by Robert Ryan
Bloch ordered a schnapps to go with his coffee, his ragged nerves making him ignore the resolve that said he must be clear-headed when he saw Hilde. Of course, she might not come. Might not have got the telegram. Or been able to get a train. Although those visiting wounded relatives or loved ones at or near the front were apparently given priority on the railways. Please let her come, he pleaded with nobody in particular. Please.
He looked around the café. He was the most junior in rank, but he wasn’t worried about that. Lux had provided him with one of the élite stormtrooper uniforms, which gave him a status well above any of the local Leutnants and Kapitäns with their fat-arse desk jobs. With the bandage on his face – he noticed that, like the local statuary, very few of the officers bore any signs of combat – and his new outfit, he could affect a swagger that had even the Belgian waiter being attentive.
One of the officers, a Rittmeister in the transport corps, caught him staring at his raucous little group of penpushers and fixed him with a challenging stare. He had a bony, haughty face, and one cheekbone sported the kind of duelling scar that Bloch always thought was probably self-inflicted – a nasty shaving accident rather than an affair of honour. Bloch met the man’s gaze, held it, and threw back his schnapps without wavering. The Rittmeister scowled and turned back to his friends and their beers. He said something that caused a ripple of laughter. Bloch imagined the man in the cross hairs of the Mauser he had been promised, wondering what the new Spitzgeschoss mit Stahlkern ammunition might do to his skull.
‘Ernst?’
Taken by surprise, he almost upset the table when he leaped to his feet. It was Hilde, but a slightly thinner, paler version of the one he remembered, and dressed in black, as if a widow.
He reached towards her cheek and brushed it with his calloused fingers. It was the softest thing he had ever felt. A tightness grew in his chest and he felt close to tears. The beauty of the square had overwhelmed him, the sight of Hilde, Dresden-fragile, dressed in mourning clothes, was almost too much. It was as if she had come to his funeral.
‘Sit down, please,’ he said, signalling for more coffee.
‘Ernst. Your face . . . are you all right? You didn’t say in your telegram you were hurt.’
He touched it, as if he had forgotten all about it. ‘It’s nothing. I mean it will heal. It looks bad now. The doctors were worried you might run screaming when you saw me.’
She touched his hand and he put his other over it to lock it in place, fearing it might be a fleeting touch.
‘Of course not. You still look perfectly fine.’ She took a breath and the next sentences came out in an unseemly rush. ‘Mother did not want me to come. Karl is dead. We buried him just last week. He was shot down. He survived, but his wounds were . . . The plane caught fire when it crashed, just behind our lines. Soldiers ran to him, but . . .’ She closed her eyes, unable to continue.
‘I’m sorry. He was a good boy.’
‘A boy, yes. We are still mourning him. Mother thought it inappropriate for me to come. My father said that to deprive you, a fighting hero, of my company was a disgrace.’
Bloch gave a hollow laugh. ‘Your father was on my side?’
‘He was.’
‘The man who once called me a country bumpkin?’ It was where he had first met Hilde, out in the countryside, two hiking clubs camping on adjacent hilltops in the lovely, endless summer of 1911. ‘I’m shocked.’
She looked pained. ‘The war has changed everything. Even Father.’
He nodded. ‘How is it at home?’
‘Well, there are shortages, of course. It’s not so bad for us, because . . .’
Because your family owns a department store, he almost finished for her.
‘And you? Is it awful out there? I watch the newsreels every week.’ Which newsreels? he wondered. He had never seen an official cameraman at the front. Rumour had it the authorities restaged battles somewhere away from the real fighting with actors, to show the clean, pristine flower of German manhood overwhelming the filthy, rat-like French and cowardly British. Certainly, the footage he had seen at the mobile cinemas in the reserve areas bore little resemblance to his life, to the hours out on that blasted plain of no man’s land or living like a troglodyte in concrete bunkers.
‘Ernst?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, snapping back to the present.
‘I asked you what it was like. Do you have friends? Comrades?’
