Dead Man's Land

by Robert Ryan

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The blitz from the German guns lasted for fifty minutes in all, although to those beneath the falling shells it felt far longer. Incredibly, the main building of Somerset House suffered no more than a glancing blow and a motor car being flung into its edifice. But ancillary buildings and tents had been hit, and the nearest communication and relief trenches badly damaged. Many vehicles and a number of horses were out of the war for good.

  It was fortunate indeed, as he would later remark, that Watson had brought his Gladstone, which contained one of the John Bell & Croyden ‘Colonial & Overseas’ emergency medical kits. It gave him the bare essentials to treat the injured; anything else would have to be improvised.

  They used one of Somerset House’s subterranean kitchens as a makeshift field-dressing station. A sturdy cherrywood table, assiduously scrubbed with blocks of lye and lard soap by an admirably unshaken Mrs Gregson, acted as an operating surface, while less serious cases were sat in wicker chairs to have their facial wounds tended. Mrs Gregson had found a laundered smock, skirt, petticoats and apron in the laundry press of the great house. She had shed her motorcycling clothes – Watson had left the room, even though she had assured him that the combination chemise and drawers with long wide legs that she wore under the Dunhill left everything to the imagination – and donned the servant’s clothing, even though, as she was at pains to point out, they had once belonged to a very large servant indeed.

  With the electricity supply gone, and no windows to let in daylight, they worked by oil lamp and candles. Most of the injuries they saw were from shrapnel or flying glass. A few men, caught in the open, had been killed. Several had been reduced to ‘wet dust’ – a smog-like mist of blood and brains and muscle, the remnants of a pulverized body, that filled the air for a short time before falling to earth. There would be nothing of those unfortunates left to bury.

  Of the survivors, the more heavily wounded were shipped off to the nearby CCS, having been assessed by Watson and tagged using the cache of gummed labels Mrs Gregson had found in the pickling room.

  Phipps had been one of the last patients, who came to have a gashed hand – inflicted during the clear-up – treated and he explained that during the night German sappers, under a cloak of absolute secrecy, had laid a branch rail line to enable them to bring up several large guns and some large-calibre Minenwerfen on flatbed trucks. The British had been able to return fire eventually and had caused them to withdraw. The British guns were expected to saturate the area around the new rail lines soon, ensuring there would be no repeat for the time being. Phipps then invited both Watson and Mrs Gregson to join him for dinner in the mess, as there would be no transport available to their CCS until either late that night or early the following morning.

  When the final casualty had been dealt with – a young man with a smashed face, burst eardrums and the clothes blown off his back – Mrs Gregson put the copper kettle on the range to boil once more and indicated Watson should sit down.

  ‘I need to look at that eye of yours,’ she said.

  He was aware that it had been stinging, but when he took a look in the medical kit’s pocket mirror, he could see it was red and angry. ‘Dust from the sniper round,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  ‘What sniper round?’

  He explained his suspicion that an attempt had been made on the life of Churchill or himself or both moments before the first shells had fallen. Or possibly at exactly the same time. One bullet had hit the wall; the other had exploded in the chest of the poor sentry.

  She poured out some of the boiling water and let it stand. Her brow furrowed. ‘I don’t know much about guns. Although I know what they do to the human body. But to fire to here from the enemy lines, is that quite some feat?’

  Watson recalled what he knew about sniping from studying the career of Sebastian Moran, the big game hunter and would-be assassin of Sherlock Holmes. ‘A good rifle is accurate to six hundred yards. Perhaps eight in the hands of an expert with telescopic sights. That is far exceeded by the distance to even the first of the German trenches. In solving a problem of this sort, one needs to be able to reason backward. I can only conclude the weapon was fired from our side of the lines.’

  ‘A traitor?’

  ‘An infiltrator. And if I am not mistaken, one who was secreted atop of the church steeple we saw fall. I watched it go down, in the hope I would see such a figure, but no.’

  ‘How . . . that’s impossible. For a German to walk through our trenches undetected.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ he conceded. ‘But not impossible.’

  ‘Head back, please.’

