The passage, like the dugout, was lit by rapid shudders of green and blue. As Forrester descended, the light dimmed gradually. Soon he’d lost sight of the walls, and he had an impression that they weren’t close anymore. He questioned if they were still there at all; senses he was unable to identify informed him that about him was nothing except void.
And he was no longer walking. If there was a word for his motion, he’d have chosen swimming, but the truth was that he had no word. Nor was he alone. He couldn’t see them, but he knew that they were there, and perhaps he should have been frightened. Yet what he actually felt was so much the opposite of fear, so exceeding mere joy, that he had no word for that either.
The next morning, he woke by degrees, feeling woozy and ill. Steadily the grogginess passed, however, and he realised it wasn’t sleep or the ghastliness of the night before that had caused his fatigue but the tablets Campion had forced on him. He found the water by his bedside and drank the glass off in its entirety.
Then he sat up and probed his foot. When he peeled the bandage back, the flesh beneath was red and mottled, blistered in places. Not black, though; not dead. He would not be losing toes.
He could walk. And he would. Because, somewhere in the depths of his sleep, a conviction had come over him, and now in the waking hours it remained. He would not stay here, not if he had any say in the matter. He’d escape if he possibly could.
Forrester made himself sit up, and then, using the bedstead for support, steeling his nerves against the pain he knew was coming, he stood.
His left leg held. His right foot hurt like all hell, despite its shell of bandages, but took his weight. He tentatively released the bedstead and allowed himself a moment to enjoy the accomplishment of being upon his own two feet. Then, letting the bed and wall bear his weight, he made his way into the bathroom, relieved himself, and washed. Lastly, he drank wonderfully cold water straight from the tap until he could stomach no more .
He was starting to tire. Forrester gripped the washstand and studied his face in the mirror. Dark half circles emphasised almost-black eyes—his mother’s eyes—and his lips were thin and bloodless. His hair, though short, was beginning to form into loose waves and curls at the top and sides, another maternal characteristic.
His was not, he’d always felt, a handsome face, and certainly not a strong one like his father’s. He thought then of his father as he’d last seen him, glaring from the doorway of his home, which once had been Forrester’s home also. Sentimental had been his epithet of choice for his son, and perhaps it was that, sentimentality, that Forrester read in his own features. There was weakness there, at any rate, or so it appeared to him.
Nevertheless, Forrester decided, it was not a bad face. Notwithstanding his father’s opinions, a little sentimentality might not be so awful a failing.
“You’re not about to let them beat you, do you hear?” he addressed the mirror. Much as he felt foolish, he went on. “You’ve been strong before, when you needed to be. You can be again. And as of right now, you will.”
He still felt foolish. Yet beneath that, Forrester detected the first faint stirrings of courage. There had been times when he’d been brave in France, for the men. He had done things he’d never have believed himself capable of. And prior to that, prior to the war, on occasions: that last exchange with his father, for instance, when he’d told the man who’d terrified him since childhood exactly what he thought of him.
Forrester was halfway back to bed when there came a knock on the door. Likely not Campion then, who had apparently abandoned such courtesies, but to be on the safe side, Forrester hobbled the remaining distance and tucked the sheets over himself, and only once he was settled called, “Come in.” Better for the moment that no one should know the full extent of his ability.
His visitor was Abhaya, bringing his breakfast tray. He recalled that he hadn’t eaten the previous day, and now that he’d washed away the residue of the pills, he was furiously hungry. Thank goodness they weren’t trying to starve him out. In fact, the breakfast Abhaya had brought was as excellent as all the food had been: sausage, bacon, toast, a roasted tomato in halves, and a fresh fried egg. He barely managed to say thank you before setting upon his plate, and as usual Abhaya left him to eat in peace.
When she returned, though, and as she took the tray from him, she murmured, “I’m so sorry about your foot.”
She sounded genuinely remorseful, as if her presence had been a sort of complicity. Forrester essayed a wry smile. “I’m sorry about it too.”
