Hardcastle's Soldiers

by Graham Ison

  ‘I’ll make some tea,’ said Mrs Perkins, after she had shown the two CID officers into the parlour. A careworn woman of about thirty-five was sitting in an armchair, her red-rimmed eyes testifying to the grief she was suffering at the loss of her husband. She clutched a wet handkerchief between her hands.

  ‘I’m Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle, ma’am, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott. We’re investigating the death of your husband.’ The DDI glanced around at the jumble of bric-a-brac, at the depressingly brown decor, and the brown velour curtains. The fire grate was filled with a newspaper folded into a fan. But there was not a trace of dust anywhere and the windows were sparkling clean.

  Doris Somers looked up listlessly. ‘You can’t bring him back though, can you?’ she asked, almost accusingly.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ agreed Hardcastle, then mumbled, ‘and I’m very sorry for your loss.’ He was not very good at uttering words of condolence, even though he had been obliged to visit the recently bereaved on many occasions during his service.

  ‘He suffered terribly from asthma, you know,’ said Mrs Somers.

  ‘Chronic, it was,’ said Mrs Perkins, reappearing with a tray of tea. Hardcastle suspected that it had already been made when he and Marriott arrived. ‘I can vouch for that.’

  ‘It stopped him from joining the army, you know,’ continued Mrs Somers, ‘and I thought he’d be safe enough working at the bank. You expect to hear of men getting killed at the Front, but not when they work in a bank in London. Why did it have to happen?’ She looked at the two detectives as though imploring them to work some sort of miracle.

  ‘Were you aware of anyone who might’ve wanted to murder your husband, Mrs Somers?’ asked Marriott, accepting a cup of tea from Mrs Perkins. It sounded a crass question to pose, but sometimes the answer to such a question had solved a murder. Nevertheless, the police had to consider that a motive for murder was not always the most obvious one. Not that there was much doubt in the minds of either Hardcastle or Marriott, that Herbert Somers had been the victim of a random robbery at the hands of a soldier called Stacey.

  ‘No. He was well liked, both at the bank and by the neighbours here in Tatnell Road.’

  ‘I can testify to that, Inspector,’ put in Mrs Perkins. ‘Bert Somers was a lovely man. He’d do anything for anybody would Bert. And he was a great help to those round here who’d lost husbands or sons at sea, or at the Front. Being at the bank, he knew how to write letters to the Admiralty and the War Office about pensions and that sort of thing.’

  Hardcastle realized that there was little to be gained by prolonging this painful interview, and he hurriedly finished his tea. ‘If you can think of anything that might help us, Mrs Somers, you only have to tell a policeman – any policeman – and it will reach me.’ He turned to Mrs Perkins. ‘Thank you for the tea.’

  And with that he and Marriott left the grieving widow to the tender ministrations of Mrs Perkins, her neighbour and friend.

  From Tatnell Road, Hardcastle and Marriott rushed to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.

  Despite having told Hardcastle that he was to start the post-mortem examination at six o’clock that evening, Dr Bernard Spilsbury had almost finished by the time the two detectives arrived.

  ‘No doubt about it, Hardcastle,’ said Spilsbury as he washed his hands. ‘It was the blow to the back of the head with the revolver you found at the scene that killed your victim.’

  ‘I understand from his widow that he suffered from chronic asthma, doctor,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I wondered whether that would have made a difference.’

  ‘Not at all. That would not have been a contributory factor in the man’s death. I’ll let you have my report in due course, Hardcastle.’

  ‘I’m obliged to you, doctor.’

  At ten o’clock the following morning, Hardcastle received Dr Spilsbury’s report, neatly typed, into the death of Herbert Somers. He started to read it aloud for Marriott’s benefit, stumbling over the less familiar words. ‘Death was due to intracranial haemorrhage, accumulating in the subdural, and accelerated by the attendant …’ He flung the report down on his desk. ‘What in hell’s name is he talking about, Marriott? Here you read it. See if you can make any sense of it.’

  Marriott picked up the report and skimmed through it. Replacing it on Hardcastle’s desk, he looked up. ‘All we really need to know, sir, is that Somers died as a result of a blow to the skull with the butt of an army pistol.’

