The Dead Can Wait

by Robert Ryan

  A cheer. Watson stole a glance at Levass, who, as expected, was frowning. Surely he couldn’t expect subtlety at a time like this. Then Churchill wrong-footed them both.

  ‘And, of course, it also belongs to our gallant Allies in this struggle – France.’ Levass inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘But our problems are here, now, not in France or Belgium. What we ask you to do is no less than going over the top, just as brave, just as valuable. You are fighting for our way of life. I say this machine can save our way of life and, if used properly, can save millions of your countrymen’s lives. Tommies crouching in the trenches, with bullets flying over their heads and gas in their lungs, don’t know we are trying everything to break out, to push the Hun back where he belongs and keep him there. This is our Kraken, our firedrake, the monster that will put ice into our enemy’s hearts. I say to you this day, we did not want this war. But once a country is so unfortunate as to be drawn into a war, no price is too great to pay for an early and victorious peace. There will be losses, there have been grave losses. There have been, I hear, eight men lost on this very ground, before a shot in anger has been fired. But looking at those losses squarely and soberly, you must not forget, at the same time, the prize for which you are contending. It is civilization. It is the British Empire. It is your home towns and villages, your wives and children. That is why we need victory. We are fighting with a foe of the most terrible kind, and we are locked in mortal struggle. To fail is to be enslaved, or, at the very best, to be destroyed. Not to win decisively is to have all this misery over again after an uneasy truce, and to fight it over again, probably under less favourable circumstances and, perhaps, alone. Why, after what has happened, there could never be peace in Europe until the German military system has been so shattered and torn and trampled that it is unable to resist by any means the will and decision of the conquering Power. That is why we need a decisive victory. When I speak of victory, I am not referring to those victories which crowd the daily placards of any newspapers. I am speaking of victory in the sense of a brilliant and formidable fact, shaping the destinies of nations and shortening the duration of the war. Beyond those few miles of ridge and scrub on which our soldiers, our French comrades, our gallant Australians, and our New Zealand fellow-subjects are now battling, lies the downfall of a hostile empire, the destruction of an enemy’s fleet and army, the fall of a world-famous capital, and probably the accession of powerful Allies. The struggle will be heavy, the risks numerous, the losses cruel; but victory when it comes will make amends for all. You deserve to get from your leaders, be they military or civilian, the courage, the energy, the audacity and readiness to run all risks and shoulder the responsibilities without which no great result in war can ever be achieved. And, in return, we ask the same of you. Long speeches are not suited to the times in which we live, and, therefore, I shall detain you only a very few moments more. I have known Major Watson a great many years. He has worked, for no fame and no reward, along with his illustrious colleague, Mr Sherlock Holmes, for the benefit of this great country time and time again, for which we thank him. We have had a small setback here at Elveden. I say to you, let us pick up the tattered flag from the field, and go forth once more, as proud members of the greatest nation and the greatest army this earth has ever known! You want proof of this? No nation has ever at any time in history found such a spirit of daring and sacrifice widespread, almost universal, in the masses of its people. Britain has found millions of citizens who, all of their own free will, have eagerly or soberly resolved to fight and die for the principles at stake, and to fight and die in the hardest, the cruellest, and the least rewarded of all the wars that men have fought. Why, that is one of the most wonderful and inspiring facts in the whole history of this wonderful island, and in afterdays, depend upon it, it will be taken as a splendid signal of the manhood of our race and of the soundness of our ideals. Major Watson, you have the, um, floor.’

  The applause was loud and ringing, with men clapping until their hands stung, and Churchill doffed his hat and puffed some more on his cigar as he sucked up the adulation along with the smoke. He leaned over to Watson and whispered, ‘Bit long-winded, I am afraid. Just rehearsing for an address tomorrow. Hope you don’t mind. But I think you’ll get your volunteers.’

  And when Watson asked for them, as far as he could tell, every hand went up.

