by Robert Ryan
He slipped back into bed, finished the preparation for the smoke and lit it. Mad, they were. He’d walked and ridden that road hundreds of times to pick up supplies from Wakering. Knew it like the back of his hand. And he wouldn’t walk it in this mist. Not unless his life depended on it. You could find yourself walking straight out to sea in a heartbeat, convinced you were heading for land. Well, you were. Kent. On the other side of the estuary.
As the first tendrils of smoke warmed his lungs, he gave a small, exploratory cough and he closed his eyes. How many more mornings would he have like this at his age? Hundreds, if he was lucky, no more. Why cut short his quota by going out there in filthy weather? Couldn’t see hand in front of face, let alone the poles. He had seen those sands swallow whole ponies and traps. There were at least two motor cars he knew of under the mud. And God alone knew how many bones. It would be madness to go out there. A man would need his head testing.
With a sigh he threw back the covers once more. What was that old saying about curiosity and cats?
FORTY-SEVEN
Mrs Gregson stepped out of the leather breeches and skirt combination and threw them at Miss Deane. She plucked them out of the air and tossed them into the lorry’s cab. Mrs Gregson had hoped there might be an opportunity to tackle her while she changed, but she obviously intended to do that down the road.
‘Turn around and kneel.’
Mrs Gregson, dressed now in her Braemar winter-weight all-in-ones, shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Turn around, kneel down. I’ll make it quick.’
Mrs Gregson felt a surge of anger that made her clench her fists. It was better to go down fighting than to be meekly executed like some lamb in an abattoir. ‘No.’
‘So be it.’ Miss Deane cocked the pistol, the ominous click audible even above the engine. ‘You aren’t the first woman to die at the hand of the Sie Wölfe. By the way, who did take the grenade at the cottage?’
‘Booth.’
‘Ah. No great loss then.’ She took a breath and levelled the gun.
Mrs Gregson took a step forward just as a rock bounced off Miss Deane’s skull with a dull ringing sound.
The spy’s eyes rolled in her head and she staggered sideways, the gun falling from her hand. Mrs Gregson leaped for it, her fingers closing around the butt when a mighty kick caught her under the chin, sending her skidding on her back along the ground. The sky was full of daylight stars, and she could taste the iron-sting of blood in her mouth.
As she leaned up on one elbow, the gears of the truck ground and it pulled away, gathering speed as it careered onto the road with an ungainly swerve.
She was aware of figures approaching at some speed, but she plucked up the fallen pistol and stood. As the lorry crunched into a higher gear, she took aim and fired, pulling the trigger until the hammer clicked on empty cylinder after empty cylinder.
She flung the useless weapon after the disappearing silhouette, then turned to the shapes at the corner of her vision and saw Watson approaching, bedraggled and limping, but alive at least. She threw out her arms and clasped the major to her body, squeezing the air out of him. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, cold and bristly on her lips, but she didn’t care. Only after a few moments did she remember she was dressed only in her underwear. She pushed him away, holding him at arm’s length.
‘I am so glad to see you, Major. And you too, Mr Holmes—’
But it wasn’t Holmes. It was a wrinkled old man, his face as weathered as driftwood, bracketed by a great crescent of a white beard.
‘This is Jack Whent. Islander,’ said Watson. ‘A man who can throw a stone with enviable accuracy.’
She felt a terrible sense of foreboding. ‘Is Mr Holmes all right?’
‘He’s restin’ up at Molly Birkin’s place,’ said Whent. ‘He’ll be a lot warmer’n you at the minute.’ He shrugged off a tweed backpack and fetched a blanket from it, whether for warmth or to spare her modesty, she couldn’t be sure. She was grateful for it, whatever the reason.
‘Your mouth,’ said Watson with concern. ‘There’s blood.’
She slapped his hand away. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll have a sore jaw tomorrow. I don’t quite follow,’ she said. ‘What happened out there?’
‘Holmes was not as ill as he seemed. I recall he once said to me: “I have my plans. The first thing is to exaggerate my injuries.” ’
‘That would be the affair with Baron Gruner and the Chinese pottery?’
