Sweet Poison

by David Roberts

  Verity looked dubious. ‘I was intending to write something about the General as a typical representative of the duffers who caused so much unnecessary carnage during the war so I do not think I can give you that assurance, Lord Weaver.’

  ‘I understand. Well, can we say that before you publish anything you inform me? I don’t think it would be fair on my Mr Archer if you used any information he had dug up without at least warning him that that was what you intended.’

  ‘Of course. And if there is any particular story which Mr Archer confides in me I can give you my word that I would not use it without his permission.’

  ‘That’s all right then. Ah! Here is the estimable Mr Archer now and Mr Godber too. Jim, Reg, come and sit down over here. I would like you to meet Miss Browne, Miss Verity Browne. She writes for the Daily Worker.’ The young man, James Archer, looked rather put out and Reginald Godber scowled. ‘You have no reason to look like that, Reg. Miss Browne is a friend of mine. I want you, Jim, to tell her what you have found out about General Craig’s military career. It’s all right, Reg. Miss Browne is quite trustworthy and she has promised not to use anything we tell her of our little scoop without our permission.’

  The editor, a large harassed-looking man with thin lips and a watery eye, opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it. He was clearly exasperated with his proprietor and resented his interference in what was an editorial matter but knew he risked dismissal if he protested. Verity got the feeling that Weaver was using her to tease his editor and show him who was boss, and she did not much like it. She had no desire to become a pawn in some labyrinthine game of office politics.

  ‘Miss Browne,’ said the editor, shaking her hand without warmth. ‘I read your report in the Daily Worker of how the General died. Congratulations.’

  James Archer also shook her hand but said nothing. He was a tall thin man, perhaps thirty years of age although he might have been taken for forty. His thick-lensed spectacles through which he peered at the world, thin untidy hair flapping across his scalp, flannels and tweed jacket – the latter badly stained and patched at the elbows with leather – made him an unlikely journalist but Lord Weaver quickly explained that he was not a journalist in the ordinary sense.

  ‘Verity, Jim here is an historian with a particular interest in the recent conflict. He is writing a book on the Western Front and while he is doing so is good enough to write the occasional article or obituary for us. I wonder, Jim, if you could tell Miss Browne what you told me about the General?’

  ‘Yes, sir. As you will know, miss, General Craig had a distinguished military career. He was much liked by Lord Kitchener and by Earl Haig. It would hardly have been possible to have had two more influential friends. He was brave, enterprising and utterly reliable but for all this he never got to the very top of the tree. I did some research in the archives, talked to a few people, and I discovered why. He had, unfortunately, a sadistic streak which even Kitchener who was not noted for his kindliness had reason to reprimand him for. After Omdurman there were eyewitness accounts of a massacre of some fifty unarmed tribesmen who Captain Craig, as he then was, believed had been behind an assassination attempt on General Kitchener. That he did save Kitchener’s life is indisputable and he justly deserved his Victoria Cross but the whole thing was stained by the killing which followed. Moreover, the witnesses speak of Craig making them do unspeakable things – defiling themselves – before he ordered them to be shot. Fortunately for Craig, Kitchener hushed it all up and the eyewitnesses were silenced.’

  ‘If it was all hushed up, how do you know about it then?’

  ‘I have been given special privileges to examine papers stored at the War Office and there I uncovered the witness statements signed and sealed. I think I am the only person alive who has seen them.’

  ‘And you think,’ said Verity, ‘that he found out you had knowledge of these . . . allegations and killed himself rather than see them in print?’

  Weaver said, ‘Not if these had been the only accusations of cruelty or worse to be made against him. He would have been more likely to sue for libel. Anyway, the incident occurred, if it did occur, a long time ago and to natives, so that I doubt the public would have been particularly shocked or even interested. No, there is something else. Tell her, Jim.’

  ‘Well, miss, I went on digging and came across a similar set of allegations much more recently – in April 1918 in fact. There had been some desperate fighting on the Western Front. The British were driven from Messines which had been gained at huge cost only a few months before. The Germans used gas to deadly effect. The British were also intending to use gas but, ironically, the officers in charge of the attack were caught by a German gas attack before they could use their gas shells. Bethune was just about to fall to the Germans, refugees clogged the roads. It was chaos.

  ‘For six days the Allies defended lines behind the River Lys. Haig ordered that every position had to be held to the last man. On 15th April the British evacuated the Passchendaele Ridge won five months before at a terrible cost and on the 20th, south of Ypres, the Germans fired nine million rounds of mustard gas, phosgene and diphenylchlorarsine, a total of two thousand tons of poison gas. Eight thousand British troops were poisoned. This was total war. No weapon was too horrible to use and the British considered their enemy to be less than human.

  ‘Well, the tide was just starting to turn against the Germans – American troops were beginning to reach the front line in strength for the first time. About fifty German soldiers from one of their gas battalions were captured. General Craig, who unlike many generals spent a considerable time near the front and was well aware of the horror his troops had suffered from the gas attacks, instead of directing the prisoners to be shipped back to the prison camps behind the line, ordered that they should be shot out of hand. Of course people protested but he was adamant. Said they were murderers not soldiers and there were enough officers under his command who felt the same way for the order to be carried out.

  ‘It is difficult for us today to put ourselves in Craig’s shoes: we need to remember that this was a period of absolute exhaustion, chaotic communications and the fiercest fighting of the whole war. The time had long passed when the enemy might be considered honourable soldiers worthy of respect. Gas had changed all that. Anyway, what was fifty men being shot to death compared with the thousands dying every day, many choking their lives away in terrible agony? Unfortunately for Craig, one American officer recently arrived at the front and not yet inured to the barbarities of war made an official report on the incident to General Pershing, who in turn took the matter up with Haig.

  ‘Well, to cut a long story short, Haig protected his man as Kitchener had done years before but it remained a shadow on the General’s career, and though he reached high rank and was knighted he was never showered with the honours and responsibilities he might have expected.’

  There was silence in that light, peaceful room as Verity absorbed what she had heard. She could only guess at what it must have been like in that murderous inferno of April 1918. She felt only pity and horror.

  At last Weaver spoke. ‘That is why people as disparate as the Duke of Mersham, Cecil Haycraft and myself are so determined to do everything we can to avert another war with Germany. And yet,’ he added gloomily, ‘I am beginning to doubt whether it will be possible to avoid another blood bath – not next year, nor the year after but sometime in the next decade, I fear. My correspondent in Berlin tells me that Germany has built up in secret a formidable air force in defiance of Versailles and Locarno and I am informed Hitler may soon announce conscription.’

  ‘So you believe the General might have committed suicide to avoid having his reputation destroyed by this story?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Lord Weaver. ‘He was a proud man and his reputation as a soldier was, I guess, the only thing which mattered to him. I wanted to discuss the allegations with him on neutral ground – give him the chance of defending himself �
� but, as I say, before I could do so, he had killed himself. And what’s more I think he did it in front of me as some sort of revenge.’

  ‘Well,’ said Verity, quite shaken by what she had heard, ‘I am flattered you should have let me in on this but I don’t understand why.’

  ‘I want you to write for me at the New Gazette. In my experience trust breeds trust and I have trusted you. Despite what I said earlier, I have been impressed by your initiative and your evident truthfulness and I would like you to work with Jim here to write a series of articles on the horror of war using General Craig’s case as the lynch pin – what war can do to destroy decent men. I feel I must continue trying to tell people what war is like even if in the end we cannot avoid it. In 1914 young men queued to join the army as if they were going to a party; if there is to be a next time, the new army will need to be built on surer foundations.’

  Verity said, ‘You would employ me – a Communist – to write on your paper?’

  ‘I would employ Miss Verity Browne because whatever label she likes to put on herself I think she believes in doing what is right. Am I correct?’

  ‘I believe in justice – social justice and natural justice. I am not a pacifist but I do think General Craig was little better than a state-sponsored murderer. However, that does not mean I believe he deserved to die in the way he did.’

