Blackstone and the Great War isb-3

by Sally Spencer

  Blackstone merely nodded.

  ‘But when you get out here, you find it ain’t like that at all,’ Mick said miserably.

  Detective Sergeant Archie Patterson ran his hands thoughtfully over his ever-expanding stomach, and then looked through the window of his office in New Scotland Yard at the traffic passing below on the Victoria Embankment.

  When he’d first entered this office, in 1896, he’d been a fresh-faced — but even then, slightly overweight — young man, and the traffic below the window had been almost exclusively horse-drawn.

  Back then, the arrival of a motor vehicle — which hadn’t even been called a motor vehicle at the time, but had been referred to as a horseless carriage — had drawn interest from the adults and produced a positive frenzy of excitement from some of the children.

  Now it was the horse-drawn vehicles which were the rarity, and the motor vehicles which were king. And though he hated to admit it — as any forward-looking man who enjoyed poking gentle fun at his boss’s dislike of progress would — he did rather miss the horses.

  He turned away from the window and contemplated the wall. Things were very quiet — unnaturally quiet — with Sam Blackstone away, he thought.

  Or had he got that the wrong way around, he wondered? Was this the natural state of things — the way that everyone wanted and expected them to be — and was it only when Sam started stirring things up that they became unnatural?

  Ask any of the top brass in the Yard their opinion of Blackstone, and they would say he was ill-disciplined, disorganized, and a liability who they should have got rid of years ago.

  But he was still there, wasn’t he?

  Because whatever they might say — and however much they might complain — they knew that when there was an investigation that had baffled every other inspector in the Met, the ill-disciplined, disorganized liability would find a way to get to the bottom of it.

  Patterson twiddled his thumbs in a clockwise direction for a while, and then, for the sake of a little variety, twiddled them anti-clockwise. He should be enjoying this respite from being run ragged by Sam, he told himself, but the fact was that he was bored.

  There was a knock on the door, and one of the clerical officers entered the room.

  ‘I’ve got a telegram here from your boss, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘It’s come all the way from France.’

  ‘Well, it would have to have done, since that’s where he is at the moment,’ Patterson replied. ‘What does he say — that the weather’s lovely and he wishes I was there?’

  The clerical officer grinned. ‘Funnily enough, he doesn’t mention the weather at all — nor even his desire for your delightful company — but he’s got a great deal to say about other things.’

  He produced the telegram with a flourish.

  ‘Bloody hell fire, that must be at least five hundred words long,’ Patterson said.

  ‘Six hundred and forty-eight,’ the clerical officer replied. ‘I counted them personally.’

  ‘Well, it’s nice to know you’ve been making good use of your time,’ Patterson said.

  ‘Will there be anything else you require, Sergeant?’ the clerical officer asked.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Patterson replied. ‘It seems to me this telegram will be quite enough.’

  ‘I’ve been talking to some of the lads in my platoon,’ Mick said, as he and Blackstone walked around the village. ‘One of them — a bloke called Hicks — was telling me about this offensive they took part in the other day.’

  ‘Hicks!’ Blackstone exclaimed. ‘Are you in Lieutenant Fortesque’s platoon? I mean — are you in the platoon that was commanded by Lieutenant Fortesque,’ he corrected himself immediately.

  ‘Is he the officer who got himself murdered?’ Mick asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then I am in what was his platoon, only the officer’s called Lieutenant Sampson now.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Blackstone said. ‘I interrupted you. You were telling me what Hicks told you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mick agreed. ‘They had trouble with the gas that had been set off, because it had blown back on them. Hicks said, “That’s one way to get us to shift out of the trench — bloody gas us,” but I think he was joking.’

  ‘I do, too,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Anyway, when the gas had cleared, they went over the top, but Fritz. .’ Mick paused. ‘They don’t call them the Huns out here on the front, they call them Fritz.’

  ‘I know,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Fritz was ready for them. Hicks said they’d not gone more than a few yards before two of his best mates were cut down by machine-gun fire. He said that if somebody on the left flank hadn’t knocked out the German machine-gunner, he’d probably have been dead himself. Anyway, they did manage to capture a section of the enemy trench, but they only held it for a few hours before Fritz took it back. So what was the point of it all?’

  ‘There wasn’t any point,’ Blackstone said gravely.

  ‘Hicks says his mates died for nothing. He says the only reason we’re out here at all — and he’s talking about the German lads, as well as ours — is to use up the enemy’s bullets.’

  ‘I wish I could tell you that I thought he was wrong,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘And we’re stuck with it, ain’t we?’ Mick asked. ‘If you run away and they catch you, they shoot you for desertion. If you wound yourself so you can’t fight any more, they lock you up — and from what I’ve heard, that’s sometimes worse than being shot.’

  ‘I’ve heard that, too,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Do you know what some lads do when they can’t take it any more?’ Mick asked. ‘They kill themselves! They take one sock off, lie on the ground, put the barrel of the rifle in their mouths, and pull the trigger with their big toe.’

  ‘It’s not always as bad as that,’ Blackstone said softly.

