The Sign of Fear

by Robert Ryan

  Lau started to bang on the window again and stamp his feet. She didn’t join in. Her limbs felt like great fluid-filled sacks, almost too heavy to lift. She needed to lie down. She was still sweating, despite the cool breeze leaking through the broken glass. Others, though, began to shout until the noise settled down to what sounded like a sea shanty with added percussion.

  Again, the sensations transmitted through her feet told her that something was up. ‘We’re slowing.’

  The clank of chains was close by, just the others side of the solid bulkhead. ‘Hello!’ she yelled again. ‘Anyone there?’

  Another sort of engine started up, one with a fast, rhythmic thud. Water gurgled, as if someone were emptying a bath. Jennings was aware that she was having to press down harder on her left foot than her right to keep her balance. It was as if . . . as if the boat were listing.

  There came a low grunt, then a metallic screech. The carriage was clearly at an angle now. The ship was sinking.

  She reached through a broken window and gripped one of the bars. With a squeal like a pig being slaughtered the carriage began to roll, back the way it had come on board. Now Jennings screamed as it gathered speed, heading for the waters of the Channel.

  ‘I felt the boat tip. I thought we were sinking.’

  ‘But you weren’t?’ asked Watson.

  ‘No, but by the time I got on deck, it was at quite an angle. Boats like the Dover Arrow have ballast tanks at each end, so they can adjust their height. By flooding or emptying the tanks they can raise or lower that end. Clearly they had flooded the set at the stern.’

  The monstrosity of what Harrow was describing finally sank in. ‘So the train was . . .?’

  ‘Not the whole train. They had chocked the loco, I reckon. Because it didn’t move. But the carriages, they were rolling down off the end of the ship.’

  Watson closed his eyes, trying to stop the images forming in his brain. ‘What then?’

  ‘I ran forward. As if I could stop the momentum. Me. Alone. I did actually grab onto a handle on the side, but my feet just slithered along the deck. But then I looked up. There were lamps lit in the carriages. I could see there were yellow faces pressed against the glass and bars, staring down at me, shouting, shouting and screaming.’

  ‘Yellow?’

  ‘Well, Chinese, but there was one white woman. A nurse . . .’ His voice tailed off. ‘She wasn’t shouting or screaming. She was just staring at me, as if this were all my fault.’ The tears came suddenly, rolling down his cheek to the corners of his mouth. ‘As if it were my fault,’ he repeated.

  Watson put a hand on his arm. ‘Go on. What happened next?’

  Jennings braced herself against the bars as the first carriage crashed into the water. From the far end came the screams of the living as water poured through the smashed windows. A huge bang suggested that something structural had given way. The forward motion halted for a moment, but then, with more ominous creaks, the ambulance train carried on its descent. She could hear the greedy inrush of water, creating a log jam of bodies.

  And then, with a jolt and a spine-numbing crash, they were free of the boat.

  Their carriage remained upright, but began swaying from side to side. The front carriages had to be already submerged and now they were pulling them down.

  Ahead of her, men were coming like locusts, climbing over seats and each other as if they had six or more limbs. Behind them grey water swirled and foamed. She felt something touch her hand and turned. There was a man, a boy, on the outside, shouting at her. ‘You’ve got to get out!’

  He was tugging at the bars, his feet pressed against the side of the carriage, as if he could tear the bolts free. ‘Push with me.’

  She stood, frozen, staring at this apparition.

  ‘Miss, please. I’m trying to help. Push with me.’

  She did as she was told, but she knew the bars were securely fixed. Now the mass of frantic bodies was nearly on her and she could feel the icy chill of the rising sea. ‘Go!’ she said to the would-be rescuer. ‘Go.’

  ‘No! Help me.’

  The floor tipped beneath her and she scrabbled for a foothold. The carriage was turning turtle and as it did so, she fell backwards, her skull smashing against a seat back. Jennings gasped as the water came over her, retching as it filled her nostrils, but somehow managing to expel it with a snort. Her sinuses burned but she managed not to fill her lungs. The light had gone. All was darkness. All was cold.

