‘You’re not thinking — though that comes as no particular surprise to anybody,’ Maude says. ‘I wouldn’t send you out to your death — not unless it was absolutely necessary. Besides, if you remember, I said that the other Tommy with you had to come back in one piece, so he can tell Charlie what happened.’
Soames frowned. ‘Then I don’t see. .’
‘It won’t be Fritz who actually shoots down Danvers — it will be Hatfield and myself.’
‘That was why, on the day that Danvers died, Hatfield came up with a spurious reason for putting the two privates — Jones and Clay — under arrest,’ Blackstone said.
‘Balderdash!’ Soames said, though he was now the only one in the dugout who thought there was any point to denial.
‘Officers are issued with revolvers,’ Blackstone said. ‘You needed rifles to kill Danvers, and arresting the two privates was the best way to get your hands on a couple without raising any suspicion.’ He paused for a moment. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Lieutenant Maude?’
‘Indeed it is,’ Maude replied.
‘Apart from meeting the obvious need to get rid of Danvers, the plan held a bonus for each of you,’ Blackstone said. ‘It gave you, Maude, the chance to scheme and manipulate. It gave Hatfield the opportunity to do something really appalling, and thus demonstrate just how much your friendships meant to him. And it gave you, Soames, the chance to lead to his death a man who you were so jealous of that you hated him more than you’d ever hated anyone before.’
‘You swine! You filthy swine!’ Soames screamed, as he lashed out and slapped Blackstone hard across the face.
‘Control yourself, Roger — there’ll be plenty of time for that later,’ Maude said.
Blackstone rolled his head, in an attempt to shake off the grogginess that came with the blow.
‘Do you want me to carry on with my story — or would you prefer to knock me about a little more first?’ he asked Soames.
‘Soames would like you to carry on,’ Maude said. ‘He is fascinated to learn how the mind of a common man works, aren’t you, Roger?’
Soames said nothing.
‘Aren’t you, Roger?’ Maude repeated.
‘Yes,’ Soames agreed grudgingly.
‘It all went according to plan,’ Blackstone said. ‘It’s true that because you, Maude, can’t shoot straight, the other soldier, Private Mitchell, was wounded. .’
‘How do you know that I was the one who shot Mitchell?’ Lieutenant Maude interrupted.
‘Because it would have been Hatfield’s job to shoot Danvers,’ Blackstone replied.
‘Are you saying I didn’t have the nerve to kill Danvers?’ Maude asked, and for the first time there was a hint of anger in his voice.
‘Of course I’m not saying that,’ Blackstone replied. ‘You’d kill anybody or anything that got in your way, without a second’s thought — but you get much more pleasure out of compelling others to do something than you’d ever get from doing it yourself.’
Maude nodded. ‘Very clever,’ he said. ‘Do carry on.’
‘Mitchell was wounded,’ Blackstone continued, ‘but that was all to the good, because it gave Soames the chance to play the hero — and who would ever suspect a hero of being a cold-blooded killer?’
‘No one,’ Maude said. ‘Do you know, I wish that I’d have thought of that myself, and shot Mitchell deliberately.’
‘It’s as well you didn’t,’ Blackstone countered. ‘With your degree of marksmanship, you’d probably have killed him. But, to get back to the story, we now move on to the next phase of the plan. You, Maude, went to see Fortesque a couple of hours before he died. At one time, I thought that you did that because you wanted to make one last appeal to Fortesque not to ruin you all. But it wasn’t that at all — what you were actually doing was breaking the bad news.’
The moment Maude appears at the door to his dugout, Fortesque knows that something has gone very wrong.
‘I’m so sorry to have to tell you this,’ Maude says, ‘but Private Danvers is dead.’
‘How. . how did it happen?’ Fortesque gasps.
‘A Fritz sniper, out in No Man’s Land.’
‘But. .’
‘These things happen in a war, Charlie,’ Maude says. He advances into the dugout, and puts his hand on Fortesque’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t approve of what was going on between the two of you, you know that, but you’re my friend, and if you’re hurt, then I’m hurt, too.’
‘Thank you, old chap,’ Fortesque says.
‘Would you like me to stay with you for a while?’ Maude asks.
Fortesque shakes his head.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Maude tells him. ‘A man is better handling these matters on his own.’
‘You could have insisted on staying, but you didn’t,’ Blackstone said. ‘Instead, you decided to leave Charlie Fortesque alone with his grief, and — what was probably worse — his guilt,’ Blackstone said.
‘His guilt!’ Soames exclaimed. ‘Why should Charlie have felt guilty? He had nothing at all to do with Danvers’ death.’
‘Ah, but you see, he did — at least in his own mind,’ Blackstone said. ‘He could have made Danvers his servant, but he caved in under your pressure, and appointed Blenkinsop instead. Worse still, he allowed Danvers to be transferred to your platoon, Lieutenant Soames. And he knew that if he hadn’t given way on those two things — and especially the latter one — Danvers would not have been out in No Man’s Land that night. So whose fault was it that Danvers was dead? It was his!’
‘So that’s why he did it,’ Soames said, almost choking on the words. ‘That’s why he. .’
‘Yes, I think so,’ Blackstone said.
It is an hour before dawn when Soames reaches Fortesque’s dugout. He has not come because Maude told him to — though Maude has — but because Charlie is his friend, and he loves him.
When he enters the dugout, Fortesque is sitting with his head on the table, and for a moment Soames thinks he must simply have collapsed from nervous exhaustion.
And then he sees the gun in his hand.
A great wave of anguish sweeps over him. He cannot believe that Charlie — beautiful, intelligent Charlie — would have done this to himself. He cannot accept that the one person he really cared about in the whole world is dead. He feels his legs give way under him, and when he hits the ground, his body curls up into a ball. And he is sobbing, weeping salt tears on to the packed earth floor.
Slowly, the grief abates a little, like a briefly retreating wave, and he can think — if only fracturedly — again.
Questions will be asked about Charlie’s suicide — they are bound to be.
There are officers serving on the front line whose deaths could be put down to a loss of nerve — a cowardice which led them to believe that certain death now was preferable to the constant worry about possible death in the future. But anyone who had known brave, courageous Charlie Fortesque would not believe that of him for a moment.
So why, they would ask themselves, had he taken his own life?
And then it would all come out.
They would learn of the dirty disgusting things that he and Danvers had done together.
They would tie that in with the death of Danvers — and suddenly that death wouldn’t seem as straightforward as it once had.
Disgrace would descend on the Fortesque family, and ridicule would be heaped on the regiment.
‘How can I stop that happening?’ asks Soames, still on the ground, still in the foetal position. ‘What can I do?’
He wishes Maude was there to advise him. But Maude is not there — and he dare not go to look for him in case someone else happens to discover the body in the meantime.