A Question of Honor (21 page)

Still not completely convinced, he went to lie down until the ambulances came back. I had given him something for the pain, and he would sleep, waking up in hospital.

I went back to my duties, wondering how I was to manage a talk with Captain Bingham. It wasn’t too surprising to find he was somewhere in this sector. British troops were sent where they were needed, then pulled back to regroup before being used to bring another company or regiment up to strength once more. The question was how long he’d be where he was now.

And then his company was relieved by reinforcements while I was taking another convoy of ambulances back to hospital.

I didn’t recognize him then. I was in the last ambulance. We slowed to allow the end of an ammunition train to pass, when an officer of medium height opened the rear door and stuck his head in.

“The driver up ahead told me I must speak to you. We have five walking wounded. Any room for them?”

“Three can sit with the drivers. I can accommodate two more back here.”

“Thank you, Sister.”

His head disappeared and I heard him calling names, directing them to their places. The rear door opened again, and two men were helped inside.

One had trench foot, I could see that straightaway. The other had been shot in the calf and it was already inflamed.

The door was shut and the drivers pulled out again.

In spite of the horrid bouncing over ruts and sliding sideways where the ground was slick with mud, I managed to cut away the private’s trouser leg for a better look.

“You’re just in time, you know. Another day or two at the most, and gangrene would have set in. Once it does, there’s no stopping it short of amputation.”

The young private grimaced. “The Captain told me to go to the aid station. But I couldn’t, could I? We needed every man who could walk.”

“Yes, well, you were playing fast and loose with your leg,” I told him. When I finished, I looked at the case of trench foot. I could smell it before I’d got his boot off.

Nothing I could do—it would have to be cleaned when we reached hospital—but at least the foot was open to the air.

We made better time as we came nearer the hospital. I said, “Your Captain seems to care about his men.”

“He does that,” the private answered. “Stands up for us regular. Cap’n Bingham is all right.”

So that was the man I was after, sticking his head in the door!

But we’d left him far behind. And seeing him wasn’t enough. Hearing about him wasn’t enough, except to prove he was the right man.

I felt a surge of frustration.

When we arrived at our destination, there were three former British prisoners of war in the hospital, Matron told me, and I asked permission to speak to them.

They were weak, their wounds in bad shape. The Germans had left them behind during their last retreat.

One of them was sleeping, and from the way he was breathing, I could tell he was on morphine. The other two were restless, still suffering from the shock of suddenly finding themselves rescued. I watched one of them anxiously fingering the sheet pulled up over his chest, picking at it the way some men did in high fevers.

I spoke to the two who were awake, telling them I was grateful that they were home again and safe.

Then I asked if they had seen a prisoner by the name of Caswell, Corporal Caswell.

The man plucking at the sheet said, “They were sending us back when the attack came. I tell you, I thought we’d be shot by our own men before it was finished.”

His comrade frowned over the name, then shook his head. “We never got sent back to where most of the prisoners were held. There wasn’t time. Sorry, Sister. I’d give you news if I could.”

I thanked them, wished them well, and went out to the waiting ambulances. I had had the foresight to write a short letter to my parents before leaving the aid station, and I posted it before we left the hospital.

The guns were opening up again as we made our way forward. And we found seven cases of influenza being treated, men too tired and weak from long days in the trenches to fight off the infection. We tried to segregate them from the wounded, but the influenza spread quickly to an orderly and two of the wounded.

One of the Sisters in the hospital had told me that France was also facing a losing battle with the Spanish influenza, and that she’d heard that Paris was a ghost city. I found that hard to imagine—it was always so bright and lively. With the cafés and wineshops, bakeries and charcuteries closed, along with the Opera and the theater, the museums, it would be as bleak as mourning.

We moved the influenza cases to the hospital where I’d served earlier, and scrubbed the vehicles well before returning for more wounded destined for another hospital.

The three former prisoners had been taken to Dover for transit to England, but one of Captain Bingham’s men was still a patient here. The wound in his calf was inflamed and swollen. He was running a fever, his face flushed and his eyes too bright.

I stopped to look in on him, trying to cheer him up, but he couldn’t remember who I was. I was turning away when an officer stopped by the man’s bed. He nodded to me, and I saw that his left arm was in a sling, blood still staining the fresh bandage.

