The Dead Can Wait

by Robert Ryan

  ‘Pleasure, sir.’ He felt a little stab of pride. The captain, von Schuller, was a legend in the service, a veteran of Zeppelin service, a survivor of the LZ2 forced landing in the Allgäu mountains after engine failure.

  ‘Ready to release, Kuhn?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  The capsule bucked as the quick-release clamps were unclipped by his shipmates in the gondola above. Effi dropped a foot, a jolt that caused his stomach to somersault one way then another. Then the wind caught the little device, causing it to yaw, and he gripped the sides of the wicker chair. A bang as the brake came off the drum, and the capsule was lowered. He looked out of one of the side windows, down onto the cottony clouds that the stars and moon were illuminating. Above him, the umbilical cord of rope was paying out and the precarious little vessel was dropping away from the mothership, the airstream pushing it back towards the giant tail of the Zeppelin.

  Once out of the shadow of the airship and its engines, Kuhn could see the cold beauty of the star-rich sky and the ivory moon. Soon, it would be lost to him. Away from the ship, the whole of the night sky seemed to vibrate with the sound emanating from the Maybach engines in their nacelles, slung under the streamlined body. He was surprised they couldn’t hear it in London. But he knew the clouds below him acted as an acoustic blanket and most people on the ground might hear only a faint buzz, if that.

  ‘I’m going into the clouds now,’ he said, even though he knew the men in the gondola would be watching his progress. And then a darkness enveloped him. He switched on the torch, but it simply generated a milky glow all around him. Effi began to oscillate at the end of her tether. He knew this part. You kept your nerve as the currents and eddies in the clouds threw you this way and that.

  Please God, let me live through this. Just one more leave, one more sight of my family, and I promise—

  He burst through over a darkened countryside, illuminated only by sporadic lights of hamlets. They were beyond the large conurbations of the coast, the usual targets like Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and below him was the flat, featureless – at least at night – farmland of Norfolk and Suffolk.

  He consulted the charts and the compass and phoned up the heading, along with a correction. One bright spot of lights had to be the town known as Diss.

  ‘You all right down there, Kuhn?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘We must be almost there.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘There will be red lights to guide us in.’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘According to my orders, there will be three red lights, placed by our agents, visible to you, but not from the ground. If you line those up, east to west, it points directly to the airfield.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  From the corner of his eye he saw a flash of something, which disappeared as he looked at it. He moved his head, relying on his peripheral vision. It was there again. Red light.

  He picked up the phone just as the capsule filled with a miniature tornado, blasting the charts and causing Effi to spin like a compass needle. Kuhn found himself on his hands and knees, the roar of an aero engine drowning out all rational thought except one. He scrabbled for the phone. ‘Fighter!’

  ‘Have you seen the lights?’ von Schuller asked coolly.

  ‘There is a British fighter down here. It almost rammed me.’

  ‘He can’t reach us at his height.’

  No, but he can reach me.

  ‘Red lights, Kuhn? Have you seen them?’

  Kuhn felt like a tethered goat, waiting for the wolf. ‘Yes, I have red lights. And I can see the aerodrome,’ he said, looking around for that fighter. It was from Thetford, their very target, for it was from there that the planes with the new tracer bullets were operating, defending the night skies. They had already claimed three Zeppelins.

  ‘Jesus!’ he shouted to himself as he heard the thrum of enemy propellers. Then, speaking as calmly as he could manage down the phone, ‘I have the three red markers below me and an airstrip coming up. Start your run.’

  ‘Are you sure, Kuhn?’

  ‘Yes, on my mark.’

  Where the hell was that fighter? He counted off a minute, as if he really could see the airfield as the Zeppelin was bearing down on it.

  ‘Over target. Bombs away.’

  Twelve bombs and three flaming incendiary devices fell in a tight pattern. He could smell the chemicals and smoke even from that height. ‘Target hit,’ he lied. He would worry about his subterfuge later. He would blame the ground markings, claim that there were decoys on the ground to confuse him. ‘Get me up, please.’

  ‘Well done, Kuhn,’ said von Schuller, making him glow with shame and guilt. ‘The drum is running.’

