The First Casualty (35 page)

Kitty took from her bag the big rubber sheath.

‘There certainly isn’t anything romantic about the way you go about
making
love, is there, Kitty?’

‘Ah-ha. That’s a man talking, you see. How would it be if I got preggers, eh? I’d be in a fearful fix. You men don’t think about that very much, do you? Not your problem.’

With that, Kitty reached up and, taking his face between her hands just as she had done beneath the trees, she kissed him long and fiercely, pulling him down on to the bed beside her.

When Kingsley had arrived at the café he had thought himself good for nothing and ready to drop but the sensation of Nurse Murray’s taut young body against his had totally revitalized him. Despite the ever-present guilt, he was incapable of not returning her kisses with equal intensity.

Then they made love and afterwards they fell asleep.

Kingsley awoke again shortly after dawn, once more consumed by the guilt that had beset him after the last time he had made love to Kitty Murray. She did not even open her eyes but it was as if she’d read his thoughts.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘the war means different rules. Nothing that happens out here goes home and nobody who wasn’t here will ever know what it was like, so who are they to judge us?’

‘Shannon made that point to me once.’

‘I don’t want to talk about Captain Shannon,’ she said quickly. ‘Anyway, you must promise me you won’t tell your wife about this; she doesn’t need to know and she wouldn’t understand anyway. Out here we need to take our comfort where we can. Besides, I should simply
die
if I ever thought I was being loathed by some poor woman I had never even met.’

‘My wife and I…She left me.’

Kitty sat bolt upright in bed, the sheet falling from her naked shoulders.

‘No! Really? I say, that
is
jolly news. I mean, sorry and all that but well…More fool her, say I.’

Kingsley did not reply. He was thinking of Agnes. Kitty also fell silent, looking thoughtful and saying nothing for as long as it took her to smoke a cigarette.

‘Look here,’ she said finally, ‘how about this? What say you and
I
be sweethearts? Wouldn’t
that
be fun? Sometimes I
long
to go legit,’ life can get so
jolly lonely
, can’t it? So do say yes, it would be
such
a lark and I’m sure we’d have
heaps
of fun.’

Kingsley looked at her. She was trying so hard to appear breezy and casual as she lit her second cigarette but he could see that she meant what she was saying.

‘I’m sorry, Kitty,’ he said gently, ‘but I’m afraid I still love my wife.’

‘Bother!’ she said, bringing her clenched fist down hard on his chest. ‘
So
inconsiderate of you to be so jolly fascinating!’

‘I thought you hated policemen?’

‘I do. I hate them
especially
now.’

There was a catch in her voice and she was looking away,’ smoking furiously. It was obvious to Kingsley that in the short time they had known each other this young woman had begun to imagine herself in love with him. It made him feel wretched. As if he had now deceived two women about whom he cared.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Oh,
do
put a sock in it,’ Nurse Murray replied.

Then, grinding out her cigarette, she threw herself on top of him once more and pressed her mouth angrily against his. Kingsley had definitely not been intending to make love to her again, particularly now she had revealed herself as far more emotionally vulnerable than she pretended. However, as she pulled at him with deliberate roughness, tugging him towards and inside her, he realized that in part it was her pride which was making her rush so ostentatiously to return their relationship to a purely physical plane. She had momentarily opened her heart and now she wished to show that she had not been hurt in the process. Her body was
demanding
that he make love to her once more, to set the record straight, so to speak, and so that they might part on equal emotional terms. Kingsley did not feel he could deny her.

And of course she was very,
very
pretty.

When they were done, once more Kingsley returned to a subject that he had intended to return to hours earlier, before sex and sleep had got in the way.

‘You say that Stamford’s poetry is angry?’

‘Oh yes, terribly intense. Absolutely stuffed with regiments of ghosts, gas-corrupted lungs, unforgiving guns sowing death where once golden wheat had grown and all the general hell of war.’

‘Rather strange for a man who had yet to see action, don’t you think?’

