by Mark Jackson
“No, sir.” McDonald stared straight over the Governor’s head.
Hastings sucked in his breath. He leaned in slightly.
“When I want an answer I’ll ask for one.”
“Yes, sir.” McDonald grimaced at his mistake. Battle swallowed nervously. The Governor struggled to collect himself.
The space between Hastings and the objects of his wrath closed to a matter of inches.
“At this moment in time, your records mean nothing. Nothing.”
The Governor sat down to gather himself.
“When Thomas left I considered you for promotion, McDonald,” Hastings spoke almost to himself.
He looked up. The sea-green of his glance had darkened. A storm gathering.
“The Prime Minister is furious, the War Office is looking for scapegoats and the king…
“Can you remember anything, McDonald?”
McDonald hesitated.
“It’s all a bit hazy, sir,” McDonald admitted.
Hastings snapped his cane on the desk.
“I’ll bet it is. Perhaps I can aid your failing memory. Two watchmen on the Bridge were found dead. Not a mark on them. Likewise, six of the guards. The other two were strangled. Two of the ravens have returned so far.
“Not a bad night’s work, wouldn’t you say?”
There was no answer this time from the yeomen warders. Hastings was on his feet again, retreating to his window.
“And all we’ve been left with is two hungover yeoman warders and a polite little note.”
The Governor picked up a piece of paper from his desk, a shadow of cold amusement on his face.
“Thank’ee kindly for your loan, Ma’Lord King. Signed Colonel Blood.”
The warders’ expressions tightened. The thief was mocking them and the Crown.
Hastings appeared to have come to a decision.
“The Tower has been closed to the public until further notice. Dangerous masonry, the kind of work that may take months to finish. You two are confined to quarters, pending a full inquiry. Dismissed!”
Two guardsmen escorted Mac and Battle across the Tower courtyard. The young soldiers glanced at their charges with a mix of hostility and embarrassment. Keilty watched from a doorway. As they marched past the White Tower, Keilty nodded to the Guardsmen and at Battle and McDonald. Battle pursed his lips. McDonald stared straight ahead.
Battle’s living room was crowded with the three warders within it. Keilty lit a cigarette. Battle sat with his head in his hands.
“Christ, anyone’d think we’d stolen the ruddy Crown Jewels ourselves,” Battle looked at the others for support.
McDonald did not spare him.
“We did. Just as surely as if we had lifted them ourselves, Tommy.”
Battle shook his head, his eyes on Mac.
“Who could have done it? The damn treacherous Irish!”
Keilty reacted in a flash.
“Hold your tongue!”
Battle and Keilty squared up. Battle the bulkier, but Keilty’s stance was that of a fighter, too.
Battle snarled into his friend’s face; an outlet for his frustration.
“All they’re fit for is rebellion and mutiny.”
Keilty was ready to explode. Battle was itching to light the fuse.
McDonald placed his hands gently on their shoulders. He was bigger than both and somehow calm despite the tension.
“Stop it, you idiots. Step down. It wasn’t the Irish.”
Battle and Keilty had their eyes fixed on each other.
McDonald sighed.
“It wasn’t the Irish.”
Battle cast a sideways glance at Mac. Keilty was still staring at Battle.
McDonald leaned in.
“Where do you stand, Ged?”
Keilty looked from Battle to Mac. His eyes on them, he nodded slowly. McDonald stepped away, giving the other men space.
“The one who stabbed me. He spoke to me.”
Battle’s face was incredulous.
“You told the General you couldn’t remember,” he pointed a finger at Mac.
McDonald shrugged.
“Since when have you told an officer all you know? The thief spoke. He called me an Engelsman.”
The other two stared at him.
McDonald was definite.
“He was South African.”
Battle sat down.
“The Boers. The filthy…”
Keilty cut in.
“Shut up, Tommy.”
Keilty looked at McDonald.
“What’s on your mind, Mac?”
McDonald flexed his fingers.
