The Sign of Fear

by Robert Ryan

  ‘Certainly kept mine up.’

  The lighter tone disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. ‘You are very trying. I am so angry with you. What if Arthur had been here?’

  ‘Then I would be discussing how to keep valuables secure with him.’

  ‘Over a stiff brandy.’

  ‘Not while on duty, ma’am.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about you.’ She gave a sigh. ‘I had a telegram. He is on his way back.’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘He’s a senior officer, Inspector. They get a decent amount of leave.’

  ‘Is my name out of bounds?’

  She frowned. ‘I wouldn’t call a visiting policeman by his first name. Ever.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘And before you go, I want you to go downstairs and talk to the staff about making sure they lock doors and to my maids about never leaving jewellery out unnecessarily. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She stood and he did the same. ‘Well, you’ve seen me now. Was that all?’

  He looked down at her stomach. ‘I was wondering—’

  He never finished the sentence. She stepped in and kissed him on the lips, pressing harder until his mouth opened slightly and she let the tip of her tongue dart out. Her hands gripped the sides of his head, pressing hard as if she wanted to burst his cranium. When she pulled away, he found himself breathless. His cheeks glowed as if a furnace had been lit beneath them.

  ‘My goodness, where did that come from?’ she said. ‘My apologies, Inspector.’

  He wasn’t sure what to say. She seemed to be sending conflicting messages. Although that last one was as clear as semaphore on a sunny day. But was he dismissed now? With the most passionate kiss she had ever given him?

  ‘Marion—’

  She put a finger to his still-glowing lips. ‘It’s all fine, the baby, I mean. I feel fine. No sickness.’

  ‘Good. Look, I am going back to France tomorrow.’

  ‘Not to fight?’

  ‘No. Police business, after a fashion. But I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I wanted to ask you something, before I left.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When you decided against me, was it money you were worried about? Or status? Is it about giving up all this to live with a policeman who shouldn’t even go to the front entrance of a house like this?’

  She shook her head. ‘It isn’t you. It’s Charles—’

  There was a tap at the door and they stepped apart.

  ‘Yes?’

  A young woman in a starched uniform appeared. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but Charlie would like to see you before bath-time.’ The nanny, Bullimore assumed.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘We had just finished. Perhaps you could show the inspector the staff quarters for me? He needs to have a word with you all about house security.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And how many times have I told you, Nora. It’s Charles. Not Charlie.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.’

  As Bullimore walked towards the door, a young boy swept past him in a blur and leaped into Marion’s arms and the look on her face told him everything he needed to know.

  ‘She sacrificed herself to save you? I don’t recall that in the She Wolf manual.’

  Watson was sitting on a leather button-backed couch in what had once been the library of a wealthy merchant’s house on the outskirts of Ghent. The shelves were devoid of books, many of them lined with empty champagne and wine bottles, the contents consumed by the German officers who were now billeted in the mansion. Admiral Hersch was standing before the fireplace, glass of schnapps in hand. Watson contented himself with a cigarette. He had bathed and been given a change of clothes, and some warmth had come back into his body. But he couldn’t quite shake the unbidden image of Miss Pillbody’s lifeless body plunging seaward.

  ‘She thought you were going to kill her anyway.’

  ‘Me?’ Hersch looked genuinely surprised.

  Watson said nothing. It was all too easy to fall into chit-chat with a German who, on the face of it, seemed sympathetic and civilized. He knew what Hersch really was.

  ‘Come, Major, you owe me an explanation. Why would I want to kill the woman I created?’

  Watson sighed. He had started the ball rolllng. Now, he supposed, he had to run with it. ‘Not you. But whoever ordered the raid on the Treasury building at Old Street.’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  Watson explained how they had thwarted Garavan and his plans to print thousands of pounds worth of notes from stolen plates.

  ‘I know nothing of this. Will you excuse me?’

  Hersch left the room and Watson stood to stretch his limbs. He caught sight of himself in the mirror above the fireplace, still shocked at the lack of a moustache. He must grow it back. If he lived that long.

  He heard Hersch’s boots ringing on the parquet floor of the hallway and the admiral entered, closing the doors behind him. ‘As I thought, nobody has heard of this Treasury business, not even the Department of Economic Warfare. I am afraid the enterprise seems to have been this man Cavan—’

  ‘Garavan’s.’

  ‘His alone.’ He chuckled. ‘Although I think the Department of Economic Warfare wished they had thought of it.’

  ‘So why was she ordered back?’

  A shrug. ‘Her job was done. We knew what effect the bombers were having on the population. Besides . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, you’ll find out eventually. Tonight and tomorrow the largest bomber fleet ever assembled will descend on London. I expect it to be nothing but rubble and flames within forty-eight hours.’

  ‘“The Englishman is a patient creature, but at present his temper is a little inflamed, and it would be as well not to try him too far.”’

  ‘Is that a quote, Major?’

  Watson gave a thin smile of acknowledgement.

  ‘She told me that she had not been truthful with me about the sinking,’ said Watson, returning to the matter in hand. ‘Just before she died.’