  Using a syringe and the cooled, sterilized water she began to irrigate the eye. She held her fingers lightly under his chin, gently guiding his head this way and that. He found himself enjoying the sensation.

  ‘Major, I would like to apologize for being so rude about your friend.’

  ‘You are not the first to take him wrong.’

  ‘I am not apologizing for the sentiments. Keep still. I swear, doctors are the worst patients of all. I stand by those.’

  ‘You are being unfair. Let me see, what are the charges? Vainglorious? Yes, he has a healthy regard for his talents. I myself wrote on several occasions that I sometimes found his egotism repellent. But he rarely pursued cases for financial reward or glory. Drug-addled? Only if there is nothing to engage his intellect and his attempts to unravel the mysteries of the hive have kept his mind busy of late, I believe. Smug, I think you said? He is pleased when he is right, and he is right more often than not. And . . .’

  ‘Woman hating.’

  Watson hesitated at that one. In fact, all the charges had a tiny element of truth. But ‘hate’ was far too active an emotion to be accurate. ‘Indifferent’ might suffice. ‘Well, it is true he does not dwell on the fairer sex overmuch. And never will. But there was one woman . . . perhaps two.’ Watson had harboured high hopes for Miss Violet Hunter, the governess of Copper Beeches, whom Holmes had once seemed rather taken with, but that had come to naught. Once the case was over she was dismissed from his mind.

  ‘I am talking about the idea of suffrage. Of women’s rights. Was he not responsible for gaoling several dozen suffragettes?’

  This was not a case Watson had been involved in. He recalled some of the details, however. ‘My dear Mrs Gregson, were those same women not involved in a scheme to burn down the Houses of Parliament?’

  ‘While they were empty,’ she objected.

  ‘They are never empty. There was a risk to human life. A crime was planned and was thwarted in the nick of time. The suffragette movement had moved from being a valid – yes, I’ll admit valid – movement of protest to one of terror and intimidation.’

  ‘Some of those women were friends of mine.’

  ‘Really?’ He pulled his head round to look at her. Sister Spence had been right about political VADs. ‘So it’s a dislike for personal reasons we are about talking here?’

  ‘Keep still, Lord above. Why do you defend him so? I mean, you will admit to no flaws.’

  ‘Of course I will. The flawless man does not exist. I would rather judge him by his virtues. I defend him because he is my . . .’ Say it. Friend. Except no longer could he call him that with any degree of certainty. Watson knew how ruthless he could be with those he deemed to have been disloyal. Even so, that was no reason to disown him or what they had been through together. ‘Because the world is a better place for him.’

  ‘All done. Blink.’

  She gently mopped at his watering eye. ‘I should keep my opinions to myself, Major. I’m sorry. It’s one of my own many, many flaws.’

  ‘And the Strand is hardly a penny dreadful.’

  ‘Yes, yes, granted.’ She was keen to move along now. ‘Why didn’t you tell the general your suspicions about the sniper?’

  ‘Two reasons. I think we should wait until we are certain it is all clear out there before sending anyone to inspect the ruins. Plus, one has
to hold back some subjects for conversation over dinner. It could be a very long and very dull evening otherwise.’

  Mrs Gregson laughed and began clearing the instruments from the tabletop, preparing for another scrubbing down.

  ‘Of course we won’t get a word in edgeways if Churchill is there,’ he added. The colonel would no doubt insist on telling him the tale of The Man Who Died Twice. Under normal circumstances Watson’s curiosity might be aroused, but he was wary of being drawn into any scheme involving Churchill. He might be a wounded animal after Gallipoli, but he was still a politician first and foremost and a bruising bare-knuckle fighter when he needed to be. Watson’s instinct was to keep away.

  Mrs Gregson splashed soapy suds onto the cherrywood surface. ‘How the dickens do you know Winston Churchill?’

  Watson wondered how much to say. In 1910, the editor and pamphleteer Edward Mylius had accused the new King, in print, of being a bigamist, of having hastily married an admiral’s daughter in Malta while he was a junior naval officer. Mylius had even threatened to produce the woman.

