Dead Man's Land (14 page)

Caspar Myles had an hour to himself following luncheon and, after picking at an indifferent stew, he returned to his cell. There he stripped off to his undergarments and washed himself in cold water, before selecting a fresh outfit and bundling up his morning clothes for the laundry. He always tipped the local women who did the washing very well, and he could be sure his dirty linen always received special treatment and would be returned, starched and pressed.

Before he placed the discarded items outside his door, he checked the pockets and came out with the note from Watson. The one about clearing the air. Well, perhaps the old man wasn’t so bad after all. And equally, maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so forthright with an Englishman. They liked everything codified, it seemed. Beating about the bush was their national pastime.

He sat on the bed, suddenly weary. He missed his fellow countrymen, the lightness of the conversation, the shared references, the sports and the gossip. Even a man like Watson, someone with a little celebrity to illuminate his life, seemed unable to enjoy it, to revel in his status as an author of some fame. Where was the spirit of Empire? This war must have crushed it out of the entire race.

Perhaps that was why he was finding the women even less open and less carefree than he had grown accustomed to in Boston and, especially, on the voyage over, when excitement and fear had loosened some stays. There had been scandalously close dancing, walks around the decks under the stars, hasty kisses in shadowy corners between the lifeboats, even hushed, giggly cabin visits. He thought the febrile atmosphere had boded well for his time in Europe.

Everyone had told him – and even the newspapers complained – that British women had become ‘loose’ thanks to the war. God only knew how tightly buttoned they must have been before the conflict. He was surprised they could draw breath. Yet here he was, months in the field, and only the local girls on offer. And he didn’t want to end up being rubbed down with ointment of mercury like that snivelling Lieutenant Marsden.

And what about little Staff Nurse Jennings? How could he explain her sudden blossoming? She had been immune to Myles’s charms, both physical and verbal, for weeks and he had assumed she was simply one of those girls who had no interest in any man unless he was a suitor approved by daddy. And then along comes this relic of the penny dreadfuls and there are the signs he had been hoping to elicit – the pink bloom high on the cheeks, the fluttering of eyes, the shy smile. Perhaps it was to do with celebrity, but it was entirely likely Jennings had not connected the ageing, unassuming major – who had clearly been handsome in his youth, although that was sometime past – with the biographer of the great Sherlock Holmes. Yet something had got her all aflutter.

Myles knew he had to be very, very careful. He remembered the last time he had been sweet on a girl and failed to act until the last moment. The delay had been disastrous. He still recalled the screams from the nurse as they filled his ears. ‘No, Doctor, no! Stop! Now! Please!’ And the pounding of blood in his head that drove him on and on and on until . . . until the squeals had turned to sobs and Jackson and Everett had burst in and stood there, horrified at what he had done.

Quite how Cotterall had managed to keep a lid on what could have been an almighty stink was beyond him, but the man was the issue of a long line of politicians and diplomats and he used all his hereditary guile – and no doubt connections back home – to make sure the All-Harvard Volunteers was not disgraced before its work had begun. Banishment was the price Myles paid. Exile among the slovenly, melancholic, primitive British. Now he had no country and no friends of his own kind to call upon.

Myles looked down at his hands. His fingernails had dug deep into his palms. The misshapen knuckles of his right hand were white. There were flecks of blood at the fleshy base of his thumb. He slowly uncurled them, and they straightened more like talons than fingers.

He mustn’t wait so long to strike this time.

The thought of action gave him a fresh burst of energy. Myles pulled on a clean pair of trousers, hoisted up the suspenders and went down onto his knees. From beneath the rough bed he pulled out a mahogany box, placed it on the mattress and unclipped it. He pushed back the lid and enjoyed the metallic tang of gun oil as it filled his nostrils.

Bloch was disappointed to discover that there were several entrances to Somerset House. Throughout the morning he watched vehicles arrive and depart, but always from the far side of the building. The main doorway, with its ornate archway, topped by a rampant stone lion, was at the outer limit of his preferred range for a guaranteed kill. Anything else, such as the rear of the house, would be a wasted shot and risked giving his position away to boot. And the single sentry on the door, picking his nose when he thought nobody was looking, he was not worth a bullet of any description.

