Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford

by Charles Todd

Rutledge signaled to Williams and MacLeod to precede him back along the dark worm that was the British tunnel, and they carefully made their way to the main shaft.

  Captain Marsh was standing there, a frown on his face. “Why have you stopped?”

  “They’re packing,” Rutledge said. “We’ve got to hurry if we’re to set off our charges before they finish and set off theirs.”

  “Damn,” Marsh said. “Are you quite sure? There’s no time to send for the Royal Engineers to verify this.”

  MacLeod stood his ground, holding up the stethoscope. “I’m sure,” he replied.

  “I don’t trust those things,” Marsh snapped, considering the young Scot. “The old pan-of-water system was more reliable. When the water moved, you knew for certain.”

  “Nevertheless,” Rutledge said, “the runner warned us that the Germans were ahead of us.” If Captain Marsh refused to believe Corporal MacLeod, or sent them back to the unfinished chamber while he consulted the Royal Engineers, then Rutledge and his two men would be the first to die as they frantically worked at the walls. If the explosion didn’t kill them outright, they would be buried alive and then slowly suffocate.

  “Yes, all right.” Marsh looked up the shaft, calling softly to the men waiting there.

  It was a matter of minutes before the charges were being brought down. Five men followed, carrying them barefooted down the tunnel to the end. Williams, eyes narrowed, watched them go.

  “I’ll set the fuse,” he offered, a little too casually.

  And Rutledge, who had been an inspector at Scotland Yard before the war had begun, in 1914, had the strongest feeling that the man didn’t trust a coal miner to do the work properly. The question was, why? Private Lloyd and Private Jones had been chosen because they were experienced men.

  His time at the Yard now seemed like years ago, not just a matter of months. Still, dealing with murder inquiries, he’d learned to trust his feelings, his instincts. And something about the way Williams had spoken had caught his attention.

  Marsh went back down the tunnel, overseeing the placing of the charges. It would be a full load, and by the time the space at the end was packed and the bags of chalk were piled against the charges to make sure the blast was contained and didn’t blow back into the British lines, the Germans might well catch them all like rats in a hole. A risky business, but they all knew that.

  Rutledge stood to one side, cautioning the men passing the charges to mind what they were about and to be as quiet as possible. Twice he saw the one of the miners glare at Williams, but whatever the problem was, it would have to wait. When the last charge had been laid, the bags of chalk were taken down and packed tight, and then it was only a matter of setting off the blast. Williams collected his gear and prepared to connect the fuse to the blasting caps.

  But Marsh didn’t send for Williams.

  Instead, it was Private Lloyd who set the fuse. The last man out, he came racing down the tunnel, grinning broadly as he passed Williams.

  Everyone scrambled up the shaft, out of harm’s way, grateful for the night that covered their movements. The sector closest to them had kept up a desultory fire, to be sure the Germans were well occupied, and the rifle flashes lit No Man’s Land with brief bursts of brightness.

  The caps were crimped onto the fuse and set off.

  The seconds ticked away.

  Rutledge glanced at his watch, counting them.

  The fuse should have reached the charges by now. Standing beside him, Marsh stirred, well aware of time passing.

  “It was all right,” he said. “Private Lloyd set it, while Private Jones stood by. They’re good men.”

  But blasting caps could be uncertain. The crimp at the fuse could be bad. The fuse could have gone out for any number of reasons.

  Rutledge checked the caps. They appeared to have worked.

  “Why didn’t you summon Williams?” he asked over his shoulder as Marsh watched him.

  “Time was short. Lloyd said he could deal with it. He and Jones. They’ve done it before.”

  Rutledge straightened, turned and walked toward the tunnel shaft. “There’s no time to discuss it. The fuse has to be checked.”

  Any delay meant that the German tunnel would blow first. And no one was precisely sure where under the line of British trenches it ended.

  Captain Marsh peered around in the darkness. “Lloyd? Where are you?”

  “He’s gone to the latrines,” someone answered. Rutledge thought it was Private Jones, but he couldn’t be certain where the voice had come from

  “Williams, then,” Marsh pointed to him. “Go with Rutledge, man.”

