Thursdays were designated as Prisoner Walk days at Krefeld, so after breakfast Watson presented Hanson at the camp entrance and requested permission to leave the compound with his patient. Watson was handed the oath card by the camp’s duty gate officer, a Leutnant with a blast-mangled face who, despite his injury, bore the British and French little obvious hostility. He even shared a joke with the captives sometimes, although today he didn’t seem to be in the mood for levity.
‘Can you read it out please, Major,’ he said through his twisted lips.
‘Of course,’ agreed Watson. ‘It says: “I herewith give my word of honour that I shall not, in case of my taking part in a walk, make an attempt to escape during such walk, i.e. from the time of leaving camp until, having returned to it at the agreed time, strictly obeying any orders given to me by any accompanying officer, and not to commit any acts that are directed towards the safety of the German Empire.” There.’ Watson made to hand the card back.
‘Other side, please.’
Watson turned it over and read the unfamiliar passage more slowly. ‘“I know that any prisoner of war who escapes, despite having given his word of honour, is liable to the severest possible punishment.” This is new, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said the Leutnant with a shrug. ‘It means we can shoot you if you try to escape.’ The poor man’s misshapen smile looked like a terrible leer. ‘And you, Captain Hanson, please. If you will read.’
Hanson was dressed in his standard-issue British Warm greatcoat, a large red cravat tucked in at the neck to hide the self-inflicted wound. He had said nothing since the suicide attempt. His sullenness seemed to chide all and sundry for saving him.
‘Captain Hanson doesn’t speak,’ said Watson, pulling down the material at the throat to show the still-livid scar.
The Leutnant flinched, even though his own injuries made the mark look like a razor nick. ‘He must speak the words and sign the card.’
‘I’ll sign for him.’
The German shook his head. ‘Major Watson—’
‘Look at him, man. He’s not worth a candle. And look at me. We’re hardly the most dangerous men in Germany right now. Let me sign for both. I’ll “p.p.” for him.’
‘Pee-pee?’
‘Per procurationem,’ said Watson. ‘It means on behalf of.’ It didn’t quite, but he didn’t feel up to arguing the subtleties of Latin phrasings with a German soldier. It was almost eight o’clock, lunch was in three and a half hours, with the second of the day’s Appells at one p.m. They’d have to be back for that at the very least.
‘I’m not sure,’ the Leutnant said.
Watson reached into his overcoat pocket and took out a single Huntley & Palmer, carefully wrapped in greaseproof paper. He held out the biscuit to the German. ‘This will be crumbs by the time we get back. Can you look after it for us—’
It was gone in an instant. Two cards were presented on the counter top, Watson signed both, ‘p.p.-ing’ for Hanson, and the signal was given to open both sets of steel gates. It was always a heady moment, and Watson hoped Hanson appreciated it, to take that first step beyond the fences, barbed wire and look-out posts, the searchlamps and the dogs, and breathe free – albeit German – air.
‘Halt!’ one of the guards shouted.
Hanson, who either didn’t register or ignored the command, continued on. Watson heard the familiar sound of a Mauser bolt action, took a series of rapid steps and placed a hand on the captain’s shoulder. The man froze where he was. Watson, once he was certain Hanson wasn’t going to do anything foolish, turned to confront the guard. ‘Yes? Something wrong?’
‘Sie können nicht allein ausgehen.’
Watson’s German had improved considerably over the months of captivity, but this one, a beefy, round-faced boy barely into the shaving years, had a thick, impenetrable accent, as if he was speaking through a mouthful of aniseed balls.
‘Bitte?’
The German repeated himself, looking over his shoulder at the gate Leutnant for confirmation. It was a moment before the duty officer appeared in the side window of the hut.
‘Nein, es ist in Ordnung,’ said the Leutnant, wiping some crumbs from his lips, then waving them on. ‘Sie brauchen nicht eine Eskorte.’
Watson caught the last bit. The guard had thought they should have an escort for the walk, as was common, although unescorted solo perambulations were not unknown. Watson mimed running and then put his hand to his heart and gave exaggerated breaths, as if about to collapse from cardiac failure. He could hear the Leutnant laugh at the pantomime, but the guard just scowled and lowered his rifle.
