EIGHTEEN
Caspar Myles had an hour to himself following luncheon and, after picking at an indifferent stew, he returned to his cell. There he stripped off to his undergarments and washed himself in cold water, before selecting a fresh outfit and bundling up his morning clothes for the laundry. He always tipped the local women who did the washing very well, and he could be sure his dirty linen always received special treatment and would be returned, starched and pressed.
Before he placed the discarded items outside his door, he checked the pockets and came out with the note from Watson. The one about clearing the air. Well, perhaps the old man wasn’t so bad after all. And equally, maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so forthright with an Englishman. They liked everything codified, it seemed. Beating about the bush was their national pastime.
He sat on the bed, suddenly weary. He missed his fellow countrymen, the lightness of the conversation, the shared references, the sports and the gossip. Even a man like Watson, someone with a little celebrity to illuminate his life, seemed unable to enjoy it, to revel in his status as an author of some fame. Where was the spirit of Empire? This war must have crushed it out of the entire race.
Perhaps that was why he was finding the women even less open and less carefree than he had grown accustomed to in Boston and, especially, on the voyage over, when excitement and fear had loosened some stays. There had been scandalously close dancing, walks around the decks under the stars, hasty kisses in shadowy corners between the lifeboats, even hushed, giggly cabin visits. He thought the febrile atmosphere had boded well for his time in Europe.
Everyone had told him – and even the newspapers complained – that British women had become ‘loose’ thanks to the war. God only knew how tightly buttoned they must have been before the conflict. He was surprised they could draw breath. Yet here he was, months in the field, and only the local girls on offer. And he didn’t want to end up being rubbed down with ointment of mercury like that snivelling Lieutenant Marsden.
And what about little Staff Nurse Jennings? How could he explain her sudden blossoming? She had been immune to Myles’s charms, both physical and verbal, for weeks and he had assumed she was simply one of those girls who had no interest in any man unless he was a suitor approved by daddy. And then along comes this relic of the penny dreadfuls and there are the signs he had been hoping to elicit – the pink bloom high on the cheeks, the fluttering of eyes, the shy smile. Perhaps it was to do with celebrity, but it was entirely likely Jennings had not connected the ageing, unassuming major – who had clearly been handsome in his youth, although that was sometime past – with the biographer of the great Sherlock Holmes. Yet something had got her all aflutter.
Myles knew he had to be very, very careful. He remembered the last time he had been sweet on a girl and failed to act until the last moment. The delay had been disastrous. He still recalled the screams from the nurse as they filled his ears. ‘No, Doctor, no! Stop! Now! Please!’ And the pounding of blood in his head that drove him on and on and on until . . . until the squeals had turned to sobs and Jackson and Everett had burst in and stood there, horrified at what he had done.
Quite how Cotterall had managed to keep a lid on what could have been an almighty stink was beyond him, but the man was the issue of a long line of politicians and diplomats and he used all his hereditary guile – and no doubt connections back home – to make sure the All-Harvard Volunteers was not disgraced before its work had begun. Banishment was the price Myles paid. Exile among the slovenly, melancholic, primitive British. Now he had no country and no friends of his own kind to call upon.
Myles looked down at his hands. His fingernails had dug deep into his palms. The misshapen knuckles of his right hand were white. There were flecks of blood at the fleshy base of his thumb. He slowly uncurled them, and they straightened more like talons than fingers.
He mustn’t wait so long to strike this time.
The thought of action gave him a fresh burst of energy. Myles pulled on a clean pair of trousers, hoisted up the suspenders and went down onto his knees. From beneath the rough bed he pulled out a mahogany box, placed it on the mattress and unclipped it. He pushed back the lid and enjoyed the metallic tang of gun oil as it filled his nostrils.