Dead Man's Land (23 page)

Watson was aware of eyes upon him, and he could see that, atop an intact tower of the wrecked manor house, two soldiers stood, surveying the countryside. Each held a Lee Enfield at the ready.

He heard Suffolk Farm before he saw it. There was the sound of singing and whistling coming across the hedgerows of the lane that led down to it. He recognized the chorus:

It was one of the mill songs, carried on air that was full of the smells of the countryside after the rain: wet soil, manure and straw, coupled with the odour of livestock and the distinctive aroma of unwashed soldiers. Watson was definitely in the right place. He followed the scent into the farm.

The redbrick farmhouse itself had been sideswiped by the war, with part of its roof gone, replaced by a tarpaulin. As it gusted in the wind it showed a ribcage of roof beams. There were two substantial stone barns, roof tiles remarkably still in place, which, together with the main house, took up three sides of the cobbled courtyard, with a circular stone well occupying the centre of the square.

The forty or so men of the No. 9 Platoon of Company A of the Leigh Pals, a volunteer group of Kitchener’s New Army, now part of the 25th (Service) Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, were gathered around this water point, most of them at least partially naked, clumped together to draw what heat they could from the feeble sunshine. Those who were standing had the habitual stoop that told the astute observer that they had just come from the trench system; it took at least a day for some to appreciate that they could stand at full height without risking a bullet to the head.

As they sang, they were picking at their uniforms, squeezing and cracking and generally taking delight in getting some degree of revenge on their tormenters. Somehow they found time for a game of nap or a singsong on the side as they bent to the task of delousing.

‘Look at the size of this fucker!’ someone shouted before they noticed they had an officer in their midst. One by one, the men began to shuffle to their feet, a mass of pale flesh on the move that reminded Watson of a huge, multifaceted slug stirring.

‘At ease!’ he yelled. ‘For God’s sake, as you were, men.’

‘Major Watson,’ someone shouted in greeting. ‘What you doin’ in this godforsaken hole, sir?’

‘I’m with the CCS just down the road. Where they sent Sergeant Shipobottom. Now, I’m sure you know he fell ill from an infection and, sadly, died. I’d like to have a word with those he was closest to.’

Watson laid down the bike against the wall and turned back to them. Most of them went on with their flecking for lice. ‘Don’t leave ’im standing there like cheese at fourpence,’ said one big lad, pulling on his trousers. ‘It’s Platt, sir. Corporal Platt as was. I got me three stripes now. Platoon Sergeant.’

Watson remembered Platt. It would be difficult to forget someone of that bulk, in the same way Shipobottom’s nose had made an indelible impression on him.

‘Congratulations, Sergeant,’ he said, trying to sound enthusiastic rather than perplexed. Platt was a big, happy lummox of a lad, strong and, he would imagine, fiercely loyal, but Watson wasn’t sure he was NCO material.

‘You want a brew, Major?’

‘No, I’m quite all right for the moment.’

Platt walked across, putting his ham-sized arms in his tunic as he came. ‘Sorry about the state we in. We’s expectin’ a wheeliewasher.’

These were the mobile bathhouses the Red Cross and FANY nurses operated for men in reserve. The soldiers were delousing in anticipation of a hot shower or bath and perhaps some new underwear if they were lucky.

Watson looked at the grey, goose-fleshed skin before him and said: ‘You must all be freezing.’

The young man laughed. ‘Nah, thy just a soft southerner, Major.’

Watson stepped forward and peered closely at two of the men’s torsos. ‘You two. Report to the Regimental MO once you’ve had your bath. Show him those rashes.’

‘Yessir,’ they both muttered, and lifted their arms to allow him to inspect the angry, inflamed skin.

‘It’s scabies,’ Watson said. It would mean a week of sulphur-and-lard poultices. He turned back to the sergeant. ‘As I said, I’m here about Shipobottom.’

Platt nodded, his moon-face set to grim. ‘Aye, bad news, bad news. He was well liked, was Shippy.’

‘I would imagine. No enemies?’

‘Enemies?’ Platt laughed. ‘Sergeants always have enemies. The grumblers, like. Why d’you ask?’

Watson ignored the question, along with the growing suspicion on Platt’s face. ‘And friends? As much as a sergeant can have friends?’