I stepped away to allow him a chance to speak to the Corporal.

“How are you, son?” the Captain asked.

“Not so well, sir.” The Corporal’s eyes tried to focus. “Captain Bingham, sir? Are you wounded too?”

I’d turned to leave, and I stopped where I was.

“Not as bad as it looks,” he answered lightly, and I had a feeling he was lying. “The Sisters insisted on the sling. Best not to disobey them.”

The Corporal made an effort to grin. “Yes, sir.”

“Do your best to get better. I need you, your men need you. All right?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best, sir.”

Captain Bingham reached down and gripped the Corporal’s hand.

“I’m counting on you.”

Turning, he grimaced as his sling pressed on his wound, and I could see the tension around his eyes. He smiled at me and started toward the ward door. I stopped him.

“Captain Bingham? Do you have five minutes? I need to speak to you.”

“About Corporal Smythe?”

“About the past,” I said, and we walked together in silence until we were outside the ward. A light rain was falling, and we huddled in what little shelter there was.

“Any chance of a cup of tea?” he asked, looking around.

“This way.” I was heading for the canteen, ignoring the impatient blast of the horn from the ambulance driver eager to be on his way back to the forward aid station.

The tea was strong and bitter, but it was hot, and I could see as the Captain took the first sip that it was what he desperately needed. There were sandwiches as well, and I brought him one.

“Thank you. What’s this about?”

“There’s no time to explain, but something that happened in the past seems to be creating a problem in the present. You lived with the Caswells when you were sent back to England to be educated.”

“Yes.” His mouth was a tight line once more. “I was lucky, my cousin took me in charge soon after I got there. His wife had been very ill, and by the time I landed in England, she was dying. I was sent to the Caswells meanwhile, and tried my damn—my very best to make myself so obnoxious that they wanted to be rid of me. I hadn’t counted on their greed. When at last my cousin came to see how I was progressing, I begged to be taken away. The Caswells told him I was only homesick, but he believed me.”

“Was there treasure in that house?”

“I don’t know. Gwendolyn swore there was, something one of the earlier boys had left behind. But no one could find it, although she had looked and so had several of the older children. I was delighted to spread the story. Anything to make the family as uncomfortable as I was.” He started to shrug and at once regretted it. “I hated them,” he finished, with such venom in his voice that I glanced up at him. “I meant that,” he said, intercepting my glance. “I was too young to know precisely what hate was, but if God had struck them dead before my eyes, I wouldn’t have blinked twice.”

“They were murdered,” I said.

“So I heard. I wasn’t surprised.” He finished the sandwich and was draining his cup. Setting it down again, he made to rise. “Is that it?”

“There’s one more thing—” I began, but he interrupted.

“What’s your interest in the Caswells? Are you related to them? If you are I won’t apologize for what I’ve just said.”

“I’m not related to them. It’s just—I knew the man charged with the murders. And I found it nearly impossible to believe he had done such a thing.”

“Believe it. They tormented us beyond bearing. I must say if I’d been on the jury, I couldn’t have convicted him.”

“There were photographs of five boys and three girls that were taken as a Christmas gift to all the parents in India. In your case, Ceylon. I happen to have one of them, and I can identify several of the children. George Mayfield, Thomas Wade, his little sister, Gwendolyn, and you.”

“How did you identify me?” he demanded, his eyebrows raised in surprise and a rising anger.

“Mrs. Mayfield remembered you. But not the last two.”

He nodded abruptly. “Yes, all right. The other two. I was seven when I left. I think the other lad’s name was Sandy something. Sandy Hughes, that was it. I can’t remember the other little girl. I’m confusing her with Wade’s sister, I think. Ruth? Rachel? I’m sorry. Now I must go. And I see what must be your driver bearing down on us.” He was standing now, and I rose as well.

“I don’t know what this was about,” he said. “But whatever it is, leave my name out of it. I’m a solicitor—or was. And a solicitor has no business being involved in murder.”

And he was gone, striding back toward the ward where I thought he must be going for something to help with the pain. Why he wasn’t in a cot I didn’t know, but I rather thought he had talked his way out of it until now.

