Hardcastle's Soldiers

by Graham Ison

  ‘Only brief details, Mr Hardcastle,’ said the RSM, studying his notebook again. ‘For a start they’re all nineteen years of age, except Morrish who’s twenty-two. Nash was a clerk with the Metropolitan Water Board, and worked at their offices in the City. He was conscripted under Lord Derby’s scheme, and I suppose he talked a bit posh so the upshot was he was commissioned. Bryant was a shop assistant at the Army and Navy Stores in Victoria, Morrish was straight out of university – Cambridge, I believe – and Strawton was a footman in some big house, God help us.’ He shook his head in an expression of disbelief, and then paused to apply a match to his pipe. ‘Mind you, like I said just now, they’re giving commissions to almost anyone these days. You see, Mr Hardcastle, the average life of an infantry subaltern in the trenches is about six weeks, so they’re obviously running a bit short. Still, these young whippersnappers won’t come to much harm where they’re going, except perhaps the chap who’s gone to the ambulance company in Cairo.’

  ‘Do you happen to have home addresses for these officers, Mr Punchard?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Punchard, referring again to his notebook. ‘But I should be able to get them from Fred Welch. I’ll telephone them to you, if you think that’ll be of assistance.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Punchard, that would be most helpful. Incidentally, what exactly does this officer training consist of?’

  The RSM gave that question some thought before answering. ‘Well, there’s a lot of classroom stuff, tactics and that sort of thing. Not that the ASC needs to know a lot about that. Then there’s lectures about the functions of the ASC, and they do a driving course. And they also shadow the permanent staff officers. I s’pose it teaches them how to inspect the common soldiery,’ he added with a scoff.

  ‘Would that mean that these officers would have access to some of the barrack rooms?’ asked Hardcastle thoughtfully.

  ‘Very likely,’ replied Punchard. ‘They learn how to be proper little bastards, going round bollocking people for not saluting, having dust in the welts of their boots, dirty brasses, and generally getting in the way of the warrant officers and NCOs.’

  Hardcastle stood up and shook hands with the RSM. ‘Thank you very much for that information, Mr Punchard. I’ll follow it up and let you know the outcome. I suppose they’ve been posted as deserters already.’

  ‘Of course they have, Mr Hardcastle. Like I said before, just because they’re officers don’t stop ’em being shot for running.’

  For some time after the departure of Punchard, Hardcastle sat behind his desk pondering the magnitude of what the RSM had told him. His enquiry had taken on an almost impossible task. The four officers who had not arrived at their designated units, and were possibly now wanted for desertion, put them at the top of the DDI’s list of suspects. But, from what the RSM had said, they could be anywhere from Fort William to Cairo. Had one of them stolen items of clothing – Stacey’s cap, Ash’s tunic and Joliffe’s trousers – and used them to carry out the robbery at Victoria? There was little doubt in Hardcastle’s mind that the murderer had also stolen Stacey’s keys. But which one? Then again, perhaps it was none of them.

  ‘I suppose, as a matter of courtesy, we ought to have a word with Colonel Frobisher before we go making enquiries about officers who’re adrift, Marriott. Don’t want to tread on any toes. Mind you, the military don’t care about treading on mine when it suits them.’ And with that, Hardcastle seized his hat and umbrella. ‘Come, Marriott.’

  Lieutenant-Colonel Frobisher looked up warily when Hardcastle and Marriott were shown into his office at Horse Guards Arch in Whitehall.

  ‘Inspector?’

  ‘Good day, Colonel.’ Without wasting any time on social niceties, Hardcastle related what he had heard from RSM Punchard about the ASC officers who had failed to arrive at their official destinations. ‘Can you confirm that these officers are absent without leave, Colonel?’

  ‘I’ll soon find out, Inspector.’ Frobisher struck the polished brass table bell on his desk, and Sergeant Glover, the colonel’s chief clerk, appeared.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Mr Hardcastle will give you a list of ASC officers who were recently posted from Buller Barracks, Aldershot, Sergeant. However, they didn’t turn up at the units to which they were posted. Can you tell me if they have been posted absent?’