  The cable tightened, drawing him up. As he cleared the last of the thin clouds into the bright heavens once more, he felt a brief blast of the British fighter, spinning his capsule again, and the impression of a dark shape blotting out the stars. The night was sliced by orange streaks, like the dashes in Morse code, which reached up to the black cigar of his Zeppelin. A second stream of dashes joined in. There was another fighter on the prowl. Yellowy flashes came from the gondola. The Zeppelin was replying with its machine guns.

  But Kuhn saw a small flame appear at the base of the airship and grow rapidly, looking as if molten lava had burned through the envelope. It spread in an instant, engulfing the nose of the Admiral Karl Rudolf Brommy, which tilted, pointing earthwards. Still the evil tracers came, dimming the stars with their brightness as flames cupped the Zeppelin’s envelope. Kuhn closed his eyes and gave a small sob, knowing that, where the mothership was going, he was bound to follow.

  Bradley Ross had just emerged from the covered stream and into the forest proper when the shower struck. Much of the sting of the downpour was taken out by the interlaced leaves of the protecting canopy of trees, but still he waited against a trunk until it lost some of its initial ferocity. He didn’t want to be soaked through and catch a cold. And he was fairly certain if he was taking shelter, then so would any patrol.

  The rain eased after ten minutes, during which he pressed his back into the gnarled wood behind him, knees to his chest. He was dressed in black, with a balaclava of the same colour, his skin darkened with coal dust. He was as invisible as he could manage.

  Once the shower had reduced to a light, sporadic spray he began to move, the ground springy underfoot, each footstep releasing the smell of damp earth and mulching vegetation. His plan was very simple. He would test the defences, which no doubt Booth would have strengthened, and he would kidnap one of the soldiers and torture the truth out of him. And Miss Pillbody? He hated unfinished business, but in this case there was no alternative. Then it would be motor cycle to Harwich, where he had a contact who could get him across to neutral Holland and the Rotterdam office of the Army Intelligence Service.

  Slowly, he rose to his full height, checked his pistol and withdrew his knife: a serrated hunting model this time, not the razor. He moved forward through the ferns, the water flicking off the fronds. He heard the thrum of an engine and turned towards it, but it was just a car, driving off into the night.

  Now, the clouds thinned and the disc of the moon appeared once more, casting a dim, silvery glow over the scene. A light flashed somewhere through the trees, and was gone.

  Another set of those strange voices drifted by, but he was used to them now. He no longer thought they were around him. It was just some aspect of the weapon they were developing.

  He felt the rifle barrel press against his neck.

  ‘Move and I’ll blow your head off, Fritz.’

  His throat dried in an instant. ‘Fritz? Are you crazy? I’m not German.’

  ‘No?’ The speaker let out a long, low whistle and Ross heard more undergrowth rustle. Three men with charcoal-blackened faces appeared. ‘This is what a tenner looks like, lads. Turn around slow and put your hands up.’

  ‘A tenner?’ Ross protested, doing as he was told. �
�What are you—’

  ‘Shut it. Lieutenant said you Hun were creeping around . . .’

  Ross had it at once. A £10 reward for capturing any intruder. Booth hadn’t trusted Ross not to come looking. Perhaps he wasn’t as callow as he looked.

  ‘Yeah, well, your Lieutenant Booth put me out as a mouse, just to see how good you chaps were.’

  ‘What?’ said one of the other soldiers. ‘What’s that prick Booth playin’ at?’

  ‘Who gives a fuck?’ said the first. ‘Get him back, we claim our tenner.’

  ‘Not if he’s not a German spy.’

  ‘Course he’s a German spy.’

  ‘Look,’ interrupted Ross, ‘if I am a German, how do I know Lieutenant Booth’s name?’

  ‘I said it.’

  ‘You didn’t. You just said “the lieutenant”.’

  ‘Did I?’ There was doubt in the voice.

  ‘Let’s take him to Booth.’

  ‘I’ll pay you a tenner each to let me go. I’ll tell Booth what happened. But it’s a little embarrassing to be caught so early.’