I went out to meet my irate driver, apologizing for the delay, but he was in no mood for excuses. I climbed into the ambulance, resigning myself to a lecture on punctuality as we made our way back to the aid station.

In an attempt to shut out the carping voice, although I knew I deserved the diatribe, I tried to decide if Captain Joshua Bingham was the murderer we were looking for.

Solicitor or not, he might well have killed the Caswell family. As soon as he could come after them.

Meanwhile, I would have to find a way to send the name of Sandy Hughes to Simon and my father.

Chapter Sixteen

W
hen word came back from Simon, I had to wait until I was off duty to open the letter.

He had searched for an Alexander Hughes but had not found anyone by that name who was the proper age for the child in the Gessler photograph. He’d looked in Somerset House and Army records.

It was possible that the Sandy Hughes we wanted was born wherever his parents were posted. But that could be Canada, South Africa, East Africa, India, Ceylon, Egypt, the Near East, Gibraltar—the list was endless.

I could read between the lines of Simon’s letter. We had done all we could, and even Scotland Yard felt that what we had uncovered was not enough to reopen the inquiry into the Caswells’ murders. And it seemed that Simon had reluctantly come to agree with the Yard.

The only avenue left was to wait until the war was over and Lieutenant Wade was repatriated. He could be taken into custody then and tried.

That stopped me.

Someone would have to prove that Corporal Caswell was in fact Lieutenant Thomas Wade.

After all, he’d spent four years in France fighting for King and Country as Corporal Caswell. The Army could well refuse to honor an old warrant for another man, an officer at that, and simply demob him along with hundreds of others. If there was nothing on “Caswell’s” record to stop them, they would be well within their rights.

It really was useless to go on.

And yet . . . and yet.

There was a question of truth. Of the regiment’s honor. My father’s pride in his men.

I’d come this far. Was I really about to quit?

I fell asleep still debating that with myself.

Two days later I was on my way back to England with a convoy of wounded, chosen because I’d had the dread influenza and wasn’t likely to infect men who were terribly wounded and unlikely to survive if they fell ill.

Many were chest and stomach wounds, some were amputees, and three were manning the workhorse 18-pounder field guns when a defective shell exploded in the position next to theirs and shrapnel from the caissons left them barely alive. I couldn’t help but think they looked more like the mummies I had seen in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo when we were on our way to India than living men.

It was very late when I reached London after all my charges had been safely transferred to their destinations. I walked close to a mile before I found a cab, and the driver was half asleep, jumping when I touched his arm to give him my direction.

Slipping past Mrs. Hennessey’s rooms so as not to disturb her, I climbed the stairs, let myself into the flat, and remembered nothing almost as soon as my head touched my pillow. It was cool and rainy, perfect sleeping weather, and I didn’t wake up until nearly eleven the next morning. I stumbled out to our tiny sitting room to make myself a cup of tea, and nearly fell over my mother, who had fallen asleep in the large chair by the window.

We were both startled, and my first thought was bad news. “Is everything all right?”

My mother sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Yes, of course, darling. I didn’t mean to frighten you. But I reached London rather late, and I thought no one would mind if I stopped here. I’d been in York, you see. Another officer dead, the service in the Minster there. Your father delivered the eulogy and then had to leave straightaway for somewhere important. He put me on the train to London, and I wasn’t up to going on to Somerset. The hotels were full. I must have got here sometime after three in the morning.”

And I’d arrived shortly after two and had slept so soundly I didn’t hear her slip in.

“I didn’t know you had leave,” she went on as I looked in the cabinet for tea and the pot of honey I’d brought here from Somerset on one of my last visits.

“There’s no milk. I’ll run down to Mrs. Hennessey’s flat and beg some. But yes, I got in perhaps an hour before you. I think I needed this leave.”

“You do look tired, my dear. All right, go fetch some milk and I’ll put the kettle on.”

Fifteen minutes later we were seated across from each other at the table.

“You’re worried about the Colonel Sahib, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Yes, he takes it upon himself to speak at the services, and it’s hard for him. He knew so many men over the years, he watched so many of them grow up. Men in the ranks too. Like Simon, who was hardly more than a boy when he came out to India. Richard knew many of their wives, widows now. He might as well be back in the regiment, the way he works for the War Office. And he never says no.”

