Hardcastle's Soldiers

by Graham Ison

  ‘Well, Inspector, it looks rather as though Stacey is not the man you want,’ said McIntyre, when the three of them were walking back to McIntyre’s staff car.

  ‘It certainly looks that way, Captain,’ said a disappointed Hardcastle, ‘but I’m still wondering how our man at Victoria Station came to be in possession of Stacey’s cap.’

  ‘That seems to point to some other soldier in his platoon having purloined Stacey’s cap, but I wonder why,’ said McIntyre.

  ‘So do I, Captain,’ said Hardcastle. ‘So do I.’

  But as it turned out, it was not that simple.

  The problem of Stacey’s cap was still vexing Hardcastle by the time he and Marriott alighted from their train at Waterloo Station.

  Clearly in an irritable mood, the DDI marched out to the station forecourt, and hired a taxi.

  ‘Scotland Yard, cabbie,’ he snapped, and then, turning to Marriott, added, ‘Tell ’em Cannon Row, and half the time you’ll finish up at Cannon Street in the City,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Marriott wearily. Hardcastle had offered this advice on almost every occasion that he and the DDI had travelled back to the police station.

  On the Friday morning, Hardcastle received a telephone call from Captain McIntyre.

  ‘Inspector, I had another word with Stacey after you’d left, and persuaded him to tell me the circumstances under which he lost his cap. He was reluctant to tell me at first, but I explained to him that either he came clean or I’d hand him over to you.’ McIntyre’s statement was followed by a deep chuckle.

  ‘What did he have to say, Captain?’ Hardcastle was somewhat puzzled by the call. He thought that a lost service cap was a matter for the army, rather than for him. As far as the DDI was concerned, Stacey was not the man for whom he was looking in connection with the death of Herbert Somers, even though he thought that he was somehow involved. Even unknowingly.

  ‘Apparently on the evening of Sunday the eighth – that’s three days before the murder that you’re investigating – he went absent.’

  ‘How long was he absent?’ asked Hardcastle, his interest immediately aroused.

  ‘Not long. In fact, only a matter of hours. You see, Inspector, recruits are confined to barracks until they’ve completed ten-weeks training, but most of the barracks here are wide open, as you’ll have seen. There are no brick walls, or anything of that sort. It’s easy enough for a soldier to walk out without going anywhere near the guardroom, or being spotted by an officer or NCO. Mind you, they’d have been crimed by their company commander if they’d been caught and brought up before him.’

  ‘How does this affect the issue, Captain?’ asked Hardcastle, wondering why the provost officer should be telling him this.

  ‘He went down to a pub in Aldershot with some of his pals, and was stupid enough to leave his cap on a hook. Well, the army code is that you never steal any personal property from a comrade, but army property is fair game for a thief. When Stacey left the pub, his cap was gone, and there wasn’t another one there. That means it’s unlikely to have been a case of another soldier picking up the wrong cap by mistake and leaving his own in its place, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Do you know which public house Stacey was in?’ asked Hardcastle, even though that appeared to be irrelevant.

  ‘I’m afraid not. There are over a hundred pubs in the Aldershot area, Inspector, and Stacey can’t remember which one he was in. Probably three sheets to the wind by the time he got back to barracks. It looks to me very much as though the man who took Stacey’s cap did it deliberately. Perhaps he’d lost his own and didn’t feel like paying for a replacement.’

  That did not accord with Hardcastle’s view of the reason for the theft, but he let it pass.

  ‘God knows how Stacey got back to barracks without a cap,’ continued McIntyre. ‘My patrols are everywhere, but I’ve looked through the reports, and there’s nothing to indicate any military policemen checking a man for not wearing his headdress. Or for being absent without authority.’

  ‘I seem to remember you asking him how he would appear on parade without a cap. Did you question him further about that, Captain McIntyre?’

  ‘Aye, I did that. As he said when you interviewed him, he would have borrowed one from a laddie who was sick and excused duties.’

  ‘But wouldn’t he have had to appear on parade before going to the weapon training class that Sergeant Finch mentioned?’

  ‘Yes, as far as I know. I can only assume that he did what he said he was going to, and borrowed one.’

