Dead Man's Land (25 page)

Mrs Gregson shook her head. ‘I’d have woken you if anything happened. You looked all done.’

He moved stiffly, feeling his age, over across to where de Griffon lay. He no longer had the oxygen mask on, his face looked serene, his breathing was steady. Watson gingerly checked the pulse. It was nicely robust.

‘I think you saved him,’ said Mrs Gregson.

‘I think
we
saved him. I’ll need to question him about how this started, once he is strong enough. And I should get his sample to a laboratory.’ Watson had saved some of the blood extracted from de Griffon for analysis.

‘All that can wait. You look dreadful. You gave too much blood.’

It was probably true. He was certainly fatigued and the room felt as if he were on some ocean liner, rolling gently in a swell. ‘You did the same.’

She threw him a look that, without any need for vocalizing, told him she was younger and fitter than he. ‘I’ll wake up Alice – Miss Pippery – in a while or so and I’ll get some sleep myself. But you go back to your room, now. That’s a VAD order. The other thing can wait.’

‘The other thing?’ he asked groggily.

She mimed digging with a shovel.

He shook his head. ‘Mrs Gregson, I am many things, but I’m not a grave robber. We’ll have to go through proper channels.’

She raised an eyebrow to show what she thought of those. ‘Go to bed. Now. Shoo.’

Too weary to argue, he thanked her, picked up his tunic and walked out into the dank night.

Well done, Watson
, said the imposter in his head.

Yet, even knowing it was fraudulent, the return of the voice gave him some comfort. As he took one leaden step after another up the hill, his collar turned up to the wind, he wondered how his life might have turned out without that fateful meeting in the chemical laboratory of St Bart’s. It was one of those forks in the road that litter everybody’s life. That one had hinged on a chance conversation with Stamford, his former dresser from Bart’s, at the Criterion Bar. What would he have become if their paths had never crossed and Stamford hadn’t engineered a meeting with a man who had ‘a passion for definite and exact knowledge’? And if that man hadn’t already secured lodgings in Baker Street?

He would have become a quotidian GP, he supposed, like one of those he had bought his several practices from over the years, fingers stained with silver nitrate from burning warts, iodine from treating cuts and burns and nicotine from the endless cigarettes a long surgery demanded, his shoulders hunched from too many bedside visits, the hours spent peering over dying men and expectant mothers.

No, he’d take the way the world had turned out for him over the past few decades. Even if the final act wasn’t the one he had been anticipating. But then, he thought as he heard the low, pitiful moans of a delirious soldier issue from one of the tents, who could have anticipated all this?

In answer, there came only the low grumble of assault guns from the south.

The rejuvenating power of sleep once more worked its wonder, dragging Watson back from what had been a yawning abyss of despair when he had laid his head on the pillow. His mood was lifted further by the discovery of a pair of thick socks at the foot of his bed. They had been hand-knitted. He remembered what Churchill had said. The way to win a soldier’s heart and mind was through clean socks.

He was already up and dressed when Brindle arrived with tea and he was again busy writing down his own account of what had happened over the last forty-eight hours. Watson hoped that putting things down in logical order might present some sort of solution, but no new insight was granted him. The link, if it was a link, suggested that all the victims had come from the same regiment, indeed the same company, although this Hornby was from a different platoon.

As he supped his tea, his mind drifted off to what, exactly, Mrs Gregson had promised in order to establish Hornby’s identity. He knew his moral standards were formed in another century, but nevertheless he felt uneasy. It was true that widows were not expected to have the same level of decorum as an unmarried woman – he certainly did not feel as defensive towards Mrs Gregson as Staff Nurse Jennings or Miss Pippery – but he hoped she hadn’t compromised herself for his sake. Or, the sake of the investigation he should say.

On whose authority are you investigating?

It was the stentorian tones of Major Torrance invading his thoughts this time. And the major was right. Once he had a full set of facts, he had to involve the Military Police. He would do so that very day. And he would have to tell Mrs Gregson that exhuming Hornby’s body without official sanction – did that include the permission of the next of kin he wondered? – was out of the question. But first, he had a few small chores to perform.

