It was an obsession. He shoved the book across the table, knocking an overflowing ashtray to the edge. To his left, the pencil never hesitated. But Clarke knew he was being studied. He sat back and crossed his arms. Shame and anger flavored the memory of Faust openly leaning forward to study his Royal Warwickshires regimental flash, the teasing tenor echoing again in his mind. “Infantry: oh, frag. I’ll try using small words.”
Yes, Faust had some fun with him. They’d both had it coming. And despite all the contempt he’d inflicted on Faust during their joint year at University College, he’d saved all their lives. Clarke could only hope he’d gotten away with the massive risk he’d run.
The door opposite the sitting area opened. A young soldier stepped through and closed the door behind himself, his face grey. Even across the room, the red rimming his eyes couldn’t be missed.
“That kind of staff meeting, is it?”
Hackney glanced up from his notes for the first time. “Beg pardon?”
“I’ve had my share of those.”
The chief inspector glanced at the young soldier’s retreating figure, then examined Clarke the same way a hungry hound might fasten his attention on a tasty morsel. “Young Carmichael, you mean? Actually, his fiancée was murdered last night.”
He couldn’t have heard that right. “Murdered?”
“That’s why he’s upset.” Hackney returned to his notes, then nodded at the cluttered table and filthy ashtrays. “The housemaid, she was. Wonder who they’ll get to clean for them now?”
Clarke stared at him, too shocked to think.
“But I don’t doubt,” Hackney rumbled on, adding a few words to his notes, “the staff meeting’s going to be all that, and more.”
With an effort Clarke turned away, in time to see a sergeant, the only Regular Army veteran he’d seen in Margeaux Hall, clatter down the wrought-iron staircase in the vestibule. Even across the length of the grand ballroom, his magnificent shiner and bruised cheekbone and chin were glaringly obvious.
Yes, there was a story here. And Clarke couldn’t wait to hear it.
Chapter Seventy-One
early morning
northwest of Oxford and Port Meadow
Faust and the stallion trotted along the edge of a field beside a dry stone wall. The dawn mists lifted, leaving them nakedly visible in brilliant daylight. But no one approached, no one called out, no fingers pointed their way; so he concentrated on making the best time he could while saving the stallion’s strength for a long haul. The stallion had proved himself a magnificent beast, and with each hoofbeat Faust’s spirits rose higher until he felt incandescent, like a switched-on light bulb. All it would take was a fuse and he’d go up with a bang.
Judging by the angle of sunlight pouring across their left sides, it was eight or nine o’clock and almost time to take a breather when he spotted a little copse ahead, one field away. The perfect spot. He urged the stallion into a hand gallop. The horse snorted, tossed his head back almost into Faust’s face, and surged forward, the soft thudding of his hooves into the turf accelerating to a four-beat cadence. No, he didn’t want to let this ride go, not unless he had to; the copse and another rest it would be.
At the base of the wall, the stallion planted his hind feet and leapt, the takeoff pushing Faust over his withers. He gripped with his legs and held on for the seconds they were airborne, nearly yelling again for raw exultation.
“What the — oy!”
The stallion landed, ears slanting back toward the yell behind them, and shied for the first time. Faust wrapped his legs about the stallion’s girth, gripping a handful of mane along with the reins, and risked a glance over his shoulder.
Two British Army soldiers crouched in the lee of the dry stone wall, starting up from their huddle about a field transceiver. Faust’s glance lasted two seconds at most, but the moment seared into him like a brand — not recent conscripts but tough and seasoned soldiers in crisp battledress, their hard faces slack-jawed. Even as the stallion galloped away, the one on the right threw himself onto his knees and reached for the microphone.
Only two of them and their rifles were stacked against the wall behind the transceiver. Faust faced front. If he could gallop beyond their vision before reinforcements arrived —
But the field had sloped downhill and he hadn’t seen it clearly from the other side of the wall. It swarmed with British Army troops. And most of them were staring at him.