  ‘Well, I knew that, and that’s what he told us yesterday,’ muttered Hardcastle testily. ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t the good doctor say so?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Marriott, knowing how inadvisable it was to encourage one of the DDI’s criticisms, confined his response to monosyllables. He could have said that that is exactly what Dr Spilsbury’s report stated, but decided that the safer course was to keep that opinion to himself.

  A PC knocked on Hardcastle’s open door. ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  ‘Yes, what is it, lad?’

  ‘A telephone call from Colonel Frobisher, sir. He has some information for you, when you care to call on him.’ The PC stepped into the office and laid a message flimsy on Hardcastle’s desk.

  ‘Ah,’ exclaimed Hardcastle, ‘perhaps we’ll hear something that might help us to push this enquiry along a bit further. And not before time, either. Come, Marriott.’ He seized his hat and umbrella, and swept out of the office, followed by Marriott.

  As Hardcastle and Marriott arrived at the APM’s office, a mounted troop of Life Guards entered Horse Guards Arch to change the guard. Their ceremonial scarlet tunics, silver-coloured helmets and breastplates, white breeches and knee boots, had been replaced by sombre khaki with puttees. And no ceremony had attended the guard change since the outbreak of war.

  ‘I’ve traced your man Stacey for you, Inspector,’ said Frobisher.

  ‘Splendid, Colonel. I hope he’s not too far away.’

  ‘No. You’ll doubtless be relieved that he’s in Aldershot,’ said the APM. ‘I spoke to the officer in charge of Army Service Corps records, and he confirmed that Private Edward Stacey, with the same regimental number that was inside the cap, is in his fourth week of training at Buller Barracks on Queen’s Avenue. He’s one of Lord Derby’s conscripts apparently. He tried pleading that he was a conscientious objector, but the tribunal turned him down.’

  ‘Don’t surprise me,’ muttered Hardcastle, who had no high opinion of ‘conchies’ as he called them.

  ‘I arranged for Captain Hector McIntyre of the Gordon Highlanders – he’s one of my military police officers – to take Stacey into custody as soon as I learned he was the man you wanted,’ continued Frobisher. ‘You’ll find him in the guardroom at Salamanca Barracks. McIntyre is expecting you.’

  ‘But I thought you said he was at Buller Barracks, Colonel.’ As ever, Hardcastle was finding difficulty understanding the military.

  ‘That’s where his training battalion is stationed, Inspector, but I thought it advisable to have him removed from among his own comrades. Anyway, Salamanca Barracks is where Captain McIntyre has his offices. When are you thinking of going down there?’

  ‘I’ll go and talk to him immediately, Colonel.’ Hardcastle rubbed his hands together. ‘With any luck we’ll get a cough from Stacey, and have the case all done and dusted by nightfall.’

  ‘A cough?’ queried Frobisher, as unfamiliar with Hardcastle’s argot as Hardcastle was with that of the military.

  ‘A confession,’ explained Hardcastle.

  ‘I see. I’ll have you met at Aldershot Station. You’ll find a military policeman there to take you to Salamanca Barracks.’

  ‘What about the revolver, Colonel?’

  ‘No luck there, I’m afraid, Inspector, and I doubt there will be. As I said the last time you were here, the number of revolvers that are lost on the battlefield makes it almost impossible to keep track of them.’

  ‘A pity, that. It might have led me to Somers’ k
iller, not that I think there’s any doubt that the man Stacey was responsible. I wonder how he got hold of a revolver, though,’ mused Hardcastle. ‘However, I’m obliged to you for your assistance, Colonel.’

  Leaving Colonel Frobisher’s office at Horse Guards Arch, Hardcastle strode out to Whitehall and hailed a cab to take him and Marriott to Waterloo Station.

  Fortunately, Hardcastle’s rank entitled him to travel second class, otherwise he and Marriott – also travelling second class, because he was with the DDI – would have had difficulty in finding a seat in a train crowded with soldiers going to Aldershot and sailors on their way to Portsmouth.

  As Frobisher had promised, a red-capped military police corporal was awaiting the detectives’ arrival at Aldershot Station. It was as well: there were queues of officers waiting for the inadequate number of taxis.

