by Charles Todd
“I shan’t be able to wait,” Mark warned me. “But if this train is delayed as well, and you’re stranded again, you must come for me at Groves’s chambers.” He told me how to find the address, and indeed, it wasn’t far to walk. “Promise me?”
It was kind of him, but of course I couldn’t expect him to drive me to Dover. Still, I smiled and said, “I promise.”
Satisfied, he said, “It was good to see you again, Bess.” He bent to kiss me lightly on the cheek. “That’s in gratitude for being such a brick.”
And then he was gone.
After a few minutes I inquired of the stationmaster where I might find a telephone. It wasn’t far, but I hurried, fearing I might have to wait my turn using the one in the hotel.
My parents were there, and it was wonderful to hear their voices.
“Simon is in Scotland,” Mother told me, “but I’ll be sure to let him know you’re all right. And I’ll send word to Mrs. Hennessey, shall I?”
“Yes, please. I do wish there had been a chance to come home, but the trains were impossible.”
My father said, when his turn came, “I’ll leave your motorcar in Dover, shall I? It might be for the best.”
I laughed, knowing he was teasing me.
It was after we’d chatted for a while that I told him about the Ashtons.
I had to be circumspect. While my father was listening to me, I had to wonder who else might be on this line, hearing every word. But there would be no time to write before my train departed for Dover. And once in Dover, there would be the usual madness. It was now or never.
Falling back on Hindi, one of the languages I’d learned as a child when my father and the regiment were serving in India, I told him as much as I could, trying to keep to the essential facts, not my own feelings about what I myself had witnessed.
As usual he had a number of questions when I’d finished, and then he told me, “I knew about the explosion. We were quite concerned about the loss of the powder, and what it would mean in France. The Army had to move quickly to find new sources and begin to enlarge them. I was more involved with that than the official report. But I did read the preliminary findings. It wasn’t sabotage, thank God, although the officer in charge of the inquiry was convinced it must be. That had been a risk from the start, using the Ashton mill, because it was so close to the sea—so easily reached by a determined band of men bent on destruction. But the facilities were excellent, and the Ashtons’ record was impeccable. Gunpowder is a dangerous and difficult business at the best of times, but in wartime, when you need more and more of it, you can’t simply double up on production. It doesn’t work that way.”
He paused. “Let me look into what’s happening, Bess. There may be something I can do.”
Happy to leave the matter in capable hands, I thanked him and hurried back to the railway station.
The train, long and crowded with men, was just pulling in, and it took me several minutes to find my carriage.
I made my connection to the transport in Dover with only two hours to wait, and then I was at sea. We convoyed with other ships out of Folkestone, and made an easy crossing, for once without alarms of German submarines hunting in the Channel.
Calais was its usual crowded, chaotic self. As I disembarked, I wondered where the stones from Cranbourne Abbey had been used, but it was impossible to tell anything in the murky light. I walked some distance before I found my next transport, which turned out to be a battered ambulance that had just delivered wounded to a ship returning to England.
The driver and I were old acquaintances, and I asked him how it was at the Front. He was a burly, graying man from Cheshire who had volunteered, found he wasn’t wanted, and then volunteered once again, this time as a medical orderly. Because of his mechanical knowledge, he’d been given ambulance duty instead.
“Men are dying still, or being blown apart,” he told me with a shrug. “Nothing has changed. It’s as if no one up there at the Front believes the rumors. Least of all the Germans.”
And he was right. I could hear the guns clearly, pounding away at the opposite trenches as if they might go on firing for another four long years.
The mist in Calais had been the remnant of a heavy rain in this part of France, and the roads were the usual morass of ruts and mud and filth of unimaginable origins. As we bumped and slipped and rumbled our way north, I prepared myself for returning to duty. Just as well, for the forward aid station where I was assigned had just fallen back as a ferocious German counterattack threatened to break through the British line.
Most of our cases at the moment were shell fragments, and I thought of the former pilot I’d encountered by the River Cran, with a bit of shrapnel near his heart. Alex Craig.
Shrapnel knew no boundaries. Arms, legs, body, head, eyes—stretchers lined up, snaking back down the communications trenches. Men lay there white-faced, trying not to moan, lips clenched over clenched teeth, putting up a good front. We cleaned and probed and cleaned again, then bandaged, sending the worst cases back, returning the walking wounded to the line wherever possible. And then the machine-gun cases followed as the British counterattacked. Mostly arms and knees, sometimes bodies or shoulders as men crouched as they ran to make themselves smaller targets, and only succeeded in giving the gunners better ones within their range of fire.
There was no time to rest. I reported for duty and two minutes later was working, and went on working through what remained of the night. We had only enough time to gulp down a little porridge for breakfast before the shelling began again, this time British guns pounding the German line.
I thought, listening to the fighting, that it had been the same since the stalemate in the winter of 1915, when both sides in this conflict realized that they couldn’t go forward and wouldn’t move back, digging in to fight for inches or—sometimes, if they were lucky—a few feet of ground.