  Rutledge took the bulky stethoscope from MacLeod, who was protesting, saying he should be the one to go, but Rutledge shook his head and was already letting himself down the shaft, not waiting for Marsh or Williams.

  The two men, officer and private soldier, bent their heads and ran down the tunnel, not worrying about noise until they were within twenty feet of the chalk barricade. Slowing, the two men crept forward, Rutledge’s torch searching for the fuse.

  “It’s gone under the bags of chalk,” Williams said in a whisper. “Look.”

  They stopped short. The fuse had burned to this point. Was it still lit? Or had it gone out, accidentally snuffed by the lack of air or the weight of the barrier?

  Rutledge could feel the cold sweat breaking out as he stepped cautiously over the fuse and knelt by the sacking just above it. Hearing only his own heart beat as he put the stethoscope in his ears, he pressed the bell against the lumpy chalk surface and listened.

  The fuse was still burning.

  And there was no telling now how much time was left.

  “Run!” He was already on his way, Williams ahead of him, both men silently counting off the distance to safety. They had barely reached the shaft, out of breath and already grabbing at the ropes, when the air seemed to be sucked out of the space around them, and the charges blew.

  The ground shook beneath their feet, and across No Man’s Land, a vast plume of earth rose high in the air then rained down like black sleet. Rutledge could hear it even as he threw himself to one side, but Williams was caught in the ropes, dangling like a puppet.

  And then Captain Marsh was there, pulling Williams up, shouting to Rutledge. In that same instant, the German charges blew, shattering the night with their thunder as a second plume of earth went straight up, blotting out the stars, this time tearing apart half a sector of the British line and finishing off the British tunnel.

  There would be no charge tonight across No Man’s Land to follow up at the weakest point of the line, where the tunnel had torn apart its defenses. The damage on both sides was too great.

  The Welsh miners and their officers, Rutledge among them, lay where they’d fallen, dazed, half deaf, covered in the stinking earth, and then they were scrambling to their feet, racing for the trenches to pull out the British wounded and dead. Men had been tossed every which way, some of them still unaware they’d been hurt, others deafened or stunned by the shock waves, staring up at their rescuers with blank eyes.

  It was five hours later, the wounded dealt with, the dead carried out, repair work already underway in the damaged line of trenches, when Rutledge collected Corporal MacLeod, Captain Marsh, and Private Williams, then sent for Privates Jones and Lloyd. They went to stand at the head of what had once been the shaft to the blown tunnel.

  He was very angry as he faced them. Captain Marsh had already refused to lay the blame at anyone’s door, insisting that fuses and explosives were undependable down in the tunnels, that delays had occurred before.

  But Rutledge wasn’t satisfied. Too many men had died to sweep the delay under the proverbial rug. And he was determined to get to the bottom of what had happened on his watch.

  “That fuse was too long,” he said. “As a result, it allowed the Germans to set theirs, and fire their own charges. We lost good men because of it. They weren’t sappers, they were my men, in my
sector. I want to know what went wrong.”

  Marsh cleared his throat, shifting from one foot to the other. Rutledge grimly waited for someone to answer him.

  “It was the right length,” Private Jones said finally. “I was present when Aaron—Private Lloyd—cut it. And I saw him crimp the fuse to the caps. It was done the way it should be.”

  Private Lloyd stared straight at Rutledge. “There must have been a problem with dampness. Sir.”

  The two Welshmen were very much alike, dark haired, dark eyed, broad shouldered from years in the collieries, coal dust still deeply ingrained in their faces and hands. Lloyd, the handsomer of the two, possessed a cockiness that bordered on insolence, only just falling short of defiance.

  “It was three minutes late,” Rutledge retorted. “It was still burning as Williams and I reached the chalk bags. It should have gone off well ahead of the German trench. It should have smothered their fuse.”

  “It was the right length,” Lloyd repeated stubbornly. “I knew what I was about.”