‘Well, when I was at school I wrote a poem about being a handmaiden to the Queen of Sheba and I hadn’t experienced that.’

‘All the same, it does seem rather presumptuous to write about the hell of war before you’ve even dipped a toe in it.’

‘Well, that’s how poetry’s going at the moment, nobody wants the glory, glory stuff at all. Particularly since Siegfried Sassoon sent his letter to
The Times
. I reckon poor old Abercrombie’s lucky he died when he did. He’s totally out of fashion now amongst the smart set. I suppose Stamford’s just aping his betters; lots of aspiring writers do.’

Kingsley looked up at her. She was still sitting astride him, so very sweet and, for all her numerous lovers, so very innocent.

‘I must say, for such a clever young woman you’re being rather dense, Kitty,’ he said.

‘Ta very much, I’m sure. And how do you make that out?’

‘Because it’s absolutely obvious that Stamford did not write those poems.’

FOURTY-SEVEN

Confessions of a plagiarist

Kingsley and Nurse Murray rose and got dressed.

‘Fresh bloomers,’ said Kitty, producing a pair from her bag. ‘Fresh bloomers and a toothbrush, the new woman’s survival kit for an evening on the tiles.’

‘That and your trusty rubber sheath.’

‘Ah yes. I’m
always
forgetting that,’ she said, taking it from the bed and rinsing it in the basin of water with which she had washed Kingsley the night before. ‘Wash it properly later but it’s
so
much easier if you can give it a quick rinse before all the semen dries.
Such
a bore if you don’t.’

Kingsley felt that he did not really need to know the details; charming though Nurse Murray’s candour was, at times it could get a little much. They went downstairs together and had breakfast in full view of the Tommies who had gathered for the same purpose. Kitty had been horrified at Kingsley’s suggestion that she might like to breakfast upstairs and depart discreetly.

‘Petty moral strictures are what keep women oppressed. Men go whoring when they please but insist that women be ashamed of sex.’

‘I’ve never been whoring.’

‘All right,
some
men go whoring. Anyway, I am a
new woman
and I have nothing to hide.
Particularly
from
men
.

And so they had gone downstairs together and Kitty had ordered bread, ham and eggs in a loud, bossy voice.

‘Got to refuel after a
really
vigorous night, what!’ she said.

Kingsley wished he could disappear under the table.

He had decided to accompany Kitty back to the château. He felt it would be discourteous not to do so. In addition, she had told him that Lieutenant Stamford would be joining her for lunch and bringing her more of his poems.

‘Aren’t his lot in battle at the moment?’ Kingsley said.

‘Yes, they moved back up the morning after the concert and he copped a bullet in the arm. Might even be a Blighty, lucky so-and-so. He’s waiting for orders, that’s why he’s so anxious to see me. He’s acquitted himself well, though. I spoke to his medical officer: apparently he made the first German line in the original assault, the one which proved too much for Abercrombie.’

‘A good actor and a good soldier,’ Kingsley said, ‘but my guess is
not
a poet.’

They walked back to the château through the pouring rain, passing beneath the trees under which they had lain together four days previously. Kitty suggested that they might pause a while and relive the moment, but Kingsley declined. The revelation that she had so quickly developed feelings for him had redoubled the guilt he felt over their relationship. He had not only betrayed Agnes but he was also toying with the emotions of a woman who, for all her tough exterior and considerable sexual experience, was very young and vulnerable.

When they arrived at the château, Stamford was there waiting, his right arm in a sling.

‘Captain Marlowe also has an interest in poetry,’ Kitty said. ‘Would you mind if he joined us, Lieutenant?’

‘Heavens, no!’ said Stamford. ‘The more the merrier.

Kitty excused herself to go and change out of her wet clothes, suggesting that Kingsley and Stamford wait for her in a small conservatory. They sat down together in front of the elegant French windows that overlooked the scene of Stamford’s thespian triumphs a few nights earlier.

‘I suppose it will be a while before you’re swinging your Charlie Chaplin cane again, Lieutenant,’ Kingsley opined.

