Billy shrugged. “That’s alright, sir.” He didn’t mind, as long as he had a decent bed.
“So, how did your talk with the Sabini gang go, Tollman? Any joy?” Beech was hopeful but Tollman explained that they had reached a dead end.
“Darby Sabini knows Dodds, and dislikes him. He was adamant that his gang weren’t involved with drugs, in any shape or form, and I believed him. He said Dodds had been running around with the West End gangs, so Billy and I went to see the McAusland brothers.”
“Did you? By God!” Beech knew of their reputation and was impressed. “How did that go?”
“It was interesting, sir, but not really productive. They also knew Dodds, said he was a small-time pimp who recruited amateur women into prostitution. They said he’d tried to lure their girls away from the club by offering them drugs but the girls told him to push off. The McAuslands said that their girls were clean and had to be to work in the club with all the top-drawer clients that patronized the place. They’ve got themselves a proper cut-glass establishment there. They also said that there was no point in them peddling drugs as all their customers brought their own, which they obtained from their own doctors or pharmacists. They have, however, offered to try and find Dodds for us, because they are annoyed and concerned that they might be tarred with the same brush and don’t want their business reputation damaged.” Tollman gave a small mirthless laugh. “Quite something, sir, when you have to do deals with villains like they are the managing director of Harrods.”
“Indeed,” agreed Beech. “So, we are now in the hands of all the people—police, volunteers, and criminals—who are on the lookout for Polly and Dodds. I feel as though we are not progressing as swiftly as we should.”
“Perhaps you and I, Peter, should go and see Lady Harriet’s lawyer and find out what she has put in her will,” volunteered Victoria.
“Yes,” said Beech, “although I suspect that he will be quite resistant to allowing us to see the information. I should also like to go and visit this doctor of the late Lord Murcheson, but I would prefer Caroline to be present for that interview. I don’t want to be blinded by medical science.”
Tollman stood up from the table and announced that he needed to be getting back home. Rigsby offered to accompany him part of the way, as he needed to get over to the Murcheson house. So the two men left.
There was a moment of awkward silence between Victoria and Beech when, thankfully, Lady Maud swept in and announced that she would only be having a sandwich, due to her overindulgence at luncheon, and asked if anyone would care for a game of cards?
Victoria and Beech smiled and both agreed.
“As long as we don’t play for money, Ma, or matchsticks, or any other form of wager,” Victoria said firmly.
“I don’t know what you could possibly mean!” replied Lady Maud in mock annoyance, and the three of them settled down happily to a game of Knock Out Whist.
* * *
Beech slept fitfully on Billy Rigsby’s camp beds. He was in that state of half-awake, half-dreaming and he was distressed. He was dreaming that Victoria was standing in No Man’s Land and he was calling to her, desperately, to make her move to safety. Shells were exploding above her head but she was ignoring everything. He felt as though he couldn’t move. He was waiting for the whistle to go over the top and then it came … except it wasn’t a whistle, it was a shrill and insistent bell. Beech awoke with a jolt, his head thick with images and his underwear soaked in sweat. The ringing persisted and he realized that it was coming from the telephone in the hallway and he struggled to make his legs work and get him off the low camp beds. He staggered to the door. He could still hear explosions in his befuddled brain and he couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stop. As he reached the telephone and a cool breeze hit his face from an opened window in the front hall, it brought a moment of clarity. But he thought he heard another explosion as he lifted the trumpet from the cradle and put it to his ear.
“Mayfair one hundred,” he said in a befuddled voice.
“Peter?!” It was Caroline and she sounded surprised. “Peter, why are you there? I was expecting to speak to Billy.”
“Er … Rigsby had to spend the night at the Murcheson house. What’s wrong?” He could tell that Caroline had an anxious edge to her voice.
“Good God, man! London is being bombed! Peter, look out of the window! Toward the East!”