‘Komm nicht zu spät, oder ich werde kommen suchen,’ he mumbled, and swung the gate closed behind them. Watson didn’t catch a word, but he was fairly sure it was a threat about what would happen if they didn’t return.
The road from the camp took them between two large ploughed fields and, eventually, to the village and its railway station. But they had been warned not to venture there. The villagers, many of whom had lost sons on the Western Front, were sometimes violent towards the prisoners. They thought the POWs lived a life of well-fed comfort, while they suffered the privations and indignities that were the result of the Allied blockade.
So as they approached the woods, Watson steered his charge to the left, towards a plantation of fir trees that formed part of the same estate as the camp. From there they could walk through to a small river, which would normally be home to some wildlife, although anything edible, Watson knew, had long ago been snared or shot and cooked. But it was a charming spot, where you could sit and watch the dancing, silvery waters and pretend the war didn’t exist or that a camp hemmed in by barbed wire would be calling you back all too soon.
Watson turned up the collar of Hanson’s coat, pulled down his cap and began to talk.
‘I thought I might tell you a story. Just to pass the time. There was a time when I was driven to tell them. To write things down. Every day an idea popped unbidden into my head, demanding to be shared. Plus, my old friend and colleague provided more narrative than one scribe could hope to have published in a single lifetime. But there is one tale that has come back to me of late. Careful here.’ They stepped over some fallen branches. Above them the crows kept up their constant complaints. Behind them, one of the painfully thin horses – apparently the only breed available – was dragging a dray towards the camp gates, plodding with terminal weariness towards its destination, like, thought Watson, Germany herself.
‘It was April 1890,’ continued Watson, ‘as the debilitating bone-chill of a lengthy winter had finally begun to relax its grip on the metropolis, when my friend Sherlock Holmes turned his attention to what the daily press was calling The Rugby Mystery, and others, The Girl and the Gold Watches. Holmes had recently completed his investigation into a most gruesome business, involving jealousy and murder.’
They stepped into the quiet and gloom of the pines, the shrill voices of the birds suddenly muffled, the needles underfoot crackling like pork skin. His voice seemed small and insignificant amid the sturdy, straight-backed trunks of the evergreens, but Watson carried on, enjoying the rhythm of the story.
‘The solution to the case had put him in a rather sombre mood. “What is the meaning of it, Watson?” he had exclaimed, not for the first time. Peering into the darkest corners of the human soul often caused him to recoil in revulsion at the depravity of his fellow man. “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”’
‘Oh, for all that is merciful, man, do be quiet.’
The sudden exclamation, blurted into the cathedral-like space, did, indeed, shock Watson into silence.
‘Can we double back through here to the village?’ asked Hanson, pointing to the north.
Shocked by this sudden volubility, Watson began to answer, ‘That’s not a good idea. There have been incidents—’
‘Don’t worry about that. Give me a hand with my coat.’
Watson instinctively helped Hanson shuck his greatcoat. He held it while the man took off his boots and lowered his trousers.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Doing? What do you think I am doing?’ echoed Hanson, his voice still carrying a trace of Cornish burr. ‘Getting out of this godforsaken place.’
‘You can’t do that.’
Hanson turned the trousers inside out. Now, the dark stripe that marked him out as a POW had disappeared. He quickly pulled them back on and buttoned up the fly.
‘Can’t?’ He took the British Warm back from Watson and began to turn that, too, inside out. The interior had been dyed a dark navy blue. From the lining came a civilian hat, which he placed on his head. ‘I have a map, a train timetable, money. Documents. I came to Krefeld fully prepared for this. Good Lord, do you know how close the Dutch border is?’ He pointed a finger east.
‘It’s that way,’ corrected Watson. ‘You’d need a compass. But even if you had one, that border is impenetrable on this side. Men have tried for nigh on three years—’
Hanson was in Watson’s face now, so close he could feel his breath on his cheek. ‘Men haven’t tried hard enough. I risked being shot to get myself to this, this health resort. You don’t know what the rest of the camps are like.’
Watson was only too aware how cushy they had it at Krefeld, but didn’t stoop to arguing with the man. ‘Then stay where you are. The war will be over—’
‘Ah, you’ve gone soft, man.’
As Hanson wriggled his arms into the coat, Watson grabbed the sleeve. ‘I gave my word.’
