Dead Men Stalking: Part 4
‘The fillies have all got khaki fever these days, bless ‘em, and it’s only natural we should take advantage of them.’ Stone rubbed his face and straightened his jacket. ‘Yes, sir.’
Welcome to part three of my WW1 espionage thriller short story! If you missed part one, read it here:
If you’re new to MI7 Assassin, I’ve also written two earlier standalone stories:
My paying subs get the hot thrill of reading MI7 Assassin the Sunday before it goes out to everyone else on Wednesday, but whenever you get your hands on it, I would really appreciate your feedback on this story! Eventually we’ll publish these origins stories as novellas and I want them to be as good as they possibly can be when we do! So if you have any suggestions, something you particularly like or don’t like, want to see more or less of, let me know in the comments below!
Dead Men Stalking: Part 4
About your latest book, I read it carefully and, frankly, I don’t think much of it. We all thought you’d tell the truth about the war, but instead you write just the same old Boys Own Paper tripe. We are so fed-up with this eyewash written to amuse the idiots back home.
This was Duncan’s acidic view of Stone’s new bestseller: Ragtime Infantry.
Stone had written three successful books about his war experiences: The Young Contemptibles, ‘Alf a Mo’, Kaiser and Ragtime Infantry. They were full of humorous and compelling anecdotes about himself and his comrades. And deliberately excluded anything that would show the grim reality of war. The public absolutely loved them. Recruiting figures shot up and that was why Stone was enlisted by Captain Pollard to write propaganda for MI7. He had quickly become Pollard’s star writer.
Like most soldiers, his dead comrades loathed the lies the public were being told. Furious that he had ‘sold out’, they stalked him through sweat-soaked fever dreams and filled his head with their opinions in his waking hours. He had no idea if they were the voices of his guilty conscience, or symptoms of shell shock or even signs that he was going crazy. But they would not rest until he atoned for his part in sending so many men to their deaths.
But satisfied that he was going to kill Major Röpell, they finally allowed him a good night’s sleep. It was the first proper sleep he’d had in weeks.
Previously, he had been so exhausted by their persistence, he occasionally fell asleep at his desk. To explain why he was often found slumped over his typewriter, he had cultivated an image of being a young man about town who was out half the night partying. It was an easy lie, and actually half-true: as a best-selling writer and an MI7 agent he was regularly invited to all the best parties, concerts, first nights and literary soirees.
A Little Bit of Fluff, Razzle Dazzle, Chu Chin Chow, the Bing Boys Are Here – he had seen all the leading West End shows, usually with a glamorous girl on his arm. It was easy to meet any number of alluring women who were keen to be introduced to this successful young author in his immaculate evening suit, with his dark good looks, especially as most eligible men were away at the Front. But he couldn’t risk a genuine relationship with any of them.
Keep it light, was his motto. He made sure no liaisons lasted more than a week or two and ended before they got serious. Anyone who got too close might start to suspect he was leading a double life.
The only genuine encounters with the opposite sex that he allowed himself were with the widows of Dean and Duncan. He visited them to pass on a share of the royalties from his books. It was only right that they enjoyed his good fortune, after all many of his stories were based on their husbands. But, sensing their vulnerability and loneliness, he always kept a respectful distance from them.
Meanwhile, he ensured his every date was no more than a dalliance. There was Billie, the West End actress who told him invitingly that ‘joy dust makes you most keen on what you’re doing’. He used her reliance on cocaine as an excuse to break it off with her.
Budding author Lilian he met at a book party; she wanted Stone to introduce her to his publisher. He kept making excuses why he couldn’t, so she dropped him. It was always easier when they decided to end it.
Flora was a top of the bill, risqué singer and dancer, an ‘eccentrica inglese’. She had been married twice and was looking for husband number three. So he told her how he lived in a gravedigger’s cottage in a cemetery; that was too eccentric – even for her – and she moved on.
Keep it light.