  It was Churchill who had pressed George V into the highly unusual step of suing for libel, arguing that the magazine the Liberator had been available to buy along the Strand and the Charing Cross Road. Churchill, remembering the rumours in court circles that Sherlock Holmes had performed services for the Kings of Bohemia and Scandinavia, the Dutch royal family and – as was by then well known – the unfortunate Lord St Simon, who managed to lose both his wife and her fortune on his wedding day, had hit upon the idea of using Holmes to disprove the allegation. Which he had done with ease, briefing the Attorney-General, who in turn had given Sir Richard David Muir, acting for the Crown, the ammunition to procure a year in prison for Mylius. ‘A small matter of no consequence,’ said Watson airily as he repacked his Gladstone.

  ‘As you wish,’ she said tartly, recognizing the evasion.

  He relented a little. ‘A matter of some consequence I have given my word not to discuss.’

  She nodded to indicate that this was a more acceptable response.

  He paused to watch her scrub, which she did with some force, admiring the precise sweeping movements that made sure no inch was left untouched by the brush, the way she lifted one leg as she bent over to reach the far corner. There was something quite mesmerizing about—

  ‘Major Watson?’

  It was Captain Hatherley, Phipps’s adjutant. Watson was jerked from his reverie. ‘Yes? What is it?’ he asked too sharply.

  ‘I am sorry to disturb you, sir, but a request has been telephoned through, asking for you to return to the East Anglian Clearing Station immediately.’

  Watson and Mrs Gregson exchanged puzzled glances. For his part, he was not entirely disappointed to forfeit a tedious dinner, but he wondered about the change of plan. Was someone trying to get rid of him? Churchill perhaps? ‘We seem to have lost our transport, Hatherley.’

  ‘I explained this to . . .’ he studied the piece of paper in his hand, ‘. . . Major Torrance. He has sent a vehicle over to pick you up. It appears there has been a death, sir.’

  ‘It’s a Casualty Clearing Station,’ objected Mrs Gregson as she removed her apron. ‘There are always deaths.’

  ‘That may well be the case, miss.’ Hatherley consulted his document again. ‘But apparently this is a very singular death that demands Major Watson’s immediate attention.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The pain was so intense that Bloch wanted to cry out, but he knew he couldn’t. Drawing attention to himself would be fatal. He felt as if a wild animal were gnawing at him where he lay, and he had to play dead, while it nipped and ripped and chomped. The world had faded; his eyes could no longer see anything but shades of grey, sounds were muffled and distant, as if he was already in his coffin in the ground. This was, he felt, the last station on the line before oblivion.

  No, he told himself. He wasn’t ready to board that particular service yet. He needed to live.

  Bloch became aware that the shellfire had ceased when the ground stopped shaking. He strained his damaged ears. The low hum that was left in place of silence was unwavering. It was time to move.

  If he could.

  He tried to get a sense of where his limbs were in space. His left arm was under his body, filled with pins and needles. His right was ahead of him, held down by some great weight. One leg was free but the other, again, was fixed and immovable. He arched his back, enough so he could release the trapped left. The action disturbed a layer of stones, which skittered away. He tried to raise his head, which caused more disturbances, but daylight bled through his eyelids. Not completely buried then. With the newly freed arm, he groped forward and found the wooden beam trapping its companion. Three heaves and he had both arms free. Now time was of the essence.

  Bloch pushed himself up on his hands, releasing the upper body completely. He was in the woods, where the tower had fallen and taken some saplings with it, and for the moment he appeared to be alone. He crawled clear of the mess of stone and timber to a patch of damp ferns and lay on them, panting, his face throbbing and burning. His eyes were full of grit and when he touched his ear, there was blood on his fingertips. A brush of the nose and his eye almost burst from his face. Broken. A roughness on his tongue told him that his front teeth were chipped. He desperately needed a drink of water, for his throat was coated in fine powder, and swallowing felt like he was trying to force an ostrich egg down his gullet.

