A Question of Honor (20 page)

He caught my hand as I was settling myself in the crowded carriage.

“Bess. If you want me to go to Scotland Yard in your stead, say the word. It might be better than turning Wade over to the MFP.”

“I— Let me think about it, Simon.” The whistle blew, and I could hear the carriage doors slamming shut. “All right. Speak to the Yard,” I said hurriedly. “But please, don’t tell them we know that Lieutenant Wade is still alive—or where he is.”

Simon was forced to step back, and the guard was slamming my door.

He said something, but the train was picking up steam, and although I fumbled at the window, my glove got caught and I couldn’t drop it in time. When at last I did, we were nearly out of the station. I couldn’t read Simon’s face as the locomotive’s smoke roiled past us.

Had Simon agreed?

I didn’t know. All I could do now was trust him.

Chapter Fifteen

S
even men had fallen ill on our journey and had had to be taken off in Dover. I watched them go in a pitiful line of stretchers moving through the early dawn hours toward the waiting ambulances. One of the young soldiers standing behind me swore softly.

“They never even saw a Hun,” he said to no one in particular, his voice betraying his fear of an unseen enemy he couldn’t shoot.

I was posted to the same hospital as before, much to Matron’s delight, and it was as if I’d never left, although there were different patients lying in the cots, and three of our Sisters were in a small ward, fighting for their own lives. I admired their courage—they had come here knowing they didn’t have immunity of any kind. I at least had a fair chance of survival. I’d been told I had a good chance of not being reinfected.

We worked long hours, endured the heartbreak of patients dying in spite of all we could do. Even Matron, dark circles under her eyes, seemed to be functioning on will alone. Soon I couldn’t remember the comfort of my own bed, only falling down on my cot and sleeping without dreams, the sleep of the drugged. And my drug was exhaustion.

Sister Shelby came to find me late one afternoon, her eyes wide with shock.

“What is it? Matron?” I asked, for I’d worried that she couldn’t possibly go on much longer without falling ill herself.

“You were here when Corporal Caswell was a patient, weren’t you?”

“Yes, of course. He’s—he’s not dead, is he?”

“Nothing so final. But we have one of his men here, a Private Ball, and he told me Corporal Caswell has been taken prisoner. He—”

I didn’t hear the rest. “A prisoner? Are you quite sure?”

“I was just trying to tell you. He was covering his men as they retreated to their lines, and he wasn’t strong enough to keep up. I
told
Matron he wasn’t ready to return to duty, but of course she insisted.”

“I thought—Sister Bailey wrote me he’d been sent to Rouen to complete his recovery.”

“That’s true, but he wasn’t himself when he returned to his men. Private Ball says he was different somehow. And there was nothing anyone could do to keep the Germans from taking him. By the time they could return fire, they feared hitting him.”

She wiped her face with her hands. “We nurse them back to health only to send them out again to die.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Sister Shelby—Louise—you need to lie down for an hour or two. I’ll cover for you. It will be all right. And it isn’t our fault that they are sent back too soon. Many of them do survive. Blame the war, with its endless hunger for men.”

She smiled, but I could see the tears in her eyes. I walked with her to our quarters and saw her into bed. Pulling up the sheet, I said, “Did you know him well? Corporal Caswell?”

“Not
well
. He just had a way about him. He’d keep the men in the convalescent ward laughing and talking, picking up their spirits, and when he could, he’d help us, carrying linens or pushing the medicine cart. Reading to the other patients. We got used to him, you see. We’d succeeded with Corporal Caswell. It buoyed our spirits as well. A bright spot in the endless lines of new cases coming in and the dead being taken away for burial.”

I could imagine how carefully he’d played his role. How he had gained the trust of the Sisters and made it impossible for me to declare him a murderer. Even after I’d gone, he kept up that role, and in the end, he was discharged. Free to go back to the lines and plot how best to get himself taken prisoner. It was a terrible risk. He could have been shot just as easily. But now he was safe from arrest.

I waited until she was relaxed, on the verge of sleep, and then I turned away. But she said, without opening her eyes, “He was the sort of man we hope will be waiting for us after the war, to marry and live happily ever after. Kind, caring, intelligent, and strong.” She laughed, a light laugh, as if not taking herself seriously. “And rather attractive as well. One mustn’t forget that.”

I thought, this was the man who accompanied Mrs. Standish to England when her daughter died.

