Captain Coffin

Captain Coffin

Finished, the cigarette was extinguished in a tray full of butts, the
young man leaning casually back in his chair and languidly exhaling
smoke towards the low wooden ceiling. The man seated opposite him was
leaning forwards and attempting to look sincere, comforting - the
expressions that usually proved of varying comfort to the condemned men
along with his words.
With Private Swan, however, the Padre had drawn a blank: he did not
know what expression to adopt. He searched the young soldier's face for
a clue - for too frequent blinking or a twitching muscle: but there was
nothing. And, God, was he young. The horrors Swan had experienced had
prematurely aged him both in body and in mind, true (they did most
men), but under that untidy shock of black hair and behind the
three-day growth of beard the Padre saw the face of a boy, flushed with
life and an enthusiasm for innocent mischief. He should be out working,
out courting, out playing football, not -
"So come on, sir, you haven't yet told me why you're here."
Private Swan's warm Northern voice dispersed the Padre's thoughts, who
immediately analysed the airy words for a secret appeal for help, for
comfort. But if any such message was intended then it was completely
concealed behind the slightly sarcastic tone; it was as though Swan
feared being disciplined even now for disrespect to an officer, and so
was reluctantly maintaining a dubious respect for authority.
The Padre shifted his position in the uncomfortable wooden chair,
looking at the steel cot with the red blankets where Private Swan would
be sleeping tonight. But would he be able to sleep whilst knowing what
the dawn bring? The Padre rubbed one of his hollow cheeks with a thin
hand as he considered his response.
"I'm here, Swan, to offer you whatever assistance I can. I will listen
to you if you want to talk, help you write letters to family and
friends - I will do whatever you require, within reason."
Lighting another cigarette, Private Swan chuckled disdainfully and
shook out the match. "You'd oblige me best, sir, by getting me a bottle
of whiskey, some more fags, and then letting me alone to get
pissed."
The Padre met the young man's narrow and suspicious eyes and he
momentarily saw the hatred for both himself and his privileged rank
flash within them. But still - he had at last made a connection with
the man, despite the way in which this had been achieved, and so he
hastened to build on it.
"I can get you alcohol and tobacco, Swan, certainly. But I would be
happier were I to have a constructive purpose - a purpose beyond the
mere supply of sedatives," he replied, his thin hands stretching in
front of him, imploring Private Swan to think, to give him something to
do.
The hate flashed again in the brown eyes and this time remained;
Swan's thin upper-lip curled in a canine grimace as he spat: "With all
due respect, sir, I think that you and your sort have done quite enough
for me already. I can't help thinking that were I an officer then I'd
be for Home Establishment, lying in some hospital in the country with a
pretty nurse at my beck-and-call. Instead I - "
Swan shook his head and dragged heavily on his cigarette, choking his
stream of vitriol. The Padre waited in silence for him to continue, his
eyes steadily observing the young man trying to control his anger,
attempting to restore the surface nonchalance.
"I take that back, sir - I've nothing against you in particular," Swan
said quietly and at last.
The Padre gently nodded his head and said, "I understand - "
"You don't understand nothing!" Swan erupted, his fists clenching and
so bending the cigarette out of shape. "Not a thing. You'd only know
what it were like were you in my position, nineteen-years-old and soon
to be - "
His voice choked again and the compassionate Padre felt like crying
himself as he saw the suspicious eyes growing wet. Swan sniffed loudly
and smoked in silence, looking away from the Padre and out of the small
barred window towards the open field. There was the steady but faint
booming of the artillery, far away in a different existence, where
death came continually but at least with the slightest element of
surprise.
The Padre touched his clerical collar, as though requesting divine
inspiration concerning just what he should say and do. His khaki-green
uniform was the same as the Private's, virtually - and they were on the
same side, for God's sake. He was party to what was going to happen to
this boy, when the door opened at dawn tomorrow and the boy was led out
into the field and -
Looking away from the window Swan recovered his composure, his mind
once again shielded by enforced nonchalance and light sarcasm towards
anyone in authority. At least, he considered, it would be both clean
and quick - better than Cooky, anyway, who'd had both legs blown off
and had lived for two days in agony before he'd finally bit the bullet.