“First, I want to speak to Thomas.”
Battle looked confused.
“Doubtin’? But he’s in Chelsea.”
“And we’re all confined to barracks,” pointed out Keilty.
McDonald tugged off his sling, with a slight wince.
He stood up.
“Then we go AWOL.”
The others stared at him. To go Absent Without Leave meant abandoning all that they stood for: their duty, their careers as soldiers and yeoman warders. They would become outlaws.
Chapter Three
Flight of the Ravens
A large cargo vessel, the Isaac Hamilton, was berthed at the quayside of the Victoria Docks. It was taking on cargo for the West Coast of Africa. Two police officers walked up the gangplank and they were met by a nervous seaman. One of the constables was offered a document for inspection. Further along the quayside, other boats were being boarded. The operation to track down the stolen jewels was underway.
In his quarters, Battle was taking off his uniform. He did it with great care and thought, picking a speck off the jacket; a solemn farewell.
A police van pulled up in front of the entrance to King’s Cross railway station. The Bobbies fanned out, moving through the crowd, while the police sergeant made his way to the station master’s office.
The station master, a small bespectacled man, read a letter dangled in front of him by Sergeant Hollins. Two other police officers waited.
The station master looked up, a question on his face.
“May I ask what we are looking for?”
The policemen looked at each other.
The senior man, Sergeant Hollins, gave the answer.
“Anything suspicious, in particular, any large cargoes. But nothing must be done to attract the attention of the public.”
Keilty stood in front of a mirror in his bedroom. He was now in civvies. He pulled on a cap.
“Straight out of the bog, Ged,” Keilty doffed his cap to himself.
The room was dark and opulent, a club for gentlemen, of the kind reserved for the influential, the powerful and the wealthy.
The Empire had given rise to many such establishments. This one had been founded in 1810, just before Wellington’s victory at Waterloo.
Two distinguished men, Viscount Crombie and Sir Charles Everett, sipped drinks in plush leather chairs. Both were affluent gentlemen in dark suits.
Crombie was the elder man. He measured his words, like pouring a drink.
“Britain will be a laughing stock. It will undermine the king and the Government’s standing abroad. We do not want another Russia here.”
Sir Charles nodded.
A shiver went through both men. Just six years earlier, Lenin’s Bolsheviks had stormed the Winter Palace in a bloody revolution. In the aftermath, the Tsar of Russia and his family had been murdered and a new power had arisen. Communism was spreading. The fear was that Germany would be the next State to fall prey to it. The terror was that such an uprising might happen on British shores. Sir Charles took a sip of his drink to help wash away that thought.
“Agreed. What’s to be done?”
Viscount Crombie counted out his response.
“All boats on the Thames are being searched. Stations are being watched. It’s vital that we do not cause widespread alarm. The Prime Minister is furious. Heads will ro
ll for this,” Crombie raised a finger towards a steward.
Sir Charles leaned forward.
“Any clues to who might have been behind all this?”
Crombie’s irritation showed.
“Absolutely none. Except a short, impudent note from Colonel Blood,” Crombie’s face coloured as he used the word.
Sir Charles sat back, a slow nod.
“Our thief knows his history, then.”
The Viscount was flushed now; a cocktail of anger and port.
“Charles II may have pardoned that Blood, but it’s doubtful this one will escape without spilling his. About time,” he said, as a waiter arrived with a note on a tray.
In a nearby seat, a gentleman was sitting in a deep recess, wrapped in shadow. He was still, as a snake before it strikes. In his hand, he was slowly turning a black cane with a worn handle, its top carved in the shape of a wolf ’s head.
A row of medals was laid on top of a citation. The aged writing on it carried the briefest details of an afternoon of carnage and death in the mountains of Northern India. It had been a deadly mission. McDonald had gone native, working his way among the mountain paths, wrapped against the dry wind, his rifle bound in rags to keep the dust out. It was there he had cemented his reputation. Dirty work, ending in a bloody gunfight.