‘Yes,’ said Watson, surprised but pleased she had remembered a story he had yet to write, told to her one night in Belgium. ‘Well, this time he wasn’t as disabled as he seemed. He was using his stick to search for some of the old rotted withies that mark a path from land to the Broomway.’
‘I told him about it, in passing, like,’ said Whent. ‘That there was, is, a path that ran not to Wakering Stairs but to Haven Point. It was so called because if you make a sprint for that, the tide wraps around that causeway, but doesn’t cover it till a good fifteen minutes after the rest. A haven, see? It’s narrow, though; you gots to know what you doin’. Luckily I do.’
‘But what made you follow them?’ she asked.
‘Some bloody fool threw some cockles against m’window in the darkness.’ The old man laughed. ‘An’ I heard voices. Who’d be crazy enough to take the Broomway in a swale like that? I had to see. So I followed, in the mist, like. Thought someone’d spotted me now and then, but I hung back until I found Mr Holmes and his friend here on the sand. I brought ’em ashore, took Mr Holmes to Molly’s and came across here fast as we could. We heard the lorry start up and reckoned it was you two. I saw that woman looking to make mischief and thought I’d better stop her. ’Tweren’t that long a throw.’ Whent sucked in a lungful of air. It was the longest speech he had made in decades.
Mrs Gregson still had questions, but they could wait. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Whent. What now? That woman is on her way to London. She is about to tell the Germans about the tanks.’
‘I’ll wager that woman is on her way to the first telephone box,’ corrected Watson.
‘Probably not one till Great Wakering,’ said Whent. ‘Only army stuff at the camp over yonder. She won’t get in there.’
‘But if we can gain access, we can get the duty intelligence officer to shut the local exchanges,’ said Watson. If they could convince them of the nature of the emergency, that was.
‘You can do that, can you?’ asked Whent, not familiar with telephones.
‘DORA can.’
Even Whent had heard of that. ‘Good ten-minute walk,’ he said, looking Watson up and down. ‘Maybe fifteen.’
Which probably meant at least twenty. ‘We have to warn France about the tanks, as soon as we can,’ said Watson, his exhaustion driving him close to despair. ‘Many lives depend on it.’
‘Hold on a second,’ said Mrs Gregson, hurrying over to where the pistol had fallen. ‘Even an empty gun has some persuasive power.’
‘What is it?’ asked Watson, wondering why she needed the pistol with no bullets.
But then their older ears heard what Mrs Gregson’s younger ones had already noted: the rise and fall of a thrumming engine as it negotiated bends. A motor cycle was coming.
FORTY-EIGHT
The tankman and the infantryman read the new instructions by sputtering candlelight in the dugout near the parked tanks. Halford, the young tank commander, had a stack of notes in his pocket about start times, direction of attack and infantry support – the first few typed, the second lot hastily scribbled as tactics shifted. He was now down to just two tanks. Two more of them had come to grief in a wide, sunken lane called Monkey Valley, which was part pathway and part shell-cratered swamp. One had broken down four times before it gave up the mechanical ghost; the other was stuck fast in mud that doubled as the strongest glue in the world.
Halford’s own tank, the ‘male’ known as G for Glory, was running superbly, and he had managed to scrounge sixteen extra gallons of fuel off a Ro
yal Engineers convoy, so he was keeping the extra French juice in reserve. In truth, Halford didn’t like the sound of it. He had been laughed at when he said that, but his father had raced at Brooklands before the war and he knew about the noise that various grades of petrol made as they sloshed in their tins. This new stuff sounded thin.
He looked at his watch. Four in the morning. An hour until his tank rolled forward through the shattered, leafless tree trunks that surrounded them, towards the place called Chop Alley – he didn’t want to ask where the name came from – and onto no man’s land. The new orders said his tank was to be in the vanguard, arriving a few minutes ahead of accompanying infantry. Halford’s would be the first ever tank to see action against an enemy. A mixture of pride and trepidation swirled inside him at the thought.