  ‘One moment, sir.’ Glover took Hardcastle’s list, and disappeared to return a minute or so later with a file in his hand. ‘Yes, sir. All were posted from Number One Training Battalion ASC at Aldershot on the sixth of July, but failed to report. We were advised of their absence on the twelfth, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant Glover.’ Frobisher turned to Hardcastle. ‘May I ask where you got your information, Inspector?’

  ‘A reliable informant, Colonel,’ said Hardcastle cagily. He was unwilling to reveal the training battalion’s RSM as his source for fear that it might involve Punchard in disciplinary proceedings of some sort. He was not to know, however, that that was extremely unlikely. As Punchard had hinted, RSMs were a law unto themselves.

  ‘Of course, Inspector, it might all be an administrative blunder of some sort. I’m sorry to have to say that this sort of thing is happening all the time. They’ll probably have turned up at entirely different units, all because a clerk at the Aldershot despatching unit got the number of the respective companies wrong on the movement orders, or sent the signals to the wrong units. If, on the other hand, they’d arrived at the wrong unit, that unit should query why they’d got an officer they weren’t expecting.’

  ‘Does that happen often, sir?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘I’m afraid so, Sergeant Marriott, and more often than not, the receiving unit will hang on to the man, because they’re always short of subalterns. And we only get to hear of it months later. To give you but one example, we had a case of an officer who was listed as having failed to report to a unit at Arras when for four months he had been with a different battalion of his regiment with General Hamilton at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles. And a bloody disaster that turned out to be,’ he added mournfully. ‘Lost a lot of good men in that fiasco, many of them seasoned Australian troops.’

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t have the home addresses of these officers, Colonel.’ If the information were to hand, it would save Hardcastle awaiting the result of RSM Punchard’s promise to find them for him from the records at Aldershot.

  Frobisher glanced at his chief clerk. ‘Sergeant Glover?’

  ‘Yes, we have them, sir. That’s normally the first place we’d look for a deserter. I’ll have a list prepared.’ Glover returned to his office.

  ‘Would you have any objection to my making enquiries of these officers’ families, Colonel?’ asked Hardcastle, steering Frobisher back to the present. As a police officer, he had the power to arrest a deserter without resort to the army, and would have made enquiries whether the colonel liked it or not. But he saw no harm in being courteous about it.

  ‘By all means, Inspector. If you find any of the young bounders perhaps you’ll let me know. But what’s your interest?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a long shot, but it’s possible that one of them was responsible for the murder of the cashier at Victoria Station that I told you about before, and a prostitute in Kingston upon Thames.’

  ‘Good God!’ exclaimed Frobisher. ‘D’you really think so?’

  ‘No, but it’s a stone that we mustn’t leave unturned, so to speak,’ said Hardcastle enigmatically. He and Marriott stood up. ‘Thank you for your assistance, as usual, Colonel. I’ll inform you of any developments.’

  Back at his police station, Hardcastle stared glumly at the sheet of paper that Sergeant Glover had given him, before handing it to Marriott.

  ‘I don’t know, Marriott,’ he said eventually. ‘We could be running all over the bloody place in search of this lot. Bryant lives in Fulham, Morrish in Norwich, Nash in south-east London, and Strawton in Carlisle. And, if what Colonel Frobisher said is true, it
might all be some administrative balls-up anyway.’

  ‘We could start with those closer to home, sir,’ suggested Marriott. ‘Bryant and Nash don’t live too far from Victoria Station, and I somehow doubt that the chap from Norwich or the fellow from Carlisle would risk doing a robbery in an area they didn’t know too well.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right, Marriott.’ Hardcastle pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket. ‘What’s Nash’s correct address?’

  ‘Twenty-five Stanstead Road, Forest Hill, sir. I’ve had a look at the map, and the road’s only a short walk from the railway station.’

  ‘Better make a start, then.’ With a sigh, Hardcastle stood up, seized his hat and umbrella, and made for the door.

