‘Mad Bill’ Kügel didn’t look particularly mad. ‘Well-Fed Bill’ might have been a better name for him. He was the first man with a healthy glow to his cheeks Watson had seen in many a month – Captain Peacock excepted – and he had the moon face and the girth to match. At least someone was having a good war, he thought as he walked slowly across the ruby-red carpet to where the commandant stood, gazing out of the French windows that opened on to the terrace overlooking the camp.
The room was triple height, with an ornately plastered ceiling, lined with bookshelves that held leather-bound volumes in complete sets, arranged by author. Only for a moment did a flash of vanity make Watson wonder if one of his own were there: before the war he had enjoyed a happy relationship with a German publisher. But he kept his eyes from the ‘W’s.
An imposing table of polished walnut dominated the centre of the room; along its spine was a series of silver platters, the contents hidden under cloches. A trio of decanters stood at one end, the spirits within ranging from a light straw colour to a deep, syrupy brown. A marble fireplace directly opposite the French windows held a flickering log fire, although the amount of smoke puffing into the room suggested it was burning green damp wood and that the chimney might be in need of a good sweep. No matter, it was warm and welcoming, and as he made a slow, but he hoped stately progress, across the carpet, Watson allowed himself to revel in it for a few moments.
Despite the cotton sheets, the bath and the clean, deloused uniform, Watson could feel the effects of his confinement. His old bullet wound throbbed with a rhythmic precision – a lack of fresh fruit could cause old wounds to reopen, he knew – as did, strangely, one of his Achilles tendons. His knees felt a trifle more fragile than they had, with even more clicking and crunching if he kneeled. His back, too, had suffered from the hard surface. He had often railed against the march of time, but he now knew he had been premature. This was what old age truly felt like. He could only hope it was a temporary preview.
He looked at himself in the gilt-framed mirror – in need of resilvering – over the mantelpiece. Had the frail figure been a patient, he would have sent him to bed with copious quantities of beef tea and Mrs Hudson’s steak puddings.
There was a very unseemly crack splaying out from behind the mirror and, he noticed, another fissure zigzagging across the ceiling mouldings. It couldn’t be shell or bomb damage this far from the front. The building was collapsing like a tired soufflé. He felt some sympathy – physically, Watson felt in a similar condition.
‘When I was a boy, a very young boy,’ said the commandant in his strange drawl, ‘my father took me hunting for boar in those forests.’ He pointed to the naked hillsides. ‘The ones that aren’t there any longer.’
He turned to face Watson.
‘Shocking. I’ve seen it in America, of course, strip-mining coal until all that is left is a black desert. Out there it was gold. Gold extraction ravages the land, poisons the water, you know. At least coal and iron and copper benefit mankind. But gold? Baubles and teeth, baubles and teeth. Sit down, Major Watson.’
He would have preferred to stand, but his weary body accepted before his brain could object and he sank into one of the cushioned chairs at the table. His nostrils caught the piquant scent of food from the salvers. Kügel walked over and indicated the decanters. ‘I have whiskey, brandy and a navy rum.’
‘Rum,’ Watson said.
‘I’d like to apologize for your treatment of late. Apparently, I was misinformed. Instead of a dangerous enemy of the State, you are something of a hero. Such is war.’ Kügel handed Watson the glass with a good inch of liquid in the bottom. Watson sniffed and inhaled a thick coil of molasses. ‘Such is politics.’
Watson drank and all but shuddered with pleasure.
‘You know how the British Navy knew it was the good stuff? They’d mix it with gunpowder and see if it burned true. Because the rum was kept below decks with the gunpowder, should the two mix, they had to be sure the powder would still work.’
Watson had heard this before and was fairly certain it was hokum. But he didn’t want to get into a discussion on the mythology of the high seas. ‘What is this all about, Commandant?’
Kügel helped himself to some whiskey. ‘A bourbon,’ he explained, even though Watson couldn’t have cared less. ‘I got the taste in America. You don’t much approve of me, do you, Major Watson?’
‘It is exceedingly difficult to approve of anyone who operates a camp as you do. For personal gain.’
