by Charles Todd
He promised, and there was a letter from him waiting for me on my next leave.
It said simply that Sarah and Martin had quarreled, presumably over the lost inheritance, and he’d stormed out, telling her to go home where she belonged. A lover’s quarrel that might have blown over. His “sister,” in fact his companion in crime, Lucy Edwards, had agreed to take Sarah MacRae to the railway station that evening. Instead, she’d stabbed her as she was packing her valise, driven the body to the churchyard in Eastbury, where she’d pulled on Martin’s boots and carried Sarah out to the strand. That explained why the footprints weren’t deeper—tall as she was, Lucy weighed far less than a man. She had been afraid that as lovers do, the two might make up. Sarah was very pretty for an heiress, and likely to be competition for Lucy. Inspector Robbins had also found the other e arring. There was a strand of Sarah’s hair still caught in it. Lucy had intended to keep both as profit, but lost one while carrying the dead girl.
And so Sarah had identified her murderer for us. That bit of paper—we never discovered how that followed her to the beach— and that earring had sealed Lucy Edwards’ fate.
At the end of his letter, Inspector Robbins had written, “And how did you enjoy your role as a police consultant?”
I returned a humorous reply. The truth was, I had felt a kinship with Sarah MacRae. She wasn’t just a girl dead on a beach and left for the tides to take her. Or an opportunity for me to play at policeman. Although I’d never known him, Captain MacRae had served in my father’s old regiment—it was in that scrap of obituary I’d read. And so I had felt strong ties to him and to his daughter.
A Duty to the Dead Excerpt
A Duty to the Dead
CHARLES TODD
Chapter One
Tuesday, 21 November, 1916. 8:00 A.M.
At sea . . .
This morning the sun is lovely and warm. All the portholes below are open, to allow what breeze there is to blow through the lower decks and air them. With no wounded onboard to keep us occupied, we are weary of one another’s company. Beds are made up, kits readied, duties done. Since Gibraltar I’ve written to everyone I know, read all the books I could borrow, and even sketched the seabirds. Uneventful is the password of the day.
I lifted my pen from the paper and stared out across the blue water. I’d posted letters during our coaling stopover in Naples, and there wasn’t much I could add about the journey since then. I’d already mentioned the fact that Greece was somewhere over the horizon and likely to stay there. Someone had sighted dolphins off the bow just after first light, and I’d mentioned that too. What else? Oh, yes.
We discovered a bird’s nest in one of the lifeboats, no idea how long it had been there or if the hatching was successful. Or what variety of bird it might have been. Margaret, one of the nursing sisters, claimed it must surely be the Ancient Mariner’s albatross, and we spent the next half hour trying to think what we should name our unknown guest. Choices ranged from Coleridge to the Kaiser, but my personal favorite was Alice in Wonderland.
I always tried to keep my letters cheerful, even when the wards were filled with wounded, and we were working late into the night, fighting to save the worst cases. My worries weren’t to be shared. At home and in the trenches, letters were a brief and welcome re spite from war. It was better that way. And now we were in the Kea Channel, just off the Greek coast at Cape Sounion, and steaming toward our final destination at Lemnos. It was the collection point for wounded from Greek Macedonia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. There, post could be sent on through the Army.
I’d grown rather superstitious about writing to friends as often as I could. I’d learned too well just how precious time was, and how easily someone slipped away, dying days or weeks before I heard the news. My only consolation was that a letter might have reached them and made them smile a little while they were still living, or comforted them in their last hours. God knew, the Battle of the Somme over the summer had been such a bloodbath no one could say with any certainty how many men we’d lost. I could put a face to far too many names on those casualty lists.
A gull flew up to land on the railing close by me, an eye fixed on me. Most were nearly tame, begging for handouts. In the distance, over the bird’s shoulder, was a smudge that must be Kea. The sea here was a sparkling blue and calm, Britannic’s frothy wake the only disturbance as far as the eye could see in any direction. Sailing be tween the island and the mainland was a shortcut that saved miles and miles of travel.