He fiddled with his fresh coffee. ‘There’s my spot—’ He didn’t want to explain what a spotter did. She knew he was a marksman, that was all. ‘There’s . . . it’s difficult to say.’
‘Have you been in battles? Your letters never mention anything.’
‘Not as such. Skirmishes, I suppose. The letters are censored, you know. For security.’
‘I’m not sure Karl’s were. He used to describe the thrill of flying. The joy of being up in an empty sky. Then the attacks on barrage balloons, the excitement and terror of the dogfights—’
‘It’s different,’ Bloch interrupted. It wasn’t hard to look up from the mud and envy the flyers. And they had little tactical information to give away in letters. As well as something almost admirable, noble to write about. There was nothing noble in his little corner of the war.
He remembered what one of the other snipers had said when he returned from leave: They don’t understand back home. Can’t understand. Unless you have been in the trenches, it is impossible to believe what it is like. Don’t waste your breath.
‘The war on the ground, I mean. Can we walk?’ He stood, without warning, and put too much money down. ‘Get some air?’
‘It’s raining, Ernst.’
‘Not much. You have an umbrella. I have a raincoat.’
‘If we must.’
The Rittmeister looked over at him, then his eyes switched to Hilde as she straightened her dress. They went up and down her body, slowly, taking in every inch. The mourning outfit did little to deter his lasciviousness.
Bloch had made the first step towards the man when he felt Hilde’s hand on his elbow. ‘Ernst. Please. What’s wrong?’
They quickly left the café and crossed the square, heading towards the town hall. ‘Ernst, please slow down. Is everything all right? You seem so tense. Like a wire stretched taut.’
Of course everything isn’t all right, he wanted to say. Nothing will ever be all right again. ‘Of course everything is all right, now you are here. I’m sorry. That man, the way he looked at you, it just . . . I’m not used to having women around and now I have, I find I don’t want to share you. With anyone.’
‘You don’t have to.’
He found himself blurting out his thoughts. ‘Can you stay? Tonight? We can have dinner. Be together.’ He realized how that sounded. ‘What I mean to say, you can stay in a women’s hostel if we can find one.’
A heartbreaking shake of the head followed. ‘I promised I’d be back. It was hard enough for them to let me come without a chaperone. I practically had to swear on a Bible I wouldn’t . . . I’m so sorry.’
‘I understand. I shouldn’t have asked.’ He fought hard to keep an irrational anger out of his voice. What did he expect? This was Hilde, not some red-light tart.
‘You should. You should say what you think. What would you like to do now, Ernst?’
He thought for a moment and wiped the drizzle from his eyes. ‘I’d like to walk. In silence. No questions. Then I’d like an early dinner, just looking at you. Then I’ll put you on the train. And then you can forget me if you wish.’
‘Ernst . . . ?’
He put a finger to her lips. ‘No questions.’
‘On one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You come under the umbrella.’
He had put her on the nine o’clock train. She had insisted that there be no steam-wreathed tearful platform goodbye, no watching forlornly as the train chugged out. So they had kissed, briefly, and he walked out of the s
tation without a backward glance, back to his estaminet-pension, feeling surprisingly light-hearted. He had a quick drink in the bar downstairs, even though he had drunk enough for one night at the meal. He smiled at the barmaid, and made small talk with the corporal next to him. They both agreed that a strange inversion had taken place. That this town, the bar, the hotel, this was the dreamworld. The trenches, the filthy, sodden, rat-infested trenches, they seemed more real than anything else now. It would be a relief to get back, away from all the play-acting, back to where people understood.
On his way upstairs, he asked for some hot water to be sent up, then went to his room and undressed slowly, not begrudging the sounds of merriment he could hear from below. They had hardly spoken the whole evening, but she had made sure it was a comfortable silence, full of placating gestures. Letting him unwind in his own time. He loved her for that. It had been good for his soul. If only because it reminded him he had one. But, as the corporal had said, it had just been a little, comforting dream.
He put on the cheap cotton robe he had bought at the market when the water came, answering the knock with a few coins for the girl. He saw the jug first. Then Hilde, holding it.
