“So what’s all the fuss about?” Jessop said. “Worse things happened to me at Tonbridge.”
Hackett had arrived. “Tonbridge what?”
“Tonbridge School. Believe me, after Tonbridge, the war was a blessed relief.”
“Sorry about the smell,” Pedlow said to Hackett. “And I’m afraid we rather broke the aeroplane. Good God.” He noticed the extra stripe on Hackett’s sleeve. “You’re a squadron leader.”
“Griffin went west. I’m the C.O. Are you fit to fly?”
“Now I really need a drink,” Duncan said. “A big drink.”
“You’ve turned into a raving dipsomaniac,” Hopton said.
“It’s the tea in the tea shop,” Pedlow said. “Twelve per cent proof. They make it in a bathtub while you wait.”
Hackett inherited the C.O.’s Pullman compartment. He gave Lacey the chair, sat on the bed and explained what had happened in his absence. Ten Bolo fighters and three bombers blew the White squadron to buggery on the ground and the C.O. went off his head, attacked the Reds on his own, ten seconds later he was a flamer. At the other end of the field a visiting colonel with a V.C. did exactly the same bloody stupid thing except that he stood and fired a Lewis gun but he got the same treatment. Without the flames. Maybe he wanted to win another V.C. Christ knows. Anyway, Mission H.Q. in Ekat would have to be told. Hackett gave Lacey the adjutant’s notes. “Draft a signal,” he said. “You’ve got half an hour. There’s two g’s in buggery.”
“I’ll do it now,” Lacey said.
Ten minutes later he finished the draft. Hackett read:
In single-handed combat against overwhelming odds, Wing Commander Griffin lived and died in the finest traditions of the Royal Air Force. His skill, audacity and resolution were more than a match for the Bolshevik pilots, who got the better of him only when his ammunition was exhausted. His spirit and his gallantry remained unquenchable.
“Um,” Hackett said. “Dunno. Bit brief, isn’t it?”
“The more we say, the more there is for H.Q. to pick holes in.”
Hackett read it again. The paper crinkled between his restless fingers. “We don’t know his ammunition was exhausted.”
“We don’t know it wasn’t.”
Hackett thought about that, and soon gave up. “This last bit… ‘His spirit and his gallantry remained unquenchable.’ What’s that supposed to mean? The stupid bastard picked a fight with ten Red machines and got himself killed. That must have quenched his spirit.”
“It means…” Lacey made his eyes big, and searched the room. “Whatever you want it to mean.”
Hackett massaged his face while he reviewed that, and got nowhere. “Where’s the other fellow?”
“Turn over.”
Hackett looked at the other side.
The unflinching courage that earned Colonel Guy Kenny his Victoria Cross in France came to the fore when he unexpectedly found himself alone in the face of low-flying Bolshevik aircraft. With no thought of personal safety, he displayed gallantry above and beyond the call of duty, exposing himself to danger time and again in order to protect others. He made the supreme sacrifice for the country he loved and the cause he held dear.
“What cause is that?” Hackett asked. “Don’t tell me. It’s any cause I want it to be.”
“The trick of writing these things is telling people what they want to hear,” Lacey said. “Without actually lying.” He watched Hackett sign the paper. “We should go and search the colonel’s train,” he said.
Hackett added Squadron Leader, Officer Commanding, Merlin Squadron, before he asked: “Why?”
“It’s your train now. And our man in Ekat has sent me a hundred thousand roubles to pay the squadron. I bet it’s under the colonel’s bed.”
“We’d better take the adjutant.”
“Good idea. He’s bored. He hasn’t shot a British soldier since last year.”
The colonel’s train was compact: just a couple of Pullman cars and a goods truck, hauled by a locomotive. A Vickers machine gun was bolted to the roof of a Pullman. A Royal Marine sentry guarded the doorway of the main coach and refused to admit anyone without Colonel Kenny’s permission.
“The colonel’s dead,” Hackett said. The sentry blinked, and did not move.
“Death revokes all contracts,” Lacey suggested. The Marine pursed his lips. If he thought about it, he didn’t think much.
Hackett turned and looked at the setting sun. It had been a bad day. He was fairly sure he could rush this man and knock him down, but what if there were more Royal Marines waiting inside? A bad day would get worse. Then the adjutant cleared his throat.
“I congratulate you,” he said. “You have done your duty as a Royal Marine should. You are clearly a loyal and intelligent man. You can see that we all face a problem. This officer is Group Captain Hackett. He commands all British forces in this battle zone. As such, he outranked Colonel Kenny. Before he was killed, Colonel Kenny handed control of this train to Group Captain Hackett, to operate as part of his strategic war plan. If you continue to rely on orders that have in fact expired, you tamper with Group Captain Hackett’s strategic war plan. However…”
Brazier paused to let all that sink in.
“However, a lucky solution is at hand, a solution to your problem and ours. This is Lieutenant Lacey. The Honourable Lieutenant Lacey. He is a cousin of the Prince of Wales, who is the son and heir of George V, our monarch — yours and mine — who commissioned both the colonel and the group captain in his service. The Honourable Lieutenant Lacey is twenty-sixth in line to the throne. He will remain here with you as a guarantor of correct behaviour. His presence allows you to give access to this train to Group Captain Hackett, as Colonel Kenny ordered.”
The marine had stopped looking at Brazier. His eyes had swivelled to Lacey, and they were large with awe. Lacey stood like a full-page portrait from Tatler, right leg slightly flexed with the foot pointing at two o’clock, chin up and the peak of his cap shielding eyes that gazed at nothing except perhaps the responsibility or being twenty-sixth in line to rule the greatest empire in the world.
The sentry stepped aside. Hackett and Brazier climbed onto the train. “Look here,” Lacey said, and found a drawl he did not know he owned. “Stand easy, if you like. Unless you’d rather not.” The Marine stood easy.
Colonel Kenny’s quarters were spacious. Hackett and Brazier went through a kitchen and a bathroom and into a sitting room that was the full width of the train and twenty feet long. A corporal of Marines was playing cribbage with a young woman in nurse’s uniform. “That will be all, corporal,” Brazier said, and the man left at speed.
The woman did not move. “If you two are officers, you should take your hats off,” she said; and they did. She had a measured, casual, confident voice. Once, in London, Hackett had gatecrashed a ball and asked a debutante for a dance. She had told him his fly was unbuttoned, and she had used the same cool tone of voice.
Brazier introduced them. “May I ask…” He wasn’t sure what to ask. “Are you a friend of Colonel Kenny?”
“You mean, am I his mistress? No. I am his nurse. Susan Perry. He is asthmatic.”
“Was, I’m afraid,” Hackett said. “Killed in action a few hours ago. That’s why we’re here.”
He expected the news to jolt her, but all she did was frown a little, and that only briefly. She stood up, and Hackett was surprised to see how small she was, petite as the French would say, yet strong in the face and wonderfully well shaped. It was many weeks since he had met anyone like this. He knew his fly was completely buttoned, yet he felt a stupid need to check it. He locked his hands behind his back.