The Damned

by Tarn Richardson

  At the end of the street was a square, badly buffeted by shell fire. Lined by trees, three had been uprooted and lay snapped and gouged from their cobble lined beds. By now the rain had intensified and was blown on strengthening winds, whipping across the square almost horizontal to the ground. Henry bent himself against it and staggered on. At the edge of the square was the street he remembered from Sandrine’s description he was to take. It offered some respite from the wind and Henry drew a little breath as he trotted down it, hugging the diary tight. It was then that he cursed himself and his loyalty to his unit, for taking such a risk for the sake of a record of a lost unit. He doubted anyone would ever read it anyway. He was minded to throw it away, cast it into a bin or the gutter and be done with it. But he thought of his colleagues who had fallen and knew he could never do such a thing. He owed them that much. He owed them the truth being revealed.

  Halfway down the street he found the lane Sandrine had gone on to mention. The wind blew even stronger down this, casting rain and hail and broken vegetation down the channel the buildings either side created. Signs swung wildly on chains or lay snapped and broken across the floor. Henry peered through the downpour and there, in the distance he could make out the custard yellow of the post office. He half staggered, half ran to the door and cast it open, throwing himself inside.

  The postmaster looked up from behind his desk and chuckled, asking him something in French.

  “I’m sorry,” Henry replied in his basic grasp of French, suddenly aware of the flaw in his plan. “I don’t speak very good French.”

  The postmaster shrugged and shook his head.

  “Paper?” Henry asked, removing the book from his coat, but hiding its cover from the postmaster’s eyes.

  “Paper?”

  “Yes, paper.”

  “Ah, papier?” the postmaster nodded, gathering him a roll. “Ficelle?” he then asked. Henry hesitated. “Ficelle?” the smart looking elderly gentleman asked again. “String?”

  “Oh, string, yes, please,” said Henry, taking both and stealing over to the side of the shop to wrap the diary in the privacy of a corner. No sooner had he crept away than the door to the post office flew open and two British officers staggered in, laughing and cursing at the buffeting they’d received from the elements. They stood in the middle of the office, brushing themselves down and chortling, tall, slick haired moustached men, a Major and Lieutenant Colonel.

  “Blasted weather!” one called, flapping his cap into his hand.

  “One feels that summer is well and truly over now, Nicholas,” the Major called, approaching the desk. Henry’s eyes were on the pair of them and then the postmaster. His gaze was drawn by Henry’s and he looked at him hard before looking back at the Major.

  “Now then my good man, do you speak English?”

  “Oui,” said the man, looking across at Henry and then back at the officer. “A little.”

  “Good stuff. Look here, I’m expecting a package from home. Not coming in via usual circles. Don’t want it go by army post. I was wondering if I could have the parcel sent here and then I come and pick it up from you?”

  “Parcel? Sent here?” replied the man, torn between looking at the officer and glancing with suspicion at the British man in civilian dress in the corner of the room.

  “Yes, that’s right. Get it sent here. That way I might get a chance of getting it before Christmas, what?” The officer chortled and the distracted postmaster feigned the same. His distraction caught the officer’s eye and he peered over at Henry, clasping the bound and addressed book in his hands. “Everything alright, chum?” he asked him.

  Henry could feel the blood drain from him, his head go light. It felt like his entire world was turning in on itself. His heart felt like a battered anvil in his chest. He nodded and avoided any eye contact, retreating a little into the corner in the pretence of finishing addressing the parcel.

  “What have we got here then?” the Major asked, stepping forward and tugging the package around so he could read to whom it was addressed.

  “No, non,” muttered Henry, but he knew the game was up and didn’t resist further. They’d take him to the red caps. From there he’d be sent for court martial. He thought of Sandrine, awaking to find him gone. How long would she wait till she realised he would not be coming back?

  “For the British HQ, Arras, eh?” muttered the Major.

  Henry nodded and swallowed hard.

  “Well why don’t you let me take that?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “We’re heading back there now. Save you the price of a stamp.”

  Dumbfounded, Henry let the parcel be plucked from his grasp, the Major sticking it inside his jacket pocket. He swivelled around and lent across the office counter, producing a pad from an inside pocket.

  “So, what’s the address here?” he asked.

  The postmaster told him, and the officer wrote it down, telling the man his name.

  “So, when the package arrives, you will hold it for me? Here?”

  The postmaster nodded and looked back at Henry, his eyes like slits.

  “Good-oh!” the Major announced, wrenching the door open. “Ready?” he called to the Lieutenant Colonel, and together the officers fought their way back out into the street and the torrential wind and rain.

  A smile lightened the face of the postmaster.

  “Go on then,” he muttered, nodding to the door. “On y va.”