  NINE

  For the most part, the houses in Stanstead Road were occupied by bank clerks, middle-ranking civil servants, and those in lower managerial positions. They were terraced and each pair of houses shared a porch, the front doors of which were side by side.

  ‘Would you be Mrs Nash by any chance?’ asked Hardcastle, raising his bowler hat.

  ‘Yes, I’m Rose Nash.’ The woman appeared to be about forty years of age, and was wearing a floral pinafore apron over a black-and-white check day dress. She looked enquiringly at the two men on her immaculately whitened doorstep.

  ‘We’re police officers, madam,’ said Hardcastle, ‘and we’d like to talk to you about Adrian Nash. I understand he’s your son.’

  Rose Nash paled and put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh God!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s not been killed, has he?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, Mrs Nash,’ responded Hardcastle.

  ‘Well, what, then? You gave me quite a turn.’

  ‘I think it might be as well if we came in, Mrs Nash,’ said Hardcastle. Marriott had noticed that the adjacent front door had opened slightly, and he had touched the DDI’s arm to draw attention to what was probably a nosey neighbour engaging in a little eavesdropping.

  Rose Nash showed the two detectives into the front parlour, a fussily furnished room. The paintwork was brown, as was the three-piece suite, and there were brown velvet curtains that tended to darken a room already made gloomy by heavy net curtains. The mantelshelf and several small tables were cluttered with bric-a-brac and personal photographs of people in stiff poses; presumably they were of the Nash family.

  ‘I’m Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle, ma’am, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott.’

  ‘What’s this about Adrian?’ asked Rose Nash, having invited the police officers to sit down. She whipped off her apron, and dropped it behind the settee, out of sight, before sitting down herself.

  ‘I understand from the military authorities that your son is absent without leave, Mrs Nash.’

  ‘Absent? How ridiculous. He’s serving in France. He’s just been granted a commission, you know. Why on earth would he absent himself, now that he’s an officer?’ Mrs Nash was obviously very proud of her son. ‘We had the military police here a day or two ago asking the same silly questions. I sometimes wonder how we’re going to win the war if that’s the way the army carries on.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said Hardcastle, although he was inclined to share Mrs Nash’s view about the lack of military efficiency. ‘But I have it on good authority – namely the military police – that he did not arrive at his unit in Boulogne.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Nash, with a measure of hauteur, ‘I suggest they’ve got it wrong, and I’m surprised that a detective inspector … That is what you said you were, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m surprised that you’re wasting your time on this ridiculous business. I’m sure you have more important things to do.’

  It was obvious to Hardcastle that he was not going to get an admission from Adrian Nash’s mother, much less to be told where her son was now – even if she knew – and he tried another tack. ‘When did you last see him, Mrs Nash?’ he asked.

  ‘The fifth of July, a Thursday,’ replied the woman promptly. ‘My husband and I saw him off at Waterloo Station. He was going to Southampton to embark on the night troopship to Boulogne.’

  ‘Is your husband in the army, Mrs Nash?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘No, he’s an engineer with the water board. It’s a reserved occupation. Rather like yours, I imagine,’ said Rose Nash tartly.

  ‘Your son worked there, too, didn’t he?’ enquired Hardcastle. RSM Punchard had said so, but the DDI always liked to make sure of his facts.

  ‘Yes, but he was a clerk. They said that his job wasn’t essential to the war effort, and he was conscripted. Personally, I didn’t think he was well enough. He had a lot of illness as a youngster, you know, apart from the usual childish maladies, but the army passed him fit. Anyway, he was lucky enough to get a commission – no more than he deserved, of course – and looked very smart in his new uniform.’

  ‘D’you happen to have a photograph of him?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘No. We wanted him to have a portrait done at that photographic studio at Lea Green, but he said we were making too much fuss.’ Mrs Nash pointed at one of the framed photographs on a small shelf. ‘I’m afraid that’s the only one we have,’ she said. ‘That was taken the year he started at grammar school.’

  Hardcastle stood up and moved nearer to the print, peering closely at it, but it was not well done – probably taken by an amateur photographer – and was a rather fuzzy photograph of a ten-year-old who could have been anybody. It was certainly of no use as a means of identifying the absentee officer. If, in fact, he was absent rather than merely being misplaced by the army.

