Blackstone and the Great War isb-3

by Sally Spencer

  ‘But that’s awful!’ Patterson said.

  ‘It’s devastating,’ Fortesque corrected him. ‘Devastating — but not entirely surprising. I have fought in more wars than I care to remember, and in all of them I have seen calm military order on the surface — and chaos beneath it. And where there is chaos, things go wrong.’

  ‘Is there any chance the coffin will eventually turn up?’

  ‘I have asked the army commander in Calais to do all he can to find the poor boy, but I do not have high expectations of success.’ The General took a wheezing breath. ‘You said you had some questions you wanted to put to me.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’d like to ask you about three of your grandson’s friends — Lieutenants Soames, Hatfield and Maude.’

  For a few moments the old man was silent, then he said, ‘I am correct in assuming that you’re not merely Sam Blackstone’s assistant, but his right-hand man — someone he relies on completely?’

  Patterson shrugged his beefy shoulders. ‘That’s what he tells me.’

  ‘In that case, he must see a great deal in you which is not apparent to the naked eye,’ the General said.

  Patterson grinned. ‘I’m being tested, aren’t I?’

  ‘Are you?’ Fortesque asked, non-committally.

  ‘I think so. I’ve just asked a question about a charmed circle to which you belong — and I so obviously don’t — and that rang alarm bells.’

  ‘Go on,’ Fortesque encouraged.

  ‘It’s not the done thing for someone like you to talk about your own class to anyone who is not a member of it. In fact, it’s tantamount to being an act of treason, and you’d never normally even consider it. However, these are not normal circumstances, so you’re prepared to make an exception — but first you need to make sure I’m worthy of your trust. Hence the test.’

  ‘Let us say you’re right, and it is a test,’ the General conceded. ‘What do you think would be the correct way for you to respond to my comment?’

  ‘To your insult, you mean,’ Patterson corrected him. ‘It was more of an insult than a comment, wasn’t it?’

  ‘To my insult, then,’ the General agreed.

  ‘There isn’t one correct way to respond,’ Patterson said, ‘but there are several incorrect ways. If, for example, I stormed out, I would clearly not be the kind of person you wished to confide in. Equally, if I pretended not to notice — or even worse, accepted the insult in good part — you would have no confidence in me at all.’

  The General smiled weakly. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now tell me more about Sam Blackstone.’

  ‘Is this still part of the test?’

  ‘You know it is.’

  ‘I admire him more than any other man I’ve ever met,’ Patterson said seriously. ‘He’s got more brains than the whole of the Yard’s top brass combined. He’s loyal, fair-minded and fearless.’

  ‘And if he’d been born into a more privileged position in society — as I was, and the three lieutenants were — he would have been prime minister by now?’ the General suggested.

  ‘No,’ Patterson said. ‘There’d have been no chance of that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Sam does what he thinks is right, and if other people choose to follow his lead, that’s fine with him. But if they don’t choose to follow, he doesn’t give a hang. And that’s not the kind of attitude which will help you towards becoming a prime minister — or a general, for that matter.’

  Fortesque nodded. ‘You’ve almost convinced me of your suitability. Just tell me one more thing about him which shows that you’re as good a judge of character as I am, and I think I’ll be able to trust you.’

  ‘I’m more than content with my life,’ Patterson said. ‘I’ve got my skinny little wife and my three chubby little kids, and that’s all I want.’

  ‘Whereas Blackstone. .?’

  ‘Whereas Sam simply won’t settle for contentment. He wants total and complete happiness or nothing.’

  ‘And has he found that happiness?’ the General asked quizzically.

  ‘Of course not!’ Patterson said. ‘No man ever has, and no man ever will. And Sam’s not a fool — he knows that better than anyone. But if he can’t be happy, then at least he wants to be useful — he wants to ease a few burdens and see a little more fairness in the world. I think that’s why he’s a policeman.’

