The Wood Beyond

'So why was Ypres so important?'

'It was the centre of a salient, a considerable bulge in the line. A breakthrough there would have enabled the Allies to roll up the Boche in both directions. Disadvantage of course was that a salient means the enemy can lob shells at you from three sides. Service in the Salient was not something our lads looked forward to even before Passchendaele. My father managed to be in both Ypres Two and Ypres Three. He used to say there was always a special feel about the Salient even at relatively quiet times. Its landscape was more depressing, the stink of its mud more nauseating, its skies more lowering. You felt as you left Ypres by the Menin Gate that it should have borne a sign reading "All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here".'

'Sounds like the entrance to CID on a Monday morning,' said Pascoe with a forced lightness.

'No, I don't think so,' said Studholme regarding him gravely. 'My father said that service there changed human nature. You reverted to a kind of subhumanity, the missing link between the apes and Homo sapiens. He called it Homo Saliens, Salient Man. I don't think he was joking.'

Pascoe drank his tea. He felt the need for warmth. It was very quiet in here. The supermarket car park seemed a thousand miles away.

He said, 'So what happened at Ypres Two?'

'Spring of '15. Jerry made a determined effort to get things straight. Used chlorine gas for the first time. Gained a bit of ground but the Salient remained. Our casualties about sixty thousand including one general, Horace Smith-Dorrien.'

'That must have really got them worried back home,' said Pascoe, drifting despite himself towards a sneer. 'I mean, what's a few thousand men here or there, but a dead general..'

'Not dead,' said Studholme. 'Stellenbosched. That is, sacked. Terrible offence. Competence.'

'Sorry?' said Pascoe, thinking he'd misheard.

'He was actually in the thick of things and made judgments based on realities. Also he was foolish enough to suggest to French, the C-in-C, that they were losing too many men in pointless frontal attacks. There aren't many other recorded expressions of doubt by top brass, I tell you.'

'No wonder, if you got sacked for it.'

'Indeed. Now, jump forward two years to 1917. Third Ypres, your great-grandfather's battle. You probably know it as Passchendaele.'

'Good God, yes. The mud.'

'That's right. Everyone remembers the mud. One of man's worst nightmares, a slow drowning in glutinous filth. Practically a metaphor for the whole conduct of the war.'

Pascoe was now regarding Studholme with wide-eyed interest.

'You don't sound like a member of Douglas Haig's fan club, major.'

Studholme gave a snort like a rifle shot.

He said, 'When they finally got rid of Sir John French at the end of '15, it was as if his main fault was not killing off his own men quickly enough. So what they looked for was a general who'd get the job done quicker. French had slain his ten thousands, but Haig was soon slaying his hundred thousands, nearly half a million on the Somme and now another quarter million at Passchendaele. Of course Third Wipers went down as a victory. They gained six or seven miles of mud. Imagine a column of men, twenty-five abreast, stretching out over those six or seven miles, and you're looking at the British dead. Bit different from Agincourt, eh?'

'Tell me, major,' said Pascoe curiously. 'Feeling like this, how come you took the job of looking after a military museum? In fact, how come you got started on a military career at all?'

For a moment he thought he'd gone too far. The major was regarding him once more with the flintlock gleam in his eye. Then he sipped his tea, brushed his moustache, smiled faintly and said, 'How come a bright young fellow like you went into the police? Was it the bribes or the chance to beat up suspects that attracted you?'

'Touché,' said Pascoe. 'And apologies for my youthful impudence.'

'Accepted. Now I'll answer you. I joined the army 'cos way back about the time of Waterloo, someone decided that the only way to make anything out of my line of Studholmes was to get 'em into uniform and send 'em out for foreigners to shoot at. No one's come up with a viable alternative since, so on we go, generation after generation, providing moving targets. Rarely get beyond my rank, though my father made colonel. Shot from being a subaltern in '15 to major, acting lieutenant colonel in '18. That was one plus for that show — lots of scope for accelerated promotion. If you survived.'

'Nice to know someone did,' said Pascoe.

'Oh yes, he had a talent for it. Lived to be ninety. Still working on his memoirs when he died. I told him he'd left it a bit late, but he said no point in starting till you were pretty sure you were past doing anything worth remembering.'

'Sounds as if they'd make interesting reading,' said Pascoe. 'Talking of which, is there anything you'd recommend to start remedying my immense ignorance about the Great War?'

The major looked at him with one-eyed keenness to see if he was taking the piss. Then selecting a volume from the bookshelf behind him he said, 'This is about as good a general introduction as you'll get. After that, if you develop a taste for horror, you can specialize.'

'Thank you,' said Pascoe, taking the book. 'I'll return it, of course.'

'Damn right you will,' said the major. 'Chaps who borrow your kit and don't return it always come to a sticky end. Now let's see if we can't find somewhere a bit more suitable for your gran than a fireplace, shall we?'

He rose abruptly. As Pascoe followed him out of the office, he said, 'You run a very tidy museum, sir.'

'What? Oh thank you. Or do I detect an irony? Perhaps you find tidiness incompatible with a place dedicated to the glorification of war?'

'All I meant was-'

'Don't lie out of politeness, please. Policemen should always speak the truth. So should museums. That's what I hope this one does. If it glorifies anything it is courage and service. But when the truth is that men were sacrificed needlessly, even wantonly, in the kind of battle your great-grandfather died in, a place like this mustn't flinch from saying so. We owe it to the men who died. We owe it to ourselves as professional soldiers too.'

They had entered a room at the back of the house, formerly the kitchen but now given over to an exhibition of catering equipment. Studholme pointed through the window into a small paved yard with a single circular flowerbed at its centre. It contained three brutally pruned rose bushes.

'Looks better in the summer,' he said. 'White roses surrounded by lilies. The regimental badge. Used to be an old joke. You always get a good cup of tea from the Wyfies, they even advertise in their badge. Roses, fleur-de-lis; Rosy Lee, you follow? Not a very good joke. Also new recruits are called lilies; passing out, you get your rose. Sorry. Regimental folklore. Set me off, I go on forever. What started this?'

'My grandmother's ashes,' prompted Pascoe.

'Indeed. The rose bed. Good scattering of bonemeal wouldn't go amiss there. Or. .' He hesitated then went on, 'Just say if you think it a touch crass but down in the cellar. . well, let me show you.'

He opened a door onto a steep flight of stone steps.

'Cold, damp and miserable down there,' said Studholme. 'Couldn't think what to do with it. Cost a fortune to cheer it up. Then I thought, why bother? Go with the flow, isn't that what they say? Not original, of course. Imperial War Museum does something similar, but I reckon for atmosphere, we've got the edge.'

'I'm sorry..?' said Pascoe.

'My fault. Rattling on again. Bad habit. Here, take a look.'

He pressed a switch in the wall. Below lights came on, not bright modern electric lights, but the kind of dull yellow flicker that might emanate from old oil lamps.