“And when was the last time you heard from him?”
“About a month ago.”
“I am guessing you write to each other, am I correct?”
“Yes, sir. That is correct.” Was he likely to telegraph his brother? Where was the Colonel heading with these questions?
“In his last letter, or any letter he sent you in the past months for that matter, has there ever been a hidden message of some sort? Some kind of… code?”
Melbourne frowned and shook his head. “No, none at all.”
“What did you talk about in your letters?”
“Life here at the Squadron, life over in Canterbury. I’m sorry, but where is this going?”
“He never mentioned something called the Iron Shadow by any chance?”
Melbourne studied the Colonel’s expression. It was cold, inexpressive, static. He hoped he never had to play poker against this man. “I am sorry but I don’t understand.”
Colonel Dunn-Hamming lowered his gaze and began fumbling with his pipe.
“Very well,” he said. “This may seem odd, Lieutenant. What I am about to tell you must be kept a secret. You see, your brother worked for us, as an agent, recruited by the Foreign Officer for an assignment concerning something known to us as the Iron Shadow.” He paused and looked back up at Melbourne. “I regret to inform you that he was assassinated while on a mission in Belgium.”
Melbourne found he had to look away. Henry, dead?
“My sincerest condolences, Lieutenant.”
“Excuse me, Colonel, are you telling me that my brother was a… spy?”
“Quite so.”
Melbourne started at him. His lips slowly stretched out in a smile as he began to snicker which soon erupted into a fully-fledged laugh. Colonel Dunn-Hamming stared at him impassively, taking in a few puffs of smoke from his pipe.
Melbourne slowly forced himself to stop laughing. “I apologise, Colonel, that was quite rude of me. But you had me worried there for a minute. I believe you’ve mistaken my brother for someone else. Carl Lody was a spy, certainly not that bookworm of my brother. And assassinated in Belgium? No, no. My brother would never have any business there.”
Colonel Dunn-Hamming put one hand in the left pocket of his pants and pulled out a round, golden locket attached to a small golden chain. He placed it on the table in front of Melbourne. “Do you recognise this, Lieutenant?”
Melbourne picked it up and studied it under the lamplight. The fine etchings on the outside were unmistakable. He slowly opened the locket and found two photographs on either side. His mother and father.
“Where did you find this?” he asked.
“It came with the body, sent over to us by German counterintelligence.”
Melbourne felt like someone had punched him in his guts. His hands began shaking as he toyed with the locket in his hands.
“This… this belonged to him. So, you are telling me that…” He shook his head. “No, I mean, it cannot be.”
“I regret to inform you that it is true, Lieutenant.”
Melbourne felt his breathing getting heavier. His hands shook even more.
“No.” He tried to force a smile while shaking his head. “No, it cannot… my brother was not what you said he was… he was… is this true?”
“I would never lie to you. Not about this.”
Tears began building up in Melbourne’s eyes. He was in utter disbelief as his entire world came crumbling down on him. He did not have the courage to look up at the Colonel.
“There was no…” His voice began shaking. “There was no mistake then? He truly is gone?”
“Yes.”
They sat there in silence until he heard Dunn-Hamming’s chair move and felt a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lieutenant,” the Colonel said. “This war has cost all of us someone close. If you ever see something in the letters that your brother sent you that you might have not remembered, or if something ever comes up, you can find me here.”
He placed a small piece of paper on the table in front of Melbourne.
Melbourne sat in silence, staring at the locket in his hands, unable to move a muscle as a single tear began making its way down his face.
Colonel Dunn-Hamming walked towards the door of the office and stood in the doorway. “Goodnight, Lieutenant.”
V
Melbourne sat at the bar of Le Lion D’or, looking around the half-empty tavern. Closing time was nearing, and only a handful of tables were still occupied by solitary drinkers and couples. The place had been busy earlier as rowdy men and women drank, talked, shouted, and laughed. Somebody would occasionally break out a song after a few rounds. It had been a night filled with a sense of conviviality; yet Melbourne had never felt so lonely.
Le Lion D’or was one of the most popular nightly attractions in the town of La Gorgue. Despite the raging war – or, actually because of it – the tavern had never done better in its history. Its fortune lay mostly in the pilots and soldiers that were stationed in and around the town. One could meet French gendarmerie, English pilots, Irish photographers, Belgian officers, and sometimes one could pick up the exotic accent of an Australian infantry man, talking about his home on the other side of the world. It was probably the most cosmopolitan place in the entire region.
Small and cramped, Le Lion D’or was mostly a place for celebration. It was the place where pilots of all ranks gathered to share their victories and tell their stories of near deadly experiences with the enemy, where one could toast to the fact that he was still alive, at least for one more day.
All the girls around town knew of the place and they would sometimes sneak away from their homes to listen to a tall tale and have a handsome soldier buy them a drink. Melbourne had managed to pick up a couple of girls in the time that he had spent at the Squadron. Le Lion D’or for him was a place where he could find some distraction.
He longed for distraction now.
