Regeneration, by Pat Barker

A short, dark-haired man sidled around the door, blinking in the sudden blaze of sunlight. Sassoon, sitting on the bed, looked up from the golf club he'd been cleaning. 'Yes?'

'I've b-brought these.'

A stammer. Not as bad as some, but bad enough. Sassoon exerted himself to be polite. 'What is it? I can't see.'

Books. His book. Five copies, no less. 'My God, a reader.'

'I wondered if you'd b-be k-kind enough to s-sign them?'

'Yes, of course.' Sassoon put down the golf club and reached for his pen. He could have dispatched the job in a few moments, but he sensed that his visitor wanted to talk, and he had after all bought five copies. Sassoon was curious. 'Why five? Has the War Office put it on a reading list?'

'They're f-for m-my f-family.'

Oh dear. Sassoon transferred himself from bed to table and opened the first book. 'What name shall I write?'

'Susan Owen. M-my m-mother.'

Sassoon began to write. Paused. 'Are you...quite sure your mother wants to be told that "Bert's gone syphilitic?" I had trouble getting them to print that.'

'It w-won't c-come as a s-shock.'

'Won't it?' One could only speculate on the nature of Mrs. Owen's previous acquaintance with Bert.

'I t-tell her everything. In m-my l-letters.'

'Good heavens,' Sassoon said lightly, and turned back to the book.

Owen looked down at the back of Sassoon's neck, where a thin line of khaki was just visible beneath the purple skin of his dressing gown. 'Don't you?'

Sassoon opened his mouth and shut it again. 'My brother died at Gallipoli,' he said at last. 'I think my mother has enough on her plate without any searing revelations from me.'

'I s-suppose she m-must b-be c-concerned about your b-being here.'

'Oh, I don't think so. On the contrary. I believe the thought of my insanity is one of her few consolations.' He glanced up, briefly. 'You do know why I'm here?'

'Yes.'

'And what do you think about that?'

'I agreed with every w-word.'

Sassoon smiled. 'So did my friend Graves.' He opened the next book. 'Who's this one for?'

Owen, feeding the names, would have given anything to say one sentence without stammering. No hope of that - he was far too nervous. Everything about Sassoon intimidated him. His status as a published poet, his height, his good looks, the clipped aristocratic voice, sometimes quick, sometimes halting, but always cold, the bored expression, the way he had of not looking at you when you spoke - shyness, perhaps, but it seemed like arrogance. Above all, his reputation for courage. Owen had his own reasons for being sensitive about that.

Sassoon reached for the last book. Owen felt the meeting begin to slip away from him. Rather desperately, he said, 'I l-liked "The D-Death B-bed" b-best.' And suddenly he relaxed. It didn't matter what this Sassoon thought about him, since the real Sassoon was in the poems. He quoted, from memory, '"He's young; he hated War, how should he die / When cruel old campaigners win safe through? / But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went." That's beautiful.'

Sassoon paused in his signing. 'Yes, I - I was quite pleased with that.'

'Oh, and "The Redeemer". "He faced me, reeling in his weariness, / Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear. / I say that he was Christ, who sought to bless..."' He broke off. 'I've been wanting to write that for three years.'

'Perhaps you should be glad you didn't.'

The light faded from Owen's face. 'Sorry?'

'Well, don't you think it's rather easily said? "I say that he was Christ?"'

'You m-mean you d-didn't m-mean it?'

'Oh, I meant it. The book isn't putting one point of view, it's charting the - the evolution of a point of view. That's probably the first poem that even attempts to look at the war realistically. And that one doesn't go nearly far enough.' He paused. 'The fact is Christ isn't on record as having lobbed many Mills bombs.'

'No, I s-see what you m-mean. I've been thinking about that quite a b-bit recently.'

Sassoon scarcely heard him. 'I got so sick of it in the end. All those Calvaries at crossroads just sitting there waiting to be turned into symbols. I knew a man once, Potter his name was. You know the miraculous crucifix stories? "Shells falling all around, but the figure of Our Lord was spared"? Well, Potter was so infuriated by them he decided to start a one-man campaign. Whenever he saw an undamaged crucifix, he used it for target practice. You could hear him for miles. "ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, Bastard on the Cross, FIRE!" There weren't many miraculous crucifixes in Potter's section of the front.' He hesitated. 'But perhaps I shouldn't be saying this? I mean for all I know, you're -'

'I don't know what I am. But I do know I wouldn't want a f-faith that couldn't face the facts.'

Sassoon became aware that Owen was standing at his elbow, almost like a junior officer. 'Why don't you sit down?' he said, waving him towards the bed. 'And tell me your name. I take it this one's for you?'

'Yes. Wilfred. Wilfred Owen.'

Sassoon blew on his signature and closed the book. 'You say you've been thinking about it?'

Owen looked diffident. 'Yes.'

'To any effect? I mean, did you reach any conclusions?'

'Only that if I were to call myself a Christian, I'd have to call myself a pacifist as well. I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-christian and...j-just leave out the awkward bits.'

'You'll never make a bishop.'

'No, well, I think I can live with that.'

'And do you call yourself a pacifist?'

A long pause. 'No. Do you?'

'No.'

'It's funny, you know, I never thought about it at all in France.'

'No, well, you don't. Too busy, too tired.' Sassoon smiled. 'Too healthy.'

'It's not just that, though, is it? Sometimes when you're alone, in the trenches, I mean, at night you get the sense of something ancient. As if the trenches had always been there. You know one trench we held, it had skulls in the side. You looked back along and...Like mushrooms. And do you know, it was actually easier to believe they were men from Marlborough's army then to to to think they'd been alive two years ago. It's as if all other war's had somehow...distilled themselves into this war, and that makes it something you...almost can't challenge. It's like a very deep voice saying, Run along little man. Be thankful if you survive.'

For a moment the nape of Sassoon's neck crawled as it had the first time Campbell talked about German spies; but this was not madness. 'I had a similar experience. Well, I don't know whether it was similar. I was going up with the rations one night and I saw the limbers against the skyline, and the flares going up. What you see every night. Only I seemed to be seeing it from the future. A hundred years from now they'll still be ploughing up skulls. And I seemed to be in that time and looking back. I think I saw our ghosts.'

Silence. They'd gone further than either of them had intended, and for a moment they didn't know how to get back. Gradually, they stirred, and looked around, at sunlight streaming over beds and chairs, at Sassoon's razor glinting on the washstand, its handle smeared with soap. Sassoon looked at his watch. 'I'm going to be late for golf.'

Immediately Owen stood up. 'Well, thanks for these,' he said, taking the books. He laughed. 'Thanks for writing it.'

Sassoon followed him to the door. 'Did you say you wrote?'

'I didn't, but I do.'

'Poetry?'

'Yes. Nothing in print yet. Oh, which reminds me. I'm editor of the Hydra. The hospital magazine? I was wondering if you could let us have something. It needn't be - '

'Yes, I'll look something out.' Sassoon opened the door. 'Give me a few days. You could bring your poems.'

This was said with such determined courtesy and such transparent lack of enthusiasm that Owen burst out laughing. 'No, I -'

'No, I mean it.'

'All right,' said Owen, still laughing. 'They are quite short.'

'No, well, it doesn't lend itself to epics, does it?'

'Oh, they're not about the war.' He hesitated. 'I don't write about that.'

'Why ever not?'

'I s-suppose I've always thought of p-poetry as the opposite of all that. The ugliness.' Owen was struggling to articulate a point of view he was abandoning even as he spoke. 'S-something to t-take refuge in.'

Sassoon nodded. 'Fair enough.' He added mischievously, 'Though it does seem a bit like having a faith that daren't face the facts.'

From Regeneration, by Pat Barker