McDonald picked them up: silk, metal, paper and ink. The colour of a couple of the ribbons had faded. The early additions of his collection. He looked around his room.
His gaze was slow.
“Thirty years,” his voice was hardly more than a murmur.
McDonald straightened. He was in civilian clothes now. He put the medals in a small wooden box. Next to them he placed a portrait picture of a young couple. His fingers brushed the woman’s face in the picture. She smiled back just as she had when they first met. Her smile had never wavered; from their wedding day to when she had died in this small room. It was the one wound he still carried.
“Wish me luck, Eileen.”
Eileen had followed the drum, she had been a dutiful soldier’s wife, seen the world and disliked most of it. The heat, the dirt, the worry that her husband would be ambushed and left in a shallow grave. Only when Mac had become a warder at the Tower had she found a measure of contentment. It had given her a sense of home and place. Then illness had crept up on her. She had been frail even before that. She had supported him, needed him, yet resented the soldier in him. In going AWOL, Mac realised he was leaving behind more than the Tower and his life as a warder, he was also bidding Eileen farewell.
He wrapped the picture and the medals in a strip of rough khaki cloth and closed the drawer. He would be travelling light on this mission.
The Tower gates were open. Two guardsmen stood under the archway. A military policeman was talking to them.
A small crowd was at the gates, where Yeoman Warder Henry was flanked by a couple of police constables.
Henry was beginning to look a mite exasperated. There was a repetitive note to his voice.
“All I know, madam, is that the falling masonry is dangerous,” as he turned to face the next questioner.
A figure stepped into the courtyard. He was carrying a ladder on his shoulder and a small, flat wooden box case in his other hand. His boots made a heavy grating noise on the stone.
At an angle, high above him, Governor Hastings was standing at his window. He watched the figure, a small frown growing as realisation dawned.
Hastings turned in panic from his vantage point, calling out for his deputy: “Moss!”
The workman reached the gate. He tugged his cap down.
The military police officer on duty turned towards him.
Keilty touched his cap.
“It’s gonna take weeks to fix that stonework, guv.”
The military policeman nodded. Keilty steered away from the back of the yeoman warder. The disguised yeoman was smiling broadly.
Along a narrow lane beneath the Tower’s shadow, a manhole opened. Tommy Battle hauled himself and a small bundle out of the hole. He looked up and down the quiet street, replaced the sewer lid and walked away, whistling. Greensleeves echoed along the lane. The Tower of London rose behind him.
A small arched door opened as the Governor ran out in to the courtyard with two yeoman warders following. They headed towards the gate, part run, part panic.
In a narrow alley, known as Mint Street, a small cart was being loaded with the Tower laundry.
The task of carrying the large sacks of laundry fell to the young auxiliaries. It was a two-man job, moving the sacks from a small washroom, through a narrow arched alley into Mint Street, where the cart was tethered. The older of the two men, Rob, offered his colleague a smoke. John hesitated, took a quick draw, then lifted another handful of sacks, before turning out along the dark passage. John stepped out into the sunlight.
The auxiliary stopped in his tracks. Behind him, Rob’s cigarette fell from his mouth. The cart had gone.
In the stained glass lit gloom of the chapel at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Evan Thomas was setting out hymnbooks. He was older than his former colleagues at the Tower. Dressed in the red tunic of a Chelsea Pensioner, Thomas’s angled face was topped by close-cropped iron-grey, almost spiky, hair. A serious looking man, he was humming to himself. He made one last check that everything was in order and left.
Thomas, resplendent in his red tunic, stood adjusting to the sunlight, with his hands tucked behind his back, and gazed at the wide red-bricked palisade.
The Royal Hospital Chelsea had been built in 1692 on the orders of King Charles II and designed by his favourite architect, Sir Christopher Wren. It provided a home for retired soldiers and Thomas felt very much at home here.
Thomas turned left. He walked slowly through the archway.
