Praying that we meet aga.., p.2
Praying That We Meet Again, page 2
It was not as they expected.
“Why has the Navy not won the war yet, sir?”
“God alone knows…” Robert was in difficulty; he could not remember his father’s butler’s name. He had been out of the house for three years with Sandhurst and then service in the battalion. He had lost contact with the Place, which he hardly knew for having come back from India with the family and going off to Sandhurst almost immediately.
“We in the Army are the wrong people to ask about the Navy, you know. We are not entirely impressed by this ‘Senior Service’ business.”
“So be it, Mr Robert. At what time do you wish to dine, sir?”
“Normal time for the house. You must not change things about for me. Can you send a groom up to see me? I must see if I can take some sort of exercise.”
“Michael, sir. Second groom. Mr Jackson and First groom have gone off to war, sir. Left me because I’m only sixteen yet. Taken on two boys, sir, just left school, to make up the numbers.”
“That makes sense, I suppose. What have we in the stables just now?”
“Got the five old fellows, sir, more nor twenty and with just a few more years as hacks before they go to grass. Besides that, a pair of three year olds, sir, what can be worked but not too hard. Needs a bit of schooling yet, sir, what I been giving they.”
“Have we a gig in the yard? I doubt I can sit a saddle yet, but I could take a bit of fresh air driving.”
“Can always do that, sir. Any of them can be put up to the gig. I could always ride out with thee, sir, when thee ventures out.”
It was only to be expected for the first few weeks, he supposed. He did not have to like it. With winter coming in, he would have few opportunities to get out at all. He accepted the offer as politely as he could. It was made out of kindness and duty both. They regarded him as a wounded hero and wished to give him every consideration; he debated cutting his throat.
Henry Redwood woke with a slight headache. That was unusual; he normally had a stinking hangover. He noticed he was not alone in the bed, wondered who he had brought back from the Club. He did not recognise the face but recalled her as most enthusiastic during the night. He had received his money’s worth, wondered whether he had paid her in advance.
Thinking the matter over, he could not recall paying her at all or discussing the matter. She had come to the club with Bunny Rabbetts, he remembered, introduced as his sister passing through. On her way home from school, he seemed to think Bunny had said, brought out to see the wicked world at a safe distance. Bunny had fallen down drunk, as he usually did, and Henry had volunteered to take the sister home…
Jesus! He was in trouble!
He wondered what he must do. He watched as she stirred and slipped out of bed, through to the necessaries. She came back smiling, wholly naked and evidently ready for another round. He rose to the occasion – what else could a fellow do?
Later in the morning he talked with her, asked her what she intended to do next.
“I will not go back to school, Henry. I have had enough of being treated as a child. I could stay here with you?”
“How old are you, Bethany?” He had discovered her name, thinking it only polite.
“I am old enough.”
That confirmed his worst fears.
“How old is that, exactly?”
“Fifteen.”
That could send him to prison and he could not save himself with a hasty marriage.
“Better you should go to Bunny’s rooms for now, my dear. He will wonder where you are.”
“He will not remember my existence for a few hours yet, Henry. I expect you are right.”
An hour later, Bethany finally removed from his apartment, Henry sat to think.
The Rabbetts family had money – a lot of it – and a place in Society. They had real power which they could exercise all unseen. The Bank and his father might well lose in an outright contest with that family, and that assumed his father would be willing to fight for him, which might well be unlikely.
He must run but had only the dregs of his quarterly allowance left in his bank account and two weeks before the next payment. He could not get out of the country.
If he went to his father he would have to explain why. He did not think that would go well.
Somehow, he had at minimum to get out of London, preferably more distant than that.
The obvious course was to take a commission and get out to France. He was sure he would be able to wangle a position on the staff somewhere. General Griffin would act his friend, for the sake of the family. The trouble was, they were no longer taking young men on and sending them straight across the Channel next day. There were short training courses at minimum and no guarantee of getting out to France immediately. New officers were more often than not being sent to newly formed battalions to train up with them for months. The Army was no way out.
He was damned if he would try for this new Flying Corps. Apparently, they would take a chap today and have him in the air tomorrow, and in his coffin the day after as like as not.
The sole way out that occurred to him was a chap he had met a week or two previously. Pleasant fellow but Bunny had warned him off, said the man was Intelligence and not the sort to have anything to do with.
“Dangerous sort, Henry! Forever running off overseas and talking with foreigners. Not the right type for us, if you know what I mean.”
It seemed to Henry that running off overseas was exactly what he needed to do. The chap had given him an address, he recalled, in a slightly seedy part of Town, which was right for spies and such. An hour and Henry was knocking at the door of a block of flats.
A sort of butler opened to him, but he seemed a little too military simply to be a servant.
Henry offered his card.
“To see Mr Baker.”
“Wait here, sir. I will inform Mr Baker.”