  ‘From what you’re saying, I get the impression that it was one of Stacey’s mates who stole his cap. But that begs the question of how his mate got to the pub without a cap,’ Hardcastle added thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes, that’s the conclusion I came to.’

  ‘Of course,’ Hardcastle went on, ‘he might not have gone to the pub without a cap. Perhaps the thief, whoever he is, stole the cap in order to commit the robbery at the money-exchange booth, and thereby implicate Stacey.’

  ‘That sounds like a possibility, Inspector. I can make some enquiries, if that would be helpful. I’ll get one of my sergeants to find out from Stacey which of his pals he went drinking with. You never know, but that might just turn up your murderer for you.’

  Hardcastle laughed. ‘D’you think Stacey will tell your sergeant?’

  Now it was McIntyre’s turn to chuckle. ‘Believe me, Inspector, my sergeants can be very persuasive when the mood takes them.’

  ‘Thank you for your help, Captain McIntyre.’ Hardcastle decided that he would not enquire too deeply into the army’s interrogation methods, preferring not to imagine the sort of pressure a military police sergeant would exert in order to extract the facts from Stacey.

  ‘If there’s anything further I can do, you know where I am.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Perhaps you’d keep me informed.’

  The following day Hardcastle received a further telephone call from Captain McIntyre.

  ‘An interesting development, Inspector,’ he began. ‘It seems that Private Stacey’s cap wasn’t the only item of kit that went missing. Another soldier in Stacey’s platoon reported having a tunic stolen, and a third man a pair of trousers. Also, as I promised, I’ve had a list from my sergeant of those members of Stacey’s platoon who were drinking with him the night that the lad lost his cap.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that these soldiers lost a tunic and a pair of trousers in a pub, Captain McIntyre?’ enquired Hardcastle impishly.

  There was a guffaw of laughter from the other end. ‘It’s an intriguing thought, Inspector, but no, they appear to have had them stolen from their barrack room.’

  ‘It would seem, then, that someone living in that barrack room stole those items of uniform for the purpose of carrying out a robbery at Victoria Station, a robbery that resulted in murder. Either that or someone else entered the barrack room with the same aim in mind. The question is why should they have done so? If the idea was to implicate Stacey – who’s now been rowed out of my investigation – it only serves to narrow the field of enquiry.’

  There was a long pause before McIntyre replied. ‘I suppose it looks to be the case,’ he said eventually. ‘What do you want to do about it, Inspector?’

  Hardcastle also paused before answering. ‘I think I’ll have to come down to Aldershot and have a word with them, Captain. When do you suggest?’

  ‘It’s Saturday today,’ said McIntyre, ‘and this afternoon the men are involved in interior economy ready for the commanding officer’s inspection on Monday. After that they’ll be playing football, visiting the canteen, or even sleeping. As for tomorrow, well, that’s taken up with church parades in the morning, and in the afternoon they’re allowed to do more or less what they want to do within the confines of the barracks.’

  ‘Interior economy?’ queried Hardcastle. ‘What on earth is that?’ Once again, the DDI was mystified by army terminology.

&
nbsp; ‘Pressing uniforms, and cleaning equipment and barrack rooms,’ said McIntyre. ‘So I would suggest you come down on Monday morning. I’ll send a car to Aldershot Station in time for you to call at my office at, say, ten o’clock. Then I’ll take you to Buller Barracks and introduce you to the commanding officer of the training battalion. As a matter of courtesy, you understand.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll see you on Monday.’ Finishing his conversation with McIntyre, Hardcastle turned to his sergeant. ‘We’re being buggered about by the military once again, Marriott.’ The DDI leaned forward to pick up his pipe, and began to fill it with tobacco. ‘This is turning out to be a bit of a dog’s dinner,’ he continued, and relayed the details of his last conversation with the military police officer.

  Marriott was always amused at his chief’s description of any enquiry as a dog’s dinner, although this was sometimes varied to a dog’s breakfast. ‘It looks as though someone stole the cap, the tunic and the trousers so he could carry out the robbery, sir,’ he said, repeating what Hardcastle had said to McIntyre.

