The First Casualty (26 page)

‘Lieutenant Stamford attended my poetry group with Viscount Abercrombie,’ Nurse Murray said. ‘That was on the afternoon of his death, wasn’t it? Or perhaps I should say the last afternoon on which he was seen alive…’

‘He died in battle,’ Stamford said quickly.

‘Quite.’

‘I often think…I mean, if we’d only known…’ It seemed for a moment as if Stamford would cry. ‘It all just seems so terrible.’

‘When did you last see Viscount Abercrombie?’ Kingsley enquired.

‘Oh…after the group, I suppose. Yes, after we’d finished with Nurse Murray.’

‘Visitors have to be out by six,’ Nurse Murray added. ‘And you left?’

‘Yes…Of course. What else would I have done?’ Kingsley did not reply but just kept staring at the young man.

Nurse Murray broke the silence.

‘Lieutenant Stamford is a poet too, aren’t you, Lieutenant?’ Stamford reddened and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

‘Well, you know. Sort of. I mean, I’d like to be.’ ‘And how is your writing coming along?’

The young man reddened further.

‘Well, actually, Miss Murray, I
have
been writing. You know, like you said we all should.’

‘Bully for you.’

‘Yes. I think that what with Alan, I mean Captain Abercrombie…well, dying and all that, it sort of spurred me on. Did you mean it when you said that you would read something if I gave it to you?’

Stamford was carrying a small leather case, the sort that is normally used to carry sheet music.

‘Of course I did.’

Stamford turned to Kingsley.

‘Nurse Murray has got stuff published in the
Manchester Guardian
, you know. Isn’t that thrilling?’

‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it is,’ Kingsley replied.

‘Of course I’m sure that nothing
I
wrote would ever be published,’ Stamford added quickly, still bright red. ‘But it’s nice to think about it, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’

‘Well, uhm…I’ve actually brought one or two poems with me. Of course if you don’t…’

‘Bung them over then,’ Lieutenant. No good hiding your light under a bushel,’ Nurse Murray said.

Stamford scrambled to open his music case. He reached inside and pulled out a small sheaf of neatly written pages.

‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘If you like them I can send you more. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Murray replied. Kingsley found her lack of enthusiasm glaringly obvious but Stamford did not seem to notice. He was thrilled, and having stammered more thanks he made his farewells and left.

‘Well, there’s a bit of reading I shan’t be looking forward to, ‘Murray opined. ‘What an absolute Gawd’elpus. I think I shall get another drink.’

After that Nurse Murray was quickly besieged on all sides by officers clearly anxious to spend a few moments in the company of a woman, even if she was an uncompromising Suffragette. Kingsley took the opportunity to try to gather a few more opinions of Abercrombie from his brother officers.

‘Nice chap, much quieter than I’d have expected,’ seemed to be the general impression.

‘He came to us after the London Regiment (Artists Rifles) got ripped to bits at Plug Street, so we didn’t know him long,’ said one man.

‘Yes, we were expecting someone rather grand, putting on airs and all,’ another officer added, ‘what with him being famous and a viscount, etc., etc. Father’s Tory Chief Whip, you know. But actually he was quite withdrawn. Well, let’s face it, he ended up here, didn’t he? Not Yet Diagnosed, eh? But pretty ‘nervous’ nonetheless.’

‘I think his old outfit getting mauled so badly they had to break it up hit him pretty hard,’ said a third.

‘Still can’t quite work out how he managed to get himself killed in battle though,’ the second officer added. ‘Last we all heard, he’d been sent down here.’

It was not long before the party began to wind down. The men had long since departed, looking forward to a sleep undisturbed by shells or something stronger than tea at an
estaminet
, or maybe even a trip to the No. 1 Red Lamp. The officers too were drifting off, the whisky having run out and the nurses all gone to their rooms. Kingsley had not seen Nurse Murray since he had left her cornered by officers and so he set off to walk back to his billet. He had not slept in a bed since his night in the hotel at Victoria and he was looking forward to the poor little cot at the Café Cavell as if it were a feather-stuffed four-poster

The rain had stopped earlier and the night was not cold. There was a fullish moon and the way was clear, so Kingsley decided to take a short cut across the lawns. It was not long, however, before a light rain began to fall once more. The clouds covered the moon and the night suddenly became very dark. Kingsley was forced to walk with his hands held out before him and he very much regretted his decision not to stick to the gravel paths.

Just then a voice behind bid him stop.

‘I love the feeling of rain, don’t you?’ It was Nurse Murray. ‘I mean, I know it’s hellish for the troops but back here, in this beautiful château filled with nothing but pain and sadness, I sometimes think it’s the only clean thing there is left.’

She must have followed him from the house, and he had not heard her because of the soft, springy turf on which they were walking. She had waited until he got amongst the first trees before approaching him. He could scarcely make her out in the darkness.

‘Private Hopkins did not murder Viscount Abercrombie, Captain.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘I just know it.’

Still he could not see her but he sensed that she was close. The rainclouds were thick around the moon now and the darkness was almost impenetrable.

‘You should go back to the château,’ he said. ‘Shall I esco — I mean accompany you to the door?’

‘I told you I like the rain. Besides, it’s too dark all of a sudden. We should wait for the clouds to pass or we shall lose our way and break an ankle.’

It was certainly true that the night was now darker still and the rain heavier. It seemed that they were fairly stuck.

‘Is there any smell more exquisite than fresh rain in a wood?’ the voice enquired, and now it was directly in front of him. She could not have been more than a foot away.

‘Why did you follow me?’

‘You interest me. Come on, we should get beneath the trees.’

‘I could not tell you where they were.

