Bloodline (4 page)

Harker had saved me! Saved me from certain death.

My vision grew blurry as the pain from my wound washed over me. I sagged against the side of the trench, struggling to keep my footing.

Harker turned from me. He stared down at the thick red
that pulsed from the wound he had sliced into the boy’s throat. His teeth glinted like daggers as he contemplated his latest victim. His eyes glowed with a furious light.

As my vision dimmed, I saw Harker pull the boy up by his uniform. He leaned in close to the spurting gash he had inflicted.

Then darkness overtook me.

War Journal of
Lieutenant John Shaw

17TH
A
UGUST (CONTINUED)

When I came to in the field hospital, the morning light flooding through the open flaps of the sprawling tent made my skin smart. I knew I was still scorched from the mustard gas. A doctor was fetched.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked, peeling away the dressing to reveal the torn flesh beneath.

“Not bad,” I lied.

“Can’t see any infection,” he announced, pressing the bandage back into place. I winced with pain as he went on. “You’re a lucky chap, you know. Your captain carried you back from the enemy lines himself. Ordered me to get you back to your unit as soon as possible. Clearly thinks you’re too good to do without.”

I was hit by nightmarish images of the raid. Some of my
memories were undeniably real. But others … others I could not be sure of. I felt myself break into a sweat.

“Looks like you’ve picked up a touch of fever,” the doctor said, his eyes narrowing. “Pain in your back and legs?”

I nodded.

He fetched me a twist of paper, a physic of some sort.

I took it from him, nodding my thanks.

The powder made me sleep but gave me no peace. My dreams were filled with soldiers torn apart by shell fire, bayonet, and knife; howling in pain and terror; drowning in pools of mud, desperately scrabbling to get out. But most of all, my mind returned to the image of Captain Harker—his eyes glowing like a demon’s—revelling in our enemy’s blood.

Now that I am back in my trench, among the stench and shadows, my dreams have taken a more surreal turn: blood, gallons of it, coursing down into the trenches; teeth mutilating soft flesh; eyes shining red in the shadows—dark, terrible images that haunt me. They seem so real—as if called back by memory.

Is it the fever making me insane?

What frightens me most is that I have no answer.

18TH
A
UGUST 1916

I awoke last night, drenched in sweat, to hear aloud knock at my door.

“Lieutenant?”

I recognised Jenkins’s voice. “Come in,” I muttered. I gritted my teeth against the pain that burned in my shoulder.

“Lieutenant Butler asked if you’re up to relieving him, sir,” Jenkins said apologetically. “He’s on his knees, doing continuous shifts these last few days.”

“Of course.” I forced a smile. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

“There’s a bloody big moon out there,” Jenkins commented. “The battlefield’s lit up like the Crystal Palace. There’ll be no one out there tonight.”

“Except Harker, I suppose,” I muttered.

Jenkins nodded. “I suspect so, sir.”

I dressed and relieved Butler and, trying to ignore the increasing pain in my back and legs, I sat and listened, through the pop and fizz of intercepted airwaves, to voices from the enemy trenches.

The crackling words coming through the radio headphones made no sense at first. I picked up a transmission …
“Das Übel laüft …”

I shook my head dismissively, thinking my mood still affected by my ghoulish dreams.

I kept on listening.

There it was again, clear this time.
“Das Übel laüft …”
Evil walks …

And then,
“Die Soldaten sind tot….”
The men are
dead….
“Geschlachtet wie Tier …”
Slaughtered like animals …
“Niemand bleibt….”
No one left….

Jenkins had predicted a quiet night. Could this news from the German trench be true?

I knew I must see for myself. I left the communications dugout and made my way toward the ladder. With every step my legs screamed with pain. My vision darkened at the edges as fever gripped me—making me shiver with heat, then cold.

Dawn mist poured into the trench, tinged yellow by the mustard gas. I grabbed hold of the ladder’s rough wood and hauled myself upward.

Fog clung to the ground as I raised my head above the parapet. At first, I could see nothing. I heaved myself over the top and stood, swaying on the brink.

Before me lay the familiar stretch of ruptured landscape, eerily silent. Some small voice inside me attempted a warning. Above the trench, I was an easy target for the German guns. But the greater part of me was insensible to the threat of sniper fire. I made my way across no-man’s-land toward the enemy trenches.