  He stood, shakily, releasing a shower of grit around him and pulled at his clothes with numb fingers. The leatherwork came off easily enough and, after removing the pistol and the bayonet, he threw them into the bushes. He had already lost one boot and the other he kicked off. His tunic was stiff with dust and debris, and undoing the buttons took an age, but eventually he was down to his underwear. A sudden shiver took him. How incriminating were the singlet and longjohns, he wondered. He couldn’t take the chance. He pulled those off too and walked deeper into the forest, hoping he could circle back round towards his own lines.

  Luck was with him. He found two Tommies, buried by the collapse of earthworks. One had lost his face; the features had been neatly excised and cauterized by a piece of hot shrapnel, leaving a grisly, shiny oval where his face should be. Nearby was a folded pile of something grey and pink. The other soldier was intact and still alive, albeit barely. His eyelids were flickering as he dropped in and out of this world. He plunged the man’s own bayonet into the body, twice. A simple reflex, he told himself. From the other he took the identity disc and slipped it over his head. The boy was younger than he, or appeared so in death. No matter. Soldiers often aged decades at the front, only to see the years fall away as they were freed from the worry and cares of this life.

  The lad was wearing an unofficial ID bracelet, which Bloch also took. Stripping the body proved as arduous as removing his own clothes. The trousers and socks were all he could manage, before exhaustion overwhelmed him once again. He rifled the pockets and found a water bottle and a pouch of iron rations. He gulped down the water and ate the hardtack biscuits, cheese and the beef cubes from the ration, then scooped out handfuls of the bully beef from the tin. He also found the man’s paybook, which he pocketed.

  Fatigue hit him again and the mixture of foodstuffs in his stomach made him feel queasy. He knew he couldn’t be found next to the two bodies and further undressing of them was beyond him. He pulled on the trousers and kicked at the soil to bury the lower half of the Tommy he had become. Then he headed towards what he thought was east again, losing the incriminating blade in a shell crater.

  It was no more than five minutes before he staggered into a clearing where three genuine Tommies were manning a machine-gun post in a shallow depression, protected by a half-moon of sandbags. Its field of fire was a narrow forest track through the trees. It was an ambush for any German incursion that might follow the bombardment. The NCO in charge stood and levelled a Lee Enfield at Bloch and yelled something. No words appeared to
come from the mouth. The sergeant signalled the Vickers crew to remain at their stations and took a step forward.

  Bloch went to raise his hands, but his balance deserted him and he fell to his knees. The sergeant, still pointing the rifle at him, crossed the clearing in long exaggerated steps. He bent and lifted the ID disc with his free hand. He shouted something else, back to his comrades. Slinging the Lee Enfield over his shoulder, the NCO put his hands under Bloch’s armpits, lifting him back on his feet. He flopped Bloch’s right arm around his neck and began to half-march and half-drag him towards Somerset House.

  Once there, a blanket and some boots were found, tea provided, cigarettes, and, after a lengthy wait at the back of a queue, during which he pointed to his ears whenever anyone addressed him, a kindly British doctor and his firm yet attractive nurse – the same ones, he eventually realized, he had sighted in his cross hairs – cleaned him up as best they could. This involved extracting two teeth, multiple splinters and stones, straightening his nose and placing a fat dressing over the centre of his face. After they had finished, they found him a cot to lie on until he could be transported to the rear. If he could have managed it without agony, Bloch might have smiled at the irony of how things had turned out.

  TWENTY-SIX

  It was dark by the time the ambulance dropped them off and a reception committee had formed in the doorway of the transfusion tent. It wasn’t a happy band; the frown lines on their faces were cast as deep crevices by the glow of two hurricane lamps. There was Major Torrance, Caspar Myles, Sister Spence comforting a red-eyed Miss Pippery and Robinson de Griffon.

  The moment Mrs Gregson stepped down from the ambulance, Miss Pippery rushed over and hugged her before bursting into sobs.

  A Jack Russell tied to one of the tent posts gave two yaps, before de Griffon gave it a sharp rebuke. He then turned and saluted Watson. ‘Good to see you again so soon, sir,’ he said.