by Robert Ryan
Not even a post office, he thought, as he watched the postman arrive, parking his bike and walking his round, knocking on each door, chatting with the occupant. Coyle was about to go inside and wash his hands when he felt a familiar prickle on his neck. He automatically looked around for Harry, check he was safe. But he wasn’t.
Idiot, he almost shouted at himself. Whatever and whoever was behind the attack on Major Watson, it was to prevent him coming here, to this part of the world. Which might mean that the people behind it were here, under his nose. Harry’s killers – perhaps not the ones who pulled the trigger, but men in the same employ – were likely to be in the vicinity.
He strode back into the pub to tell Sutton that, even if the radiator came back today, he might just be staying on for a little while, such was the charm of the village.
After breakfast, Watson took Hitchcock from his basement quarters and up to the music room, where a Blüthner piano and Mrs Gregson awaited him. The whole way he had his hands clasped over his eyes, keeping out the light. Watson guided him to the piano stool, sat him down and stood back.
‘Can you pull the curtains, Mrs Gregson?’
She swished the drapes across until the room was grey.
‘It’s darkened now,’ said Watson.
A dozen heartbeats passed before the patient took his hands away from his face. He blinked rapidly, as if the light was still too bright. Then he lowered the lid of the piano over the keys. He sat there, rigid as ever, staring straight ahead.
‘You get any sleep?’ Watson asked Mrs Gregson.
‘No thanks to you,’ she said with a sly grin. ‘It’s a long time since I saw a dawn like that. Or, indeed, any dawn. Not since . . .’
‘Since?’
Mrs Gregson turned her attention back to Hitchcock. ‘It looks as if he doesn’t want to play today, Major.’
‘Perhaps not.’ He looked around the room, with its piles of sheet music and busts of eminent composers, not to mention the view onto the garden. The air was perfumed with burning sticks, which released an aroma of oriental spices. ‘But it is a somewhat more pleasant environment for Lieutenant Hitchcock than his basement. Will you stay with him?’
‘Of course.’
‘And talk to him? You’d be surprised how many men miss the sound of a woman’s voice.’
‘Even mine, Major?’ She fluttered her eyelids like a music-hall turn.
‘Even yours, Mrs Gregson. I hope not to be too long.’
‘Are you going to tell them about what we did this morning?’
He was shocked at the thought. ‘No. None of their business.’
Outside, he found Levass waiting for him, along with one of the estate cars and a driver.
‘Good morning, Major. Lieutenant Booth sends his apologies. He is detained after last night’s bombing raid. Quite exciting, eh?’
‘You could say that,’ said Watson sourly. ‘But for four dead men.’
Levass’s face drooped. ‘Yes, of course. My apologies. Thoughtless of me. You heard it was destroyed, though? The raider.’
‘Good,’ was all Watson could offer. He didn’t want to dwell too much on men being consumed by flaming gas thousands of feet above his head. Another barbarity of a war that specialized in them.
Levass held open the door and Watson climbed into the rear of the Albion. The Frenchman slammed it shut and came around the other side.
‘Area D,’ he said to the driver.
Levass leaned back and offered Watson an Elegantes. He refused, not wanting a cigarette to spoil the taste of his breakfast.
‘Sir . . .’ Watson began.
‘You were wondering what a Frenchman is doing here on British soil? With British secrets.’
‘I was indeed,’ Watson admitted.
‘This project is being run jointly with my department in Paris. You know that inventions, they seem to come to people in clusters, as if a eureka moment strikes two, three, four, five at the same time?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ admitted Watson.
‘No, forgive my English. But there are several people who claim the idea for the electric light. Yes? And the telephone. And the internal combustion engine. It is as if God beamed down the possibility of a whole new idea to be picked up in many places. Well, that has happened here. A chain of causation that led, inevitably, to our weapon. In France, in England and in America. But not, as yet, not Germany. As far as we are aware.’
‘God must truly be on our side,’ said Watson.
Levass guffawed at this, missing the sarcasm. ‘I am certain of it, Major Watson.’