The butler or concierge or whatever he was put Henry into a chair in the entry vestibule. He sat and then noticed there were two more men in a second lobby, both obviously watching him. Five minutes and the butler returned, asked Henry to accompany him, took him up two flights of stairs to the door of an apparent residential apartment; it opened to an office, four or five rooms, each with men working, no women in sight.
Baker was sat in a larger room at the rear, suggesting he was in charge of the premises.
“Henry Redwood! Come on in, old fellow. What can I do for you?”
Henry had thought his way through his approach, had decided on a strategy.
“You might employ me, Mr Baker. I have decided I cannot remain as an idler in time of war. I have no desire at all to become a soldier. I don’t think uniforms and marching and discipline would do for me at all. I gained the feeling that you were working for the country but not in the Armed Services as such.”
“Well spotted, Mr Redwood. I had a feeling you were one I could make use of. You will be part of the military if you join us, but not uniformed. Not to put too fine an edge on it, you will be a spy.”
Henry gave a satisfied nod. He had suspected that was so.
“Have you any languages, Mr Redwood?”
“No, sir. My school did not teach them.”
“Pity, but in no way uncommon. Are you willing to kill your country’s enemies?”
“Well, naturally, in time of war, that is what one does, sir.”
“So it is. If it so happens that these enemies are not in uniform, are themselves spies or traitors?”
“That sounds more like assassination than warfare, sir.”
“So it does. On occasion, it is necessary. An enemy spy or a British or French traitor may do more harm than any soldier.”
“Where would I do this killing, sir? I would not wish to be pursued by Scotland Yard in England.”
Baker noted, as he had expected from an evening in his company, that Henry had no moral qualms about killing out of uniform. He suspected he had neither qualms nor morality, in fact, which made him ideal for his particular trade.
“You would be sent to France, Italy, Greece, maybe Spain, possibly across to the United States. Probably the States, thinking on it. You could fit in quietly there, be unnoticed. If you join us, then we will take you for a very brief training then accompany you overseas to walk you through a first assignment. Thereafter, you will remain out of sight until you are needed.”
“I can do that, sir. May I join?”
“If you do, then you cannot back out again, certainly not before the war is ended. You will know a great deal, Mr Redwood, and must remain a part of us.”
“Can you inform my father that I am away on official business? He has connections as a banker and might make noise if he thought I had disappeared.”
“Good point. He will be reassured. Will you sign on the dotted line now, Mr Redwood? If you do, we shall put you into one of our cars and take you out of London to our little training ground. You will be out of the country within days. Last chance to back out, sir, with the understanding that you will say nothing to anyone. Should you be indiscreet, you will not survive your unwise act.”
“I am in, sir. What of my rooms?”
“They will be cleared. Personal items will be brought to you. Your man will be paid off. How old is he?”
“About thirty, I think.”
“He will join up.”
That more than anything suggested to Henry that he was in out of his depth. He had no choice. He took the pen Baker offered him. Three hours later he was shown into a bedroom in a country house to the north of London, in Buckinghamshire, he thought from the road signs he had seen.
The morning saw him taken to an enclosed pistol range where he spent three days in intensive practice with revolver and automatic.
“You will never be a particularly good shot, Mr Redwood. You know how to use a hand gun now. Close range, always two shots into the body followed by a tidy up into the head. Five seconds, maximum. You will have instructions on how to leave the scene. There will always be a way out. You will never be left to be caught or shot by bodyguards.”
Henry needed that reassurance. He had no wish at all to be caught and hanged or shot himself, was not prepared to risk his own life.
“Italy for your first excursion, Mr Redwood. There is a politician in Genoa who is taking German money, in large quantities, to try to bring Italy to honour its commitments to join Germany and Austria-Hungary. We would have to pay him a million to bring him to our side. Better far to spend a few pennies on bullets. Car overnight to Dover, destroyer to Boulogne. Railway then to the east of France and across the border to Switzerland. Motor car south to the outskirts of Genoa. You will be accompanied all the way and need only do as you are told. In Genoa, you will be told again what you must do and where.”
Henry knew he had no alternative. He suspected he would be shot himself if he tried to back out.
“Your father has been informed that you have been employed by the Department. He showed surprised that you had been found fit to join us. He is pleased and asked that you be reminded that you have an income guaranteed for life. Your friend Rabbetts has made a little fuss, trying to locate you. He seems to be a little upset, cross, one might say.”
“I thought he might well be, sir. I see no reason to make further contact with him.”
“You will not do so, Mr Redwood. In the circumstances, it will be as well that you do not contact that family.”
Baker made it clear that he knew all that had happened. He seemed mildly amused.
“Female company will be available during your periods of rest, Mr Redwood. For now, you will be equipped with appropriate clothing – we have your measurements – and your guide over the next few days will appear to be a servant. Be polite to him. Dinner for six thirty, car for eight and destroyer in the middle of the night. You will be able to sleep on the trains. You will get used to sudden journeys and snatching sleep where convenient. I will see you next week in your home base, which will not be in England.
