The First Casualty (39 page)

Twisting with all his might, Kingsley was able to turn his body towards the thudding and then to claw and push at the mud with his arms. For what seemed like the longest while, although it could only have been a few seconds, he felt he was getting nowhere. But then suddenly his fingers encountered nothing: they had burst through the fearful resistance of Flanders mud, and seconds later Kingsley had his face through and was coughing and puking and breathing all at once, trying to empty the earth from his body whilst simultaneously gasping for air.

Hilton was dead. He had not been buried but instead, by some accident of fate, he had been thrown upwards into the blast and then shredded by the hurtling shrapnel. Kingsley could see a part of his upper chest and shoulders with their colonel’s pips lying quite close by; the rest of him was lost, disintegrated.

The bombardment was still very much under way and Kingsley knew he must find cover again, and quickly. Flat on his front once more, he crawled in the direction of the British line. As luck would have it, he soon came upon a ruined trench. This must have been an excavation from an earlier stage of the war, he realized, as before the current battle it had been in no-man’s-land. Kingsley was further fortunate in that the slit, or what was left of it, must have been a communications trench, for it was running roughly east to west and so he was able to follow it in the direction he wished to go.

By this means Kingsley was able in quite good time to reach the British line. This did not mean he was free of the bombardment, for this line was its target, but it did mean he could once more move quickly from trench to trench. He did not, however, do what every straining nerve in him wanted to do, which was run as fast as he could to beyond the reach of the guns. He had a duty to perform to Colonel Hilton and to the stranded men of the 5th Battalion. The British guns would no doubt be shortly commencing their reply to the German bombardment and Kingsley knew that before he did anything else he must inform their rangefinders of the exposed positions from which he and Hilton had crawled so many hours before.

‘I have no idea if they are still where we left them or whether they’ve perished under this current fusillade,’ he informed the first artillery officer he could locate, ‘but I can tell you where they were last night.’

Kingsley made as full a report as he could concerning the whereabouts and disposition of the 5th and also delivered news of the death of its commander. Then, finally, he was able to make his way from the line for what he prayed with all his might would be the final time. Men were laboriously tugging an empty ammunition limber back towards the stockpiles located beyond Ypres and Kingsley used his rank and status as a military policeman to throw himself up on to it, whereupon his entire nervous system instantly shut down and he fell into deep unconsciousness.

FIFTY-ONE

A confrontation

Captain Shannon had been with Sir Mansfield when Kingsley’s message regarding his anticipated conclusion to the investigation had reached London. It had been quickly agreed that Shannon should return to France and find out what, if anything, Kingsley had discovered.

He had an easier journey to Flanders than Kingsley had done. After allowing himself the diversion of a night in Paris and then commandeering a staff car to take him up to the line, he had arrived at the Café Cavell when Kingsley was hiding in his shell hole with Colonel Hilton. Having found his quarry absent he had left a note requesting Kingsley to contact him at the police station at Armentières.

Late that same afternoon Kingsley finally arrived back at his billet and, exhausted though he was, he gave himself only the briefest time to clean himself up before setting off to make contact with Shannon. The café had no telephone but Kingsley had an idea which establishment in Merville might be sufficiently wealthy to afford one, and so he made his way to the Number 1 Red Lamp establishment. Stepping up to the rather forbidding front door, he rapped upon it and demanded entrance. Dirty and drawn though he might have been, he still wore the uniform of a captain in the Military Police, which commanded enormous respect from an establishment that depended for its survival on its relationship with the British Army. Kingsley was immediately ushered inside, and so caused a mighty panic amongst the sheepish-looking soldiers hovering in the reception area.

‘Easy, lads. Easy,’ Kingsley said. ‘I’ve no interest in you. This is a licensed place, it’s all tickety-boo. I just want to use the telephone.’

A thickly painted Frenchwoman of indeterminate age shuffled forward and, having made a bow and explained how honoured her establishment was by his visit, led him to a little cubicle. As he passed, Kingsley could not help but notice the two or three girls sitting amongst the soldiers, either hoping to be selected or perhaps waiting for a room to become free. Tired and thin, they were a miserable group indeed. The excessive paint they wore gave them a slightly ghoulish appearance, like marionettes. Kingsley felt that Tommy Atkins would find little comfort with these poor used-up creatures whose life expectancy was surely not so much greater than his own.

Kingsley made two telephone calls from Madame’s little cubicle, one to Armentières and one to the château. He spoke first to Sergeant Banks at the police station, who confirmed that Captain Shannon had billeted himself upon them.