After a particularly heavy night out at a smoke-filled club in Mayfair with several exuberant dance partners, he didn’t even make it home and went straight to the MI7 offices, where he slumped over his desk, out cold. Captain Pollard had prodded him awake. It took several hard prods to stir him into life.
‘I rather fear you’re overdoing your nocturnal activities, Stone. We chaps at MI7 tell easily-led young women that we are spies and suchlike, and that makes us very appealing to them, but you’re burning the candle at both ends.’
Stone rubbed his face and straightened his jacket. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘The fillies have all got khaki fever these days, bless ‘em, and it’s only natural we should take advantage of them. But try to keep the old nug-a-nug and bonestorming for the weekends. Eh?’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’
Pollard winked knowingly. ‘Good man.’
The reprimand from Pollard only added to Stone’s reputation as a playboy with a different girl on his arm every night. His fellow writers in MI7 endlessly ribbed him about it. A. A. Milne, a former assistant editor of Punch, admiringly nicknamed him ‘Mr. Headboard’. The fantasy writer Lord Dunsany called him ‘Mr Heartbreaker’ and asked him coldly whose heart he intended to break next. Then added, ‘I know you have the common touch, but these young women you are carousing with are in a different class to you and deserve more respectful treatment.’ Stone actually enjoyed Dunsany’s snide remarks because they so reminded him of his equally disparaging dead comrade Duncan, whom he still missed, so he rarely bit back. The paranoid ‘Master of Mystery’ William Le Queux warned him to take great care none of the girls were German spies. ‘I’ll examine them thoroughly, William,’ he assured him. This fed Le Queux’s imagination and his eyes glistened lecherously at the thought. In fact, most of Stone’s nights were spent not in passionate embraces, but brooding over the lies he was spreading about the war, and carefully planning his next target.
Namely, his German opposite number Major Röpell in Sektion 111.
Now refreshed and wide-awake after the long night’s sleep his dead comrades had allowed him, he got ready to head to Adelphi Terrace. As he washed and shaved, he began to realise there was a major obstacle to his plan. He had no problem killing the German. It would be no different to killing the enemy on trench raids which he had done so many times. But he baulked at the idea of killing his own countrymen, the Frontiersmen protecting Röpell, even if they were traitors. He put down the razor and told his voices the bad news. He had changed his mind. He couldn’t go through with it.
They were just voices in his head, but somehow the shadows on the cottage wall, cast by the trees outside in the cemetery, seemed to form the accusing shapes of Dean, Duncan, Ralph and Sergeant Dawes. He knew it was a trick his brain was playing on him because of lack of sleep, but that didn’t make the wraiths any less real to him.
They all disagreed with his decision.
I remember the Frontiersmen in Natal, said Dean bitterly. They treated us like we were animals. Said we ‘kaffirs’ were a ‘health hazard’.
Dean had left South Africa to study law in Britain and never returned to his homeland. Instead he became a legal clerk, married, had two children, and joined the British army reserve in 1913, just as Stone had done. Out of the corner of his eye, Stone could almost see his black comrade alive again, sitting at the kitchen table now, smiling and joking, and his heart yearned for those days which had gone forever.
Some of the bastards murdered my brethren, Dean recalled. They’re a legitimate military target. You have every right to kill them, Sean.
I don’t have the authority to judge them, protested Stone. Killing them would make me a murderer.
But you already are one, son, said Sergeant Dawes. The day you became a trench raider. And in his mind Stone could see Dawes, too, at the sink beside him, trimming his walrus-shaped ‘Old Bill’ moustache.
But this is different, Sarge. These men are on the same side as me.
Nah. You want to end the war. They want to keep it going.
Captain Pollard is my section chief. You expect me to kill him, too?
If necessary. That was easy for Sergeant Dawes to say. He had always fought his own private war, one in which he never allowed officers to get in his way. He had killed at least one to Stone’s certain knowledge.
No. I could never do that.
What is with you and Pollard? sneered Duncan. You got some kind of a schoolboy crush on him?
