Hardcastle's Soldiers (11 page)

‘Did they give a name and address for this young lady?'

‘Yes, sir. Her name is Isabella Harcourt, and she lives with her parents in Westbourne Terrace.'

Hardcastle spent a few seconds getting his pipe alight before answering. ‘Keep a note of it, Marriott. On reflection, I doubt that young Mansfield could've given us any more, but we may have to see him again. Certainly when it comes to a trial. If there is one,' he added gloomily.

A
t half past eleven, Captain McIntyre telephoned from Aldershot to say that Lieutenant Colonel Fuller, the commanding officer of the Army Service Corps training battalion, had reluctantly agreed to a check of his officers' sidearms. It would, however, take some time, but McIntyre promised to let Hardcastle have the result as soon as possible.

‘The bloody war will probably be over by the time we get an answer to that, Marriott,' said Hardcastle. ‘I wouldn't mind betting that that dugout colonel is going to make it as difficult as possible. I suppose because men are being killed in their thousands at the Front, one dead body at Victoria Station don't carry much weight with him.'

But no sooner had the DDI expressed that pessimistic view of the army than there was a knock at his office door.

‘There's a military gentlemen downstairs wishing to see you, sir,' said the station officer, a youngish sergeant.

‘Who is it, skipper?'

‘He says he's RSM Punchard, sir, of the Army Service Corps. He says it's important.'

‘Send him up,' said Hardcastle.

The ramrod figure of the training battalion's RSM appeared in Hardcastle's doorway a few moments later.

‘Good morning, Mr Hardcastle.'

‘Good morning to you, Mr Punchard,' said Hardcastle, shaking hands with the RSM. ‘Take a seat.'

Punchard placed his cap on the hatstand in the corner of Hardcastle's office, and, noticing that the DDI was smoking, withdrew a pipe from the inner recesses of his tunic and held it aloft. ‘D'you mind?' he asked.

‘Not at all, carry on. Perhaps you'd care for a cup of tea.'

‘That would be most welcome, Mr Hardcastle, thank you.'

Hardcastle glanced at Marriott. ‘Be so good as to organize that.'

‘Yes, sir.' Marriott crossed to the detectives' office and told one of its occupants to arrange for three cups of tea.

‘Now, Mr Punchard,' began Hardcastle, once Marriott had rejoined them, ‘I don't suppose you've made the journey up here because you like being in the Smoke. Or has the War Office decided to offer you a commission?' he added flippantly.

‘Not me,' said Punchard. ‘I'd rather be top dog in the sergeants' mess than a spare part in the other place. Anyhow, they're making any young fool a second lieutenant these days, and often do, but regimental sergeant-majors are hard to come by. No, Mr Hardcastle, I'm stuck where I am, thank the Good Lord. However, to get down to business, I thought it best to come up here to see you in person rather than trusting to the telephone. You never know who's listening.'

‘You managed to get away without any questions being asked, then.'

Punchard bristled slightly at that. ‘What an RSM does and where he goes is no business of anyone else, Mr Hardcastle, except the colonel, and between you and me he's not that much interested. I come and go as I please.'

‘Yes, I suppose so,' said Hardcastle, who never quite understood the status of warrant officers in the army. There was no comparable rank in the Metropolitan Police, although, having witnessed a few army warrant officers exercising their authority, the DDI often wished there were.

‘I have a piece of information that I think might be of interest to you, Inspector.' Punchard took a slim notebook from his breast pocket and flicked it open. ‘When officers are commissioned into the ASC, they have to attend a regimental officers' course at Buller Barracks, to learn about what the Corps does. I had a word with the chief clerk of the battalion …' The RSM paused. ‘Name of Fred Welch, SQMS Welch to be exact.' Seeing the puzzled look on Hardcastle's face, he explained that SQMS meant staff quartermaster sergeant, and that Welch was a warrant officer.

‘I see.' Hardcastle nodded. He did not need to know the precise rank of the battalion's chief clerk, but imagined that Punchard thought it would add weight to his statement.

The RSM was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Cartwright, the station matron, who appeared in the doorway carrying a large tray. ‘I've got your tea, sir,' she said to the DDI.

‘Thank you, that was very good of you,' said Hardcastle, dropping a sixpence on the tea tray.

‘But I'm afraid there ain't any biscuits today.'

