Blackstone and the Great War isb-3 Read online

  ‘I try to share as little as possible with Captain Huxton,’ Carstairs said disdainfully. ‘But on this occasion — and more by luck than judgement — he might well be right. We lost fifty per cent of the platoon in the offensive, which means logically, that there’s a fifty per cent chance the killer was amongst them. But even if he survived — and any possible witnesses survived along with him — you still have no chance of making your case.’

  ‘And why’s that?

  ‘Let me tell you a story,’ Carstairs suggested. ‘I heard it from another officer, a man I’d trust with my life, so though I can’t personally vouch for it, I’m sure it’s true. It seems that a sanitary-man was in the area between the fire line and support trench one night, and was in the process of burying the night-soil he’d taken from the latrine when he was killed by a stray bullet. By the time he was discovered, rigor mortis had set in, and his right arm, which had been stretched out at the moment he died, was as stiff as a board. Well, I suppose the recovery party could have broken the arm, but they didn’t. They brought the dead man back to the trench and laid him out on the fire line, where he was to stay until the burial party could pick him up and take him to the graveyard.’ Carstairs paused. ‘We do like to give the men a proper burial whenever we can, you know.’

  ‘Now that is kind of you,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Don’t you dare ridicule me in that way!’ Carstairs said, suddenly angry. ‘I care about my men — I might not like them, but I do care about them. And whenever possible, I treat their bodies with the respect they deserve.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Blackstone said.

  And so he was, because he recognized that — within his limits — the captain was both a decent man and a decent officer.

  ‘But that’s not the point I was about to make,’ Carstairs continued. ‘They laid the dead man on the fire step, but because his arm was sticking out, it inevitably blocked a good half of the trench. And how do you think the other men reacted to that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Blackstone admitted.

  ‘Most of them treated the arm as if it were a turnstile at a football ground — just brushed it aside and, as they did so, said things like, “Don’t get in the way, you selfish old bugger.” Some of them actually shook the dead hand, and asked him how he was getting on. They’d known the man while he was alive — they’d been his comrades, for God’s sake — but now that he was dead, he was no more than a comic prop for them.’

  Perhaps he was, Blackstone thought — but perhaps treating him as a comic prop was the only way they had of dealing with his death.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked aloud.

  ‘So that you’ll understand what this war — more than any which has preceded it — has done to the common soldier. He feels no compassion — not even for his own kind. So why should he care who killed Lieutenant Fortesque? And even if he knew, why should he bother to tell you?’

  They turned on to the fire trench. The platoon occupying it was lined up in strict military order, under the watchful eye of their lieutenant and sergeant.

  ‘If an attack comes, it will either be at dawn or dusk, and that’s why we’re always ready at those times,’ Carstairs told Blackstone.

  If he’d been Captain Huxton, he might have added an oafish, ‘I know these things, and you don’t — and your lack of knowledge about what goes on here is yet another reason that you’ll never find your killer.’

  But Carstairs, being more subtle than Huxton, knew there was no need to add it, because it was obvious enough, Blackstone thought.

  ‘None of those men will have been here the morning that Lieutenant Fortesque was murdered, will they?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘No,’ Carstairs replied. ‘The survivors of that platoon will have been rotated after the offensive. They’re most probably in the village of St Denis.’

  As they approached the platoon, the lieutenant turned and saluted.

  ‘Anything wrong, sir?’ he asked with all the anxiety of a young man who does not fear death, but lives in perpetual trepidation of doing something which does not conform to the correct military code.

  ‘Nothing at all wrong, Toby,’ Carstairs assured him. He glanced at the platoon. ‘Your men are very well turned-out, under the circumstances. You’re doing a splendid job.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the lieutenant said, with a barely disguised sigh of relief.

  Carstairs looked up at the lightening sky. ‘Any minute now,’ he said to the lieutenant.

  ‘Any minute now, sir,’ the lieutenant agreed.

  The stillness of the air was suddenly shattered by loud explosions from both the British artillery and the German guns.

  Blackstone, who had been under fire more times than he cared to remember, still found it hard to believe that anything could generate this amount of noise.

  ‘The men call this the Morning Hate,’ Carstairs said, shouting to be heard above the din. ‘It normally lasts for about ten minutes.’

  ‘And does it achieve anything?’ Blackstone bawled back.

  ‘A few lucky shots might produce some casualties, and it certainly shreds some of the weaker men’s nerves — but apart from that, it doesn’t achieve a damn thing!’ Carstairs replied. He turned to the lieutenant, and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Could I have your periscope for a moment, Toby?’

  The lieutenant handed the periscope to Carstairs, and Carstairs handed it to Blackstone.

  ‘Why don’t you take a look at the world outside, Mr Blackstone?’ the captain suggested.

  Blackstone raised the periscope and looked out on to No Man’s Land. It was the barbed wire fence he saw first — a complex twisted tangle of wicked spikes, stretched tautly between strong posts and gleaming in the early light.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and imagined himself dashing across No Man’s Land under heavy enemy fire — knowing that his only hope of salvation lay in reaching the enemy trench — and then suddenly coming up against this evil, impenetrable web of sharpened metal. There could be no despair in the whole world quite like that, he thought.

