A Pattern of Lies Page 11

  “And what do you want with him?”

  “Actually, it’s a friend in Kent who is looking for news of him. I told her I’d do what I could to see if he’s all right. I’m afraid he’s not much at writing letters.”

  “I’ll pass the word,” Sergeant Wills told me, although he didn’t sound too hopeful.

  Once his leg was properly dressed, he hobbled back to his lines.

  The next person I chose to ask was in the ranks of a Lancashire regiment. Corporal Denton. He’d lost part of his ear to a sniper, and as I cleaned and dressed the wound, I asked again about Sergeant Lassiter. He started to shake his head, then remembered his ear. “Doesn’t ring a bell, Sister. But I’ll pass the word.”

  I was always careful that no one else was within hearing as I put my questions. No need to bring trouble down on the sergeant or on me.

  We were moved shortly after that, the entire forward dressing station, and I was sent to another sector.

  I had to start again, planting that same seed and professing no personal interest in the sergeant. A corporal, grinning at me as I bandaged his hand, wanted to know if the friend in Kent looking to find the Australian was pretty. I assured him that she was quite pretty, although a little on the large side.

  “Oh, well, then, I’ll help the sergeant along with his romance.”

  And a few days later it paid off.

  A private said to me as I was cleaning his shoulder, “There’s someone asking for Sergeant Lassiter. Do you know the Sister who’s looking for news of him?”

  “I don’t,” I said, concealing my excitement. “But I’ll pass it on.”

  Private Howell nodded. “The sergeant’s a little occupied at the moment, but as soon as may be, he’ll send word to Kent that he’s all right.”

  That must mean he was in the midst of a push and couldn’t get away. I could wait. But I wasn’t sure for how long. It had occurred to me that I could have passed the word to find Sergeant Rollins rather than go through Sergeant Lassiter. But the trouble was, Sergeant Rollins didn’t know me; he wouldn’t have understood any message I could have made up to draw his attention. I couldn’t mention the Ashtons, as it would only cause trouble if the Army had already forbidden any contact.

  But Sergeant Lassiter could find Rollins for me, and if he was alive, I could try to contrive a meeting.

  And then another letter arrived from Abbey House, and this time it was from Helen Ashton.

  After giving me news of Mark and Clara and herself, she added,

  I am sitting in my little garden, where I can drop the cheerful face I wear to keep everyone’s spirits up. I shouldn’t be telling you my troubles, there’s nothing you can do, and the last thing I wish to do is burden you with them. That said, I need to talk to someone. Ellie should be here to sit by me and listen to my worries, but she isn’t, and I miss her more with every passing day. I don’t really know how Mark has managed to carry on without her.

  I felt a wave of sadness for her.

  Turning the page, I read on.

  Someone else has come forward, Bess. Claiming to be a witness but this time with more damning evidence than the earlier so-­called witnesses appeared to have. Mr. Groves has been given her name. I don’t yet know who it is, but I have the most awful feeling about this. Why should she speak out now, two years late, swearing she knows Philip is a murderer? If she’s so certain, why didn’t she tell the Army in 1916? Is she a widow, vindictive enough that the truth doesn’t matter? Don’t any of them realize that my husband could hang, if found guilty?

  I remembered the woman at the market in the square, spitting at me. And the others who’d turned their backs on me. Only because I was a guest in the Ashton house. Many of these villagers must be related to the dead men. And so all of them might be vulnerable to a well-­planned campaign of malicious gossip and lies.

  Possibly more to the point, how many of them would go so far as to perjure themselves? Even when they knew what they were saying was a lie? I couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t even begin to guess. And yet I had seen for myself just how deeply their hatred had taken root.

  But whose campaign was it? Whose feelings went even deeper? Which family wanted an eye for an eye badly enough to see that they got it?

  More worrying was what Mrs. Ashton might do once she learned the name of this new witness.

  The last page of the letter had clearly been difficult to write.