  But her arms and legs worked automatically and she found herself swimming through a tangle of limbs, some intent on pushing her down, others thrashing with no purpose. Surely a wall of the carriage might split? The roof come off? Something to get them out of this sinking coffin. And what then? A slow death bobbing in the Channel?

  Stay alive, woman, stay alive.

  She kicked off a seat arm and propelled herself upwards. There was an inch or two of air between sea and windows, disappearing as, with moans of what seemed pain, the Channel took the train. Reaching out she found the bars and gripped as tightly as she could, but her hands were already numb. She pulled herself up, her mouth finding that ribbon of air and gulping at it. She could see her would-be rescuer’s outline, blurred by the seawater in her eyes. The brave lad was still there, still clinging on, still pulling at the bars. But it was no good . . . no good . . . She shouted the one word that might help him make sense of this, this massacre. Then she reached a hand up towards him, and was pleased she could still feel the grip, the warmth, the care, of another human being, however briefly. Staff Nurse Jennings opened her mouth and gulped water as the sea flowed over her face, hoping it would be over quickly.

  Watson wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. The sorrow sat heavily on him. The rage, the fulminating, would come later.

  ‘Deliberate, do you think?’ he asked, rummaging for a handkerchief. ‘This ditching of the carriages?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Harrow with conviction. ‘Otherwise the loco would have rolled as well, surely. The carriages were uncoupled, the boat’s tanks flooded to an angle where they would move, the stern gates lowered so they would slide unimpeded into the sea.’

  ‘Murder,’ said Watson.

  ‘Hardly does it justice.’

  ‘And you are sure this is what she shouted? EXTO?’

  ‘EXTO or EXMO. It sounds like a military term, don’t you think?’

  ‘Or an acronym. Had a lot of those lately. And you, what happened to you after the train went down?’

  Harrow held up a bandaged wrist. ‘Like an idiot I got my hand stuck in the bars. I couldn’t free it. I was dragged down some way. I . . . I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see. And then it was too dark. But part of the carriage panelling finally gave away and I floated to the surface. There was no sign of the Dover Arrow. I have no idea how long I was out there before a German fast torpedo boat picked me up. But here I am. Alive, at least.’

  ‘It was a remarkably courageous thing to do. To try to rescue her.’

  ‘Courageous for a conchie, you mean.’

  ‘I never said that,’ insisted Watson. ‘Nor thought it.’

  Harrow gave a hollow laugh. ‘I apologize. You get very used to being called a coward. And worse.’

  ‘I would strike any man I heard utter that word in your presence,’ said Watson.

  Harrow looked at him, head tilted to one side, as if examining an exotic specimen unknown to science. ‘You know, I really do believe you are that Dr Watson.’

  ‘I was that Dr Watson once,’ he said wistfully, before blowing his nose.

  Harrow shook his head. ‘The man I just saw then, he was real enough. I believe who you say you are. I suppose I won’t be needing this now.’

  From beneath the pillow he produced a curved scalpel, of the sort used to unpick stitches. ‘Manage to get it off a trolley,’ Harrow said apologetically.

  ‘You would have used that on me?’

  ‘If I’d had to.’

  ‘How does tha
t square with your values?’

  ‘It’s senseless war I hate. When it comes to survival, I’m beginning to think I have to reconsider.’

  Watson looked at the wicked blade, which could easily slice through a carotid artery or jugular vein. Death would take a very few, very messy minutes. ‘What made you think you might have to kill me?’

  ‘Dr Watson, if men are prepared to do that to a group of fellow human beings, to drown them in cold blood, think what they’d be prepared to do to keep their actions a secret.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  ‘You aren’t going and that is the end of it. Look at you.’

  Schrader stared at his squadron leader and then at Trotzman. They were in the weather hut. Conditions, according to the charts on the wall, looked fine for bombing. Outside he could hear the cough and splutter of engines starting.

  ‘I’m fine. It’s not like I have to fly the damn plane.’

  ‘No, but you do need your wits about you,’ said von Kahr. ‘You are exhausted. You need a hot bath . . .’