  The three tanks stood on the edge of the faux battlefield, the bodies within rattling from the vibrating hulls. Apparently starting the engines was sometimes tricky, if not downright dangerous – a naked flame to the carburettor – so Cardew had suggested Watson and most of Genevieve’s crew stay outside. Watson chatted to Fairley while he waited. ‘What do you think?’ he asked Fairley, pointing to the wire and the trenches.

  ‘Impressive. Gives me the willies, still,’ Fairley admitted.

  ‘Me, too. But?’

  ‘Too neat, don’t you think, sir?’ Fairley said, confirming Watson’s initial diagnosis. ‘Men have been fighting in these holes for two years. Shells have knocked them into strange shapes.’ He kneeled down. ‘This is sand, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very sandy soil, yes.’

  ‘Good drainage then. No mud.’

  ‘Not much, no,’ agreed Watson. The unholy trinity of trench, machine gun and barbed wire had a fourth horseman – the sticky filth that covered the land out there. ‘Also I detect a lack of machine-gun emplacements on the German side.’

  Fairley peered. ‘Well, I’ll have to take a closer look.’

  ‘Will you? I want you to map out a proper defensive German position. How the machine guns will rake the tanks. I know they look shocking at first, but the Germans will recover. I want you to stay here and help Thwaites and the others put the tanks and their crews through as genuine a war as possible. Import mud if you have to. Collect farm slurry; it can’t smell worse than the trenches.’

  ‘Lord, no.’

  Watson looked Fairley straight in the eye. ‘There isn’t a man here who has been through what you have been through, seen what you have seen.’ He laughed. ‘Smelled what you have smelled. With them, it’s all from books and newspapers and Mafeking. Can you do this without . . . well, without a relapse?’

  ‘Say what you mean, Major,’ Fairley grinned, and for the first time in months Watson saw the chirpy Wykehamist who had helped him survive out in the mud of Belgium. ‘Without going doolally again?’

  ‘It’s not a term I like to use. But it will mean re-creating and reliving the conditions out in France and Belgium, both in the trenches and out in no man’s land. It has to be authentic.’

  ‘I can do it, Major. And I will. And thank you.’

  Watson frowned. He knew what the thought of charity could do to a proud soldier. He spoke as brusquely as he dared. ‘For what? I’m sorry, Captain, I’m not doing this for you. You just happened to be the best man for the job.’ He pointed at the tank crews clambering onto and into the machines. ‘I’m doing it for them.’

  Fairley smirked, not convinced. Watson summoned over Thwaites and introduced the two men. ‘Major Thwaites here is an expert on cavalry tactics,’ said Watson diplomatically, ‘but has not had direct experience of the trenches. I do believe you two can learn from each other. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

  Watson looked around for Mrs Gregson, but couldn’t see her. Churchill, however, had pulled away from the other officers and was lighting another cigar. Watson quickly moved him even further away.

  ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I’d like to thank you again—’

  Churchill cut him off with a wave of the smoking torpedo in his hand. ‘Needed to come up and knock some heads together. You’ve heard the new timetable?’ Watson indicated that he had. ‘Bit of a stretch, if you ask me. Look, Major, this sideshow here, just get it finished. So we lose a few men. How many do you think will die in those tin cans once they start rolling? Eh?’

  ‘I dread to think.’

  ‘Sort this mess out, Watson. For the good of the nation.’r />
  ‘I have a request.’

  The eyes narrowed behind the pungent veil of fumes. He looks like a suspicious bull walrus sensing a rival on the ice, thought Watson. ‘Yes?’ His lisp made it sound like a snake’s hiss.

  ‘Holmes. I know you have him locked up in Foulness—’

  ‘He is not locked up,’ protested Churchill. ‘Far from it. He is very comfortable. And you get this fixed, we get the tanks out in the open, it won’t be for much longer, eh?’

  ‘That’s still weeks. The man is fragile—’

  ‘The man is an irrelevance now,’ said Churchill gruffly. He pointed with his swagger stick of a cigar. ‘The landships. That’s what is important.’

  The cruelty of the words stung. Holmes had done great service, as Churchill himself had just admitted in his speech, yet here he was being cast aside, forgotten. No sentimentality there. Watson expected to feel anger, but he didn’t. In Churchill’s world, you were one of a trilogy: friend, foe or someone useful. The only other category was ‘irrelevance’. Not worth a second thought.