The Front had shifted back and forth once more, with pathetically little gain. I talked to the men as I worked, getting a sense of what was going on up ahead of us. Then, miraculously, we made nearly a hundred yards, only to lose it again in a fierce counterattack. Sometimes I needed only to look at the wounds in front of me to know what was happening along the entire line.
There was the briefest of lulls, and someone shoved a cup of soup into my hands. I drank it down, never noticing that there had been no salt to flavor it. We were running low on bandages and other necessities as well.
It occurred to me, standing there talking to a young private, his face green with shock and exhaustion, that I’d seen cavalry give way to trenches, aircraft learning to pursue the enemy or strafe the lines or, when the chance arose, fighting each other high above the battlefield. I’d watched tanks grow from clumsy beasts that killed more men than they preserved to useful battlefield weapons. And always, behind it all, the artillery, able to put a hundred shells in the same sector over and over and over again, until the sky sometimes seemed to rain metal and disemboweled earth. But the infantry still climbed up their ladders at the sound of an officer’s whistle, raced headlong across the bloody ground between lines, and died in shell holes, on the lips of the enemy’s trenches, in the barbed wire or even the muddy, pitted ground.
With a sigh I changed my apron for a clean one and went back to work, knowing that until such time as victory came, I still had much to do.
There was a letter from Mark Ashton waiting in my tent a day or two later. I opened it, hoping it must bring good news, since he’d had the time to write at all. But nothing had changed. His father was still in custody, the barrister was trying to bring the trial forward as quickly as possible, and he himself had been granted compassionate leave. However, he went on:
There’s a new problem. The Army has refused to send home the only honest witness to the explosion. Their position is, he’d given his statement to the Army investigators at the time of the d
isaster, and that should be sufficient for the purposes of the trial. I’ve appealed this decision, but it seems that Sergeant Rollins is the best tank officer they have got and they won’t hear of him being given leave to testify in person. Mr. Worley has hoped that putting Rollins in the witness box will allow him to cross-examine the man and use that testimony to show that my father couldn’t have caused either the fire or the explosion. Still the Army refuses to listen. I’ve written to the King, but I have very little expectation of my letter ever reaching him.
I could hear the despair in his words.
It was very likely that the Army had questioned Rollins only in regard to the possibility of sabotage. That had been their sole interest in the beginning, their need to hunt down the saboteurs as quickly as possible. Neither the Army nor anyone else would have considered the presence of Philip Ashton at the powder mill as anything to think twice about. After all, he ran the mill. How many Sundays had he walked down from the Hall to see how the foremen were managing? How many evenings, come to that, had he strolled to the banks of the River Cran and simply stood, taking the pulse of the day?
What had been far more worrying to the Government and the Army was the fact that in this part of Kent there was marshy ground where two main rivers emptied into the sea. There were watchers all around the coasts of Essex and Kent, to spot midnight landings or small boats coming in at dawn. But however many watchers the Army had set, no one could guard all the little inlets all the time.
Then, once sabotage had been ruled out, of course the next most likely cause of the explosion had been presumed to be an accident. Fate. A careless moment. Luck that had finally run out. A flash of spark, and the mill vanishing in a roar. No one would be happy with that, but the very nature of gunpowder made an accident not only likely but nearly inevitable as the need for it pressed men to do more and more, faster and faster.
At that stage, the Army had faced a far more important question, whether to rebuild the powder mill here in Kent—or somewhere well out of the reach of the enemy and well away from villages.
Far away had won.
And very likely, Sergeant Rollins, long since back in France, had been forgotten. No one had even thought to ask him what else he might have seen from his little boat out there on the waters on The Swale.
I could see why Lucius Worley wanted to interview Sergeant Rollins.
On the other hand, I could see a point that might not have occurred to Mark at this stage. That the evidence Rollins might give could do more harm than it would help.
Perhaps that was why Mr. Worley had taken the Army’s refusal as final, while Mark hadn’t given up.
What more could this man add; what questions had never been put to him? Would he clear Mr. Ashton? Or convict him?
It wasn’t until much later, as I was collecting myself to try to sleep, that I thought of something else. It had occurred to me before, but in a different situation. If Sergeant Rollins had seen something, had information that could clear up the mystery of the explosion and fire, why hadn’t he told the Army about it at the time? Even if it had something to do with Mr. Ashton and nothing to do with saboteurs?
I sat up in my cot.
Why had he answered only the questions put to him? Because he hadn’t seen anything, because he wanted to protect someone, because he didn’t think he’d be believed?
There had been no word from the Colonel Sahib. I’d left the problem of Philip Ashton in his capable hands.
I could do more harm than good if I took it upon myself to meddle.
After a moment I lay back down again and firmly told myself to go to sleep.
Still, it was another quarter of an hour before I heeded my own advice.
In the morning, as I was eating my cold porridge, a runner appeared with a letter. I saw him speaking to the doctor, who was smoking a cigarette and staring out at the gray dawn. The doctor seemed to rouse himself, looked around, and after a moment pointed in my direction.