  ‘You’re a remarkable young man,’ the General said.

  Patterson grinned again. ‘With all due respect to you, General, you know that’s not true,’ he said. ‘I’m no more than a reasonably competent middle-aged man,’ he said.

  ‘So you are,’ the General agreed. ‘Help me to my feet, please, Sergeant. My old bones are having one of their better days, and I would rather like to take a small turn around the gardens.’

  THIRTEEN

  When Blackstone had started out from St Denis that morning, his ankle had hurt like the devil, but the closer he got to the front line, the more the pain had seemed to ease, and now that he was in the communications trench, it was hardly bothering him at all.

  The trench was just deep enough to ensure that a German sniper wouldn’t take the top off his head as he walked along it, just wide enough for him to be able to touch both sides of it with his outstretched arms, and though — when men or materiel were being moved — it could be as crowded as Piccadilly Circus at noon, he now had it all to himself.

  He had just stopped to light a cigarette when the explosion came. The sound was muffled — no louder than he might have made by dropping a book on the floor — but from the way in which the walls of the trench shook, it was clear to him that if he’d been much closer, the noise would have been ear-shattering.

  He could have turned around then — could have avoided the horror which he was almost certain would lie ahead — but his life had never been about running away, and after taking a puff of his cigarette, he continued his journey.

  He reached the end of the communication trench, and stepped into a modern version of hell.

  The shell had landed squarely in the fire trench, gouging a huge hole in the back wall, destroying some of the heavy sandbags, and sending others flying. Huge boulders of clayey earth were strewn on the duckboards, as if flung there by an angry giant, and the stretcher parties were having to struggle around them in order to get the groaning, wounded men to the nearest dressing station.

  The whole trench stank of cordite and blood. A number of men who had been far enough away from the explosion to avoid injury sat on the ground, their faces blank, their minds disengaged. Others had manic grins on their faces, and one — a blond-haired boy with a thin pale face — was sobbing uncontrollably.

  A bloodied corpse lay in Blackstone’s path, its face a mishmash of muscle and bone, and its right arm missing. He stepped around it, wishing there was something he could do — and knowing there wasn’t.

  Further down the trench, a sergeant blew his whistle loudly.

  ‘Come on, you lads, snap out of it!’ he bellowed. ‘That was unlucky, I’ll grant you — but we can’t leave the trench like this.’

  Slowly, the men rose to their feet, and made their way towards where the sergeant was standing.

  ‘That’s it, lads,’ the sergeant shouted encouragingly. ‘Look lively, and we’ll soon have it fixed.’

  Like zombies, the men reached for the picks and shovels they would need to repair the trench.

  The sergeant saw Blackstone looking at him.

  ‘It happens!’ he said aggressively, as if he had read criticism in the other man’s expression. ‘It bloody happens, whether we like it or not — and we just have to bloody carry on!’

  Blackstone nodded, agreeing silently that, yes, it did happen, and, yes, they just had to bloody carry on.

  He turned slightly, and saw the missing arm of the dead soldier, lying lonely on top of a wall of sandbags. He wondered if, amid this chaos, it would eventually be buried with his owner.

  ‘You’re in the way!’ th
e sergeant screamed at him. ‘Get out of the bloody way!’

  Blackstone eased himself past the soldiers with their shovels, and their angry sergeant with his whistle. He wanted to tell them all that he understood their pain and their fear, but he knew that he didn’t — knew that he was only a visitor to this war which had become the centre of their existence.

  He turned the corner, and entered another world. In this section of the trench, the men were following their normal routine — filling sacks with sand, stacking the sandbags against the wall of the trench, and repairing the duckboards, all with a calm, steady work rhythm.

  Did they know about the tragedy which had occurred in the next section? Blackstone wondered.

  Of course they did! They could not have failed to hear the boom, and were well enough aware of what damage an exploding shell could do.

