by Robert Ryan
Watson could feel the cloud of gloom creeping over him, as insidious as any poison gas. The sensible thing to do now was to be quiet, to pretend to doze. Instead, he felt something sparking in his brain, goading him towards confrontation.
‘Have you ever loved anyone, Sir Gilbert?’
Sir Gilbert, about to light his own cigarette, paused, his brow furrowed into sharp ridges. ‘Not even my wife asks me that question,’ he said, once he had put match to tobacco. ‘And very few Englishmen would broach the subject. I love my country, if that’s—’
‘Anybody,’ insisted Watson. ‘Not anything. Not any high-falutin concept of patriotism. People, I mean.’
Sir Gilbert shrugged, his eyes betraying the confusion at the turn the conversation had taken. ‘As men, I don’t think we examine such things too closely—’
‘Perhaps not closely enough,’ suggested Watson. ‘I have loved several times, I believe, and always had it snatched away from me. If one were a superstitious man, one might think it a curse. Perhaps those who are incapable of love have it easier.’
Sir Gilbert sucked on the cigarette and shifted in his seat. He wondered if Watson was referring to his old colleague, whom he had, after all, once described as an automaton. ‘Are you talking about Holmes?’
Watson gave a hollow laugh. ‘I am talking about Mary and Emily and . . .’ just a beat of hesitation, ‘. . . Georgina, if I am frank.’
Sir Gilbert had heard something of what Watson had suffered as a prisoner of war in Germany the previous year and of the strange aftermath to his incarceration that took place on a bridge in Holland, when a friend of his had been shot by a sniper. He had also noticed the man’s rather peculiar mood swings of late, which he put down to these events and the trauma of being caught up in the first Gotha bombing raid on London. In his experience, nobody came back from the war unscathed, although that was not always a popular position with the other members of the War Injuries Compensation Board.
‘Unlucky, perhaps, rather than cursed. And you have been through a lot.’
‘Not just me.’ Watson smiled. ‘You asked how Holmes was and I said, “As well as could be expected.” What I meant was, as well as could be expected after facing up to his own demise.’
Watson stubbed out his cigarette and took some more of the excellent brandy.
‘He’s ill?’
‘No, but he has stared death in the face, felt its warm breath on his cheek. He knows it is waiting for him now.’
‘You’d best explain,’ said Sir Gilbert huffily, not liking the glazed look in Watson’s eyes.
Watson blinked as if he knew what Sir Gilbert was thinking and fixed him with a steady gaze. ‘Not so long ago, Holmes was willing to lay down his life for mine. I was in a POW camp in Germany. A very wicked place. He planned to deliver himself into the arms of the German Intelligence machine in exchange for my release and then, when they were poised to crow about it, to snatch victory away from them by committing suicide.’
‘Good Lord. That’s a strange way of winning.’
‘But I have no doubt he intended to go ahead with it. Had I known this then, perhaps I would have taken the honourable course and removed myself from the equation.’
‘Also by suicide?’
‘By taking my own life, yes.’
Sir Gilbert gave a grunt. ‘I can’t say I approve of such thoughts.’
Watson nodded. ‘There was a time when I would have agreed with you. But how long do I have left on this earth, Sir Gilbert? Five years? Ten?’ He looked up and pointed at the ceiling. ‘Even now, a bomb could be on its way down, ready to drill through Number 2 Upper Wimpole Street, as it did through Upper North Street School those few months ago, and reduce us to dust.’
Sir Gilbert took solace in a large gulp of cognac. ‘I rather hope not.’
‘Well, right at this moment, so do I.’ Watson smiled. ‘Mainly because of you and Mrs Turner. My point is, if it did happen now, or in five years or ten minutes, what is the difference in the long run? My work, my small contribution to this world, is over. It might be time to make a dignified exit.’
Sir Gilbert, much concerned at such maudlin talk, reached across and put a hand on Watson’s knee and squeezed. ‘Surely not, Watson. Surely there are more stories you need to tell? The world is hungry for Holmes. I heard the new Strand sold out in hours and had to be reprinted. All because it contained the first Holmes story for quite some time.’