  Even in the thin moonlight he could see greed flicker in the men’s eyes.

  ‘You got forty quid on you?’

  ‘Fifty.’

  ‘Stick ’im and let’s just take it.’

  ‘He resisted arrest,’ suggested one, rehearsing their alibi.

  Another of them took out his bayonet and slotted it onto his Lee-Enfield. ‘Come on. We’re all in this. We do it on three.’

  ‘I might be lying,’ Ross said. ‘I might not have fifty quid on me. Then you’ll have killed me for nothing. And Booth will be very, very upset.’

  That stumped them. ‘But we got nothing to lose. If he’s got no money, we just claim the tenner. Say he put up a fight.’

  ‘I think we’ve got to take him to Booth alive.’

  One of them tutted, but it seemed decided.

  That’s when the trees behind them exploded.

  The shockwave threw them all off-balance. Ross jumped backwards, letting himself fall into the ferns. As he fell, he pulled his pistol clear and shot the nearest soldier.

  One of the others raised his rifle but before he could fire, his head whipped round from the force of impact in his skull. Only afterwards did Ross hear the sound of the shot. He dropped the third member of the patrol, but the remaining man threw his rifle down and sprinted towards the cover of the forest. As a string of explosions lit up the treeline, Ross fired two shots at the running man.

  ‘Stop that,’ someone hissed, as they sprinted by. ‘I’ll get him.’

  Who the hell was that? Ross raised himself up to a sitting position, watching as the figure plunged into the dark of the forest, only catching a glimpse when the yellow light of a detonation briefly illuminated the trees.

  One of the fallen soldiers groaned. Ross thumped him with the butt of his pistol. The faux-American was on his feet by the time his saviour returned, breathing hard from the exertion of the chase. The face was wrapped in a dark scarf, so that only the eyes showed, and there was a knitted woollen hat on the head. The body was covered in black overalls. ‘Got him.’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Get out of here,’ the newcomer hissed. ‘I’ll clear up your mess.’

  Ross started to protest and found he was looking down the barrel of a pistol. He turned and walked swiftly away, shoulders braced for a shot that never came.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The explosions rippled across the grounds, their sickly light illuminating Watson’s room. He crossed to the door and opened it. He wasn’t sure who to expect at that time of night, but it certainly wasn’t Mrs Gregson, throwing her arms around him and pushing him back into the room, kicking the door closed as she came.

  The room juddered and plaster rained down on them. Somewhere a window shattered and the house was alive with the thump of hastily shod feet.

  ‘Dr Watson, am I glad to see you,’ she said, and planted a kiss on his forehead. ‘You could put the gun down, though.’

  Acutely aware he was clad only in his nightclothes, Watson pulled her arms from his neck, placed the pistol back on the nightstand and fetched a gown. ‘We should go and help,’ he said, pulling the curtains aside. Fires had started beyond the gardens. Something was burning fiercely, throwing up sparks to the heavens. ‘What on earth is happening?’

  ‘First, one thing this place is not short of is able bodies. Somewhere out there are several hundred young men. You’d only be in the way. Secondly, I do believe it is a Zeppelin raid. They have been over before, but never bombed us. Thirdly, the best thing we can do is establish a casualty station for any injured.’

  Watson turned and looked at her. She was dressed in a full, dark skirt, lace-up boots and a grey blouse. Her red corkscrew hair was, if anything, wilder than ever, and in the glow of the flames, her face appeared somewhat more lined and drawn than when he last saw her, half a year ago. But then, wasn’t everybody’s? What hadn’t changed was the air of capability and common sense she exuded.

  ‘Of course. I shall get dressed. Then you can tell me what on earth you are doing here, Mrs Gregson.’

  ‘Oh, didn’t you know?’ she asked acidly. ‘Apparently we’re making history. I will tell you later. But if I tell you it was my large, self-righteous mouth that got me here, would it surprise you?’

  Watson laughed, realizing how much he had missed her.

  ‘I have a first-aid station in the old conservatory, at the back of the Hall. We can work there. I’ll turn my back while you get dressed.’

  She sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded primly on her lap.

