THIRTY-FOUR
The sky apparently had no more moisture left to give and by early afternoon the clouds had thinned, leaving the landscape glistening and dripping. Watson and Brindle had moved the body of Shipobottom to one of the cellars in the monastery, using a wheeled stretcher, and Watson sent a disingenuous message to Torrance to say that the corpse had, indeed, been disposed of. The vaulted subterranean room was chill enough that decomposition should be delayed for a while.
Watson then spent twenty frustrating minutes talking to Miss Pippery, who appeared to have lost her conception of time thanks to her witnessing the traumatizing manner of Shipobottom’s death. However, it gave him a rough idea of how the sergeant’s last day had progressed. There was one thing to eliminate, however: the possibility that someone had poisoned him before he received the transfusion, as the blue flecks in his eye suggested. And something else to consider: a motive for murdering Sergeant Shipobottom.
He borrowed a bicycle from one of the orderlies and set off for Suffolk Farm. It was hard pedalling. The access lane from the CCS was a quagmire and had been laid with boards for the ambulances, but these had become slick and slippery, so it was a very unsteady Watson who reached the main road and turned left.
A low sun was worrying the clouds and he soon began to feel warm beneath his tunic and Aquascutum. There was plenty of traffic and he passed three lorry parks, which acted as marshalling areas, sending the trucks out over the whole of the Ypres area, transporting men and materials to near the front, where they would take the final journey under cover of darkness. But horses were still the backbone of any local transport, as testified by the frequent mounds of dung he did his best to skirt.
He passed a field of pack mules, no doubt turned out for some well-earned rest, and beyond them the ruin of what had once been a fortified manor house. Freed from their burdens, the animals stood around as if dazed, and unsure what to do without hundredweights of supplies ruining their backs. Each had a number shaved in its side. Mules were rarely even given names, having a less noble reputation than their equine cousins.
Watson was aware of eyes upon him, and he could see that, atop an intact tower of the wrecked manor house, two soldiers stood, surveying the countryside. Each held a Lee Enfield at the ready.
He heard Suffolk Farm before he saw it. There was the sound of singing and whistling coming across the hedgerows of the lane that led down to it. He recognized the chorus:
Poverty, poverty knock, my loom it is saying all day.
Poverty, poverty knock, gaffer’s too skinny to pay.
Poverty, poverty knock, always one eye on the clock.
I know I can guttle when I hear me shuttle
Go poverty, poverty knock.
It was one of the mill songs, carried on air that was full of the smells of the countryside after the rain: wet soil, manure and straw, coupled with the odour of livestock and the distinctive aroma of unwashed soldiers. Watson was definitely in the right place. He followed the scent into the farm.
The redbrick farmhouse itself had been sideswiped by the war, with part of its roof gone, replaced by a tarpaulin. As it gusted in the wind it showed a ribcage of roof beams. There were two substantial stone barns, roof tiles remarkably still in place, which, together with the main house, took up three sides of the cobbled courtyard, with a circular stone well occupying the centre of the square.
The forty or so men of the No. 9 Platoon of Company A of the Leigh Pals, a volunteer group of Kitchener’s New Army, now part of the 25th (Service) Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, were gathered around this water point, most of them at least partially naked, clumped together to draw what heat they could from the feeble sunshine. Those who were standing had the habitual stoop that told the astute observer that they had just come from the trench system; it took at least a day for some to appreciate that they could stand at full height without risking a bullet to the head.
As they sang, they were picking at their uniforms, squeezing and cracking and generally taking delight in getting some degree of revenge on their tormenters. Somehow they found time for a game of nap or a singsong on the side as they bent to the task of delousing.
‘Look at the size of this f*cker!’ someone shouted before they noticed they had an officer in their midst. One by one, the men began to shuffle to their feet, a mass of pale flesh on the move that reminded Watson of a huge, multifaceted slug stirring.
‘At ease!’ he yelled. ‘For God’s sake, as you were, men.’
‘Major Watson,’ someone shouted in greeting. ‘What you doin’ in this godforsaken hole, sir?’
‘I’m with the CCS just down the road. Where they sent Sergeant Shipobottom. Now, I’m sure you know he fell ill from an infection and, sadly, died. I’d like to have a word with those he was closest to.’
Watson laid down the bike against the wall and turned back to them. Most of them went on with their flecking for lice. ‘Don’t leave ’im standing there like cheese at fourpence,’ said one big lad, pulling on his trousers. ‘It’s Platt, sir. Corporal Platt as was. I got me three stripes now. Platoon Sergeant.’
Watson remembered Platt. It would be difficult to forget someone of that bulk, in the same way Shipobottom’s nose had made an indelible impression on him.
‘Congratulations, Sergeant,’ he said, trying to sound enthusiastic rather than perplexed. Platt was a big, happy lummox of a lad, strong and, he would imagine, fiercely loyal, but Watson wasn’t sure he was NCO material.
‘You want a brew, Major?’