  ‘Major Watson,’ shouted Cardew, ‘our commander says he’s ready when you are.’

  ‘Coming.’

  ‘Good luck, Watson,’ said Churchill.

  ‘I want him off that island.’

  ‘All in good time.’

  ‘Good time is what we don’t have. He needs medical attention, sir.’

  ‘Well,’ said Churchill, waving his cigar at the tanks, ‘when this trial is all over and you know the solution to our problem, you are more than welcome to join him at Foulness. Doctor.’

  With that, he turned on his heel and moved off, trailing clouds of cigar smoke like a Havana-powered locomotive.

  Watson cursed the man’s intransigence and his slippery ways, straightened his shirt and strode over to the machine he now remembered he had called a steel coffin.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Once she reached Ipswich in the dead Irishman’s car, Miss Pillbody had gone to the post office to telephone the emergency number she kept sewn in the lining of her bag. Her call had been answered at once, by a rather offhand and imperious woman. Miss Pillbody explained that she had a serious toothache and that her own dentist was on holiday. The name of that dentist? Warren. She was given a time and address, and told that Mr Delaney would do his best to fit her in.

  The address was in Great Yarmouth, one of the main crossing points for the Zeppelins. She suspected this dentist was in the same line of work as she was. A woman driving a car had already attracted too much attention, so she abandoned the Vauxhall near a totter’s yard behind Ipswich station where, she was sure, it would be watched and eventually taken behind closed gates and either stripped or repainted, renumbered and resold. Pity, she thought. It was a nice motor car.

  She caught the train to Yarmouth. Soon she would have to abandon Miss Pillbody, just as she had the Vauxhall. She didn’t care. Like the Zeppelins, the school teacher’s time would be over soon enough.

  The address of the dentist was near St George’s Park and she took a taxi from the station. She was exhausted and in no mood for walking. She had just the one pair of shoes with her and precious few clothes in the hastily packed Morocco leather bag. Most of the space was taken up with her dolls, all but one of which she had managed to wrap in newspaper and stow relatively carefully. Just the automaton called Lola was missing, the head smashed beyond reasonable repair. Ah, well, it could be replaced. One day.

  She turned up at a suburban house, the lower half of which had been converted into a dentist’s surgery. She examined the road, noticed a fancy, fast-looking car parked on the opposite side of the street. Trouble? Were they one step ahead of her already? Well, if so, it was too late now. On the other hand, she had started seeing trouble everywhere. She needed to relax. She was like an overwound watch.

  When she entered the hallway she almost gagged at the smell: a mix of chemicals and boiled food. To her left was a door marked ‘Waiting Room’, and she entered to find a sharp-faced, middle-aged woman sitting at a desk. The telephone at her elbow suggested she had been the one who had answered when Miss Pillbody had called.

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Miss Lilywhite,’ she said. ‘I called for an emergency appointment.’

  ‘Take a seat.’

  Bentwood chairs were arranged around the periphery of the room. She sat and examined the hunting prints that adorned the walls, wondering who on earth thought scenes of stags being torn to pieces by hounds would soothe anyone waiting for an extraction or a filling.

  She could hear muffled sounds from the surgery, behind the door with a plaque proclaiming that a dentist lay beyond it. No screech of drill, just a conversation peppered with a few jovial laughs. A wall clock solemnly ticked the seconds away, punctured only by the occasional sniff of the receptionist.

  After ten minutes the surgery door swung back and a portly, red-faced chap walked through, one side of his face swollen, speaking as if he had a mouth full of golf balls. The dentist, a spindly man dressed in a frock coat, was all smiles, and slapped the man on the back.

  When the patient had left, with some incomprehensible farewells, the dentist turned to her. His thyroidish eyes, which looked as if they hadn’t been seated properly in their sockets, unsettled her. ‘Miss Lilywhite? What seems to be the problem?’

  ‘Toothache.’ She touched her jaw with her fingertips and grimaced.

