Blackstone and the Great War

by Sally Spencer

  But there was a reason that night, Blackstone thought – the three musketeers needed to get together to put the final touches to the plan to murder Lieutenant Fortesque.

  ‘Anyway, the next funny thing – and that makes three funny things, you know.’

  Blackstone smiled again. ‘I do know,’ he agreed. ‘I’m counting.’

  ‘The next funny thing was that Maude left the other two, and went to visit Fortesque in his dugout, further along the trench.’

  Now that was strange, Blackstone told himself.

  Since Soames was the one nominated to actually commit the murder, he would obviously have to chance being spotted near the scene of the crime. But there was no need for either of the other two to run such a risk. Quite the contrary – it would have been no more than prudent for them to keep well away from Fortesque in the hours before his impending death.

  Yet Maude had been to see Fortesque! Now why would a man like him – who otherwise hadn’t put a foot wrong so far – even think of doing that?

  ‘What time was it that Lieutenant Maude visited Lieutenant Fortesque?’ Blackstone asked Mick.

  ‘Nobody’s quite sure. Apart from the ones who are on sentry duty, none of the lads pay much attention to time down in the trenches. But as near as any of them can tell, it was a couple of hours before dawn.’

  Perhaps the reason that Maude had visited Fortesque was to make one last attempt to talk some sense into him. Perhaps he’d still hoped that he could convince Fortesque to change his mind, because if he could be persuaded, there would no longer be any need to kill him.

  ‘Are you still listening to me, Mr Blackstone?’ Mick asked.

  ‘I’m still listening,’ Blackstone said. ‘Carry on with your tale.’

  ‘Maude stayed with Fortesque for about ten minutes, and when he left, he went back to Soames’ dugout. And then, maybe half an hour before dawn, Lieutenant Soames paid a visit to Lieutenant Fortesque.’

  Maude’s efforts at persuasion having so obviously failed, Soames is sent to deliver the killing blow, Blackstone thought. He finds Fortesque alone, as he expected to . . .

  He felt a sudden chill run through him, as he began to see a hitherto unsuspected flaw in his own logic.

  Soames would have had no real basis for believing that he would find Fortesque alone!

  None at all!

  At that time of day – just before the morning stand-to and the inspection which followed it – what would have been more natural than that Fortesque would ask his servant to make him a cup of tea and cook him some breakfast?

  As it happened – as things turned out – Fortesque had been alone, because he had sent Blenkinsop to the reserve trench for more whisky – but Soames couldn’t possibly have known that he would do that.

  Hell, even Fortesque himself couldn’t have known, with any degree of certainty, when the whisky would run out.

  And that was where the theory broke down, wasn’t it? The three musketeers couldn’t have been planning to kill Fortesque that morning – because there were far too many imponderables.

  Wind it back, Blackstone ordered himself. Start again.

  The plan had been for Fortesque to die sometime later – perhaps when they were all back in St Denis. But then Soames – hotheaded, impulsive Soames – had taken a spur of the moment decision!

  Blackstone pictured the scene in his mind.

  Fortesque is sitting at his table when Soames enters the dugout.

  ‘Have you thought about what Maude had to say to you, Charlie?’ Soames asks.

  ‘I have,’ Fortesque replies.

  ‘And what conclusion have you reached?’

  ‘I’ve examined my conscience, and I now see, more clearly than ever, that while it will be damaging to all of you, I really have no choice but to come clean.’

  But come clean about what? Blackstone asked himself.

  About bloody what – for God’s sake?

  Had they come across a stash of abandoned gold – or something almost equally valuable – and decided between them to keep it for themselves? Had Fortesque changed his mind about it, leaving the others with no choice – in their own minds, at least – but to kill him? And had those gold bars been in the coffin that Maude, Soames and Hatfield had stolen from the warehouse in Calais?

  Or was that all just wild speculation – a fantasy he had dreamed up himself to explain away something which simply couldn’t be explained?

