SATURDAY–MONDAY
FIFTY-TWO
Watson knew that he had been sedated, but there was little he could do about it. The chemicals had him. He had tried to break out from the stupor, but he felt like a diver trying to rise from the deep, only to find that someone had placed a translucent but impenetrable sheet just beneath the surface of the water. He could make out what was going on – vaguely – but was unable to join in because of this glass ceiling. The effort so exhausted him, he eventually floated back down into the dark depths. At some point he became aware of various people standing over him and struggled to put a name to the rippling features. Sister Spence. Torrance. Mrs Gregson. De Griffon, too. Miss Pippery. Another face joined the throng that he almost recognized, but he couldn’t quite place.
Words drifted through the barrier as well. De Griffon, he heard. Lord Lockie. That poor animal. Gas. On the mention of this he felt his throat close again and he struggled to breathe.
He remembered being on his face in the stall, having fallen to the floor. The stench and attack of the gas was overwhelming. He had held his breath for as long as possible. He had pressed his nose to the floor, pushed through the straw and almost gagged on the smell of urine.
Urine. Ammonia.
In between the stalls were gullies full of the stuff, from both horse and man, great pools of it. He had forsaken all pretence at dignity and soaked his handkerchief in Lord Lockie’s still warm fluids, and placed the cloth over his face, even his eyes. It was disgusting in a different way from the gas, but as far as he knew, nobody ever died from exposure to horse piss.
It had been, at best, a temporary measure and he had no idea how long he had lain there before he had heard the motor bike and the gunshots. When de Griffon had opened the door Watson had herded out the poor, suffering horse ahead of him, as grateful thanks for saving him. Too late for the poor beast, though.
There was one question he needed answering above all others. One he wanted to burst back into real life for. One he had asked Mrs Gregson before his collapse at the CCS, but apparently she had no more of a clue than he.
Who had been under the gas mask?
A delirium took hold. Above the waves that swamped him he could see Staff Nurse Jennings. And Caspar Myles? No, he was nowhere to be seen. Just Staff Nurse Jennings leaning in, her face lit by the smile that reminded him of Mary . . . or was it Emily? No, Mary. The smile playing across her face, so soothing. She said something, but the words came out slow and fat and then floated off, like balloons.
He tried to reply, but he could tell by the vibrations along his own jawbones that the words were ill formed and clumsy. He tried to warn her, about throwing her life away on Caspar, about dishonouring herself.
But where was honour now? The morals he had lived by as a grown man, the rules that had been his waymarks in a journey across three monarchs, had all been blasted apart like the ground of Flanders.
He dreaded to think what fate awaited England after the war. A cleaner, better, stronger land. Did anyone still believe that? It was just one of the stories, the fairy tales we have told ourselves.
Your Country Needs You. It’ll All Be Over by Christmas. God Is on Our Side. The Germans Bayonet Babies and Rape Nuns. The Sun Will Never Set on the British Empire. There Is a Corner of a Foreign Field That Is Forever England. It’s a Long Way To Tipperary.
No, hold on, that last one was true. He tried to laugh, but couldn’t. Did I tell you, Staff Nurse Jennings, that we are friends again? No? Well, I think we are. Holmes, I’m talking about. We’d been through too much to throw it all away on a spat.
My Dear Watson,
I pray this finds you well. I have thought long and hard about what to say in this letter. How to express the anguish I felt, and still feel, at the manner of our parting and the anxiety every time I hear the news from France.
It was a peculiar way to get in touch, but it was perhaps the single most cheering message he had ever received. What would he make of the reply? Would he realize it, too, was a coded message? No great outpourings, just the snippets of a puzzle. It said one thing: forget that silly disagreement. This is business as usual. What do you make of this, Holmes?
The game’s . . . no, the game has changed, transmuted, evolved. Everything had. He just hoped his old friend hadn’t.