  Yet that was just what had happened to Lieutenant Fortesque’s platoon, the morning after he died. The big guns were supposed to have cut the wire, but they hadn’t — and there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

  Blackstone took a deep breath, and looked beyond the fire to a meadow, glistening green as the sun caught the morning dew. There were summer flowers, too, poking up between the lush blades. But there were also holes — deep pits made by the shells which landed short of their target, and gouged up the earth.

  Beyond the meadow was more barbed wire — German, this time — and beyond even that, the enemy lines.

  ‘Seen enough?’ Carstairs shouted into his ear.

  ‘More than enough,’ Blackstone told him.

  ‘Then we’ll go and look at the dugout,’ the captain said.

  The dugout where Lieutenant Fortesque met his death was located midway down the section of trench.

  Captain Carstairs opened the door, and waved Blackstone through.

  ‘Here you have it,’ he said. ‘The scene of the crime.’

  The bombardment continued, but it did not seem quite as loud inside the dugout as it was outside, and when Carstairs spoke again, it was almost in his normal voice.

  ‘When you were looking through the periscope, did you happen to notice the pits that the shells had made?’ he asked.

  ‘It would have been hard to miss them,’ Blackstone replied, grimly.

  ‘They’re where the wounded crawl to die,’ Carstairs said. ‘There are bodies lying at the bottom of most of them. Once in a while, we get the opportunity to clear them out, but by then, the rats and the maggots have done their work, and they hardly look like men at all.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Blackstone wondered.

  ‘I’m doing it because I want you to see the world through our eyes,’ Carstairs said.

  ‘Go on.’

 
‘In your world, death is a significant event, but out here it’s commonplace and relatively unimportant. It’s not human life that we value here — it’s those things that we are shedding our lives to protect that truly matter.’

  ‘Like patriotism?’ Blackstone suggested.

  ‘Yes, like patriotism,’ Carstairs agreed wearily. ‘But, above all, it is honour that drives us — our own, and that of the regiment.’

  Blackstone nodded, then looked around him.

  This dugout was smaller than the one which served as the company headquarters, he noted, but in all other respects it was very similar. There was a rough wooden table (with two upright chairs), a wind-up gramophone, an easy chair and a camp bed.

  ‘When we found Lieutenant Fortesque, he was sitting at the table, facing the door,’ Carstairs said. ‘As you probably already know, his skull was completely smashed in.’

  ‘What direction did the attack come from?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Was he hit from behind — or from the front?’

  ‘Neither from the front, nor from behind,’ Captain Carstairs said. He touched the side of his own head lightly, with his right hand. ‘This was where he was struck. And from the damage done, I would judge it was not one blow, but several. There were fragments of bone all over the floor.’

  ‘Which probably led you to believe that the killer was in a state of rage,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Naturally,’ Carstairs agreed. And then something in Blackstone’s tone made him reconsider his response. ‘Is there any reason I shouldn’t have thought that? Aren’t all murderers enraged?’

  ‘Some are,’ Blackstone said, ‘and some of them commit their crimes as coldly and unemotionally as if they were slicing a loaf of bread. Some walk away from their crime sickened by what they’ve done, and some have never felt happier. The only rule of thumb in a murder investigation is that there is no rule of thumb.’

  ‘But we’ve already agreed that it was a particularly violent attack,’ Carstairs protested. ‘And if the killer wasn’t enraged, why did he continue long after it must have been obvious to him that Fortesque was already dead?’

  ‘Maybe he wanted to give the impression of being enraged, even though he wasn’t,’ Blackstone said. ‘Or perhaps he actually was in a fury. At the moment, we’ve no way of knowing.’ He looked around the room again. ‘Have you found the murder weapon yet?’

  ‘No, we haven’t,’ Carstairs said.

  ‘Do you know if Captain Huxton’s men even bothered to look for it?’ Blackstone wondered.

  ‘No, I don’t know, as a matter of fact,’ Carstairs admitted. ‘What I do know is that if I’d been in his place, I wouldn’t have wasted my men’s time on such a pointless exercise.’

  ‘Pointless?’ Blackstone repeated quizzically.

  Carstairs sighed. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a trench — in the middle of a bloody war,’ he said. ‘There’s any number of things lying around that the killer could have used. There are hammers, there are shovels — he might even have used the butt of his rifle. Of course, you could look for something that had a bloodstain on it, but given that a German shell fell in this trench two days before the murder — blowing up three men in the process — you’d be very lucky to find something that wasn’t bloodstained.’

  ‘You said he might have used his rifle butt,’ Blackstone mused.

  ‘And so he might.’

  Because it was an enlisted man who killed Fortesque, wasn’t it, Blackstone thought. It just had to be an enlisted man.

  ‘Who has access to this dugout?’ he asked.

  ‘The officer who is on duty, his servant, a visiting officer, a sergeant making a report. .’ Carstairs paused. ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘Do enlisted men ever enter the dugout?’

  ‘Of course not! The dugout is the officer’s sanctum.’

  ‘Is it possible that Lieutenant Fortesque might have summoned one of the enlisted men?’