  ‘Ilse said that?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  Hersch shook his head. ‘But what she told you is absolutely true. There are no games here. We have a survivor who won’t speak to us. But might to you.’ Now he frowned, deep grooves appearing in his forehead. ‘I am still puzzled by her actions. Self-survival is everything for a She Wolf.’

  ‘Perhaps it was for the good of the mission. So I might live to see this through. Or perhaps it was an act of kindness, of self-sacrifice.’

  Hersch’s look told him he was being ridiculous.

  ‘Admiral, it seems to me you take people, women in this case, who are shattered, emotionally and physically, and you put them back together, using their grief and sorrow as glue. From what’s left of them you fashion monsters, who think that by doing your will, they can somehow bring their husbands back or honour their memories.’

  ‘You make me sound like Dr Frankenstein.’

  ‘Perhaps without his humanity.’

  Hersch plucked his drink off the mantelpiece and drained it. ‘Pious poppycock, Major Watson. I am proud of what Ilse and the other She Wolves have achieved. You win wars by any means necessary.’

  ‘Yet it is possible, is it not, that you failed to extinguish one last spark of decency in your subjects, even in Miss Pillbody?’

  ‘Sentimentality, Watson, British sentimentality. I think you are right. She saw that of the two of you, the mission was best served if you survived. Don’t fool yourself, Doctor; it was logic, nothing else, that dictated her actions. Now, do you want to discover what really happened to the Dover Arrow or not?’

  ‘Before we go, I have one question I need to ask.’

  ‘You can try.’

  ‘The survivor. Do you know her name?’

  ‘Her name?’

  ‘Yes. She was a nurse, Miss Pillbody said.’

 
; Now Hersch realized what Ilse had meant when she told Watson she had not been truthful. Or rather, what she had omitted to say. ‘You knew a nurse on the Dover Arrow?’

  ‘I did. Staff Nurse Jennings. Is that who you have?’

  ‘The survivor is a nurse, or, at least, what you call a VAD.’

  Watson felt his heart press against his ribcage and his stomach soured. ‘VAD?’ Jennings was a QA, a fully qualified nurse, not a volunteer. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. And there’s one other thing. It’s not a “she”. It’s a “he”.’

  FORTY-THREE

  The smell hit Nurse Jennings as soon as she stepped into the carriage and heard the door locked behind her. The stench was thick, ripe and diseased, carried on a wave of heat from febrile bodies. It was all she could do not to gag and she placed a hand over her mouth. Dozens of eyes stared at her, but the rush that the colonel had been anticipating never came. Even if they had wanted to, rushing was beyond most of the men. Some were crouched on the floor, knees drawn up to their chests, others stood next to them, holding onto straps that dangled from the ceiling. A third group lay on the floor, curled like commas around those sitting. The men were all dressed in simple blue trousers and tunics, the majority of which were filthy and encrusted with what looked like a mix of vomit and blood.

  The coughing sound she had heard from outside was more pronounced in here, and those who had an attack of the hawking and gasping screwed up their faces in pain. Many, she could see, had soiled themselves where they lay or sat, and pools of vile brown liquid had puddled in the dips and grooves in the wooden floor. Others, she noted with alarm, had rivulets of blood oozing from them, some from their nose, others from their ears. Jennings had served for two years on the Western Front and thought she had seen every degree of human suffering, every manifestation of disease, but she had never been confronted with symptoms like this.

  She held up the water container that the lieutenant had fetched from the station, and hands grabbed greedily at it. Within a few minutes it was empty, poured down throats so hastily that a good portion of it was spilled, and greedy eyes looked at her for more. The stares made her uneasy.

  There was something else that made her want to turn and run screaming from the carriage. She could see from the features of the men that they were all of Chinese origin, as the colonel had said. But for the majority of them it was only the shape of the eyes and face that indicated this. Not the skin.

  Because the majority of these very sick men had turned blue.

  ‘Does anyone here speak English?’

  Jennings’ voice sounded thin. It lacked gravitas. Once the shock of her sudden appearance among them had faded, some of the men had found the strength to start jabbering at her. Several had pressed in close, poking at her with angry fingers. It was with great reluctance she pulled out the revolver the colonel had given her and waved it at the poor souls. They weren’t out to harm her, she knew. She could tell in their eyes they just wanted answers.

  ‘Anyone? English?’

  ‘Me. I do.’

  There was a reluctant movement in the crowd and she sensed, rather than saw, someone making his way towards her. There were sharp protests from people on the floor, clearly being trodden on. Eventually, the last of the bodies parted, and a young man appeared. His skin, she noted, was still the usual colour, only one ear lobe had a tinge of blue. But there was blood on his tunic.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘When you let us out of here?’ the man demanded. ‘We need to get out. I have dead men back there. Lot of dead.’

  ‘My name is Staff Nurse Jennings. I am—’

  ‘Let us out!’

  He stepped forward and Jennings brought the gun up, quicker than intended, catching him beneath the chin. He staggered back in shock. A murmur of anger flared through the onlookers.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Jennings,’ she repeated, banging her collarbone with her fist. ‘Jennings.’