Abhaya lowered her voice further, almost to a whisper. “I heard the doctor say, it may take weeks to heal, but it will.”
“That’s good news,” Forrester remarked. And even if she’d only confirmed his own conclusions, it was. “Thank you for your help that morning. You were ... very gentle.”
He grasped immediately that he’d said the wrong thing. Whatever hint of openness Abhaya had revealed was gone. With a slight bow of acknowledgement, she started toward the door.
Then, in the doorway, she paused. She put the tray on the chest of drawers and, returning, delved into a pocket of her smock. “I meant to give you this.”
She held out her hand. As he took its contents, Forrester recognised the locket Middleton had entrusted him with.
The dream of that night came back to him. He remembered what the phantasm of Middleton had requested, and his own reply: I’ll look for it . Well, he hadn’t had to look far, and what a strange coincidence, that Abhaya should have chosen this of all days. Though her implication had been that she’d intended to return the locket for some time and had merely forgotten, some intuition told him the truth was otherwise. Perhaps she’d wanted to give it to him, but absent-mindedness hadn’t been what constrained her.
“I’ll keep it safe,” he said. He meant, I’ll keep it hidden , and he spoke deliberately, to make certain she understood. He slipped the locket around his neck, taking care that both chain and pendant were out of sight, taking care too that she should see how cautious he was being. Manifestly there was significance in her returning the locket to him like this, and he believed he had a notion of what it was. In however small a way, she was prepared to take his side.
“This is very good of you,” he said. “I know...” But he wasn’t sure how to complete the sentence. “I know you’re in a difficult position,” he finished finally.
He sensed she wanted to leave, yet he felt urgently that he must keep her. He was scared that their tenuous progress would fade to nothing if he couldn’t find a means of consolidating it. “Why did they do what they did?” he asked quickly. “My foot, what were they hoping to achieve?”
“They didn’t explain it to me,” she said.
“And do you know what’s going on?” Forrester pressed. “That is, here at Sherston?”
This time, she didn’t answer.
His question had been idiotically vague. He comprehended so little. What ought he to be asking? “But surely you’ve heard something?” he persisted. “How long have you been here?”
Abhaya hesitated. “Not long.”
Did that suggest she’d arrived just before Forrester himself, as Morgan had claimed to have done? “And when you came, didn’t they give you some idea of what you were in for?”
“I need to go,” Abhaya said, but without force.
“Do you know Forbes? Can’t you tell me that much? ”
“Yes. I know him.”
Forrester paused, still not confident of what he was after. “Can he be trusted?”
He thought at first that once more she wouldn’t answer. Then she said, “No. You mustn’t trust him.”
Forrester’s heart fluttered with a sense of expectancy and of menace. “Is he dangerous?”
“Yes. He’s very dangerous.”
“He’d let them hurt me again?”
“He’ll do whatever he thinks is necessary.” She said this slowly and precisely, as though determined that each word be unmistakeable.
S
o she did know something; more, perhaps, than he’d dared to anticipate. And she’d had experience of Forbes, that was apparent. Yet suddenly all of his other queries seemed secondary to one overwhelming question. “Would you help me, Abhaya?”
“I can’t.”
But she’d wavered as she said it. “Do you mean you’re not able to, or that you’d put yourself at risk if you did? Or is it both?” When she didn’t respond, he encouraged, “Look here, the last thing I want is to get you into any trouble. I hope you’ll believe me in that. Only, it wouldn’t take much. I may be in rather a state, but I’m not useless. I’m not without my resources. If I could once get out of this place—“
He had pushed too hard, and he’d lost her. All of that was clear in her face. Forrester cursed himself. Here had been his best shot, and he’d blown it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I see how it is. You won’t tell Forbes I asked, will you?”
“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised solemnly—and he was sure that, in this at least, he could rely on her.
After Abhaya left, Forrester removed the locket and clicked the front panel open.