‘Well, I still have my left arm and, do you know, looking at his films I rather think the little tramp is ambidextrous.’

‘I hear you had a good battle?’

‘I don’t know about that. I just tried not to funk it and things turned out all right. This time they did, at any rate.’

Kingsley lit a cigarette and offered one to Stamford. ‘Actually I’ll have one of my own if that’s all right,’ he replied, and produced from his box a long pink cigarette with a gold filter. ‘They’re called Harlequins. Rather jolly, don’t you think? They come in every colour except boring old white. The fellows do rib me about them but I don’t care. Just because one has become a soldier doesn’t mean that one can’t still have a bit of style. Don’t you agree, Captain?’

Kingsley conceded that Stamford had made a good point.

‘My favourite ones are the black ones,’ the lieutenant went on. ‘Terribly sinister and sophisticated. I’d show you one but I’m all out — smoke them first, you see. Can’t resist.’

Kingsley nodded.

‘Black and gold. Wonderful. When I have my own house I shall have my bedroom curtains all in black and gold.’

Kingsley paused. It was time to change the subject.

‘I believe you visited Viscount Abercrombie on the day he died, Lieutenant? ‘

Stamford was clearly somewhat taken aback, and his face clouded.

‘Yes. Yes, I did. I wanted to
…
you know, cheer him up. Fellow officer and all that. He’d been kind to me on the eve of the battle.’

‘And having cheered him up, when did you leave him?’

‘I don’t know…Whenever one is supposed to leave, I imagine.

I must have gone when they chucked us out. At the end of visiting time.’

Stamford was an appalling liar and his face had turned bright red.

‘He was heard having a quarrel with someone, another man, in his room considerably after the time at which visitors are required to leave.’

The long pink cigarette was shaking between Stamford’s fingers. Ash was falling on to the polished tiles of the floor.

‘Really?’ he said. ‘Who could that have been, I wonder?’

‘I thought perhaps you might know.’

‘Good lord, why on earth would I.
..?
No, I have no idea.’

‘The man was seen.

Stamford gulped audibly and tiny beads of sweat appeared on his brow. Kingsley could not remember a suspect who was so easy to rattle. This man would not make much of a poker player.

Just then, and to Stamford’s obvious relief, Kitty Murray returned, allowing him a moment to collect himself. She was not the sort of person to dawdle over anything so mundane as changing her clothes, particularly if something exciting was going on elsewhere. Nonetheless, Kingsley thought she now looked rather splendid: her hair and skin shone and her fashionably short calf-length skirt showed off her shapely ankles to perfection. Such health and vitality were a genuine tonic after the many terrible sights of the last few days. There was such a terrific energy to Kitty that a room felt more alive simply because she had entered it.

‘Haven’t missed the fun, have I?’ she asked.

If Stamford wondered what she meant by this he did not pursue it, preferring to concentrate his attention on Kingsley.

‘You say that the man was seen, Captain? Do you have…a description?’

‘Only details. He was carrying a little case apparently. A music case…’ said Kingsley, staring at Stamford, whose eyes revealed his shock.

‘A music case, you say?’

‘Yes, a soft, old, brown leather music case
…
Rather like the one I saw you with on the night of the concert. I see you have it with you now.’

Kingsley left the words hanging in the air. The silence that followed crackled with tension as Stamford struggled to find a response.

‘Right then,’ Kitty said after an awkward silence. ‘These poems you gave me to read, Lieutenant. Gosh. They’re pretty strong stuff.’

‘You like them?’ Stamford asked, and despite his discomfort he could not help but pounce on the possibility of literary praise.

‘Yes, I think they’re rather moving, although I don’t know if
like
is exactly the right word,’ Nurse Murray replied. ‘They certainly grab one’s attention.’

Kitty produced the sheafs of paper that Stamford had given her and began to pick Out some quotes. ‘
Young men bent double, coughing like bags
…
Foul stew of limb and gut/Painted on the parapet wall
…
Charming girls who sing ‘Forever England’! And send brave men to scream in Hell
. How old are you, Lieutenant? ‘

‘Nineteen.’