  But since it hadn’t happened to them, it was none of their business. If it didn’t touch their own struggle for survival, it could be ignored — must be ignored, if they were to avoid going mad.

  He spotted the man he’d come to see standing at the entrance to his dugout, and looking towards the other end of the trench.

  Even from that angle — and at that distance — it was obvious that Hatfield was not in command of himself, let alone anyone else, he thought.

  Blackstone had known a number of officers like Hatfield during his service in India — weak men who, because they had been born into privilege, felt it was their duty to serve their country in the army. They had been quite wrong, of course — they would have better served their country by staying out of the army, and letting men who knew what they were doing take charge — but there had been no telling them that then, and there was no telling them that now.

  ‘Good morning, Lieutenant!’ Blackstone called out.

  The words made Hatfield turn around, perhaps more quickly than he had intended to, and a wince of pain crossed his face.

  ‘Terrible mess in the next section of trench,’ Blackstone said. ‘There’s blood everywhere — and if the field gun had been pointed a fraction of a degree to the left when it was fired, that could have been you.’

  ‘It will be me,’ Hatfield replied. ‘Sooner or later, it’s bound to be me.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Blackstone agreed cheerfully. ‘There are some blokes who are both unlucky in love and unlucky at cards — and you do seem to be one of them. But if I was a betting man, I’d put my money on Lieutenant Maude surviving the war without a scratch — because he’s the kind of man who always does.’

  ‘Perhaps he is,’ Hatfield said flatly.

  ‘You are rather forgetting your manners, aren’t you?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘My manners?’ Hatfield repeated, mystified.

  ‘You never asked me how I was feeling this morning, which is really rather rude.’

  Most other men in his position would have damned Blackstone for his impertinence, but Hatfield, after an uncomfortable silence of perhaps twenty seconds, forced himself to say, ‘So how are you feeling this morning?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’m getting a bit of gyp from this left ankle of mine,’ Blackstone said. ‘And how are you feeling, Lieutenant Hatfield?’

  ‘I’m. . uh. . fine,’ Hatfield replied, refusing to meet Blackstone’s eye.

  ‘Really? When I saw you turn around just then, you looked a little stiff to me. A touch of the rheumatics, is it? That’s an old man’s affliction, you know. I should have thought a boy of your age would have been fighting fit.’

  ‘I am fighting fit,’ Hatfield said, with an uncharacteristic burst of pride.

  ‘I’m certainly relieved to hear that,’ Blackstone said. ‘But, as pleasant as it’s been talking about health matters with you, that’s not at all why I came here today, is it?’

  Hatfield should have said nothing — he knew he should have said nothing — but once again, after a few moments of awkward silence, he felt compelled to speak.

  ‘So why did you come here?’

  ‘I came to bring you a present,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘A present?’

  ‘Well, it’s not really a present, I suppose. It’s more a case of my returning your property to you.’

  ‘My property?’

  ‘You really should get out of the habit of repeating everything I say, you know,’ Blackstone advised. ‘It makes you sound like you’re not your own man at all.’ Then he reached into his pocket, took out the tent peg mallet, and held it out to the lieutenant. ‘This is yours, isn’t it?’

  Hatfield folded his arms across his chest — and winced again.

  ‘I’ve never seen it before in my life,’ he said unconvincingly.

  ‘You’ve never seen a mallet before?’ Blackstone asked, in mock-surprise.

  ‘Well, of course I’ve seen a mallet before, but. .’

  ‘But not this one?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Now that is interesting,’ Blackstone mused. ‘Myself, I can’t tell one mallet from another, but without even really looking at it, you’re sure you’ve never seen this particular mallet before.’

  ‘I have no more to say to you, Inspector,’ Hatfield told him, turning towards the dugout.

  ‘But I have a great deal more to say to you,’ Blackstone replied, putting a restraining hand on the other man’s shoulder. ‘I watched Lieutenants Soames and Maude lead their men out of St Denis last night, but I didn’t see you. Now why was that?’