Despite its nickname, Somerset House was no English building, but a collision of Flemish and French influences. Extravagantly gabled, it also featured two needle-sharp turrets, one of which had been neatly sliced off at the top, like a boiled egg at breakfast. The external rococo plasterwork was pitted and, in places, had been dislodged altogether. Many of the heavily mullioned windows still had their glass intact and most were hung with either blast or gas curtains on the inside, which made the chances of an interior shot impossible in most cases. Even where he could see silhouettes, he was unable to ascertain identity or rank.

So, Bloch lay there, waiting for his luck to change. One shot he would have and then . . . ? His choices were stark. He could slither down the ropes and, in the Tommy greatcoat, make a run for his own lines. The image of his body spread-eagled on the wire flashed into his mind. He had seen too many out there, crow fodder for days on end, to want to finish up like that.

Or he could lie low, hope they would not compute the angle of the shot, that they would not even countenance that their lines had been breached and assume it was either one of their own bullets or some terrible accident. Then, after dark, he could try to retrace his steps.

Would Lux have considered this dilemma? Of the problems of reversing his penetration? No, he decided. To exchange one sniper, no matter how good, for a high-ranking, even iconic, British commander was a worthwhile trade to him. Bloch was surprised to find he felt no bitterness; he might have made the same calculation in Lux’s position. But he did feel a welling determination: to surprise Lux by returning alive from this foray. The look on the man’s face would be as gratifying as any Iron Cross.

There was more movement and he turned his attention back to the scope. In the lane on the far side of the house he could see a vehicle arriving, a staff car, and this one followed the wide gravel drive around to the front of the building. He squinted through the scope. A girl with a green headscarf. He remembered that from the early days. Next to her a . . . what? An officer. But one who sat in the front?

He ran through the possibilities. If she had a green headscarf, she was in all likelihood a nurse of some description. It had been the Red Cross who had negotiated their immunity back in late 1914. And, yes, there was its familiar symbol on the door. Which meant the man in the passenger seat was probably a doctor. Bloch focused on the face. Not a young one, either. A senior medical man. Worth, what?

If he killed this doctor, who would miss him?

There he was, breaking a golden rule. Thinking of him as a man. Think of him in terms of damage done by killing him. A senior doctor was a man who saved British lives. Who made broken Tommies fit for duty once more.

Put a bullet through him now and how many soldiers who would otherwise have returned to the trenches would die? It could be that he had arrived with news of a great new medical breakthrough. That could perish with him. Taking him out of the picture might mean dozens, scores, even hundreds of collateral deaths. A triumphant blow for Germany. The thought had tensed his right index finger.

On the other hand, he might be here to treat some general with the pox, patch up a wounded colonel or visit a friend.

Bloch relaxed the pressure on the trigger.

He watched nurse and doctor exchange a few terse words and the doctor went inside, carrying a bag of some description. The woman stood by the car and lit a cigarette, smoking with an intensity that bordered on fury. There was something fascinating, even slightly erotic about the action, and he let the cross hairs linger on her features, a mere voyeur for a few seconds, rather than a killer.

Bloch heard the half-hour chime from a distant clock. He had been in place for almost six hours; still, he had stalked for longer, both with his father and in no man’s land. He let his mind empty. This was the luxury of his chosen profession. The average soldier would be wondering why he was fighting and perhaps dying, what his role was in the schemes that the generals back in Berlin were hatching. For a sniper, the war was reduced to simple, straightforward basics. Bloch had no need to dwell on the unknowable strategies, tactics and campaigns devised by his betters. His task was simple. Kill and move on. Then do it again.

Another thirty minutes passed before the double doors swung back and the doctor stepped out. But he was not alone. The companion stayed in the shadow for a moment, but as the two shook hands the man moved into the light. Bloch’s heart flung itself against his ribcage like an animal trapped behind bars of bone, and he made an effort to slow it, and control his breathing.