He scooped up the mahogany box containing the Colt .45 and went along to Caspar Myles’s room. There was no reply. He hesitated before turning the handle on the primitive latch system – the monastery had clearly not believed in keys or privacy – and entered the room. The curtains were still drawn and he pulled them back to let in some of the grey morning light.

The bed, as far as he could tell, had not been slept in. It was possible that Dr Myles had bedded down in the wards – that was not unusual if there was a patient that needed a careful watch.

And then, plucked from his memory apparently at random, came a phrase. ‘
And I told Dr Myles I would not even contemplate a dinner this evening without a chaperone
.’

There it was
: this evening.
Somehow the timing had failed to register or his ageing brain had not had the wherewithal to hang on to it.

Myles had asked her to dinner the previous evening, she had nominated Watson as chaperone and come to find him at the transfusion tent. He, of course, had clearly been in no position to come along anywhere. So she had . . . what?

He hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and went down to the transfusion tent, where he found de Griffon sitting up in bed, a smile on his face and a mug of tea in his hand. He and Mrs Gregson were giggling about something, but stifled the laughter when they saw Watson, and the concern distorting his features.

‘Morning, Captain,’ he said. ‘Feeling better?’

‘To be frank, I didn’t expect to be feeling anything. I owe you a debt of thanks, Major Watson, as Mrs Gregson here was just explaining.’

‘Mrs Gregson and Miss Pippery played their parts. I’d like to ask you some questions, if you feel strong enough, Captain.’ De Griffon nodded. ‘And Mrs Gregson, I wonder if I could ask you a small favour. Do you think you could locate Staff Nurse Jennings for me?’

Mrs Gregson, clearly suspecting a ruse to exclude her from the session, hesitated. She wanted, and deserved, answers as much as the major.

‘It’s important,’ Watson said, with a grimness that convinced her it wasn’t mere subterfuge.

‘Very well.’

‘Oh, by the way, my feet are lovely and warm,’ he said, to try and lighten the mood.

‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

‘New socks,’ he explained.

‘Congratulations,’ she said, as if baffled.

Watson still had the Colt box in his hand and he laid it down on a spare bed. Before he began the questions, Watson took the captain’s temperature and pulse. He appeared to be entirely back to normal.

‘You were lucky.’

‘Lucky to have you two,’ de Griffon said.

‘Mrs Gregson seems to have got over any objection to you and your family.’

‘Really, we capitalists are not so bad once you get to know us, Major. I think she was confusing my family history with the current generation. My father is dead, my brother is dead. I have spent time with the men of Leigh. I have seen what fine fellows they are on the whole. Rough and ready perhaps, but salt of the earth. Look at Platt, the sergeant. One of twelve children, of whom four survived. You know when the children died, they couldn’t afford to bury them? The hearses up there have little compartments at the front, so a child could be buried with an adult, any adult, to defray the cost.’

Watson nodded. He had seen plenty of child deaths in his time: scarlet fever, diphtheria, consumption, polio. He knew what a burden the burial could be on a family that could barely afford one meal a day.

‘His mother died of TB when he was twelve, which is when he started doing split days – morning at school, afternoon at the mill. Father was a drunkard, by all accounts, so it was Platt who raised his brothers, starting full time at the mill at fourteen. The lives we made those people lead . . . I tell you, I intend to be a very different kind of owner if God spares me this war.’

‘I am pleased to hear it. But first, we have to establish who or what did this to you. Whether one of your salt-of-the-earth is not quite as benevolent as you think. You were poisoned, you know. Just like Shipobottom.’

De Griffon looked grave. ‘Even I worked that out for myself, Major. But I can’t imagine who in my company would want to kill me. You have to remember, Major Watson, that I never had any dealings with Leigh. The mills were the business of my brother and my father. I was being groomed to look after the estates. But with them both gone, well, it changes things.’

‘One of which is that you are now Lord Stanwood?’

‘I am, but I’m not about to shout about that. The “de” in de Griffon is bad enough. If I called attention to my new status, why, they’d be wondering if they should call me Captain, Sir or your lordship. Do they tug at their forelock? Take their caps off? No, that’s something to address later, if I get through this. And if I don’t, there is a young cousin who will inherit. So please, do not use the title.’