  ‘It’s not dying that gets to me,’ Mick said. ‘It’s the futility of it all.’ He paused again, uncertain. ‘That’s the right word, isn’t it, Mr Blackstone? Futility?’

  ‘It’s exactly the right word.’

  ‘You heard me talking on the train, didn’t you? I might have seemed loud-mouthed and ignorant to you — bloody hell, looking back on it, I seem loud-mouthed and ignorant to me — but for the first time in my lousy life, I thought I had a purpose. And after less than a day here, that purpose has gone — and I’m left with this big empty hole inside me.’

  ‘I could give you a purpose,’ Blackstone said. ‘Not a grand purpose — like becoming a hero in the defence of your country — but a purpose of sorts.’

  ‘A purpose of sorts,’ Mick repeated. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You could help me catch a murderer,’ Blackstone said.

  The first time Patterson read through the telegram, he did so at a gallop. The second time he was slower, repeating each word to himself in a soft whisper.

  It was, by its very nature, an abbreviated form of communication, but he had worked with Blackstone long enough to be able to convert the terse language into what his boss would actually have said if he’d been standing there in the room.

  He finished his second reading, and put the telegram to one side.

  ‘There’s no rest for the wicked, is there, Archie?’ he asked himself happily, as he reached for the phone.

  ‘Switchboard,’ said a voice at the other end of the line.

  ‘And which of our ladies do I have the privilege of speaking to on this fine afternoon?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘It’s me, Victoria,’ replied the operator.

  ‘I hoped it would be,’ Patterson told her. ‘Though all the girls are lovely, you are by far the cleverest and most charming — which is why you’re my favourite, by a mile.’

  ‘I won’t do it,’ the operator said flatly.

  ‘Won’t do what?’

  ‘Whenever you flannel like this, it’s because you want me to break a rule,’ Victoria said. ‘And I won’
t do it.’

  ‘Nothing could be further from my thoughts than asking you to betray the sacred operator’s oath,’ Patterson protested. ‘I merely want you to make a trunk call to a General Fortesque.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ Victoria asked suspiciously.

  ‘That’s it,’ Patterson confirmed.

  ‘It seems a simple enough request,’ Victoria said. ‘Even an operator who wasn’t so clever and charming could handle that.’

  ‘But not half as well as you,’ Patterson assured her. ‘Oh, there is one thing,’ he added, as an afterthought.

  ‘And what’s that?’ Victoria asked, the suspicion back in her voice.

  ‘Generals are important people, you know, and when they talk, they like it to be with other important people.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘So when you get through, perhaps it might be best if you said Chief Superintendent Patterson wants to talk to him.’

  ‘Will that get me into trouble?’ Victoria asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Patterson said.

  ‘You’re sure about that, are you?’

  ‘And even if it does, I promise you I’ll find a way to talk you out of trouble again.’

  There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line, then Victoria said, ‘There are some men who are love’s young dream — so dashingly handsome that you’d lie down in front of a train if they asked you to. But, to be honest with you, Archie, you’re really not one of them.’

  Patterson chuckled. ‘You really can be very hurtful, when you want to be,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a podgy little man — and even if I did set my sights on you, I’d be wasting my time, because you absolutely adore your wife and kids.’

  ‘Very true,’ Patterson agreed.

  ‘So why is it,’ Victoria asked, sounding genuinely puzzled, ‘that when you ask me to do something distinctly dodgy for you — something I know I should steer well clear of — I always end up doing it anyway?’

  ‘It’s a gift I have,’ Patterson said — and offered up a silent prayer that it was a gift he would never lose.

  TEN

  It was at night, under the cover of darkness, that much of the real business of running a war — the nuts and bolts of logistics — took place.

  It was then that supplies — the cases of bullets for the machine guns, the jugs of rum for the enlisted men, the bottles of malt whisky for the officers — were delivered to the trenches. It was then that the soldiers — the muscle-and-bone cannon fodder — were moved in and out of the killing zone.

  It was also at night-time that foolhardy young officers like Lieutenant Roger Soames could claim that they were in possession of No Man’s Land, by the simple expedient of crawling around it — like snakes — on their bellies. And it was then when more senior officers, like Captain Carstairs, could tell themselves complacently that though they might have lost a man in the process of establishing that claim, they had at least showed Fritz a thing or two.

  For the enlisted men, night-time meant sentry duty — two hours standing on the fire step, two hours off it — with the prospect of death by firing squad if they allowed their exhausted bodies to doze off. It meant huddling in a small hole carved out of the side of the trench like a rat — and sometimes in the company of a rat — in an effort to grab a little rest. It was a time to reflect that however miserable your living conditions might be, it was still better than being dead — and to acknowledge that, once the dawn light came, Death might well choose to single you out for the touch of his bloody, bony finger.

  Night-time was the most horrendous time in the world while it lasted. And then daytime came — and that could be even worse.

  Blackstone stood at the edge of the village of St Denis, watching the company marching off to the trenches, with Lieutenants Maude and Soames in the lead.

