Dead Man's Land

by Robert Ryan

  When Fairley saw the flare and determined to go out to get Watson, Mrs Gregson had persuaded him to don the green bandana and her topcoat. It had kept her safe out there, once upon a time, she insisted. Young Fairley, who had a healthy regard for the vagaries of no man’s land, and a superstitious streak just as wide as it, had agreed to the unusual garb. He’d dressed up as worse during high jinks in the mess, so he said.

  ‘He asked to keep the scarf, you know,’ said Mrs Gregson. ‘Claimed it had brought him luck. That he would carry it with him for the rest of the war.’

  ‘I hope it works for him.’ The phrase ‘rest of the war’ had a chilling ring. Who knew how long this madness would endure?

  ‘Did you hear from your friend Mr Holmes?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He had cabled Holmes to tell him that, judging by what he had overheard out in no man’s land, and from talking to Mrs Gregson, the key to the de Griffon case lay with the Truelove sisters. They were, apparently, legendary in suffragette circles for standing up to mill owners for equal pay, rights and promotion. But something had mysteriously made them flee the fight. And he had clearly heard ‘de Griffon’ call himself ‘Johnny Truelove’. A son, perhaps, out to revenge a mother and an aunt. But for what?

  Holmes had replied he would be travelling to Leigh armed with the information and looking for that answer. ‘He will be disappointed in me, I fear, for losing the one man who could provide every answer.’

  ‘We’ve been through this, Major. You identified the killer. Nobody could have expected more.’

  Watson gave a small, dissatisfied grunt. There had obviously been seven names on Truelove’s list. Seven potential victims. The man had got them all. And poor Caspar Myles. Truelove died knowing he had won, after a fashion. Which meant Watson had lost. Nobody could have expected more? Well, one man would have. A lot better.

  ‘At least you came back alive.’

  ‘I murdered him, didn’t I? De Griffon. I didn’t pull the trigger. Couldn’t do it. But by pinpointing him with that flare . . .’

  She put a hand on his forearm and squeezed. ‘John, please.’ She hoped the use of his Christian name might make him listen for once. ‘You were just signalling for help. How were you to know there was a German sniper out there?’

  Because there is always a German sniper out there, he thought. They hadn’t found Truelove’s body, although in truth nobody had looked very hard. It was possible that he was at the bottom of a shell hole, slowly rotting into mulch, or been blown to wet dust by a shell. Plenty of others had suffered such fates.

  The ship’s horn sounded – a deep, confident blast that caused a shiver of pleasure in him – and he became aware of the propellers churning water. The hull of the ship juddered. They were slowing. Folkestone was ahead. The constellation of following gulls screeched their encouragement. A sudden sense of relief was palpable throughout the ship, as if all, including the vessel, had been holding their collective breath. They were safe from the U-boats at last.

  ‘Will you ever go back?’ Mrs Gregson asked.

  He looked towards France, but a milky veil had been dropped over the Channel. He imagined he could smell the fortifications, though, and the vile taste that came with it made his stomach perform somersaults. Churchill had asked him to return. His interrogation of a captured sniper had convinced him that there was a spy network operating around Plug Street, communicating details of troop movements. He wanted Watson to investigate. But Watson had recommended he hand it over to Tobias Gregson. However, he had a feeling Churchill wasn’t finished with him yet. The man seemed to trust, even like him, now his suppositions about Porton had turned out to be correct.

  ‘I don’t know, is the honest answer. I’d be more than happy never to stand in a damned trench again. Excuse my language. Or see no man’s land.’

  He had thought of it as a river when he had first spied it from the balloon, snaking its poisoned course across Europe. Now he knew it was nothing so benign; it was a raw, bleeding wound in the flesh of the earth, made and sustained by deranged men. One day soon, perhaps, it would scab over, but a full healing would take a lot longer than the time he had left in this world. Generations, perhaps. No, he didn’t want to lay eyes on that again.

  ‘On the other hand,’ he continued, ‘there is a terrible guilt at leaving our young men out there, fighting in those conditions. They need doctors. They need blood. No matter what you think of this war, they’ll need blood.’ He shook his head at the thought of the desperate transfusions, the hasty surgery, the number of maimed to come. Not to mention the bountiful crop of white crosses sprouting from the earth of Northern France and Belgium. Young men like Fairley were being cut down in droves.

  A new general order had been issued that junior officers going into battle must dress like regular Tommies to stop them being targeted. Sticks, the badge of office, were prohibited during attacks. Watson doubted it would help. Snipers and machine gunners would still aim for the man with the revolver or the chap encouraging his platoon forward. But just thinking about the trenches gave him a hollow feeling, as if he had left some part of himself behind. Perhaps that was why men kept going back. To find the part of them that was missing when they were away from the front. Perhaps, of all the ailments they treated, war itself was the most virulent, insidious, strangely seductive disease.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he repeated.