‘Private Farrar over there from back ’ome. Same mill. Oy, Albert, get yer keks on and come here. Mason, you too. And there’s a lad called Hornby, who was in C Company. He died too. Gassed.’

‘And what about Captain de Griffon? How did they get on?’

‘Well, at first we all thought he was a bit of a barra-offchilt.’ A Baron Rothschild. ‘But he’s awright, he is.’

‘And Lieutenant Metcalf?’

‘Well, now that one . . .’ He stopped himself.

‘Come on Platt, it could be important.’ Metcalf, the man who had been hanging around the CCS to badger nurses to come to a dance. Or was that the only motive?

‘Well, it’s just he’s really one of us. Howard over there went t’school with him. Before Metcalf went off to Manchester, like, to get all poshed up. Now he sometimes treats us like summit he stepped in. He’s forgotten where he came from, that one.’

‘And where is he now?’

Platt pointed to the farmhouse. ‘Officers’ billet. Along with the captain. They’se got their own baths, lucky buggers.’ He lowered his voice and stepped in towards Watson. ‘Some was sayin’ that Shippy was killed in the hospital, Major. In your care, they say. I said, that’s all my eye and Peggy Martin.’

Nonsense, in other words. ‘Thank you for your faith, Sergeant.’

‘But I’m not liking your questions here, sir. About Shippy.’

‘It’s just routine, Sergeant. Just routine,’ Watson said, using the anodyne phrase he had heard the Scotland Yarders mutter countless times. ‘We need to establish the exact cause of the affliction that killed him. What we doctors call Epidemiology.’ It felt underhand throwing out high-handed scientific terms designed to bamboozle, but he didn’t want the sergeant pursuing the matter. As he expected, the man furrowed his brow.

‘Is that right?’

‘It’s so we can prevent a reoccurrence. We need to establish the syndemic.’

‘In case it’s like typhoid or some such?’

‘Precisely. Now, if I can have a quiet word with these two—’

He was interrupted by the put-put of a motor bike coming down the lane and turning into the farmyard. It was Mrs Gregson, her Dunhill outfit splattered with mud from her ride. She skidded to a halt and took off her goggles.

‘Major Watson,’ she said breathlessly. ‘The other victim.’

A ripple had gone through the men when they realized it was a woman. Some covered themselves up. Others stood, thinking this signalled the arrival of the portable bathhouse.

‘Hornby. From the Leigh Pals. It’s the same regiment. This regiment.’

‘Victim?’ asked Platt. ‘What does she mean? Victim? Is it catchin’ then?’

‘No. It’s simply a figure of speech,’ said Watson, not wanting to alarm the men. Some, though, had moved closer, sensing a change in the atmosphere.

‘The deceased,’ Mrs Gregson corrected, ‘was from the Leigh Pals.’

‘You’re certain?’ Watson asked her.

Mrs Gregson took out one of the torn fragments of Hornby’s medical records and passed it to Watson.

Two Leigh Pals gone. Were there other, unknown victims from the same unit? ‘I think, then, we need a word with Captain de Griffon and Lieutenant Metcalf.’

Just then, the door to the farmhouse flew open. Cecil, the dog, exited into the courtyard, yapping in alarm. Metcalf stood there, his eyes wide with shock. His jaw worked but the words jammed in his throat. ‘Come quick,’ he managed to yell at last. ‘It’s—’

But before he could say any more, Captain de Griffon pushed him aside and staggered onto the cobbles. His face bore the most terrible of expressions and, as he fell to the floor, his body began to convulse with a violent fit that took hold and refused to let go.

The fire had been visible for a hundred miles and across eight counties of England. Soldiers, doctors, nurses and civilians had stood in long, snaking lines on the cliffs of France and watched the flames, blazing like a Saxon beacon from the Viking days. They were unsure what it represented, having no way to know they were witnessing the death throes of a Zeppelin of the German Imperial Navy, fresh from having bombed London. By dawn, the giant leviathan of the air that had beached itself on a Sussex hillside was reduced to a smouldering Duralumin skeleton. By dawn, the first curious visitors began arriving.

Among them was Herbert Cartwright, Boy Scout, whose self-selected task was to monitor the south coast for invasion. Nobody was certain how or why the Zeppelin came down. If it had been intercepted by the planes of the RNAS, it would have exploded in the air over the capital. But then again, the British biplanes could not reach the heights that the dirigibles operated at over London.