  I have asked repeatedly to be able to visit Philip, but the request is denied each time. Mr. Groves sees him, and Mr. Worley. But Mark and I are kept from him. It would help us both if we could speak to him, to know he is well and in good spirits, to hear what advice he might give us in regard to his affairs, or anything he might wish us to learn from him rather than Mr. Groves. Mark is beside himself, and yesterday snapped at Clara, sending her in tears to her room. And this morning I fear I nearly did the same myself. We can’t begin tearing at each other. Philip needs us. But I’m afraid that’s what is happening. And if there is a trial, we will need to be strong, for his sake.

  And then she had written,

  Philip won’t defend himself. Groves complains that he refuses to cooperate with his Counsel, Lucius Worley. I don’t like this man Worley, Bess. I don’t trust him. Mark and Groves and even Philip feel he’s brilliant and so I must put my faith in his judgment. How can I?

  I see only darkness ahead, my dear. Tell me that there will be light. Make me believe it.

  My heart ached for Helen Ashton.

  I was glad I’d put out queries for Sergeant Lassiter. I’d doubted whether it was the right thing to do, but I knew now that it was.

  And then I found out what was keeping Sergeant Lassiter.

  It wasn’t a push, as I’d thought.

  He had crossed his commanding officer and was summarily arrested for insubordination.

  My spirits plummeted. They would surely shoot him. Or lock him away until the end of the war, and leave me to search for Sergeant Rollins on my own.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE BEST I could do under the circumstances, I thought as I accompanied a convoy of severely wounded men to a base hospital, was to beg to take a convoy to England. I needed to speak to the Colonel Sahib.

  The ambulances now ran in the dark, without lights, because there was a rogue German aircraft that seemed to be in every part of the Front at once. And the pilot’s favorite sport, when he couldn’t spot replacement troops marching to the Front, was to play fast and loose with the ambulances.

  He flew an aircraft rather like the one that had made the Red Baron a terror in the sky. Except that this one was black, save for its insignia. Everyone could recognize it at first sight and everyone dreaded it. Somehow the pilot managed to escape any British craft, slipping through a cloud, hugging the ground, passing almost over the heads of troops, using the weather to conceal him until he reached our lines. And then he made his presence felt with a vengeance.

  He’d never actually shot an ambulance, to my knowledge. But he would fire in front of one, to the driver’s side, or just over the bonnet, making the driver swear and swerve, only to meet another burst as he did, forcing him to swerve in the opposite direction.

  Needless to say, this pilot was badly wanted by everyone, but he seemed to live a charmed life.

  And somehow this night, as we took six ambulances of badly wounded men to the base hospital, he spotted us, making our lives wretched and giving the wounded a bad turn.

  Sitting beside the driver, I said in exasperation, “For heaven’s sake, don’t play his game. Put on your headlamps and drive straight on, straight through to the base hospital. Just as if he wasn’t there.”

  “He’ll strafe us, kill half of us,” the man said grimly. “I’ve been strafed before.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you have. But he’s just toying with us. Can’t you see? Ignore him and he�
�ll go away.”

  “Or kill the lot of us,” the driver said morosely, his eyes searching the sky above us. He jumped as the aircraft came swooping down again, another burst of fire across our path. And then it was gone, rising up into the blackness like some elegant night bird.

  I couldn’t convince him, but somehow we made it through without losing any of our patients, and the last I saw of the driver, he was heading purposefully for the nearest canteen.

  We finally settled the men, still shaken by their experience and very angry indeed, and after that I was relieved for the evening. I went to the room I’d been assigned to and dug pen and paper out of my kit, intending to write to Simon.

  Then I thought better of it and wrote to the Colonel Sahib instead. My mother knew who Sergeant Lassiter was; he’d summoned her to France when I’d been taken so terribly ill with the Spanish flu. She would speak up for him.

