I felt ill, thinking about it.
Surely he’d seen the color of the man’s eyes when he came through the study door. Surely
Private Morton was waiting when I came back up the stairs.
I thought, after so much exertion, he must be in great pain, and I said, “It’s best if you stay out of sight. Let the doctor look at your wound, and then I’ll find a way to get you to Wales as soon as it’s safe. No one will think to look for you in the footman’s old rooms. They’ve been empty since the war began.”
“I want to go back to France,” he said. “I don’t know why I thought my father would want a coward creeping home, even to work the farm. Can you find a way to get me there? And a satisfactory explanation for my disappearance? I don’t want to be shot for deserting, much as I deserve it. I’d be grateful. I’ve let everyone down. I can’t live with that.”
I wondered what had made him change his mind. And he answered that without my asking.
“I must have run mad.”
But I thought he had felt like so many men had, that the only end to their suffering would be death, and home seemed so very far away and unreachable.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IT WASN’T UNTIL much later that my father and I could talk quietly. Sergeant Mitchell had been removed from this house, and Iris was already on her hands and knees, scrubbing his blood out of the carpet. She’d taken an instant dislike to him as he was being carried out the door on a makeshift stretcher, with Trelawney, Constable Medford, and Dr. Everett hovering in the background.
“Vicious, that’s what he is. I could see it in his face.”
I wasn’t certain that she could, for his eyes were for a mercy closed again. I’d seen the look of absolute hatred in them when I had stepped into the study to tell Dr. Everett that the ambulance had arrived. He hadn’t got what he wanted, after all, Sergeant Mitchell. And I was quite happy to be the person who had thwarted him.
We were sitting together in my mother’s morning room. The Colonel had personally searched the motorcar the Sergeant had been driving, and he had found the name of the true owner as well as an officer’s kit that Sergeant Mitchell had brought to England with him as part of his disguise.
He opened it now, and I saw that beneath the extra clothing it contained personal items-toothbrush and powder, shaving brush and straight razor, a cake of soap, the small box of thread and needles that most soldiers carried with them, several boiled sweets, and a silver frame with a photograph of the girl left behind in England. A very young Julia Baldwin. Digging deeper, my father found an oiled packet. He pulled it out and opened it. There was a worn Testament on top and, under it, a book bound in Moroccan leather. Even that wasn’t unusual, for many soldiers as well as officers carried a favorite volume with them. Shakespeare, a treasury of English verse, the works of a favorite poet-it varied with each man’s taste. Something to read during the crushing boredom waiting for the next attack or to steady the nerves in the long hours before an assault.
The Colonel Sahib took out the volume, opened it at random, and then seemed to be riveted by what he could see written on the page. Opposite him, I sat and waited.
“It’s a journal,” he said slowly. “And if I’m right about the handwriting, it belonged to Vincent.” He leafed through a few more pages and then passed it to me.
I also chose a page at random, and read, next to the date,
There followed every scrap of information he could remember: the length of the attack, the number of Germans in each wave, ground won or lost, which German regiment had been involved, number of casualties on both sides, weather conditions, whether or not gas was used, how many men were sent to the aid station, whether there had been air or artillery support, and, finally, strength in numbers remaining after the attack. It was an impressive accounting, and I could see why my father had believed that Vincent Carson would one day be the Colonel.
Turning a few more pages, I discovered a copy of a letter written to Julia. I didn’t read it. Instead I went to the beginning of the journal to see what name was inscribed on the board. But there was none, only a scribble that seemed to make no sense-unless one had been in India and recognized it.
It was the date when Vincent Carson received his commission, written in Hindi, and below that a copy of the inscription on a sword that hung in the Officers’ Mess wherever the regiment was stationed. No evening ended without a toast repeating it.
It was as personal as a signature. Sergeant Mitchell, a farmer’s son from Dorset, had never served in India. But Vincent Carson had. With this journal in the Sergeant’s possession, we could show positively that he had killed the Major.
After a moment, I said, “Julia will be pleased to have it. But what of the other Julia-Julia Palmer? Did her father know she was being courted by Sergeant Mitchell before she met Lieutenant Palmer?”
“I doubt it. It was my doing that young Palmer went to Dorset in the first place. And he was most persuasive. Captain Baldwin agreed to come out of retirement. Sadly, it cost him his life. We were fairly certain Captain Baldwin was murdered in 1916. But we could never discover who his killer was. Until now.”
“That’s why the cause of death was listed as a Zeppelin raid.”
“Yes. We didn’t want it to be generally known.”
“And Simon’s spy? What’s become of him?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask MI6 about that. Which if you did, would see you shot at dawn in the Tower. They’ve been damned quiet on the subject. I expect nothing came of it.”
“Well, at least the Prince of Wales is safe.”
“He’s on his way to the Front now, as a matter of fact. You can see why it was worrying.”
“And Mother? How do we explain the damp spot on the study carpet where Iris has been scrubbing away at a bloodstain?”
“We’d better tell her the truth. She’ll find it out anyway.”
I smiled. “Now, about Portsmouth, and the man I reportedly saw trying to climb aboard
It was some weeks later when I drove back to Cheddar Gorge during a few brief days of leave. Mrs. Wilson was busy in her garden, and I saw her tense as she looked around to see who it was in the motorcar stopping before her gates. She recognized me at once and made me welcome, but I could see new lines in her face, and I thought she had lost weight. It gave me great pleasure to tell her that the man who had killed her husband was almost well enough to stand trial for his murder.
It wouldn’t bring Private Wilson home again. But I had kept my promise to her. And her daughter would no longer have to grow up as the child of a suicide. There would also be a pension, to help with the farming.
She made tea for me while I petted Toby, the cat, cried into the handkerchief I handed her, and, as I left, gave me a round of aged Cheddar to take home to my mother.
I thought about Captain Barclay as I drove back to Somerset. He was in France, finally. I didn’t think his leg would ever heal fully, but it had mended well enough to return to duty. He wrote often, and, in his latest letter, told me a little of what he felt about rejoining his men.
But I thought perhaps it was not trying quite so hard that had helped his leg heal.
I’d also had a message from Private Morton. He was alive and well, back with his regiment, and had not forgot his promise to visit Sabrina one day. I hoped he survived the war.
I found Simon waiting for me in Somerset. He was still in London when I returned to France shortly after I’d given my statements to the Dorset police and to Scotland Yard, and finally to the Army. According to my mother’s letters, he was nearly recovered, back in his cottage, and impatient to return to duty.
Greeting me on his doorstep, he said, “It’s been some time.”