You ended up as food for the worms or the rats one way or the other:
and some ways were better than others.
There was mild amusement to be gained from the thin, earnest-looking
Padre with the hollow cheeks yet, and so Swan suddenly said, "Actually,
sir, I've just thought of something that you could do for me, if you
wouldn't mind."
"Yes, of course, Swan. What is it?"
Lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of his old, Swan mumbled,
"Have a word with Captain Coffin - see if the old sod hasn't had a
change of mind?"
Respect for authority was slipping as the mind prepared itself for
finality, the Padre realised. And it was a powerful thing, this
authority - it compelled men to WALK not RUN in a line across land
raked with machine-gun fire and torn apart by shells; to pull the
corpse-rats from their faces when they awoke in the morning and to
ignore the fact that the vermin had grown fat on dead comrades; to
squat and not moan as their dysentery-plagued guts stained the behind
of their shirts red; to eat, fight, shit, sleep and finally die in the
bastard mud.
"This - attitude - of yours doesn't help matters any, Swan," the Padre
said quietly, whilst wanting to take the boy's hand and to say: yes,
you're right - he is a sod, that Captain Coffin.
He could not of course say anything of the sort, although he was
slightly heartened as Swan looked searchingly at him for the first
time, as though he was trying to see the actual human being behind the
stinking veneer of authority.
"You heard about Tomkinson, didn't you, sir?" Swan asked quietly, and
the Padre, realising that the Private had some point he wished to make,
did not answer.
"Coffin liked him, you see, for some strange reason - it were 'bout
the only soldier he did. So when they got hold of him after he tried to
leg it it were just a Field Punishment Number One - Coffin saw to that.
Besides which Tomkinson were shaking and crying and moaning, walking
round in a circle and screaming every time there were a bang - they
said that he weren't in his right mind when he deserted, although that
ain't worried them before. And they thought Tomkinson would get better
were he to be put right out in the thick of it, so to speak."
Swan paused and gazed distantly out of the window, memories dulling
his eyes. He continued: "'Course, it were different with me, sir. I
were judged 'in complete possession of my mental faculties' - I
remember them saying that at the court martial; I thought it were
grand. Besides which Coffin always hated me, right since the first day:
I were put on sentry whenever fire were heaviest, and he had some of
the lads kick the - beat me up soon after I joined, after I fell asleep
one time on duty. He preferred that, you see, even to a court martial -
rough justice. I weren't shaking or wailing when I were caught in that
field; I were lying low and waiting for the sods to bugger off so's I
could carry on escaping."
"And just where were you going to go to, Swan, hey?" asked the
Padre.
Swan shrugged. "Dunno, sir. I would've just walked a good long way and
found a farm or summat to work on 'til the war were over. Perhaps I'd
have even met a girl or summat like that."
Such simple dreams, thought the Padre pityingly - such stupid,
utopian, unobtainable dreams: fresh air, honest work, a warm body next
to one's own in bed. The reality was -
"Anything," Swan snarled suddenly, "were better than them guns going
all day and all night - boom boom boom, and all those screams so's you
got not knowing whether it were horses or men or just yourself gone
raving."
He slowly shook his head and his eyes dulled again, the brief flame of
feeling thus extinguished. "But I were forgetting about Tomkinson. He
did a week chained to that gun, sir, right out there in the thick of
it. Screamed and screamed and screamed, he did, sir: and there were
Coffin saying he'd personally shoot the first man as complained about
it. Two hours a day, and then he were put back in the trench, me and
the others giving him cigarettes and even our ration of rum so's to
quieten him down. He'd one more day to do as punishment for desertion,
that were all - Coffin said he were becoming a better man and he'd make
a decent soldier of him yet."