God doesn’t pick sides, Watson thought. It was highly likely that even now Germany was developing its own secret super-weapon in a setting not dissimilar to Elveden.
Levass banged on the glass screen and the driver engaged the gears. The car swung around the gardens and headed down the grand drive of Elveden Hall, before turning off onto a newly laid gravel track that cut towards a line of poplars.
They passed through them, and a wilder straggle of trees, before the road, now a dirt path, rose and they came to a small crest, where Levass instructed the driver to halt.
They were looking over an open area of what had been arable land, a space the size of a dozen rugby pitches. Watson sat up, examining the once-familiar zigzag and castellated shapes and the curlicues of barbed wire for the second time that day. It didn’t look any prettier than it had when he came here at dawn with Mrs Gregson, and the sight still made him sick to his stomach. The afterglow of breakfast was replaced by the imaginary stench of latrines and death.
‘Yes, Major. Welcome to France.’
Welcome back to hell, he thought. Watson stepped out of the car, thankful for the breeze on his face. He knew his blood pressure had gone up: he could feel the glow on his cheeks. Ahead of him was a re-creation of the trench system that blighted Belgium and France; a series of Allied trenches, the wire, the awful no man’s land, and then the enemy trenches, complete with machine-gun nests. It was eerily deserted, no sound or sight of men.
‘It’s based on Loos,’ said Levass. ‘Your Royal Engineers oversaw the Pioneer Corps who constructed it.’
But Watson wasn’t listening. He was staring once again at the large, rhomboid, garishly painted riveted metal object at the edge of the clearing, lying at a strange angle, its front apparently having collided with the trunk of an oak, which had been pushed out of the perpendicular. Behind the machine were two wheels that looked to have been taken from a gun limber, but were twisted and smashed.
‘So that’s a land ironclad?’ he asked.
The Frenchman nodded. ‘You know H. G. Wells then? He was almost as prescient as Verne. But they are not called that – the machines have been through various names. Landships. The Wilson Machine. But now we call them tanks.’
‘Tanks?’ It seemed such a small, insignificant word for this great steel beast that had disrupted so many lives, including his own. He had expected the greatest secret of the war to have a more exotic or intimidating title.
‘Yes. A clever spy could infer what they might be from the term “landships”. “Tanks” is neutral. It confuses anyone who overhears careless talk. You see the writing on the side?’
‘HMLS Genevieve?’ he read. ‘What’s a HMLS?’
‘His Majesty’s Land Ship. One of Churchill’s naval ideas we haven’t yet abandoned. Now look further along.’
Watson peered. ‘It’s Cyrillic?’
‘Yes. It says “With Care to Petrograd”. Most of the workers building them think they are riveting mobile water tanks for the Russian Army.’
Watson supposed that, with its solid iron sides and riveting, it did look like a giant cistern.
‘That one’s what they call a female. Carries machine guns, rather than the male, which will carry six-pounder naval guns. When they all arrive.’
‘How many is “all”?’
‘That depends who you ask,’ said Levass.
‘How long has
this been in development?’
‘The tank? Eighteen months, perhaps.’
As he had when he had first laid eyes on it in the glimmer of dawn, Watson tried to imagine such a monster actually crawling over the land. He could see the revolving treads that were designed to rotate around the periphery of the side panels and thus propel it forward, but he couldn’t quite picture it.
‘What’s it doing over there against the tree?’ Watson asked.
‘It’s where it ended up afterwards. Out of control.’
‘After what?’
‘After,’ said Levass somberly, ‘every man inside went insane.’
For the first time in many months, Watson climbed down a ladder and found himself below ground, feeling the familiar chill of excavated earth as he descended. Levass followed, slowly, citing a painful instep from his gout. As he touched the bottom Watson instinctively braced himself for the slop of liquid earth, the scrabble of rats and the smell: the all-pervading stink of putrefaction and sweat.