  Carstairs shook his head, almost pityingly. ‘I don’t know how things worked in your day, Sergeant, but in my army, an officer does not address the men directly, but instead communicates with them through an NCO.’

  Thus avoiding the unpleasant necessity of breathing the same air as a member of the working class, Blackstone thought.

  He’d been right in the assumption he’d made in the command dugout — the army hadn’t changed at all.

  ‘An officer doesn’t address the men directly, yet, according to your theory, one of the enlisted men did enter this bunker,’ he said to the captain.

  Carstairs laughed at the detective’s obvious stupidity.

  ‘It would be a serious breach of regulations for a common soldier to enter the dugout without permission,’ he agreed, ‘but given that he had his mind set on a cowardly murder, he was probably more than willing to wave such minor considerations aside.’

  ‘So the killer checks there’s no one watching, bursts into the dugout, and kills the lieutenant,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Exactly!’ Carstairs agreed.

  ‘Then why was the blow which killed Fortesque delivered to the side of his head?’ Blackstone asked.

  A frown filled Carstairs’ face. ‘I’m not following you.’

  ‘Didn’t you say that Fortesque was sitting in his chair, facing the door?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Carstairs agreed, puzzled. ‘What of it?’

  ‘I have a theory,’ Blackstone explained. ‘Would you mind sitting where Fortesque was sitting, so that we can test it out?’

  ‘All right,’ Carstairs agreed, walking around the table and sitting down facing the entrance.

  ‘I won’t be a moment,’ Blackstone told him, opening the door and stepping out into the trench.

  The bombardment had stopped, and the soldiers were squatting on the duckboards, eating the breakfasts which had been sent up from the field kitchen. Blackstone nodded to them, but only one or two nodded back. And even then, it was a cautious nod — a nod which said, ‘Judging by the way you’re dressed, you might just be on our side — but we’re not putting any money on it.’

  Blackstone turned, opened the door again, and re-entered the dugout.

  ‘Well?’ Carstairs demanded. ‘Are you going to tell me about this theory of yours, or must we continue playing silly bloody games?’

  ‘If you were facing the other way — towards the back of the dugout — you might not even have noticed I’d come in,’ Blackstone said, ‘but you’re not facing the back of it — and neither was Fortesque.’

  ‘So what’s your point?’

  ‘You’re Fortesque, and you see an enlisted man enter your dugout without your permission. What do you do?’

  ‘I ask him what the devil he thinks he’s doing.’

  ‘Exactly! And what does the killer say?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘Remember, this is a major breach of protocol, so Fortesque is both outraged and on his guard. If the killer wishes to blindside him in order to deliver the fatal blow, he must first calm him down. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘So how does he go about doing that?’

  Carstairs considered the matter.

  ‘He makes up some excuse for being here,’ he said finally.

  ‘Like what?’

  The captain shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he says that there’s an emergency further down the trench.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he report that to the sergeant?’

  ‘Normally he would, but perhaps he tells Lieutenant Fortesque he can’t find the sergeant.’

  ‘Let’s try that theory out,’ Blackstone suggested. ‘When I next speak, I don’t want you to think about what I’ve said — I want you to react instinctively.’

  ‘All right,’ Carstairs agreed.

  Blackstone turned away in a leisurely way, then suddenly swung round again and shouted, ‘The Huns have overrun the trench, sir!’

  Carstairs sprang to his feet immediately, then checked himsel
f, and slowly sat down again.

  ‘Do you see the point now?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Anything that the killer said to Fortesque would have been much more likely to get Fortesque out of the dugout than the killer in,’ Captain Carstairs conceded reluctantly.

  ‘Just so,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘But that didn’t happen, did it? What actually happened was the killer was allowed to advance.’

  ‘You don’t know that for a fact,’ Carstairs said stubbornly. ‘The killer could well have lured Fortesque to the door, killed him there, and then put him back in the chair.’

  ‘So Fortesque walks over to the door and turns sideways on, in order to allow the killer to hit him on the side of the head?’

  ‘He could have been distracted. The killer says, “What’s that on the wall?” Fortesque turns his head, and the killer strikes.’ Carstairs smiled triumphantly. ‘Your problem, Blackstone, is that you just don’t think things through.’

  ‘You said there were several blows to the head, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but. .’

  ‘I think if I’d received a sharp blow to the head, I’d probably keel over, fight back, or try to escape.’

  ‘As would any man.’

  ‘But Lieutenant Fortesque doesn’t do any of those things. He just sits there, and allows the killer to finish off his work. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Of course not! He did do one of those three things you mentioned.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘He keeled over.’

  ‘And landed conveniently on his side, thus giving the killer the opportunity to continue raining blows on exactly the same spot?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Carstairs said — but it was plain from his tone that he didn’t really believe that.

  ‘I want to try something else,’ Blackstone said, walking across the dugout and positioning himself at Carstairs’ side. ‘In a second, I’m going to grab you.’

  ‘You’re going to what?’

  ‘To grab you. I realize it will be distasteful to you to be touched by a member of the lower orders, but for the purposes of this experiment you’re just going to have to grit your teeth and put up with it.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, man, just get on with it!’ Carstairs growled.