  ‘Jiang Yutang,’ the man mumbled, rubbing his chin. She couldn’t help notice the sweat pearled on his brow.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Shandong. Mostly Shandong men.’ He indicated his companions. ‘All Chinese Labour Corps.’

  A man close by began to vomit and the others shuffled away from him as best they could.

  ‘Yutang, what is wrong with these men?’

  ‘You nurse,’ he said. ‘You tell us.’

  ‘Has a doctor seen you?’

  The man laughed. ‘Doctors said we had to be quarantined. Chen Dien first man to go blue. Doctor put all of us who travelled here with him in hut in a hospital at a place called . . .’

  ‘Noyelles-sur-Mer.’

  ‘Yes. Then put onto train. They lock doors! We trapped here.’

  ‘What are the symptoms? The first symptoms. The blue colour?’

  Jiang shook his head. ‘Headache. Cough. Fever. Shivers. Bone ache.’

  That could be any number of things, she thought. The body had a generic response to many infections.

  ‘Then cough so bad, break ribs. Sick.’ He mimed vomiting. ‘Then shit.’ A wave at his backside. ‘Then blue. Then dead.’

  ‘How many dead in here?’

  ‘Twenty, I think, maybe more. What is it? What we have wrong?’

  Something new, she thought, something I have never seen before. It was as if all the worst elements of typhus, flu, tonsillitis, trench fever and scarlet fever had been mixed together into one toxic super-brew. But the blue colour, that was a completely fresh symptom. The last time she had seen a hue like that had been at the Casualty Clearing Station with Watson, where men were being deliberately poisoned. But that was unlikely to be the root cause here. Wasn’t it?

  Jennings leaned against the wooden and metal partition at her back. Her own head was thumping now. Could she have picked up whatever it was already?

  ‘I want the gun,’ said Jiang.

  ‘No. I need this,’ she said.

  He held his hand out. ‘Give me the gun.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘We will shoot off the locks. Then get out.’

  Jennings could understand the desire to break out of this hell, but she also knew letting these people flee would be a mistake. If this was contagious, then they could be releasing an epidemic on the British side of the lines, devastating the army. On the other hand, the way they were treating these men was barbaric. They wouldn’t do it with Englishmen, that much was certain.

  ‘Wait, think about this. It might only be contagious in close contact. You all travelled together, yes?’

  ‘Yes. Across sea. Across Canada.’

  In, she imagined, unsanitary conditions. ‘But it might just require passing exposure, like a cold. I know it’s hard, but I expect they are taking us to Netley. There is an isolation unit there. They’ll do tests.’

  ‘They’ll leave us to die.’

  ‘They will not,’ Jennings insisted. ‘You are British subjects, for God’s sake.’ Were the Chinese British subjects? she wondered. As guest workers, they must be under the protection of the British Empire, at the very least. ‘No harm will come to you.’

  He laughed at that. ‘Give me the gun.’

  ‘I can’t—’

  It wasn’t Jiang who slapped her across the face, causing her to reel sideways, but it was Jiang who twisted the revolver from her grip. ‘Sorry,’ he said with some sincerity.

  She held her stinging face as he moved her gently to one side and stepped up to the door through which she had entered. He peered between the bars and the cracked glass before taking three small paces back and pointing the revolver at the lock.

  Jennings and the men also took a step back, and several put their fingers in their ears. Jennings placed the palms of her hands over her hair and pressed it to the side of her skull.

  At first, she thought the gun had been fitted with some sort of device to muffle the sound of the discharge, in that the report seemed feeble. She had been close to guns bef
ore and knew they hurt the ear in a confined space, no matter how you tried to protect them.

  But then Jiang staggered back and dropped the gun, hand to his chest as the glass fell free from the window. He had been shot from outside.

  Another man rushed to pick up the gun, but ended up tripping over Jiang and crashing into the solid bulkhead of the carriage. The train had jerked backwards as a loco had connected. Now it gave a long, low moan and a few squeals and began to move forward with increasing purpose. They were on their way to wherever they were going.

  FORTY-FOUR

  The survivor told Watson his name was Stephen Harrow, and then he refused to say anything else until the major explained how he came to be in a German hospital. Harrow was in a private ward, one of his feet shackled to the bed by a long chain, which enabled him to move around the room but not much more, unless he wanted to take said bed with him.

  He had recovered from most of his injuries, the majority of which were due to exposure and hypothermia, although a gash on his head had been slow to heal. He was in his mid-twenties and Watson wondered why he was a VAD, rather than in khaki. The Volunteer Aid Detachments took men as well as women, but the former were normally of more advanced years. This was a lad, prime material for the trenches and mud, blood and death of Flanders.

  However, it wasn’t Harrow’s story Watson was interested in, but a few hours in the life of the Dover Arrow. And perhaps in the death of Staff Nurse Jennings.

  Watson pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Well, Stephen, I’m Major Watson of the Royal Army Medical Corps.’

  ‘You a prisoner, too?’ The accent was north of London, but south of Birmingham.

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  Harrow looked him up and down. ‘Can you prove it?’

  ‘That I am a prisoner?’