by Pirate Irwin
The Haunted Detective
Pirate Irwin
Copyright © Pirate Irwin 2018
The right of Pirate Irwin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published by Sharpe Books in 2018.
“To Luke and Jago, wonderful talented brothers-in-arms blessed with wit, warmth and sage advice.”
“France, the homeland of the Enlightenment and of the rights of man, a land of welcome and asylum, on that day committed the irreparable.”
Jacques Chirac in 1995 the first French head of state to criticise publicly the Vichy Government ordering French police to round-up Jews ‘le Rafle’ in July 1942.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
HISTORICAL NOTE
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
Chapter One
“Confit de canard, roast potatoes done in duck fat, green beans and a flagon of red wine just as you asked for Lieutenant de Granville.”
Ordinarily de Granville would have been delighted to be served such a meal, but this was no such occasion to be thanking the waiter for this meal was to be his last and the server was a staff sergeant, who as dawn rose would be escorting him to the firing squad.
He grunted his thanks and waited for the staff sergeant to leave his cell, which was a stable and had, until the outbreak of the Great War, housed a champion thoroughbred. De Granville wondered whether the previous occupant had enjoyed a more fruitful time than he had in the one year he had been at the Front, and whether he wouldn’t have been better off being born with four legs than two and been as dumb as a horse rather than being so mindful of his men and their well-being.
It was that sentiment that had brought him to this stable, and to within hours of his own demise. No doubt he thought sourly the French High Command would like to look upon his execution as the equivalent of putting down a wounded animal so as to assuage their consciences.
To those preening generals in their neatly-pressed uniforms who drove round in their finely-polished staff cars and demanded the impossible from the exhausted increasingly demoralized poilus and their frontline officers he was a weak-willed animal best put out of its agony.
It was not as if he had been a lone voice, either among his officer cadre or certainly not within the ranks, thousands having mutinied in 1917 after being ordered into yet another grand offensive that would win the war, this time by General Nivelle.
What poppycock that had been! Another failed assault with huge amounts of casualties. When ordered yet again to go forwards like a horse his men dug their heels in and refused to move.
He could recall the uncomfortable – and what turned out to be his life-defining – conversation with Colonel Lafarge, who was aide de camp to General Philippe Petain, the hero of Verdun, who had been brought in to replace the inept Nivelle and to restore order which only a man with his stature in the army could hope to achieve.
Lafarge, tall with dark hair and piercing blue eyes and a neat little moustache, had been asked to deal with the officers implicated in the mutinies and as it turned out to offer up several as scapegoats, for it could not just be seen that the ordinary foot soldier paid with his life.
He’d received a curt hello and was made to stand, albeit at ease, throughout the 15 minute ‘hearing’ where his initial hopes he was being heard as a witness to the events were soon dashed.
***
“You don’t appear to have made a huge effort to encourage your men to go over the top, lieutenant,” said Lafarge.
De Granville had wanted to shrug his shoulders and say what was I to do, myself and perhaps two corporals against forty exhausted but determined men, whose faces and uniforms were splattered with mud and the blood of their comrades.
“I did what I could, ordered them to go over again but they were having none of it. Aside from singling out a couple of them and having them arrested or shot as an example to the others I don’t see what I could have done to ensure they attacked,” said de Granville.
“Perhaps you should have done just that,” said Colonel Lafarge, his tone unsympathetic.
De Granville bristled at this ridiculous response, but knew it was not the time to be impudent to a superior officer.
“Well colonel I will know what to do next time. All I will say is that in the year I have been at the front these men have never shirked a challenge and have performed effectively, often in very difficult circumstances, and with great courage,” said de Granville, satisfied he had not over-stepped the mark in terms of his tone.
Lafarge nodded his head, sipped at a cup of coffee which in contrast to the battered metal vessels at the front was made of the finest china, and glanced down at his papers.
“Well lieutenant I am mindful of the past, but sadly for you and your men that is not what is being judged. As for it never happening again and you doing things differently, that is commendable but again irrelevant,” said Lafarge not bothering to raise his eyes to meet de Granville’s.
De Granville flinched and felt his stomach tighten and his heart begin to beat faster, for the direction of the conversation had taken an ominous turn.
“May I ask why it is irrelevant, sir?”
Lafarge smiled, but his eyes did not, and swallowed deeply, before lighting a cigarette.
“Because lieutenant I am recommending you be sent before a court martial where you will be tried on the charge of failing to suppress a mutiny, indeed of encouraging it to succeed by your lack of action,” said Lafarge.
De Granville tried to interject but his mouth had gone dry and his heart was beating so fast now he thought he would pass out there and then and damage the expensive rug that he was standing on, no doubt irritating the colonel further.
“Nothing of what you said here has given me any reason to revise our decision, despite being given the opportunity to do so. Even your protestation of doing better next time sounds more like going through the motions of what you believe we want to hear,” said Lafarge.
“The punishment if you are found guilty is, I am sure you are aware, death by firing squad.”
De Granville felt nauseous, bile was rising to his mouth to the extent he did not know if he could keep it down, which quite frankly having heard what he just heard he couldn’t care less if he threw up all over the rug.
Lafarge had uttered the words in such a matter of fact manner de Granville wondered whether it too was part of the game and in a minute the colonel would rise, shake his hand and say don’t worry the court martial will find in your favour and we will find you a nice staff job to see out the war.
However, this did not happen. The colonel sat in his chair, lit another cigarette without offering him one even out of sympathy for his situation, and prepared to address another case. The poor fellow sitting outside Lafarge’s office looked even gloomier when he saw how downcast de Granville looked on exiting.
As it had turned out he was the only officer to have even been sent to a court martial. Now here he was aged 24, with a wife and a two year-old son back at home in their apartment in the seventh arrondissement in Paris, living out his final few hours some of wh
ich was to be filled up with a confit de canard and red wine, the final things apart from a cigarette he would taste in his life.
He had had one last painful meeting with Marielle, his wife, and his boy Hipolyte – who already bore a startling resemblance to his father with green eyes and blond hair, for she had insisted on bringing him.
It hadn’t lasted very long. A pointless exercise in de Granville’s opinion for how can one say all one wants to when it is the last time one will see each other.
It is best to block out what one wishes to say and mutter frivolities, but steering away from discussions about the future and what she had planned prior to his return, for barring a last minute and unexpected reprieve she had all the time in the world to grieve and then get on with the rest of her life ensuring that Hipolyte’s future was catered for.
To this end he had made provision for both of them in his final will and testament, not a lot as he had yet to inherit from his father Henry, who had made his money in industry and added to the family fortune with shrewd property investments. He had written to his father on their behalf to ensure they did not descend into penury as he feared he would punish them for the ‘shame’ his son had brought on the family name.
These matters had taken up his time, but it had not eased his bitterness over the unfairness of his situation. Far from it for he had demanded his father raise the subject with the government, to whom he had been a generous donor and had in equal measure been well looked after in terms of contracts during the war. However, he had received a feeble response of ‘this is what Petain wants’ and having scaled back the execution lists from hundreds to just 40 odd the Commander-in-Chief wasn’t going to budge.
De Granville had fixed his hatred and ire on Colonel Lafarge.
The members of the court martial board were simply pawns in the game, and de Granville had ensured at every moment that those people of influence he had contact with and trusted would have his name imprinted on their consciences. Hopefully they would remember and bring him down at a later date, or at the very least prevent any further advancement in his career, whichever one he might choose once the war finally came to an end.
Having discovered somewhat to his surprise he had a healthy appetite he wolfed down the duck and the potatoes, although in his neurotic state he wondered whether they had been laced with a tranquiliser so he would go to the stake without making a fuss, and sipped at the wine whilst he wrote his last letters.
Three were permitted, a senseless rule he mused for a condemned man, so he addressed one to his father, one to Marielle and the last one to Colonel Lafarge.
He entrusted them to the gruff but civil staff sergeant when, accompanied by a padre, he came to go through the final formalities.
De Granville politely rejected the padre’s offer of a final confession. “What do I have to confess to? I am innocent in the eyes of many for not sending my men to certain death or mutilation,” he replied. The padre nodded, not because he agreed with the condemned man but to provide him with some comforting reassurance for there was little point in entering a debate that would not alter the fate that awaited de Granville.
The staff sergeant offered him a cigarette, non-filtered, and allowed him one final gulp of wine before strapping handcuffs on him and leading him out from his stable to the early morning sunshine which temporarily blinded de Granville.
On regaining his sight he remarked how his escort and who would also be the firing squad were all men from his own company, several of whom if not all had been tried and convicted but then reprieved.
“The Colonel’s orders sir,” said the staff sergeant seeing de Granville’s astonishment and then anger.
“He said they may have escaped with their lives but they were not going to be absolved of some responsibility for their actions. The best way for them to assume their guilt and their luck was to stare down a barrel at their officer, who was paying the price for their cowardice.”
De Granville was staggered at this but then thought back to his uncomfortable audience with Lafarge and recalled how he had struck him as an intelligent scheming individual, one capable of turning one’s words into something they did not mean. A prime example of this had been when he had accused him of being a Bolshevik because his men had shared some rations with their Russian allies in the trenches.
