The Furies (9 page)

One week?
Gabriel heard the mutterings and saw the quizzical looks that told him he was not the only officer in the room to think it overly optimistic – indeed, absurd – to expect an army of reservists to be ready so soon. But Potiorek did not appear to sense this disquiet as he continued his briefing, glancing down at General Appel, the commander of the 6
^th
Army, who was sitting in the front row.

‘The attack will begin with the 6
^th
Army, who will move out of Sarajevo, ford the lower Drina river and cross the western Serbian mountains, heading towards the strategically critical town of Kragujevac, which houses Serbia's military arsenal.'

Potiorek glanced down at two officers sitting beside General Appel, and Gabriel saw from the insignia on their shoulders that they were the commanding generals in charge of the 2
^nd
and 5
^th
Armies. ‘But the shortest route into Serbia is from the north,' Potiorek continued.' The 5
^th
Army will cross the upper Drina into northern Serbia, while the 2
^nd
Army on the left flank will cross the Danube and take Belgrade. Then the 5
^th
and 2
^nd
will link up and thrust further south, towards Kragujevac. Thus the 6
^th
Army coming from the west, and the 5
^th
and 2
^nd
coming from the north, will act as two arms of a pincer and trap the Serbian forces near Kragujevac, where they will be forced to surrender, or be destroyed. If all goes according to plan, the war should be over by the end of the following week, the 14
^th
of August.'

Gabriel heard more muttered whispers and saw heads turn together as the assembled officers looked at each other with disquiet. He was no expert on military strategy, but even Gabriel could see that the plan was very ambitious; an advance through difficult terrain on an unrealistically short timetable, against a tough, battle-tested opposition. He was surprised that nobody had objected to the strategy, but then saw the commanding general of the 5
^th
raise an arm.

‘With respect, Field Marshall, although the northern approach is mostly flat terrain, there is the problem of the Cer heights: the enemy have fortified it with artillery. From this vantage, the Serbs can direct ordinance on our troops below. Would it not be more sensible to first bombard the heights and neutralise their cannon—'

‘A bombardment will take too much time,' Potiorek said, cutting through his words. ‘A frontal assault on the Cer heights is faster, more direct. It is important you capture it quickly, because the 2
^nd
Army is needed against the Russian threat and will be transferred to the Galician front on the 15
^th
of August.'

The general's face turned the colour of curdled milk. ‘But, Field Marshall, that will leave my 5
^th
Army alone—'

‘I believe,' Potiorek said, again overriding his reply, ‘that two armies should be more than enough to defeat the Serbs.'

This is madness, thought Gabriel. That would leave only the 5
^th
Army in the north and the 6
^th
Army in the east. He had read somewhere that an attacking force needed a two-to-one advantage in numbers in order to ensure victory over the defenders. Yet without the 2
^nd
Army the Austrians would be fielding fewer soldiers than the Serbs.

‘Casualties will be high,' General Appel said.

‘Sacrifices will have to be made,' Potiorek replied. ‘The empire assumes it. The emperor expects it.'

But the General did not reply as Potiorek continued. ‘I believe that the Austrian soldier, led by the Austrian officer, can overcome any challenge.' He took a deep breath and puffed his chest out. ‘And it is the emperor's birthday on the 18
^th
of August, so I would like to present his highness the birthday gift of victory over Serbia by that day.'

Silence hung heavily in the hot and humid atmosphere of the room. Someone coughed; no one spoke. Potiorek scanned the room for dissenters, but there were none. The commanding generals sitting in the front row stared unhappily at the map, while other officers – their heads inclined – continued to whisper to each other. Gabriel was thinking about the difficulties of moving wounded men in the mountainous terrain when Potiorek spoke again. It seemed to Gabriel that at last, he may have picked up the undercurrent of unrest in the room.

‘You must have confidence in my plan, gentlemen, because I believe it is my destiny to defeat the Serbs.' He paused before continuing. ‘The assassin at Sarajevo said he was aiming at me. Yet from a distance of only three yards he missed, and his bullets fatally wounded the Archduke and his wife.' He paused again. ‘There can be no other explanation, gentlemen: I was spared by God,' he lifted his gaze from the men below him and spread his arms wide, ‘because my purpose, my calling, is to lead the Austrian army to victory over the Serbs.'

Dear Lord, thought Gabriel, did he really just say that? In the momentary silence that followed, Gabriel heard only the blood pumping through the arteries in his own head. He glanced at the faces of others in the room, and saw from their expressions that many were thinking the same as him. Potiorek seemed like a man possessed as he stood on the podium, a look of almost religious fervour still on his face as he lowered his arms and dropped his gaze to the ranks of men sitting below him. Princip's bullets may have physically missed Potiorek, thought Gabriel, but psychologically they had struck him hard.

