Blackest of Lies (22 page)

Anne looked slightly sick at the thought and placed the remains of her sandwich carefully down on its wrapper, perched on top of a nearby trunk.  “Don’t tell me any more about that, please.”

“He was a very helpful chap,” said Hubert, stoutly. “
Great
marker in the dark; we became quite fond of him.”

“That image is going to stay with me for a long time, so
enough
of it, please!  What did you do when you reached the wire?”

“We’d go over the top into the next trench, which was occupied by the Hun.  The idea was to dispose of any guards who were ill-advised enough to have remained awake, grab the nearest non-commissioned officer and then drag him home for tea and questions.  We did that many a time.”

“And then?”

Hubert laid his head back against a brass-banded steamer trunk.  “And then the Hun went and spoiled it all.”  He took a gulp of the tea Anne had brought and continued.  “In April of last year, my unit was near St Julien – April 22
nd
it was – taking charge of a sector about 5000 yards long.  We were ordered forward, sandwiched in between the French on our left and the Brits on the right, when suddenly we had to duck a bit because of a German bombardment.  I jumped into one of the Hun trenches with my lads, ready for a bit of mayhem when everything seemed to go quiet.  There was no more shouting and screaming – only this ... deafening silence.”  He shook his head, still amazed.  “It was so
sudden
.”

Absent-mindedly, Anne rubbed away the goose pimples on her arms.  “Was that the gas?”

Hubert nodded.  “It was in the shells they had just dropped on us.  At first, we thought the Hun were advancing behind a cover of smoke but then the trench began filling up with this greenish fog.  It sort of sinks to the bottom of things like a cold mist and
insinuates
itself everywhere.”  He closed his eyes against the memory.  “And then my lads started coughing and retching.  Most of them managed to jump back out but the Hun attacked in real force.  They had their tails up, I can tell you.  They knew we couldn’t argue with chlorine.”

“Why didn’t you get away with your men?”

Hubert ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled, the memory jabbing at his conscious thought.  “You don’t know what Ypres is like.  The water table is pretty high there – not far below the surface – and with all the rain, the shelling and heavy transport, the whole country is one big glutinous bog.  It’s like thick, sticky glue.  So, with that, and then probably the previous impact of the shells, the walls of the trench suddenly slid in on me.  I was turned over and over and eventually trapped.”

“You poor thing,” she whispered.

“It was not,” he smiled sadly, “my favourite day.  But here’s a thing – being sucked in to that trench probably saved my life.  It’s right what they say about clouds and silver linings.  My lads who got out were mown down to a man by the Germans.  They machine-gunned all those boys who were staggering about, gasping for air.”  He turned to look steadily at her.  “And you ask me why I’m still in uniform.”

“I didn’t know.  Of course, I didn’t know.”

Hubert was immediately contrite and reached out to brush her arm.  “How could you?  How can anyone who wasn’t there?  But that’s why I’d give
my
last, gasping breath to shoot the swine or bring us even one step closer to winning this thing.”

“How did they find you?”

“It took a while.  The Germans mounted quite a push and all our lot had to move back.  It left a wide open door at the Salient but, of course, the Hun couldn’t take advantage of it immediately because they would have had to breathe in the gas, too – the big problem with that sort of weapon.  We recovered much of the ground later and that’s when a lad from the Queen Victoria Rifles found me.  I was half submerged upside-down in pretty solid mud but, luckily, my head had found the opening to one of the living areas below ground or I would have suffocated.  The mud probably helped me not to breathe in any more gas, too.  It’s got an odd smell like pineapple and pepper mixed together. Did you know that?”

Anne shook her head.

“So I ended up in the CCS at Poperinghe – ‘Pops’ to you and me – it’s only a few miles from Ypres.  I remember that day so clearly – coughing and gasping for air.  My lungs were burning yet they felt as though they had been filled with water – you know, like when you take a drink but breathe it down the wrong way?”

She nodded mutely, mouth slightly open.

“There were quite a few like me in that room.  Sure, many others had the usual wounds but all I can remember is the sound of those men gasping like landed fish.  The docs hadn’t a clue how to treat them – it was all so new.  I was there for two days and, one by one, those poor lads just … just drowned.”

“How ... how could they
drown
?  I don’t understand.”

“That’s what it’s called – ‘dry land drowning’.  The lungs just fill up with fluid.  There’s nothing that can be done.  There was a man next to me, a trooper from the Royal Canadian Dragoons, a big strong lad.  My abiding memory of him was his lips – they had gone a sort of plum colour.  There wasn’t a mark on him but he’d been gassed badly.  I remember him saying over and over again to the staff, ‘
I can’t die, I can’t die – is there nothing you can do for me?
’  He was the first to go.”

Anne was moved by the suffering he had gone through and desperately wanted to offer words of sympathy and comfort but … what to say?  His world had been so far beyond anything she had ever experienced, thank God. To all intents and purposes, he was a different species of Man.  He might look like all the other boys she had known before the War but somehow he and his kind had been set apart by the horrors of the Trenches.  And yet – somehow – he still showed these flashes of childish humour and, yes,
impertinence
.  How could anyone retain the slightest vestige of what he once was after all that?  But he did. 

She shook her head slowly.  “What can I say?”

He smiled and shook his head in reply.  “Anyway, they shipped me back to Blighty and I ended up at the hospital at Netley.  Do you know it?”

“It’s near Southampton, isn’t it?”

“That’s right – not far from the port of entry – and that’s where I first cast eyes on our Henry.”

She beamed a damp smile.  “You think a lot of him, don’t you?”

“The man’s a saint – a clumsy one, I grant you – but saint he is.  When he goes through the Pearly Gates, my bet is that he rips his tunic on it but he’s the man who put me back together.”

