The First Casualty (33 page)

When trying to describe it later, Kingsley realized that it was not necessarily bravery or foolhardiness either, but rather a feeling of helpless invulnerability. Fate was in motion, the dice were spinning in the air, he could do no more than trust his luck. And in the meantime to be part of such a body of men, moving for-ward together amid these awesome, cataclysmic forces that made the air and the ground explode with primeval power — it did have its own mad excitement. He felt an intense sense of
being
.

In retrospect, Kingsley was to conclude that this madness did not
replace
the terror but numb it. A tingling numbness, like the helpless exhilaration of a dream. Or perhaps it was simply the concussive sledgehammer of the exploding ordnance that bludgeoned men into becoming momentarily careless of their fate.

Whatever the reason, madness lent Kingsley wings and within a minute or two he had come level with the man he was seeking.

McCroon, like all the soldiers still upright, was moving towards the enemy line with a fag in his mouth and a bayonet-mounted rifle held before him. No shield at all from the German fire.

‘McCroon!’ Kingsley shouted, falling in beside the man. ‘I must speak to you.’

McCroon turned in surprise.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ McCroon shouted back.

‘My name is Marlowe. I am investigating the murder of Captain Abercrombie. It was I who found the evidence that freed your friend Hopkins.’

‘Hopkins!’ McCroon shouted above the din. ‘You want Hopkins?’

‘No, not Hopkins,’ Kingsley roared in reply, ‘it’s you I seek.’

‘Hopkins is here!’

And before Kingsley had time to reply McCroon had pulled at the arm of the man marching beside him, who turned to face them.

And there, beneath the dripping rim of his steel helmet, behind the glowing ember of his fag, was the grim face and staring eyes of the man whom Kingsley had met only once but whose fate was inextricably entwined with his own. The man whose release from military prison Kingsley had brought about just one day earlier. Whom Kingsley’s brave and careful detective work had saved from the firing squad.

And they had sent him straight back into the line.

Even in the midst of battle Kingsley felt the shock of it. Here was a man falsely accused of murder, who had been awoken from a shell-shocked sleep and dragged bodily from his hospital bed to face arrest for a crime of which he knew nothing, who had been held in brutal incarceration in fear of his life — and yet they had not given him even a day to recover from his ordeal. The smile that Hopkins must have smiled on hearing that he was to be released without charge must surely have disappeared instantly from his lips as he learned that he was to proceed directly from prison into battle.

The argument Kingsley heard later went like this: Hopkins had always protested his innocence, and since it turned out that he
was
innocent he must be in a lucid and steady state of mind. Or, to put it another way, not sufficiently shell-shocked to be excused duty. In the midst of this most desperate of battles, with the body of the British Army haemorrhaging men as if from every artery, each extra man who could fight must fight. And so poor, bewildered Private Hopkins had been tossed from the temporary safety of gaol into the fierce heat of battle.

Hopkins turned to see why McCroon had pulled his arm.

Kingsley noted no spark of recognition in his eyes — eyes that, like every man’s in that cauldron of exploding sulphurous mud and smoke, were red and watery. Perhaps Hopkins’s vision was too blurred to see, perhaps a muzzle flash from the German fusillade had momentarily bedazzled him. For whatever reason, he was never to greet again the man who had cleared his name because just as he had turned to look, drawing upon the thin, bent cigarette clamped between his lips, just as the ember glowed hot, he died. He was blown into countless pieces of ‘wet dust’ by a German mortar shell.

Once more Kingsley was coated with the remains of a British soldier, but this time it was the remains of a British soldier
whom he had killed
. Kingsley understood it all in an instant. Even as the man disintegrated in front of him. Even as his suddenly dead flesh splattered into Kingsley’s face, coating his mouth. Even as Kingsley
tasted Hopkins’s blood
, he knew that he had killed the man. For had he not proved successful in his investigation of the murder weapon, had he not retrieved a bullet from the chest of a German cook, had Kingsley never come to France at all but instead refused and returned to prison, facing the fate he had chosen for himself, then Hopkins would still be in his cell. Safe for a few more days at least.

Kingsley had lifted the shadow of the death sentence from this man only to witness a different death sentence being passed upon him instantly.

The guilt and the confusion of these momentary reflections would return to haunt Kingsley many times, but for the moment they were literally blown from his head by a second mortar shell, which briefly concussed both him and McCroon and hurled them together into a shell hole.

It was fortunate indeed that the concussion was brief, for the hole into which they had been flung was at least five feet deep and, like every other indentation upon that blasted plain, was entirely full of water. Kingsley, half drowned when he regained consciousness, spluttered and puked his way to the surface and was then able to reach down and pull up McCroon. He had swallowed even more water than Kingsley and was in a poor way. Kingsley held the man’s head above the water, jammed him against the side of the hole and attempted to revive him with a slap. The moment that Kingsley perceived the signs of returning consciousness in McCroon’s face, he turned once more to the task that had led him into the battle.

‘Tell me about visiting Hopkins on the night Abercrombie died,’ he shouted.

For a moment there was total incomprehension on McCroon’s face.

‘What the fuck…’ he said finally, coughing up the filthy water he had swallowed.

‘Tell me about your visit to Hopkins,’ Kingsley shouted a second time.

McCroon stared at him in amazement.

‘Hopkins is dead, you fucking lunatic. He just
fucking died
, didn’t you see?’

‘What did you hear going on in the ward next door?’

‘This is a battle, you mad bastard! Do you hear me?’

A third voice intruded, loud and commanding. That accent again, the one which ruled the world.