Kügel sipped and smiled at the taste. ‘Takes me right back. Right back to the Appalachians. I am sure you’ve heard that I travelled in ladies’ underwear? Yes? That’s just a rather poor example of the British sense of humour. I travelled, true, but in machine tools. German machine tools. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Texas, California. Anywhere men were cutting, digging or drilling. I loved America. For its ambition, its scale, its sense that anything is possible. What I am doing here isn’t much different to what the Vanderbilts, the Astors, the Rockefellers did in the United States. I am a capitalist. I know, as they say over there, how to turn a buck. Is that a crime?’
‘It is when men suffer while you turn your buck.’
Kügel frowned. ‘You do understand the principles of capitalism, don’t you, Major? Someone always suffers. The Chinese who built Huntington’s and Vanderbilt’s railroads. The blacks picking Duke’s tobacco, the miners in Osgood’s pits, the labourers in Carnegie’s steel mills. It’s the traditional way of capitalism.’
‘The tradition of fleecing those weaker than yourself.’
Kügel shook his head. ‘You are a naïve man, Major. And I’m inclined to throw you back in your filthy cell. But I have my orders.’
‘Which are?’
‘To look after you.’
Watson felt a creeping sense of unease. The order to improve his treatment could only have come from on high. From Von Bork. And what possible motives would he have for such a volte-face?
Kügel reached over and lifted one of the silver cloches. ‘Sausages,’ he said. ‘Without a trace of sawdust. We have kidneys, too. And dumplings.’
Watson wanted to say that he couldn’t eat in such company, but his stomach shouted him down as it contracted in anticipation. He despised himself for the groan that squeezed from his lips. ‘There is something I want to ask you before we eat.’
‘Go ahead,’ Kügel said, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
‘Your man Steigler, the doctor, tells me three men died in the camp while I was incarcerated.’
‘That is true,’ admitted Kügel. ‘Most unfortunate. I am opposed to any death. For me, each one means one less sheep to shear.’ There was a twinkle of humour in his eyes.
‘Your doctor insists they died of supernatural causes.’
‘Steigler has a vivid imagination. It was suicide. Of a sort, anyway.’ He mimed the slashing of wrists.
Watson thought of the marks on Archer’s arms. ‘Suicide? When was this?’
‘Several days ago.’
‘The day you had me put in Stubby?’
Kügel thought for a few moments. ‘I guess it would have been, yes.’
The night Archer asked Watson to meet him. He could easily have been with him that night. Would he, too, have committed “suicide”?’
‘How did it happen?’ Watson asked.
‘Apparently they were taking part in a séance.’
As he had thought. The Dead speak to me. But he played dumb. ‘A séance?’
‘To contact the dead. Have you ever been to one?’
Watson had. He, Holmes and the magician Maskelyne had exposed some of the most notorious charlatans in London. He had nothing but contempt for characters such as the Davenport Brothers, who prayed on the bereaved and the bereft. It was, so he had heard, a booming and fraudulent industry back in Britain, now that so many had lost sons, lovers and fathers and were looking for comfort.
‘The aim of a séance is to contact the dead,’ said Watson. ‘Not join them.’
‘Do you believe that they can contact the dead?’ Kügel asked.
Watson shook his head. ‘I have never seen anything either in person or in photographs that could not be explained by science and trickery.’
‘I agree,’ said Kügel with some relief. ‘The notion of an afterlife where we pay for our sins . . . well, let’s just say I don’t buy it.’
‘And you certainly must hope you are right. Given the magnitude of your sins.’
Kügel’s mouth twitched with displeasure. ‘My sins are between me and my conscience.’
‘Quite. Tell me about the suicides. Wrists were slit?’
‘So they say. I didn’t examine the bodies myself.’
‘Really,’ said Watson loftily, enjoying the annoyance on Kügel’s face. ‘You surprise me. What blade was used?’
‘An open razor was found at the scene.’
‘Just one?’
‘Yes.’
‘So they would have taken it in turns?’
Kügel clearly hadn’t thought of this. ‘I reckon.’
‘It’s unusual that one of them didn’t lose his nerve while the others were carving.’