“What?! Hold on while I look.” Beech dropped the telephone receiver and raced out into the street. Above the buildings he could see the red glow of fire and high—so high that it was almost just a whisper of a shape in the dark night sky—was a huge Zeppelin, pointing south. He then became aware of some women screaming in the distance and the sound of multiple fire engine bells coming from all directions and heading away from Mayfair. Then he saw a few flashes of heavy gunfire in the distance, presumably from some gun battery along the Thames. Suddenly realizing that he was standing in the street in his vest and long johns, he darted back inside and back to the telephone.
“Caroline! Caro! Are you still there?” He joggled the cradle frantically.
“Yes! Yes! I’m still here! But I must go very soon. We have been told that some wounded will be coming into the hospital. I just telephoned to tell Billy that Hoxton has been hit. That is where his family lives, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” replied Beech, “I think so. I’ll ring him immediately. Caroline, are you going to be alright? Has the hospital been hit?”
“No, thankfully,” she replied with relief, “and the police have told us that the Zeppelin is moving eastward now. It has dropped bombs on Stoke Newington, Dalston, Hoxton, Hackney, and now Shoreditch. The rest of the East End will suffer too, I’ve no doubt, until the monsters run out of bombs. Peter, I must go now! I’ll ring later!” Then there was silence at the other end of the telephone.
By now, Lady Maud, the servants, and Victoria were all standing either in the hallway or on the stairs. Mrs Beddowes and Mary looked tearful.
Beech looked at them helplessly. “A Zeppelin bombing raid on East London,” he announced, as yet another faint explosion was heard in the distance.
“Oh my God!” Lady Maud was appalled. “How could the Germans do this? Innocent women and children! I never thought I would live to see such monstrous behavior in all my life!” She swayed a little and sat down on the stairs, her nightgown billowing around her.
Beech darted back into the study and grabbed his overcoat, hastily covering up his state of undress, and reappeared.
“Caroline rang from the hospital,” he explained to everyone, “to say that large parts of north and east London have been bombed and that the Zeppelin is moving away eastward. But I think that everyone should go down into the kitchen in case the Kaiser has thought to send us a companion Zeppelin to target other parts of London.”
“He wouldn’t dare bomb his own cousins in Buckingham Palace!” an outraged Lady Maud ventured.
“Is the King at the Palace?” wondered Victoria. “German spies could quite easily find out if the Royal Family are absent and the Kaiser could choose to bomb us while they’re away.”
Beech reassured them all that the King had announced that he would stay in Buckingham Palace for the duration of the war. “Now, ladies, please, down into the basement. Have yourselves a hot cup of tea and calm down. I must go over to the Murcheson house and tell Constable Rigsby what has happened. I shall bring the Murcheson staff back here for the night, if that is suitable, Lady Maud.” She nodded and murmured her approval. “Good. Then I can keep an eye on all of you. But, please remember … our work here is secret, so not a word to the Murcheson servants, please.”
“The world has changed beyond recognition tonight,” said Lady Maud disconsolately. “Completely beyond recognition.”
“Peter, how will you get to Belgravia?” asked Victoria anxiously.
“I shall walk, Victoria,” he said firmly. “I think that taxis and police cars will have better things to do than fe
rry me a mile or so,” and he went to get dressed.
The women huddled in the kitchen around the table while Mrs Beddowes put a kettle of water on the hob.
“If you ask me, the Germans are all vile criminals!” she said with feeling, as she banged the kettle down on the stove. “First it’s gassing our men at the front, then it’s bombing women and children in their beds. It’s …”she struggled to find the word “… inhuman. That’s what it is. Inhuman.”
Everyone agreed.
“My husband would have been beside himself with anger,” reflected Lady Maud. “Any decent soldier would. To take the battlefield to the home and hearth is deplorable. I hope the Kaiser is proud of himself.”
“To think he’s related to our own Royal Family. The King must be so ashamed tonight.”
Beech stuck his head around the door. “I’m off, ladies,” he announced. “Please stay indoors and keep safe. I shall be back as soon as I can. I really don’t feel that the Germans will do any more bombing of London tonight,” he added, “but, sadly, I don’t believe it will be the last sortie they make. I think tonight was a test and, having been successful, they will be back for more.”