**********

“You mean that Casement’s supporters are trying to brand His Lordship ...
homosexual
?”  O’Beirne was disgusted.  As an Irishman himself, the very idea of an Irish Knight of the Realm rebelling against the Crown was unthinkable.  Casement was beyond the pale as far as he was concerned.  Killing Kitchener was one thing but this ...  “How do you know this?”

Duquesne had his part to play, as dictated by ‘Colonel Datchett’ at their Paddington meeting, and he dealt the hand deftly.  He glanced around the room like a spy from a novel before leaning close to O’Beirne.  “You understand that this must go no further,” he murmured.  O’Beirne nodded a shocked assent.  “There is a Turkish Baths establishment in London where people of that persuasion go.  Known associates of Trebitsch Lincoln were seen to enter it and part of their conversation was overheard.  From then on, they were followed and they led us to others.  Their general idea, apparently, was to put together a dossier that described places and dates Lord Kitchener had visited. Later, a fictitious thread of ‘activities’ would be woven, making it particularly hard to disprove – especially after his death.”

“His
death
!  What on earth do you mean?”

“Once the dossier was complete, His Lordship’s death would have been engineered.  It’s very hard to deny the facts when you are no longer living and, of course, one cannot libel the dead.”

“This is despicable!  And what is your role to be in preventing all of this?”

Duquesne began reeling him in gently – people
so
liked to feel that they were ‘in the know’.  “I need to be as close to His Lordship’s group as possible during the voyage.  I particularly need to see his cabin to ensure there is nothing in there he wouldn’t like.  The Navy will do their best to keep him from harm but, frankly, they have no idea of this sort of work.”

“I do so despise this sort of ‘Le Queux’ stuff.  It is so underhand.”

“But necessary, sir.  The enemy have their people everywhere.”

“I pray to God that unnatural traitor, Roger Casement, gets his just deserts.”

**********

Farmer had asked, yet again, his opinion of Hubert’s non-appearance at the station and Fitzgerald, remarkably composed, could only restate his earlier thoughts but it was becoming increasingly clear that something had detained Hubert against his will.  It had the worrisome smell of MI5 all over it.  

He bent his head to resume the letter he had been composing to his family.  ‘
If I do not return with my friend, you may be sure that foul play has probably been the means of our not doing so, but I hope for the best.
’  He’d post it in Thurso.  Looking over at Farmer, the vulnerability of the other man was clear to see – frightened, not of physical danger, but of letting Kitchener down.  “Let’s go over tomorrow’s programme of events, Henry.  Have you read the Admiralty’s preliminary report of the Jutland business?  I have a copy here, if you need it.”

“No, I
have
seen it – turgid stuff and a very unsatisfactory ending.”

“I have to agree but Jellicoe will want to discuss it all and probably Beatty’s views on the shells we were using, into the bargain.”

“Ah, yes.  Chris mentioned something about that the other day.  So what was the problem, exactly?”

”We were apparently hitting targets but doing no real damage.”

“The shells weren’t exploding?”

“No, in fact they made very loud bangs.  The problem is that they are meant to be armour-piercing.  The explosive is not meant to detonate until the fuse sets it off
after
the shell has penetrated the armour –
inside
the ship, in other words.”

“And …”

“And it seems that the explosive the Royal Navy uses …” He flipped a page in the report, “... ‘Liddite’ is being set off by the shock of impact itself – the shell is detonating on the
outside
of the target.  Apparently some very poorly armoured ships got away after direct hits from our fifteen inch guns.  On the other hand, the German High Seas Fleet is using TNT that has no such problem.  Beatty estimates that we could have sent another six enemy ships to the bottom of the North Sea if we had been using it.  But what is worse is that the Admiralty have known about this problem for some time. In fact, Jellicoe himself tried to do something about it fairly recently but when he was made Admiral of the Fleet, the matter was quietly dropped by those who succeeded him.”

“Well that’s something useful I might do.  I can get that back onto Jellicoe’s agenda.  Failing to reach a decisive victory simply because of poor quality materials is unforgiveable.”

“Absolutely, but we
were
hampered by other issues, too.”

“Such as?”

“The Germans made use of a great deal of smoke during the battle and, half the time, neither Jellicoe nor Beatty had any idea where the enemy was, despite many of our ships maintaining contact with the enemy.  Jellicoe’s battle plan clearly called upon all Captains to keep the Admiral abreast of the enemy’s movements using
radio
but it appears that too many of our senior officers felt more comfortable using ‘tried and tested’ methods like semaphore.  To be honest, it seems to me that it’s a bit pointless flapping a few flags if you’re enveloped in black, oily smoke.  Quite simply, they are failing to move with the times.”  He looked up from the paper and smiled, “But, of course, I am no sailor.”

“So Liddite and Luddite?”

For the very first time in their acquaintance, Fitzgerald gave a crack of laughter.  “Very good!  Put it like that to Jellicoe.  He’ll enjoy it.”

“After a quick meal on the
Iron Duke
, what then?”

“They’ll have brought the
Hampshire
close to the flagship, so a quick trip across will see us on board and we can get you settled in after the usual handshakes all round.”  He shifted uncomfortably, “There
is
one thing, though, and I hesitate to bring it up …”

Farmer groaned.  “Let me know the worst, Oswald.”

“Well, I feel that they could have used any number of ships other than the
Hampshire
– more modern, faster and
definitely
better armoured.  I’m puzzled as to why the life of the Secretary of State for War should be entrusted to a ship nearing the end of her useful life.”

**********

“And now they’re going to kill Henry and blame it on the Hun,” whispered Anne.  “Kitchener is already dead but everyone will think he died on the
Hampshire
.  Blackest of lies, indeed!”