‘No, I’m quite all right for the moment.’
Platt walked across, putting his ham-sized arms in his tunic as he came. ‘Sorry about the state we in. We’s expectin’ a wheeliewasher.’
These were the mobile bathhouses the Red Cross and FANY nurses operated for men in reserve. The soldiers were delousing in anticipation of a hot shower or bath and perhaps some new underwear if they were lucky.
Watson looked at the grey, goose-fleshed skin before him and said: ‘You must all be freezing.’
The young man laughed. ‘Nah, thy just a soft southerner, Major.’
Watson stepped forward and peered closely at two of the men’s torsos. ‘You two. Report to the Regimental MO once you’ve had your bath. Show him those rashes.’
‘Yessir,’ they both muttered, and lifted their arms to allow him to inspect the angry, inflamed skin.
‘It’s scabies,’ Watson said. It would mean a week of sulphur-and-lard poultices. He turned back to the sergeant. ‘As I said, I’m here about Shipobottom.’
Platt nodded, his moon-face set to grim. ‘Aye, bad news, bad news. He was well liked, was Shippy.’
‘I would imagine. No enemies?’
‘Enemies?’ Platt laughed. ‘Sergeants always have enemies. The grumblers, like. Why d’you ask?’
Watson ignored the question, along with the growing suspicion on Platt’s face. ‘And friends? As much as a sergeant can have friends?’
‘Private Farrar over there from back ’ome. Same mill. Oy, Albert, get yer keks on and come here. Mason, you too. And there’s a lad called Hornby, who was in C Company. He died too. Gassed.’
‘And what about Captain de Griffon? How did they get on?’
‘Well, at first we all thought he was a bit of a barra-offchilt.’ A Baron Rothschild. ‘But he’s awright, he is.’
‘And Lieutenant Metcalf?’
‘Well, now that one . . .’ He stopped himself.
‘Come on Platt, it could be important.’ Metcalf, the man who had been hanging around the CCS to badger nurses to come to a dance. Or was that the only motive?
‘Well, it’s just he’s really one of us. Howard over there went t’school with him. Before Metcalf went off to Manchester, like, to get all poshed up. Now he sometimes treats us like summit he stepped in. He’s forgotten where he came from, that one.’
‘And where is he now?’
Platt pointed to the farmhouse. ‘Officers’ billet. Along with the captain. They’se got their own baths, lucky buggers.’ He lowered his voice and stepped in towards Watson. ‘Some was sayin’ that Shippy was killed in the hospital, Major. In your care, they say. I said, that’s all my eye and Peggy Martin.’
Nonsense, in other words. ‘Thank you for your faith, Sergeant.’
‘But I’m not liking your questions here, sir. About Shippy.’
‘It’s just routine, Sergeant. Just routine,’ Watson said, using the anodyne phrase he had heard the Scotland Yarders mutter countless times. ‘We need to establish the exact cause of the affliction that killed him. What we doctors call Epidemiology.’ It felt underhand throwing out high-handed scientific terms designed to bamboozle, but he didn’t want the sergeant pursuing the matter. As he expected, the man furrowed his brow.
‘Is that right?’
‘It’s so we can prevent a reoccurrence. We need to establish the syndemic.’
‘In case it’s like typhoid or some such?’
‘Precisely. Now, if I can have a quiet word with these two—’
He was interrupted by the put-put of a motor bike coming down the lane and turning into the farmyard. It was Mrs Gregson, her Dunhill outfit splattered with mud from her ride. She skidded to a halt and took off her goggles.
‘Major Watson,’ she said breathlessly. ‘The other victim.’
A ripple had gone through the men when they realized it was a woman. Some covered themselves up. Others stood, thinking this signalled the arrival of the portable bathhouse.
‘Hornby. From the Leigh Pals. It’s the same regiment. This regiment.’
‘Victim?’ asked Platt. ‘What does she mean? Victim? Is it catchin’ then?’
‘No. It’s simply a figure of speech,’ said Watson, not wanting to alarm the men. Some, though, had moved closer, sensing a change in the atmosphere.
‘The deceased,’ Mrs Gregson corrected, ‘was from the Leigh Pals.’
‘You’re certain?’ Watson asked her.
Mrs Gregson took out one of the torn fragments of Hornby’s medical records and passed it to Watson.
Two Leigh Pals gone. Were there other, unknown victims from the same unit? ‘I think, then, we need a word with Captain de Griffon and Lieutenant Metcalf.’
Just then, the door to the farmhouse flew open. Cecil, the dog, exited into the courtyard, yapping in alarm. Metcalf stood there, his eyes wide with shock. His jaw worked but the words jammed in his throat. ‘Come quick,’ he managed to yell at last. ‘It’s—’
But before he could say any more, Captain de Griffon pushed him aside and staggered onto the cobbles. His face bore the most terrible of expressions and, as he fell to the floor, his body began to convulse with a violent fit that took hold and refused to let go.