* * *
As he strode through the streets, Beech could see that lights were on in all the houses in Mayfair when they should have been quiet and dark.
Yes, he thought, reflecting on Maud’s words from earlier, the world has changed, and pretty soon the Government is going to have to issue a blackout order to stop the Germans finding their targets so easily.
In the distance, as he walked across Hyde Park Corner and looked to his left, he could just make out the shape, very high up, of the silently retreating Zeppelin, making its ponderous way toward the mouth of the River Thames.
And we have to find a way to stop them, he thought, his mind racing. More than just one-pound guns. We have to get up there in the sky and blow them up.
But he knew that the fragile airplanes of the Royal Flying Corps could never get up as high as a Zeppelin and he wondered what on earth could be used instead. There was also the question of knowing that they were coming. Zeppelins were silent-running and so high up that it was almost impossible to spot them approaching. Beech reflected that he had heard that Paris was surrounded by barrage balloons which were tethered to the ground and filled with helium, like the Zeppelins. The balloons and their lines prevented the airships from getting low enough to drop their bombs. London would have to think about such measures now. Passing behind Buckingham Palace, he caught a glimmer of light through the trees. I expect the King is having a sleepless night, like the rest of us, he thought, as he quickened his stride toward Belgravia and the unpleasant task of telling Billy Rigsby his family may have been wiped out by German bombs.
CHAPTER 13
Billy was in a state of panic. When Beech had turned up at the Murcheson house, banging on the basement door, fit to wake the dead, Billy had lurched from his bed, wondering what had happened. He’d been expecting to be told that Dodds or the girl had been found—or something to do with the case—but when Beech had told him gravely that Hoxton had been bombed by a Zeppelin, his world had fallen apart. He couldn’t breathe and Beech, recognizing a case of shock from his months in the trenches, had forced a brandy down Billy’s throat and helped him dress, talking to him all the while—reassuring him that he would manage, he would cope.
“We’ll go to the nearest fire station and see if they have a tender going out and can give you a lift,” Beech had said. “If necessary, I’ll call the Yard and see if they can get a vehicle out. We’ll get you there, Billy. By hook or by crook.”
Beech had propelled Billy toward the door and called back to the trembling Cook, “I’ll be back as soon as I can! Get your ladies dressed and ready. I shall be taking you to Mayfair as soon as I get back.” Then he had gripped the stumbling Billy firmly under the elbow and supported him toward the fire station near Victoria Station. All the way there he had kept up his constant reassuring, morale-boosting talk until it gradually began to seep into Billy’s brain and he began to respond.
Billy had turned a tear-stained face toward Beech and finally said, “I want to kill a German with my bare hands, sir. I want to kill someone …” then he had trailed off, realizing how stupid and ineffectual he had sounded.
Beech had been encouraged. Anger was good. Anger was motivating. “We all want to kill a German tonight, Rigsby. But you find your mother and her sisters and sort them out first, alright?”
Billy had nodded and wiped his tears from his face.
Beech’s instincts had been right. When they got to the fire station, the firemen were just loading up more hoses for another run to the East End.
Beech had flashed his warrant card. “I’ve got an officer here who has family in Hoxton. Can you give him a lift?”
A fireman had jumped down and shouted, “No problem! Can he get up on the top of the tender with my men?”
Beech had helped Billy up on to the raised area behind the driving seat.
“Mind your head on the ladder, son,” the fireman had shouted above the din of the ladder being winched into its traveling position in between the firemen and just above their heads. The fireman behind Billy, sensing that he was a bit insecure, had grasped him firmly on the shoulder and had said, “I’ll keep hold of you, lad! We don’t want to have to stop and pick you up off the road!”
Beech had shouted, “Let me know how you get on!” as the fire engine growled into life and started clanging its bell.
So now Billy was speeding toward Hoxton, grateful that the noise of the bell was preventing him from focusing his thoughts into something terrible and unable to cry because his face was bearing the full brunt of the wind caused by the speed at which they were traveling.