Taking a sip from his glass of rum, he realised he felt woozy. He looked across the tavern to a table where a boy and a girl sat. Him – a French soldier, young, handsome. She – a French girl, long dark hair, dressed in a dark blue dress. They held hands as they looked at each other in the eyes, whispering and giggling. They had probably met at this place.
He turned around to look at his almost empty glass sitting on the bar. The emptiness of his brother’s death had not kicked in yet, but he knew it would come soon. He waited for it with eagerness; he longed for the feeling of nothingness.
He had not felt that way for a long time. Sure, he had lost friends in his Squadron, good pilots and men, but this… this was different. He felt that he had lost a part of him, a part of his life, a part he would never get back.
He gulped the last few drops of rum and slammed the glass down on the counter. He made a gesture to Monsieur Balton who was off to a side cleaning dirty glasses. “Un autre.” Melbourne pointed down at his glass. “S’il vous plait.”
God, he felt tipsy.
The stocky figure of Monsieur Balton – or Blazing Moustache as Melbourne nicknamed him due to his heroic facial hair – came over. He gave Melbourne a look of disapproval but took the bottle of wine anyway and poured him another glass.
“Deux, s’il vous plait,” said a voice from behind Melbourne.
Monsieur Balton pulled out another glass and filled it. Melbourne felt a hand touch his shoulder. It was Douglas.
He sat on a stool next to Melbourne, shaking his head. “Melbourne, I… heard the news from a few of the other pilots. I… am so sorry, Mel. I am at loss of words.”
“Thank you.”
“I knew I would find you here.”
Melbourne took a long sip from his glass. “Assassinated. In Belgium. Can you believe that?”
“I thought your brother hadn’t shipped out yet.”
“That’s what we all thought. Apparently, he was somebody else. Somebody none of us could ever suspect.”
“I don’t u
nderstand.”
Melbourne took a long sip from his glass. Nor could he. And that was the worst of it. The brother he had known wasn’t dead. He’d never existed.
“A spy,” he said. “He died because he was a spy.”
“What? No.”
“Incredible, right? From being a quiet and kind English teacher to a spy. It still sounds absurd.”
“And you knew nothing of it?”
“Nothing at all.”
Douglas kept quiet and looked at the red wine in his glass.
Melbourne fumbled in the pocket of his jacket and produced a small, tattered photograph, which he passed to Douglas. “That is all that’s left of my family.”
Douglas took it and studied it like a reconnaissance photo. Melbourne already knew it like the back of his hand. He was just a little boy, sitting down on the floor of a living room with Sanford, their furry Old English Mastiff, lying next to him. On his other side was another boy, a little older, dressed in the same black tie, black gilet, and light-coloured pants Melbourne wore. Behind them was a couch in which sat a man with a stern face and beautiful woman with a sweet smile. Their father and mother.
“It was taken right before we left for British Somaliland,” Melbourne said.
“How old were you here?”
“I think around seven. It’s the only picture we ever took together. My father was an English teacher for the local population. It was my father’s first real job outside of England. My mother would home school me and my brother. I don’t remember too much of those days, and thank goodness for that. Five months after we had settled in my mother contracted polio. There was little anyone could do. She died within a month.”
“Goodness, I never knew that. I am sorry. That must have been beastly for your family.”
“It was. We moved back to England shortly afterwards. My father threw himself into his work, neglecting everyone around him, including us. He would lock himself in the study, burying his face in those darned books as if they were the cure to all his pain. He would only leave the house if he had to teach a class. He would skip dinner sometimes as if the world around him didn’t exist. I didn’t understand why. He still had us, but it was as if we weren’t there. Well, in the end it was my brother who took up the father figure in the house. He would make dinner every night, help me with my homework, put me to sleep, play with me. He would comfort me, protect me. He became my everything.”
“He sounds remarkable.”
“I thought he was the strongest and smartest person I had ever known. He always knew how to make me smile and always had a reassuring word. I started to not feel so lost with him.”
“Your father turned solitary, but you moved around a lot?”
“Every few years. My father got teaching jobs in Germany, Egypt, and Italy. It was good for him. He became less closed, but he was still terribly broken inside. My brother was still the man of the house. I don’t know what I would have done without him. Moving to different countries was difficult, but he was always there to take care of me and help to feel comfortable in those alien places.” He took a long sip and placed his glass back down. “You know, different language, different culture. He was the fixed point. He also kept good care of my father. We didn’t hate him but we wished things were different.”
“Then came the war?”
“No, not yet. We moved back to England, and Henry Arthur was old enough to enrol in the army. A week later he was sent off to Africa. I remember the night before he left. Quite a rough one. He said he wanted to do something that mattered, something that would make a difference. I never quite understood. But I was old enough to take care of myself then, and of father. And the army would bring in some money for the family as well. He stayed three years fighting in the Second Boer War. I missed him terribly, but he would write to me almost every single day. Letters upon letters of incredible adventures, breath-taking landscapes, beautiful fauna, and the strange customs of the local people. I remember he would send me wonderful pictures of zebras and lions. I was so jealous he was seeing all that. Never once did he mention the war though.