‘So,’ said Lieutenant Archie Cross of the 6th Battalion, The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, ‘you will have a man in front of you to guide you through this part.’ He pointed at the trench map. ‘Just to the beginning of no man’s land. There are craters here and here that need careful skirting. After that, you are on your own. You will head diagonally across here towards Delville Wood here. There is a German outpost there, protruding into no man’s land. It has a wide field of fire. Our objective it to destroy that post, then swing across to support the main thrust of the attack towards Flers, where you will liaise with the second tank. The artillery has been instructed to leave a corridor in the rolling barrage to allow you safe passage. During the attack, my men will be coming behind you, using your machine as a shield where possible. I have to say, sir, they are all jolly excited about going into action with you.’
One tank, thought Halford. Would he had a hundred and one of the things. That would provide proper shelter from the German guns. And with the tanks’ own weapons blazing, that number would be able to keep German heads down while the infantry advanced.
‘Well, let’s hope we justify their excitement,’ said Halford, scratching at his armpit through the layers. The lice, the real victors of the Western Front, had wasted no time locating fresh meat.
‘First time over the bags?’ Cross asked. ‘I mean, not that you’ll be going over the bags. But first time in an attack?’
Halford nodded. ‘We are all first-timers. Just like our tanks. What’s the phrase? Baptism of fire.’
Cross nodded. ‘One thing I know, sir, is that despite the best-laid plans, which these do not appear to be’ – he held up the scribbled orders and they both laughed, a hollow sound to their ears – ‘it soon descends into chaos out there. So, if I might venture some advice, from what little I know, you’d best fix a single objective and go for that. Then always keep your attention on the next objective – the next shell hole, the next trench, the next strip of wire, the next machine-gun nest. Don’t try and take in the whole battle. The big picture is, well, just too big. Leave that to the experts.’
‘How long have you . . .?’
‘Since July,’ said Cross. ‘Since day one of the offensive here. That makes me a veteran. Listen, I’ll get someone to lay white tape along Chop Alley. So if anything happens to the man walking in front, you have something to follow in the dark.’ He, too, consulted his watch. ‘Less than two hours to go until the guns start. Which means about fifty minutes till we form up and move forward. Think you can get some sleep?’
Halford thought of his men, snoozing on the ground around the tank, or curled up around the engine and gearbox. ‘I have to write to my parents. Not that I can say much except platitudes. Am in X about to go into battle at Y. Don’t worry about me. Spirits good. Love to all . . .’ Cross didn’t say anything. Every man wrote the same kind of letter. Very few told the truth and those that did rarely escaped the censor. ‘But I’ll try and get forty winks.’
The gas curtain of the dugout was thrown back. A thuggish face thrust inside. The cap told them it was a military policeman. ‘You seen Claude Levass? Frenchman? Attached to Heavy Branch?’
‘Not for a day or so,’ said Halford. ‘Why?’
The policeman grunted and disappeared, to be replaced by a second face. Halford recognized it as belonging to Major Hoffman, also of the Heavy Branch Support Team. ‘Halford. How are you?’
‘Well, sir.’
‘Don’t let me interrupt your planning. What fuel are you using in your car?’
‘Fuel? I got some from the Engineers.’
‘Don’t put that French muck in. Just got word that it’s contaminated.’
‘With what?’
‘Rainwater.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Halford. As if they didn’t have enough problems.
‘There’ll be fresh supplies arriving within thirty minutes. Someone, somewhere has kicked someone else up the backside to get replacement petrol. All tins will have “G” for “Good” written on the side. Anything else, you ditch. Understood? That bloody fool Levass has brought up thousands of gallons that will cause the Daimlers to misfire.’
‘Sir.’ No wonder they were looking for poor Levass. He was responsible for saddling them with poor-quality fuel. Men had been shot for far less. But how was he to know the dumps had leaked? Surely he had acted in good faith?
When Hoffman had gone, Cross began to fold the map. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘refuelling. There goes your kip. Twenty winks at best.’