His chest grew tighter as he could now smell the smoke of countless fires and it brought back the terrors of Mons and the choking smoke of the battlefield. He could feel his body trembling and, obviously, so could the sympathetic fireman behind who simply placed his other hand firmly on Billy’s other shoulder and patted it.
As the fire engine turned into the Goswell Road, Billy could see the fires burning and he couldn’t swallow. All he could think about was his mother and her little dog, her beloved Timmy, and how he would cope if he had to drag her body out of the rubble. He could see that the fire engine was going to go past the end of his road and he yelled, “Can you let me off here!,” to the driver. The engine slowed and Billy scrabbled off, falling over as he hit the road. He stood upright and waved a grateful thanks to the crew as the fire engine gathered speed again, then he began to run, faster than he had ever run in his life.
Number twenty five … number twenty seven … number twenty nine … the house was still there! Tears began to run down his face. “Mum! Mum!” he started screaming and he kicked down the front door with such force that it splintered one of the hinges. “Mum!” he yelled again and suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, a little brown-and-white terrier hurtled down the hallway at him, yapping manically, and threw himself into his arms. The familiar figure of his mother, in her dressing gown, her hair in rags, appeared in the kitchen doorway,
“Look what you’ve done to my front door, Billy!” she said in annoyance as her son flung himself to his knees and sobbed with relief. “There, there, son,” she said cradling his head to her stomach, “don’t take on so. Me and Timmy’s alright. Your old mum’s too tough for the Germans and no mistake.”
Billy laughed through his tears and stood up. “You gave me a fright, ma,” he said, holding back yet more tears. “I thought I was going to have to dig your lifeless body out of the rubble.”
“Gawd, you’ve got some imagination, you have,” she said softly, stroking his hair. “Come and sit down, son, and have a tot of gin. I can’t offer you no cup of tea, ’cos they’ve turned the gas off.”
“What about Sissy and Ada?” Billy said, wiping his face with his hands and enquiring after his aunts.
“Both fine.
Ada’s missed it all, on account of her visiting her sister-in-law in Brighton this week, and Sissy’s just gone up the road to get a jug of tea from them ladies running a tea stall, bless ’em. You got to hand it to the British, Billy. Whenever there’s an emergency, there’ll always be some kindly souls out there running a tea stall. They come over from Liverpool Street Station, Sissy said, where they were serving tea to returning sailors. Good job they come over here too, ’cos we hear that bloody Zeppelin is heading over that way now. God! You’d think it would have run out of bombs by this time, wouldn’t you?”
A small, wet nose nuzzled Billy’s hand and he leant down and picked up Timmy.
“Poor little soul,” said Billy’s mum. “He didn’t know what was happening when the bombs dropped. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I couldn’t bear it if my little Timmy died,” and for the first time that night, she allowed herself a little spell of crying. Billy, his mum, and the dog, huddled together in a grateful embrace, which was only broken by a raucous voice calling, “Bloody hell! What happened to your door, Elsie?!”
“Oh, here we go, Sissy’s back. Man the lifeboats.” Billy’s mum laughed.
Sissy appeared, carrying a large metal jug filled with steaming hot tea. Her face was a picture of astonishment. “The Kaiser been round and personally smashed your front door in, Elsie?” she asked.
Elsie chuckled. “Don’t be daft. It was Billy. He thought his old mum was a gonner and he kicked the door in!”
Sissy put down the jug and gave Billy a big hug and a large wet kiss on his cheek. “Soppy sod,” she said, brushing away a stray tear. “You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backward,” she said, producing a handkerchief, spitting on it, and proceeding to clean Billy’s face. He felt like he was five years old again and screwed up his face.
“Leave it out, Aunty!” he protested, trying to stand up, but she pushed him back onto the chair and continued to wipe the tear stains from his cheeks. “There!” she pronounced herself finished. “Time for a cup of tea, I think. I’m that parched, I feel as though I’ve just walked through a desert.” She busied herself finding cups and pouring tea.
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