I thought she seemed as tired as she believed I must be. It was the toll of war for those fighting and those at home waiting. Sometimes I wasn’t sure which was the more difficult.

“I wish you had Father’s motorcar with you,” I said. “We could drive down to Somerset together.”

“But I do. It’s outside. We drove to London and took the train on to York.”

“Well, then,” I said, in an attempt to raise her spirits, “I’ll drive us home.”

She finished her tea before answering. “Bess. Would you take me to Petersfield? I know you and Simon have been there several times, but I think I’d like to see it for myself. Would you rather rest for a day or two? If you would, tell me so.”

Surprised, I said, “But why would you want to go there?”

“I don’t really have an answer for that. But I knew Lieutenant Wade, and the little Mayfield child. I’d like to see the house where these murders took place. Perhaps it will make it a little easier for me to accept the notion that he’s a monster, a murderer.”

“Simon, I think, has given up on proving him guilty or innocent. We really have struck a solid wall. I don’t think there’s any getting around that.”

“Yes, but Simon has told me a little about what’s been happening. That Thomas Wade is a prisoner of the Germans and you’d had the marvelous luck of finding Captain Bingham in France, who gave you another name. The Army will track down young Hughes sooner or later, if he’s still alive. You only have two people left to identify, and one of them is that little girl. I think it’s too soon to stop looking.”

“It could be someone who wasn’t in that photograph. A child who left before it was taken, or arrived afterward.”

“That’s very true. But it was
this
photograph that someone wanted. The photograph you bought at the charity stall. The photograph that might have got the Gesslers killed.”

I had to agree with her logic. “But perhaps the person who wanted it actually didn’t know which one it was—which Christmas—and therefore wanted to make certain.”

“Will you drive me to Petersfield?”

“Yes, all right, I will. But Simon won’t be happy if we go there alone.”

She smiled conspiratorially. “But Simon is somewhere in Cornwall, I think. Or is it Devon?”

We cleared up the cups and saucers, I made my bed, and together we went out to the motorcar. It was larger than mine, but I’d driven it before and had no qualms about managing it now.

Once on our way, my mother asked me about Lieutenant Wade, while he was a patient at the influenza hospital.

“Very clever,” I told her. “Or very much himself. I really don’t know which.” I went on to explain what had happened and how he’d managed to impress the Sisters and even Matron. How it had tied my hands.

“Did it occur to you,” she asked after a moment, “that perhaps he was afraid of what choices you might make, and he set about spiking your guns before you made up your mind?”

“I don’t know that he’s
that
clever.”

She smiled. “My love, he made it through Afghanistan and Persia. A man who can do that has to be very intelligent. He lived by his wits for months on end, and there’s nothing like that to sharpen them. He joined the Army again under another name and hasn’t been found out. And he had to be careful there as well, or an experienced Sergeant would have discovered that he had once been an officer. It isn’t easy to deny years of training and experience. Little things give you away. Remembering to be subservient to an officer when you know he’s wrong or stupid. The way you walk, the way you meet a superior’s eyes like an equal. How you spend your free time. And with whom.”

“Lieutenant Wade isn’t the only gentleman who enlisted in the ranks.”

“Very true. How many of them were once officers as well?”

“You could be right.”

We rode in silence for a while. Then I broke that silence, saying, “You aren’t known in Petersfield. Perhaps we can put that to good use.”

“Whatever you say.”

It was my turn to smile. “I really don’t know what I’m saying. But we’ll think of something.”

T
he light rain that had followed us from London vanished a few miles from Petersfield. I pulled over at a muddy farm lane where we could stop for a few minutes.

“We can turn around. It isn’t too late.”

My mother took a deep breath. “We’re here.”

“So we are.” I pulled back onto the road, and in a matter of minutes we were driving into Petersfield.

A funeral was in progress, the hearse standing to one side of the churchyard, the mutes just opening its rear door. But only a handful of mourners were there, and the rest of the square was empty. It was a forlorn picture, surely repeated many times over throughout England. My heart went out to the family.