‘The first short story, yes, since before the war. But I did not call it “His Last Bow” for no reason.’ This was the tale of Holmes and Von Bork, the German agent, whom the detective had thwarted on the eve of the war. Watson had been contractually obliged to write it, or at least had been fulfilling a promise made by Mrs Gregson to the editor that he would deliver another adventure for publication. Now it was out there with the public, he felt no urgency to write up any more of the handful of untold tales in his possession. ‘There will be no more Holmes stories.’
What? No ‘Thor Bridge’, no ‘Mazarin Stone’, no ‘Sussex Vampire’?
Of late, Watson had ignored the spectral voice in his head. Now he answered: No, Holmes, those tales can die with us.
Sir Gilbert leaned forward, concern etched on his features. ‘Are you feeling all right, Watson? I have a colleague in Harley Street who deals with melancholia . . .’
‘Take no notice of the major,’ said Mrs Turner, as she came through, holding a severely brushed topcoat. ‘He gets these black moods now and then. They come like rain squalls, and then they’re gone.’ She glared disapprovingly at Watson, her eyes bulging from her bony face. ‘Mostly, whenever cognac is involved. It’s a wicked kind of balm, if you ask me.’
‘Morlocks!’ Watson exclaimed.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs Turner asked, taken aback by the force of the exclamation.
‘Morlocks,’ Watson continued in a softer tone. ‘H.G. Wells postulated we might turn into troglodyte cannibals if we spend too long underground. Morlocks, they were called.’
Sir Gilbert caught Mrs Turner’s eye and noted the landlady’s almost imperceptible shake of the head. ‘Well, I wouldn’t have too many ideas about eating a stringy old bird like me, Major Watson.’ She held up the garment. ‘I’ve got most of it out. I’m sure your valet will complete the process, Sir Gilbert.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Turner. A splendid job. At least, I think a cabby might pick me up now.’ His eyes flicked to the ceiling. ‘Do you think it’s . . .?’
‘Safe?’ asked Watson. ‘I don’t know.’ He stood, not at all steady on his feet, and his companions realized that a hefty proportion of the brandy bottle had disappeared without their really noticing. ‘But I’ve come to a decision tonight.’
‘What’s that?’
‘No more lurking in basements. What will be, will be.’
Mrs Turner smiled. ‘Well, if you don’t mind, sir, I will stay down here for a few more hours. I’ll put some cocoa on.’
‘I’m going up top. No more Morlocking down here for me.’
‘Are you absolutely sure you’re feeling all right, Watson?’
‘Yes, Sir Gilbert,’ he declared with an intensity that took the surgeon back. ‘Never better! Never better. Shall we go and take some air and see if the bugles have sounded and procure you a motor taxi?’
FIVE
They found the missing train in another siding, where leggy purple-flowered weeds grew confidently between the sleepers. It had been abandoned by its locomotive, dumped like an unwanted child. Six carriages, the windows barred on the outside, the glass steamed up with hot breath from within.
Colonel Hartford ordered his driver to pull over and leaped out, his face close to puce with anger. Nurse Jennings twisted away, breaking the adjutant’s grip on her arm, and followed the colonel into the clearing. The sun was falling fast, the shadows of the trees that enclosed most of the siding lengthening, the air taking on a grainy, photographic quality as dusk approached. She could hear, even at a distan
ce of several hundred yards, the low chatter and the moans of pain coming from within the train, even if she could not see clearly what it held. There were other sounds, too: the chirp of evening birdsong and, a constant low note, the grumble of the guns at the front.
‘How long has that been there?’ Jennings asked as she walked up behind the colonel, who stood with his hands on hips, as if surveying a battlefield.
‘I have no idea. But it went astray this morning.’
‘They’ll be thirsty in there. Frightened.’
‘That is the least of my worries.’