At what point had he changed into a murderer?

Because being taken prisoner was proof of his guilt.

Just as his flight from the MFP on the night they came to take him into custody.

I was Colonel Crawford’s daughter, I’d been sent to England. And surely, once I’d told my father where to find him, the Army would come for him. He hadn’t believed me. And so he had planned it well.

A
letter came from Simon, brought in by a dispatch rider from HQ. There was no time to read it until I stopped for my dinner.

I spoke to Scotland Yard. The inspector I met with discussed what we know so far. He was interested but told me flatly that at this point there isn’t enough evidence to warrant the Yard’s time. Winchester is satisfied that the Gessler fire was the work of a known arsonist, and they are actively searching for him. They are also still looking for the two people who can help them with their inquiries. I’ve said nothing to the police in Petersfield. There really is nothing to tell them. Meanwhile, I’ve just seen the latest list of known prisoners of war. There is a familiar name on it.

A dead end. In every way.

I set the letter aside and finished my pudding.

Sister Murray was showing signs of recovering from the influenza, and Sister Shelby had become the latest victim among the staff.

I was doing their work as well as my own when a request came through to transfer me to a forward aid station where I was urgently needed. I spoke to Matron, telling her that I wished to refuse the request, because I was also needed here.

“The American base hospital is sending us two experienced Sisters to replace you and Sister Shelby.”

“We could use six new Sisters and still not have enough hands.”

“There’s no doubt about that,” she said in resignation. “But men are dying there because the last of the staff has collapsed. You must go.”

My transportation was waiting. It was a motorcycle, all that could be spared, and the orderly in the saddle was impatient. There was no time for good-byes. I quickly collected my kit and went out to meet him. He helped me into the sidecar and handed me goggles and a helmet, then pulled a heavy canvas cover over me. We were away almost at once, roaring across the rutted excuse for a road, passing dead horses and dead men, bogged-down tanks, and a relief column moving up as fast as they could. The unspeakable black mud that had once been fertile farmland flew up in a bow wave as we sped on. Several times when we hit ruts, I could feel my spine jarring as I rose in my seat and then was slammed down again.

By the time we reached our destination, I could see nothing through those goggles, and the canvas protecting me was heavy with splatters of muck.

We came to a halt, and the orderly, grinning at me, white teeth in a face full of grimy black freckles and smears, hurried around the machine to help me out. I thanked him for the covering, and he nodded. “You’ll be stiff at first,” he said in a heavy cockney accent I could hardly decipher.

But it wasn’t stiffness so much as weakness in my legs from the pounding that made me clutch his arm to keep from going down on my knees. He walked me about a bit, and the circulation returned quickly.

And a good thing, because I had no more than washed my face and hands than I was working on the next man in line, a severely torn arm. The guns were so loud I could hardly hear myself think, shell after shell screaming overhead or exploding amidst cries and screams.

I shut out the sounds and concentrated on what I was doing, hearing only the
clink
of bits of shell debris as I dropped them into the pan beside the patient’s head. As soon as his arm was cleaned and ready to sew up, the doctor took him over and I went to the next in line, a mangled foot.

The pace kept up well into the night, and then there was a lull as the shelling stopped and both sides paused to lick their wounds. Someone brought me a cup of tea and a dry sandwich, and I was grateful for both. A little later, while I was sleeping, a cup of soup was set beside my bed. The aroma woke me up and I drank it down before falling asleep again. I didn’t know where it had come from, but it tasted heavenly.

I awoke to more shelling, and a long line of wounded appeared before I could swallow my breakfast.

This went on for three or four days. I lost count. Teddy, one of the ambulance drivers, brought mail, and I was relieved to find letters from home waiting for me on my cot when I returned to my quarters late that evening.

My mother informed me that Iris, our maid, had had a mild case of influenza but was already on the mend. So far no one else at home had fallen ill, although there were ten cases in the village. My father was—presumably—in Scotland, for he had taken his greatcoat and gloves. She worried about him because he was tired. Simon was back in Somerset. Coming through London, he had looked in on Mrs. Hennessey and taken Diana—who was on leave—to lunch. Simon had asked my mother to include a message from him.

Joshua Bingham was a Captain serving in France, according to records at Sandhurst. Apparently there was a Sergeant who remembered him. The Bingham family had been civil servants first in India and then in Ceylon until their retirement in 1912. They had sent their only son to England to be educated, and until 1914 he had been a solicitor in Gloucester.