  ‘Inspector Hardcastle, sir?’ asked the corporal, as he saluted.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very good, sir. I’ve orders to take you to Salamanca Barracks. Captain McIntyre is expecting you.’ The corporal conducted Hardcastle and Marriott to a highly polished Vauxhall staff car bearing military police insignia. The journey took but ten minutes.

  THREE

  Salamanca Barracks consisted, in the main, of two tall, long buildings facing each other. The ground floor of each, once stables, had been converted into a number of offices. Each bore mystifying signs in a military terminology that Hardcastle did not understand, nor had any desire to.

  Eventually, the military police corporal showed them into an office at the far end of one of the buildings. ‘Captain McIntyre’s office, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Hector McIntyre, Inspector.’ The tall Gordon Highlanders officer crossed the room and shook hands with the DDI and Marriott. He was wearing a kilt of the Gordon tartan, with a sporran that came to his knees. But his tunic, with its cutaway skirt, was the same drab khaki as everyone else had worn since the war began. It was relieved only by medal ribbons and a brassard bearing the letters MP. ‘I’ve got your man locked up here as Colonel Frobisher ordered.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But I daresay you’d care for a bite to eat, or perhaps a wee dram, eh, Inspector? Or even both,’ he added with a chuckle.

  ‘That would be most acceptable, Captain,’ said Hardcastle, warming immediately to the military policeman.

  ‘Aye, good,’ said McIntyre. ‘I always find interviewing prisoners on an empty stomach is nae good for the constitution.’ He laughed loudly, and picked up his chequered glengarry and swagger cane. ‘Follow me, gentlemen.’

  McIntyre led the two detectives across a vast parade ground where several squads of men, under a fierce-looking sergeant, were being drilled. The recruits were brought to attention, and the sergeant saluted. McIntyre acknowledged the compliment by languidly touching his glengarry with his swagger cane. Finally the trio reached the officers’ mess on the far side.

  After several tots of malt whisky, and a splendid lunch, the MP officer escorted Hardcastle and Marriott back across the barrack square to the guardroom.

  The regimental police sergeant leaped to his feet and saluted as McIntyre strode in.

  ‘These two gentlemen are from the civil police, Sarn’t, and they’ve come to have a word with Stacey.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ The provost sergeant took a large bunch of keys from a hook on the wall, and led the three policemen down a dank corridor. Opening the door of a cell, he screamed at the occupant. ‘On your feet, lad, officer present.’

  Edward Stacey carved a pitiful figure. Not yet nineteen years of age, his hair was shorn, and he was dressed in canvas fatigues, the trousers of which he clutched as he stood up. The provost sergeant had wisely removed anything that the unfortunate youth might use to hang himself, and that included his belt and his bootlaces. The death of a soldier who had committed suicide in a guardroom inevitably led to a court of enquiry, and even the possibility of a court martial for whoever was in charge of him at the time.

  ‘These officers are from the civil police and they’re here to ask you some questions in connection with a serious crime, Stacey,’ said McIntyre. ‘You will answer them truthfully. D’you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Stacey was shaking visibly. He seemed to have no idea why he had been placed in close arrest, and certainly appeared to know nothing about this serious crime to which the military police officer was referring.

  ‘Where were you yesterday morning, lad?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘Here, sir.’ Stacey stared at Hardcastle as though the DDI had asked a fatuous question.

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ put in McIntyre. ‘You weren’t arrested until last evening.’

  ‘No, sir, I meant I was here in Aldershot, at Buller Barracks. We was doing weapon training all morning.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Hardcastle produced the cap bearing Stacey’s name and number. ‘Is this yours?’ he asked, handing the cap to the prisoner.

  Stacey looked inside the cap, and then glanced up, a mystified expression on his face. ‘Yes, it’s mine, sir, but how did you get hold of it?’ he asked as he returned the cap.

  ‘It was picked up by a North Staffordshire Regiment officer at Victoria Station at about quarter past ten yesterday morning. He claims to have been pursuing a soldier who we believe had just murdered the cashier in a military money-exchange booth,’ said Hardcastle. ‘What have you to say about that?’