The mud-splattered runner came over to me.
“Sister Crawford?”
“Yes?”
“Letter for you. Military pouch.” He looked me over, wondering how it was my letter shared the pouch with far more important orders and other Army missives.
I smiled and took it from him. From time to time my father or Simon wrote to me by this means in order to avoid having something pass through the censor’s hands and possibly be lost. “Thank you, Corporal. I think there’s another cup of tea in the pot over there.”
He grunted with pleasure and was gone.
Slipping the letter into my pocket, I finished my porridge and relieved Sister Herries, returning to my place in the receiving line of wounded.
When I could take a break, shortly after noon, I poured my own cup of tea—for a wonder it was a fresh brew—and went to my quarters to read my letter.
It was from the Colonel Sahib.
Bess, I’ve looked into the matter you spoke to me about, and I can tell you that there is very little I can do through my contacts here. Once the question of German involvement had been settled, the Army closed the investigation and set about moving the mill to a similar facility in Scotland. The investigation has now been reopened as a criminal inquiry. The Army will hold a watching brief, to be sure, but it will not interfere in a civilian criminal inquiry unless treason is suspected.
I did my best to find out where and when this reopening of the case had occurred. And who had initiated it. Who had brought the first charges against Ashton. But because it’s a current case, this is between the Chief Constable and the Canterbury police, and I have no authority there. I can tell you, however, that despite the charges, no one has contacted Scotland Yard to take over the inquiry. It is being kept at the local level. For Ashton’s sake, it would be better to have the Yard handling the investigation into the facts. I think you will understand why.
I must tell you that none of this is favorable to Ashton’s chances. I understand there was an eyewitness to events, and that he is presently serving in France. But no request has been made to the Army by Canterbury police or the Chief Constable to release him to testify. Make of that what you will.
My dear, I am not happy about this. If there is any more that I can do, I will. At the moment it seems to be very little.
He went on to say that all was well in Somerset, and that my mother had heard from Mrs. Hennessey recently.
There was a final brief paragraph.
Our neighbor through the woods is recovering from boredom and will be joining us for dinner tonight. I am to convey his greetings and I am to tell you as well that he has met your young American Marine.
The neighbor, of course, would be Simon. Deciphering my father’s cryptic comment, I gathered Simon Brandon had been rather busy somewhere, and he’d just arrived in Somerset, intending to sleep the rest of that day before joining my parents for dinner. The fact that he’d met “my young American Marine”—a reference to a man I’d treated some weeks ago as he passed through our aid station—told me that Simon had been involved in some liaison work with the Americans. Possibly the 5th Marines, possibly not. But he might well have encountered the man I’d treated or someone else in the Marine’s company.
They were the bravest of the brave, those American Marines, holding out for a month at Belleau Wood in impossible circumstances and setting the Germans on their ear.
Smiling, I was about to fold up the letter when I saw the hastily scrawled postscript. My smile faded.
You should be aware that the local police are adamant that this is a matter for the Kent courts.
Someone was determined to see that Mr. Ashton hanged. Someone had kept the inquiry out of Army hands and out of Scotland Yard’s hands as well. But why should that matter if the evidence against Mark’s father was so strong?
Was it Inspector Brothers? Or someone with even more
authority? The Chief Constable could call in the Yard to take over an inquiry. Especially if Inspector Brothers requested it.
The Inspector’s brother had been killed in the explosion . . .
There was no sure way of reaching the Ashtons with what I’d learned. Any letter passing through the hands of the censors could take days or weeks to arrive, and it was never certain what they would consider aiding the enemy or weakening the will of the home front. A friend had written to his mother about an herb garden he’d stumbled across while retreating down the Ypres Road, and that had been cut because it might tell the Germans where this company had found a speedy path south. Another had posted to his convalescent Captain a happy birthday message from his men, only to learn later that the names of the well-wishers had been cut to keep the enemy from knowing who they were.
What I could do was find this Sergeant Rollins and let him know what was happening in Kent. It might be possible for him to speak to one of his officers and give evidence in a new deposition. At least this would assure Mr. Ashton a fair trial. I didn’t care at all for the present odds. Guilty or innocent, a man deserved a fair trial. It was the bedrock of English law.
And I had a resource that I could call upon.
My Australian soldier who had helped me more than once to find information I badly needed: Sergeant Lassiter. If there was anyone who knew more about the men fighting this war than anyone else, it was he.
I spoke casually to a sergeant from a Wiltshire regiment, asking if he’d ever encountered an Aussie by the name of Lassiter.
He frowned—I was sewing up a leg wound at the time, and hoping to distract him.
“Name’s familiar. Can’t say I’ve ever run across him. But I’ve heard rumors. An Aussie, you say? It wouldn’t be that crazy fool who took out a machine-gun nest because it interfered with his sleep?”
I hadn’t heard about that. “It might be,” I answered warily, finishing the last stitch and tying off the thread.