“Another victim of this dread disease,” my mother said, looking back over her shoulder. “We’re all beginning to be afraid. Your father had a cough last week. It terrified me.”

“You didn’t tell me,” I accused her.

“No, it was just the smoke he’d inhaled in some test or other on Salisbury Plain. But one’s first thought . . .” Her voice trailed off.

We had reached The Willows, and I slowed down.

“Can you see the house, just there, through the trees?”

“Yes. Quite old, isn’t it? And you said, early Victorian inside?”

“I don’t think any changes have been made for decades. It’s dreary.”

“And that makes it harder to sell, surely? Here with the war still on—”

She broke off as someone came rushing toward the gates. I realized it was the housekeeper, red-faced and distraught.

My mother was already out of the motorcar, hurrying toward Miss Seavers. She had caught her arms by the time I reached them and was trying to penetrate the hysteria to find out what was wrong.

All I could really be sure of was that Mr. Gates had had an accident.

We didn’t bother with the motorcar. I ran for the house, and as I got closer, through the open door I could see him crumpled on his side on the hall floor.

The first thing that met my eye as I dashed inside was the frayed length of rope that lay across his left arm, and then the improvised noose around his neck. Quickly glancing upward, I realized that there was a gap in the balusters where the stairs turned at the landing. Just beyond the body were two broken balusters with more rope still attached to them.

My hands were already busy at the noose by the time my mother knelt beside me, and with her help, I freed it and then put a hand to his throat to look for a pulse.

“He’s alive,” I said, and began to examine him. Miss Seavers was standing over us, wringing her hands piteously and crying in an uneven wail.

My mother said briskly, “He will need hot tea, you must go at once and make it. Do you understand?”

For an instant I thought she would fail to get through the woman’s frenzy of worry, and then the housekeeper threw her apron over her mouth and ran for the door to the kitchen downstairs.

Blessed silence fell.

I could see the heavy rope burn along one side of Mr. Gates’s throat, and it appeared that his right shoulder was dislocated. I kept working and discovered that his left leg was almost certainly fractured just above his ankle. He must have climbed on the banister. And if the rope had held, his neck would have snapped before he choked to death.

He was still unconscious, and there was the possibility of a concussion as well. But that would have to wait. I set about resetting the shoulder while he was out of his senses. I made certain that neither his collarbone nor his arm was broken, and then tested the use of his arm before putting it back into place.

Mr. Gates cried out with the pain and began to wake up.

My mother, rocking back on her heels, said, “Is there anything in your kit that would help him?”

“Until I’m sure there’s no concussion I dare not. I can feel a large lump in his hair, above his ear where his head would have struck.”

“Poor man,” she said simply.

There was nothing I could do about the ankle, except to wrap it against the swelling. I sent my mother upstairs to find linens I could use, and while she was gone, Mr. Gates came fully to his senses and cried out as he tried to move.

“Stay still—please—you’ve hurt your shoulder and your leg and you mustn’t try to get up,” I urged, pressing him back.

But he surged to a sitting position, looked wildly toward the stairs, and saw the broken balusters.

“My God. I’m not dead—I thought—oh, dear God,
what am I to do
?”

I turned away from the anguish in his face, looking instead at the rope. He must have found it in one of the outbuildings, and while it was thick, it was also raveling in places where the strands had rotted with age. Tormented, half mad with whatever had driven him to hang himself, he had only seen what he wanted to see—a rope. His weight was too much for the balusters, and when they and the rope broke, he had fallen hard.

Mostly on that ankle and then his shoulder and head.

My mother came back down the steps carrying two sheets.

“These were in the linen closet. Help me rip them up.”

Holding his arm and fighting against his pain, Mr. Gates frowned. “Who is
she
?”

“A friend,” I said, not wanting to tell him that her name was also Crawford. We began to tear the sheets. It was easier than I’d expected. They were yellowed, thin, but clean. She must have found them, I thought, in the very back of the linen closet, but they would be far easier to manage than newer ones.

The door to the downstairs opened and Miss Seavers backed into the hall, the heavy tray in her hands. It held an entire tea service, not just a pot and a cup. She walked toward us, saw the strips of cloth, and exclaimed, “What are you doing?”