Henry showed quietly calm. He was terrified, in fact, but also knew he was committed. He had no choice, all because of that silly bitch who had been unable to keep her knickers up. She had spoiled a most enjoyable life style, one he had intended to maintain for a lifetime – the clubs and theatre and music hall occasionally, with the occasional excursion to the races, would have kept him happy into old age. Instead, he had to slum it with some very off gentlemen and must occasionally shoot people. It was really unfair but he would do as he must. He remembered an expression he had heard in an American play that had recently come to Town. He would ‘play the hand that life had dealt him’.
He ate his dinner, which was rather well-cooked and accompanied by decent wines, and changed his dress and waited to be called to the car, glancing at The Times to occupy himself. The war of mobility in Flanders and around Ypres seemed finally to be dying down. Apparently, they had dug trenches instead. Hopefully that would reduce the casualties, lately the deaths had been horrendous, literally hundreds every day.
He was glad he had avoided a uniform. Not his idea of fun at all.
Chapter Two
“Men are tired, sir.”
“So am I, Sergeant Warner. Knackered, in fact. If we do not complete this trench, we shall all be dead.”
“We are at four feet all the way, sir. It would be possible to keep half of the men working, the other half to sleep for four hours, then turn about.”
“No, Sergeant. We shall complete the trench. Six feet and a firing step, all the way from our boundary with the Hampshires to the terrier battalion directly north of us. We will dig a machinegun pit tomorrow, adding any barbed wire that may arrive tomorrow night. We can expect to remain here for at least two months and will make our trench sufficient for our defence for that period.”
Captain Alfred Griffin, in command of C Company, the Kents, stared his sergeant in the eye, prepared to send him to the rear on a charge if needs be. It was their first confrontation and he needed to win it if he was to command his company. If Warner got his way this time, he would in future and Alfred would become no more than a figurehead. The men were listening, those too distant to hear being informed by whisper from one to the next.
“Very good, sir.”
Warner accepted he had turned the youngster into a useful officer. Now he must live with the result of his own actions.
Alfred looked out across the grassland, on a slight slope, the Germans perhaps a quarter of a mile distant and a little higher. They were digging furiously, earth flying. They had at least twice as many men in their trench, possibly three or four times as many, and they were obviously digging a double line of fortifications, a second trench behind the first.
The grassland between them was cut up by shellfire, some dozens of small craters in the turf. The debris of the previous day’s battle still remained – broken rifles, rags of uniforms, a single boot, scattered caps. The bodies had finally all been recovered during the night. There was a stink of cordite and blood, faintly hanging in the air.
“No signs of a resumption of the march, Griffin?”
Alfred turned and saluted Colonel Rossiter.
“None, sir. They are digging hard. A double line, suggesting they have no intention of shifting from here, sir.”
“No great point to a push forward just here, Griffin. No major town behind us. I gather they are still fighting hard in the Ypres Salient. General Griffin has messaged me to complete the line here urgently. I gather he has it in mind to replace us with a terrier battalion and march us back to Ypres. He needs his best where the fighting is hardest.”
“The half of us who remain, that is, sir.”
“Slightly more than that of men, Griffin. Far fewer of officers. There will be replacements arriving this morning, I am told – or possibly tomorrow, communications being what they are. Green second lieutenants from England.”
“Then let us hope they will last longer than the last pair of greenhands you gave me, sir. Twenty-four hours, I recall, sir. When was that?”
“The day before yesterday, Griffin. You need rest, man!”
Alfred thought that to be very probable. He also expected to have a very long rest before too many more days had passed.
“When do we pull out, sir?”
“Unknown. I expect tomorrow, Griffin.”
“No indication of an attack due before then, sir. A battery of something like a medium gun registered earlier. A dozen or so of something a little bigger than a sixty pound shell falling in the immediate area. Only one shell within a few feet of the trench and no dead from it.”
“I would expect a bombardment from several batteries in advance of any attack on our line, Griffin. I do not expect them to make any great effort here but to continue to dig.”
“We are hitting into chalk, sir. Pickaxes would be useful and full size shovels rather than the entrenching tool. Good for making a quick scrape for a rifleman, sir, but not up to full scale digging.”
“I shall indent for tools, Griffin. All of the companies have requested them. I doubt we have brought any out to France. The cavalry don’t like trenches. They get in the way. There has been a request for a court martial for your brothers, by the way. They refused to infill rifle pits and a trench and thus prevented a regiment of hussars from making the charge that would have turned the whole course of the battle. I gather your father is not amused.”
“Bloody fools! I presume they were forced to retire to the rear to rue might-have-beens.”
“No, Griffin, they had to circle around the Hampshires and thus had to travel another two miles before being able to array themselves for their charge, which they then pressed gloriously home.”
“I did not see them to wipe out the German column, sir?”
“No. They died to the Spandaus before they came in contact with the column. They killed no Germans at all. That was the Hampshire’s fault. If they had only been able to make their original charge on a clearer line, they must have been successful.”
