Charles Todd - An Impartial Witness

I was just coming up the avenue of lime trees later that day when I heard Simon's motorcar pulling in behind me.

"Were you able to put a name to that face?" I asked, hope rising.

"Unfortunately, no."

My spirits plummeted. "Oh" was all I could manage to say.

Simon smiled. "I can't work miracles, Bess. He's in a territorial regiment. They come and go, those charged with their training barely getting to know them before they're shipped to the Front. Besides, it's not a very clear likeness. And at the moment, I must go up to London."

To my eyes it was. Or had I wanted it to be the right man? With his cap on, shading his face-but that's how I'd seen him at Waterloo Station.

"Let me go with you." I put on my most innocent face.

He was instantly suspicious. "Why?"

"I have some shopping I'd like to do."

He nodded. "All right. After breakfast, then."

I was ready the next morning when he came knocking at the door a little after seven. My mother had given me a long list of things she needed and couldn't find locally.

We drove in silence for a time, and then he said, "Look, Bess. This is all well and good. But you need to spend more time with your family."

"I feel guilty enough," I told him. "But I also feel responsible. Day after day, I watched Lieutenant Evanson cling to that photograph of his wife, and on the long journey home, I helped him count the hours until he saw her again. He was stoic, never complaining. Only, I was the one who saw her-he never did. He wasn't even well enough to attend her funeral. Then he killed himself, slowly, patiently, until he'd succeeded. He was one of mine, Simon. He should have lived."

He reached over and took my hand. His was warm and safe and comforting. "You can't save all of them, Bess," he said gently. "That's the trouble with war. Men die. Your father and I close our eyes and see a thousand ghosts. We know they're there, but we can't stare too long at their faces. We have to move on. Put the living first. There are already enough monuments to the dead." His voice was bitter as he finished.

I said nothing, too close to tears, and I knew how he disliked tears.

After a while he released my hand, and then he changed the subject.

Simon hadn't particularly cared to see me go into nursing, but when the war came, it was what I wanted to do. If I couldn't fight with my father's regiment, as a son would have done, I could at least keep men alive to fight again another day.

Simon had decided that the rigors of learning my trade would discourage me. But mopping floors, changing dressings and bed-pans, sitting with the dying, and standing by without flinching when horribly wounded men came through the tent flap had toughened me in ways I hadn't expected. If my father's son could face death on a battlefield, my father's daughter could certainly face the bloody ruins of brave men.

India and the other places where my father had been sent in the course of his career had also helped me cope with the ugliness of what I had chosen to do. Death and disease, poverty and despair were just outside the compound gates in Agra and other places. I had only to ride a mile in my mother's carriage to see maimed lepers and begging children, ash-covered holy men lying on a bed of hot coals or a starving family covered with sores. I knew early on that life for some was very hard and for others much more comfortable.

"A penny," my companion said as we drove through the next small village.

"I was thinking about India."

"I dream of it sometimes. Do you?"

"Yes-oh, Simon, stop, please!" I reached out, my hand on his arm.

He did as I'd asked, pulling in behind a baker's cart. I was out of the motorcar almost as soon as it came to a halt.

"Captain Truscott!" I called to the Army officer just walking into a bookshop. He turned and recognized me at once.

"Miss Crawford! How good to see you. What brings you to Maplethorpe?"

"I was passing through, on my way to London."

"I'm leaving for London myself in half an hour. Have dinner with me tonight."

"The Marlborough?"

"Yes, indeed. Shall I come for you?"

I told him where to find me and that Mrs. Hennessey was the guardian at the gate. "Let her see that you are the most responsible officer in the entire Army, and she'll come upstairs for me."

He laughed. "Seven, then?"

"Seven."

And I was back in the motorcar before the baker had finished his delivery at the tea shop next to the bookstore.

"You've thrown over the dashing young lieutenant for a captain, I see."

"He was at the Meltons' house party. He knew Marjorie Evanson and her husband."

"Which explains why you leapt out of a moving motorcar to chase that man into a bookstore and beg him to take you to dinner tonight."

"I did no such thing," I answered indignantly.

Simon laughed. "That's how your mother would see it."

That was true. I don't know why I had rushed after Captain Truscott, but it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was a bit of luck to find him again at all.

We reached London and Simon set me down at the flat, where I went up to look for anyone who might be there. But I had it to myself, and I decided that my first order of business was to speak to Inspector Herbert.

He was not at the Yard, having been called away to deal with a problem in Bermondsey. The elderly constable who escorted me to his office and back down the stairs again took pity on me when he saw my disappointment. "He's got a meeting tomorrow at eight o'clock with the Chief Superintendent. If you are here at nine o'clock, he'll make time for you."

I thanked him and left. I'd expected I'd be staying over in London, anyway. The problem would be persuading Simon to stay too.

By the time I reached the flat again, having stopped along the way to find items from my mother's list, I discovered Simon waiting for me, leaning against the wing of his motorcar, arms crossed.

I gave him my packages and he stowed them in the motorcar. Three more he carried inside for me, where Mrs. Hennessey gave him permission to take them up the stairs to the flat, while she watched with an eagle eye. "He's a very attractive man. Friend of the family or not," she murmured to me. "And there are standards to maintain. The families of my young ladies expect it."

I suppressed a smile. If Mrs. Hennessey didn't trust Simon, the most trustworthy of men, I wondered what she would make of Lieutenant Hart. Temptation incarnate.

But dear soul that she was, she did her best to safeguard those of us who lived in the flats above, and we all loved her.

When Simon came down again, we went to his motorcar and he took me to lunch. I'd wanted to ask him what he'd learned, but he was in a dark mood and I knew better than to push. We talked about other things-where I'd gone shopping, what I'd heard from my flatmates, news of mutual friends, everything under the sun but what was uppermost in my mind.

And then, at the end of our meal, as the waiter set our trifle in front of us and walked away, he finally said, "I've found the name of the man in that photograph. Are you sure you want to hear what I've learned? Or shall I send it along to this Inspector Herbert of yours, and let it be finished?"

"Is it someone you know-or my parents know?" I asked, suddenly worried.

"No."

"Then tell me, please."

"He's Jack Melton's brother."

I sat there, stunned.

I hadn't expected the man to be someone I knew. But then I'd never actually met him, I reminded myself. Only his brother. Serena's husband. Still, it was too close to home for comfort.

"What is his name?" I couldn't remember ever hearing it.

"Raymond Melton. He's a captain in the Wiltshire Fusiliers. And in France at the moment."

I took a deep breath.