‘Never mind, Mrs C.'

‘I give 'em all to my boy Jack, you see. He was off to the Front again yesterday. He's a bombardier now.' Mrs Cartwright was clearly very proud of her son.

‘I hope he keeps safe,' said Hardcastle.

‘He says as how he'll be all right. He's in the Royal Garrison Artillery. And he's a long way behind the lines, he says.'

‘He should be all right there, ma'am,' volunteered Punchard, running a thumb up the inside of the cross-strap of his Sam Browne belt.

Once Mrs Cartwright had departed, the RSM continued. ‘Fred Welch told me that out of the twenty officers who'd finished the course, four of the young gentlemen never arrived at the units they was posted to.'

‘How on earth can that happen?' asked an incredulous Hardcastle. ‘D'you mean they've deserted?'

‘Your guess is as good as mine, Mr Hardcastle, but just because they've got a pip on their cuffs don't mean they don't run. You'd be surprised how many officers have slung their hook since this caper with Fritz started.'

Hardcastle pulled a sheet of paper across his desk. ‘Do you have the names of these officers, Mr Punchard?'

Punchard referred to his notebook again. ‘They was all posted on Friday the sixth of July, Mr Hardcastle. The course ended on the preceding Wednesday, and they was given forty-eight hours' leave. There was a Mr Adrian Nash who was posted to 143 Mechanical Transport Company at Boulogne, Mr Wilfred Bryant should have gone to 1 Corps Troops Column BEF …' The RSM looked up. ‘God knows where they are; apart from being somewhere in Flanders, the last time I heard tell of 'em. Anyhow, then there's Mr Bertram Morrish who should have gone to 233 Supply Company at Fort William in Scotland, and Mr Ashley Strawton to 64 Ambulance Company at Cairo with General Allenby's lot. But, like I said, none of 'em turned up.'

Hardcastle put down his pipe, leaned forward, and linked his hands on the desk, his interest suddenly aroused. ‘Can your colleague be sure of that?' he asked.

‘Most certainly,' said Punchard. ‘The training battalion sends a signal to the receiving units advising them of the officers' impending arrival. But the orderly room got signals back asking if there'd been a mistake, because the officers hadn't arrived.'

‘Do you know anything about these officers, Mr Punchard?'

‘Only brief details, Mr Hardcastle,' said the RSM, studying his notebook again. ‘For a start they're all nineteen years of age, except Morrish who's twenty-two. Nash was a clerk with the Metropolitan Water Board, and worked at their offices in the City. He was conscripted under Lord Derby's scheme, and I suppose he talked a bit posh so the upshot was he was commissioned. Bryant was a shop assistant at the Army and Navy Stores in Victoria, Morrish was straight out of university – Cambridge, I believe – and Strawton was a footman in some big house, God help us.' He shook his head in an expression of disbelief, and then paused to apply a match to his pipe. ‘Mind you, like I said just now, they're giving commissions to almost anyone these days. You see, Mr Hardcastle, the average life of an infantry subaltern in the trenches is about six weeks, so they're obviously running a bit short. Still, these young whippersnappers won't come to much harm where they're going, except perhaps the chap who's gone to the ambulance company in Cairo.'

‘Do you happen to have home addresses for these officers, Mr Punchard?'

‘I'm afraid not,' said Punchard, referring again to his notebook. ‘But I should be able to get them from Fred Welch. I'll telephone them to you, if you think that'll be of assistance.'

‘Thank you, Mr Punchard, that would be most helpful. Incidentally, what exactly does this officer training consist of?'

The RSM gave that question some thought before answering. ‘Well, there's a lot of classroom stuff, tactics and that sort of thing. Not that the ASC needs to know a lot about that. Then there's lectures about the functions of the ASC, and they do a driving course. And they also shadow the permanent staff officers. I s'pose it teaches them how to inspect the common soldiery,' he added with a scoff.

‘Would that mean that these officers would have access to some of the barrack rooms?' asked Hardcastle thoughtfully.

‘Very likely,' replied Punchard. ‘They learn how to be proper little bastards, going round bollocking people for not saluting, having dust in the welts of their boots, dirty brasses, and generally getting in the way of the warrant officers and NCOs.'