  ‘I lost it, sir.’ Stacey really had no idea what this aggressive policeman was talking about.

  ‘You lost it? And you expect me to believe that?’

  ‘It’s the God’s honest truth, sir. I never had nothing to do with no murder. I was here all day. Well, at Buller Barracks, like.’

  ‘Did you report the loss of your cap, Stacey?’ asked McIntyre, who was leaning against the jamb of the cell doorway, his arms folded.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’d’ve had to pay for a new one, sir.’ To Stacey that seemed a logical answer.

  ‘So how did you expect to appear on working parade this morning without a cap, eh? If you hadn’t been put in close arrest last night, that is.’

  ‘I’d’ve managed to borrow one, sir. One of the lads is off sick, and I thought—’

  ‘And you thought you’d steal someone else’s before you had to pay for another, I suppose, laddie.’ McIntyre turned to Hardcastle. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, I shouldn’t have interrupted.’

  ‘That’s all right, Captain McIntyre, but I need to have a word with you outside.’

  When the three policemen were in the cell passage, with the door of Stacey’s cell firmly closed, Hardcastle asked, ‘D’you think there’s any truth in this story, Captain?’

  ‘It’s easily checked, Inspector. If Stacey was attending weapon training yesterday morning, then the sergeant-instructor will be able to confirm it. It’s a pity Colonel Frobisher didn’t tell me why you wanted to see Stacey. It might have saved you a journey if what the lad says turns out to be true.’

  ‘How soon can we check his story?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘In the time it takes us to get from here to Buller Barracks, Inspector, and find the sergeant weapon training instructor.’

  The sprawling blocks of Buller Barracks in Queen’s Avenue lay a mile away from Salamanca Barracks. It was said that, following the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale had condemned them, along with all the other barracks in Aldershot, as unfit for soldiers to live in, but the advent of the Great War had put paid to plans for what would have been an ambitious rebuilding programme.

  Sergeant Finch, a veteran of the Boer Wars, was found instructing a squad of recruits in one of the wooden classrooms that had been hurriedly constructed to cope with the influx of recruits that this latest war – and Lord Kitchener’s pointing finger – had brought about.

  The appearance of Captain McIntyre in the doorway immediately produced a roar from Finch for the recruits to come to attention.

  As the young soldiers leaped to
their feet, one unfortunate who was seated behind a Lewis gun, managed to knock it over in his haste.

  ‘Mind what you’re doing with that bloody thing, you stupid oaf,’ roared Finch. ‘We can get plenty more soldiers, but Lewis guns are hard to come by. Do it again and I’ll tear off your arm and beat you to death with the soggy end.’ He swivelled on his left heel, crashed his ammunition boots on the wooden floor to assume a position of attention, and saluted. ‘Sah!’ he yelled.

  ‘Stand easy, lads,’ said McIntyre, and beckoning to Finch, he said, ‘Just step outside, Sarn’t Finch.’

  ‘Sah!’ yelled Finch again, and followed the military police officer into the corridor.

  ‘These two gentlemen are from the civil police, Sarn’t Finch.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Very good, sir.’

  ‘They want to know about Private Stacey. He tells me that he was under training with you yesterday morning.’

  Finch unbuttoned one of his tunic pockets and withdrew a sheet of paper. After a moment or two spent in perusing the document, he looked up. ‘Yes, sir. Correct, sir. An idle man, sir.’

  McIntyre smiled. To sergeant-instructors all recruits were idle men. ‘Did he say anything about having lost his cap, Sarn’t Finch?’

  ‘No, sir, but the men don’t wear headdress for these here lectures. That’d be a matter for his platoon sergeant, sir.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely certain that he was here yesterday morning.’

  Finch contrived to look mildly offended without being insubordinate. ‘He was definitely here, sir, and he should’ve been here today. I’ve marked him absent.’

  ‘He’s locked up in my guardroom at the moment, Sarn’t Finch, but it looks rather as though you’ll be getting him back shortly.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Finch. ‘I don’t know what you banged him up for, but I daresay a couple of circuits of the barrack square with his rifle at the high port won’t do him no harm, and that’s a fact, sir.’