  Blackstone forced all these speculations to the back of his mind, and focussed, instead, on what might possibly have happened in the dugout.

  ‘I’ve examined my conscience, and I now see, more clearly than ever, that while it will be damaging to all of you, I really have no choice but to come clean,’ Lieutenant Fortesque says.

  Soames is not a complicated man. He has been brought up with a simple set of rules and a simple set of prejudices which are perfectly adequate to carry a chap through life, and, as far as he is concerned, a conscience is quite unnecessary. Besides, he has just lost a man – and nearly been killed himself – and his nerves are worn ragged.

  ‘I can’t allow you to do it,’ he says.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t stop me,’ Fortesque replies.

  But that’s just where Fortesque is wrong. There is a way to stop him – just one – and this is the way that the three musketeers have been discussing among themselves for some time. And it is the way Soames takes now – well ahead of the planned schedule – when he picks up the nearest blunt object and smashes it down on his friend’s skull.

  He probably panics when he realizes what he’s done, but then his instinct for self-preservation takes control.

  If he walks away now, it will be obvious he killed Fortesque, he argues. But if he leaves it for half an hour, and then ‘discovers’ the body, he might have just muddied the waters enough to get away with it.

  ‘I’m assuming that Soames then left the section, and came back later for the dawn inspection,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘No,’ Mick replied. ‘He didn’t come out of the dugout again until the Morning Hate started.’

  Then what was left of the theory was crumbling before his eyes, Blackstone thought.

  Because if Soames had killed Fortesque, there would have been absolutely no way to avoid getting blood spattered all over his uniform.

  And if he’d had blood all over his uniform, the men he was inspecting would have noticed it!

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Mick asked.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ Blackstone said, more sharply than he’d intended.

  And he was – thinking furiously, in a desperate attempt to square the circle.

  Perhaps Soames had taken all his clothes off before he’d attacked Fortesque – but if anything could have put Fortesque on his guard, it would have been the sight of his friend stripping naked.

  Perhaps Soames had covered himself with a blanket or a sheet before launching the attack – but smashing in a man’s skull is a very messy business, and however careful he was, there would have been some blood on his uniform.

  There was really only one way Soames could have done it without drenching himself in blood, Blackstone realized.

  And in accepting that, he was forced to accept that all the assumptions he had made so far were completely – grotesquely – wrong.

  TWENTY

  If there was one point in the day that the Tommy could usually call his own, then it was the time between late afternoon and early evening.

  All his routine tasks had been completed. He had cleaned his rifle and his bayonet. He had refilled the sandbags that had to be refilled. He had shored up the crumbling sections of the trench which needed shoring up, and had repaired the duckboards which needed repairing. Thus, until dusk began to fall and he was called to evening stand-to, he was at perfect liberty to do whatever he wished – as long as what he wished to do was no more than write a few letters home, catch up on sleep, or play cards.

  Yet even this small luxury was bein
g interrupted in that particular section of the trench on that particular afternoon, because Captain Carstairs would be visiting the section, and though he seemed completely oblivious to their presence, they had been ordered by their sergeant to stand at attention until he had passed by.

  Carstairs was not alone. As well as the sergeant, he was accompanied by a tall thin civilian in a shabby brown suit.

  And just why am I here? Blackstone wondered, as they progressed along the trench.

  The most straightforward answer to the question was that he was there because he had been told – or rather, ordered – to be there.

  But why would Captain Carstairs – who plainly couldn’t stand the sight of him – want to see him at all, unless it was to give him a rocket for some minor infringement of military etiquette?

  And if he was to be given a rocket, why should it be delivered in the trench, rather than in the company’s command dugout?

  ‘I’ve been trying to contact you for at least the last forty-eight hours, Blackstone,’ Carstairs said as they walked. ‘I would like to know where the hell you have been all that time.’

  ‘I’ve been pursuing my inquiries,’ Blackstone replied.