  ‘You mean suicide?’

  ‘If you press me, Lord Weaver, I would have to say I still rather doubt that he did commit suicide.’

  ‘You think Craig died by accident?’

  ‘Or murder.’

  The editor said, ‘Oh, come, Miss Browne, that’s absurd. You can’t really believe that one of the Duke of Mersham’s distinguished guests murdered this great public servant at the Duke’s own dining-table? It’s preposterous.’

  Weaver pursed his lips. ‘Well, you may be right, Reg. Miss Browne may be barking up the wrong tree but’ – he turned to Verity – ‘I don’t mind risking making a fool of myself. I have done it before and will do it again. I will help you in your investigations in any way I can. I for one have nothing to hide.’ Verity thought this to be a rash boast but she kept her mouth firmly closed. ‘You see, Reg, Miss Browne is a journalist with what I might call a nose for getting to the bottom of a story,’ Weaver continued.

  The editor looked unconvinced. ‘I’m afraid it all sounds a little far-fetched to me, Miss Browne. Now, if you will excuse me, Lord Weaver, I must get back to my desk.’ He managed to show impatience with the interruption to his working day without sounding too impolite.

  When Godber and Archer had gone Weaver got to his feet to indicate to Verity that she too was dismissed. ‘Think about my offer, Verity. I must have an answer by the end of next week otherwise Jim will go it alone.’ There was just the hint of a threat in his voice. ‘My paper has room for many voices from all parts of the political spectrum. I would like to add a young voice from the left to balance the greybeards. Goodbye now.’

  As Verity went down again in the elevator she heard more distinctly than ever the boom of thunder in the basement. The elevator operator, hearing it also, said, ‘That’s the presses rolling for the evening paper. It always make me think of the sound of the guns along the front – silly, I know. That’s all over now, isn’t it, miss?’

  When Verity got back to the office she found two large policemen on the door. The Daily Worker liked to cock a snook at the authorities but it remained strictly within the law. As far as she knew, it had never even been sued for libel so she immediately guessed that it was she who had brought the forces of law and order to the newspaper and that the editor, Morris Block, would not like it.

  The door into the editor’s office was frosted glass and through it she could see the tousle-headed editor gesticulating at a thin figure in a heavy black overcoat. As she tried to slip unobtrusively behind her desk, the editor’s secretary called her imperiously: ‘There you are at last, Verity. Where have you been? Everyone’s been looking for you and I can tell you Mr Block is not pleased.’

  Without waiting for any response, she knocked on the glass door and Verity quailed as she heard Block shout, ‘What is it, woman? Oh, she is, is she? Well, send her in.’

  Verity took a hold of herself, raised her chin and marched in. Damn it, she had given the paper its only scoop this century and she was not going to apologize for it to Morris Block or anyone else. Block was red in the face and had obviously been shouting. There was sweat on his brow and a vein in his neck was pulsing. The policeman, on the other hand, was as cold as winter.

  ‘Ah, Verity, it’s you at last. This is Inspector Pride. He wants to ask you some questions about . . . about your report. He thinks –’

  ‘Please, Mr Block, perhaps you would allow me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I –’

  ‘Is there anywhere private I could speak to Miss Browne?’

  ‘Only here.’ The editor was the only employee of the Daily Worker to have his own office.

  ‘Alone,’ said Inspector Pride, with meaning.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. I’ll . . . I’ll leave you to it. And Verity, mind you –’ ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Block,’ said the policeman, holding open the door.

  When the editor had closed the door behind him, Pride sat himself behind Block’s desk and gestured to Verity to sit in the chair in front of it. He pretended to scrutinize the mass of paper – galley proofs, bills, lots of these, and printed articles and books – on the editor’s desk. Then he said, ‘I can’t think why, Miss Browne, but your editor doesn’t seem very pleased with you despite your little scoop. That’s what you call it: a “scoop”, isn’t it?’ He said ‘scoop’ with a depth of contempt which made Verity tingle with anger but she controlled herself and said nothing, letting what she hoped was an insouciant smile play on her lips.