Lafarge had interjected “The Bolsheviks?” and de Granville had replied tartly ‘their blood is the same colour as ours’. Needless to say this gem of manipulation had been passed on to the court martial, without the context.
None of the eight man firing squad could bring themselves to look de Granville in the eye, and the two men he marched in between – their breath stank of alcohol -- remained silent throughout the 800 metres to the lone stake.
He stood with his back to the sun and thus caught sight of the colonel standing with someone he took to be his aide de camp. He eschewed the blindfold, accepted a last cigarette before his hands were bound behind his back and round the stake and held out one last vain hope that with the firing squad shooting into the sun they would miss their target.
Offered one last thing to say he overcame the fear he felt at his impending demise and kept his voice steady. “I am a scapegoat for the failings of the French High Command and their incessant and needless slaughter of the youth of a great country. May they and their offspring suffer the same bloody fate as their victims and above all I wish this upon the houses of Colonel Lafarge and Petain his puppeteer, the Gepetto and Pinocchio of a once fine army brought to its knees by their arrogance and their fellow politicking generals. Long live France and long live its people but not those who have visited such misery on them!”
Colonel Lafarge hadn’t heard the words very clearly as the staff sergeant, on realizing de Granville was not going meekly and could incite further unrest, had quickly galvanized himself into issuing the ‘load, aim and fire’ instruction so that by the time the shots rang out de Granville’s audience was just himself.
Time enough for the colonel to read the letter later reasoned the staff sergeant and it wouldn’t be pleasant reading.
In fact Colonel Lafarge had reacted phlegmatically to the letter after it had been delivered by the staff sergeant in what was his last duty of what had been a trying day.
The colonel had simply grunted on reading it and remarked to the staff sergeant they were empty threats from a dead man. Lafarge had good reason to feel secure as it had not been his decision to condemn de Granville, nor indeed the court martial although they had delivered the verdict.
No, the young lieutenant’s fate had been sealed the moment his father had refused to parlay on his behalf and instead informed the government and the high command it would be a good thing for France were he to be made an example of, coming as he did from a noble family.
He might have added beneficial for the family coffers too. For on the back of what was termed by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau as a selfless patriotic act plentiful new contracts were awarded to Henry de Granville.
No, this unpleasant interlude was at an end now and Colonel Lafarge would not be losing any sleep over it, they could get on with the objective of winning the war.
Chapter Two
Berlin, May 1945
Lieutenant Lucien Rochedebois descended the steps of the Führerbunker after somehow coming through unscathed on the hazardous route from the frontline, which was just a kilometre or so away. All that was left of the once huge swathes of land the Reich had controlled.
That of course had included his homeland France, but he had thrown in his lot with the Nazis finding they were made of sterner stuff than those of the puppet regime of Petain and his Vichy acolytes. Why not had been Rochedebois’ reasoning especially as when he joined up the Nazis were the likeliest winners of the second global war within decades.
He smiled grimly and thought how wrong he had been. Instead of seeing the swastika flag raised over the Kremlin or Buckingham Palace he would be lucky even to see the Arc de Tri
omphe again and had been summoned to the Führer Bunker where only days before he had had the Iron Cross pinned to his tattered field grey uniform by Adolf Hitler.
Now he knew there was a limit to the decorations one could earn so the reason for his abrupt summons had more to do he imagined with a special task he had been assigned. That was certainly the impression he had gained from Captain Henri Fenet, the highest ranking officer remaining in the Charlemagne SS Division, when he had told him to pull himself off the line.
He’d gone reluctantly. Whatever their compatriots might think of their actions they had formed a tight bond with the thousands who had donned the enemy’s uniform and besides, with Vichy having willingly collaborated were their acts treacherous? Surely the Germans were their allies and without a properly functioning army back in France what option was there but to sign up for the fight against Bolshevism.
Not even the inevitability of the end that was coming had changed his mind about the action he had taken.
He had trudged wearily through the rubble strewn streets, the stone from the once magnificent government ministry buildings now providing the last line of defence for thousands of desperate defenders, a ragbag mix of professional soldiers who had seen better days and hence why they had been sent back to be stationed in Berlin. Elderly men, some sporting their medals from the First World War, and the very young, some of whom had been awarded the Iron Cross at the same time Rochedebois had received his from a pallid, gaunt and shaking Hitler.
***
Rochedebois had to tread warily for there were mines laid round the Chancellery which like most of Berlin’s buildings was a shattered husk.
Indeed the architectural dream of the one-time water colourist – made reality by Albert Speer his golden boy architect whose remorseless ambition had seen him blithely move from being responsible for creating buildings to being made Minister for Armaments and Production manufacturing the very things that would destroy his enemies architectural creations -- like the military and demonic political ones lay in ruins.