It was possible there was a mechanical malfunction or a failure in navigation. Perhaps the skin had been punctured by anti-Zeppelin ground fire, but the beast limped on, its fifteen internal gas cells bleeding out the precious hydrogen, losing height as it desperately tried to cross the Channel to safety.

By the time Bert Cartwright arrived soldiers had been posted to protect the still-glowing wreckage, now stripped to the internal metalwork, from souvenir hunters. Bert was concerned because the machine had come down close to the hollow where he liked to fly his kite.

As he pushed between the onlookers, Bert picked up snippets of information, or at least rumour. The Zeppelin had crash-landed intact. There were no bodies to be found. The crew had torched its own ship – the hydrogen and Blau gas fuel would make this a relatively simple task – to prevent its capture. They had scattered into the countryside but, with no clothes other than their uniforms and no language but their own, they had all been apprehended.

Bert took a notebook from his satchel and began to sketch the enormous cigar-shaped wreckage. He would write a report for his Scout troop. It reminded him of the photographs he had seen of the distorted remains of the Great Yarmouth pavilion, the end-of-the-pier hall burned down in 1914 when the suffragettes were refused leave to hold a meeting there. ‘Mad Witches’ his dad had called them.

As he was sketching, he glanced over and saw a familiar figure among the crowd. It was the Tweedy Man. Bert had first seen him that day, more than a year ago, when he had been flying his kite. Then, he had been arguing with another, shorter man, a soldier, judging by his cap and the epaulets on his coat. He had often glimpsed the taller one since, striding over the Downs whatever the weather, usually dressed in something eccentric, sometimes the scuffed tweed suit he had on now. The man had aged in the interval since that row with the army officer. He appeared more stooped, his movements stiffer, the once impressive stride shorter. Like everyone else, the Tweedy Man was examining the wreckage but, as he stepped around the perimeter, he was also peering intently at the ground.

As Bert watched him, the man saw something at his feet that took his interest. It was as if an electric shock had gone through him. Dropping his stick – a rough-hewn kebbie – the Tweedy Man pulled something from his pocket and fell to his hands and knees, careless to the muddy, trampled grass and its effect on his clothing. He stopped periodically and peered through his magnifying glass until, satisfied, he moved on, scrabbling this way and that.

When he stood, the man had regained his old, erect posture. He looked around, as if for an ally or witness, and his eyes alighted on the boy. Bert quickly went back to his sketching. He was aware, though, that the Tweedy Man was coming across.

He apologized for interrupting in a surprisingly soft, soothing voice. But he required some help. He could tell, he said, that Bert was a Boy Scout and that his mother worked in a munitions factory (the woven bracelet told him about the scouting and a faint yellow lyddite thumb mark on his shirt collar pinpointed the factory, he later confessed) and was certain his father was doing his bit. Indeed, Bert replied, his dad was a quartermaster in France. So would Bert like to assist His Majesty’s Government? He would, he replied, albeit with some nerves. Excellent, said the Tweedy Man, asking his name and then if he could borrow the notebook. On a blank page he sketched a series of what looked like zigzags, with a strange letter P in the centre. It had been written the wrong way around.

Now, said the Tweedy Man, being a Boy Scout, Bert would obviously have superior powers of observation and, besides, he was closer to the ground than most. He wanted Bert to walk around and find other evidence of this pattern in the soil, where the grass had been scorched or worn away. Could he do that? And he produced a shilling.

Bert, conscious he was late for school, but even more alert to what a shilling could buy him, set out in an anticlockwise direction, while the Tweedy Man walked the other circumference, bent at the waist, sometimes using his kebbie to squat down, then haul himself back up.

To Bert the ground was little more than a trampled mess. The stream of sightseers didn’t help, jostling to get as close to the downed dirigible as possible and take photographs with their Vest Pocket Kodaks. He had to detour around clumps of these every few yards, and in doing so he almost missed the first of the telltale patterns in the soil.

He gave a shrill whistle, and the Tweedy Man, upon hearing it, hurried around to where Bert stood, doing his best to stop anyone obliterating the marks. He was breathless when he got there, and Bert pointed to the imprint. Tweedy Man was delighted. He then began to look around, examined the terrain, then pointed with his stick and hurried away from the crash site. Bert, now apparently no longer needed, nevertheless tailed him.