, but of them nothing more is known.
The following works can be unreservedly recommended:
W. H. R. Rivers by Richard Slobodin (Columbia University Press, 1978)
Memories of Lewis Carroll by Katharine Rivers, with an Introduction by Richard Slobodin (Library Research News, McMaster University, 1976)
Collected Letters of Wilfred Owen (Oxford University Press, 1967)
Wilfred Owen by Jon Stallworthy (Oxford University Press, 1974)
Owen the Poet by Dominic Hibberd (Macmillan, 1986)
Wilfred Owen, The Last Year by Dominic Hibberd (Constable, 1992)
Wilfred Owen’s Voices: Language and Community by Douglas Kerr (Clarendon Press, 1993)
Wilfred Owen, Poet and Soldier by Helen McPhail (Gliddon Books in association with the Wilfred Owen Association, 1993)
He just wanted a decent book to read …
Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.
We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books
The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.
Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy.We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.
So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.
Whatever you like to read – trust Penguin.
www.penguin.co.uk
Join the conversation:
Twitter Facebook
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, II Community Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by Viking 1995
First published in Penguin Books 1996
This edition published 2008
Copyright © Pat Barker, 1995
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-14-191771-9
Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends