The Dead Can Wait (47 page)

‘Thought I’d pop in. Just on my way to a sitting. Bloody Orpen wants to adjust my portrait. I look too glum, he said. No wonder, I said. And I’m not going to be smiling today. Did you hear the news?’

She shook her head.

‘They have squandered my landships by launching them in tiny numbers. Tiny.’

She wondered if this was Winston distancing himself from their deployment. He had gone to some lengths to make sure the tanks had got to France, after all. ‘So the secret is out?’

‘To the Germans? I suspect so, my dear. But thank you for all your work these months. I know it hasn’t been easy. I haven’t been easy.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Have you news of Major Watson?’

‘No.’

‘Early days yet,’ Churchill grunted, and then pointed at the slumbering Holmes. ‘So how is he?’

‘On the mend, sir. There was a chance of pneumonia after the crossing of the Broomway.’ Watson had briefed Churchill about their ‘escape’ from the island and the reasons why it had been imperative they get off Foulness, before the MP had sent him to Kent and an RNAS aeroplane bound for Yvranch and the tank HQ. ‘And Major Watson is adamant that he can reverse the effects of the anaemia that befuddled him.’

‘Yes. Feel a bit bad about that.’ Churchill said it as if regret was a new emotion to him. ‘Incarcerating him, I mean.’

‘So they’ll close Foulness? Now that the secret of the tanks is out?’

Winston squinted at her, as if smoke from his customary cigar were in his eyes. ‘I think it might still have its uses, Mrs Gregson. This damned war isn’t over yet. There’ll be other secrets to keep.’

‘I remembered something during the night. Something the woman said to me when she was pointing a gun at my head.’

‘Hhmm?’

‘She said I wouldn’t be the first woman the
Sie Wölfe
had killed.’

‘Sie Wölfe?’
Churchill thought for a moment. ‘She Wolves?’

‘I think so. It suggests some sort of organization. It suggests—’

‘So there is more than one of her?’

Mrs Gregson suppressed a shudder at the thought.

‘Leave that with me,’ said Churchill. ‘I’ll put the word out with the intelligence people, see if it raises any flags. Right. I’d best be going. If there is anything I can do—’

‘There is one thing,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘Get Major Watson back as quickly as you got him out there. He’s not a young man any more and . . .’

Churchill put his hat on. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get him back for you.’

‘For both of us,’ she said, glancing at Holmes.

‘For both of you.’

FIFTY-ONE

The pain was intense. It was as if the flames were still licking at his back, singeing his hair and blistering his skin. Watson was lying on his front on the bed, naked, arms dangling either side of the mattress, his modestly protected by a sheet draped over his buttocks. His back and thighs were slathered in an unguent of some description. From the smell of phenol, he was fairly sure it was a tannic acid-based ointment. Personally, he would have prescribed Dakin’s hypochlorite, but he had been in no position to dictate the course of his own treatment.

His last memory before he woke up, many yards from the burned-out and eviscerated hulk of
G for Glory
was opening the heavy, heavy door as the fire engulfed him. His best guess was that a shell had ignited and hurled him free. At least some of the munitions had certainly detonated at some time, judging by the holed hull of the tank. It looked as if steel-eating maggots had bored through it.
G for Glory
wouldn’t be giving up her secrets. Levass would have been pleased with that, at least.

How had the attack gone? It was now getting towards dusk, which meant the day’s pattern of gain and loss should have emerged. Once night fell, the opposing armies had a habit of staying put. It was like a savage game of musical chairs and when the music stopped, the players dug in and counted their dead and the feet and yards of ground captured or given.

He remembered the two men crouched over him, the jab of the needle, the warm flood of morphia, and that, a few blurred images apart, was all he had to go on regarding his situation.

He shifted his head. This was an advanced makeshift hospital of the kind he recognized from his time at Plug Street the previous year. A former industrial building, most likely a few miles from the front, still blessed with a roof, filled with steel beds and staffed by male orderlies and the odd nurse. It reeked of disinfectant and suppuration. Emergency operations would be performed here, but its main role was to stabilize the wounded and move them along. Once his back had healed a little, that would no doubt happen to him. Except in his case the evacuation line would keep moving – ambulance, train, boat, train – until he was back in London.

He wondered if anyone knew exactly where he was. The chaos of war meant there was no paperwork to say where he had been taken. His situation might not emerge for several days or weeks. No doubt Mrs Gregson would be worried. And Holmes. Poor Holmes. He hoped they were giving him blood and beef tea as he had instructed. It would be good to have the old Holmes back. They could discuss the cases that had still to see the light of day – ‘The Illustrious Client’, ‘The Sussex Vampire’, ‘Shoscombe Old Place’ – at least a dozen more adventures, the rough drafts and notes of which were all safely stored in the vaults of Cox & Co. Bank at Charing Cross.

A locus of pain opened up at the top of his spine, and soon his neck was burning and itching. But he knew he mustn’t scratch the skin. The exposed parts of his flesh had suffered the most. He would need some more morphia soon. Enough to numb the worst of it. And maybe to take him back into a world where the only light was gas, the only transport was a hansom cab, the air was thick with the sulphurous odour of the London particulars and two men in the prime of life ran rings around Scotland Yard.
‘Am dining at Goldini’s Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel and a revolver. S. H.’

Ah, how that cheered him. But that world was gone for ever, and not just physically. Nothing would ever be the same, even if they miraculously recovered their youth. There was a darkness over the world now, and it was difficult to see how it could ever glow bright again. The thought squeezed a tear out of the corner of his eye.
Self-pity, Watson,
said the voice in his head,
has there ever been such a wasted emotion? Whatever is to come won’t be like the old times. But if our maker spares us, we shall owe it to him to make sure we embrace the days he has gifted us. No, it won’t be like it was before. But it’ll do us, Watson, it will do us handsomely.

He had decided the voice was bogus, but at that moment it was as welcome as spring sunshine across a wintery land.

In the corner of his vision he saw the elaborate headdress of a nurse. He raised an arm and began, haltingly, to speak. ‘Nurse . . .?’

She spun towards him. ‘
Ja, wie kann ich helfen?
’

For a moment he thought his brain had failed him. ‘Nurse?’

‘
Ja? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
’

German? For the first time he looked around with eyes unglazed by drugs, at the uniforms hanging next to the beds, the newspaper the lad opposite was reading. German. He was in a German hospital.

‘
Sind Sie alles in Ordnung?
Is everything all right? I’m sorry, I do speak English,’ she said, crouching down so he could see her face. It was pretty, moon-like, smooth save for dimpled cheeks. When she smiled, he could see she was in the habit of snapping thread with her teeth. She had stitched a lot of wounds. ‘Just not too good, I am afraid. How can I help?’ She put a hand on his forehead. ‘You have gone quite pale.’

‘This is a German hospital?’ he asked.

‘
Ja,
of course.’

‘Where?’

‘A town called Bapaume.’

He had seen it on maps. It was well behind the lines. German lines. ‘And I’m a prisoner?’

She shrugged. ‘I suppose you are. But first, you are a patient. Now, what is wrong? You called me over.’

His throat had lost all moisture and in a scratchy voice he asked for some water. She fetched him an enamel mug full to the brim and he swallowed the entire contents. ‘Thank you, Nurse. My neck is hurting somewhat. I don’t think the rest is far behind. I might need some morphia.’

The man in the next bed said something and she hissed a torrent of words back, silencing him. He was no doubt complaining about her talking in a foreign tongue to an enemy.

She flashed Watson a smile that was almost apologetic. She was a
Frontschwester,
one the Germans’ front-line nurses, the equivalent of the British QAs. And no doubt she broke as many young men’s hearts as they did. ‘You’re a doctor now, are you?’

He laughed and regretted it. When the spasm had gone, he said, ‘Actually I am, Nurse. Royal Army Medical Corps.’ He supposed all the insignia had been burned off his uniform.

‘Oh. Well, Doctor, then welcome.’ He did not correct her regarding his title, it was probably best she thought of him as a medical man than as a combatant. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, aren’t you a little . . .’

‘Old?’

‘Mature. A little mature to be at the front?’

He would have nodded his agreement if he could have, but the pain in his neck was like a steel band that had been heated in a forge. ‘It’s a long story. I hope I never see no man’s land and the trenches again.’

She registered the expression on his face as the area over his shoulders began to prickle unpleasantly. ‘I’ll fetch some morphia. And, don’t worry, you won’t be seeing the front again soon. We’re being evacuated back tomorrow. Your side managed some gains. We are within range of your bigger guns now.’

‘Where are we being moved to?’

She looked surprised. ‘Well, I don’t know where we’ll end up, but once your back has healed sufficiently, you are going to Germany.’

The pain faded, to be replaced by a rushing sound in his ears as blood thumped through narrow vessels and the truth dawned on him. The steel band now gripped his temples. He had to face the reality of his situation. He was heading east. For Major John H. Watson, MD, the war to end all wars was about to take a very unexpected turn indeed.

EPILOGUE

OPENED BY INSPECTOR 3743

KRIEGSGEFANGENEN SENDUNG

GEÖFFNET – ZENSIEREN No. AP 2121

7 January 1917

To: Major John H. Watson

Inmate: Krefeld Offizierlager

Dear Major Watson,

What a thrill it was to receive the news that you were alive and well. The best (belated) Christmas present I have ever had. Mr Holmes has said he will also write to you now we have some vague address. And I shall send parcels through the Red Cross. But I have news.

And you remember the old friend we crossed the Broomway with? Well, we have made contact with her again. It was Mr Holmes’s idea. When he was well enough he ‘debriefed me’, as he put it, until my head spun. Then he placed an advertisement in the newspapers in one port after another – Dover, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Liverpool. He said she so loves the sea, she’ll be near it. It was to say that there was a particular mechanical doll for sale – an autoperipatetikos like the one she had broken – in mint condition. He felt sure she would be looking for a replacement. And it was for a bargain price. And yes, she came to meet the buyer in Liverpool and Mr Holmes, myself and two nice gentlemen from Mr Coyle’s company were there to greet her. So we were all reunited. She is staying with friends at the moment in London, not far from the Tower of London. We aren’t certain what will happen to her in the future, but she is in good hands – so all is well that ends well.

I hope that cheers you.