came up with this brilliant idea. That description was hers, but once her grandfather agreed, we all went along. And it was a pretty good idea, after all.'
'The idea being ALBA?' said Pascoe still puzzled.
'GrindAL BAtty,' said Batty stressing the relevant syllables. 'Gerrit? And Arthur still went along even when Janet, who was only seventeen then and a real romantic, announced that an alba was some sort of medieval dawn chorus. Two for the price of one, he said. The firm's old partners, the company's new dawn. Practical or poetic, take your pick.'
Pascoe looked westward to where the November sun was little more than a pallid aureole around the looming dome of a huge storage tank.
Of course on a summer morning with the sun rising behind the Maisterhouse it might all look very different. A new dawn, a new day
…
… I watched the dawn lighten the sky beyond Sanctuary Wood – sounds nice and romantic put like that – except the sky was black with rain clouds – and Sanctuary were barely more than a bristle of blasted stumps – and this dawn would send us forward for a new big push.
Six weeks too fucking late Pete – said Jammy – this should have happened straight after Messines while Fritz was still on the back foot and the weather was set fair. Funny how up in the Line things look so obvious that them buggers back at Base just cant see.
Were not in the first wave thank God which is why Ive got time to write. Trouble is it gives more time to think too and more time to snap. Id like to say Im more worried about Gertie than me except Im not. But I am worried about him. The lads have taken to him ever since the night he were inspecting the sentries and came across Chuffy Chandler bashing his bishop – I were there too and I thought – sleeping at your posts a topping offence God knows what they do to you for this – But all Gertie said was – Corporal whatever youre feeding that man see that I get some too!
The lads loved this and Ive got to give it to him – he knows how to speak to them – friendly but firm with it like a real officer. Its that word like that bothers me but sometimes it sounds to me like hes speaking lines from a play – which isnt so easy to do when the curtain really goes up.
No chance to write for nearly a week – and the first four days it rained and rained and rained nonstop – I bet this has been a famous victory in the papers back home – but were still here in Sanctuary only at the far side now so weve made some progress – it started all right – by the time we went forward the first attack had flushed out Fritz from his positions on the eastern edge of the wood. Gertie were so keen to get up there and fight that we were hard set to keep up with him – I knew from Jammy that the battalions orders were to deploy left to keep the line between Sanctuary and Chateau Wood which had been taken pretty quick – only with the ground so churned up – and the smoke and the rain – and Gertie rushing on like a stallion thats got a whiff of the mares – we crossed in front of our support to the right and came out of Sanctuary on the wrong side of the northeastern corner. Gertie waves his left arm and says – Theres Chateau – and starts sending us out to take up our positions – I didnt think owt was wrong but Jammy whose got the kind of sense of direction that can find a pub in a desert says – No sir thats Glencorse – and Gertie shouts – Nonsense sergeant – and sets out after number one section. Jammy tells the rest of the platoon to hold fast – but I keep going after Gertie who reaches the Menin Road when all hell breaks loose out of the wood opposite and thats number one section gone – just like that – now you see them now you dont – and Gertie miraculously untouched just stands there like a hen with gapes – mouth open nothing coming out. I got to him first – hit him like a rugby league fullback – and heard the Hun bullets hissing overhead. Then Jammy was with me and together we managed to drag him back like a sack of coal.
Well that might have got Gertie a real kick in the arse from above – except there were more bollocks that day than youd see at a tinkers wedding including a whole brigade getting the false message that Glencorse had been taken and this time the Huns waiting till they were all across the road before they snapped the trap shut.
So all Gertie had done was get a few of us killed which nobody blamed him too much for – but Id seen his face when it happened – and I said to Jammy – Weve got real trouble here sarge – and he turned that great slab of a face to me and said – It were you saved his life lad – so Id say he were your responsibility now – wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?
'Mr Pascoe. Hello. Are you all right?'
Pascoe looked up into the puzzled face of Thomas Batty.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I was just thinking, it looks like rain. Goodbye now.'
And he drove off towards the setting sun. viii
They found Wendy Walker in Intensive Care.
The prognosis was not good.
'In fact,' explained the doctor who, to Dalziel's ageing eye, looked like a schoolboy in disguise, 'it's a miracle she's alive at all.'
She'd been found in a drainage ditch alongside Ludd Lane, a narrow country road running parallel to the ring road just west of the university. It looked as if she'd been hit with such force that she'd been sent flying into the ditch, cracking her head against a stone, and ending up face down in six inches of water. What had saved her from drowning was that the water was actually moving, not all that fast, but downstream from her face, and her body had wedged itself in such a way that the cagoule she was wearing formed a partial dam, lowering the level around her face sufficiently for her to breathe. But her skull was cracked and she'd been lying for several hours in near freezing temperatures before a passing farmer in his tractor noticed not her body but her bike which had somersaulted into the hedge some thirty feet further on. She'd had no identification on her and it wasn't till Annabel Jacklin came on duty at midday that her identity was established.
A uniformed team from Traffic had been out to the scene and their report was emphatic, that on that straight and narrow stretch of road on what had been a cold clear night, whoever had hit her must have known he'd hit her.
'So will she make it?' asked Dalziel.
The doctor shrugged, the impatient shrug of the professional being asked the impossible by the objectionable.
'All systems had just about shut down when she came in,' he said. 'Bit like an animal going into hibernation. Whether we can start them up again is the question. And if we do, with that skull damage and the possible inhibition of oxygen flow to the brain, would she want them started up again?'
He was foolish enough to make this last remark in hearing distance of Cap Marvell.
'Listen, you noisome little erk,' she hissed. 'She'd better recover consciousness, because if she doesn't, I'll make sure there's the most probing inquiry you ever saw into the resuscitation policies of this department. Do you understand me, Dr God?'
Dalziel looked on with the approving admiration of a fellow artisan. This was good technique, he acknowledged. This was real piss-your-pants stuff.
When the doctor had retired looking shell-shocked, Cap turned to him and said, 'And what are you doing hanging around here, Andy? Don't you get paid good public money for arresting madmen like this bastard who left Wendy for dead? That road would be the obvious quiet route home for any drunk at the university party living out west. You saw the amount of drink some of that lot were putting away.'
This, from one who during her brief stay at the party had managed to consume enough gin to fell a flying Dutchman, seemed a touch rich. Also there was the question of being taught how to suck eggs. But Dalziel saw that this was not the time for formal debate and merely inscribed the points in the mental balance sheet he was building up on the question of which way to go with Amanda Marvell.
He said, 'Hit and run, if they're local, we'll get 'em. If they're not…'
He shrugged. She said, 'You mean you just give up?'
'I mean, it's harder. Look, luv, it's nasty, but it doesn't put the driver on the Ten Most Wanted list. And I don't see why you're getting so het up. From what I've seen, you and Walker weren't exactly best mates.'
She studied him as if she'd just turned up a stone, but when she answered he realized it was his question she'd been studying.
'I suppose guilt has a lot to do with it,' she said finally. 'Much of the time she was a pain in the arse, always demanding why we didn't take a much harder line, torch a few fur shops, bomb scientific researchers' cars, that sort of thing. I told her if that's what she wanted she should join another group, and she said soon as she found one