  ‘Well, if you’ll come through, we’ll take a look, shall we?’ He turned to the woman. ‘I think, Mrs Atherton, that will be all for today. I can manage Miss Lilywhite on my own.’

  ‘If you are sure, Mr Delaney.’

  ‘Absolutely. You toodle off and enjoy your evening.’

  The woman gave a look that suggested she hadn’t enjoyed an evening since the last century but, nevertheless, she began to gather her things together. Delaney, who was a good head shorter than Miss Pillbody, ushered her into his surgery. Here the stench of overcooked food disappeared, replaced by ether, rubber and chloroform. A black leather dentist’s chair took centre stage, in front of a window made opaque by yellowing net curtains. A cabinet of horrors was open next to it on one side, full of evil-looking implements, with a pair of tall, metal cylinders and accompanying valves and hoses sitting on the other.

  ‘Put your bag there. Take off your hat and have a seat,’ Delaney instructed.

  ‘I haven’t got toothache,’ she replied.

  ‘A check-up never did anyone any harm. And if anyone should burst in’ – he snicked the lock to make this unlikely – ‘or peek through the window, the scene will be of patient and dentist at work.’

  She did as she was told and settled in the chair, the leather of which had cracked so that it looked like a map of a complex estuary. It creaked under her weight.

  Delaney washed his hands in a small sink, his voice low. ‘You were only to contact me in an emergency.’

  ‘This is an emergency. The station is blown.’

  ‘Blown?’ he asked, as if unfamiliar with the term.

  ‘There was another agent operating in the area. From the army.’

  Miss Pillbody could see him in the periphery of her vision, drying his hands. With his widow’s peak, gaunt features and Victorian clothes, he looked more like a mortician than a medical man.

  He moved to stand behind her. ‘And the Zeppelin bombing mission?’

  ‘Unsuccessful. They missed by a country mile. Actually, several country miles. But there is something else.’ She explained about Elveden and the secret testing site. Delaney listened intently, his frown deepening as she spoke. She explained that, although given permission to ascertain what was happening at Elveden, she had failed, thanks, she made clear, to Ross.

  ‘And you have no inkling of what it might be they are developing on this estate?’

  ‘No. I did try to extract information from a British agent, but he wouldn’t crack. I suspect he had very little to tell, and he just didn’t want to give me the satisfaction of co-operati
ng.’ There was grudging admiration in her voice. ‘But my recommendation . . .’

  Delaney raised the bushy eyebrows that sat over his protruding eyes. Recommendations were his department.

  ‘My suggestion would be that the place is firebombed to destruction. Just in case.’

  ‘I’ll pass this along.’

  ‘I’m serious. They should start the raids again. Five Zeppelins. Ten. The air force—’

  ‘I said I would pass it along,’ he said firmly.

  ‘And what about me?’

  He approached her, rolling up his sleeves. ‘Open wide, please.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake—’

  ‘Come along. When did you last have your teeth looked at? It’s a golden opportunity. Besides, I am going to do all the talking from now on.’

  He reclined the seat and she allowed herself to follow it down. Delaney switched on the overhead light and then picked up a curved probe.

  ‘Open wide.’

  He peered into her mouth. ‘The emergency run home is through Liverpool.’

  She repeated the name as a gargle.

  ‘Yes, Liverpool. Harwich, Plymouth, Dover, they are all watched closely. In Liverpool they look for Irish troublemakers coming in, not our people going out. Take tea at the Adelphi Hotel any Saturday or Wednesday afternoon. Ask for a table next to the statue of a dolphin. The Greek for dolphin being Delphis, you see, it is something of a mascot for the hotel. Does this hurt?’

  She flinched a little.

  ‘I thought so. A small cavity and one that, rest assured, will grow and grow, but we can put paid to its expansionist plans. A waiter will approach and ask you what room you are staying in. You will say Room 505. He will reply that there is an important message for you. Your instructions for the next meeting will be in that message. Understood?’ He straightened up. ‘I shall have to take out the decay and fill with amalgam. I follow Black’s seven-step principles of cavity preparation and repair. The best there is. But we will need to inject you.’