‘Because they are . . .’ she let her disapproval wrap around the word, ‘. . . Chinkies?’
‘Because I have my orders!’ the colonel said heatedly. ‘Heads will roll for this. Shaw! Shaw!’ One of the adjutants appeared. ‘Go back to that station we passed and get me a locomotive. At once.’
‘Sir.’
‘And, Shaw.’
‘Sir?’
‘Use your revolver if you have to. I don’t care how many Frenchmen you have to shoot – just get me a loco to take this to Calais and the Dover Arrow.’
The Dover Arrow? She remembered that from before the war: one of those boats where the whole train could be rolled onto the ferry without having to disembark the passengers. It had operated for a scant few months before the war intervened. If only they could do that for every ambulance train, the amount of distress from loading and reloading the wounded – and time men spent suffering on quaysides and platforms – would be greatly reduced.
As Nurse Jennings walked towards the carriages, she heard the slap of palms on glass. Faces were appearing from the gloom within and pressing at the steamed-up windows as sleeves wiped crescents of glass clear. They were indeed Chinese faces, their features almost comically contorted as they shouted at her. One of the carriages began to rock as the bodies threw themselves at the side closest to her. A pane of glass cracked with the sound of a whiplash under the press of bodies. Nurse Jennings felt a flash of fear and took a step backwards before she composed herself.
She turned slightly and yelled to the colonel, ‘What’s wrong with them? Why are they in there?’
‘Wrong? Nothing’s wrong with them. They mutinied. Refused to move our dead. Some superstition about restless spirits following them around. They are being shipped back home.’
The Chinese, so she had heard, were being used as manual labourers – some as trench-builders and gravediggers, other to construct or extend the narrow-gauge railways crisscrossing the hinterland of the trench system. As she had explained to the colonel, she knew about Noyelles-sur-Mer because there had been talk of setting up a Chinese-only hospital there and a call had gone out for Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. The best she could manage was St Kitts patois.
She moved closer and within six feet she could smell them. There was a thin, brown liquid running from the train, no doubt from a makeshift latrine of some description. Yet there was more than just excrement, she could smell something more corporeal, unmistakable after her years in the canvas wards of the CCS: the stench of high fever. And here and there on the windowpanes, she could now make out the tell-tale splatter pattern of coughed-up blood. There was more banging. Another of the panes cracked and this time a sliver of glass fell free. Now she could hear the pleas to open the carriages, the tone clear even if she didn’t understand the language.
She retraced her steps. ‘Colonel? These men are sick.’
‘Well, they might be now.’
‘They need water. Lots of it. That station you mentioned will either have clean water or it will have the facilities for boiling it. I shall distribute it among the men.’
‘You can’t go in there.’
‘And why not?’
The colonel rubbed his chin, perplexed. ‘This is not your concern.’
‘You made it my concern by kidnapping me.’
‘I did not kidnap you.’
From beyond the trees came the sound of a locomotive whistle.
‘Believe you me, Colonel, I know nothing about these men. I am not, as you seem to think, some sort of spy. I am a nurse. And as a nurse my job is in there.’ She pointed to the carriages.
The colonel shook his head and muttered to himself.
‘What?’
‘I can’t let you in. The doors are locked.’
‘And you have a key?’
‘I do.’
‘Then I suggest we get the water, you open the door—’
‘And let these mutineers escape?’
‘And then lock me inside.’
The colonel looked at her as if she had quite taken leave of her senses. ‘Why one earth would you do that? They’re savages—’
‘Who are the savages here, Colonel? The men locked in the carriages? Or the men who put them there?’
‘They’ll tear you limb from limb.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’
‘Or they’ll do worse than that.’ He flushed slightly. ‘You are a white woman—’
‘I am an Englishwoman!’ she snapped, reverting to language he might understand. At times like this, she only had to ask herself one question: what would dear Mrs Gregson say? ‘And, by God, I shall do my duty as one. You lend me your revolver if it will help salve your conscience, but believe me, one way or another I am going in there and I am going to do my job. I am beginning to think it was no accident that God brought me here, Colonel. He moves in mysterious ways.’
