Opening the door, she could see the confusion on his face, and she quickly explained that her friend Mr. Wells was allowing her to stay in his flat while he was out of town. Whether Machen bought the entire story was uncertain, but he recovered neatly and brandishing the paper said that he had been in the neighborhood and dropped by to congratulate Wells on the piece.
“A capital job, as always. His writing has an enviable vigor to it.”
Rebecca did not disagree. There was no one better than Wells at capturing a scene with just a few strokes, and moving the narrative forward. “I was just going out,” she explained, retrieving her coat and gloves.
“Where to?”
She hesitated. “Did you read the item about the sabotage at the Horse Guards Parade?”
“I did. The Germans are behaving like bloody swine. It’s one thing to kill a man—that’s war—but to deliberately endanger or injure animals is beyond the pale.”
It was a common sentiment among Britons, unless the animal happened to be a dachshund or German shepherd. “I’m going to go there and see what I can find out for myself.”
“They’ll never let you get near.”
“I have my press card.”
He scoffed. “And I have mine. But let me accompany you. A man stands a much better chance than you do.”
She couldn’t disagree with that, either. Despite her publication credits, she was often dismissed out of hand; it was just the sort of discrimination that the Freewoman magazine was dedicated to ending.
It was a cold, clear day outside, and apart from the bomb craters in the streets here and there, or the demolished storefronts, London looked itself, the Houses of Parliament standing tall along the Thames, Big Ben proclaiming the hour, the noble dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the highest point in the city, gleaming in the wan winter sunlight. But as Machen and Rebecca disembarked from their cab, they could not help but note the cordon of policemen standing every thirty paces, arms folded behind their backs, truncheons at the ready, all along the fence erected around the perimeter of the vast parade grounds. The earthy aroma of the horses and mules, coupled with the sound of their neighing and snorting, filled the air.
“Let me take the lead,” Machen said, and as much as she resented it, Rebecca held back.
Stepping forward, he said, “Good morning, officer,” to the police captain guarding the main gate, and engaged in some kind of male banter that Rebecca could not quite hear. She saw Machen proffer his press credential, and even heard the words “golden bowmen” and “Agincourt” fall from his lips. The captain seemed duly impressed, and instructed the two constables behind him to open the main gates. It was then that Machen turned and gestured for Rebecca to join him. “My secretary,” he explained, and with her head down—chiefly so that they wouldn’t see the annoyance on her face—she followed close behind him, as the gates swung closed again.
There was a narrow aisle down the center of the grounds, like the nave in a church, with perpendicular paths cutting right and left between the various pens and fences. Rebecca had never seen, indeed could never have imagined, so many horses in one place, their long heads hanging over the railings, their tails switching and twitching, their big dark eyes watching them warily as they passed. Dozens of boys, fifteen or sixteen years old, were pouring buckets of water or bags of oats into long wooden troughs; others were mucking out the grounds, filling wheelbarrows with clumps of wet manure and straw. Rebecca hadn’t gone more than ten paces before her shoes were caked with mud and worse.
“This was once the tournament grounds for Henry the Eighth,” Machen, a renowned student of history, said over his shoulder. “The jousts were held here.”
But Rebecca was in no mood to cast her mind back in time. She was determined to focus entirely on this moment, on the sights and sounds and sensations that struck her. Where, exactly, had the saboteur struck? And what had been his plan? The Times had been deliberately opaque on those scores, and on one other—had he succeeded in whatever nefarious scheme he had hatched? Who, she wondered, could she interview?
As they approached the stable entrances, part of the extensive stretch of venerable structures that encompassed the northern end of the grounds, the Old Admiralty and Citadel, she saw that the constables had given way to soldiers, with set faces and rifles slung over their shoulders. Although she was following close on Machen’s heels, she still drew puzzled, and even hostile, glares from the guards, and once inside the cavernous interior, which echoed with the jangle of bridles, the squeaking of leather saddles, and the cries of hostlers and members of the Household Cavalry in their distinctive red tunics, she wasn’t sure which way to turn.
“The Duke of Wellington’s office was upstairs,” Machen said. “In fact, his original desk is still in use by the head of the guard.”
Rebecca had the sense that Machen would have liked to act as her docent and give her a historical tour of the premises.
“The duke kept living quarters there, too. Shall we go and see if there’s anyone upstairs who might be able to shed some light on the incident the other night?”
While she wasn’t averse to questioning figures of authority, Rebecca had already learned, from bitter experience, that most of the time they stonewalled, confiding nothing and in some cases turning the tables to ruthlessly interrogate anyone with the temerity to ask a question of them—especially when that someone was an attractive young woman. She had been rudely escorted out the door of several government premises and private clubs.
“Why don’t you go and see if you can find anyone who can enlighten us further,” she suggested, “while I poke around on my own a bit?”
“Let me just see who’s about. I used to know one or two of the cavalry officers.”