  He was drenched to the bone and shivering when he reached the stairs of Alessandro’s house. He could hear the rain fall on the roof and the street just outside the terraced row of buildings, swelling the puddle at the front into a flood. Henry stopped and closed his eyes, his hand on the banister of the stairs, his ears alert to the sounds of the city. And it seemed to him that he could hear each individual raindrop of the torrential downpour, and the splash of a resident running through the puddles, and the cry from an officer turning his soldiers in the storm. If he listened very hard he could make out the booms and the rumble from the front, the rusted tight deadlock of the units and the battalions and the divisions facing each other, starting up their hate-filled offensives once again.

  And then it struck him – in the middle of that tempest from God and the warring forces – the majesty, the beauty and the miracle that was life. The realisation hit him like a thunderbolt, so strong and so dramatically that it drenched his eyes with tears and took away his breath. How everything in life was finite and balanced so precariously.

  He climbed the stairs slowly, reverently, and gathered Sandrine into his arms on their makeshift bed. He kissed her back to consciousness.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s go and live.”

  ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR

  NOVEMBER, 1914. TOULOUSE INQUISITIONAL PRISON.

  TOULOUSE. FRANCE.

  They’d dragged Tacit to the cell and chained him where he’d been thrown. There’d been no need to drag him. He would have gone with them willingly. Where else was he to go? Where else had he to go? He knew what was to befall him. It didn’t scare him. Nothing scared him any more. Not now.

  He felt blessed, truly blessed, even in that loathsome place, amongst the rot and the stench, in between the beatings.

  But nothing could touch him now. He felt complete. After all, there were those who went their entire lives never having known love, true love, never having felt its touch upon them or their lives. And yet Tacit had felt it, and he had felt it three times.

  A Holy presence.

  Tacit closed his eyes and remembered the lightly scented smell of his mother, the haven he always found within her embrace. Suddenly he heard the laugh of Mila in his ears, the spirit of her voice, filling him and enriching him. And then he felt the touch of Isabella’s fingers on his face, the delicate warmth of her fingertips, spreading across his skin like ripples on a pond.

  He felt the emotion of love swell around him, like an energy manifested within the prison cell. He then opened his eyes and he laughed, and then he
roared with unrestrained joy. There were lights again! Lights all around him! Warming him with their wonder and whispering softly in his ear.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  * * *

  My thanks must go to my father, John, and my brother-in-law, Maurice East, who accompanied me on an inspirational and moving visit to France and Belgium in 2012 on the trail of my great uncles who fought and died in the Great War. That trip acted as the catalyst for this novel. Estelle, of the Terres de Memoire, and Jacques, of the Flanders Battlefield Tour Belgium, were compelling and eloquent guides.

  Thanks to my parents, John and Janet Richardson, who I think secretly knew those comics I read as a kid would be put to good use one day, and my grandfather Fred Clarkson and his wife Denise. Thanks to my sister, Vicky, and niece, Georgia, my parents-in-law, Tony and Brigid Maddocks and sister-in-law, Katie, for all their support.

  Huge thanks goes to Ben Clark at LAW for believing in me and my writing. Knowing you have someone of his wisdom and vision on your side gives you the confidence to write with freedom and purpose.

  Thanks also goes to Andrew Lockett and everyone at Duckworth for letting Poldek Tacit into their beautiful home, despite the state of his boots.

  I must also thank my proof readers who gave me the belief and determination to keep going; Joanna Pitkin-Parsons, Rob Swan, Paul Malone and Maurice East.

  In a world away from novels, trenches and werewolves, there are people who help keep me sane on a daily basis. Thank you Jamie Gilman and James Fry for doing exactly that, and thank you Jon Phillips for providing the soundtrack to my writing sessions. And, finally, Mrs Jones, who read me The Hobbit when I was eight and opened my eyes and imagination. Long gone, but not forgotten.

  NOTES

  * * *

  A huge number of books, articles and websites have provided me with the information required to write a compelling and factual account of the early months of the Great War. Too numerous to list all of them, I would like to give particular credit to the following books: The Great War, by Peter Hart; Valour in the Trenches, by N S Nash; Raiding on the Western Front, by Anthony Saunders; Trench Talk, by Peter Doyle and Julian Walker; The Beauty and the Sorrow, by Peter Englund; The Soldier’s War, by Richard Van Emden; 1914-1918, by David Stevenson; Last Post, by Max Arthur.

  The National Archives at Kew and their beautifully kept war diaries have proved invaluable to better understanding movements and morale of troops at the start of the war.

  The two battles featured within the book are based on real events. The German attack was taken from the accounts of Corporal Charlie Parke, 2nd Gordon Highlanders, regarding the first German assault he faced. The British attack was taken from the accounts of Major George Walker, 59th Field Coy, RE.

  TARN RICHARDSON was brought up in a remote house, rumored to be haunted, near Somerset, England. He has been a copywriter, written murder mystery dinner party games, and worked in digital media for nearly twenty years. The Damned is his debut novel, the first in a series of three featuring the tortured Inquisitor Poldek Tacit.

  Printed in the United States Copyright © 2016 The Overlook Press

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