Blackstone and the Great War (18 page)

‘They wouldn't be,' Blackstone said.

‘We're about the same age, them and me,' Mick continued to babble, ‘but, you know, they seem a lot older than me now.'

‘It's the war,' Blackstone told him.

‘Everything's different,' Mick marvelled. ‘Even the bull! I'll give you a for instance. You know that Lieutenant Fortesque of yours?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, he caught a few of the lads trying to stuff another lad's head in the cesspit. Not to drown him in shit, you understand – they'd never have done that – it was just like, playing a trick on him.'

‘I know about that,' Blackstone said. ‘His name was Blenkinsop.'

But Mick was too intent on telling his story to let the fact that Blackstone had already heard it deter him.

‘Anyway, if an officer had caught them at that in England, all the lads would have been on a charge – no question about it. But Fortesque just told them they shouldn't treat any of their comrades like that, specially one that was going to be his new servant. Well, you could have knocked them over with a feather when he said that, 'cos they thought he'd been planning to give the job to another of the lads, who was called Danvers.'

‘Tough on Danvers,' Blackstone said.

‘Tougher than you might think,' Mick said. ‘Danvers was transferred to another platoon, and was shot in No Man's Land a few days later. And if he'd been Fortesque's servant, you see, he wouldn't even have been out there.'

It was just as he'd suspected when he'd first seen Mick sitting on the wall, Blackstone thought. All that the young soldier had managed to collect so far was gossip.

But he was not entirely displeased, because Archie Patterson – who was one of the best coppers he'd ever worked with – was a perpetual collector of gossip and, just once in a while, it turned out to be useful.

Mick took a drag on his cigarette.

‘Anyway, when the lads told me how this Lieutenant Fortesque had handled things, I thought they were doing it to show me how soft he was, and how much they despised him for it,' he continued. ‘But that wasn't what they were telling me at all.'

‘No?'

‘Not at all. Quite the opposite. First of all, they said he seemed so disappointed in them that they'd felt ashamed of what they'd done. But they also said he showed them his hand in a mitten.' Mick paused. ‘I haven't got that quite right, have I?'

Blackstone smiled. ‘He showed them that inside his velvet glove there was an iron fist?' he suggested.

‘That's right,' Mick agreed. ‘What they meant was that he'd made it quite clear to them that if they ever tried anything like that again, they'd be in the glasshouse before their feet could touch the ground. They went away respecting him for the way he'd handled things – and from that moment, they said, they'd have followed him to hell and back, if he'd asked them to.'

Blackstone nodded.

If he'd been in those privates' place, he'd probably have felt the same, he thought – because a good officer, in his experience, was one who played things strictly by the rule book when it coincided with his own judgement, and tossed that same rule book over his shoulder when it didn't.

‘That Lieutenant Hatfield's a different kettle of fish altogether,' Mick continued. ‘The lads have got nothing but contempt for him.'

‘Why's that?' Blackstone asked – suddenly interested.

‘Because he's a bully – because he picks on the lads for no reason at all,' Mick said.

Blackstone frowned. Hatfield had his weaknesses – plenty of them – but he would never have marked the man down as a bully.

‘Did Lieutenant Hatfield do something specific to earn this reputation?' he asked.

‘Yer wot?' Mick replied, mystified.

‘Why do the men think he's a bully?'

‘Well, for a start, the day before your Lieutenant Fortesque was murdered, Hatfield put a couple of lads on a charge when he must have really known they'd done nothing wrong.'

Privates Clay and Jones are sitting in the trench. Jones is writing a letter at Clay's dictation, because though Clay is by no means a stupid man, writing is not one of his strong points.

‘Tell her that when I get home on leave, I'll take her out dancing, if that's what she wants,' Clay says.

‘Sounds a bit flat, that,' Jones tells him.

‘So what do you think I could say?'

‘How about, “When I come home to your loving arms, my darling, I'll take you dancing and whisk you off your feet.” Doesn't that sound better?'

