David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

Cumming, of course, had neglected to say. One would have thought that it might have been pertinent to know how they knew Paul would be on the steamer. Had there been a leak from Cumming’s office?

Predictably, though, Cumming was evasive on the point.

‘Oh, don’t worry yourself on that score. We’re as sound as a bell. Listen to Kell and you’d think there are spies everywhere. Part of the natural order of things.’ He turned to the somewhat urbane officer standing beside Paul. ‘Like blossom in springtime, eh Browning?’

‘Socialists, anarchists, revolutionaries… country’s awash with ‘em,’ Browning agreed emphatically.

Cumming chuckled. ‘Browning here is of the opinion that if you fired a punt-gun in the reading room of the British library, you couldn’t fail to bag a brace.’

‘Can’t sit down to dinner in some houses without getting wigged by a damned agitator of some stamp or the other,’ Browning complained.

All very well, Paul had thought at the time, but it still didn’t answer the question. How did they know that he would be aboard the steamer? Particularly before he was even aware of the fact himself!

But that was all of a piece with the day. Nothing could be pinned down, nothing taken for what it seemed.

Things had started badly and had got steadily worse. Everything had happened too quickly. He had the sensation of being swept along in a situation that was out of his control; a situation of which he had yet to grasp the full significance. It was all too unsettling, like being somehow pushed ahead of himself. It left him with the odd impression that every time he heard a damned whistle and looked back over his shoulder, he might actually catch sight of himself standing in the middle of the station with a puzzled expression on his face.

The railway inspector pushed Paul’s ticket back at him and waved him in the direction of the train. On the platform the crowd seemed a little thinner. He was able to relax for a moment and catch his breath. Not too many people heading north-east. Then he caught sight of a line of casualties boarding the train and his heart sank. Officers mostly, walking wounded, although he could see a couple of amputees among them hobbling along on crutches. Flanked by two nurses, they were being shepherded along the platform by a medical orderly. No doubt there was a recuperation hospital somewhere out in the Suffolk countryside. Paul supposed the poor fools would be expecting some large house in nice grounds — a river perhaps… sunny afternoons with tea and cakes on the lawn… time to doze under the dappled shade of trees…

He pitied them. If it was anything like his hospital it would be draughty corridors and cold-water baths; tepid tea and, instead of cake, a diet of bored doctors.

He found an empty compartment, lifted his bag onto the luggage rack and sat down. He had bought an evening paper from Smith’s bookstall. It was too soon for news of bodies found in alleys behind the Waldorf and the headlines were still trumpeting the fact that the Allies had stopped the German offensive. But they’d been saying that for weeks with precious little evidence to back it up. He scanned the story anyway, found nothing new, as he had suspected, and turned instead to an article about the recent events in Russia. Under the circumstances he thought that was disturbingly coincidental, even if the piece was mainly about the present conditions in St Petersburg — or Petrograd as he now had to get used to thinking of it. Even so, the paper did not paint a very comforting picture, especially as they admitted themselves that the situation was so chaotic that no news was reliable. Particularly, it took pains to note, news being released by the Bolsheviks themselves.

Little wiser, he turned out of habit to the casualty lists, running his eyes down the columns for any familiar names. He saw none he knew, nor had he for some time. Since the first harvest had accounted for most of his contemporaries, and those who had managed to survive that reaping generally living only long enough to be scythed down in the second year, it was now only very occasionally that he did come across a name he recognised. Some stubborn individual whom the blade hadn’t cut down cleanly at first or second attempt. Much like himself, he supposed. Although he was only too aware of there still being time for that omission to be rectified.

The compartment door opened unexpectedly and a middle-aged couple took the seats opposite him. He glanced at them guiltily and pulled the greatcoat closer to cover the bloodstains. Another whistle blew and the train gave a lurch then began moving slowly out of the station. He stared out of the window at the passing back alleys and dingy brick houses, becoming aware for the first time since early that morning of feeling almost comfortable.

Physically comfortable, anyway. His head was still a bedlam like the station.

It had all started at his club that morning when Burkett, the steward, had pushed the note into his hand.

‘A gentleman left this letter for you, sir,’ he intoned in his ponderous fashion, bending towards Paul confidentially and whispering in his ear. ‘With the instruction, sir, that I was to hand it to you personally and to inform you that, therein, you would find something to your advantage.’

There being something so unnecessarily conspiratorial in Burkett’s tone and, because he was still feeling out of sorts from having lost money at cards the previous evening, Paul almost damned the man for his impertinence.

But then Burkett added, ‘On a separate matter, Captain Ross, I am told that the Secretary is looking for you concerning your bill.’

The steward’s manner had now changed to one of condescension. It was an attitude Paul had noticed servants often adopted when telling one something one didn’t want to hear and he decided he didn’t like this tone any better than he’d liked Burkett’s first. But he swallowed his imminent curse conscious, as he was, of trying to rid himself of all that master—servant nonsense. And since, given his situation, he really didn’t want to see the Club Secretary, he was grateful for the warning.

So instead of cursing the steward, he found himself muttering an all too effusive, ‘Thank you, Burkett, thank you very much.’ Aware of over-compensating with his newly adopted egalitarianism, he then shut his mouth and took the proffered envelope.

It was unaddressed. Blank in fact. Suspecting a bill of some description he pushed it back at Burkett, asking if he was sure that the letter was meant for him.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ Burkett insisted. ‘To be delivered into the hand of Captain Paul Ross.’

Paul looked at it again, then suspiciously at Burkett.

‘It’s not meant for the other fellow, is it? The other Paul Ross. How do you know it’s meant for me if it’s unaddressed?’

Burkett’s expression remained serene. ‘Poor Captain Ross was killed, if you recall, sir.’

Paul recalled the fact only too well. It had given him a nasty shock when he had seen his own name among the dead in the casualty list.

‘But that hasn’t stopped people writing to him, has it?’

Burkett’s eyebrows lifted perceptibly. A gesture that might have implied he was demonstrating patience. ‘I was instructed to hand it to you personally.’ And he pushed the envelope towards Paul again.

Paul scowled and took it once more, stepping to where he was half-hidden from the rest of the lobby by a marble pillar. He opened it and found a note inside. Short and to the point it had been written, curiously, in green ink:

Come to Whitehall Court at two o’clock and I may be able to offer you a way through your present difficulties . 46 , east turret . Prompt .