  Captain Marsh interrupted. “It comes down to my fault. I didn’t check it. We were working against the clock. It looked all right.”

  Williams couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “We were nearly killed. Lieutenant Rutledge and me. We shouldn’t have had to go down there once it was lit.”

  Private Jones glared at him. “I tell you, the fuse was all right. Private Lloyd here knows what he’s about. We measured right.”

  It was the word of Private Jones against Rutledge’s own observations. And it was true, they had had to work in haste.

  There was something he ought to remember about these two men, Lloyd and Jones. But he was tired and it escaped him. Something he’d been told by the officer who had brought them up to the front lines.

  He said, “Captain Marsh?” Hoping his superior officer would back him up.

  But he didn’t. Marsh had no experience with explosives, only the tunneling itself. “We were unlucky,” he said finally. “The Germans were farther along than we knew. I’m sure that’s the answer.”

  Fighting to bottle up his anger, Rutledge said, “I don’t believe it is.” He turned and walked back to the lines and his sector. He realized halfway there that Private Williams had followed him. He slowed so that Corporal MacLeod could precede him.

  When the young Scot was out of hearing, Rutledge stopped and turned. Williams stopped as well.

  “I think they were trying to kill me,” the man said quietly, glancing over his shoulder to be certain they were alone. “Lloyd and his half-brother Jones.”

  That’s what he’d been trying to remember. The two Welshmen were half-brothers.

  The officer had pointed this out, mentioning that they had insisted on serving together. It wasn’t uncommon for entire villages or men from large estates to insist on serving side by side. But in this case, it made a difference.

  Whether the fuse was long or short, it was likely that Lloyd and Jones would stand up for each other in a crisis.

  “Why?” Rutledge snapped. “Why did they intend to kill you?”

  If Williams was right, he, Rutledge, was dealing with cold-blooded murder. Of the men in the trenches, and nearly of Williams and himself. What kind of hate, he wondered fleetingly, could account for so much killing?

  For an instant, he felt himself back at the Yard, questioning a witness. Only there, he faced only his chief superintendent’s wrath, not German rifle fire. He smiled grimly to himself at the thought as shots stitched the trench wall just inside the barbed wire that protected it.

  “They don’t believe I’m a slate man. Or that I come from the slate mines below Mount Snowdon. They think I was one of the clay kickers from Manchester. The men who were digging the sewers.”

  “Why should it matter?”

  “I don’t know.” Williams shrugged. “This isn’t the first time they’ve attacked me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Shelling had commenced, now, first from the German lines, probing shots along the sector with the damaged trenches, and then answering bombardment from the British lines.

  Rutledge sprinted for the safety of the trench wall, and Williams followed.

  “It was on the train, coming up from Calais,” he said breathlessly, as earth from the shelling rained down on them. “I was tripped, and when I went down, I was hit hard and kicked. It was Lloyd, I’d swear to it. And Jones didn’t try to stop him. Someone else had to step in. Marching toward the Front, someone—I never saw who it was, but I can guess—shoved me into the path of a lorry. If the driver hadn’t swerved just in time, I’d have been run down. Add to that, this is the second time I’ve been faced with a long fuse.” He shrugged again, his face shadowed by his helmet.

  “Are you sure it’s the same men?”

  “Yes, two of the Cardiff miners. Taffy Jones and Aaron Lloyd had seen to the fuse that time too.”

  “Then why did you go back down that tunnel with me? If you knew they’d done this before?”

  “Because I wanted to see for myself what had happened. I never made it as far as the chalk face that other time. Captain Marsh had to dig me out. I had nothing to show for being half buried alive except suspicion.”

  Rutledge nodded. “All right. I’ll see what I can discover.”

  Later, as they kept watch in the middle of the night, Rutledge told Corporal Hamish MacLeod what he’d learned from Williams. The young Scot was steady, good with his men, and observant. Rutledge had come to trust him.

  “Did they know each other before they came to France?” He passed the periscope to Rutledge, whose turn it was to look over the lip of the trench without attracting the attention of any waiting sniper. “The three Welshmen?”