‘It does,' Clay replies happily. ‘You're a bit of a poet on the sly, ain't you, Jonesey?'

Absorbed in their task, neither hears the officer approaching, and it is only when Hatfield bellows, ‘Sergeant!' that they even realize he is there.

The sergeant strides up the trench. ‘Sir!'

‘These men have just insulted me, Sergeant,' Hatfield says.

‘Have you just insulted the officer?' the sergeant demands.

‘No, Sarge,' Clay protests. ‘We didn't say nothing to him. We was just talking to each other.'

‘Does he take me for a complete fool?' Hatfield demands – and though he is trying to sound angry, it is not really convincing. ‘He called me a useless bastard. I heard him distinctly.'

‘I never  . . .' Clay begins.

‘Is he calling me a liar now?' Hatfield interrupts.

‘Are you calling the officer a liar now?' the sergeant demands.

‘No, Sarge,' Clay says, ‘but I never  . . .'

‘I want both these men putting on a charge,' Hatfield says. ‘They'll pay dearly for insulting me – I can promise them that.'

‘Lieutenant Hatfield had them brought to the lock-up here in St Denis,' Mick said. ‘And the funny thing is, they weren't even his own men – they were from Lieutenant Fortesque's platoon.'

Strange that Hatfield should have done that, Blackstone thought.

It did not reflect well on an officer when an enlisted man dared to insult him, which was why some of the weaker officers would pretend not to hear – yet he had chosen to make a big issue out of it.

‘Were they charged?' he asked.

‘No, that was the strange thing,' Mick said. ‘The next morning they were released, and told to report to Lieutenant Maude.'

‘You're sure that was who they were told to report to?' Blackstone asked. ‘It wasn't to Lieutenant Hatfield, who'd had them arrested, was it? Or Lieutenant Fortesque, who was their platoon commander?'

‘It was Maude,' Mick said firmly. ‘I mean, think about it, Mr Blackstone, Lieutenant Hatfield couldn't have seen them, could he – because that would have been like admitting he'd been wrong to put them on a charge.'

‘True,' Blackstone agreed.

‘And as for Lieutenant Fortesque,' Mick continued, ‘well, he was dead by then.'

‘Of course he was,' Blackstone said. ‘Carry on.'

Maude is sitting at the table in his dugout, a glass of whisky in his hand, when the sergeant marches Jones and Clay in.

‘Lieutenant Hatfield has been thinking over the incident which occurred yesterday, and has decided he may have misheard what you said,' he tells the two privates.

‘Honest, sir, I would never have—' Clay says.

‘Shut your mouth, Private Clay!' the sergeant screams.

‘Since there now appears to be some element of doubt, Lieutenant Hatfield is willing to drop the charges against you,' Maude continues, with a smile that could almost, but for its cold edges, have been considered benevolent. ‘Now that is good news, isn't it?'

Jones and Clay say nothing.

‘Answer the officer!' the sergeant bellows.

‘Yes, sir,' Jones and Clay mumble in unison.

‘I can't hear you!' Maude says harshly.

‘Yes, sir,' the two men repeat, louder this time.

Maude nods his head.

‘You've been lucky on this occasion,' he tells Jones and Clay. ‘Very lucky. You are to return to your normal duties immediately, and, if I were you, I would take the first opportunity I got to thank Lieutenant Hatfield – through his sergeant, of course – for your release.'

Maude's sergeant looks at the lieutenant, and when Maude nods, he says, ‘Dismissed.'

Jones and Clay salute, and then execute a smart military turn.

‘Just a second!' Maude says. ‘Haven't you forgotten something?'

Jones feels his heart sink. He has already spent one night in the lock-up, and he does not want to endure another.

‘Thank you, sir,' he says, hoping that is what was expected.

‘Thank you?' Maude repeats, mystified. ‘What are you thanking me for?'

Oh God, what does he
want
me to say, Jones thinks desperately. Oh God, oh God, oh God  . . .