  ‘And a hotter woman,’ added Trotzman.

  Von Kahr glared at him. ‘Look, the improved incendiary racks are in. We shall spend tonight fitting them to your Giant. Tomorrow, on the hunter’s moon, you can lead the biggest wing of bombers ever seen in the skies over England.’

  Schrader nodded his defeat. He was aching all over. The strain of the combat with the Albatroses had drained him, and his bad shoulder throbbed. His hair was still greasy with oil. Perhaps a ten- or twelve-hour night was asking too much of his body. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘What news of the Albatroses?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said von Kahr, ‘you didn’t kill anyone. The pilot you hit got back to land. The plane is a wreck, but he walked away.’

  Schrader sighed with relief. The last thing he needed on his conscience was the death of a fellow flyer. ‘No more of those trips for me.’

  ‘That’s not up to me,’ said von Kahr, ‘but the Bristol isn’t in the best of health, either. That won’t be flying for a while.’

  ‘The device they have on it, where you can slide the Lewis gun to fire forward, or pull it down to fire up.’

  ‘The Foster Mount. What about it?’ asked von Kahr.

  ‘Well, if I were a fighter and couldn’t make the height of the bombers, I’d use it to fire upwards.’

  ‘You know, Schrader,’ said Trotzman, ‘it’s probably best you don’t mention that to any Englishmen you meet.’

  Another engine kicked into life, a Maybach. The hut shivered in the prop blast. The racket made Schrader’s heart beat faster. He could fly, he could push himself, but he had to concede he had lost the argument. And his crew would enjoy a night off. ‘How many?’

  ‘Two Giants, including mine, fifteen Gothas. Tomorrow, if all goes well, four Giants, twenty-five Gothas.’

  Schrader stood. ‘Come on. The least you can do is let me watch you bastards take off without me.’

  Admiral Hersch poured two inches of red wine into a glass and pushed it across to Watson. Then he repeated the action for himself. They were in a tiny, smoke-filled, dark wood tavern, close to the hospital where Harrow remained chained to his bed.

  ‘Cheers,’ the spymaster said, raising his glass.

  Watson drank without saying anything. There was nothing to toast as far as he was concerned. He knew he should eat, but the emptiness in his stomach could not be filled by food.

  ‘So you believe us now?’ asked Hersch.

  ‘I believe you had nothing to do with the sinking of the Dover Arrow, yes. Quite what you expect me to do with the information is another matter.’

  ‘I want you to tell me what the British are up to. Did they sink their own ship?’

  ‘You think that’s what it was? Self-inflicted? It could have struck a mine.’

  Hersch lit a cigarette and pushed the pack to Watson, who waved them away. ‘When he was picked up by a Torpedoboot, the survivor was delirious. He said things that intrigued us. About deliberate murder of the men on board. Once he recovered, he would answer no further questions.’

  So Hersch knew only part of the story. He didn’t know that the Dover Arrow didn’t, in fact, sink at all. ‘You cannot expect me to give you information that would aid and abet the enemy.’ Especially information that suggested the British could be as barbaric as the baby-bayoneting Hun of popular imagination.

  The admiral puffed on his cigarette. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said. About me being a creator of monsters. There is some truth in it.’ He flicked ash on the floor. ‘But whether I am worse than Herr Maxim or Herr Haber is a moot point. Machine guns and poison gas have killed far more people than I have. But even I have my limits. I never agreed with sinking hospital ships, because these things work both ways. We have had ambulance trains bombed. So perhaps Allied hospital ships are fair targets. However, the thought of killing our own sick and wounded?’ He took another drink of the wine. ‘I cannot imagine any circumstances where I could condone that.’

  ‘Nor me.’

  Except, Harrow had described the majority of people trapped inside the train as of Chinese or at least Asian origin. Would they count as ‘our own’ sick and wounded to the British if they posed a threat? But what kind of threat justified murder?

  ‘What are you thinking, Major?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ he lied.

