The First Casualty

by Ben Elton

  ‘So McCroon’s sighting of the officer would have taken place moments after Nurse Murray’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And both witnesses saw only the back of this man?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘So if this mystery man shot Abercrombie, Nurse Murray would have been next door in Hopkins’s ward at the time. Did she hear a shot?’

  ‘She may have done but it’s impossible to say.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because, dress it up with as much Not Yet Diagnosed balls as you wish, this place is a loony bin and loony bins are damned noisy, especially at night. I know, I’ve been there. There are bangs, shrieks and much rattling of chains. Most unsettling. Also, the walls and doors of the château are thick. It would be quite possible for a shot to go unnoticed at any time in such a place.’

  ‘So nobody heard a shot?’

  ‘Oh, they all heard shots, any number of shots. I’ve told you this is a loony bin, a loony bin for victims of shell shock. Some of them hear very little else but shots.’

  ‘What about timings?’ Kingsley enquired. ‘Do you have any?’

  ‘We have Nurse Murray’s timings, which are very clear. She filled in bed reports for all the patients in the ward, reporting on their status as she left them. She did Abercrombie at nine twenty-five and then went next door to Hopkins’s ward. She spent an hour in there, what with changing dressings and the like, and filled out her last report at ten thirty-two. She would have left the ward and spotted the mystery officer moments after that.’

  All three men ordered trifle and cream from the dessert trolley and called for more cigarettes.

  ‘So that places McCroon’s nocturnal visit to the lavatories at approximately ten thirty-three,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but of course he cannot confirm that because he doesn’t own a timepiece.’

  ‘Imagine that?’ Cumming interjected. ‘Not having a watch. I can’t live without knowing the time. Feel absolutely naked.’

  ‘What time was the body discovered?’ Kingsley enquired.

  ‘Later. Between eleven forty and eleven forty-five.’

  ‘And when was Hopkins found with the gun?’

  ‘Moments after that.’

  ‘Who discovered the body?’

  ‘The night nurse who went on duty at ten forty-five, replacing Nurse Murray. She was the one who raised the alarm,’ ‘Shannon answered, before adding for Kingsley’s benefit, ‘I didn’t apply the rule there, by the way, face like a German general.’ Kingsley ignored him.

  ‘I presume that there has been an appeal made for the mystery officer to come forward and explain himself?’

  ‘We are assured that the local Military Police have made inquiries but so far with no result.’

  ‘And Hopkins was arrested because he was found with the murder weapon?’

  ‘Yes, Abercrombie’s own service revolver.’

  ‘Abercrombie retained a gun even at a centre for shell shock?’

  ‘It would seem so. After all, he had not yet been diagnosed.’

  ‘You are sure that this gun was the murder weapon?’

  ‘Well, Abercrombie had been shot, and Hopkins was found in the next room with Abercrombie’s gun, which had very recently been discharged.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that it is probably the murder weapon but are you sure? The bullet has been checked against the gun?’

  ‘I doubt it, they are fighting a war out there, you know. Lots else to do.’

  ‘But for heaven’s sake,’ Shannon, you must have proof! You can’t hang a man on weak circumstantial presumptions. There are an awful lot of guns in France.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you’re here for,’ Cumming said. ‘It’s your job to find some proof.’

  They had moved on to the coffee and cigars. Shannon, true to style, had also ordered cognac.

  Cumming, who clearly had other business, rose to go.

  ‘Your papers are being prepared as we speak. I shall leave Shannon to organize the details of your departure. Good luck, Kingsley, and don’t let me down. Sort out the bill, Shannon, get a receipt and don’t go ordering a pocketful of cigars to take away with you.’

  With that, Cumming left. Shannon rolled the big balloon of cognac in his hands to warm the spirit and inhaled deeply of its vapours.

  ‘Do you know the Hole in the Wall pub at Waterloo?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there at six with your identification papers and movement orders.’

  ‘Why there?’

  ‘France, Inspector Kingsley. The night troop train to France. You’re on it.’