  Captain Carstairs snorted. ‘That may be enough of an answer for some of the people you normally rub shoulders with, but I am a captain in His Majesty’s Armed Forces, and I consider it highly unsatisfactory,’ he said.

  If he told Carstairs the truth – if he admitted he’d been tracking the movements of the three musketeers in Calais – then the captain would do everything within his power to sabotage the investigation, Blackstone thought.

  ‘I’ve been investigating the possibility that, from the very start, you may have been right – and I may have been wrong,’ he said aloud.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Carstairs demanded.

  ‘You think it was one of the enlisted men who killed Lieutenant Fortesque, and, as a result of my investigations, I’m inclined to agree with you,’ Blackstone lied. ‘Now, if you’d like more details of those investigations . . .’

  ‘No, no, I’m perfectly happy to leave it in your hands,’ Carstairs replied, sounding both pleased and relieved. ‘But the moment you have tracked down the guilty party, I shall, of course, expect to be informed.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Blackstone agreed.

  They came to a halt at the mouth of a tunnel which was being dug in the side of the trench. One stocky Welshman, inside the tunnel, was passing a basket of earth to another stocky Welshman who was outside of it. They seemed unaware that Carstairs was there – or indeed, of anything beyond the task in hand.

  The sergeant coughed, and the two miners looked up briefly, and then returned to their work.

  ‘You are in the presence of an officer, Sapper Thomas,’ the sergeant barked. ‘Show the proper respect!’

  ‘Oh, sorry, sir,’ the Welshman inside the tunnel said to Carstairs, before giving what was probably as smart a salute as the confined space allowed. ‘We thought you was in a hurry to get the tunnel finished, see, and every time we stops to salute you, that’s another shovel-full of earth we hasn’t shifted.’

  ‘Do not address an officer directly,’ the sergeant screamed.

  ‘Oh, sorry again, Sergeant,’ the Welshman said. ‘We thought the captain was in a hurry to get the tunnel finished, see, and—’

  ‘You’ve already said that,’ the sergeant told him.

  ‘Yes, but look you, the first time I said it, it was to the officer, then you told me I’m not allowed to—’

  ‘Silence!’ the sergeant shouted.

  ‘Ask him how the work is progressing,’ Carstairs said to the sergeant.

  ‘How is the work progressing?’ the sergeant asked Thomas.

  ‘We’s gone maybe ten yards,’ the Welshman replied.

  Carstairs frowned. ‘That doesn’t seem very far.’

  ‘You’s never dug a tunnel yourself, has you, sir?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘Do not address an officer directly,’ the sergeant roared.

  ‘I thought he was addressing me, like,’ Thomas said, completely unperturbed. ‘Anyway, I was only asking him if he have ever dug a tunnel himself, and it’s obvious that he haven’t.’

  ‘Ask him how long it will take him to complete the tunnel,’ Carstairs said to the sergeant.

  ‘Save your breath, Sarge, ’cos I’ve already heard,’ Thomas said. He raised his hand, and scratched his head with a dirt-encrusted finger. ‘To be honest with you, it’s hard to say exactly. There’s all sorts of things what have to be taken into account with a tunnel, look you. But don’t you go worrying yourself, sir, we’s’ll get there in the end.’

  ‘Do not—’ the sergeant began.

  ‘Forget it, Sergeant,’ Carstairs told him, with evident weariness in his voice. ‘Blackstone and I are leaving now, but I want you to stay here and watch these men work, just to make certain there’s no shirking.’

  ‘We doesn’t—’ Thomas said.

  ‘Silence!’ the sergeant commanded.

  Carstairs turned, signalled Blackstone to follow him, and walked a little way down the trench.

  ‘They’re barbarians, these Welshmen,’ the captain complained. ‘They have no idea of proper military discipline, and if they weren’t the best tunnellers we’ve got – by far – I wouldn’t tolerate having them anywhere near my men.’