‘I didn’t,’ Hanson reminded him.
‘I gave it on your behalf.’
Hanson laughed at him. ‘Oh, please. Por procreation or whatever it was? You’re not still clinging to some outmoded notion of honour, are you? A gentleman’s word is his bond and such rot? If that isn’t dead already, it’s busy dying out there in the trenches amid the gas and the flamethrowers. Honour? There’s no honour in this war.’
Watson felt a flush of anger. He gripped the man’s arm harder. ‘There has to be. There has to be some shred of honour left. Anyway, if you go running off, you’ll be captured within three or four hours . . .’
‘Let go of me.’
‘. . . and you’ll be denying scores of men this small freedom. These walks keep some of them sane. It’s why I brought you out here.’ Although, he now appreciated, Hanson had duped him on that score. The suicide attempt, like the phoney shell shock he had affected, had clearly been a bluff to make him seem a suitable candidate for these therapeutic walks. ‘You think after you break the trust they’ll let anyone leave the camp—’
The fist took Watson by surprise. The blow was an awkward one, without the full body weight behind it, but still it felt to Watson as if he were lifted off his feet as he was dashed against a tree trunk. His head spun and for a second he thought he might vomit.
‘Look, old man, tell them I overpowered you. That’ll be a nice shiner by tomorrow. I came here for this chance and I intend to take it.’
Hanson turned and began to stride towards the village. Watson knew he couldn’t let him go. There was too much at stake for every other man in the camp. He bent one leg and used his foot to drive himself off the tree. It was a long time since he had performed a rugby tackle, and it was as much a stumble as a charge, but he caught the man in his lower back and he felt Hanson’s legs buckle at the impact. Watson kept his weight on top of him as he fell towards the floor, making sure all the breath was driven from Hanson’s body when he crashed down into sparse undergrowth.
Watson, too, was winded and the younger man recovered first, with a vicious elbow to the face. The padding of the man’s greatcoat softened the force of the impact, but even so, Hanson managed to wriggle free as Watson reared back to prevent a repeat performance. The speed of the man was impressive. He hopped to his feet and began to work with his fists. Watson covered his face as blow after blow rained down on him, a savagery born of a desperate, irrational urge. Watson lashed out blindly with a foot and made contact with a shin, giving him a moment’s respite so he could try and struggle upright.
The pause was short-lived. The moment he was on his feet an uppercut clacked his jaws together and the iron tang of blood filled his mouth. Watson had never had Holmes’s facility as a pugilist, but he knew even he was performing poorly here. He managed one solid punch of his own, before a left to his ear set the world a-ringing and he went down again, into the carpet of sharp pine needles.
Watson rolled on his back. He knew the fight was almost out of him. His lungs felt as if they were being caressed with a blowtorch and his sinuses hummed with pain. Hanson, who had only been in captivity a matter of weeks, was still in good shape, still carrying muscle that hadn’t been wasted by near starvation. And he was half Watson’s age.
Excuses, Watson. Remember the principles of Bartitsu.
‘That was you, Holmes. Not me,’ he said to the phantom voice, which was as unreliable and infuriating as ever.
Hanson had stepped away from him, walked over to a nearby pine trunk, bent at the waist and then began snuffling like a truffle pig with exertion as he straightened. Watson hoped it was because he had managed to hurt him, to salvage some pride from the beating he had taken. Perhaps he’d broken a rib or two. But when Hanson stood, Watson could see he had managed to prise free a large rock from the soil. That was what had required all the grunting effort. There was certainly nothing wrong with his ribs.
Watson kicked his heels, beetling backwards through the needles until his head rested against sharp bark. He had nowhere left to go. His only option was an appeal to reason, and he was certain that was in short supply in his assailant’s brain.
The would-be fugitive approached slowly, clutching the heavy stone that, in a terrible irony, looked to Watson as if it were shaped like a rugby ball. ‘I can’t have you raising the alarm. Not now I’ve come this far.’
‘Hanson—’ Watson began, his arms lifted in a feeble attempt to try to protect his head.
‘Sorry, old chap. Needs must, you know.’
Hanson, his expression somewhere between a grin and grimace, lifted his arms above his head and Watson closed his eyes, waiting for the blow that would crush his skull.