The noise he made barely counted as speech.
‘There’s been a train crash,’ she said.
‘What? Oh my God. When? Are you all right?’
‘Or a derailment. Or a sudden movement of troops causing delays. Perhaps a strike by Belgian train drivers. Or conductors. An act of God has brought the railways to a halt.’ She gave a smile that caused his heart to race. ‘Don’t worry, Ernst, I’ll have thought of something by morning.’
She pushed past him to enter the room. She had alighted the train when he left, followed him from the station, watched him from the street perhaps, bribed the maid, planned all this. His Hilde. The girl he had dismissed as just a passing dream.
FRIDAY
FORTY
As a major, Watson could always request or commandeer a seat on a military transport, and there was no shortage of that on the roads of Flanders or Northern France. However, he wanted to be independent of others for this trip. It was de Griffon who came up with the solution – he should borrow Lord Lockie for the ride to the hospital at Nieppe. The horse, he said, could do with the outing and ten miles there and back was as nothing to him, the captain promised. Watson wasn’t so sure it would be as nothing to his buttocks, but he accepted the offer.
So he found himself back at Suffolk Farm, now full of idling lorries, waiting to take the Leigh Pals back up the line to the relief trenches, and then, after a few days, back to the front proper. Watson was in the gloomy interior of one of the two stone barns, with Sergeant Platt helping him saddle a bay gelding with a white blaze down its face. It was short in the leg, wide in the forehead and cautious about the old man who wanted to ride him. But Watson knew that bedside manner and stable manner were closely related and, over the course of fifteen minutes, with lots of soft whispers and several tasty bribes, he won Lord Lockie round. De Griffon had told him the horse was oddly proportioned – he hadn’t inherited the looks or grace of his father, an Eastern England point-to-point champion – but, once settled, he was tough and trustworthy.
While they blanketed, bridled and saddled the horse, Watson asked Platt to tell him more about the Leigh Pals. Although he knew the rough details from Egypt, it was worth hearing a more complete picture to try to establish why anyone would target its members. He asked the sergeant to speak slowly and clearly, so he could turn the account into the Queen’s English with relative ease.
‘You knows about the Pals, reet? The idea be’ind them?’ Watson nodded. ‘Spread all over the north like a measles rash, it did. Dunno whose idea it was, but someone said that men should enlist wit’ their muckers and workies. It were Liverpool first, I thinks.’
Watson knew he was right. It had been Lord Derby who suggested raising a force of entirely local men in the city. The patriotic drive, and the use of friends to chivvy each other along, was a clever way to avoid introducing an unpopular conscription.
‘Then Salford got a Pals, Accrington, Sheffield. We heard there was taxi drivers’ and footballers’ battalions in London, an’ trammen in Glasgow. So’s our MP demanded to know why there wasn’t a Leigh Pals, when them Germans was bricking up Belgian mines with Belgians in them, and setting fire t’mills with women and children still at looms, like. So he set up a raising committee. An’ we said – cotton is an important cloth for t’war. Who’ll do the work if we gin over there? Wives and daughters, they said. Oh, aye, and when they can get the women for farthings, what happens when we come back? And who’d feed our childer then? Well, most of them mill owners, and t’mine owners, too, says they’d pay six shillings to a wife a week and a tanner a child. Some even said ten bob for a family, no questions asked. Happen what swung it was, they said we men’d ’ave our jobs back after the war at old rates or better. That the women were temporary, like. Plus you know, when we enlisted we got the King’s shilling, then a guinea a week for training. That was a lot o’ brass. And, honest, for most of us it were a break from t’mills when all were said and done. Aye, so many of us turned up at the Hippodrome recruiting drive, they ran out of khaki. Wore civvies for the first few months, we did. Wi’ army boots. Right shite they were, pardon me, Major. Some o’ the boot makers made a pretty penny out of givin’ us riffraff boots that fell apart after one drill. Lumber, they was. Them mullocks should have been shot, I reckon. War profiteering that were. Anyways, we trained at Conwy in Wales and Catterick, and had us some fine times, and then we went to Egypt for more clompin’, before we came here. We thunk it’d all be a six-month adventure. A bit of a mank, like.’