  ‘And I am free until then?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you be?’ Shannon said easily. ‘You’re a captain in the RMP. We have no authority over you. But I wouldn’t go making any more trips to Hampstead if I were you. That was a very foolish trick you played.’

  Kingsley was surprised, and inwardly most embarrassed. He had always trusted himself to know when he was being followed and yet Shannon, or at least his people, seemed to have shadowed him in complete anonymity.

  ‘The special constable?’ Kingsley asked.

  ‘Yes. One of ours. I recruited her myself, as it happens. Lovely girl. Thought I ought to have your house watched, but I couldn’t believe it when I read her report this morning. Did you really break in?’

  Kingsley was pleased to realize that they had at least not shadowed him all the way from Folkestone and right across London, but had only picked him up at his house.

  ‘I’m afraid I did. Don’t worry, I was not detected. I should not like to drag my family into the world you inhabit.’

  ‘Your ex-family.’

  ‘My family, Captain.’

  ‘Well, can’t blame you really, wanting a last look. Mrs Beaumont is certainly a cracker. Absolutely gorgeous hair, eyes, fabulous top shelf. You’re a lucky man — or at least you were.

  Kingsley’s blood ran cold.

  ‘You’ve met my wife?’

  ‘Oh yes. Held her hand and told her you were dead, old boy. Not surprised you miss a filly like that. Still, your misfortune will no doubt some day be another lucky fellow’s gain, look at it that way. She’s fair game now, old son…Steady on,’ Inspector, crowded place and all that. Wouldn’t want to cause a scene.’

  Kingsley had raised his hand to strike Shannon, but now he lowered it.

  ‘You’ve been to my house?’

  ‘Popped in before following you to Folkestone. Only decent thing to do, I thought. She took it well, but was obviously pretty shaken.’ Shannon smiled unpleasantly. ‘Glad I was there really…You know, when a girl’s upset what she needs is an experienced and sympathetic shoulder to cry on.’

  Kingsley leaned forward until his face was close to Shannon’s.

  ‘If ever you were to lay a hand on her…’

  ‘Oh do come on, old boy. Just making small talk.’

  ‘I’d kill you.’

  ‘Fine talk for a pacifist.’

  ‘I am not a pacifist. I believe killing can sometimes be justified and would consider myself perfectly justified in killing you,’ whether you’d personally hurt me or not. Remember that, Captain Shannon.’

  ‘Oh, yawn yawn yawn. Nothing more embarrassing than nice fellows pretending to be nasty. I’d stick to snooping if I were you,’ Captain Marlowe. Leave killing to professionals.’

  ‘Captain Shannon, as with most things in life you’ll find that the gifted amateur who is really inspired to do the job will always triumph over the paid professional.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  A show, then off to France

  Kingsley decided to take a good long walk. It had been a heavy and rather alcoholic lunch and he knew that he would soon be cramped in a train for many hours. First of all, he strolled along the Embankment watching the traffic on the Thames, and then all around the streets and alleyways of Waterloo. There was an afternoon music-hall concert advertised at the Old Vic to give some d
istraction to the hordes of troops milling about the area who were awaiting entrainment back to France.

  Kingsley bought a cheap ticket to stand at the back and went inside.

  The songs were mainly the old ones to which everybody could sing along: ‘The Old Kent Road’,’ ‘Any Old Iron’, ‘When Father Papered the Parlour’, even the ancient and creaky ‘Come Into The Garden, Maud’. The audience sang along lustily with the girls on stage.

  ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go,

  It’s a long way to Tipperary to the sweetest girl I know!’

  All of the songs were familiar to Kingsley. Agnes and he had loved to visit the music hall. She in particular was very fond of popular music, and bought all the sheeted scores from the street vendors outside the theatres so as to play the songs at home on her piano.

  Then a pretty soubrette came on and announced ‘In The Twi Twi Twilight’. This was too much for Kingsley and he left.

