Sally Spencer: Blackstone and the Great War

There was a muffled response from inside, and the redcap opened the door and gestured to Blackstone that he should step forward.

The room that they entered was a substantial one, and a far cry from the holes in the trench in which the enlisted men did their best to get some rest. Close to the door was a table covered with a clean white cloth, on which sat a bottle of whisky and a set of crystal glasses. Beyond the table, there were a number of armchairs and a wind-up gramophone, and at the back of the dugout there were three or four beds with comfortable mattresses.

There were five officers sitting at the table, two captains and three second lieutenants.

The redcap looked first at one captain and then at the other, as if unsure of which one to address.

That was the army for you, Blackstone thought, amused at his obvious perplexity. The captain at the head of the table was probably the company commander, which, under normal circumstances, made him unquestionably the most important man in the room. But the other captain, as was evident from his badge, was a military policeman — which meant he was the redcap’s boss — and that fact alone was enough to muddy the normally clear blue waters of military protocol.

‘You may go, Corporal,’ the company commander said.

The corporal looked relieved that the decision had been taken out of his hands. He saluted — wisely looking straight at his own captain as he did so — wheeled round, and smartly exited the dugout.

From the expression on the redcap captain’s face, it was clear to Blackstone that he was not entirely pleased with the way things had panned out, but equally clear that he felt he could say nothing about it in the presence of three junior officers and a mere civilian. The junior officers themselves were pretending to have a complete lack of interest in the new arrival, though when they thought Blackstone was not looking at them, they took the opportunity to study him closely.

‘So you’re Blackstone, are you?’ the company commander asked.

‘That’s right,’ the policeman agreed.

‘I’m Captain Carstairs,’ the captain told him. ‘You may stand at ease, Blackstone.’

‘To do that successfully, I’d first have to have been standing at attention,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘And I wasn’t.’

Carstairs frowned, then turned towards the younger officers.

‘I expect that you gentlemen are anxious to return to your duties,’ he said.

The lieutenants nodded — recognizing an order when they heard one — and stood up.

‘Goodnight, sir,’ they said in unison.

‘Goodnight Maude, goodnight Soames, goodnight Hatfield,’ Carstairs drawled.

The three young officers crossed the dugout and walked past Blackstone. None of them looked directly at him — nor even so much as acknowledged his physical presence — but that couldn’t cover up the fact that they had been bursting with curiosity when he first walked in.

‘Maude, Soames and Hatfield,’ Blackstone repeated silently.

He would remember those names and those faces, just in case their presence in the dugout that night had been more than just a coincidence.

‘Do you have any questions you’d care to put to Blackstone, Captain Huxton?’ Carstairs asked the other remaining officer.

‘I most certainly do,’ Huxton replied. ‘You’re a sergeant, aren’t you, Blackstone?’

He had just about got the measure of the two men now, Blackstone decided.

Carstairs, despite his greying temples, was probably still only in his early thirties. He was the sort of man who would not find the burden of command an easy one to bear, but would do his best to fulfil the role honourably and conscientiously. As officers went, he was probably not a bad man, though, like most officers, his view of the world around him was probably as narrow as the one which could be viewed through a trench periscope.

Huxton was another matter altogether. He had a rounded face and a florid complexion, and his eyes told the story of a man who had gone through life with the firm belief that no problem was so large that it could not be solved by merely shouting loudly at it.

‘Are you stone deaf, man?’ Huxton demanded. ‘I asked you if you were a sergeant.’

‘I used to be,’ Blackstone replied. ‘I used to be a lot of things — but now I’m a police inspector.’

Captain Huxton lifted his whisky glass, and took a leisurely sip, leaving Blackstone standing there in front of the table, as if he were a guilty schoolboy who had been summoned to the headmaster’s study.

Huxton smacked his lips in appreciation, put his glass down, and said, ‘I hear you served in India and Afghanistan.’

‘I did,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘Well, that must have been a long time ago now,’ Huxton reflected. ‘Soldiering has changed a lot since your day.’

No, it hadn’t, Blackstone thought — not if these men were anything to go by. The weapons may have become more lethal, the tactics might now be very different, but the army was still the army he had known — and Carstairs and Huxton were the living proof of it.

‘We’ve had to lower our standards since this bloody war started, and the average age of my chaps now is considerably higher than it used to be,’ Huxton continued, ‘but even so, you’re much older than I’d normally consider acceptable.’ He paused. ‘And then there’s the fact that all my men are corporals, while you’re a sergeant.’

‘Is that a problem?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Yes, but not an insurmountable one,’ Huxton said complacently. ‘I’m sure that as soon you’ve learned how we go about our business in today’s army, you’ll fit in well enough. But one thing will have to change — and change damn quickly,’ he warned, his voice hardening and his finger wagging, ‘and that’s your attitude. You’re far too casual. I expect the proper deference from all my men — and I don’t care how old you are, I expect it from you.’

‘You seem to be labouring under a misapprehension,’ Blackstone told him. ‘I haven’t been enlisted, and I won’t be working for you.’

Huxton snorted in disbelief. ‘Of course you’ll be working for me. I’m the Assistant Provost Marshal. Who else would you be working for?’

‘I won’t be working for anyone,’ Blackstone said. ‘My investigation will be entirely independent of the army, though I may, when the need arises, ask for the assistance of a few of your men.’

‘You might ask whatever you choose,’ Huxton said, his florid face now almost lobster-red. ‘But if you seriously expect me to allow any of my men to take orders from you, then. . then you’re completely off your head.’ He turned to Carstairs for support. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, George? He must be completely off his head.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,’ Carstairs said.

‘What!’ Huxton exploded.

‘Believe me, I can quite see your point, and if I were in your position, I’m sure I would feel exactly as you do,’ Carstairs said. ‘But the War Office communiqué leaves us very little room for manoeuvre. In fact, it states quite explicitly that we are to extend to Inspector Blackstone any assistance that he sees fit to request.’

Carstairs was enjoying this, Blackstone suddenly realized — and there was probably good reason for that.

Even in his soldiering days in India, the regular army had never regarded the military police as proper soldiers, and had resented the way their powers cut across the command structure. And the police, for their part, had felt aggrieved that regular soldiers failed to acknowledge the vital role they felt they played in holding a rabble army together.

But there was more to it than that, Blackstone told himself. Carstairs disliked Huxton on a purely personal level — and in that way, at least, he and the company commander had something in common.