‘One final point,' Potiorek continued. ‘This war will take us into a country that has a fanatical hatred towards Austria, a country where murder – as the catastrophe of Sarajevo has proved – is glorified as heroism. Towards such a country, all humanity and kindness of heart are out of place and might even endanger our troops. Thus, no consideration or mercy should be extended to the population. This instruction will be issued in the general orders to all our troops.'

An order to show no mercy or consideration to the civilian population?
Gabriel had never heard of such a thing. A feeling of dismay rose from the pit of his stomach as Potiorek asked if there were any questions. Just as Gabriel was about to raise his arm, he saw the chief – sitting two rows ahead – stand up.

‘Just for clarification, Field Marshall,' said the chief. ‘When you say “population”; you mean the civilian population?'

Potiorek looked annoyed for a moment, as if being asked to repeat himself was a waste of his time. Then his face relaxed. ‘It may appear harsh, but I must consider the safety of our troops. So to clarify: that order applies to both military and civilian personnel. Am I understood?'

The chief looked about to say something, but then seemed to think the better of it; he nodded and sat down. Gabriel heard the shuffle of feet, some throat clearing from others in the room, but no words. He reached up and loosened his collar as he was, by now, perspiring quite heavily.

Potiorek scanned the room. ‘Any other questions?'

He was met by silence.

‘No? Excellent.' Potiorek lifted his chin and pulled his shoulders back. ‘One last point, gentlemen: the emperor wants every man to do his duty and expects sacrifices to be made. Make sure you and your men do not forget this.' Then he nodded towards Merizzi, who called the room to attention, and the synchronous clatter of clicking heels sounded as everyone in the room stood up. Potiorek stepped down from the podium and left the room, Merizzi close behind him.

As the other officers followed the two men out, the chief walked across to Gabriel. ‘My God,' he whispered. ‘The man's mad or a fool. We'd better get back to the hospital. There are a lot of preparations to make, and not much time to make them in.'

‘We have to shoot McCarthy.'

Anya's unexpected words hung in the heavy evening air above the small kitchen table. It had been another blistering day, and even in the shady kitchen at the back of the terraced house where Vera lodged, it was still oppressively hot. But Elspeth felt cold with shock as she stared across the table at Anya, the other woman's eyes shaded by the red beret slung low over her forehead. Vera, sitting beside Anya, appeared ill at ease as she shifted in her chair and avoided Elspeth's gaze.

‘Did you just say we should shoot Inspector McCarthy?' Elspeth asked incredulously.

Anya folded her arms and leant back in the chair. ‘Yes.'

My God, Elspeth thought; she's serious. She glanced at Sylvia sitting beside her – saw her lips parted in surprise – then turned back to Anya. ‘But this is madness. The arson strategy is directed against the property of the government and monarchy, nothing more. That's why I was prepared to plant the bomb on the Coronation Chair. What you're proposing…shooting someone…goes against everything the WSPU stands for.'

‘McCarthy is the enemy,' Anya said, very matter-of-fact.

‘You're talking about shooting a policeman…' said Elspeth. But she fell silent when she saw the watery sheen that appeared in Anya's eyes.

‘He killed Grace,' Anya muttered, then dipped her head so that her face was obscured below the beret. A wet smudge suddenly flowered on the dry pine surface of the table below Anya's head as a teardrop fell from her eyes. Vera leaned towards her and stretched a comforting arm around her shoulders, but Anya ignored her, merely wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. She sniffed once and then looked up at Elspeth again.

‘Do not forget that women have died,' Anya said, her voice thick with grief. ‘I saw Grace after a feed…' she shook her head as if to erase the memory, ‘…it should be a doctor to put the feeding tube in stomach, but the prison guards do it. They treat women like animals and pushed the tube into her lung. And then they push feed down the tube…'

She closed her eyes for a moment; then opened them again. ‘McCarthy is Special Branch, Ellie. He is head of suffragette section. His agents watch our meetings. He saw you and Sylvia outside the Abbey and recognised you at Holland Park. If it was not for Vera, you would be in prison by now.'

‘But you can't just go around shooting people, Anya,' Sylvia said, indignation in her voice.

‘McCarthy is responsible for all suffragette arrests,' Anya replied. ‘If we shoot him, we send a message that women cannot be treated like slaves.'

‘This is ridiculous,' Elspeth said. ‘You don't even have a gun.'

Anya suddenly stood up, lifted the hem of her skirt, and slipped a hand beneath the garment. When, a moment later, her hand reappeared it was holding a metallic object. And it took Elspeth only a second to register that the object was a pistol, the word ‘Browning' stamped in the grey gunmetal. She gasped at the same time as Sylvia stood up, her chair skittering backwards as she stepped away from the table in shock.

Anya calmly placed the pistol on the table, the hilt towards Elspeth. ‘Don't worry, Ellie. It is not loaded.'