  He missed Agnes dreadfully. In some ways he took comfort from the fact that the investigation he had agreed to undertake must be conducted beneath the shadow of the guns. What witnesses there were would be soldiers engaged in battle, and the mysterious missing officer likewise. If Kingsley was to find them he must needs go into battle too, or at least do his work in the midst of it. That appealed to Kingsley in his current mood. He was going to France in the pursuit of truth, a cause to which he had devoted his life, and if he were to lose his life in its pursuit then perhaps that was so much the better. No one would mourn him; those with a mind to were already doing so. He had no future and no past. Why not fall in the war that had ruined everything?

  Kingsley met Shannon at the appointed location and, in an upstairs room, was given his new identity papers, travel documents and French money.

  ‘Have a nice trip,’ Shannon said. ‘Do send us a postcard if you solve the case.’

  ‘Remember what I said,’ Kingsley said quietly.

  ‘My dear fellow, London is full of skirt. I really have no need to pursue it as far as Hampstead Heath. And speaking of skirt…’

  Kingsley and Shannon had descended into the public bar and there, across the crowded room, stood a young nurse from Charing Cross Hospital.

  ‘I told you I’d pop back and grab one,’ Shannon explained. ‘Vera! You found your way here all right, I see.’

  ‘Yes,’ I did,’ said the nurse, clearly delighted to see Shannon. It wasn’t a comfortable thing for a woman to be alone in a pub, particularly one near a mainline station.

  ‘Well now, what shall we do with our evening?’ Shannon said with a charming smile, putting his arm around her. ‘Oh, this is Captain Marlowe,’ by the way, Vera. He’s just leaving. Off to France, eh? Poor you, and I get to take a ravishing young lady to dinner and a show.’

  ‘Oh, stop!’ said Vera, her eyes shining.

  Kingsley felt sorry for the girl but there was nothing he could do. At least she was older than Violet. He could only hope that, as Shannon himself would put it,’ she knew the score.

  Kingsley left the pub and, shouldering his kitbag, made his way to the great entrance of the station. It was awash with civilians, packed four deep on the pavement and spilling over on to the street. It was always like this when a big push was on in France. Kingsley recalled two or three occasions when chases he had been involved in were thwarted as the prey ducked in amongst the crowds of gawpers who waited about to watch the wounded being bussed out of the station. Kingsley knew from conversations he had had with Tommies that no soldier appreciated the attentions of sightseers.

  ‘They thinks as how just because they chucks a few fags at us that they’s doin’ their patriotic bit, boostin’ our morale with a cheer an’ all, but they ain’t. They ain’t doin’ it for us, they’s just curious an’ lookin’ for a cheap thrill. Probably goes ‘ome afterwards thanking Gawd it ain’t them sittin’ there all bandaged up and bleedin’ like a bunch o’ fuckin’ mummies in a jam factory.’

  Kingsley pushed his way through the crowd and into the station. Pandemonium reigned. The arrival of a large transport of wounded had clashed with the impending departure of a couple of trainloads of Tommies bound for the front. Kingsley got his back up against one of the numerous stalls providing a French money exchange to ‘officers and men in uniform’, and smoked a cigarette before attempting to board his train.

  It was jam-packed but at least there were seats. He wedged himself into a second-class compartment in which a dozen other officers were lodged and tried to sleep. It was impossible; he was too uncomfortable, and his mind was racing with thoughts of Agnes and George and the case that he must investigate.

  Nonetheless, this first part of the journey turned out to be luxurious in comparison with the Channel crossing to Boulogne, which was unpleasant in the extreme. On its previous trip the boat had carried horses, of which the army employed many thousands. A small effort had been made to clean the ship for its human cargo but in reality all this meant was that the horses ‘straw had been swept over the horses’ shit.

  The crossing was a rough one, with high winds and driving rain, and there was mass seasickness. In the crowded conditions, the smell of vomit mixed with horse manure was not one any of the men on board were ever likely to forget. Despite the enormous number of casualties it had taken, the British army had continued to grow throughout the war, partly because the Royal Army Medical Corps was getting better and better at patching up the wounded and sending them back to the front. Millions of men were now under arms and it seemed to Kingsley as if all of them were on the same boat as him.