He recognized the face from the clipping Lux had given him. The men were stationary now. He could take both if he wanted. Why not? With minimal movement he chambered a round and moved the sights so they rested in the centre of the target’s chest. He counted to five, making sure that everything was calm and stabilized, and squeezed the trigger.

Mrs Gregson swung the front of the Crossley round so it was parallel to the front of Somerset House. Watson looked up at the sad, scarred edifice, and then to his left, down through a swathe of fallen trees to a lonely church tower and beyond that, a smudge of smoke that hovered over the lines. Gas? No, too high, too thin. He looked at his watch. It was just gone 12.30 p.m. Where had the morning gone?

Once the staff car had juddered to a halt and given itself a shake like a wet dog, Watson grabbed his Gladstone bag from the back seat. ‘I expect I shall be thirty minutes or so.’

‘Shall I come in with you?’

‘I’d prefer it if you waited with the car, Mrs Gregson,’ he replied coldly. It was their first exchange since her intemperate outburst about his former colleague. She had only been playing devil’s advocate, but Watson had reacted as if she had goosed the King in public.

‘As you wish.’

After saluting the sentry, then jumping through the inevitable hoops held at a variety of angles by a team of impossibly young subalterns, Watson was eventually shown towards the rear of the building, to what had once been the ballroom of the grand house. In the reception area and cloakroom sat an immaculately dressed but sour-faced captain, who agreed that, yes, he had been informed of his request to see Lieutenant-General Phipps as a matter of urgency, but, as perhaps the major could hear, the general was busy.

What the general was busy with beyond the white, gilded doors to the ballroom was trying to interrupt a tirade from an angry fellow officer. There were thumps of punctuation during the speech, as one or other of them banged a desk, and low growls of displeasure that made it seem as if there was a large cat, a lion or a panther, in there with them.

‘I don’t mind waiting,’ Watson said to the captain.

The adjutant indicated a ridiculously ornate padded chair that might look more at home in a boudoir. ‘I’ll stand,’ said Watson.

The door of the ballroom was flung back, making them both start, and for a moment Watson thought he must have been correct in assuming a wild animal was in there, for the man who emerged was snorting and snuffling like a bull about to charge. It was a second before Watson recognized the belligerent officer and took a step forward.

‘Sir.’

A pair of narrow eyes turned towards him, failed to register who he was, and turned to the captain. ‘Where the blazes is Hakewill-Smith?’ he demanded.

‘In the mess, I believe,’ replied the captain evenly.

‘Sir . . .’ Watson repeated, but the lieutenant-colonel strode off and out down the corridor in search of the doubtless unfortunate Hakewill-Smith.

The adjutant picked up his telephone, spoke a few quiet words, and then looked at Watson. ‘You can go through now, sir.’

Phipps, a precise, straight-backed man in his early fifties, was gazing out of windows that were not masked by curtains, and the room was bright and airy compared to the rest of the house. His view was of the main drive, down to the stone gates that opened onto the road to Ploegsteert, and the surrounding woods. It all looked deceptively normal.

The ballroom in which he stood had been converted to an office with the addition of filing cabinets, a blackboard and a great slab of a desk, on which various maps and papers were laid out. At one end of the room was a cocktail cabinet, its flap down, on which stood a series of balloon brandy glasses and cut-glass decanters. A Louis XIV-style side table held an ornate ormolu clock, the face held aloft by golden cherubs, and a vase of fresh flowers.

‘Major Watson?’ Phipps asked as he turned. ‘Do come in. Close the door, just in case he comes back.’

‘Was that . . . ?’ Watson began, not sure he could believe his eyes.

‘Of course. Who else would come in and treat his commanding officer with such contempt? I don’t know why French gave him the command. I should imagine over Haig’s objections.’ He was as much thinking aloud as addressing Watson. ‘Man has too much to prove now, he’s become reckless.’ Phipps stopped himself. ‘Can I get you some tea, Major?’

‘No, thank you, sir.’

‘Something stronger?’ He indicated the cocktail cabinet.