  ‘Have you by any chance received a letter from your son, Mrs Nash?’ asked Marriott.

  ‘Not since he went on active service, no. But I’m told such letters take a long time to get through.’

  ‘Well, we’ll not trouble you any further, Mrs Nash,’ said Hardcastle. ‘I’ve no doubt that the army has made a mix-up, and that your son will turn up right as rain.’

  ‘I’m certain of it,’ snapped Rose Nash.

  ‘I hope you understand that we have to follow up this information.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Mrs Nash grudgingly, and showed the two detectives to the door.

  ‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ muttered Hardcastle, as he and Marriott walked back to the railway station.

  ‘D’you think he might be our man, sir?’

  ‘He was at Buller Barracks at the right time, Marriott, but then so were dozens of others, including the other three absentee officers. And as Colonel Frobisher said, it’s quite likely that they’ve been the victim of shoddy paperwork.’

  ‘But he didn’t want to have his photograph taken, sir.’

  ‘No, he didn’t, and I find that interesting, Marriott. When you think about it, almost every house we’ve been to since the war started has a photograph of any serving man of the house in his uniform. Especially if he’s an officer.’

  All in all, Marriott thought that Adrian Nash’s shyness about being photographed was irrelevant, but decided not to say as much.

  The Bryants’ house in Jervis Road, Fulham, was a semi-detached property with clean windows and a newly whitened doorstep.

  ‘Would you be Mr Bryant, by any chance?’ enquired Hardcastle of the man who answered the door.

  ‘Yes, I’m John Bryant. Who are you?’

  ‘Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division, Mr Bryant. This is Detective Sergeant Marriott.’

  ‘The police! What can I do for you?’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about, sir, but we’d like to talk to you about your son Wilfred.’

  ‘He’s not here. He’s in the army. You’d better come in, gentlemen.’

  Once in the sitting room, which proved to be in as clean and tidy an order as the Somers’ residence in Lewisham, John Bryant invited the two detectives to take a seat. ‘Now, what is it you want to know about young Wilfred? He’s not in
any trouble, is he?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, sir, no,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘It’s a strange coincidence, you calling today, because we had the military police here a few days ago. They wanted to know if we’d seen Wilfred lately. They talked some nonsense about him being missing. Well, that gave me quite a start, I can tell you. The boy’s only just been posted, although he wasn’t allowed tell me where he was going, but I suppose it was France somewhere.’

  ‘It’s partly in that connection I’ve called, Mr Bryant,’ said Hardcastle.

  ‘Really? Well, what the hell d’you think I can do about it?’ John Bryant was beginning to sound annoyed.

  ‘We think there’s probably been a mix-up at the War Office, sir,’ said Marriott, seeking to placate Wilfred Bryant’s father and stem any possible show of irritability by his DDI. ‘I’m afraid we have to follow up these enquiries, although we have much more important things to do.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you do,’ said Bryant, his irritation slowly lessening. ‘But we said goodbye to him on the …’ He paused as he tried to recall the date. ‘The fifth of July, I think it was. He’d only been given forty-eight hours embarkation leave, and he had things to do in that time.’

  ‘Does he have a lady friend?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘I believe so. He talked of some young lady he’d got to know while he was working at the Army and Navy Stores in Victoria Street, but I don’t think anything came of it. Once he’d volunteered for the army and got his commission, he seemed hell bent on soldiering. I think he might be tempted to make a career of it.’

  If he lives that long, thought Hardcastle, as he stood up. ‘As my sergeant said, sir, it appears to be a mix-up with the army. No doubt you’ll get a letter from him soon. If you do hear he’s safe and sound perhaps you’d let me know at Cannon Row Police Station. Saves the paperwork getting the better of us.’

  ‘Certainly I will,’ said Bryant, as he escorted the two policemen to the front door.

  Hardcastle paused on the threshold. ‘Do you happen to have a recent photograph of your son, Mr Bryant?’