When the fighting stopped, he managed to return safe and sound and became a decorated hero. I had never felt so proud of him. All the girls wanted to talk to him. I became popular as well, just because I was Henry Arthur’s little brother. He quit the army and followed in my father’s footsteps becoming an English teacher, who specialised in poetry.”
He heard chairs scraping on the floor and turned around. The couple was leaving the tavern, hand in hand. He was alone with Douglas now.
He took another long sip. “Barely anything changed with my father. When Henry Arthur was away, I must have heard him ask about him maybe five times in those three years. I would tell him of my brother’s letters, his adventures, but my father barely ever acknowledged them. His only reason for living were those dusty old books of his. He grew terribly sick after my brother got back. Nobody really understood what he had. He died shortly after, his misery and pain finally over. I felt relieved but hurt at the same time. I don’t know, I wish it could have been different.”
“We all wish something could have been different.”
“I guess so. Then this war broke out. Henry Arthur settled in Cambridge. When the German forces invaded Belgium and England declared war, I knew it was time for me to do something like my brother had done. I wanted to test myself – to be as courageous and smart and strong as he. They said it was going to be a quick war anyway; I was going to be home by Christmas. So I enrolled in the RFC. The thrill of flying was amazing.”
“I know. I sometimes wish it were less thrilling.”
“So did Henry Arthur. He was worried for me, he told me that war was not as I imagined it to be, that he had seen it with his own eyes, that there was nothing glorious to it at all. But I barely listened. It was going to be my moment. My moment to show to people that I was not only Henry Arthur’s little brother. I could be just like him.” He shook his head. “What a fool I was.”
Douglas handed back the picture to Melbourne, who safely tucked back in his pocket. “I am at loss of words, Mel. I am so sorry.”
Melbourne tried to keep his eyes open. He felt his head spin from the wine.
“And now my brother’s left as well,” he said. “A spy. One of those damn deceivers you read in the newspaper. Who would have ever thought? I don’t know him anymore, Douglas. I don’t know who my brother really was.”
He picked up the glass, swallowed the remaining wine, and slammed it down on the counter. “Un autre!”
“How many glasses have you had, Mel?”
“I… can’t remember to be honest.”
“Then it is time to go.”
“Oh come on, just one more.”
Douglas got up and put his arms around his friend. “No, time to go back to the aerodrome.”
He lifted him up and slowly walked him to the entrance of the tavern.
“I’m happy I still have you, Douggy,” Melbourne said.
“Same here, Mel. Same here.”
VI
Melbourne moved his goggles to his forehead and began pushing his brand new BE2c airplane down the landing strip towards the other parked aircrafts. The day’s mission had been by far the easiest one in his career. No shooting, no enemy airplanes, no Archies, and especially no crashing. It was only a simple test flight. All Melbourne had to do was fly over the aerodrome while a man in the observer’s seat tested a wireless Marconi telegraph on his lap, click-clacking a coded message to the ground thousands of metres below them.
Melbourne heard scampering feet on the gravel ground and looked up. Four men were carrying the knapsack station needed to hear the message. To him, it looked as if they were carrying two cases of wine of different sizes. They ran past him and one of them looked at Melbourne with a big smile.
“Hello there Melbourne, heard you lot loud and clear!” he said. “This thing will work like a beauty over the trenches!”
The man a
lmost tripped in his enthusiasm, dropping his side of the box on the ground.
“Careful you twit or you’ll break the crystal receiver inside it!” another one said.
Melbourne watched the scene over his shoulder and shook his head. He could understand the man’s excitement. It was a technological wonder. He still remembered what Major Webb-Bowen had told him. Hundreds of kilometres. A telegraph machine could send a message hundreds of kilometres away. And if they weren’t careful, the message could be intercepted by the enemy.
“Jolly blokes those ones.” The stocky figure of Edward, one of the ground crew men, materialised next to Melbourne. “Take the right wing, I’ll push the left.” With a moustache that would have made Otto von Bismarck jealous, Edward was a favourite among the pilots.
“Thank you, Edward. Always a gentleman,” Melbourne said.
“Quiet mission today, Mr. Melbourne?” He grunted slightly at the effort of pushing.
“A vacation.”
Edward chuckled.
“Say, Mr. Melbourne, why haven’t you painted your airplane like the old ones yet?”
Melbourne frowned. “I’m not really in the mood for arts and crafts right now.”
“But that flying horse, you had it on all your airplanes before.”
“I know, but… maybe later.”
They reached the grass and pushed the airplane to a halt next to a larger Vickers bomber. Edward let out a sigh and massaged his lower back with both hands.
“Too old for this kind of work, sir,” he said as he stretched. “If I might be so bold, sir, I’m a little worried about you. You seem like one of ’em living dead, to say the least. I know that tragedy has struck you, but you can’t just let it rule your life. Look at yourself.”
A week had passed since Colonel Dunn-Hamming had destroyed Melbourne’s world. The passing of his brother and the revelation of his secret life had sucked out his soul leaving him an empty cage of meat. He might as well be gunned down by an enemy plane. He had nothing to lose at all.
The Iron Shadow Page 4