He inspected the two photographs, the younger woman and the older. What had Middleton said his sister’s name was? Agatha, that was it. A stern name for one so pretty. Though she was posing in that stiff-backed, unhappy-seeming way that people always adopted for portraits, there was no hiding her attractiveness. Hers was a good kind of beauty, too, of the sort Middleton himself had possessed, a radiance that spoke of energy and life. Her features were honest and open, and despite her chestnut hair, she even had Middleton’s freckles, in speckled stripes that emphasised her eyes. They really were very much alike.
Forrester sat gazing at the locket for longer than he could say. After a while, he realised tears were drying on his cheeks. Still he sat unmoving, searching for he knew not what in that diminutive sepia image.
It was pure luck that he heard the footsteps. There was the faintest tapping, and some urge of instinct made him ball the locket in his fist and dash it beneath the bedclothes. All of that happened in a moment, which was fortunate, since a moment was all he had before the door swung open and Campion stepped in.
The sergeant looked suspicious—but then Forrester had to remind himself that suspicion was the man’s staple expression. “Now that you’ve some breakfast in you,” Campion said, “the major wants to know if you’re up for talking.”
The same impulse that had made Forrester hide Middleton’s locket warned him that he must under no circumstances divulge to Campion the truth of how he felt. Having committed to escape, he needed time to scheme, free of whatever tortures Forbes or the mysterious director might devise. “I doubt that I can walk,” Forrester rasped, making his voice frail.
“I’ll bring the chair up,” Campion proposed .
“My foot, you see ... the pain.” Then, to pre-empt Campion’s obvious reaction, “And those tablets make one so damnably groggy.”
“I’ll carry you if I have to.”
“I’m not certain I can dress,” Forrester persisted, ignoring the implicit threat. “I know I couldn’t get my boots on.”
“For goodness’ sake! It’s not a parade!” Campion shrugged, with the air of a put-upon man tasked with one impossible demand too many. “Fine, I’ll inform Major Forbes that you’re not up to a conversation. But I can’t say he’ll like it.”
Chapter Twelve
F orbes didn’t appear that afternoon as Forrester had thought he might, or in the evening. Perhaps he genuinely believed that Forrester was too enervated to see him; perhaps he was taking satisfaction from making him wait and fret. Meanwhile, Abhaya, when she came with his meals and to check his bandages, was withdrawn and wouldn’t meet his eye. By the time he settled down to sleep, Forrester was despondent and anxious for the next day.
Campion had been right; Forbes wouldn’t have liked his not showing. He wasn’t used to noncompliance, even of so passive a variety. Forrester might have bought himself a reprieve from further physical ordeals, but Forbes was perfectly capable of coming up with torments of the mind. Hadn’t every debate with the man had the feel of an obstacle course run through machine gun fire?
Forrester remembered what he’d told Abhaya: I’m not without my resources . That had been an exaggeration at best. A keen intellect and the ability to hobble were not exactly the makings of an escape attempt. The truth was, he’d had the ideal opportunity, with his captors fast asleep and the doors wide open, and its like would not come again. If Forbes was set on keeping him here, he was sure to have taken appropriate measures.
All right. Assume that he wouldn’t get another chance during the day, while he was outside this room. That left the night and figuring out a means of opening his perpetually locked door. The simplest one, to try and overpower Abhaya for her key, he rejected immediately. His freedom wasn’t worth mistreating a woman, especially one who’d shown him decency. Beyond any squeamishness, though, he found that his thoughts slipped from the plan almost as he considered it.
Anyway, a solution that relied on Abhaya’s imprisonment would do him no good. Her absence was bound to be noted, and once they were hunting him, he’d be done for. What were his alternatives then? He could see none. He evidently couldn’t talk his way out; he’d learned with Abhaya how inadequate his powers of persuasion were. He could think of no subterfuge that would necessitate them taking him away from Sherston. He hadn’t the faintest clue of how to pick a lock, and opening the door by brute force was a fruitless prospect.