  In 1900, San Francisco suffered an outbreak of bubonic plague. It was the ‘third pandemic’, and was believed to have started in Yunan. Watson vaguely recalled that there had been atrocities there against the Chinese population who took the blame for the deaths in the city. Something similar had happened in India, too, although it was Brahmins blaming the lower caste there and massacring a whole village. Yet there were simple hygienic measures to control plague, even before Haffkine created a vaccine. Maybe that’s what this was. A ‘cleansing’ by ignorant, frightened people.

  ‘Well?’ prompted Hersch. ‘Why would they sink their own ship?’

  ‘As my friend Holmes would say, there simply isn’t enough data. I don’t know.’

  ‘So that’s it?’ the admiral said irritably. ‘You just accept that these things happen in war?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Watson finally took a decent mouthful of drink. It burned like acid. ‘A good woman was on board that ship, and if – if – she was murdered, I will rest at nothing to uncover the truth. You can’t expect me to offer to share that truth with you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But once a truth has been dragged into the light of day, it has a way of becoming common knowledge.’

  ‘Even with DORA?’ the German asked.

  It was a good point. DORA was a powerful tool that could effectively smother the dissemination of information. Watson thought it justified, mostly, but not if it was used to hide something as evil as mass murder.

  Isn’t this entire war mass murder?

  Perhaps, Holmes. But you didn’t think that at the beginning. None of us did in 1914. And if we didn’t cling onto the belief that there was some justification somewhere for all that slaughter . . .

  ‘You will have to take my word for it that I will endeavour to get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘Even if the results prove detrimental to your country?’

  ‘I am an old-fashioned man, Admiral. Out-of-date in many ways. I believe that the truth, while it might hurt, never harms in the long run. At least compared to the alternative of a corroding soup of secrets and lies.’

  Hersch stubbed out his cigarette on the table top. ‘You are talking to a man who deals only in secrets and lies.’

  ‘The answers to the Dover Arrow aren’t over here, though, in Belgium. They are in France and in England.’

  ‘You want to go home,’ the German said.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘With your witness.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The admiral poured them both more wine. A low vibration filled the room as he did so, and both men looked up at the smoke-yellowed cei
ling but neither acknowledged what they both knew. That was the sound of the bombers leaving for England.

  ‘There is the small matter of how to achieve this. The idea of a white flag on no man’s land . . . well, you’ve seen it. The days of truces are over. And even if you did get across without being shot by a sniper, there will be questions asked about how you came to be here. They might even shoot you as a spy.’

  That was a good point. Commanders on the front line were understandably jittery and often trigger-happy.

  ‘We could get you to Holland,’ suggested Hersch.

  ‘Where I am persona non grata after our last encounter.’

  Hersch smiled a little at this. ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘And, again, there will be questions asked by the British mission there. I need to get back to London as soon as possible.’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ said Hersch. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s too late to do anything this evening. I’ll find you a billet for the night.’

  ‘One other thing you can help me with. Are you familiar with British Intelligence terms?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, ‘or I’d be a pretty poor spy. I might not be entirely current. You British think up new ones all the time.’

  Watson hesitated, wondering if he was throwing away an important trump card.

  ‘What is it you wish to know?’

  ‘EXTO, I think it is.’

  ‘EXTO? Are you sure?’

  Watson nodded and the admiral busied himself with lighting another cigarette. ‘You know what it means, Admiral?’

  ‘I do.’ He frowned in further thought. ‘I was just wondering if it was what happened to your ship.’

  Watson leaned forward. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘As far as we understand it, EXTO stands for Exceptional Termination Order. It is, in effect, an official licence to kill.’

  FORTY-NINE

  Holmes and Bullimore managed to find passage on the SS Dempster, a troop ship out of Folkestone. The Dempster carried 400 members of the 5th Battalion of the South African Native Labour Corps, most of whom chattered in language – or more accurately languages – that the Englishmen couldn’t understand. Most of the labourers stayed below deck as, according to one of the white officers, after their voyaging from Cape Town to Lagos, and then Plymouth before the hop to Folkestone, the ocean had lost its allure, especially after the Bay of Biscay crossing.