William Boyd - Waiting for Sunrise

Lysander couldn’t sleep so sometime between three and four in the morning he went through to his kitchen and made himself a draught of chloral hydrate. Bensimon’s somnifacient didn’t work at all and he was beginning to suspect it was a placebo. He put half a teaspoon of the crystalline powder in a glass of water, stirred it vigorously and drank it down. Not much left in the packet he saw — he was rather racing through it. Bad sign.

As he waited for the familiar effects of the drug to start, he ran over the events of his elaborately planned encounter at the New London Theatre of Varieties. In a way he was disappointed — there had been no Eureka moment, no detonation of understanding and clarity — but something had been said this night, something inadvertently given away that he hadn’t quite grasped. Yet. Perhaps it would come to him. More and more he was convinced that Vienna held the key — those last months before the war began…He felt the chloral begin to work — the room swayed, he sensed his balance going. Time for bed and sleep at last. He walked carefully back through to his bedroom, a hand on the wall to steady himself. God, this stuff was strong — he flung himself on the bed feeling consciousness blissfully slipping away. Vienna. That was it. So it must be…

♦

“You all right, sir?” Tremlett said. “Look a bit under the weather.”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you, Tremlett. Got a lot on my mind.”

“Going to have a bit more on your mind, I’m afraid, sir. Colonel wants to see you.”

Lysander smoked a quick cigarette, checked his uniform thoroughly so that Osborne-Way wouldn’t have the satisfaction of claiming he was ‘improperly dressed’, and walked briskly down the passageway to the Director of Movements’ office.

Osborne-Way’s secretary could not meet his eyes as she showed him in. Lysander saluted and removed his cap, stood at ease. Osborne-Way sat behind his desk looking at him and did not offer a chair.

“Captain Keogh was arrested at his house this morning at six o’clock. He’s being held at New Scotland Yard.”

Lysander said nothing.

“No answer, Rief?”

“You didn’t ask me a question, sir. You made a statement. I assumed a question would be following.”

“People like you make me wonder why we’re fighting this war, Rief. You make me sick to my stomach.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

“How some actor-popinjay like you wound up as an officer is a disgrace to the British Army.”

“I’m just trying to do my bit, sir. Like you.” He pointed to his wounded-in-action bar on his sleeve. “I’ve done my time in the front line and have the scars to prove it.” He enjoyed the fleeting look of discomfort that crossed Osborne-Way’s face — the lifelong staff officer in his cushy billet with his all-expenses-paid weekends in Paris.

“Mansfield Keogh is one of the finest men I know. You’re not fit to tie his bootlaces.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“What evidence have you got against him? What’s your grubby little enquiry dug up?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you, sir.”

“Well, I’m damned well ordering you to tell me! You filth! You scum of the earth!”

Lysander waited a second or two before replying — accentuating the drawl in his voice, ever so slightly.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to talk to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff about that, Colonel.”

“Get out of here!”

Lysander put his cap back on, saluted and left.

Back in Room 205 he found a telegram waiting.

ANDROMEDA. SPANIARDS INN. 7 AM TOMORROW.

Not even twenty-four hours, Lysander thought, impressed. So, something had happened last night after all. He had just enough time to make sure everything was prepared.

Lysander had the taxi drop him at the top of Heath Street, in Hampstead, by the pond and the flagstaff, deciding he’d rather approach the Spaniards Inn on foot. It was 5. 30 in the morning and still dark night, as the French would say. He was wearing a black overcoat and scarf with a black Trilby. It was cold and his breath was condensing thickly in front of him as he began the half-mile walk from the flagstaff to the inn along Spaniards Road, along the top of the heath. He could see very little — the streetlamps were very widely spaced on Spaniards Road — but he knew that all London lay to his south and he could hear the noise of the wind in the great oaks of Caen Wood on his right hand side — the creak and rub of huge branches like the masts and cross trees of a sailing ship at sea — timber under strain. The wind was growing, fierce and gusty, and he jammed his hat more firmly on his head, telling himself as he marched along that the key element at the moment was calmness — stay calm at all costs, whatever happened. Everything was planned, everything was in place.

Soon he stood by the little toll-house where the road narrowed opposite the Spaniards Inn and he smoked a cigarette, waiting for sunrise. Sunrise and clarity, he thought — at last, at last. In the final minutes of darkness he felt more secure, oddly, his back against the wall looking across the road at an inn — there was a light now on in a dormer window — where Charles Dickens himself had enjoyed a drink or two. In his pocket he had a torch and a small hip flask with some rum and water in it. A little tribute to his soldiering life — the tot of rum before the morning stand-to in the trenches — a life that he was about to abandon for ever, he hoped.

He shone his torch at his watch — 5. 55 — an hour to go. He sensed the faintest lightening — tree trunks in the thick wood behind him beginning to emerge and solidify in the thinning darkness and, looking upwards through the branches with their remaining autumn leaves, he thought he could make out the sky above, the faintest lemony-grey, the packed clouds bustling by on the stiff westerly breeze.

He took a nip of rum, enjoying its sweetness, its warm burn in his throat and chest. A horse and dray clip-clopped by, a coal merchant. Then a telegraph boy buzzing past on a motorbike. The day beginning. He hadn’t even tried to sleep last night — no chloral — but instead had written up a long account of his investigation into the Andromeda affair, its history, his suppositions and his conclusion. It had kept him occupied and made sure his mind was alert even though he was fully aware that the document he was producing was a contingency — a contingency in case he didn’t survive the next few hours.

He decided not to follow that line of thought — everything was geared to triumphant, vindicatory success — he had no intention of risking his life if he could help it. It was definitely lightening now. He stepped away from the toll-house and moved a few yards into the wood. The sun’s rays would be spearing over Alexandra Palace through the hurrying clouds, slowly illuminating the villages of Hornsey and Highgate, Finchley and Barnet to the east. Now he could actually see the heave and sway of the branches above his head, feel the gusts of wind tugging capriciously at the ends of his scarf. The inn was revealed to him, opposite, its white stucco façade glowing eerily; lights were on in many of the windows and he could hear a clanging sound from the yard behind. He moved a little way further back into the trees. Whoever was coming should think that he or she had arrived early and first — he didn’t want to be spotted.

He smoked another cigarette and sipped at his rum. He could read his watch now without the aid of his torch — twenty minutes to go. For a moment he had another attack of doubt — what if he was wrong? — and he ran through his deductions again, obsessively. It seemed entirely conclusive to him — his only regret being that he had not had the time or the opportunity to try his theory out on anyone. The rationale and the judgement had to stand on its own terms, its inherent credibility self-sufficient.