  ‘What sort of first aid do you do here?’ Watson asked.

  ‘Burns mostly.’

  ‘Burns? Like Hitchcock’s cheek, perhaps?’

  ‘No, not like that. Contact burns. The sort cooks get from hot stoves. Crushed fingers, too. Headaches. Concussion . . .’

  ‘And there is no doctor on site? No MO?’

  She turned to speak, then quickly back again when she saw he was still partially clothed. ‘There was. I thought you must know. Captain Trenton. He was one of the ones who died in the accident.’

  ‘And he’s not been replaced?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you examine the victims?’

  ‘Only Trenton.’

  ‘Yet you were the only medically qualified person on site?’ He gave a grunt of frustration.

  ‘I don’t think they think of me that way. More like a nanny. And . . .’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘From the way they reacted, I think they were frightened by the incident. By the implications.’

  Watson could see that. A pet project suddenly going off the rails, perhaps facing closure if it got out that it had killed its participants. There had been cover-ups in the past – the munitions explosion at Faversham was almost certainly the results of sabotage by a German agent, but the Government had blamed the warm weather and ‘sweating nitro’. At Netley near Southampton, Watson had heard tell of a terrible death toll during trials of the Super Nautilus class of submarines. The class was never officially acknowledged as existing, but the wagging tongues claimed that three of them rested at the bottom of the sea.

  ‘Do you know exactly what they are doing here?’

  Mrs Gregson examined her feet. ‘I am kept here, virtually under house arrest.’

  ‘Mrs Gregson . . .’ he admonished. He knew her too well to expect her to take ‘confined to quarters’ lying down. She had the curiosity of a cat. ‘You have never gone for an unofficial prowl?’

  ‘Well, I do slip the leash now and then.’ She laughed. ‘And I’ve seen one of the machines that killed them and sent Hitchcock mad.’

  ‘One? How many are there?’

  ‘I don’t know. You hear them, but rarely see them. I’ve only really examined this one.’

  ‘Where is this killing machine?’

  ‘About a quarter of a mile from here, perhaps a little more.
’

  He felt his own curiosity piqued. ‘Could you show me?’

  ‘Yes. Although you have to be careful, if you are found wandering around—’ Another explosion filled the night. ‘Although tonight, of all nights, it might be possible.’

  ‘And you’ve obviously seen Hitchcock?’ Otherwise, how could she know about the mark on his face?

  ‘Once or twice. Poor chap. I had to dress some wounds. And put some ointment on his cheek. He’s in a bad way, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Watson cleared his throat when he had finished buttoning up his trousers. ‘The worst is over. You can turn around now.’

  She did so and smiled at him, her eyes crinkling.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Nothing, Major. Nothing. Just pleased to see you.’

  Watson laced up his shoes. ‘How did you end up here?’

  ‘I answered an advertisement for people with mechanical ability. They turned me down, because of my sex. I kicked up a fuss. They arrested me for drawing attention to their little project. Initially I was taken to somewhere off the coast, but when they found out I had been a nurse – well, a VAD – I might have not been entirely truthful there. But as I was already compromised, they brought me here. I arrived the day before the accident sent everyone into a flap.’

  ‘Right, let’s go and see if there are any injured.’

  ‘Major Watson, there is one thing I should tell you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  There was a loud thump on the door. ‘Major!’

  Mrs Gregson opened it to Booth, and Watson saw the surprise and confusion on his face.

  ‘I just came to escort the major to my casualty station,’ she explained.

  ‘Right. Yes. We do have some injuries.’

  They heard another series of dull crumps in the far distance.

  ‘Must be using delayed fuses,’ said Booth with a grimace. ‘That’ll make things trickier.’

  ‘We’ll be right down,’ said Watson.

  After he had gone, he turned to Mrs Gregson. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘It’ll wait,’ she replied. ‘Let’s go and do our jobs.’

  They thought Elveden had got off lightly in terms of casualties. Watson and Mrs Gregson had set up in her station – a conservatory that had once held exotic birds from across the world, back in the maharajah’s day. Now the perches and wires were empty, the glass cracked, the Indian motif floor tiles chipped.