Machen, in his old-fashioned black frock coat, went up a winding stair, and Rebecca wandered through several of the connecting rooms, some filled with tack and others with horse stalls, where each occupant held its head out over the gate, hoping to snag an apple or a rub of the muzzle. Rounding a corner, she heard a cough from an adjoining corridor, and saw an endless row of massive feed barrels, stacked to the vaulted ceiling. The cough came again, and this time she traced it to an old man, bent over a rusty pail. Before she could say a word, he started coughing so violently she thought he might not be able to catch his breath again.
“Are you all right?” she asked, coming closer, and his bald head, though still down, nodded vigorously. He spat into the bucket.
“Can I get you some water?”
He held up a canteen, still without looking at her, and when he did lift his eyes—rheumy and bloodshot—he registered only a dull comprehension.
Rebecca introduced herself, claiming to be attached to the War Office as a civilian volunteer, but the subterfuge was hardly necessary. He was beyond caring. When she asked him who he was, he gestured at the hundreds of barrels surrounding them, and said, “Provisions master. Silas Drummond.”
Normally, she might have shaken his hand, but she was not only wary of coming too close, but also saw now that his right hand was red and swollen.
“Were you here the other night, when the intruder got in?”
He nodded.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
He shook his head no. “Didn’t see anything, not at first.”
She waited, which was one of the first things she had learned about reporting. Let people fill the silences.
“Everything usual.” He coughed again, and wiped his mouth with the back of his filthy sleeve. This man had no business being up and about, she thought; he should be in a ward somewhere, being properly tended to. “Saw the doc come by, to check on the horses.”
“Was that routine?”
He thought about that for a second, then said, “No. But the zeppelin attack had them riled.”
The attack had destroyed an empty school and several warehouses a mile or so away. Only three dead, this time. “Which doctor was it?” Perhaps she could track him down an
d secure an interview.
“They asked me that already. The one with the long name. Oil something. Never could catch it.”
“So you didn’t actually see anyone else in the parade grounds?”
“No. I only went out when I heard the shots.” Then, proudly, “But I was the one that found the box.”
“Box?”
“The brass box.” He paused, as if possibly it had occurred to him that if she were part of the investigation, she would know that already.
“Yes, of course,” Rebecca said. “The one that you turned over. Thank you for that. It’s been very helpful.”
“Hope so,” he said, shaking his right hand. “It was dark and when I opened it up, I pricked myself on one of them damn needles.”
Needles?
“Ah, so there you are,” Machen called out, walking toward her with an officer in tow. “Major McGuire tells me there’s little that he is able to add to the account in the paper.”
At the sight of the major, Silas levered himself up onto his feet, and tried to straighten his clothes.
“Any inquiries must be addressed through the War Office,” McGuire was admonishing Rebecca. “To be blunt, you have no business here.”
This was the kind of reception Rebecca was used to.
“If Mr. Machen were not here to vouch for you,” he continued, “I daresay you would be under arrest.”
Before she could say a word in her own defense, Silas, plainly unable to remain erect, suddenly stumbled backward, then forward, his eyes rolling up into his head. Arms outstretched, he fell flat, dust flying up into the air.
“Good God!” McGuire exclaimed.
Machen started to come to his aid, but Rebecca grabbed him by the elbow and said, “He might be contagious.”
“What?”
With what, she had no idea. But this, she imagined, was how plague victims must have looked just before the end. “Don’t touch that hand,” she said, indicating where a pustule had burst, leaving a purple splotch.
The major shrank back so fast, he banged up against a post. “What’s wrong with the man?”
Silas let out a low groan, and Rebecca had to resist her own urge to lift him up and tend to him.
“You’ll need to call for an ambulance,” she said.
“I’ll contact Guy’s Hospital,” McGuire said, “and get them to send one right away.” He hurried off as fast as he could.
Machen stood, wringing his hands, and in his black coat looked like an undertaker simply waiting for the opportunity to perform his sad but necessary functions.
But Rebecca was already turning over in her mind the questions Silas’s remarks had raised—who, for one, was the mysterious Dr. Oil? And what could have been in that needle?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Are you sure?” Wells asked again, and Jane assured him, again, that no one else knew about Kurt. “Only Dr. Grover and I know.”
“But what about Maude? The watch commander of all things?”
“The doctor knows that telling his wife would be disastrous, especially as he has already been complicit by caring for Kurt and setting his broken ankle. He would never divulge anything.”
Wells was slumped in his chair, holding his head up with both hands. Jane refilled his cup with hot tea.
“Can I get you some more toast? Another egg?”
Wells grunted no. He just needed to think this through, and his head wasn’t helping any. The night before he’d made the mistake of mixing the barbital with port wine, and after the scuffle in the attic—it was a miracle that no one had been seriously injured or killed—he’d fallen into a slumber that had lasted into early afternoon. When he did finally awaken, he’d prayed that it was all a nightmare—that there wasn’t really a German soldier living in his attic—but now, after three cups of tea and a very late breakfast, he knew that it was real.
“Where did you say he is right now?”
“I told him he could go outside.”
“Is that wise?”
“He can’t stand being cooped up. He’s just a boy.”
“A German boy, may I remind you, who was dropping bombs on English boys, and girls, and anyone else unlucky enough to be under the zeppelin’s path.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Sometimes I wonder.”
“I told him to stick close to the house and barn.”
Wells was still having trouble assessing the situation. He was no sooner back from the Front, where the Huns had very nearly buried him alive, than he’d found one of them lurking under his own roof. Jane had explained to him, slowly and carefully, just how she had discovered him, wounded and starving, in the barn, and how, at that critical juncture, she had made the decision to help him rather than immediately turning him over to the authorities. It had been, in his estimation, a terrible decision, but he did recognize that, once done, there was no going back. With every hour, every day, that she had harbored him, her own complicity had grown more egregious, and the boy’s situation, too, more dire. When he’d landed in his parachute, he’d been an enemy combatant. When he’d traded his uniform for civilian clothes, and lived in hiding among the people of Easton Glebe, he’d become, in the eyes of any military tribunal, guilty of espionage. Several spies, who had already been unmasked, had been executed by firing squad in the Tower of London.
And now he, Wells, was also a party to the crime, unless he called the police, or the army—he wondered which it should be—and turned him over forthwith. His head pounded with the internal turmoil.
“Didn’t you think this through at all?” he said, unable, and unwilling, to keep the frustration and disappointment from his voice. “Didn’t you foresee any of this?”
“You stumbling onto him in the attic, armed with a revolver? No.”
“Not that. Looking down the road, what did you imagine would happen? Were you planning to hide him until the war was over, and then discreetly ship him back home? Because I have seen this war up close, and despite my own, and others’, early forecasts, it is not going to be a brief affair. I would not be surprised if the trenches being dug today were still inhabited a year, or even two years, from now.”
Jane’s jaw was set, her arms folded across her bosom, and he knew that he was doing no good by browbeating her now. What was done was done. But somewhere in the back of his mind, a small thought was brewing, one that he could not express. Had she acted in this way as a sort of muted protest? Was she angry about his passades—and Rebecca West in particular? Was this her convoluted way, perhaps unclear even to her, of demonstrating her own agency and volition? Of acting independently, dangerously, as he did in his own life—in everything from his romantic adventures to his mission to the Front—though within her more limited scope? A problem like Kurt didn’t normally fall from the sky—except of course in this case, where it had.
If only he could focus, with a clear mind, on what to do next.
“It’s doing no good for us to engage in recriminations,” Jane said, with some asperity of her own. “The only thing to do now is to figure out how to go forward.”
Aye, and there’s the rub, Wells thought.
“Kurt poses no threat to us, or to any of our neighbors. Of that I am firmly convinced.”
“I’m glad one of us is.”
“It’s just a question of knowing what to do with him for the time being. Where to put him where he’ll remain safe, and we’ll no longer be in the position of harboring a fugitive.”
“But what if he tells someone that you helped him, and hid him?”
“He knows not to do that.”
Wells snorted. While everything Jane had just told him was reassuring, he could not judge its veracity. Wouldn’t an enemy soldier do his level best to make just such an impression, when his very life and freedom depended upon it?
“He can’t hide in our attic forever, that’s for certain,” Wells remarked, still thinking.
“I agree. And I doubt we could find a way to s
muggle him out of the country.”
“Which would only allow him to reenlist and come back to bomb us again. That hardly seems an ideal solution. We need him neutralized. Placed somewhere he’ll be as inconspicuous, and harmless, as a young German in England can possibly be just now.”
Ironically, as Wells knew well, London had long provided a safe and welcome home for tens of thousands of native Germans. In the East End, they had congregated around Whitechapel, and in the West End in Soho and St. Pancras north of Oxford Street. Charlotte Street, west of Tottenham Court Road, was so famed for its row of German restaurants and clubs that it was commonly referred to as Charlottenstrasse; he had occasionally enjoyed a bratwurst in one of the beer gardens. There were a dozen German churches in London, a couple of German language newspapers, a German gymnasium at King’s Cross, a German hospital at Dalston. In many neighborhoods, there was a good chance that the neighborhood baker and butcher were German, and before the war, well liked. Wells had seen it all change virtually overnight. With the outbreak of the war, German establishments became targets for wanton vandalism and destruction. Thousands of Germans were rounded up and repatriated, and thousands more, many of whom had married English citizens and started families, were herded into internment facilities in empty exhibition halls, such as the Olympia and the Alexandra. Wells himself had seen the vans going by, packed with sorrowful Londoners who had lost their homes, their occupations, their livelihoods, on their way to an uncertain future in a crowded and euphemistically titled “camp.”
It was then that it hit him. If he could find a way to sneak Kurt into one of these holding grounds, where he would fit right in with his countrymen and yet be hors de combat, as it were, Wells would have neatly solved this difficult equation. While getting out of a place like the Olympia, past the sentries and barbed wire and locked gates, was well-nigh impossible, getting in—something which no one wanted to do—was almost certain to be easier. All that Kurt would need was identity papers of some kind—forged—and perhaps an order of internment, ideally signed by some government official sufficiently high up the chain of command to sidetrack any deeper inquiry. But to whom could Wells turn for such a monumental and risky favor?
The Haunting of H. G. Wells Page 21