Hardcastle stood up and shook hands with the RSM. ‘Thank you very much for that information, Mr Punchard. I'll follow it up and let you know the outcome. I suppose they've been posted as deserters already.'

‘Of course they have, Mr Hardcastle. Like I said before, just because they're officers don't stop 'em being shot for running.'

For some time after the departure of Punchard, Hardcastle sat behind his desk pondering the magnitude of what the RSM had told him. His enquiry had taken on an almost impossible task. The four officers who had not arrived at their designated units, and were possibly now wanted for desertion, put them at the top of the DDI's list of suspects. But, from what the RSM had said, they could be anywhere from Fort William to Cairo. Had one of them stolen items of clothing – Stacey's cap, Ash's tunic and Joliffe's trousers – and used them to carry out the robbery at Victoria? There was little doubt in Hardcastle's mind that the murderer had also stolen Stacey's keys. But which one? Then again, perhaps it was none of them.

‘I suppose, as a matter of courtesy, we ought to have a word with Colonel Frobisher before we go making enquiries about officers who're adrift, Marriott. Don't want to tread on any toes. Mind you, the military don't care about treading on mine when it suits them.' And with that, Hardcastle seized his hat and umbrella. ‘Come, Marriott.'

Lieutenant-Colonel Frobisher looked up warily when Hardcastle and Marriott were shown into his office at Horse Guards Arch in Whitehall.

‘Inspector?'

‘Good day, Colonel.' Without wasting any time on social niceties, Hardcastle related what he had heard from RSM Punchard about the ASC officers who had failed to arrive at their official destinations. ‘Can you confirm that these officers are absent without leave, Colonel?'

‘I'll soon find out, Inspector.' Frobisher struck the polished brass table bell on his desk, and Sergeant Glover, the colonel's chief clerk, appeared.

‘Yes, sir?'

‘Mr Hardcastle will give you a list of ASC officers who were recently posted from Buller Barracks, Aldershot, Sergeant. However, they didn't turn up at the units to which they were posted. Can you tell me if they have been posted absent?'

‘One moment, sir.' Glover took Hardcastle's list, and disappeared to return a minute or so later with a file in his hand. ‘Yes, sir. All were posted from Number One Training Battalion ASC at Aldershot on the sixth of July, but failed to report. We were advised of their absence on the twelfth, sir.'

‘Thank you, Sergeant Glover.' Frobisher turned to Hardcastle. ‘May I ask where you got your information, Inspector?'

‘A reliable informant, Colonel,' said Hardcastle cagily. He was unwilling to reveal the training battalion's RSM as his source for fear that it might involve Punchard in disciplinary proceedings of some sort. He was not to know, however, that that was extremely unlikely. As Punchard had hinted, RSMs were a law unto themselves.

‘Of course, Inspector, it might all be an administrative blunder of some sort. I'm sorry to have to say that this sort of thing is happening all the time. They'll probably have turned up at entirely different units, all because a clerk at the Aldershot despatching unit got the number of the respective companies wrong on the movement orders, or sent the signals to the wrong units. If, on the other hand, they'd arrived at the wrong unit, that unit should query why they'd got an officer they weren't expecting.'

‘Does that happen often, sir?' asked Marriott.

‘I'm afraid so, Sergeant Marriott, and more often than not, the receiving unit will hang on to the man, because they're always short of subalterns. And we only get to hear of it months later. To give you but one example, we had a case of an officer who was listed as having failed to report to a unit at Arras when for four months he had been with a different battalion of his regiment with General Hamilton at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles. And a bloody disaster that turned out to be,' he added mournfully. ‘Lost a lot of good men in that fiasco, many of them seasoned Australian troops.'

‘I suppose you wouldn't have the home addresses of these officers, Colonel.' If the information were to hand, it would save Hardcastle awaiting the result of RSM Punchard's promise to find them for him from the records at Aldershot.

Frobisher glanced at his chief clerk. ‘Sergeant Glover?'

‘Yes, we have them, sir. That's normally the first place we'd look for a deserter. I'll have a list prepared.' Glover returned to his office.

‘Would you have any objection to my making enquiries of these officers' families, Colonel?' asked Hardcastle, steering Frobisher back to the present. As a police officer, he had the power to arrest a deserter without resort to the army, and would have made enquiries whether the colonel liked it or not. But he saw no harm in being courteous about it.