‘I can, I eat a lot of carrots.’

He felt her take his hand in hers, a tiny hand but a confident one with a firm grip. Kingsley allowed himself to be led until he felt the rain no more, save for the occasional bigger drops that plopped down as the water filtered through the leaves which he knew must be above them.

‘How is it that I interest you, Nurse Murray?’ Kingsley asked, as once more they stood still together in the darkness. She had not let go of his hand.

‘Well, as I said, you don’t seem like a military policeman to me. I don’t really believe you are one. Perhaps you’re a spy.’

‘A spy? What sort of spy?’

‘Oh,’ just any old spy. There’s more to this mystery than meets the eye, I think. First Captain Shannon came. Then we had the murder and the police said they’d solved it, and now you turn up,’ a seasoned military policeman who doesn’t salute when he’s supposed to, doesn’t stamp about like they all do
all
the time and doesn’t know what a green envelope is.’

It took a moment to sink in and then Kingsley felt ashamed. He was astonished that his face could be read so easily, and by a girl of twenty-two.

‘Ah,’ was all he could say, knowing that there was no point in denying the ignorance in which she had caught him out.

‘For your information, a green envelope is the only avenue by which a soldier may send a letter home which will avoid the eye of the censor. All post sent from the front is routinely read except that which is contained in the much-coveted green envelope. The troops get about one a month if they’re lucky.’

‘And anything contained therein is not read?’

‘That is the
theory
.’

‘Thank you,’ Kingsley said quietly. ‘I was wondering.’

They were silent for a moment while the rain grew more noisy. Still Nurse Murray held his hand but it did not make Kingsley feel uncomfortable. Normally it would have done but for some reason it did not.

‘So you’re a civilian then?’ she asked.

‘Let us say that my commission…is a recent one. Very recent.’

‘Good. That means I haven’t broken my rule.’

‘What rule is that?’

‘Never to feel kindly towards a copper.’

‘I’m afraid that I am a copper, Nurse Murray, just not a military one.’

‘Damn. Oh well, exception and rule and all that, eh? My name’s Kitty, by the way. Short for Kathleen.’

‘May I call you Kitty then?’

‘I hope you will.’

Had she squeezed his hand? He thought perhaps she might have done, but oh so lightly.

‘What sort of thing is normally put in a green envelope?’ he enquired.

‘Two things. Sex and moaning. That’s what a man keeps private. His erotic thoughts and his opinion of his superior, who tends to be the person who censors his letters. Of course mainly it’s sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. That’s all anybody seems to think about out here.’

‘I see.’

The rain was falling ever harder and the leafy canopy was affording less and less protection from it.

‘You will be wet through,’ Kingsley said. ‘Will you take my coat?’

‘If you insist,’ she replied.

Finally disengaging her hand, Kingsley took off his greatcoat and held it before him. He felt her feel for the coat. With one hand she took it but regained hold of Kingsley’s with the other. Then he heard the coat falling to the ground. She had dropped it as she pulled his hand towards her in the pitch blackness. Then she drew it inside her blouse, which she had clearly unbuttoned in anticipation, and placed it upon her naked breast.

‘Modern girls,’ she whispered, ‘
so
forward.’

It was small but wonderfully firm and springy. The skin was very wet and the nipple that nestled in the palm of Kingsley’s hand had grown big and hard in the night air. Kingsley did not withdraw his hand. He had not expected this and he had not sought it, but now that it had happened he was intoxicated. His throat was dry and his every nerve had sprung alive. He did not pause to consider as suddenly he reached forward with his other arm and pulled her towards him. She was at least a foot shorter than him and he had to gather her up off her feet in order to kiss her, which he did, holding her to him in one arm whilst with his other he kneaded at her breast.

Then, as quickly as he had clasped her to him, he disengaged himself.

‘I’m…I’m married,’ he gasped.

‘Lucky Mrs Marlowe.’

‘I love my wife.’

‘Bully for you. I’m not asking you to love me.’

The voice now came from closer to the ground than before. He felt her fingers at his trouser buttons. Still he could see nothing,’ nothing at all. The night was like a cloak; perhaps it was the darkness that was weakening his resolve. It felt so anonymous, so secret.

‘I can’t,’ he pleaded, but he was already surrendering.

He had been alone for so long.

‘You can,’ she insisted, struggling with the buttons.

‘I love her,’ he said, pushing her fingers away.

‘And you can still love her tomorrow, unless you’re dead,’ she replied, putting her fingers back inside his fly. ‘Only moments count in this war. Each minute is a whole new lifetime out here.’

This time he did not push her fingers away. He could not. The rain and the darkness and the smell of the sodden trees and the feel of that firm wet skin, that strong hard nipple and then her lips on his had intoxicated him.

He stood there, his head thrown back with the rain falling on his face, as he felt fingers reaching into his fly and searching for a way into his long johns. Murray was a nurse and used to undressing men; it was not long before she had found what she was looking for and liberated his straining manhood, and then he gasped out loud. The warmth of her mouth on him was almost too much to bear.

‘Oh Jesus. Yes!’ he gasped as her lips and teeth closed savagely around him and he felt the tip of her tongue poking and probing. Then, just when he was beginning to think that he must explode, her mouth was gone and in its place he felt her hands once more and he smelt the unmistakable smell of oiled rubber

‘Glad
this
wasn’t hanging on the line to dry when you saw my room,’ he heard her say. ‘I think even I would have been embarrassed.’

She slipped the big thick rubber sheath over him and then pulled him down to her. Kingsley soon discovered that beneath her skirt she was wearing nothing. He felt the thick, luxuriant bush of soft wet hair between her legs and in a moment he was buried inside it.