‘He’s a
fast
sort, isn’t he, sir, and no mistake?’ Banks whispered down the crackling line. ‘Brought a trunk full of wine in the boot of his staff car, although he don’t mind sharing it, I’ll give him that. But you won’t believe it, sir, he’s brought a
girl
with him as well. Bold as you please! All the way from Paris. Says he’s promised to show her some action and I think he means it!’

‘Yes, that sounds like Captain Shannon,’ Kingsley replied. ‘Could you please inform him that I have returned from the front and that I shall expect to see him at the Château Beaurivage at six o’clock this evening.’

Having concluded this phone call, Kingsley rang the château and made suitable arrangements for his meeting with Shannon. When he emerged from the little booth the ageing proprietress was waiting for him.

‘What do I owe you, madame?’ he asked in French.

The old painted woman waved a hand and mouthed the traditional French ‘Bof’, as if to say that such matters were of no consequence to her, before adding with a pantomime wink that she was always most happy to oblige the Military Police. Kingsley made his way back through the village and then on to the château, thinking of the sad establishment he had just left and of all the misery and suffering he had encountered in his life and then passed by. He thought of ‘Red’ Sean McAlistair in the prison canteen, taunting him for his apparent indifference to the condition of the poor. He thought of Kitty Murray, still a girl when she was brutalized by the police force that he served and loved. He thought of the Germans he had killed whilst ‘not participating’ in the war. His mind reeled at the daily compromises a man must make with misery and injustice simply to muddle through. He remembered that it had been only the sheer scale of horror that the war had brought which had caused him to take a moral stand. Kingsley reflected that in 1917 the twentieth century was not yet two decades old, but the quantity of human misery it had already witnessed was unparalleled in all history. He wondered what scale of suffering and injustice future generations would find it practical to accept before they took a stand. Or if, in fact, they would find it practical to take no stand at all.

This was why he knew he must complete his case.

Brutality, it was clear, had a cumulative effect on the people who perpetrated it and on those who witnessed it, numbing their senses to decency, until in the end it was difficult to remember what decency was. No matter how inconsequential his investigation might be within the wider picture, justice must be done. The concept that there
was
such a thing as right and wrong had to be maintained.

Then Kingsley wondered whether he was fooling himself with these grand and sombre thoughts. A part of him strongly suspected that his dogged pursuit of evidence had more to do with vanity and pig-headedness than grand ideas of justice. Logic dictated that he would be doing more good by joining a stretcher party, as many other conscientious objectors had done. Whatever his reasons, however, Kingsley intended to see the case through to the end, and the end was approaching.

As he neared the now-familiar house, he could see a splendid staff car parked outside and concluded that his acquaintance of London and Folkestone had arrived. At the front steps Captain Shannon came out to meet him. To Kingsley’s relief, Shannon appeared to have left his new girlfriend elsewhere.

‘Well, well, old boy,’ he said, ‘you
have
been in the wars, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I have,’ Kingsley replied.

‘Enjoy it?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Simple question, chum. Being in the wars. Did you enjoy it? A lot of us do, you know. We’re not all Sassoons by any means.’

‘I haven’t noticed many people enjoying it.’

‘Oh, not being shelled, of course, no one much likes that, or sitting in a puddle, or eating filthy rubbish and all the other dull business. But a battle, eh? Can’t deny there’s something about a battle…’

‘There is something absolutely hellish about a battle.’

‘Hmmm,’ Shannon replied, looking at Kingsley with a thoughtful smile. ‘I wonder.’

‘I should like to talk to you, Captain. The rain’s holding off, shall we take a stroll?’

‘By all means, Captain, by all means. Did myself rather well in Gay Paree, I’m afraid. Too many rich sauces, too much
foie gras
.’

Could use a little exercise.

Together they went back down the gravel drive towards the woods, Shannon swinging along with his usual arrogant gait, splendid, as always, in his perfect uniform, looking as if he owned the whole estate.

‘I’m not saying war isn’t hellish, of course,’ Shannon remarked, swishing his swagger stick at the hedges that lined the drive. ‘Absolutely hellish, as you say. But there is an
exhilaration
too, surely? The point where you become blind to your own fear. It’s almost
primeval
, like being a beast of prey amongst other beasts. I mean, that’s where we came from, isn’t it? It must still be in us somewhere. I sometimes think that to feel truly, absolutely and completely
alive
, a chap has to be charging pell-mell into the teeth of death. Of course, no one who hasn’t done it could ever remotely understand.’

‘So you often observe.’

‘Not boring you, am I? I’d hate to think I was repeating myself. But, come on, Kingsley, you must admit that — ’

‘Marlowe.’