Six months and a bit of a lark, Watson translated. ‘And remind me, every man in the battalion is from Leigh?’
‘No, no.’Twern’t like some of the bigger towns with slums, where they just emptied folk out. We didn’t have enough for a whole battalion, us. No. A Company, them of us what you did your blood tests on, we’re all Leigh, so is most of C. But B is Bolton blokes, and D is Bolton and a lot of Wigan men, n’ all. Some of the officers’re from Liverpool and Manchester, as ye know. Some, like Captain de Griffon, had links to the area. He’ll be all right now, will he? The captain?’
‘I hope so.’
‘And you dunno who did this to him?’
‘Who or what, Sergeant, no. Tell me, what do you think of him? De Griffon? Just between us, man to man.’
‘I think he’s a fine fella, sir. Had no hesitation in promoting me. Happen he might see me worth when I get ’ome, too.’
If, Watson automatically corrected. If you get home.
‘And ’e’s got some gumption, too; won’t ask a man to do anything he won’t do ’isself. Not like some officers. If you don’t mind me sayin’.’
‘Not at all. Any particular officers in mind?’
‘Not really.’
‘Lieutenant Metcalf?’
Platt’s eyes went to his boots. ‘I couldn’t talk out of turn, sir.’
‘One more thing, Platt: could you get me a list of which particular mills each man worked at?’
‘Aye, I reckon.’
Watson put a foot in the stirrup and, with a helping push from Platt, hauled himself into the saddle. Lord Lockie sidestepped a little and shook his head, but stayed calm. Watson leaned down. ‘Sorry, one more thought . . . how many mills do the de Griffons own in town?’
‘Three outright. The B-Stones they are called. Blackstone, Bankstone and Bradstone Mills.’
‘Right. Just the names of the men who worked at those three for now. And do it discreetly, if you can.’
‘Oh, I know most of ’em already, don’t you worry. ’Tain’t a big place, Leigh.’ He adjusted the stirrups. ‘You want a nip of brandy, sir, keep you warm?’ He tapped his pocket.
‘No, thank you, Platt.’
‘Reet you are. There. You be all reet now.’ He gave Lord Lockie’s rump a light slap and Watson ducked under
the barn lintel as the horse clopped out onto the cobbles, with the doctor wondering when was the last time he’d been foolish enough to get on a strange horse. And, later, how he came to ask all the wrong questions.
After Watson had left to fetch Lord Lockie, de Griffon felt well enough to sit up and try to take a few steps. His head was still prone to attacks of vertigo and when he stood, his legs felt unable to carry his body. He asked Miss Pippery to support him while he walked the length of the tent. He found he needed to grip her arm harder than he had imagined.
‘He’s quite a character, your Major Watson,’ de Griffon said as he plonked one foot down after another.
‘Yes, he is,’ agreed Miss Pippery. ‘A lovely man.’
‘But should he be galloping around like this? Literally, I mean, now he has Lord Lockie. At his age? He’s not a young man.’
‘I suppose you can’t break the habit of a lifetime.’
‘How do you mean?’
Miss Pippery recounted what Mrs Gregson had told her.
‘You mean he’s that Watson? Oh my Lord. I never . . .’ He shook his head, smiling to himself. ‘Well, gosh, it’s quite a privilege to have him investigate your case. If only the great detective were here as well. Soon solve it then, eh?’
‘Oh, no, that’s not likely, sir. Mrs Gregson said there’d been a,’ she lowered her voice to a stage whisper, ‘falling out.’
‘Really? That’s a crying shame. Still, it’s all terribly exciting. Right, here we are.’ They reached the exit of the tent, and he looked outside for a second. ‘Looks like more damned rain. Excuse my language. We’re due back in the line soon. The water table is so high here, you live and sleep in water. So, shall we try going back to the bed again? Oh, Cecil, there you are!’