  As they passed by him, Soames favoured him with a scowl, and Maude gave him a smile which seemed to say, ‘You might be the smartest policeman in the world — but you’ll never get to the bottom of this murder.’

  Only a few days earlier, Lieutenant Charlie Fortesque would have been part of a march much like this one — placing one heavy foot in front of the other, as he made the journey which would lead him to his death.

  Fortesque would have been wrestling furiously with his troubled conscience as he marched, but what would have been the expression on his face? Blackstone wondered.

  Uncertainty, he thought.

  Guilt!

  By the time his platoon had reached the trench that they would be occupying, the decision had probably already been made. And as he entered his dugout, he may well have experienced that certain lightness of spirit which comes from knowing that — whatever the consequences — you are about to do what is right.

  But he had then made his fatal mistake. Out of consideration for them, he had told his fellow officers — the men he thought were his friends — what he had decided to do.

  And that had sealed his fate!

  ‘But what exactly was it that he’d done wrong?’ Blackstone said aloud, as he walked up the sharply inclined street towards the village square. ‘What was it that he needed to cleanse himself of?’

  You’re talking to yourself, Sam, said a voice somewhere in the back of his head.

  Well, who else in this Godforsaken place is there to talk to? asked a second voice defensively.

  You do whatever you want to do, but you might just end up talking yourself into a padded cell, warned the first voice.

  I’ll take the chance, countered the second.

  ‘Stop it — both of you!’ Blackstone told the voices, and then realized that he was speaking aloud again.

  He had reached the square, and paused by the limber. He reached out with his hand, and felt one of its huge wheels.

  Suppose it was not there in the morning, he thought.

  Suppose that when the redcaps brought Private. . Private. .

  He realized that though he had great sympathy for the man’s plight — and was angry about what he was being made to endure — he did not even know his name.

  Call him ‘Smith’ then.

  Suppose that when the redcaps brought Private Smith to the square, there was no limber to strap the poor bastard to.

  If he could just get the limber to the edge of the square — which would not be easy, but just might be possible — it would roll down the hill and be gone forever, he thought.

  And in the morning, the redcaps would run around like headless chickens for a while, and then contact Captain Huxton, who, this being the army, would have to write a report — probably in triplicate — explaining why he needed a new limber.

  The whole thing would take days, and in the meantime, Private Smith would get a little respite from all the pain and humiliation.

  It was as Blackstone caught himself giggling at the thought of the redcaps’ panicked faces that it occurred to him that he might be drunk.

  What else would explain the action he’d just been contemplating? Who but a drunk would ever have come up with such a wild and fantastic plan?

  And yet he was sure he’d had no more than two beers that day.

  It was exhaustion — not drink — which was having this effect on him, he suddenly realized.

  He had not slept since he left London, and that was over two days earlier. He needed to go back to his billet and grab some rest — before he really did something stupid!

  The man stood in the shadows at the edge of the square, watching Blackstone examining the wheel of the limber.

  Why was the detective doing that, he wondered?

  Why hadn’t he gone straight back to his billet — as the plan dictated that he should?

  It had all seemed so simple and straightforward when they’d been discussing it earlier.

  ‘When do I start following him?’ the man had asked.

  ‘When he’s finished watching the company march out of the village,’ the other had replied.

  ‘He might not be ther
e.’

  ‘He will be.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I can be sure because I understand him. He’s at least as much an actor as he is a policeman, and he won’t be able to resist the opportunity of showing us that he knows everything.’

  Panic!

  ‘He doesn’t know everything, does he?’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t — in point of fact, he’s on the wrong track entirely — but he thinks he knows.’ The other had paused for a moment. ‘Once he’s sure we’ve all left, he’ll go back to his billet.’

  ‘He might not.’

  ‘He will. He has nowhere else to go. And anyway, he’ll want to catch up on his sleep.’

  ‘Do I follow him all the way back to the billet?’

  ‘No, he’d be bound to notice that. Just stay with him long enough to make sure that’s actually where he’s going-’

  ‘You said that was where he would definitely be going. You said he had nowhere else to go!’

  ‘-and then give him time to get into bed and fall asleep.’

  But Blackstone hadn’t gone straight back to his billet.

  Instead, he was just standing there next to the limber, pressing his hand against its large wheel, almost as though he were thinking about moving it.

  ‘I need help,’ the man told himself. ‘I can’t do this alone.’

  And then he let out a gasp of relief as the detective abandoned the limber and started to walk towards the street which led to his billet.

  Blackstone lit the oil lamp first, and a cigarette which he promised himself would be his last of the day.

  If he only knew what Charlie Fortesque had done that was so wrong, then he’d also know why the young man had been killed, he mused.

  And if he knew that, he would also know — with absolute certainty — who the murderer was.

  He walked over to the window, and looked out at the street. There was only a pale moon overhead, and the cobblestones the street was made up of were barely distinguishable from each other.

  He was glad the moon was so weak that night, because there were no shutters on his window — though, from the evidence of the iron hooks embedded in the walls, there once had been.