  ‘Yes, it does, but why?’ Hardcastle applied a match to his pipe and leaned back thoughtfully.

  ‘Perhaps he’s a civilian, sir. Someone who didn’t want to be recognized among all the other soldiers at the railway station.’

  Hardcastle scoffed at that suggestion. ‘If some civilian can walk into a barracks in time of war and steal bits of uniform, it don’t say much for their security. No, Marriott, it’s got to have been a soldier. But it was obviously a soldier who didn’t know that Stacey would have a copper-bottomed alibi for the time of the murder.’

  ‘I agree, sir, but apart from anything else, surely a soldier would’ve saluted an officer – that Lieutenant Mansfield who saw the murderer running away – rather than risk getting caught for something as silly as that after having done a murder, sir.’

  ‘I’d’ve thought so, Marriott, but like I said, it’s a dog’s dinner. Still, thanks to the military police, there’s nothing we can do until Monday. Take the rest of the weekend off, and give my regards to Mrs Marriott.’

  ‘Thank you very much, sir.’ It was rare for the DDI not to work right through Saturday and Sunday when he was engaged in a murder enquiry. ‘And mine to Mrs H.’

  Hardcastle did not, however, leave immediately. As usual, he managed to find some reports to scrutinize, criticize and correct, but at about half past two, he descended the stairs and walked through the front office of the police station.

  A police constable was donning a large cardboard placard that read: POLICE NOTICE – TAKE COVER.

  ‘What’s that all about, lad?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘Air raid, sir,’ said the PC, who thought – although he did not say so – that the placard made perfectly clear what was happening. ‘Didn’t you hear the maroons?’

  ‘Maroons? What maroons?’

  ‘Three of them were set off from Southwark Fire Station, sir, at fifteen-second intervals. It’s the new scheme for warning of an air raid. It usually means the raiders are about twenty miles away from us.’

  ‘Well, I’m going home, lad. Bound to be a false alarm, and we’ve had more than enough of them lately.’

  The PC looked doubtful. ‘You’d be better off staying here in the basement, sir. Much safer, like.’

  ‘It’ll take more than Fritz in one of his infernal flying machines to stop me from going home, lad, bombs or no bombs,’ said Hardcastle, and donning his bowler hat, he marched purposefully out of the police station.

  ‘I s’pose being a DDI he thinks he’s exempt from getting killed, Sergeant,’ said the PC to the station officer. ‘His umbrella won’t be much help.’

  ‘You watch your bloody tongue when you’re talking about Mr Hardcastle, lad,’ said the sergeant. ‘Now get out on the streets, and start blowing your whistle.’

  FOUR

  Hardcastle walked out to Victoria Embankment to catch a tram to his home in Kennington. To his surprise there was one waiting at the stop, but it had been abandoned by the driver, the conductor and the passengers, doubtless to seek shelter from the air raid.

  Hearing the deep engine note of an aircraft, he looked up at the sky and saw a huge German Gotha bomber, its distinctive Maltese crosses clearly visible on its vast wings and its tail fin. Well, that took less than twenty minutes to get here, he thought, mindful of what the PC had said about the warning maroons.

  There was smoke funnelling from the aircraft’s port engine, which probably accounted for it flying so low, and it was surrounded by puffs of white smoke from the anti-aircraft gun battery in Hyde Park. As Hardcastle watched, spellbound almost, he saw a long, black cylindrical object fall from the aircraft to splash, harmlessly, into the river.

  Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a tiny Sopwith Pup fighter plane appeared above the lumbering bomber. There were coloured streamers fixed to its wing struts indicating, did Hardcastle but know it, that the pilot was a flight commander. Executing a daring manoeuvre, the aircraft dived underneath the German machine, coming down so low that Hardcastle thought it might finish up in the water of the Thames. But suddenly the British pilot, so close that Hardcastle was able to see his helmeted head, lifted the nose of his aircraft so that he was in a position to attack the Gotha from beneath. Almost immediately, he saw flames spurting from the Sopwith’s Lewis gun a split second before he heard its rat-a-tat-tat.