‘He’s not the only one. Bradley!’ Colonel Hartford turned to the second adjutant. ‘Take the car. Go to the station, bring as much clean water as you can carry.’
‘Sir.’
‘And I’ll need lamps, in case the power supply has failed. It is pretty dark in there now,’ Nurse Jennings interrupted.
‘And, Bradley?’
‘Sir?’
‘Find out what’s happened to our bloody loco, will you?’ He turned back to Jennings. ‘And let me make one thing clear. Once you step into those carriages, you are no longer my responsibility. On your own head be it.’
‘Would you like that in writing?’
The colonel unbuttoned his tunic pocket. ‘As a matter of fact, I would.’
SIX
There had been a time when the ambulance trains arrived in London by day. There would be brass bands, flag-waving, crowds of welcoming relatives and well-wishers. Despite the terrible injuries of the men being unloaded, a party atmosphere prevailed. People were proud of what these men had achieved, of the punishment they had taken for their King and Country. Well, the party, if that’s what it had been, was well and truly over. Now, the troop trains taking those to the front left in daylight; the ambulance trains skulked in at night, as if, Watson couldn’t help but feel, they carried a shameful secret.
Watson accepted a cup of tea from the VAD who was serving at Lady Limerick’s free buffet at Victoria Station, which offered complimentary refreshments to those coming from or going to the front, as well as to the odd doctor on duty.
‘Have you heard?’ the young woman asked.
‘About?’ replied Watson.
‘Liverpool Street Station. Hit by firebombs earlier tonight.’
‘What, again?’ Watson said.
‘Yes. Direct hit on an ambulance train as it pulled into the platform. Incinerated the lot.’ She gave a shudder and wiped her hands on her once-white apron.
So the bombers he and Sir Gilbert had heard had already shed their lethal load by the time they came overhead and caused the panic on the streets of the West End. A railway station, he supposed, was at least a legitimate target of sorts. But the horrible irony of the wounded making it home to London, only to be immolated by a German bomber, was not lost on him.
‘You all right, sir?’ the VAD asked.
Watson had spilled his tea in his anger. ‘Yes, sorry.’
He turned back and looked around the station concourse. The ambulances were waiting, so were a few forlorn-looking relatives, although such was the volu
me of casualties, one could never be certain which station any given ambulance train would arrive at. Charing Cross, Victoria and Waterloo were the main termini but last-minute diversions to Blackfriars or London Bridge were quite common.
He watched Captain Trenchard, an RAMC medic, emerge from the dispatch office and limp over towards him. Shrapnel, shattered femur, Ypres, he reminded himself. Though not yet twenty-five, his hair was streaked with grey, and he spoke with the weariness of an old man.
Trenchard was waving a sheaf of papers at him. ‘Tonight’s vacancies, sir,’ he said, handing them over. ‘Lady Cottle’s been closed down, I am afraid. JJs.’ Lice.
Many of the private hospitals that had opened at the start of the war in a flurry of charitable hubris – most of them aimed solely at officers and funded by well-to-do women – had found it hard to continue as the war dragged on. Watson knew of several where cleanliness was questionable, the care sporadic and the heating unreliable, and he avoided sending men there unless the other hospitals were overflowing. He quickly examined the list that Trenchard had passed to him. Millbank had a decent supply of beds, as did Roehampton House and The Burlington Clinic, the latter being two of the better-funded private establishments.
‘How many trains due?’
‘Two tonight. Been some chaos on the other side, apparently.’
Trenchard checked his watch against the station clock and stifled a yawn. It was getting on for two in the morning. Watson could see he was thinking of his bed. ‘Late tonight.’
There was a similar sense of restlessness coming from the ambulance drivers and their orderlies, who were standing around their machines, impatient for their customers to arrive. Many were on their second pack of Woodbines, judging by the litter of butts at their feet.