It was a cold, dank dawn that broke over England. At least it felt that way for a doctor in his sixties, sitting in an operations hut at a Royal Naval Air Service base in Kent. The ops hut was a converted cricket pavilion, still festooned with pictures of the teams and plaques that recorded in gilded lettering the captains and chairmen of the club since its founding in 1837.
Watson was the only person in the room. He had been left with a heater and a cup of strong tea by the wing commander, who told him someone would be along shortly for his ‘hop’. It made it sound innocuous, but the ‘hop’ meant a flight over the Channel. Watson was heading for France.
Things had moved swiftly in London once they had arrived at noon the previous day, with Churchill understanding at once that Levass had to be stopped before he did any more damage. However, although he had sent urgent telegrams, he insisted that one of them fly over to present the evidence and make sure Levass did not talk his way out of trouble. Holmes was too unwell and still back in Essex being cared for; Mrs Gregson would be battling against presumptions about her gender. Watson, tired though he was, was the obvious choice. He was allowed a few hours of recuperative sleep at his club then driven down to an airfield in Kent for the cross-Channel flight. Alone. Back to being just half of the solution.
The door opened and, accompanied by a blast of cool air, in came a long-limbed young man in a flying helmet. He sported an extravagant ginger moustache, of which, judging from the way it was teased to its maximum length, he was inordinately proud. ‘Major Watson?’
Watson stood and held out his hand.
‘Captain Adam Goodman. Just getting the old girl wheeled out and we’ll be ready to go.’ He frowned as he examined Watson. ‘Best get you some gloves and a warmer coat too. Gets pretty chilly up there. Flown before, sir?’
Watson shook his head.
‘Well, there’s nothing to it. Not for you. Just leave all the hard work to me.’
‘You’ve done this often? Over the Channel?’
Goodman looked serious. ‘Major, it was made clear to me that you were important enough not to be entrusted to a novice. You have some important work, I believe?’
‘Indeed.’ To find and stop a madman, he thought to himself.
‘Trust me, they selected me because this is my back yard. Yes, I’ve done it dozens of times without mishap. We’ll be using a Sopwith One-and-a-Half Strutter, which has an endurance of close to four hours, so we won’t have to refuel.’
‘Don’t you have one with the full complement of two struts?’ asked Watson.
Goodman laughed. ‘It just describes the long and short struts configuration on the fuselage supporting the top wing. Go
od crate. Ours is converted to a trainer – so a twin-seater. It’s fast and it’s safe. We’ll get up to a hundred miles an hour if the wind is with us.’
Watson shuddered internally at the thought of such recklessness. From outside he heard a whine and a mechanical stutter, followed by the low grumble of an aero engine catching.
‘There,’ said Goodman with a grin. ‘The fitters are just warming her up and giving her a once-over. I’ll get you that kit.’ He turned to go and then hesitated. ‘Any questions, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Watson, licking dry lips. ‘Is there a lavatory I can use?’
The thump of the tank’s engine starting up cracked through the night sky, reverberating among the stumps of trees and across the wasteland beyond. Heaven alone knows what it must sound like to the Germans over there, Halford thought. He imagined the defenders peering with periscopes into the pre-dawn murk, wondering what fresh horror the morning had in store.
He looked back down the track that snaked through what was left of the woods. It was clogged with two rifle companies, stamping and shuffling in the chill air. The dark shapes reminded him of a herd of cattle, their breath and the smoke from a last furtive gasper rising like the steam off the animals’ backs. He instantly regretted the analogy, the image leading him to thoughts of the abattoir and what was to come in the next half-hour. The smell, of the massed living and the putrefying dead, also reminded him of the slaughterhouse. You get used to it, they had said. That’s what worries me, he had replied. But now, he found, the choking fumes inside the tanks didn’t seem quite so bad.
‘Water, sir?’ It was one of the infantry corporals who had been distributing both water and tots of rum through the ranks. ‘Or something stronger?’
Halford smiled and took the water. ‘Gets damned hot in there.’