  I explained that he was in something of a predicament with the Army, but that I needed him to be free to find someone for me. That it was essential that I have his help.

  Ending the letter, I added, Besides, he’s more useful in the trenches than he is in gaol.

  His reputation among his men was proof of how good a soldier he was. I knew my father would appreciate that.

  Early the next morning, I waylaid one of the couriers and bribed him with the last pot of honey I’d brought to France with me to slip my letter into the military pouch. And made a mental note to tell Sergeant Lassiter what he had cost me.

  All I could do now was wait.

  The base hospital wanted to keep me, but I was sent back into the field, and spent the next few days wishing I’d also made the courier promise to bring any reply directly to me.

  Each night I listened to the shelling, and each day I worked with the wounded. There were fewer gas attacks, although the base hospitals and the clinics in England were still crowded with men whose lungs were burned beyond repair. I was glad not to be sent to those wards, where the sound of coughing and raspy breathing filled the rooms and men struggled to keep air moving through passages that were clogged by scarred and ruined tissue.

  Overnight it seemed that the weather had turned colder, the brisk days of autumn behind us, and I blew on my hands one morning, trying to warm them up as I dressed. There would be tea waiting for me, perhaps porridge or sandwiches, and I was already missing that little jug of honey. I’d learned early on to do without milk, but often Army tea was too strong not to have something to sweeten it. I could hardly remember the taste of sugar.

  I was just stepping out of my tent when I blundered into one of the night Sisters, just going off duty.

  “Oh—­! Sorry,” I said. “Is it bad this morning?”

  “Not terribly,” Sister Hancock said. “There’s a visitor for you. Over by the water lorry.”

  My heart leapt. Could it be Sergeant Lassiter so soon? I was feeling unspeakably grateful to my father for managing to free him.

  But I should have known—­I should have realized that I hadn’t heard his distinctive signal, that of a bird famous in the Outback for its strange laughing call.

  Instead it was Simon waiting there in the shadow of the tank, for the sun rose late these days.

  “Is everyone all right?” I asked quickly as he greeted me. Sergeant-­Major Brandon was wearing a khaki uniform with a tear in the shoulder and a streak of what looked like blood across the front of his blouse, black in this light. “Are you all right?” I added as that registered. I’d worked to save his arm once, when the Gurkhas had brought him into our station and left him there before melting away in the dark.

  “Not my blood,” he said briskly. “I haven’t much time. But your father asked me to let you know. Captain Maxwell, in Sergeant Lassiter’s sector, is very angry with him, and the Colonel Sahib has been hard-­pressed to make him see reason.”

  “Oh, dear. What has the sergeant done?” I had nearly added “This time,” but thought better of it. Sergeant Lassiter didn’t suffer fools lightly, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d struck someone. If it were an officer, then he would be in very difficult straits indeed.

  I watched as Simon tried to suppress a grin. “He told his commanding officer that three men just reduced in rank for insubordination were actually trying to keep Captain Maxwell from looking like a fool. And he added that it had been all but an impossible task from the start.”

  I sighed. “And he was probably right.”

  “This man Maxwell isn’t fit to lead anyone. He’d been a green lieutenant, in the front line barely three days, when his superiors were killed in an action. He was promoted forthwith because his father is something at HQ, and because it was thought he was cut from the same cloth. He isn’t.”

  “What are we to do? More importantly, what is Sergeant Lassiter to do?”

  “God knows. Who is this man you need to find?”

  “You won’t know him—­but Mark Ashton’s father has been charged with murder, accused of setting the fire that burned everything after the Ashton Powder Mill blew up. It’s a long story. But there’s a witness, a Sergeant Rollins, that the Army doesn’t feel needs to be brought to Canterbury to testify on Mr. Ashton’s behalf. He’d already given a statement to the Army, but that testimony dealt only with possible sabotage. No one has questioned him about any other reason for the blast.”