‘And how many days have you spent in forward trenches?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Yet you write about gas, shelling, bayonets, trench raids, dressing stations…Good heavens, there’s scarcely a single aspect of military life which you haven’t experienced and, what is more, come to loathe. And all this
in fifteen days?
’

‘Well, I talked to the other fellows…I…used my imagination.’

‘In fifteen days, Lieutenant?’

Now Stamford was silent, staring at the floor.

‘Who is the Golden Boy?’ Nurse Murray asked.

‘Just a figure. I made him up.’

‘He seems to have meant a great deal to you.

‘Not really. It’s just poetry.’

‘Oh? You didn’t seem to feel that way when you wrote about him. By far the most moving passages of the poems you gave me concern this Golden Boy and his death in action. It’s a theme to which you return over and over again. It seems to me, reading between the lines, that all the hatred of this war that screams out from your poems emanates from the anger and grief that you feel at the dreadful loss of this fallen comrade, this
golden boy
whose…’ Nurse Murray searched for a particular passage, ‘
Precious blood fell full and flooded/On that foul tunic belonging to the King,/ Washed it and made it pure
.’

‘I don’t know anything about the Golden Boy,’ Stamford mumbled. ‘He’s a metaphor.’

‘A metaphor? For what?’

‘Well…all of us…They’re just poems.’

Then Kingsley spoke.

‘Yes, and as a matter of record, they are in fact
Viscount Abercrombie’s
poems, aren’t they?’

The young man did not speak but instead miserably massaged his cigarette case between his sweating palms.

‘You stole them from him, didn’t you?’ Kingsley insisted. This aroused Stamford from his anguished silence.

‘No!’ he said, looking fiercely at Kingsley. ‘They’re mine!’ ‘You wrote them?’

‘He…gave them to me.’

‘Gave them to you to claim as your own?’

Stamford turned to Nurse Murray, shouting now.

‘They’re mine! Give them back!’

Suddenly he lunged forward and tried to grab what papers he could from Kitty’s lap.

‘Steady on!’ she exclaimed, pushing him away. ‘No shenanigans now, Lieutenant!’

Stamford, denied the poems, panicked. He leaped up and rushed the French windows, setting his good shoulder against them and bursting through. Kingsley had noted at the concert how agile the young man was, and despite his wounded arm Stamford was through the windows almost before Kingsley had scrambled to his feet.

‘Hold hard, you bloody fool!’ Kingsley shouted but Stamford was already tearing across the lawn, dashing through the middle of a desultory, rain-sodden football game and setting a course for the woods. Kingsley set off in pursuit but Stamford was only nineteen and had a dancer’s fitness. What was more, fear gave him speed.

‘Stop that man!’ Kingsley shouted at the footballers, but whether they thought him mad or simply were not minded to respond to the voice of authority, the players made no more effort to chase Stamford than they had been doing to chase the ball.

Then, just as the panic-stricken lieutenant had reached the comparative safety of the edge of the woods, he stopped and sank to his knees.

By the time Kingsley came up beside him, the young man was curled up in the long wet grass, weeping.

‘He said he didn’t want them,’ Stamford stuttered.

‘So you took them from him?’

‘He gave them to me. He told me to burn them.’

Kingsley, who until he had attempted a two-hundred-metre dash had not realized how exhausted and Out of condition his body was, sank down in the grass beside the sobbing man.

‘But you decided not to burn them?’

‘I couldn’t do it. They were too good, too special.’

‘And besides, you had already decided to copy them out in your own hand and take the credit for them.’

Stamford looked up at Kingsley, tears rolling down his face and mixing with the rain and the sweat. His face shone like a waxwork.

‘They’re wonderful poems. They should be seen!’

‘Under your name?’

The young man hung his head.

‘I couldn’t resist it. After he died I thought, why not? It doesn’t matter to him, he’d disowned them, and perhaps I could be famous too…And anyway…I wanted to punish him.’