He strolled past a gardener working on a small area of soil in front of an open window. As Thomas passed, the gardener started whistling. The tune was Greensleeves.
Thomas frowned and moved his head slightly, glancing back at the kneeling figure.
The gardener looked up.
“Looking well, Doubtin’. Retirement suits you,” Battle sat back on his haunches and grinned up at the astonished Thomas.
“What the devil!”
Battle shook his head in reproach.
“Tut, tut. No blasphemy please. Doesn’t suit you.”
Battle’s grin widened, as Thomas reined in his amazement.
Thomas sat back in a comfy chair. Keilty relaxed on the simple bed. Battle was perched at the foot of the bed, shoulders hunched. McDonald was pacing, restless. Not that there was much, if any, room to pace. Thomas’s room was a wooden panelled cupboard, with dark shutters aside the windows. Mac had to turn with every second stride.
Thomas lit his pipe, his eyes on Mac’s broad frame.
“You’re certain that’s what he actually said, Mac?”
McDonald stopped mid-prowl.
“Yes. Yes, I am. Damn certain.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow at the language. Mac turned to face him.
“It wasn’t just the Afrikaans. The spear,” McDonald touched his wounded arm, “it was a Zulu stabbing spear.”
Battle was confused. “What, they was Zulus?”
Keilty studied McDonald’s face.
McDonald took his time.
“No, they had blackening on. He was sweating. It began to run off,” he said more quietly.
Thomas seemed far away, gathering his response. The others waited.
“Um, hum. Why didn’t you tell the Governor, Mac?”
Thomas turned to the others: “Why go AWOL?”
The word hung for a beat between them. Its repercussions magnified in Thomas’s cramped quarters.
Keilty met the Welshman’s steady gaze.
“We messed up. It was our charge and we failed. Mac didn’t tell Hastings and I wouldn’t have either. This is our fight,” he said.
Battle’s face was earnest, but there was a hint of unease.
“Y
ou too, Thomas. You gonn’a turn us in?”
Thomas smoked his pipe. He smiled wryly.
“Here we are. The Four Ravens.”
Thomas stood up. His decision made.
“The theft was carried out by Boers, a group of at least 30 or so. They approached by boat, scaled the south wall. Disabled the guards.”
“Killed ‘em. And the ravens?” Battle cut in.
Thomas was still thinking aloud.
“The first place to look would be the docks,” he paused only to raise an eyebrow at Battle.
“Right,” agreed the stocky Londoner.
Thomas took another draw on his pipe.
“That’s where the authorities will look, too.”
“There won’t be any way out via the Thames. But we may find something down there. I suggest…”
“I’m going to see Laird,” McDonald’s words stilled the company.
The others looked at him.
Thomas nodded slowly.
“Your old CO. Are you sure he won’t just turn you in?”
McDonald shook his head.
“I saved his life, he saved mine.”
Thomas’s next words were dry.
“And he got the tin.” Another smoke ring billowed out. Keilty and Battle watched the exchange. McDonald dug his heels in.
“He was with intelligence in Natal. He’ll help,” McDonald was adamant.
Thomas nodded slowly, but looked vaguely uneasy.
“We’ll do the docks. My old stomping ground,” Battle cocked his head towards Keilty, who gave the barest of nods.
Thomas took another puff of his pipe.
“You and Ged cover the docklands. They must have hired or bought the boat. Find it. Find that and you’ll find their base. But be careful and another thing – trim your whiskers. You too, Mac,” Thomas pointed his pipe at Battle then McDonald.
Battle touched his sideburns lovingly. Keilty nodded. Mac looked defiant, but Thomas had not finished.
“You go and speak to Lord Laird. If nothing else, he’s an expert in South African affairs,” Thomas’s expression was at odds with his words.
Thomas picked up a folded paper.
“Always writing in The Times, he is.”
Battle pulled on his jacket.
“What about you, Doubtin’? Railway stations?”