  Moments later, as the British aircraft wheeled away, smoke began to issue from the Gotha’s starboard engine and it started a slow, involuntary descent. Both the aircraft’s engines had now stopped, and the huge machine glided lower and lower in a silence so sudden that it was almost eerie. It proved to be one of the few successes achieved by the defence forces.

  Astounded at having witnessed this aerial combat, Hardcastle still had time to hope that the crippled German bomber would crash on the south side of the river and, thus, become the responsibility of the Lambeth Division of the Metropolitan Police. Divisional CID officers were responsible for the initial interrogation of prisoners of war before handing them over to the military.

  Half an hour later, as Hardcastle waited at the tram stop, a policeman cycled along Victoria Embankment bearing a placard on his chest that read ALL CLEAR. At the same time, the DDI spotted a Boy Scout on Westminster Bridge sounding a call on his bugle. He remembered reading a police order that stated it was one of several efforts by the authorities to indicate that the raiders had passed.

  Eventually, the tram driver, his conductor, and a few passengers returned to their tram.

  ‘Think it’ll be safe enough to get under way now?’ asked Hardcastle acidly.

  ‘Can’t afford to take a chance, guv’nor,’ said the conductor, tugging at his moustache. ‘One of our single-deckers got a direct hit the other day, not a few yards from here. The crew and all the passengers were killed,’ he added mournfully.

  Hardcastle’s tram crossed Westminster Bridge and moved into Westminster Bridge Road. As it passed the Bethlehem Royal Hospital on the corner of Lambeth Road and Kennington Road, it was evident that the DDI’s hope had come true. In the hospital grounds was the smoking wreckage of the Gotha bomber, now surrounded by firemen and policemen. The DDI later learned from George Lambert, his opposite number on L Division, that all three members of the crew – pilot, observer and rear-gunner – had perished.

  As a result of the delay caused to his tram by the air raid, it was past four o’clock by the time that Hardcastle let himself into his house in Kennington Road. It was the house into which the Hardcastles had moved immediately following their marriage twenty-four years ago, and was not a great distance from number 287, where the famous Charlie Chaplin had once lived.

  Alice Hardcastle was sitting in an armchair in the parlour, knitting cap comforters for the soldiers in the trenches. Resting her knitting on her lap, she looked up as her husband entered the room.

  ‘You’re early, Ernie. Run out of things to do at your police station?’ It was usually about seven o’c
lock, at the earliest, before Hardcastle made an appearance at home, even on a Saturday.

  ‘For the moment,’ said Hardcastle, who made a point of never discussing cases with his family. He was still irritated that his enquiries were being held to ransom by the military. ‘Where are the girls?’

  ‘Kitty’s on duty,’ said Alice. For some time now, Kitty Hardcastle had been working as a bus conductress. Against her father’s wishes, she had taken the job with the London General Omnibus Company ‘to release a man to join the army’, she had said. ‘Maud’s gone out shopping up West, and Walter’s at the post office.’

  ‘He seems to spend a lot of time there,’ muttered Hardcastle, seating himself in the armchair opposite Alice.

  ‘Well, of course he does. Being a telegram boy means that he’s always taking those little yellow envelopes to the bereaved. I must say I wouldn’t care for his job. Have you ever noticed how the curtains twitch whenever a telegram boy cycles down the road? They’re all terrified that it’s their man who has been killed. That Mrs Wainwright from across the road has never been the same since her husband was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. And that was over a year ago. And it was Wally who took the telegram. He asked her if there was a reply – which he has to do because it’s the regulations – and she just burst into tears.’

  ‘I saw an air raid today,’ commented Hardcastle conversationally, deciding to change the subject, albeit slightly.

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Alice as she resumed her knitting. ‘I thought I heard the maroons go off.’

  ‘I saw one of those big German Gothas drop a bomb in the river. It didn’t do any damage.’

  ‘Their eyesight never was much good, Ernie,’ said Alice. ‘Have you noticed how many Germans wear glasses?’

  ‘And then one of ours came from nowhere and shot it down.’

  ‘Where did it crash?’

  ‘On L Division’s ground.’

  ‘Pah!’ snorted Alice, putting down her knitting again. ‘How d’you expect me to know where that is?’