Jacqueline Winspear - The Mapping of Love and Death

"Nurse?"

Maisie nodded.

"Bit young, weren't you?"

"I lied. I wasn't the only one."

"No, and you won't be the last. War does that-until people realize that it isn't a game to be played"-he held out his hand towards the map-"like draughts or chess. It's a matter of life and death. Chiefly death."

"I know."

At that moment, Dawson arrived with a tray set for tea. He brought it to a low table between two armchairs situated on one side of the room, close to the fireplace.

"Miss Dobbs, do take a seat. We'll have tea, and you can tell me in more detail why you're here to see me."

Whitting showed Maisie to one of the armchairs, which were covered in a woven tapestry-like fabric; comfortable enough for a lady, but with a masculine austerity about them. Coals were smoldering in the fireplace, and as Whitting was about to sit down, she noticed a large calico cat asleep on his chair. He swept up the cat, placed her on the arm of the chair, and waited while Dawson handed a cup of tea to Maisie before accepting a cup himself. After they were each handed a slice of cake on a fine china plate, Dawson left them alone to their conversation.

"Lieutenant Colonel Davidson thought you would be the best person to tell me more about the role of cartographers during the war."

When Whitting smirked, the right side of his mouth tweaked upward. "'Lieutenant Colonal Davidson'-that's one for the books. Promoted to keep him out of trouble, if his record's anything to go by, then sent out to the far reaches of the Empire." He shook his head. "But with the way things are going over there in India, heaven only knows what trouble he'll cause. And no wonder he sent you to me; he probably wouldn't know where to begin to describe the work of the cartographers. In any case, why do you want to know?"

Maisie remained calm in the face of her host's attack on a fellow officer, placing her cup on the table before she reached into her document case, which she had laid at her feet. "I beg your pardon, I should have given you this when we were introduced. I am an inquiry agent, among other things, and I am working on behalf of a client." She went on to tell Whitting about the Cliftons' search for the woman with whom their son had formed some sort of liaison.

"He was an American, you say?"

"Yes, that's right."

He shook his head. "I wonder why we accepted him."

"I thought you might be able to tell me."

"Our cartographers and surveyors are, in general, trained at the School of Military Engineering, in Chatham. It could have been that your chappie, though an American, satisfied the enlistment officers regarding his British connections, and of course, it sounds as if he was quite highly qualified in his field, so he would have been snapped up. In a time of war, we can't be picky when it comes to keeping the clever ones."

Maisie had heard Maurice say as much, though perhaps not in such blunt terms.

"He sailed to Southampton in August 1914. Apparently, he'd heard about the declaration of war whilst working in California and booked passage straightaway. Then in 1916 his parents received a telegram with news that he was missing. His remains, and those of other members of the survey party, were discovered by a farmer at the beginning of the year."

Whitting set down his cup and stood up, his back to the fire, whereupon the cat slipped into the warm seat vacated by her owner.

"We had our work cut out for us from the Battle of Loos onward-and that was a debacle. On the face of it our cartographers seemed to be doing a brilliant job. They were printing maps over there, distributing them, developing special sheets for commanders and top-secret sheets for the intelligence boys. As fast as our cartographers could work, we were pushing the fruits of their labors into the hands of the people who needed them."

"So what went wrong?"

"Too much to tell, but suffice it to say that it started when we took over significant stretches of the line from the French, and began basing our maps on those we'd been bequeathed by our predecessors. In a nutshell, our armies were fighting a battle for which the commanders were using incompatible maps, with different scales. In hindsight, the distortions were dramatic." Whitting paused. "But you don't want to know all that, do you, Miss Dobbs? You want to know how a cartographer works."

"If you have time, Major Whitting."

"You're here now, might as well get the job done. Let's start with the equipment."

Whitting's desk was neat, clear except for a pile of three books, several pages of an unfinished letter laid out on the blotting pad, and various items of equipment set on the edge of the desk, almost like ornaments. He picked up the sheets of paper and placed them in a drawer, then pulled a brass object towards him.

"This is an octant…"

One by one, Whitting took each piece and described its purpose to Maisie, explaining as he went how a cartographer was trained, and how a military mapmaker worked. He pointed out the challenges that a land surveyor or cartographer working in a civilian role would have encountered when required to do things differently in a battle situation. Maisie took notes as he spoke, taking account of his tone, which revealed more of the authoritarian military official than the man who had first welcomed her into the room.

"And I think that's all I can tell you, Miss Dobbs, without going so far as to begin actually training you in the art of mapmaking."

"Art? Not science?"

"The mapmaker is not only a mathematician, but an artist. He has to look at the earth and see what needs to be seen, then represent it in a way that means something-to a class, a sailor, a walker on the hills, the driver of a motor car, or those who orchestrate a battle. They have to look at that map and see a range of possibilities, not just one. Enormously important decisions hang on precise representations of what is before the commander-and as you know, most of the important decisions are made many miles away, by men in warm offices and with dry clothing. Everything rests on the fallibility of the map-and it takes more than science to do the job well."

"I see." Maisie paused. "Thank you for your time, Major Whitting. You have been most helpful."

He said nothing in response, and reached to the side of the window to ring the bell that would summon Dawson. As he pulled the curtain aside, another cat, as black as jet, walked from behind the fabric into the room.

"This one will always retreat to a hiding place when there's company."

Maisie and her host watched the cat brush up against the chairs before clambering up onto a shelf and crawling into the dark space above a row of books.

"I was thinking of contacting the School of Military Engineering in Chatham, to see if I can find out anything about Michael Clifton there."

"Might be worth your while," said Whitting. He folded his arms. "But I should advise you that they're very busy down there, and given the strategic importance of Chatham to both the army and the navy, an inquiry agent probably wouldn't be the most welcome visitor."

At that point, Dawson knocked and entered the room, holding open the door for Maisie to leave.

"May I telephone if I have any more questions, Major Whitting?"

"As long as you call in the morning."

Maisie had just stepped across the threshold when she looked back. "You know, there's one thing that rather surprises me: given that the cartographers and survey teams worked closely together, and were a small group in comparison with the battalions, for example, I rather hoped you might have a recollection of an American among their number. I understand you were responsible for men across the area where this particular cartographer was working. I would have thought with the accent…and by all accounts, he was a tall man, as so many Americans are, and-"