‘Where did you get it from?' Elspeth whispered, stunned at the pistol's appearance.

‘If we want to be treated equal, then we must be prepared to fight,' Anya calmly replied.

‘This is madness,' Sylvia said, leaning against the wall of the kitchen, arms folded defensively across her chest.

A frown appeared on Anya's brow. ‘I am surprised, Sylvie. I thought you would understand this.'

‘Well, you don't know me very well then, do you,' Sylvia replied stridently. ‘I could never envisage such a thing.'

‘And neither could I,' Elspeth said, hearing the shock in her voice. ‘Again: where did you get it from?'

Anya glanced at Vera before looking back at Elspeth. ‘From someone I met at the gun range in Tottenham Court Road, where Vera and I have been practising.'

Vera
? Elspeth, shocked, looked across the table and saw Vera fidget in her seat.

‘Is this true, Vee?'

Vera slowly nodded. And now Elspeth felt truly torn: because as Anya had said, it
was
Vera who had saved them. She had recognised Inspector McCarthy and deliberately fallen into him, after which she had been arrested and taken to Paddington Green station. During questioning, McCarthy had demanded Elspeth's and Sylvia's real names and addresses in exchange for Vera's release. Otherwise, he said, Vera would be charged with assault. But Vera hadn't cracked, claiming she had unintentionally tripped into McCarthy and refusing to say anything more. Money from Sylvia's parents, and a sympathetic lawyer, had secured Vera's release on bail, but she was due to reappear in court in three weeks' time.

‘Really, Vee? You're part of this mad idea? Elspeth persisted.

Vera nodded again, and then – an uncomfortable expression on her square face – she finally spoke. ‘Look. We have a problem, Ellie. Having seen you taking part in the rally outside the skating rink, McCarthy knows you're a suffragette. He'll have worked out that you and Sylvie planted the bomb at the Abbey. It's only a matter of time before he finds out your names. And when he does, you'll be arrested. You'll go to prison. Your careers will be over. But Anya's convinced me that if we shoot him—'

‘You're talking about murder,' Elspeth interrupted.

Vera looked troubled, ran a hand quickly down her face, took a deep breath. ‘Look, Ellie, you ought to know that a few years back, some of the sisters were planning to shoot Asquith, the prime minister.'

Elspeth's heart began to pound.

‘With the constant suffragette picket outside parliament at the time it would have been easy,' Vera continued. ‘But somebody warned the police and the plan was called off.' She paused for a moment. ‘Don't forget that some of our sisters have died for the cause: Emily Davidson under the king's horse, Emmeline Pankhurst's sister Mary from police brutality, Grace and others from prison feed going into their lungs—'

‘They put pneumonia on Grace's death certificate, but it was murder,' Anya interjected.

‘And you think that shooting the prime minister or a Special Branch inspector is the answer?' Elspeth said, trying to suppress the panic in her voice.

‘This is war,' Anya said. ‘In war, blood is spilt. We fight an enemy that uses the police against us. We cannot get close to Asquith anymore. But we can get close to McCarthy and his like.'

‘I never for one minute imagined this,' Elspeth said, shaking her head in incredulity.

‘I knew you'd find this difficult,' Vera continued. ‘You and Sylvie did us proud with the Abbey bomb, and neither of you should feel bad if you decide not to involve yourselves with this—'

‘
This
?' Elspeth said as she stood up. ‘What you call “this”, Vera, is killing somebody. And I'll have no part in it.'

‘Me neither,' said Sylvia.

For a few seconds nobody moved, and then Anya took a step forwards, picking up the pistol from the table and raising the hem of her skirt to slip it back inside her undergarments. ‘Alright,' she said, brushing the front of her skirt flat. ‘I'm going: there is no point in any more talk.' She strode past Elspeth, thrusting open the kitchen door and disappearing into the hallway beyond.

Vera stood up, her chair scraping the floor. ‘Wait, Anya—' she called out, but the front door slamming told them all that Anya had already left the house. Vera's shoulders sagged as she turned to Elspeth. ‘I'm so sorry,' Vera whispered. ‘I didn't…I…' She shook her head and hurried to the kitchen door, stopping briefly in the doorway to look back at Elspeth. ‘She's upset…I'd better go after her.'

Elspeth watched Vera vanish through the doorway and a moment later the front door slammed once more. A sudden calm filled the kitchen as Elspeth looked across at Sylvia and shook her head in disbelief. ‘I've always thought that Anya was eccentric,' she said, ‘but this…it's madness.'

‘I think she's mad with grief,' Sylvia replied, quite calmly, Elspeth was surprised to hear. ‘When she spoke about her friend Grace…well I think she must have loved her very dearly, for she seemed quite deranged with sorrow.' She gave a short, sad smile. ‘But she's very driven, Ellie. I think she's capable of anything. I think she'll shoot McCarthy if she gets the chance.'