Or as Captain Bartlett had told me on my first voyage out, “Keep Cape Sounion on your left and Kea on your right, and you can’t go wrong.” And so I looked for it every voyage thereafter, like a marker in the sea.
One of Britannic’s officers paused by my deck chair, and the gull took flight with an annoyed squawk. “I see you’re already enjoying the morning air, Miss Crawford. The last time we passed through here, it was pouring rain. You could hardly see your hand before your face. Remember?”
Browning was sun browned, broad shouldered, and handsome in his uniform. We’d formed a friendship of sorts during the voyages out, flirting a little to pass the time. Neither of us took it seriously.
“Much pleasanter than France this time of year,” I replied, smil ing up at him. “No mud.”
He laughed. “And no one firing at you. We should be safe as houses soon.”
“That’s good to hear.” But I knew he was lying. It was a game all of us played, pretending that German Uboats weren’t a constant threat. Even hospital ships like Britannic were not safe from them, despite our white paint and great red crosses. They were said to be lieve that we hid fresh troops among the wounded or stowed muni tions in the hold amongst the medical supplies. There was no truth to their suspicions, of course. And this channel was well traveled, always a temptation. For that matter, mines paid no heed to the na tionality or purpose of the hull above them, when a vessel sailed too near. You couldn’t dwell on it, or you’d live in fear.
He moved on, overseeing the change of the watch, and I capped my pen.
There was something about his laugh that reminded me of Arthur Graham. When it caught me unawares, as it had done just now, the gates of memory opened and Arthur’s face would come back to me.
During training, we’d been warned about letting ourselves care too much for our patients. “They are yours to comfort, yours to heal, but not yours to dream about,” Matron had told us firmly. “Only foolish girls let themselves be drawn into romantic imaginings. See that you are not one of them.”
Good advice. But Matron hadn’t foreseen Arthur Graham. He’d been popular with the other wounded, the medical orderlies, and the nursing staff. It was impossible not to like him, and liking him, it was impossible not to feel something for him as he fought a gal lant but losing battle with death. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe it was love, but I was honest enough to admit I cared more than I should. I’d watched so many wounded die. Perhaps that was why I desperately wanted to see this one man snatch a victory out of defeat and restore my faith in the goodness of God. But it wasn’t to be.
And truth be told, I had more than one reason for remember ing Arthur Graham and his laugh. There was a promise I’d made. Freely.
If you gave your word so freely, my conscience argued, then why have you never kept your promise?
“There’s been no opportunity!” I said the words aloud, then in embarrassment turned to see if anyone had overheard me.
Liar. You never made the time.
It isn’t true—
You traveled through Kent on your last leave. You could have kept it then.
I resolutely uncapped my pen and tried to distract myself with my letter. The seagull returned to keep me company.
There’s a cheeky seagull on the railing every morning. I’ve christened him Baba, for the man who sat outside our gate in Agra and examined the goods the merchants brought to the house. Afterward he’d come round to the back garden and talk Cook into giving him
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The gull flew up just as there was a deafening explosion, and the ship seemed to rock on her spine. The deck lurched where I was sitting, pen and paper flying from my lap. It was all so unexpected that I was thrown out of my chair as it too went over. I struck the bulkhead with such force that I rebounded hard against the stairs just behind me. My right arm took the brunt of that, and pain shot up to my shoulder.
I cried out in alarm, trying to scramble to my feet. The explosion had left me stunned. I could hear the shouts and screams all around me, but they seemed to come from a great distance. And then I was standing upright, holding on to the stairs with my left hand. My hearing gradually returned, and I forced myself to think clearly, to remember all those drills we’d attended again and again, and some times laughed about over tea.
My life belt. It was in my cabin. I had forgot to bring it on deck with me.
A rating ran by, stopping every few feet to look over the railing.
“What is it?” I called to the young seaman. “What’s happened?”
He didn’t answer, his attention on the ship’s waterline. But I re ally didn’t need to hear it from him. A submarine had found us and torpedoed us somewhere near the bow. It was the only explanation. Was there a second torpedo already on its way?
There was no time to stand and speculate.
Still dazed, I stumbled through the nearest sea door and went to ward my cabin for my life belt. The darkhaired Irish nurse, Eileen, came running toward me in the passage, crashing into me as if she hadn’t seen me at all. It jarred my arm, and I smothered a cry. I tried to steady her, but she shook her head and ran on, disoriented and badly frightened.
I came to the next set of stairs, and it struck me suddenly that all this elegance surrounding us—elegance intended for happier voyages, for travelers dancing the night away without a care in the world—might wind up at the bottom of the sea.
Like Titanic. Or for that matter, Lusitania.
No, that mustn’t happen here—this great ocean liner would sur vive.
As the General Alarm was being sounded, the orderlies were collecting under the Major’s sharp eye while the rest of us were hur rying to take our stations. Since I was coming from the open deck, everyone asked me for news as they passed, but I could only shake my head and tell them I knew as little as they did. Dr. Menzies stopped me and reached for my arm.
I hadn’t noticed that my arm was cut, much less that it was bleed ing rather badly. His fingers ran quickly, surely, over the skin closest to the gash. I winced at his touch.
“I rather think it’s broken. Have you got something to stop the bleeding? I’ll set it for you as soon as we know what’s happening.” And he was gone.
I reached my cabin, found my life belt on its nail, and cursed Dr. Menzies as I struggled to put the vest on properly. I hadn’t had time to notice how my arm was beginning to ache until he drew my at tention to it. Now, it hurt like six devils, and I felt a first inkling of nausea from the intensity of the pain. He was right, it must be bro ken. I wasn’t about to touch it myself and find out.
And this wasn’t the time to be a problem for others. Using my left hand and my teeth, I managed to wind a scarf around the gash to contain the bleeding.
My kit bag lay at the foot of my bunk. Holding my right arm close to my chest, I reached into it and pulled out the small oilskin packet in which I’d learned to keep my papers and money. Shoving that down the front of my shirt, I turned and hurried back into the pas sage.
It was eerily quiet, as if no one was left onboard but me.
“Anyone need help?” I shouted to be sure no one was lying hurt somewhere. If I’d been thrown to the deck, it was possible that others had been tossed about as well. I listened and heard only the sounds of the ship herself. I opened the nearest doors, only to find the cabins empty. Their occupants were all on deck, then, trying to see what sort of damage we’d sustained, getting to their stations in some sort of order, waiting for instructions. Time that I joined them.
As I turned to the companionway, Captain Bartlett began speak ing to the ship’s company, and I tried to make out what he was say ing. My ears were still full of cotton wool and I couldn’t distinguish all the words. Something about assessing damage and no need to worry. The Abandon Ship alarm hadn’t sounded, and that was re assuring. Britannic had watertight doors. Wounded she might be but certainly not doomed. Of course they’d said the same about Titanic. . . . At least there hadn’t been a second torpedo. Yet. I didn’t want to think about what that might have done to us.
I reached the lifeboat station as someone just ahead of me re marked, “I expect we hit a small craft. A fishing boat, most likely.” There was a nervous edge to her voice. “This is probably nothing more than a precaution.”
Marilyn Johnson answered, “I wish the captain would tell us more. But then he probably doesn’t know himself, yet.”
Most of the nurses were wearing their life belts, but several still clutched them in their hands.
The crew was busy with the boats, not lowering them yet, just preparing them. And then ahead of our station, a working detail of ratings panicked, racing to get a boat launched early, and I realized with a shock that they were intending to commandeer it.
My next thought was, Had they been down below, and did they know how bad it really was?
An officer was trying to deal with them, his voice hard and calm ing. “There’s no need to panic. Do your duty, damn you, and your turn will come!”
I thought it was my friend Browning, but there was tension and anger in the voice as well, changing its timbre. Not encouraging, surely.
Behind me Dr. Brighton joined the queue. He was an older man, a very good doctor, and unflappable. I’d watched him in the operating theater. He noted the scarf around my arm. “What’s this?”
I saw that blood was seeping through the pretty pattern of lilacs. “A cut,” I told him, unwilling to admit to more.
He began to unwind the scarf, then saw for himself what lay beneath. Rewinding it more efficiently, he confided to me in a low voice, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go below for something to stabilize that bone. The portholes on E and F decks are still open, worst luck, and there’s no chance of closing them now. We’ll sink fast if the watertight doors are damaged.”
“Where was the explosion?” I asked as quietly, striving to keep my arm steady as he worked. “Starboard side, I think, near the bow—not far from where I was sitting.”
“Yes. Bartlett has just sent a distress signal. Meanwhile, damage reports are still coming in. They aren’t good.”
The ship was turning now, toward Kea in the distance, but I wasn’t sure we could make it. Something didn’t feel right about Britannic— she seemed heavier. I’d sailed in her often enough to recognize a dif ference. I prayed it was only my imagination running away with me.
Dr. Paterson, nearer the rail, called to Dr. Brighton. “They’re using the screws to turn, not the rudder. I don’t think that’s a good sign.” Dr. Brighton finished tying up my arm and then hurried over to join him, staring down into the water.
How many of these people can swim? For that matter, could I, with this arm?
That thought flashed through my mind as I watched the crew at their work as they readied the great arms of the lifeboat launching system.
Everyone knew the drill, but no one had believed it would ever be necessary. Five voyages into the Mediterranean, with no trouble. That had given us a false sense of security.
I watched one of the younger seamen fumble the ropes, and an older rating swore at him to mind what he was about.
Browning was by my side, saying, “I don’t like the look of that arm, Miss Crawford. Ask someone to help you into a boat, if the time comes.”
I turned. “Does anyone know what happened? I’d swear Britannic seems sluggish, as if she’s taking on water.”
He didn’t answer me directly. “Uboat. Mine. Does it matter?”
“Are we sinking? Is
this a precaution or real?”
“Damned real,” he said tightly, and was gone.
There was a nurse just up ahead with bruises on her face. Some one had tied an impromptu bandage around her head, and already the blood was seeping through. Serviettes from the dining room? They gave the woman a rakish air, and I wanted to laugh.
No, that’s hysteria. Stop it, I warned myself.
The Irish nurse had come up beside me, trying to edge her way up the queue. Her face was so pale the freckles across her nose stood out. “I don’t like the water,” she was saying, “I’d rather take my chances here—”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be silly, Eileen. If anything happens, the lifeboats are the safest place for us to be.”
Eileen froze, fear stark in her eyes. “Then it’s true, we’re sink ing—”
I could hear shouting now, and saw that Harry Dyke, one of the officers, was looking up at the poop deck, where firemen from below were trying to launch a lifeboat for themselves.
“You fools!” he yelled. “Stay onboard—we’re trying to beach her—”
But they were frantic to be gone, and without waiting for orders or other passengers to join them, they launched anyway.
“Stay away from the ship,” Dyke was shouting to them now. “And for God’s sake, try to pick up any of the crew who’ve already jumped!”
Surprised, I turned to look at the sea and could see bobbing heads treading water, those who hadn’t waited for a boat to be lowered. From the look of them, they were already tiring. The water was November cold, after all, in spite of the sun’s warmth.
Eileen fled before I could stop her.
The firemen were paying no heed, but I thought they’d heard Dyke. I saw one reach out an arm to drag a swimmer inboard.
Then the third officer, Lawes, was trying to prevent two of his boats from automatically launching. So far the Abandon Ship signal still hadn’t been given. We were all at our stations, worried and wait ing for instructions. None came. I eyed the distance to Kea. Could we make it that far, wounded as we were? Or was the submarine lurking nearby, watching, ready to try another shot if it looked as if we’d be successful? I shivered at the thought.