Faust straightened in the saddle, squeezing his legs to get the stallion’s attention and tightening the reins to halt him. Several hundred soldiers filled the scenery ahead; the little copse, his intended resting place, also showed movement through the trees; there was even an artillery battery halfway down the hill, big field guns trained in the opposite direction but the crews starting to turn. It looked like training maneuvers, so their rifles would be loaded with blanks. No way he’d make it through their ranks; even if they couldn’t shoot him, someone would get close enough to grab him and haul him off the horse.
But there were only two men behind him. He reined the stallion about, his knee then the horse’s nose nearly knocking the dry stone wall, and drove in his heels. The stallion flattened his ears, chin tucked and mane flying, slewing divots as he dug in.
One hefty lance corporal barred his escape, Lee Enfield pointing up. Blanks, Faust reminded himself, and kicked the stallion. The other soldier yelled into the microphone, words incoherent, his gaze sliding sideways as the stallion’s big feet pounded in his direction. But he didn’t budge from his post. In his heart, Faust both saluted and cursed him. Too much to ask for a British Army soldier to abandon his post in the heat of combat.
The lance corporal met Faust’s stare, face reddening in the sunlight, and also held his ground. He was easily six feet tall, shoulders broad to match. It wasn’t likely the horse could jump so high; he was good, but not that good, and horses hadn’t been trained to jump through a man rather than over him since the death of knighthood. To signal his intentions and give the corporal something to think about, Faust rose in the stirrups and leaned over the stallion’s shoulders, narrowing his eyes against the sun’s glare.
As if in answer, the corporal ratcheted a round into the chamber of his Lee Enfield. Blanks, just blanks; it didn’t matter. Faust squeezed his legs. The stallion accelerated again, jibbing at the bit, forelegs reaching as if to eat the ground before him.
The corporal didn’t aim. He fired into the air, his slit-eyed stare never wavering. The bottom dropped from Faust’s stomach. That sound — the point-blank explosion of the rifle would panic most horses. Already the first rush of the rifle’s whiplash crack reached his ears. The stallion froze, forelegs planting in the dirt and head rearing up. His hindquarters dropped and the saddle fell like a landslide beneath Faust. He frantically braced himself for the sliding stop, scrabbling atop the leather as his crotch lost contact with the saddle. One foot slid from the stirrup. But his legs’ death grip held. His arms braced against the stallion’s rigid neck and stopped his body before he slammed face-first into the animal’s massive skull.
Without taking the time to straighten himself, Faust opened the reins to the left and clapped his legs to the stallion’s sides. Momentum still carried the stallion toward the British soldiers, braced hooves driving into the plowed ground. But he took the escape Faust offered. His feet scrabbled, dug in, and hurled them about, parallel to the wall.
Soldiers scrambled up the hill. None of them mattered. The stallion could outstrip any man on foot. Only — and yes, here it came, a motorcycle. The rider, anonymous in leather helmet and bulging goggles, bounced the machine across the rutted rows and angled toward the stallion’s racing path. Faust rose in his remaining stirrup and gripped with his other calf, balancing on the stallion’s neck like a jockey, and urged him to even greater effort. The stallion, ears flat against the base of his skull, surged forward again. If they could make it to the next dry stone wall, he still had a chance.
&nbs
p; More soldiers were firing now, Lee Enfields crackling. But most of them were to the stallion’s flank and the racket only chased him into greater speed, his body lowering as he raced flat-out for the wall. The motorcyclist revved to follow, slanting alongside as if to cut them off. But the cycle could only go so fast over the plowed rows without its rider losing control. Faust held to his course. The stallion answered the challenge and side by side horse and machine thundered toward the wall. Only fifty feet to go. His mind was clear as he calculated the odds; he still had a chance.