  ‘None of your business,’ Hatfield said sulkily.

  But he did not brush Blackstone’s hand away with contempt, as Maude would have done. Nor did he take a swing at the policeman, which would probably have been Soames’ instinctive reaction.

  ‘We both know you stayed behind in the village so that you could pay me an unexpected visit in the middle of the night,’ Blackstone said, ‘and we both know that if you stripped off your jacket and shirt now, we’d find a big bruise on your chest that I made with my foot.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Hatfield protested.

  ‘Well, it should be easy enough to prove, one way or the other. Are you willing to show me your chest?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I thought not,’ Blackstone replied. He frowned. ‘Do you know what’s puzzling me?’

  Hatfield — having at last learned the value of silence — said nothing.

  ‘It’s puzzling me why Maude sent you to do his dirty work for him,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘He didn’t. .’

  ‘He needed to send somebody, of course. I understand that. I was getting far too close to the murderers for comfort. But you’d have thought he’d have sent someone who could do a proper job, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Of course you have! You know that I know that it was you who attacked me, and I know that you know it.’ Blackstone paused again. ‘You could have finished me off when I was on the ground — Soames would have done, if he’d been in your place — but instead you ran away like a frightened rabbit, which, when you think about it, was awfully bad form.’

  ‘I didn’t. .’ Hatfield began.

  ‘So am I right in assuming that you don’t want your mallet back?’ Blackstone interrupted him.

  ‘It’s not my mallet!’

  ‘Is it the same one you used to kill Lieutenant Fortesque?’ Blackstone asked, as if the other man had never spoken. ‘Oh, I was forgetting, you didn’t kill Fortesque — that was Lieutenant Soames.’

  Hatfield looked almost as if he was about to burst into tears.

  ‘If only you knew what damage you were doing by being here, you’d put an end to this investigation of yours immediately,’ he said.

  ‘Damage?’ Blackstone repeated, mystified. ‘What damage are you talking about?’

  ‘You have no idea of what reputations you might destroy, have you?’ demanded Hatfield, drawing on reserves of spirit that probably even he had not known he possessed. ‘You don’t know what p
ain you’ll be causing to some very fine people back home. You can’t even begin to imagine the effect you might have on the war effort, right here in these trenches.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘But if you explained those things to me, I would understand, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I. . I can’t explain,’ said Hatfield, clearly drained by his previous effort.

  And when he dove for the protective cover of his dugout, Blackstone did not try to stop him.

  The two men had been walking slowly around the gardens of Hartley Manor for over a quarter of an hour, with General Fortesque leaning heavily on Patterson’s arm for support. So far, not a word had been spoken, but the silence was not an awkward one — at least for the sergeant.

  The gardens quite took Patterson’s breath away. They were simply magnificent, he thought — like the best parts of the best London parks, only much better.

  There were perfectly flat and manicured lawns. There were box hedges trimmed into weird and wonderful shapes. There were greenhouses growing fruits and flowers which the shoppers at Southwark’s New Cut Market would — at best — have treated as oddities, and — at worse — would have regarded with extreme suspicion.

  And there were peacocks — there were actually bloody honest-to-God peacocks — the colourful males strutting around with puffed out chests and tail feathers spread, the drab females waiting stoically for the ravaging which would come at the end of the display.

  Now this was nature as it should be, he told himself — not wild and uncontrolled, but neat, tidy and organized.

  Finally, they reached a series of ornamental fountains, and the General said, ‘I’m rather tired. I think I’d like to sit down now.’

  ‘Of course,’ Patterson agreed, helping the old man gently down on to a marble bench.

  The General sighed. ‘Does anyone ever really think they’ll end up old?’ he asked.

  ‘Not in the part of London where I come from,’ Patterson replied. ‘But then, they’re mostly right not to think it — because by the time they would have been old, they’re already a long time dead.’