‘You men! I say, you men down there! Attend to me! Are you hurt?’

Kingsley looked round to see an officer standing on the edge of the shell hole staring down at them.

‘You don’t look hurt,’ the officer said. ‘Get out of there this instant, you bloody cowards, and do your duty!’

‘I am a police — ’

The officer levelled his pistol at Kingsley. He was clearly in no mood for a debate and what was left of Kingsley’s military policeman’s uniform was concealed below the surface of the water.

‘This instant, you malingering swine! Advance towards the enemy immediately or I will shoot!’

Kingsley saw the man’s finger whiten on the trigger. He knew that the British service revolver, once cocked, responded to very little pressure.

‘I shall count to three!’ the officer shouted. ‘One…!’

Kingsley could scarcely believe it but he was going to have to rejoin the assault.

‘All right!’ he cried, and began to search about himself for a way to climb out of the hole.

Just then, however, the officer disappeared, or at least his head did. Something had blown it clean off at his shoulders. The headless body stood where it had stood a moment before, the gun still in its hand, and then it toppled forward into the shell hole, splashing down beside Kingsley and sinking beneath the murky surface under the weight of its kit.

Once more Kingsley turned his attention to McCroon.

‘Tell me what you heard the night you made baskets with Hopkins.’

‘
He’s dead
, you lunatic. Don’t you understand? It doesn’t matter. We’re all going to die!’

Kingsley slapped McCroon again across the face, and even in that moment he reflected that this was the first time in his career that he had ever laid a hand on a witness during an interrogation.

‘Just answer my question, Private!’

Kingsley could feel his feet sinking into the mud beneath him. McCroon was also slipping, sliding down the side of the hole against which Kingsley had jammed him. Only their heads were above water and it was becoming a struggle to breathe. Just in time Kingsley found a firmer footing. It was soft but solid, and without much emotion he realized that he must now be standing upon the body of the headless officer.

‘Answer my question!’

McCroon tried to focus his thoughts.

‘There was a row. Next door, Abercrombie and another officer. That’s all I know.’

‘You have spoken before of having sighted an officer in the corridor when you visited the water closets. When was that?’

‘I don’t know,’ I don’t have a watch. It was on my way back to my own ward from Hopkins’s.’

‘On your way back? That was before Nurse Murray had finished in the ward then?’

‘She’d only just started…Look, what does it matter, you fucking fool!’

‘It definitely matters. Are you sure?’ Kingsley shouted. ‘Think, man, think.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. She’d only just come in.’

‘Describe the officer you sighted.’

‘I only saw him from behind. He pushed past me.’

‘Describe exactly what you saw.’

‘He was an officer! You’re all the same, all cunts!’

‘Describe what you saw!’

Suddenly Kingsley had the man by the throat. McCroon responded to the threat.

‘He had a sort of briefcase! Not a big one, a soft, thin little one.

‘A music case?’

Kingsley knew that this was leading the witness but the circumstances were peculiarly urgent.

‘Was it a music case?’

‘I don’t know what the fuck a music case is. It was an old, thin little brown leather case. That’s all I know.’

Just then an enormous piece of ordnance exploded overhead. The battle was showing no signs of abating and Kingsley decided he had probably got as much from the witness as he could. He had discovered something new and highly significant:

McCroon had left Hopkins’s ward
before
Kitty Murray had done so.

Kingsley let go of his witness’s throat so that the man briefly slipped below the water. He instantly emerged, spluttering.

‘Good bye, McCroon, and good luck,’ Kingsley said. ‘What?’ the man replied, as bewildered at the sudden ending of their acquaintance as he had been at its beginning.

‘I said good luck,’ and with that Kingsley scrambled and slithered his way up over the lip of the shell hole, facing back towards the British line.

There were more and more Tommies rising up out of the trench from which Kingsley had himself emerged a few minutes earlier and it was eerie to see so many of them fall the moment they reached the surface. Kingsley had been fortunate indeed to get as far as he had done. Now he had to get back.

He put his head down, held up his warrant card and ran. This was not his battle; he had merely visited it. He had a case to solve and the rest of the puzzle lay elsewhere. Fortunately for him, the water in the shell hole had washed a great deal of the mud and gore from his uniform and so his red police tabs were visible once more.

‘Police! Police!’ he shouted as he scrambled through the oncoming men.

Perhaps they heard him, perhaps they saw his warrant card. Either way they did not shoot or bayonet him and he made it back to the line from which the British had begun their assault. For a moment he crouched on the edge of the trench as men pushed past him, moving up into the battle. He could not resist turning back to take one final look at the scene.

The dead were piled high right across the sea of mud, but the first of the British assault had arrived at the German trenches. He could see them struggling to pass the wire, which the bombardment had failed to destroy entirely, and the German machine-gunners were pumping lead into them at point-blank range. The Germans were suffering heavily too. In order to gain a field of fire their gunners must needs expose themselves, and they were continually being shot from their seats. Another gunner would leap up instantly to take his place. Both sides were fighting like cornered wild animals. Kingsley had never seen such blind courage and on such a scale. It was an awe-inspiring sight.

Just then he saw McCroon. In the grey light he was raising himself from the shell hole. He had his back to Kingsley and was facing the enemy, clearly intent on rejoining the battle. He had had some time to catch his breath and had no doubt reflected that, being unharmed, he must fight on or risk being shot later for cowardice. He hauled his trunk above the lip and, struggling to bring a leg over, managed to extricate himself from the hole. Then, taking up the rifle of his fallen comrade Hopkins, he advanced once more towards the German guns.