  On arrival in Boulogne, any romantic illusions that new recruits might have harboured about experiencing a little of France were soon shattered, as they were moved directly from the boat to the railhead. And if the boat had been vastly more uncomfortable than the train from Waterloo, then the train from Boulogne was to prove far worse than the boat. The train which Kingsley’s movement order directed him towards was quite the longest he had ever seen: forty carriages. Thirty-six of them were horse trucks, or, to be more precise, horse or human trucks because, like the boat, the trains were used to carry both. Each truck bore the legend ‘HOMMES 40. CHEVAUX 8’.

  ‘Is that forty men or eight horses or forty men and eight horses?’ Kingsley enquired of a harassed railhead marshal.

  ‘Very funny, sir. I wonder ‘ow many times I’ve ‘eard that one.’

  It had actually been a genuine question. Fortunately, further investigation showed that the army did not expect the men to travel with the horses. It was difficult to be thankful for this small mercy. There were four trucks reserved for officers but a brief inspection revealed that these were not much better than the horse trucks; many doors were missing and although there were seats they were wooden, badly in need of repair and already grossly overcrowded. Kingsley was of course an officer, but he had discovered on the boat that ordinary soldiers hated military policemen in a way that only criminals hated civilian police. His red tabs and cap had marked him out instantly and he had decided to remove them, along with his badges of rank, until they were required. Kingsley was anxious to learn something of the mind of the soldiers amongst whom he must conduct his investigation and he was unlikely to learn anything if he was treated as a leper.

  He decided to throw in his lot with the enlisted men and climbed aboard one of the troop trucks. It was without furnishing of any kind, unless a sprinkling of straw could be considered furnishing. The only distinguishing feature was a great burn mark in the middle of the wooden floor, where at some point freezing soldiers had clearly improvised a little central heating. Large signs warned against this practice on pain of imprisonment.

  ‘Is it always this spartan?’ Kingsley asked a man crushed next to him, whose weathered face suggested he was a veteran of the trenches.

  ‘Always. Never changed, not since 1915 at least, when I first come here. Always cramped, always crap.’

  Kingsley could hardly believe that this was how the Brit
ish Empire treated its heroes. Men who were travelling willingly towards probable death in the service of their country were packed into horse trucks. The only blessing, he reflected, was that the journey would be a short one, for it was less than a hundred miles to their destination. He made this point to the man beside him.

  ‘You’ve had an easy war so far, mate, haven’t you, if this is your first go up the line?’

  ‘I confess that it is.’

  ‘Well, settle down, my greenhorn pal. Settle down for a long trip.’

  The train lurched forward about three or four yards and then stopped. There it rested for several hours, during which the men remained packed into the trucks. Eventually it moved, although only at walking pace, and after a mile or two it stopped again. So began a process of crawling and stopping that continued for the following eighteen hours.

  ‘It’s always like this,’ the old hand beside Kingsley assured him. ‘I was in transit three days once. That’s thirty miles a day, not much more than a mile an hour. We don’t move no faster than Wellington’s lot did. Mind you, when we gets there we dies a lot bleeding faster.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  A communal interlude

  Once during one of the endless halts a discussion developed about the war’s origins, amongst a group of men who were taking the opportunity of a predicted sixty-minute stop to empty their bowels. Kingsley had never defecated in front of anyone before but the men he was travelling with — all experienced soldiers and comrades of old — thought no more about it than if they were pissing up against the same wall.

  ‘You needs a bit of time to take a shit,’ Kingsley’s companion advised him, ‘leastways you do on army rations. You need time to ‘ave a smoke and relax a bit, get things moving, so to speak. Time to let it drop comfortable and finish off neat. Nothing worse than hearing the whistle blow an’ having to pinch it off all in a hurry and ending up with an ‘orrible sore arse and flies buzzing round it. Good army tip that, mate, take it from a bloke who’s already long overdue a bullet. Look after your arse. Always make sure you’ve got time to do the right thing by your arse.