‘I think you're right.'

‘So what are we going to do?'

***

Two days later Elspeth read the unsettling news that Britain had declared war on Germany. She was seeing a patient on the ward when excited shouts came from the corridor outside and one of the porters burst through the ward doors, waving a copy of the
Evening Standard
. Elspeth was stunned, but also dismayed at the general excitement at the prospect of war.
Didn't people realise that fighting a war meant death and bloodshed?
Walking home along Praed Street that evening, she saw the Union Jacks, which hung like bunting in the shop windows, and the newspaper-stand banners that screamed ‘WAR' in big, bold capitals. Her spirits fell further on seeing the happy grins of men she passed, seemingly eager for the fighting to begin, as if going over to Europe to thrash the Hun would be one big adventure.

But her mood lifted a week later when the Pankhursts announced an end to the militant strategy and pledged their support to the British war effort. Elspeth felt such relief that she would no longer have to decide whether or not to take part in the arson campaign. And in return for the WSPU ceasefire, the British government proclaimed an amnesty for all crimes committed by suffragettes – which meant Vera would no longer face criminal charges.

***

One morning in the middle of August, Elspeth arrived at St Mary's and was told by the head porter at the front entrance that a marconigram was waiting for her. She tore the envelope open and saw that it had been sent the previous evening from Dr Inglis, who was arriving in London that afternoon for an appointment at the War Office: would Elspeth come and meet her afterwards as she had a proposition to put to her? Elspeth was thrilled at the prospect and hurried up to the surgical ward to tell Sylvia the news. But on arriving at the ward she saw that Sylvia looked pale with worry. She hustled Elspeth into the ward sister's office, closed the door and then pulled a short blind down to cover the frosted glass window.

‘What's going on?' Elspeth asked her.

Sylvia slumped into a battered canvas chair. ‘Anya's gone missing.'

‘Missing?' Elspeth said, sitting in a chair opposite. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Just that,' Sylvia replied. ‘She's disappeared.'

Elspeth frowned, blinked. ‘How do you know?'

‘Vera came over to see me last night. She said that Anya was upset about the WSPU decision to end the arson campaign, and that she and Vera had an argument about it yesterday morning. Then when Vera went round to Anya's lodgings in the evening to try and make up with her, her landlady said that Anya had left that same afternoon. She collected her deposit and simply vanished.'

‘Does Vera have any idea why she's gone?'

‘The last thing Anya said during their argument was that she would continue to work on her own.'

‘Work on her own? You think that Anya plans to shoot McCarthy by herself?'

‘That's what Vera's afraid of.'

A hollow feeling grew in the back of Elspeth's throat as she saw Sylvia gently bite her lower lip, a sign she recognised. ‘There's more, isn't there, Sylvie?'

Sylvia hesitated, then nodded.

‘Well, you'd do best to tell me,' Elspeth said.

Another hesitation was followed by a sigh, and then: ‘According to Vera, Anya also said some things about us.'

‘Us?' Elspeth felt a flicker of alarm. ‘You mean you and me?'

‘Yes.'

‘What sort of things?'

‘Paranoid things. That we might write to the police about her, have her deported, that sort of thing.'

Elspeth closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose between a finger and thumb. She opened her eyes again. ‘This is like a bad dream.'

‘I know,' Sylvia said, a pained expression on her face. ‘I feel bad I dragged you into all this. If I hadn't introduced you to Vera and Anya—'

Elspeth reached across to place a hand on the back of Sylvia's wrist. ‘No, I've no regrets about anything we've done, Sylvie. The government wasn't listening to us; it hadn't listened to us for decades. I couldn't see any other choice but to do what we did.' She leant back in her chair. ‘But now with the war…well, everything is different. This is an opportunity for us to do something decent, something constructive.' She paused. ‘But this situation with Anya is worrying. Does Vera think she means to do us harm?'

Sylvia shrugged. ‘It was difficult to know what Vera was thinking last night. She was in a real state: tearful, unhappy. I've never seen her like that before, never seen her so upset.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, I can see that Vera has strong feelings for Anya. And I think she's torn between her affection and loyalty for her, and worry over the danger she might pose to McCarthy and possibly us. She knows Anya better than most, but even she doesn't know what she might do next.'

‘I suppose the only person who does is Anya herself,' Elspeth said. ‘But her behaviour is so odd that it's impossible to predict. And we still know so very little about her. We don't even know which country she's from.'

‘So what do we do?'

Elspeth furrowed her brow. ‘Seeing Anya handle that pistol made me realise she's quite capable of using it. If she finds the opportunity to get near McCarthy—'

‘We can't allow that.' Sylvia took a deep breath. ‘We have to warn him of the danger.'