‘For  . . . for taking the time to talk to us like this' he says finally. ‘For explaining things.'

Maude scowls. ‘I'm your superior, not your kindly Uncle Fred,' he says. ‘I neither expect, nor want, your thanks.'

‘Then I'm sorry, sir, but if it's not that, I don't know what  . . .'

‘I asked you if you had forgotten anything. Well, have you?'

‘No, sir, I don't think so,' says Jones, in a complete panic now. ‘At least I can't—'

Maude raises his hand to silence him, then points with his index finger to the corner of the room.

‘Your rifle, man! Your bloody rifle!'

Jones feels an enormous sense of relief.

His rifle!

Of course!

The redcaps had relieved them of their rifles when they were arrested, and now both weapons are propped up in the corner.

‘Your rifle is your best and only true friend, Private Jones,' Maude says. ‘It should be such a part of you that you feel incomplete without it.'

‘I'm sorry, sir, but what with all the worry—'

Maude raises his hand to silence him again.

‘Collect your weapon and leave,' he says.

Hatfield's putting the two men on a charge in the first place had been a mistake, Blackstone thought, but withdrawing the charges was a bigger one – because there were only two possible conclusions that his superiors can draw from this.

The first conclusion was that Hatfield was publicly admitting that he'd been wrong – a fatal error on the part of an officer.

The second was even worse – that he had been so weak that his men had bullied him into backing down.

And whichever interpretation they chose to put on it, Hatfield had seriously damaged his career.

But perhaps having the two privates arrested had been nothing more than a small part of a bigger plan, in which Hatfield's own military advancement was of no importance, Blackstone thought – a plan, formulated by Maude, of course! – which had come to fruition with the murder of Lieutenant Fortesque.

He closed his eyes, and tried to picture what might have happened shortly before Hatfield made his accusation.

Jones and Clay respect Lieutenant Fortesque – and even like him, as much as an enlisted man is ever allowed to like an officer – but they are still nervous about being summoned to his dugout without a sergeant in attendance.

Fortesque seems nervous himself.

‘I think of you men as my comrades,' he says. ‘I would die to protect you, if that was necessary.'

You are not supposed to nod in the presence of an officer, but Jones and Clay can't help themselves, because what Fortesque had just said is quite true.

‘I have reason to believe my life is in danger,' Fortesque says.

Jones chuckles instinctively, then, realizing what he's done, clamps his mouth tightly shut.

‘Have I said something funny, Private Jones?' Fortesque asks angrily.

‘No, sir. Sorry, sir,' Jones mumbles. ‘I didn't mean to laugh, but of course your life's in danger. All our lives are in danger. We're all in the middle of a bloody war.'

Fortesque relaxes a little. ‘I apologize for not explaining myself more clearly. What I meant to say was that my life is in danger from someone in these trenches.'

Clay and Jones could not be more shocked if a German shell had landed just behind them.

‘Who'd want to kill
you
, sir?' Clay asks.

And there, he would have had a problem, Blackstone thought. All the training he has received – all the assumptions he holds dear – tell him that he cannot criticize a brother officer to an enlisted man.

‘I can't tell you who's threatening me – not now,' Fortesque says. ‘But I'd like you to watch my back for me, and if you see someone about to take my life, then for God's sake step in – whoever that someone might be. Will you do that for me?'

‘Of course we will, sir,' Jones and Clay say in unison.

Somehow, Maude finds out about the meeting, Blackstone thought. And when he does, he realizes that he will have to find a way to have the two privates removed if the plan is ever to be put into effect.

‘There was an offensive the next day. Did Clay and Jones survive it?' he asked Mick hopefully.

The young soldier shook his head. ‘I'm afraid not.'

Of course they hadn't. It would be
far
too easy if they had!

But maybe there was still a way to prove a link – and to tie that link to Maude and his pals.

‘Ask the other lads if they noticed Clay and Jones talking to Lieutenant Fortesque shortly before their arrest,' he said.