Stone’s brain filled in the gaps and he could just imagine the thin ascetic features of Duncan, patronising, competitive and snide, sitting with his feet up at the kitchen table. But now that Duncan was dead, what did his jealousy matter anymore? He didn’t have to be guarded in his replies any longer.
I don’t know what it is, Duncan. I don’t understand it myself. But, despite everything, yes, I suppose I am sort of attracted to him.
You’re not a Molly are you? Duncan leered, probing for new ammunition to attack him with.
Not as far as I know. Stone considered the possibility for a moment. No, it’s not that kind of attraction. It’s more complicated. Look, lads, he appealed to all the wraiths now, cutting to the chase. If I stop this deal going through, they’ll find other sources of glass and rubber. Or they’ll just sign the contract in Switzerland, like last time. He dried his face and started getting dressed.
You want us to let you off the hook, Sean? said Ralph. Stone could have sworn he was there in the room, too, sorting through his treasured piles of Popular Mechanics magazine (‘Written so you can understand it.’)
I can’t do it, mate. I’m sorry.
So you’re going to do nothing? Betraying every soldier who died. Every soldier who will die in the future because of this agreement. It must have been the sleep deprivation, but his closest friend’s disappointed face seemed especially vivid and clear to him.
You made a difference with your first two kills, said Dean. Thanks to you, the naval blockade is real now. With your third kill, Germany with its desperate need for rubber, could surrender three months, maybe six months earlier. Just think how many lives you’ll be saving, my friend.
No. No. There has to be another way. Stone shook his head emphatically.
Like what?
I don’t know. You’re going to say I’m naive, but... Stone took a deep breath and braced himself for his dead mates’ predictable reaction. I still believe it’s possible to change the system from within.
There was a howl of derisory laughter inside his head and the shadows themselves seemed to writhe in unison. It was a trick of the low winter sun and the wind whistling through the trees outside, stirring the shadows within, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to bear. It was some time before their hooting and cackling calmed down and meanwhile he just simmered as he completed putting on his uniform.
Finished?
There was a final round of laughter from the voices.
Look, he snarled, I don’t know if you’re my conscience, hallucinations caused by lack of sleep, or a spiritualist visit from the other side, but I can’t change the bloody world! I can’t stop this madness single-handed!
We’re not going to leave you alone, son, Dawes warned him. We’re not gonna stop until the Prussian is here in No Man's Land with us.
Maybe he’s afraid of dying, suggested Duncan.
We’re not here to take you back with us, Ralph reassured him. We’re here to get you to do the right thing.
Stone sighed. I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to debate this with you anymore. I’m in the driving seat and I am telling you all now: the assassination is off. There is nothing more to be said.
He slammed shut and locked the door of the gravedigger’s cottage, and walked briskly in the direction of the cemetery gates and the welcoming sound of the London morning traffic. It would block out their incessant voices and shut them up for a while.
That night they sent him a dream in which, impossibly, incredibly, he was in the driving seat of his Ford Model T, careering through the zig-zag trenches of the Front. But there was something wrong with his car. He couldn’t see it but with nauseating clarity he knew exactly what it was. The giant gas bag on his car roof was now an enormous, disgusting, pulsating tick, bloated with blood. Via a tube projecting out of its rear, the engorged insect was providing the blood as the fuel for his car. More blood from its grossly swollen body spewed out of its mouth and ran down his windscreen, blocking his vision, so he was driving blind. Revulsion and horror filled him, but he couldn’t stop the car, couldn’t stop driving, he had to reach his destination. The tyres spun and caught in the mud, jerking him forward, yet somehow the car continued its hellish journey. There was the thud of men bouncing off the bonnet and the crunch of bones as he drove over dead soldiers but he could see nothing through the bloody windscreen. The tick grew and grew, its globular, veined, translucent body growing ever more swollen with blood as it fed hungrily on his dead comrades, sucking them dry. Then its dead eyes sensed he was in the driving seat beneath it and its clawed legs reached down into the car to grasp him by the throat and he began to scream.
He jerked awake in the grey light of dawn, sweating in the frigid air.
There was nothing more to be said.