  An awkward silence followed, in which it was plain that Carstairs was expecting Blackstone to say something, and Blackstone himself had determined to say nothing at all until he had a clearer idea of what lay behind this little expedition down into the trenches.

  Finally, after perhaps a minute, Carstairs said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, what?’ Blackstone replied.

  ‘What do you think?’ Carstairs asked, pointing back towards the tunnel.

  ‘I think it’s a tunnel,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Yes, it’s a tunnel!’ Carstairs said exasperatedly. ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘And as far as I can tell, it’s pretty much like every other tunnel I’ve seen,’ Blackstone said. ‘It’s got two walls, a floor and a ceiling – and I really can’t think of much more to say about it.’

  ‘You do know why I’ve brought you to see it, don’t you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t.’

  Carstairs sighed at the detective’s obvious stupidity.

  ‘I wanted you to see it,’ he said, speaking slowly, to make sure Blackstone got the point, ‘so that when you report back to General Fortesque, as I’ve no doubt you will, you can tell him that we on the front line have done everything possible to comply with his wishes.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Blackstone admitted.

  ‘The General hasn’t told you of his request?’

  ‘No.’

  Carstairs smirked. ‘Then perhaps you are not quite as much in his confidence as you would like to think you are.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not,’ Blackstone agreed.

  ‘Would you like to hear now what that request was?’

  Yes, he did want to know, Blackstone thought, because whatever the General’s request had been, it was probably relevant to the investigation. But after Captain Carstairs had been so bloody supercilious, he was damned if he was going to ask him.

  ‘I’m not particularly interested,’ he said, ‘but since you seem so desperate for the General to be told what a good boy you’ve been, I should imagine you want to give me all the details.’

  ‘Don’t push me too far, Blackstone,’ Carstairs growled.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t we just forget the whole thing?’ Blackstone suggested.

  ‘I have the greatest possible respect for General Fortesque, and, because of that, I would like him to think well of me,’ Carstairs said, through clenched teeth. ‘And that is the reason – and the only reason – that I am prepared to tolerate your insolence on this occasion.’

  Blackstone grinned. ‘In other words, I’m a bit like the Welsh miners �
�� you might not like me, but you need me.’

  Carstairs cleared his throat. ‘General Fortesque has asked us to recover the body of a Private Danvers, who was killed – and subsequently buried – in No Man’s Land, a few days ago,’ he began, as if the last few unpleasant exchanges had never occurred. ‘Since it was already planned to build a new sap listening post, which would, of course, be connected to this trench by a tunnel, I decided that the best idea would be to combine the two operations. The tunnel will first be used to recover the body – undoubtedly the safest way to do it – and then will be converted into part of our defences.’

  Blackstone had stopped listening after the first sentence.

  Danvers!

  Where had he heard that name before?

  Of course!

  Danvers was the man who Lieutenant Fortesque had been planning to make his servant, before he changed his mind and appointed Blenkinsop.

  Danvers was the soldier who had not just been killed in No Man’s Land, but had been killed on a patrol led by Lieutenant Soames – and only hours before Lieutenant Fortesque was murdered.

  ‘But why should the General want the body recovered?’ he asked Captain Carstairs.

  ‘It is an old man’s privilege to be slightly eccentric,’ Carstairs said, ‘and when that old man happens to be as distinguished as General Fortesque, it is our duty to respect those eccentricities. The regiment would not have the reputation it undoubtedly has today without men like the Hero of Afghanistan.’

  Sod the regiment! Blackstone thought.

  ‘What I want to know is how the General even found out that Danvers was dead,’ he persisted. ‘After all, he was nothing but a common soldier – one of scores of thousands who’ve been killed since this bloody war started.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Carstairs said, offhandedly. ‘It seems that Private Danvers was the General’s head gardener’s grandson, and that, before the war, he had been training to be a gardener himself.’

  ‘So Lieutenant Fortesque already knew Private Danvers, before they served together?’ Blackstone said.