But there had been no slaughter here, no shells, no gas, no men living like benighted moles in dugouts for weeks on end. This ground had never shaken with a barrage or been raked with machine-gun fire that shredded sandbags and men alike. It was like a museum reconstruction of a Roman garrison or a Viking village – they could show what it looked like, but not how it smelled or felt. It was all too sanitized.
Watson waited for Levass to join him and, after Levass had poured a quantity of bicarbonate on his tongue and washed it down with water, they walked along smooth, unstained duckboards.
‘This is the quickest way to cross to the tank,’ Levass said.
Watson knew that wasn’t true. Levass wanted to show off their trenches.
‘How long have you had gout?’ he asked.
‘Five years or more. It hardly bothers me now I take the powder. Just the pressure on the insole reminds me sometimes. I had to give up riding. The stirrup, you see. That’s why I welcomed the tank so much – the iron horse, without a saddle or stirrups. So, Major, do you like our little playground?’
Watson shook his head but didn’t answer, too busy spotting omissions in the diorama. There was no fire step, no sniper positions, no saps built out into no man’s land. The genuine trenches and the cubbyholes were always full of boxes and cans, some full of ammunition, others from the last delivery of hot food or drinking water. This wasn’t a walk through a trench, it was a stroll in the park.
As he climbed up another ladder and the morning sunshine stroked his face, Watson realized that the soil was all wrong. He stood and brushed his coat; the dirt came off as a fine powder. Sand. In Belgium, from Ypres down to Plug Street and beyond, the clay-rich earth had liquefied to a stinking, gluey mud that was at times as much an enemy as the Germans.
Watson looked out across the reconstructed no man’s land, feeling horribly exposed even though he knew no German was looking at him through a telescopic sight, salivating at the thought of adding an officer to his tally. He had left it behind for good, but he was under no illusion – no man’s land lay there still, far more horrible and blasted than this construct, a ribbon of darkness meandering across the heart of Europe. If this machine could breach that desolate strip without costing the lives of hundreds for every yard gained, then it might be worth him solving this mystery after all. Perhaps Churchill had been right.
Watson waited until Levass was up top before he crossed to where the tank had smashed to a halt against the tree. Standing in the oak’s shadow, smoking a Wills, was Cardew, the young man with the prominent ears who had been too busy for dinner. He was dressed in a brown working man’s coat, such as a furniture remover or an ironmonger-shop owner might wear, and square-toed ankle boots. He pushed off from the trunk and threw the cigarette away. ‘Hello again, Dr Watson.’
‘Major,’ Levass corrected.
‘Sorry.’ Cardew smiled beneath his patchy moustache. In daylight Watson could tell he was around thirty or a little more, with a drawn but open face that suggested trustworthiness and honesty. It makes a change, Watson thought. Everyone else looked sly and shifty from the strain of keeping Churchill’s great secret. Cardew took a clean rag from his pocket and wiped his palms. ‘Slip of the tongue. You’ll always be Mr Holmes’s friend to me.’
‘It’s no shame to be recognized as such,’ said Watson, taking his proffered hand. ‘You said last night that you are the engineer of this beast?’ he asked with an inclination of his head towards the machine.
‘Only one of them. My full title is Assistant Consulting—’ Cardew paused and looked at Levass, fearful of having overreached himself.
‘Major Watson has been given full clearance.’
‘Assistant Consulting Engineer to the Tank Supply Department. Mr Tritton, my guv’nor, sends his apologies he can’t be here himself. There’s some quality control problems at Foster’s, in Lincoln.’ The accent was Midlands, Watson noted.
‘You’re a motor cycle man?’ Watson asked.
‘I am indeed, sir,’ said Cardew with some surprise, though in truth putting together the Midlands and engineering and coming up with motor cycles was no great feat of deduction. ‘I was with BSA initially, did the three-and-a-half horsepower.’
He said the name with pride, though Watson had not heard of it. He needed Mrs Gregson for such things.
‘But then when they linked with Daimler, I went to its engine division.’ Cardew glanced at the tank. ‘Which is why I became involved with this contraption.’ His face darkened. ‘Although I don’t think the engine had anything to do with—’
Watson raised a hand. ‘Please, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Who found the bodies?’