‘Oh, shove that rubbish, will you, Kingsley? I
know
you and, what’s more, I’d be prepared to wager that somewhere in the midst of the battles you’ve been through, you too felt
alive
. I mean really and truly alive in a way that you could never feel back home.’

Kingsley did not answer. He did not wish to give Shannon the satisfaction of admitting that he had a point, for there was no doubt that the man had struck a chord. There
was
a curious and terrible thrill to being in a charge, Kingsley knew that now; he had felt it as he breasted the parapet and followed McCroon towards the German line. He had felt it as he leaped into the trench in pursuit of Abercrombie’s gun. He had felt it as he emptied his own gun into four Germans in succession and then managed to get the raiding party out in relatively good order. It was not that he remotely enjoyed killing, but to be a part of a furious mêlée, to be in the thick of a life-and-death struggle, to be an
animal
once more, existing exclusively on one’s animal instincts…It was in some ways
exhilarating
, and Shannon was right, primeval was a good word to use. However, one thing was certain, he had not
enjoyed
it, as Shannon was claiming to do. And so he determined not to discuss the idea further.

‘I want to talk about the Abercrombie case. I want to finish it so that I can leave this damned place.’

‘Ah yes, and sneak off to Botany Bay with a new name and passport, eh?’ Shannon replied. ‘Your message to Cumming said you were reaching your conclusions. Fire away, I must say I’m agog.’

They were approaching the trees now, the same trees under which Kingsley and Nurse Murray had first made love.

‘I knew it would be you who came,’ Kingsley replied. ‘When I sent my message I knew that you’d come.’

‘I’m your contact. Who else would come?’

‘All the same, I knew that it would be you.

‘Missing me, I expect. I have that effect on all the girls.’

‘You are, of course, aware that Hopkins did not kill Abercrombie?’

‘Of course. They released him. Bullet didn’t fit, sensational bit of news. Sir Mansfield assured me that Lloyd George was thrilled, no more class war. The union’s satisfied, MacDonald and all those self-righteous novelists and playwrights happy as larks. The Tories have been forced to stop Red-baiting. The only sour note is Lord Abercrombie’s not unnatural interest in who actually
did
kill his bloody son, but that’s not a political issue after all.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Ah-ha. So Sherlock Holmes has surprises to reveal. Well, come on, man, spit it out, I can see you’re dying to. What of this shadowy officer who was seen? I presume it was him who did it.’

‘I know who that was. A young subaltern named Stamford. Abercrombie’s lover.’

‘
Lover?
I say, that is juicy. So the people’s hero was a bugger, eh? Bloody poet, you see. Should have guessed.’

‘You mean you didn’t know?’

‘Why would I?’

‘Well, what with you being Secret Service and all.’

‘We don’t know everything. In fact the truth is we know very little. It’s all show with us.’

Now they were well amongst the trees, Kingsley felt that they must be nearly at the exact spot where he had made love to Nurse Murray. Involuntarily he found himself wondering for a moment what Agnes was doing.

‘I saw your lovely wife again,’ said Shannon, almost as if he had been reading Kingsley’s thoughts. ‘Felt I ought to, you know, since it was me who arranged your death. See how she was and all that. She’s a fine-looking woman though, isn’t she?’

Kingsley remained silent but he could feel his fists clenching as a surge of rage swept through his body.

‘Don’t you want to know how she was? How I was received and all that…?’ Shannon sneered.

‘We are discussing my assignment, Captain.’

‘…Not warmly, as it happens. Proud piece, your missus. God knows why, considering she married
you
. What she needs is a proper breaking-in. Damned if I don’t fancy the job myself.’

‘We are discussing,’ Kingsley said, struggling to keep his voice steady, ‘the Abercrombie murder.’

‘I thought you just said Stamford killed him? Lovers’ tiff, I suppose. God, this’ll be a nasty one to explain away to the press.’

‘Stamford did not kill Abercrombie.’

‘I thought you claimed he was the shadowy officer?’

He was
one
of the shadowy officers.’

‘There was more than one?’

‘Yes. There were two. McCroon and Nurse Murray saw two
different
officers.’

‘Ah yes, Nurse Murray. Top-hole little filly to take over the jumps. More fire than a furnace, more spirit than a distillery.’

‘We are discussing the — ’

‘Did you have a crack at her? More your type than mine, I imagine, at least intellectually. All that politics, not for me,
so
dull. Not that I bed a bint for her conversation. And too skinny, of course. Why
do
girls these days want to look like boys?’