The cigarette joined the multitude in the tray and Swan rubbed his
suddenly fatigued face, his body beginning to tremble.
"I've never heard nothing scream as Tomkinson did when he copped it;
half his body gone but still enough there for him to feel everything.
Off he went in a sodding stretcher, carted away quick-time, and Coffin
saying nothing and ignoring all them looks he were getting. But he
caught mine: and that were me. If it weren't this then I'd've just got
a bullet in the back later on."
"I hardly think that the Captain - "the Padre began, but then
reflecting on Coffin's odious character he considered that such a thing
was actually quite feasible.
Swan stood up and stretched his weary muscles, yawning and so exposing
a tongue grey with tobacco. Outside the summer's day was fading into
night, and distant as it was the artillery fire became almost
hypnotically musical.
"If you don't mind, sir, I'd best be turning in. I've an early start
tomorrow."
The Padre realised that there truly was nothing more he could do or
say - the young man was as resigned and as acceptant to his fate as
ever he could be. He held out his hand: after a moment's hesitation
Swan took it, hard.
"I'll be with you tomorrow, Swan," he stated.
Swan spat on the concrete floor and looked him steadily in the
eye.
"Yeah?"
"I promise."
Swan shrugged.
"Well, that's summat, I suppose. It's as good to have a friend,
whatever the circumstance."
His heart gladdened more than he could ever have imagined by these
last nine words, the Padre finished shaking hands and knocked on the
cell door, requesting to the guard that he be let out.

"Bloody blanks - who told you that?"
Private Jones reacted angrily to his friend's scathing question, as he
stood with rifle ready along with the eleven other chosen
soldiers.
"It's what top brass say, ain't it? So no one here knows who actually
killed the poor bugger," he said in a low voice, so that Captain Coffin
wouldn't hear him.
His friend chuckled humourlessly.
"'Course they tell you that, Stan, you soft bugger; but it's all
guaranteed balls - every round in each rifle is live, and that's a
fact."
Oh Christ, thought Stanley Jones - if this was true then it removed
the comforting uncertainty of whether it would actually be himself who
killed poor Tom Swan.
"I don't believe that, Fred, not a -"
"SILENCE!" bellowed Coffin, staring daggers at the group of men stood
in a semi-circle a short distance from the empty chair. "If I hear
speaking again then you're all on a charge!"
"Old bastard," swore a soldier beneath his breath, as another
whispered, "Here he is!"
The figure that emerged from the small wooden building onto the field
attempted to walk with casual insolence, the Padre beside him. Coffin
took several paces back from the chair, as though fearing he would be
mistaken for its intended occupant. He stared almost challengingly at
the youthful figure whose hands were bound, those soldiers of the
firing squad picked for their good eyesight observing that Swan
returned this stare with an uncaring glance.
Without any order being given Swan seated himself and a soldier
stepped up to bind him to the chair with a length of rope. Swan
motioned him away, the soldier ignoring him until the Padre whispered
to him. So with just his hands bound Swan stared at the soldiers picked
from his own regiment, a white handkerchief placed over the area of his
heart as the target.
"Oh sweet Jesus Christ," sighed one man who was trying not to let his
rifle shake, severely hung-over for he'd succeeded in getting drunk
upon being given his orders for the forthcoming morning.
"Ready!" Coffin bawled.
There was a clanking of bolts and a solitary cough.
"Take aim!"
Another cough.
"FIRE!"
There was a multitude of cracking noises and Jones peered through the
gun-smoke and involuntarily cried out - his tunic bloody, Private Swan
had stood up and was starting to run.
"You incompetent swine!" bellowed Coffin, reaching into his holster as
he moved to intercept the severely wounded man.
"Bastard!" Swan shrieked almost in the Captain's face.
Having withdrawn his pistol Captain Coffin shot Private Thomas Swan in
the head, killing him instantly.