‘I was the first man in the tank.’ He swallowed hard. ‘It was . . . well, it was bloody awful, to be absolutely honest.’
‘I’m sure it was. Did you notice anything unusual?’
A nervous laugh. ‘Apart from eight men gone mad, you mean?’
Watson felt a flash of annoyance at such flippancy but then smiled. It had been a foolish question. ‘What position were they in? Lying down? Standing up?’
Cardew mimed putting his hands over his head and rocking back and forth. ‘And the sounds . . .’
‘What I meant was, did you notice anything out of the ordinary from the usual training sessions? A strange smell, perhaps? Or a noise? Was it hotter than usual?’
Cardew considered all this. ‘Not that I recall. But it wasn’t a usual training session.’
‘How do you mean?’
Levass jumped in. ‘A lot of our tanks do not have these sponsons, the side turrets.’ He pointed at the bulky protuberances on the flanks of the tank, designed to house its guns. ‘They are brought separately and there are . . . delays. So we train the men first of all on the tank without the sponsons, raised up on blocks. So they can familiarize themselves with the gears. Then, we drive them, but also without the sponsons. Then finally, we bolt them on and let them get used to the extra weight. But this was the first test under battle conditions with the sponsons fitted and fully enclosed.’
‘Meaning?’
Cardew resumed. ‘Normally, we run with all hatches open, to allow fresh air in. It can get a little rank inside. This time we were practising trench crossing under fire. Just a few rounds from Lee-Enfields to give it some authenticity. You see the marks?’ Watson nodded as the man pointed out the scattering of dents and chipped paint on the side of the tank. ‘It meant for the first time, the tank was fully battened down. Now the men are refusing to run with the sponsons on and hatches closed.’
‘For which,’ Levass said coolly, ‘the French army would have them shot.’
‘It’s not a direct refusal,’ Cardew said. ‘But Booth and Swinton know they are planning on cracking at least one opening every time we run. To keep the air fresh.’
Which sounded more like common sense than a matter for the firing squad to Watson. ‘And no more deaths so far?’
‘None. But we haven’t duplicated th
ese conditions exactly. Colonel Swinton has suspended full battlefield-conditions training for the time being.’
‘So describe to me what happened that day.’
Cardew took out his cigarettes and offered them around. Levass took one but Watson refused. He wanted none of his senses blunted.
Once he had his gasper going, Cardew pointed across the clearing to a small wooden viewing platform. ‘There were about eight of us watching, wouldn’t you say, Colonel?’ Levass nodded. ‘Colonel Swinton, Major Thwaites, me, Mr Tritton, Lieutenant Stern, Flight Commander Harington – both RNAS – Mr Daniels of the War Office, Lieutenant-Colonel Brough of the Royal Marine Artillery. Oh, nine. Colonel Nicholson of the Royal Engineers was here, too.’
‘That’s a remarkably wide sweep of interested parties,’ said Watson, ‘for something supposedly the biggest secret of the war.’
Levass grunted an agreement. ‘You know I said that great inventions have many fathers? Well, there are many paternity claims on this one. Not just we French. This machine has been under the command of the Admiralty, the Landships Committee, the War Office, the Ministry of Munitions. Plus we have Tritton, Harington, Swinton, all laying claim to the final form. If this device works—’
‘When it works,’ challenged Cardew tetchily.
‘When it changes the war, then it will have many proud fathers.’
‘And if doesn’t?’ asked Watson.
Levass shrugged in his best Gallic manner. ‘Then it will be a sad, unloved bastard of a child.’
Watson could well believe it. But if this machine could prevent a repeat of the Somme, he didn’t care who claimed parentage and neither would the thousands of Tommies who wouldn’t die.
‘And your instinct?’ Watson asked. ‘About its effectiveness?’
‘Good,’ said Levass, ‘if used appropriately. And you? Now you have seen it?’
‘I have little faith in wonder weapons,’ admitted Watson. ‘The interrupter mechanism almost gave the Germans the air war, but, eventually, we came up with a response.’