It seemed almost certain we’d tracked down another of the children in the Caswell household, although this one hadn’t stayed as long as most. Because he was the runaway, telling wild tales to anyone who would listen? Only they weren’t tales, they were what he’d seen as a young child in Ceylon.

But where in France was Captain Bingham serving? He could be anywhere, and the chances of finding him were slim.

If I could speak to him about the Caswells, I might discover the names of the other children in that household.

I couldn’t just ask the wounded who their officers were. It was not done, and it would draw attention to me, leaving the impression I had a personal interest in finding this man. I did, of course, but not in the way it would be taken, and I certainly couldn’t explain my reasons.

Nor was this something I could trust to the rumor mill.

And then one morning I heard a Corporal swear in what sounded very much like Sinhala, one of the languages of Ceylon. I didn’t know any of them, but we’d had a soldier in our regiment who had served there, and this was his favorite word when he was angry. The pronunciation was all wrong, but I knew at once what he was trying to say.

I hurried over to where Sister Lee was probing for a bullet in a badly cut-up shoulder, and I told her I’d finish that while she dealt with the three new stretcher cases. She was glad to hand the probe over to me, and I said, careful not to make the wound any worse as I worked, “What’s your regiment, Corporal?”

He told me between gritted teeth.

“Indeed.” I located the bullet and began to bring it out. My patient was white as a sheet now, but grimly holding on. When I handed him the offending lump of lead, he smiled faintly and said, “I’ll keep that, Sister. A souvenir.”

A good many soldiers were superstitious, wanting to keep the shell fragment or the spent bullet that had wounded them. Almost a talisman against the future, in a way.

I rinsed it and handed it to him.

“Ta,” he said as I set about powdering and then bandaging his wound. “I was hanging on the wire when the Captain saw me. I was praying to make it back to the lines, but I couldn’t keep my balance, like. It seemed I was stumbling over my own feet, and the rifle weighed ten stone. I got to the wire, but couldn’t stop myself in time. Went down into it, just hanging there, and a sniper trying to pick me off. I could see the spurts of earth at my feet. One of the men set up answering fire, and the Captain was clutching my good arm so hard I thought he’d come down with me instead of pulling me out. But he heaved me up somehow and I was flying headfirst into the trench where some other men caught me and let me down the rest of the way. And I still had the rifle in my hand. Like a death grip, the Sergeant said.”

“Did the Captain make it?”

“Oh, yes, he came diving in after me, and they caught him too. They got the sniper, they told me. I must have passed out from the pain because I don’t remember much else.”

“A brave man, your Captain. What’s his name?”

“Yes, he’s all right.” It was the highest accolade. “Captain Bingham. We missed him when he went home on compassionate leave. His mum died. He took it hard. Well, so did I when my own mum was killed by a Zeppelin.”

“When was he on leave?”

The Corporal cocked his head to one side. “That must have been the second week in August. Longest five days I can remember, while he was away.”

“Why was that?” I was busy calculating just when Captain Bingham had been in England, and as far as I could tell, it was during that same week that the Gesslers were killed in the fire.

It proved nothing.

I realized that the Corporal was still talking. “ . . . Have you ever seen a painted elephant? Or a mountain with half-naked women—begging your pardon, Sister—painted up its side, to keep the king happy while he climbs to his palace on the top? And a statue the length of five tanks in a row? And temples shaped like funnels turned on end, with snakes for railings up the steps? Gods with monkey faces?”

“I’m sorry, I was concentrating on closing up your shoulder. What were you saying?”

He chuckled. “I’m not surprised you don’t believe me. But it’s what the Captain tells us just before the whistle blows and we’re over the top. All manner of wild tales. Not that we believe any of them, but it takes our minds off what’s to come.”

But they were real, all of the stories. My father had gone to Kandy for a conference, and he brought back photographs of what he’d seen while traveling around the island.

And that sounded very like the Josh Bingham we wanted to find.

“He has quite an imagination,” I agreed, smiling. I finished bandaging the shoulder and told the Corporal that he’d be sent back to hospital so they could keep an eye on his wound. “If it becomes infected, you’ll lose it,” I warned when he tried to argue with me, telling me that his company had been decimated by the influenza and he was too badly needed to go to hospital. “You’ll be an amputee, Corporal. You know what that means.”