After a moment, the fog cleared. I gazed at my surroundings and my breath caught in my throat. I tried to scream, but no sound came.

My mind whirled. This could not be possible and yet—it was.

Through the clouds of mustard gas and the lingering light from shell fire and flare, I saw enemy soldiers—scores of them.

Their bodies hung from every post and tree. Their torsos and limbs were brutally mutilated. Their severed heads littered the twisted mounds of barbed wire, like grotesque berries on a bush.

As shells shook the ground, the bodies and heads trembled, as though life still pulsed through them.

No!

I grasped my head, pulled my hair in terror and confusion. These were the very images that haunted my dreams! How could they be here now, in the real world?

I fought to tear my sight away, but my eyes refused, drinking in every grisly detail.

Then
it
stepped forward.

Standing in the middle of this terrible slaughter was a hellish, hound-like beast with eyes that blazed red in the predawn light.

It locked its gaze upon me.

In its mouth, it carried a severed head. The head’s clouded eyes stared blindly, its tongue lolling lifelessly from the mouth, its white-blond hair matted with blood.

The great beast stalked toward me. Closer. Closer still.

The earth seemed to tilt. I heard a roaring in my ears—and saw no more.

As I write these words, I am huddled in my dugout—back in bed.

How did I come to be here? How did I return from no-man’s-land?

I wonder, did Jenkins really ask me to relieve Butler? Did I actually see what I have just related? Or have I been in my dugout the whole night?

My mind feels frayed at the edges. I am beginning to shake. I must stop now.

I cannot think anymore….

Journal of
Mary Seward

30TH
A
UGUST 1916

Part of me now wishes I had not read Lieutenant Shaw’s journal. How will I ever drive the images of terror and suffering from my mind?

The poor man! Surely the real horror of war is enough to bear without one’s mind also playing tricks? The words in these pages show that his fever had gotten the best of him long before he was admitted here. Half of his present suffering comes not from wounds to his body, but to his psyche.

My course of action therefore must be to soothe his mind with the balm of kindness and compassion, the very thing
absent from his experience at the front. I confess it will not be difficult.

As for Captain Harker, it is chilling to see what monsters war makes of men, but I must pity rather than condemn such monstrous acts, for I know our soldiers at the front fight for the noblest of reasons. I still shudder at the cruelty meted out to Private Smith, but nobody can deny the nobility in Captain Harker’s carrying Lieutenant Shaw through the raging battlefield to safety.

I must try to get some rest now, or I shall be of no use to anyone in the morning. I approach sleep with trepidation, my mind still full of the horrors about which I have read. I only pray that common sense will guide me through the next few hours.

31ST AUGUST 1916

Today we lost three men to fever and injuries, and John Shaw was no better than yesterday.

Whenever I am near Lieutenant Shaw, his nightmares seem to ease. He looks upon me with the most childlike expression of awe. He holds my gaze at times. He mumbles that word—
angel.

My heart twists in sympathy for the pain I know he is suffering. My instinct is to remain by his side as long as possible, to do as much as I can—without raising Sister’s suspicion.

As I tend to Lieutenant Shaw, I speak to him softly of the beauty of the gardens outside the sanatorium walls and of our days as children, before the war.

I only hope that my words are reaching some part deep inside him where the real John Shaw—the one who wrote of his sister’s kindness—still thrives.

I had hoped for some recovery before my visit to Carfax Hall so that the news I carried to his sister, Lily, would be easier to bear.

I had not seen Lily Shaw since the garden party, and I remembered her as a shy, fragile child. I felt determined to find some note of hope for her to cling to in all of this.

Still, I struggled to find the right words to ease the blow of her brother’s condition.

At the end of my shift, I made my way through the grounds of the sanatorium to the high stone wall that surrounded our northern neighbour—Carfax Hall. I was glad I had my umbrella with me, for it was raining quite hard.

I pushed open the estate’s heavy oak-and-iron gates and slowly began to make my way up the long drive.

What a fearful great house it is, so dark and imposing. It frightened me as a child, and I was surprised to find some of that old nervousness remained. My heart was pounding as I rang the bell at the huge, black front door.

The woman I knew to be John and Lily Shaw’s housekeeper
and former nurse answered. I was surprised to find that she had changed very little since our last meeting five years ago.

She is a tall, imperious woman with a handsome but harsh face and greying black hair scraped back in a bun. An old memory of Miss Shaw as a child, new to the village, flashed into my mind; I could just see her nestling shyly into the stiff skirts of this stern-looking woman.

“May I help you?” she asked, her words swathed in a thick Eastern European accent.

“My name is Mary Seward,” I replied. “I should like to speak with Miss Shaw.”

“What is it in connection with, miss?” the housekeeper asked.

“It is a personal matter, and quite urgent,” I replied.

The housekeeper frowned, then beckoned me in. She took my wet coat and umbrella and showed me into a parlour. “Please wait here,” she said curtly.

To my astonishment, I heard her announcing my arrival to Miss Shaw out in the garden! To be outside in such a storm? Why would anyone would brave these elements unless it was a matter of necessity?

Moments later, Miss Shaw ran into the room, quite soaked through. Her face betrayed her surprise at my visit. “It’s Miss Seward, isn’t it?” she asked.

I nodded. “Hello, Miss Shaw,” I began. “It has been quite some time since we last met. I’ve come from—”

I was interrupted by the housekeeper, who rushed in, carrying towels.

Ignoring me, she chided Miss Shaw. “You should have come in long ago, child. Imagine wandering around in the rain with a cold; you’ll catch your death.” She pulled off Miss Shaw’s sopping wet coat and boots, then began to pat her dripping dark curls with a towel.

“But it was such a beautiful rainstorm, Antanasia,” Miss Shaw replied, smiling. “And it
is
warm out.”

“I think Miss Shaw would benefit from some hot tea,” I told the housekeeper. She shot me an indignant glance. Clearly she was peeved by my attempt to secure some privacy.

“Yes! Tea for two, if you would be so kind, Antanasia,” Miss Shaw added. “I hope Miss Seward will stay for a cup. It’s so kind of her to call.” She looked at me hopefully, clearly delighted to have company. My heart ached as I thought of what I had to tell her.

I nodded. “Thank you, Miss Shaw. It is my pleasure to join you.”

Her eyes lit up with glee. I noticed that they were the same deep blue as her brother’s, her lashes thick dark smudges against her creamy skin. She shivered in front of the fire, dark tendrils of hair clinging to the curves of her face and neck.

“Please, call me Lily,” she instructed. “There is no need to stand on ceremony.”

I blinked, taken aback by her instant familiarity. “Thank you,” I said, recovering myself, “and you must call me Mary.”

“Mary.” Lily smiled enchantingly. “Yes, I remember now. Your father is Dr. Seward, from Purfleet Sanatorium, is he not?”

I nodded. “He is retired. His health declined just before the sanatorium was commandeered for the war effort. I work there myself now, as a VAD nurse. Which brings me to the reason for my—”

“Here we are,” Antanasia interrupted. She swept into the room carrying a tea tray and a long cashmere shawl. While she wrapped Lily in the shawl and pulled her chair closer to the fire, I poured the tea. Without asking, I put sugar in Lily’s cup, remembering Father’s advice that sweetness prepares the body for shock. I passed the cup and saucer and prepared another for myself.

I remained silent while Antanasia stoked up the fire and fussed about the room. At last, giving me a rather pointed look, she took her leave.

“I am so pleased to have someone to share afternoon tea with,” Lily said happily. “But tell me, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Lily, I have come about your brother …” I began carefully.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “My brother? But John is in France. Fighting.” Her voice cracked as she said the word.

“He’s not there now,” I said quietly.

Lily stared at me, eyes wide, her pale cheeks flushing in alarm.

I rushed to explain before she could grow too distressed. “He’s safe, back here in Purfleet—at the sanatorium. A shoulder wound and trench fever have made him ill….” I leaned forward to take Lily’s cup before it slid from her shaking fingers.

“Did he tell you to come and fetch me? Shall I go to him?” Lily’s voice was now high and reedy with worry.

I knelt beside her and took her hands in mine. How could I explain to her that her brother would not know her if she went? “John has not yet regained consciousness,” I said softly. “At least, not properly.”

“Properly?” Lily’s smooth brow creased in confusion.

“His fever from the trenches is rather severe.”

“Fever?” she echoed anxiously.

“Fever is quite common amongst soldiers in the trenches. It can be very debilitating—causing pain and delirium—but it’s not fatal. He is in no immediate danger….”