  Simon frowned. “Cranbourne, in Kent? I recall that explosion. The Colonel Sahib was one of the men suggested to carry out the inquiry. He was busy elsewhere and another senior officer took his place. Soon afterward he was put in charge of finding a suitable replacement for the mill as quickly as possible.”

  “I don’t think I’d ever heard of the explosion.”

  “It was quickly hushed up. Morale. And to keep such news from the Germans. It was quite a blow to lose that mill at any time. Two months later we were in the midst of the Somme offensive. We were hard-­pressed to keep up with the demand for powder.”

  Perhaps the Army held what had happened against Philip Ashton, long before the ­people of Cranbourne had pointed a finger at him.

  “What am I to do?”

  “Pray,” Simon told me. “The Colonel is doing what he can. But Maxwell is a stubborn prig.”

  “Can the Colonel Sahib find a way to bring Sergeant Rollins to Canterbury to be questioned by Lucius Worley, Philip Ashton’s barrister?” I could hear the sound of heavy boots hurrying across rough ground. I was going to be needed very soon.

  “Not if the Army doesn’t want him to appear,” Simon replied. “I’m told he’s indispensable where he is.”

  It was what I had feared.

  Oh dear indeed.

  One of the orderlies was shouting for me.

  “I must go, Simon. You will take care, won’t you?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, smiling as he disappeared into the ground mist that was springing up as the sun tried to rise behind a heavy bank of clouds.

  I ran quickly to my post, and was just in time to work with a young corporal whose leg was badly torn. I managed to stop the bleeding, but he would have to go to hospital as soon as possible. He might still lose that leg, but for the moment he was stable.

  I’d forgot my breakfast. With one part of my mind busy with what Simon had told me, I worked with the other part, examining incoming wounds, judging what best to do about them, and sending for the doctor in the worse cases while one of the other Sisters dealt with the superficial injuries.

  And what was Simon doing in France anyway, covered in blood that wasn’t his own? I’d heard a story told in confidence by a Gurkha officer that the little men from Nepal who fought with such courage and skill could run their fingers lightly up the laces of a sleeping man’s boots and tell at once whether he was German or British. Laces ran a certain way in the British Army, a different way in the German forces.

  T
hey had rescued any number of prisoners that way. No one mentioned how many men they might have assassinated as well.

  Had Simon been behind the lines looking for prisoners? He was one of the few men other than the Gurkha officers who spoke the language. He might have been sent out to find information . . .

  I forced myself to pay attention to what I was doing, but when there was a break in the number of wounded, I went quickly to find something to eat.

  What were we to do about Sergeant Rollins?

  Or for that matter, about Sergeant Lassiter?

  There was a lull in the fighting, fierce as it had been for almost seven hours, and when I came off duty, I fell on my cot, asleep almost at once.

  One of the officers I’d treated had a badly torn knee from machine-­gun fire, and he told me with some anger that the Germans had pushed hard enough to retake a good two hundred feet of what they’d lost. There had been a mad scramble on the part of the British to withdraw in some order, but they had had to retrieve their dead and wounded under a white flag.

  “How did they break through?” I asked as I worked.

  “God knows. Someone said a sector down the line had folded.” He tried to keep still as I worked, for any movement made his knee hurt very badly, but it was nearly impossible. “I expect it’s probably true. The Germans are quick to find a weakness. We’ll retake it in a day or so. But there’s no way to bring back the dead who tried their best to stop them from overrunning our position. A waste, a stupid bloody waste.”

  I gave him something for his pain and marked him for the next convoy of ambulances. At a guess he was close to thirty-­five, an old hand, his body lean from years in the trenches, his mind filled with strategy and tactics, what worked and what didn’t. He wouldn’t be particularly happy with me for sending him to hospital, but there was no way he could return to his men. He could barely stand, much less lead them up a ladder in the next charge. And even if he could, he’d have an infected knee for his trouble. That could lead to amputation and even to death.