‘Of course. But you’ll continue with the family business? With the cotton?’

‘We shall have to see. Major, I have never even visited our Satanic Mills, except for once when I was young, paraded through the spinning rooms like . . . well, I blush to think of it. Like some visiting prince. All I really remember is the sparks off the steel caps on the women’s clogs as they walked down the cobbled streets. Fascinated me. But it’s not my town. Everything I know about Platt, for instance, I know from talking with him or keeping my ears open. Not first-hand.’

‘But someone could have a grudge against the whole family? In the same way Mrs Gregson reacted badly to the de Griffon name.’

‘It’s feasible. Although let me assure you, the de Griffons weren’t the worst of the owners by a long chalk. Some would say that we’ve been enlightened for decades.’

‘Except for unions.’

‘With respect, we were no different from the other mills, as far as I know. From this distance, it looks like unreasonable behaviour, but you underestimate the threat the owners felt from organized labour. It seemed likely they could lose everything. But it’s different now. Most mills have unions. Including ours. Look, even if there was a vendetta against my family, why kill Shipobottom?’

‘Did Shipobottom work at your mill?’

‘Yes. One of them. And his father before him. But as spinners. Regular folk, you might say. Not bosses. Not even overseers.’

‘And Hornby?’

‘Eddie Hornby? Yes, I believe he was a Blackstone lad, too. He wasn’t in my company. And he was gassed, I believe. Not poisoned.’

‘That’s not necessarily true. Mrs Gregson recalled that, in death, Hornby’s face reminded her of poor Shipobottom. And Mrs Gregson checked: there was no record at Bailleul of any gas attack victims from this section of the line. How could he have been exposed?’

The captain bit his lip.

‘What is it?

‘The thing is, Major, C Company have been put under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Foulkes. Do you know what that means?’

Watson shook his head. ‘I am afraid I don’t.’

De Griffon scratched at his forehead. ‘This is all rather difficult. Foulkes has been raising Special Companies for each section of the line.’

‘Special in what way?’

He laughed at the absurdity of it all. ‘I’m not allowed to tell you. The full title is BSGC, but nobody is allowed to say the “G” word.’

‘Gas?’

‘I didn’t say that. Any soldier mentioning it is likely to find themselves strapped to a gun limber.’ This was Field Punishment Number One, being left tied to the wheel of a gun carriage with no food or water for a specified period, often in atrocious weather. ‘So you’ll hear the words “special measures” a great deal, or “accessories” or some such euphemism.’

‘But we’ve used gas before,’ objected Watson. ‘At Loos.’

‘Yes. In so-called “retaliation”. But the powers that be don’t want the scale of our offensive preparations known. How can we decry the beastly Hun for its barbaric methods when we are preparing to do the same? If not worse?’

Watson rubbed his forehead like a magic lamp. No genie of clarity appeared, however. ‘So these symptoms could be caused by accidental exposure to gas?’

‘Certainly in Hornby’s instance, because he was in charge of one of the special measures dumps at Burnt-Out Lodge, as we call it. It’s the next farm along from Suffolk. How Shipobottom and I could have been exposed is another matter.’

Watson fetched himself some water while he considered this. Had he been barking up the wrong tree? Had he made a fool of himself insisting there was murder – or in de Griffon’s case attempted murder – here? It was well known that both sides were busy creating ever more hideous ways to kill and maim. There were anonymous men in hidden installations all across Europe whose jobs were the perfection of death in all its forms. The Germans had certainly used cyanide formulations to cause heart problems. But, he reminded himself, there was no gas yet invented that he knew of that could scratch Roman numerals in a man’s skin. Or had he been wrong about those marks and read too much into a couple of scratches?

He remembered Burnt-Out Lodge. It was next to the field of mules, the place with the sentries on the tower, covering all the approaches. So it was gas that needed protecting.

‘Have you ever drunk from the well at the farm?’

‘No. Early on the Germans threw some dead livestock down there. I know what you are thinking – it is contaminated, but not by gas.’