  “I don’t believe they did.” The night was quiet after the barrage.

  “It’s a puzzle,” MacLeod said. “The question is, how could they be sure it would ha’ been Williams who went back down the tunnel?”

  “Because he should have been the one to set the fuse. And because he was sent back the last time it was too long. His responsibility.” Rutledge considered the question. “And because Lloyd wasn’t there. He’d gone to the latrines.”

  “Aye. Verra’ convenient, that. Ye ken, if it was on purpose, yon long fuse, they didna’ care if you’d died along with Williams.”

  “Whatever their reason for wanting to kill Williams, it has to run deep.” He shook his head. “The problem is, there’s nothing we can do until there’s more solid evidence. I can only hope Williams survives that long.”

  But nothing happened to Williams when the next tunnel was set off. Or the next. Rutledge was there, keeping an eye on what was being done.

  It was nearly a week after that, toward midnight, when Private Williams was found lying in a pool of blood and half dead.

  The soldier who discovered him, Private MacRae, a Scot from Stirling, reported to Rutledge after seeing Williams back to a forward aid station.

  “Rumor says he was careless and a sniper got him. But we havna’ had a sniper this fortnight.”

  “Rumor . . . was there a name attached to that rumor?”

  “It was a Welshman. He was at yon aid station, suffering from a boil on his foot. He said Williams was too tall for a Welshman, and the sniper found an easy target.”

  Rutledge considered what Private MacRae had said. Too tall for a Welshman. . .

  It was true, Williams could give Jones and the rest of the South Wales miners a good three inches. Sturdy men, compactly built, darker. Williams had a leaner, thinner build, and his hair was lighter. Was that why some of the miners thought he must be from Manchester? Or had Jones and Lloyd started that lie?

  But coming from Manchester—or any other English town where industry thrived—was hardly a reason for murder.

  “What was the name of the Welshman, do you know?”

  MacRae shook his head. “I didna’ think to ask.”

  On his next rotation a few days later, Rutledge went behind the British l
ines to look for Private Williams. He was still in hospital, the shot having missed his lung but damaged his shoulder. Bound up with his left arm braced in the air like the broken wing of an aircraft, Williams lay back against his pillows with the lined face of a man in pain.

  “A very little bit lower, sir, and I’d have been done for,” he said, as Rutledge sat down in the chair by his bed and asked how he felt.

  “I’ve just spoken to the doctor,” Rutledge replied. “He tells me the bullet entered from the back. Not the front. This wasn’t a sniper’s work.”

  “I don’t know who it was. I didn’t see anyone. I was coming back from the shaft we’d been digging. It was dark, quiet. And I felt the shot before I heard it. It spun me around and still I didn’t see anyone.”

  Rutledge found that part hard to believe. Williams must have glimpsed the man. And even if he weren’t positive, he must have had his suspicions.

  “You aren’t planning on a little private revenge, are you? This is an Army matter. Let the Army deal with it.”

  “I’m tired of being hunted, sir. That’s all.”

  “The doctor has reported the wound as suspicious. It will be investigated.”

  “Yes, well, that may be.” He turned his head away so that Rutledge couldn’t see his eyes. “He’ll claim—whoever he is—that he was cleaning his rifle. And he’ll have a witness, you can be sure of it.” His voice was bitter.

  “All the same, I’ll have a word with Jones and his half-brother.”

  Williams smiled without humor. “Good luck to you, then. Sir.”

  Back in the line again, Rutledge found Captain Marsh during a lull in the fighting and asked permission to speak to the Welsh miners.

  Marsh shook his head. “They’ve been sent back. We’ve got Griffiths’s clay kickers now. They know what they’re about. No fuse problems since they took over the task.”

  “When were the miners sent back?” Rutledge asked sharply.

  “Yesterday morning.” He shook his head. “Two had to be dropped off at the base hospital. A nuisance, that. One had a shell splinter that wouldn’t heal, he said, and the other had a broken toe. I don’t know where the other miners will be posted next. Where they’re needed, I expect.”