There was no question, Abhaya had been his one hope. If only he’d been less hasty, not so confrontational. If only he’d taken the time to convince her, rather than imagining he could cajole her. Now it was too late.
He’d determined to escape, but in truth he’d achieved nothing. And soon he would have Forbes to deal with once more.
Indeed, it was the following morning when Forbes finally materialised, and this time he’d come prepared: he carried a folding wooden chair under one arm. The accoutrement made him seem disconcertingly innocuous, like a country parson readying for a garden party.
“Sergeant Campion tells me that you’re not well enough to come to me,” he said, “so I opted to visit you instead. Assuming you’ve no objection?”
The hour was sometime after breakfast. Abhaya had been and gone, saying nothing besides her habitual, “Good morning.” Forrester could think of plenty of reasons to be dejected; however, the truth was that he felt considerably better than he had yesterday. The pain in his lungs was relegated to a faint ache, and both his leg and foot were quite bearable. Depressed as his state of mind might be, he could not feel really bad when his body was recovering so obstinately.
Yet he must reveal none of that to Forbes. “Of course not,” Forrester said. “Anyway, it may be days before I’m up again.”
Forbes sighed. “I hope you know that what was done to you was the director’s decision. And that I made my opposition abundantly clear.”
“I know very little. Sergeant Campion was not forthcoming.”
“Then I hope you’ll take my word.”
Forrester checked the rejoinder that came to his tongue. There was no advantage to be gained in baiting Forbes. He had to remember he was playing the part of helpless invalid. Shifting his feet beneath the blankets, he winced in only partially feigned pain. “I’m sorry,” he said, through gritted teeth. “It’s fine so long as I stay still. Yes Forbes, certainly I’ll take your word.”
“And I don’t blame you for being defensive. A terrible thing was done to you. The director’s actions have shamed us all, and I dearly wish I could make him listen to reason. That’s why I’m here, in fact: I’m positive that if we were to make even a trace of progress, so that I had something to offer him...”
Forbes let the sentence trail away. He actually looked plaintive. Now that Forrester had resolved not to trust a single syllable that came from his mouth, he could see how clever Forbes was, how creative in his manipulat
ion.
Well, Forrester was no dolt himself. If they must play games, at least he could hold his own. He averted his eyes, letting anxiety creep into them. “Except that there’s nothing, is there? We’ve gone over it all.”
“Not in the least,” Forbes exclaimed, with the passion of a stern but fond parent. “I’m sure you’ve been frank with me, to the best of your ability. If there’s a fault, then it’s mine, for posing the wrong questions. So answer me this, Forrester, and please be absolutely truthful: what do you think happened out there in France? What do you truly believe you saw?”
Might Forbes really want the truth? Maybe an attempt couldn’t hurt. “It could have been some new German weapon,” Forrester said, “but the more I’ve thought, the less that would make sense. The Boche were struck down, just like our lot. It’s possible they underestimated its potency, that they didn’t care about the lives of a few of their own men. Only...”
“Yes?” Forbes’s eyes were bright with interest.
“Only, the first waking soul I encountered was an officer from our side. Is it plausible that the Germans would unleash a new weapon, one unexpected and unprecedented, and yet we’d be out investigating before them? No, I think it was something our own boys cooked up.”
The light in Forbes’s eyes had not dimmed. “I appreciate your candour,” he said. “I do. And I’d like to reward it by being candid myself. You’re an intelligent man, Forrester. You must realise that I haven’t been altogether honest with you.”
Since his approach had been well received, Forrester decided to stick with it a little further. “I’ve no idea if you’ve been even slightly honest with me,” he responded levelly.
“Then have you considered that I might have had good reason to keep back aspects of the truth? You’re an officer in His Majesty’s Army. You know better than most that not every truth is appropriate for every ear.”
“Yes,” Forrester said. “I’ve considered that.”
To End All Wars Page 14