  ‘You think it funny, Miss Browne, to go into a man’s house – and not any house but the house of one of England’s most distinguished men – be treated with every kindness and then betray the trust placed in you? You think that something to smile about? You think your little sneers and smears – the suggestion that a great soldier was murdered . . .’

  ‘I’ve never said that,’ she broke in indignantly.

  Pride ignored her: ‘. . . when you know it not to be true? Do you not think that a . . . a girl like you ought to know better?’

  ‘A girl like me, Inspector? What does that mean?’

  ‘A rich, middle-class girl with a flat in Knightsbridge, educated at the best schools – that’s what I mean,’ he said viciously.

  ‘I see you have gone to the trouble of finding out all about me, Inspector. Should I be flattered?’

  Verity was now very angry – in part, at least, because she had said something of the same sort to herself.

  ‘Don’t be impertinent!’

  She sat silent and sullen until, at last, Pride spoke again.

  ‘How unlikely are the alliances we find in public life today,’ he said with an attempt at the conversational. ‘A man like your father who ought to be working for his country and he allies himself with Reds, and his daughter – what did he make of her? It seems he made her despise what respectable people might call “morality” – I suppose you know about morality, do you, Miss Browne?’

  Verity suddenly became very calm. How dare he bring her father into this? She was being baited. But why? It must be that Inspector Pride was nervous. Why else should he be insulting her in this way? He wanted – not to find out the truth – but to frighten her so she would slink away and cry in a corner. If the police were so anxious to keep General Craig’s death quiet, did not that mean they believed there was something to hide?

  She must have smiled because suddenly the policeman was standing above her. She had never seen anyone actually spit with rage before and she was now interested, in a scientific way, to see that it really was something which happened.

  ‘I warn you, Miss Browne, if you do not desist from making allegations about some of the m
ost distinguished men in public life – and I have said the same to your editor – you will get into very serious trouble. You are not to approach any person who was in the Duke’s house on the day of the General’s death and you are not to involve any member of the Duke’s family in your . . . in your “journalistic activities”. Do you understand me, Miss Browne? I mean what I say. I have very wide powers to close down this newspaper and I will not hesitate to use them if I need to.’

  Verity got up and in doing so made the Inspector back away. ‘This is still a free country, Inspector, and you shall not intimidate me. You think it is people like me who are a danger to . . . to your “respectable” people. But it is not me, it is you and the people like you. You think I am just a girl to be frightened but I am not so easily frightened. I am a Communist and I am proud of it. You can harass me as much as you like but . . . but . . .’

  Suddenly, to her consternation, she found tears welling up in her eyes, so she opened the door and left without saying another word – furious with herself for showing anything like weakness before the policeman. She vowed that she was going to take no notice whatever of anything the man had said to her and that she would say nothing to Edward of her ordeal. He was too decent not to be angry on her behalf and he would probably go and do something silly. No, her victory must be that Inspector Pride was ignored. That is what he would hate the most.

  9

  Edward’s Monday

  After Verity had left him in the pub to go and see Lord Weaver, Edward found himself at a loose end. Thinking about Weaver made him think about Hermione. He decided he would swallow his pride and go round to Eaton Place to see if she was there and, if she were, whether she had any explanation for her behaviour of the previous Tuesday. He had telephoned the house two or three times but on each occasion he had got no further than a servant who had informed him that Miss Weaver was out. He had had to content himself with leaving messages which had not been returned. It seemed to him pretty clear that Hermione had got over her crush on him. He hailed a cab and had soon left the hustle and bustle of Fleet Street for the genteel tranquillity of that area between Hyde Park Corner and Elizabeth Street where the very rich lived. Their substantial houses presented a cold front to the stranger. Windows were curtained or even shuttered and there were no open front doors to facilitate gossip, the life blood of any neighbourhood and what made living in shabbier London boroughs tolerable and even to be preferred to the icy respectability of SW1.