But with thirty feet to go, another British Army soldier rose from behind the wall dead ahead, brandishing a Lee Enfield and yelling like a demon. The stallion hesitated and Faust’s heart lurched into his throat. Frantically he tried to sit down. But the stallion’s hindquarters had already dropped and the big head suddenly filled the space before him. Faust’s body slammed into the back of the stallion’s neck, knocking the wind from his lungs and the thoughts from his mind. He launched from the saddle into self-propelled flight. He grabbed for something — anything — to hang onto. But his nerveless hands closed on empty air. The stallion’s massive skull smacked into his pelvis in passing. His body whirled in space. Then he crash-landed into the dirt.
For a sickening moment the world kept spinning. Faust squeezed his eyes shut. He tasted dirt and blood and disaster, heard hoofbeats and the roaring engine diminishing away, smelled oil and warm wet earth. His left arm was beneath him. He tried to push himself up. But a heavy weight smashed atop his back, flattened and held him down, and then his right kidney exploded, exploded again and again. No air could fit in his lungs and instead he thrashed, helpless and blind beneath the ballast atop him. Other voices yelled, an excited pandemonium as heavy as the weight on his back.
Then the beating stopped and the weight lifted. The voices dropped to a babble.
“I said that’s enough, corporal.” The furious tenor sounded directly overhead. “Must I put you on report?”
Another voice, rough but not rebellious, murmured an answer which Faust couldn’t hear through his own gasping. His head swam and excruciating pain blasted through his every cell. By now he’d be surrounded by a circle of triumphant British Army soldiers. Not a sight he wanted to see, but he pushed himself up anyway. His arm shook beneath him. But he’d manage better with his face out of the dirt, and he forced himself to a sitting position despite the agony drilling down into his right flank.
The tenor spoke again. “Get him up.”
Strong arms hauled him to his feet. Faust let them, even leaned on them, before he straightened. He knocked the dirt from his face and opened his streaming eyes. The scene was as bad as he’d figured. The troops who had been scattered at exercises across the field now crowded around him. If any of them were nervous, they hid it well.
“Search him, sergeant.” The tenor belonged to a first lieutenant, only a few years older than Bruckmann but as tough and seasoned as the soldiers. He stood with hands on hips, short red-brown hair spiked about his weathered face. His expression was satisfied but his eyes were narrowed, anger smoldering.
Faust cradled his right arm in his left. As the agony in his flank faded to a pounding ache, other pains asserted themselves — bruised soreness across his shoulders, cramping in his tired legs, a new and aroused stabbing in his left hip. But as usual the sharp tearing pain across the back of his right arm demanded the most attention. Maybe he’d ripped the stitches again. Dr. Harris would not be pleased.
From behind, rough hands patted him down, frisked the small of his back and his sides beneath his arms, ran down his legs, slipped his disheveled and no-longer-quite-white sling from his pocket. “Just this, Lieutenant Briggs.”
“Naseby, Ginling, Stanley-Smith, you’re with me.” The lieutenant took the sling and examined it, then slid it into his own pocket. “Bring him and see he doesn’t stray. Sergeant, resume exercises.” He glanced about at the circle of gloating faces. “Everyone should be quite awake by now.” He brushed by Faust and stalked away.
Two of the grinning soldiers guided him in the lieutenant’s wake. A third followed behind.
The command tent sat in a hollow on the far side of the copse, several larger tents clustered behind it. One was a cook tent; Faust smelled ham and coffee, and his long-empty stomach rumbled.
The stallion stood outside the opened tent flap, his steaming sides wet with sweat, his beautiful eyes white-rimmed. A soldier held the reins and stared as they approached. Faust paused, but the soldiers kept him moving, ducking him beneath the flap in the lieutenant’s wake and into the darkened tent interior.
Several British Army officers clustered about another field transmitter-receiver at the back. A radioman wearing headphones, his expression unfocused, scribbled onto a clipboard. The lieutenant advanced three steps, stopped beside the map table, and saluted. A major in the center of the group turned and acknowledged.
“Lieutenant Briggs, what in the name of — ” For the first time, the major glanced aside at Faust. His eyes doubled in size. “Good heavens.”
It was almost funny. But Faust didn’t feel like laughing.
“Yes, sir,” Briggs said. “That’s about the size of it.”
The major needed only a second to recover. He turned to his staff, all staring at Faust as if he had three arms. “Are there any German speakers in the battalion?”
No sense being shy. “I speak English,” Faust said. His lower lip, originally split by Jennifer’s right cross, hurt anew when he spoke. He paused and touched the back of his hand to the pain, and brought it away bloody. “I’m an escaped prisoner of war.”
“Your name?”
“Faust.”
One eyebrow canted in palpable disbelief. “Faust?”
Faust’s temper flared. He’d been doing so well until this strutting popinjay and his assorted minions had gotten in the way. Maybe he could make a break for the stallion standing so handily outside. “That’s right. Something wrong with it?”
One of the officers still clustered about the radio took the clipboard from the radioman, glanced over the message they’d received, then offered it to the major, who read it without a word. The disbelief transformed into something cold and disdainful.
“From where did you escape?”
So the message referred to his misplaced self. It sounded like the efficient hand of Major Kettering. Faust gritted his teeth; that man would be the death of him yet. “A place called Margeaux Hall, northeast of Oxford. The nearby village is Patchley Abbey, I think.”
The major handed the clipboard back. “Ring them up and see what they want done. Lieutenant Briggs, issue these men live ammunition and take charge of the prisoner.” His cold gaze swept over Faust, not missing the way he cradled his right arm. “Hold him outside somewhere.”
One of the soldiers pulled back the tent flap. Faust glanced outside, his hope balanced like an elephant on a precipice. But the stallion was gone. He’d been recaptured, and the bitter anger brought bile to his throat. He turned to Briggs. “May I have my sling back?”
Briggs stared at him, bleakly, then returned the crumpled dirty scrap of fabric that was his only remaining possession. Faust stepped out of the tent, slipping the sling over his neck and settling his right arm in it as he walked. At least it couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Chapter Seventy-Two
early afternoon
Port Meadow, Oxford
The bitterness of recapture dissolved into numbness, like a toothache under anesthesia. But the fury rankled, and the beating and contempt left bruises deeper than the physical. While in Stoner’s care, Faust had never felt so vulnerable, not even when Tanyon crowded him with a rifle. At Margeaux Hall there had always been an underlying element of courtesy and respect; this cold disdain made Faust aware of his captivity in a new and personal way.
The constant aroma of everyone else’s lunch didn’t help.
Lieutenant Briggs’ three soldiers wired his hands together before shoving
him into the back of a small lorry. He settled into a corner. The bouncing of the shot springs, if the contraption boasted any, kept him awake even after his all-night ride and aggravated his aches further.
When the lorry stopped and the canvas was tossed aside, bright sunlight washed across his face. Faust squinted against the glare. Kettering peered back. They stared at each other, Faust blinking and Kettering strengthening a silence that deepened by the second.
The major finally spoke. “Is this how you wish to be treated when it’s your turn?”
The corporal’s expression remained blank. “Sir?”
“Untie him immediately.”
So Kettering, despite his sang-froid and level voice, was furious. But being forced to rely on someone’s pity only doubled the humiliation.
Faust waited until his captors drove away. “Thank you.” Putting real gratitude into his voice was beyond him, but at least he could be civil.
“Think nothing of it.” But Kettering’s mind seemed elsewhere and his expression remained unforgiving. “This way.”
The horses Faust remembered grazing in Port Meadow were gone. The soft mists and magical dreamy mornings he’d experienced, hiking along the Isis and canal, had dissolved like sugar candy into the grim realities of war. A second city, this one constructed of tents, had been erected between the canal and river, and stretched in long lines all the way to Jericho. It was the most massive encampment Faust had ever seen, and as he squelched at Kettering’s side through the close-cropped turf, he couldn’t stop his head from swiveling like a tourist’s. But he attracted as much attention as he gave, and many stares followed the group through the tents to the canal’s edge.
Kettering escorted him to a temporary washroom, erected proud of its neighbors, with gleaming ceramics and plumbing.
Deal with the Devil Page 39