  ‘Then where will you go when we dock?’ she asked. ‘London?’

  He thought of smoke-filled lounges, crowded hotel lobbies, busy concert halls – would they still play Wagner or Beethoven at the Bechstein Hall now it had become the Wigmore? – and long lunches, of walks in Greenwich Park, the smell of the brewery along the river and of the tanneries when the wind blew from the northeast, the mournful honks of the lightermen in the fog, the view from the Observatory on a clear day. ‘I intend to. I telegrammed my club from Boulogne, asking them to keep me a room.’ He couldn’t face his cold, empty house near his old practice in Queen Anne Street. Not yet. Not ever? In that precise second he decided to sell it and buy somewhere that wasn’t suffused with the spirit of Emily. Perhaps he would move to rooms around the corner to Harley Street. Or even Baker . . .

  ‘I still see their faces in my dreams sometimes,’ Mrs Gregson confessed. She spoke quickly, as if she had been waiting to admit this for some time. ‘Hornby, Shipobottom. Do you?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he admitted. And that poor horse, too.

  ‘Will you ever get to the bottom of everything that de Griffon did? And why?’

  As they slid into the harbour, Watson imagined for a moment he saw a familiar figure, out on the breakwater, leaning on a heavy cane, watching intently as the ship slid into calmer waters. But that was impossible, as the movement of Channel traffic was highly classified. Nobody could possibly know he was on this boat at this time. No ordinary man, anyway.

  ‘Major?’

  He looked at her, holding her headdress as the wind whipped at her. ‘Sorry. Miles away. I can’t quote chapter and verse about de Griffon or Truelove just yet.’

  When he turned his gaze back to the spray-lashed wall, the figure with the walking stick had disappeared.

  ‘But I suspect there’s someone who can.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Dead Man’s Land was inspired by Sherlock Holmes’s suggestion, at the end of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s His Last Bow (set in 1914), that Watson would return to his ‘old service’, which by that stage was called the Royal Army Medical Corps. What, I wondered, would a man of a certain age be able to do for the war effort? And how would he get along without his great friend?

  My first and most heartfelt thanks go to Sue Light, whom I found through her blog This Intrepid Band (http://greatwarnurses.blogspot.com). It is a wonderful source of information about the medical services in WWI, especially the QA nurses. She kindly read an early draft of the book and made suggestions and corrections. Any errors remaining are mine alone (some by choice – she warned me not to have
a VAD at the front). Very early on in our discussions about writing a WWI historical thriller, my editor, Maxine Hitchcock, came up with the idea of a detective in the trenches, and had the patience and tenacity to wait until I had worked out it had to be a doctor and a famous one at that. David Miller, my clear-headed agent, then pointed out that Dr Watson has been trademarked by the Conan Doyle Estate. So thanks to him and to Olivia Guest of Jonathan Clowes, which administers the estate. She listened while I pitched the idea over the telephone, and supported its progress through to permission being granted. Susan d’Arcy – as always – and Rob Follis gave early advice on the story and structure. Roger Johnson of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London (www.sherlockholmes.co.uk) put me in touch with David Stuart Davies, who gave the manuscript a once-over for any Holmesian howlers (although any that remain are my responsibility, of course). I would also like to thank lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan Anders Peter Mejer (see www.anderspetermejer.com) in Copenhagen for his long-distance enthusiasm and guidance, and Maxine Hitchcock, once more, and Clare Hey for their exemplary (and diplomatic) work on plot, character and pace, and for believing in Dr Watson. Also I am very grateful to James Horobin and Kerr MacRae for sticking with me over the years.

  There were many, many texts I consulted for the book’s background, but if you want to know more about nursing in WWI, try Women in the War Zone by Anne Powell (The History Press), The Roses of No Man’s Land by Lyn MacDonald (Penguin), Elsi and Mairi Go to War (Arrow) and A Nurse at the Front (IWM War Diaries/Simon & Schuster) by Edith Appleton, edited by Ruth Cowen. Plus, of course the first part of Vera Brittain’s classic Testament of Youth (Virago) recounts her experiences as a VAD.

  Robert Ryan

  Table of Contents

  SATURDAY

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  MONDAY

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  TUESDAY

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  WEDNESDAY

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THURSDAY

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FRIDAY

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  SATURDAY–MONDAY

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  MONDAY–TUESDAY

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  SIXTY-FIVE

  SIXTY-SIX

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  SIXTY-NINE

  SEVENTY

  SEVENTY-ONE

  SEVENTY-TWO

  SEVENTY-THREE

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS