The Danger of Life

by Ken Lussey

  ‘As far as we can tell, sir, Private Lambrechts was nineteen-years-old. His home town was Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast, not far from the French border. He came over to Britain in one of the last boats that got away from Dunkirk during the evacuation.’

  ‘So he would only have been about seventeen at that time?’

  ‘Apparently so, sir. He made the trip in a Belgian Army uniform he’d taken from a corpse and joined up with the Free Belgian Forces once he arrived in Britain. He told them at the time that he’d taken the uniform because he didn’t believe that civilians would be allowed on the boats. After initial training, he joined the 1st Fusilier Battalion, a Belgian unit.’

  ‘How did he find his way to Achnacarry?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Move forward in time to August of this year, sir, and the request went out for volunteers to join a Belgian troop of what is known as No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando. Private Lambrechts volunteered and was selected for training here at Achnacarry, like all other potential commandos. He arrived on Tuesday, but it seems that there had been an administrative error, because most of the rest of the thirty Belgians who were due to start training arrived at the end of a period of leave on Thursday. Until then, there were only three Belgians here at Achnacarry, or two once Private Lambrechts had been killed.’

  ‘Who were the other two?’

  ‘Sergeant Thomas Mertens and Private Jerome Wouters, sir. What I said about background checks applies to them, too, of course, but they both say that at the time Lambrechts was killed they were playing chess together in the tent they’d temporarily been allocated with him, and where they had spent a very leisurely day by Achnacarry standards, waiting for their comrades to join them.’

  ‘Did you talk to them yourself?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Captain Bell and I saw them individually,’ said Sergeant Potter. ‘Their stories were completely consistent and very believable. And we couldn’t come up with any reason why either might have wanted to hurt him.’

  ‘It certainly seems to suggest they either did it together, or not at all,’ said Bob. ‘Alright, let’s park them on one side for the moment. What else have we got?’

  ‘When we were talking to Private Wouters, he said that Lambrechts was a fairly quiet man. He also said, however, that after being friendly and relaxed on Tuesday evening and most of Wednesday, Lambrechts had acted very strangely at the evening meal on Wednesday. Wouters asked him what was wrong. Lambrechts told him that he thought he’d seen someone he’d been trying to find for over two years, but he wasn’t sure. He wouldn’t say anything more when asked and took himself off somewhere. Neither Wouters or Mertens saw him again before he was killed.’

  ‘Interesting that he said, “for over two years”,’ said Bob. ‘That seems to take us back to Belgium in 1940.’

  ‘That’s what we thought,’ said Sergeant Potter, ‘though I suspect we then headed off at an unproductive tangent. I don’t know how much you know about the commandos, sir, but they are organised into a series of discrete units, who tend to get mixed and matched according to skills and experience when it comes to operational deployment. I mentioned No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando a few moments ago. This formed earlier this year and is a highly unusual unit. It is made up of a number of small troops, each coming from a different part of Europe. The three men we’ve been talking about had volunteered to become part of No. 4 Belgian Troop, for example. There is also a No. 1 French Troop which trained here a few months ago, as did No. 2 Dutch Troop. There is also a No. 5 Norwegian Troop, and a No. 6 Polish Troop is just forming. The idea is to have a pool of knowledge about these various European countries, and their languages, which can be drawn on by other command units during raids.’

  Lieutenant Dixon said, ‘If that’s a complete list, then you missed out No. 3 Troop.’

  ‘Well spotted, sir. That unit does exist, and it’s knows as No 3 (X) Troop. With the “X” in brackets. Some of those who have volunteered to fight with that troop are being trained at Achnacarry as we speak. The thing that made us sit up a little and take notice was that the troop comprises men who are classified as enemy aliens, from countries such as Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. On the face of it, these men appear to have more reason to dislike the Nazis than most of us, because they are all Jews, and for that reason their unit is sometimes called No. 3 (Jewish) Troop. It’s official policy that men serving in the unit, and those who volunteer for it, can do so under assumed names, to protect families back home. Lambrechts, Wouters or Mertens were part of a 200-strong group of trainees of a number of different nationalities who had volunteered for 10 Commando and who were all due to arrive on Thursday.’

  ‘But at least three of them arrived early,’ said Bob.

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ said Sergeant Potter. ‘It seems the gremlins, as you might call them in the RAF, had a busy week. The three Belgians arrived prematurely on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday a group of ten Germans and Austrians arrived. There was no-one to meet them at Spean Bridge Station, so they phoned from there. Unusually, they were picked up and avoided the seven-mile march that marks the start of most training courses here. They got to Achnacarry in the afternoon and were assigned tents.

  ‘And it was not long after their arrival that Lambrechts told the others he’d seen the man he was looking for?’ asked Bob.

  ‘That’s right, sir, and I think that led us up a blind alley which wasted a lot of time yesterday. We spent quite a bit of effort trying to establish whether any of the group that arrived on Wednesday could be placed in Belgium in early 1940. I still can’t give you a definitive answer to that question, but I’d already reached the view that we were wasting our time when Captain Bell said as much to me, shortly before he went out for his walk.’

  ‘Why did you come to that conclusion?’ asked Bob.

  ‘I think that Captain Bell was unhappy that we’d gone off in pursuit of something that was just too obvious to be true, sir. As he put it, if Lambrechts had been looking for a German for over two years, the last place he’d try to find him would have been in Britain. And as Captain Bell pointed out, in the run-up to the Dunkirk evacuation there was no shortage of British troops in Belgium, all there to try to counter the German advance. I think he’s right. I think that whoever Lambrechts had been looking for is British, and it was just coincidence that Lambrechts saw him here at Achnacarry on Wednesday, on the day that the Germans and Austrians arrived.’

  ‘Which implies that same person killed him that night, presumably because he also recognised Lambrechts?’ said Bob.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Sergeant Potter.

  ‘Unfortunately, like with the murder weapon, that moves us one step forwards and three steps backwards, and once again our list of suspects extends to almost all the trainees and staff who were at Achnacarry on Wednesday. All those who were in Belgium in 1940, anyway.’

  ‘Am I understanding this correctly?’ asked Monique. ‘Are you saying that the two of you dismissed the possibility of the murder being linked to the presence here of the German and Austrian trainees?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. As I said, the captain wasn’t happy we’d wasted so much effort on it.’

  Monique looked meaningfully at Bob. He got the sense she was thinking pretty much exactly what he was thinking.

  It was Lieutenant Dixon who broke the silence that followed. ‘It would be possible, in theory at least, to look at the service record of everyone here to find out which of them were in Belgium at the relevant time, sir.’

  ‘It would,’ said Bob, ‘but it’s not going to be a trivial job. And I don’t see anything in what we’ve been discussing that would lead the killer to feel nervous enough to want to kill Captain Bell. Perhaps before we embark on a major paper exercise we should try to find out if anyone at Private Lambrechts’ home unit knows anything more about him? He must have had friends he confided in, or a sweetheart, or someone who can give us a
lead on the person he was looking for, and why he was looking for him.’

  Dixon looked at his watch. ‘I’ll get in touch with them tomorrow, sir. I don’t think we’ll find anyone who knows anything at this time on a Saturday evening.’

  ‘No, you’re right,’ said Bob, ‘but perhaps I should make the call. Meanwhile, I said I would see Lieutenant Colonel White, so I had better do so. Remember, we are promised a show tonight. I’m not sure what to expect of that, if I’m honest. Sergeant Potter, could you wait until Petty Officer MacDonald and Private Jenkins are back and then organise a meal at the NAAFI canteen for yourselves? Please remember what I said about staying together. It’s doubly important at night. Michael, could you start drafting a report of what we’ve done and where we think we’ve got to? I’d like to document this while it’s still fresh in our minds. I’ve already given Commodore Cunningham a brief verbal outline.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Lieutenant Dixon.

  At that moment there was a knock on the door and Petty Officer MacDonald poked his head round the door. ‘May we come in, sir?’

  ‘Yes, we’re done here,’ said Bob. ‘Have you got anything for me?’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid, sir. The medical officer confirmed that what we found was blood, and he will know tomorrow if it is the same blood type as Captain Bell’s. We found nothing more of interest on the pier or the boat. Oddly, when I dusted the boat’s tiller, engine start button, fuel filler cap and throttle lever for fingerprints, I found none. It’s as if the last person to use the boat deliberately wiped it clean to avoid leaving fingerprints. I tried a couple of other locations on the boat where I thought someone might have placed a hand or held a gunwale, but again came up with nothing.’

  ‘That raises an obvious question, doesn’t it?’ said Bob.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said MacDonald. ‘Why would anyone bother unless they’d done something, such as killing Captain Bell, they didn’t want to get caught for?’

  ‘You may well be right, Andrew’ said Bob. ‘Did you find anyone who saw Captain Bell on his walk?’

  ‘One of the military policemen at the end of the drive said he was on duty at the time. He thought he could remember a captain coming from the castle and walking off in the direction of the White Bridge, but he wasn’t sure. And an old man fixing some slates on the roof of a building, a couple of hundred yards west of here, said he talked to someone who could well have been Captain Bell, at about the right time. The officer he described sounded like Captain Bell. He had come over to ask the man about the ivy-covered stack of masonry next to the track. It seems it’s the remains of the old Achnacarry Castle, which was destroyed in 1746 by the army because the Camerons had supported the Jacobites during the 1745 rising. We walked past it earlier, sir, but I have to admit I only noticed it when the old man mentioned it.’

  ‘But you found no-one who saw Captain Bell with anyone else, or talking to anyone, or doing anything out of the ordinary?’

  ‘No, sir. In fact, other than those two people, we found no-one who could remember seeing Captain Bell at all. The old man told me he probably would not have noticed the captain if he hadn’t come over to talk. As he pointed out, there are a lot of men in khaki at Achnacarry and even officers are hardly unusual or noteworthy.’

  ‘No, I suppose that’s true,’ said Bob.

  ‘Have you got a minute, Bob?’ asked Monique. ‘I made my telephone call earlier from an empty office just along the corridor earlier. Perhaps we can talk there?’

  Monique closed the door and turned to face him. ‘I’m almost at a loss to describe just how angry I am right now, Bob.’

  Bob thought no description was really needed. Her face gave a pretty good indication of how she felt.

  ‘Angry? With me?’

  ‘Yes, with you. That guff you were spouting about German trainees being involved. It’s turned out to be complete nonsense. If it wasn’t for that, Matthew Sloan would never have had the bright idea of muscling in on your investigation and I’d still be doing what I’m meant to be doing in Glasgow. You can’t imagine what an utter joy it is to be stuck out here, miles from nowhere, the only woman in a place with God-knows how many men who are being trained to kill for their country.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Monique? I told you about the Germans while I was baring my soul to you about the new job. The next thing I know, you’ve repeated it to your boss and given him a great excuse to stick his oar in where it’s not wanted. I was being open and honest with you because I trusted you. So much for trust! What else did you tell Matthew Sloan this morning? Did you tell him how you rated my performance in bed?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Bob.’ Monique was clearly as aware as Bob himself that they had no idea who was in the neighbouring offices, and she was now almost hissing at him in an effort to vent her feelings without being overheard.

  ‘I’m not being stupid. You might as well have done.’ Bob was almost shouting in a whisper.

  ‘For God’s sake. I can’t help it if that damn head injury of yours has given you some sort of inferiority complex. You also told me last night that you had some growing up to do. You were so right. Get over it. Start behaving in a way that befits your rank and your uniform.’

  Monique turned back towards the office door as if to leave.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ hissed Bob. ‘Nine hundred men and you. Why don’t you see how many you can work your way through while you’re here?’

  She turned and took two steps towards him. The slap came from Bob’s left, so he didn’t see it coming. He certainly felt it.

  Monique stepped back with a look of fury on her face. In a much more controlled tone she said, ‘I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never let any man say anything like that to me again. It’s a bit rich anyway, coming from you. I didn’t exactly see you fighting Lady Alice Gough off on that first night at Sarclet Castle.’

  ‘And which of us was it who tried to get her to share a bed with us just a couple of nights later?’

  ‘Jesus, Bob. Grow up.’

  She turned and left. Bob noted that she hadn’t slammed the door. He stood silently, wondering what had possessed him to say what he had. It was as if he’d been standing outside his body, watching himself trying to hurt her. She’d responded in kind, of course, but that wasn’t really the point. He wondered where she’d gone, before deciding he didn’t care.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, Colonel.’ Bob looked around Lieutenant Colonel White’s office. The maps, charts and blackboard helped conceal the drab walls.

  White saw him looking. ‘It’s a fairly soulless place in which to spend most of your waking hours, isn’t it, Group Captain?’

  ‘Call me Bob, please, Colonel. When they offered me this job and a promotion to group captain I said I thought it sounded like an old man’s rank. Now I am one, I’m beginning to think I was right.’

  Lieutenant Colonel White laughed. ‘You, an old man? How old are you Bob? I’m known to my friends as Edward, by the way.’

  ‘I’m 30, Edward,’ said Bob.

  ‘Thanks for not asking in return, but I’ll be 50 next year, and compared to you, I can lay claim to some real age,’ said White.

  ‘I see you served in the last war,’ said Bob, pointing at the lieutenant colonel’s medal ribbons.

  ‘You might say that,’ said White. ‘I stayed in afterwards. Then I volunteered for the commandos in 1940 and somehow ended up here.’

  ‘I had an introductory lunch with General Gordon and Brigadier Blackett in Edinburgh yesterday,’ said Bob. ‘They were highly complimentary about what you have achieved here.’

  White laughed. ‘I think they’d prefer I reported directly to them, on the grounds that Achnacarry is in Scotland. But it’s much more complicated than that. I bet they complained about the ammunition we get through here.’


  ‘They did mention it,’ said Bob. ‘Apparently you consume more than any other army unit in Scotland.’

  ‘That’s hardly a surprise, since no other army unit in Scotland is actually firing at anyone,’ said White. ‘Even the anti-aircraft and coastal defence units have relatively little to do these days.’

  ‘To an outsider, the idea of loosing off live ammunition at trainees sounds like a recipe for disaster,’ said Bob. ‘How do you make it work in practice?’

  ‘We’ve worked very hard to perfect the art of what some of my instructors call “firing to miss, but not by much”. The aim is to give those training here a true sense of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of live rounds buzzing over their heads, or explosives going off next to their boat or beneath them in the river when they’re crossing the toggle bridge. It seems to work, as well. One of the instructors I had here in the early months of the centre was posted to No. 4 Commando in the summer. He took part in the raid on Dieppe, where they did an excellent job despite the problems the main Canadian force ran into. He visited us a month or so ago and told me that the beach landing at Dieppe had been an intense experience. The thing he remembered more than anything else had been advancing off the beach alongside a commando private who, in a brief lull in the firing had said, “Bloody hell, sir, this is nearly as bad as Achnacarry.” When I heard that story I knew that we were doing the right thing here. The men who take part in the night assault landing you will see a little later will have an experience that builds their character. But more importantly they will have an experience that ensures that when it’s their turn to land on the shores of France, or Norway, or Greece in the face of enemy fire, it won’t be new to them. The training here will make sure they respond in the right way and that could well keep them alive.’

  ‘Do you have many casualties in training?’ said Bob.

  ‘The demands we place on the men mean that we have more than our share of injuries, especially foot and leg injuries caused by the running and the speed marches, and broken bones in climbing accidents and on the Tarzan course, that sort of thing. We do everything we can to work as safely as possible but must always remember that we are training men for war. We have to balance the risks they run here against the reduction in risks they will see when actually pitted against a real enemy. We have had a small number of fatalities, including two men who drowned in the River Arkaig, but the number is smaller than the number of dummy graves out there on the drive. The aim is to make it feel dangerous and seem dangerous but do everything we reasonably can to avoid it actually being dangerous.’ White looked at his watch. ‘Look, should we go across to the mess for dinner? Things kick off tonight at 9 p.m., and I’d like us to be in position half an hour earlier. Madame Dubois is welcome to join us.’