‘Perhaps. But the men had also been drinking, to make them more “receptive” to the spirits.’
‘Drinking? Drinking what?’
‘What we called in Virginia, white dog. Moonshine.’
‘Made from what? The inhabitants of your camp hardly have any ingredients to spare for distillation.’
Kügel shrugged. ‘The ingenuity of man in pursuit of intoxication knows no bounds. Whatever it was, Steigler found a jar of it next to the table. The thing is, as I know from experience, the stuff fries a man’s brains, like tossing them into a skillet of hot fat.’
‘Dutch courage, you think? Maybe so,’ said Watson. ‘Although it could be the drink that killed them, not the cuts. If the batch contained enough methanol, for instance.’
Kügel shrugged. ‘Does it matter? Whether they were playing with the supernatural or with some home-produced poison? They are dead. They aren’t coming back. Not unless you want to set up a séance, Major, and ask them what happened.’
‘Have they been buried yet?’
‘I’m not certain. You’d have to ask the camp chaplain. We only have a Roman Catholic one, so he might have a view on what kind of burial is appropriate. Shall we eat?’
‘I can’t believe you have taken the death of three men in your care so lightly. If care is the right word for what you are doing.’
Kügel downed his bourbon. His face had reddened and not all of the colour was from the drink taken. ‘Perhaps lunch can wait a little longer. I want to show you something. Come.’ His voice was full of a new impatience. ‘Now. Come.’
Watson sighed at the thought of leaving the sausages, kidneys and dumplings. As he stood a rocket of searing pain shot up the back of his leg and his knee bent. He reached out and steadied himself on the table.
‘Are you all right?’ the German asked.
‘Yes. Just my knee.’ He put the weight on the leg and winced at a second blade of pain. ‘A cane might help.’
‘There is a selection downstairs by the entrance. We are taking an automobile trip,’ said Kügel. ‘So it will be under no strain.’
‘Very well.’
‘Don’t worry too much, Major Watson. You will be able to have it seen to soon. My orders tell me you are to be transferred. To Holland. And then . . . then, I think you will be going home.’
The stick Watson chose from the basket by the doorway was a Wurzelstock of chestnut, with a four-inch metal ferrule at the tip, and a leather lanyard for him to hook over his wrist. It was more a hiking staff than a supporting cane, but he wasn’t quite ready to hobble around like a cripple with something smaller. With the Wurzelstock at least he could pretend he was out for a stroll in the woods, rather than a lame old man.
Once he had selected his support, Kügel loaded him in the back of a well-appointed Argus tourer, all leather and red velvet, which had a hint of the mobile boudoir about it. There was a driver up front – a facially scarred Feldwebel with an eye patch – and a guard, armed with a ‘broomhandle’ Mauser pistol. Watson wondered if the man with the weapon was in case he made a break for it. If so, the precautions were redundant – he wouldn’t get far with one good knee.
Kügel climbed in beside him and offered him a cigarette. Watson took it, if only to kill the hunger pangs.
‘Dramin, please, Emil,’ Kügel said to the driver.
The Argus pulled away smoothly and they made stately progress down the mansion’s driveway. It, at least, still had its colonnade of trees, albeit bare of leaves at that time of year.
At the gates they turned left and Kügel pointed to a smaller, single-storey building built in the same style as the château they had just left. ‘The stables. They once housed sixty horses. Now there are twelve and we have to guard them day and night.’ He turned and faced Watson. ‘The meat, you see.’
The tourer headed east until it hit the road that Watson had come up, the one where Sayer had been murdered. Then it turned north and began to climb further uphill. More snow had clearly fallen while he had been in solitary, and the brutalized landscape looked less bleak in its swaddling of white, as if a remedial coat of limewash had been applied. The road, though, showed signs of heavy traffic and the borders were blackened by the filth from engines and the splash from tyres.
As they negotiated a series of switchbacks, Watson looked over his shoulder at the shrinking camp. He could see the two compounds quite clearly, but he now saw that the mountain at the rear of the camp’s plateau had been scooped out, as if by an enormous spoon. There was evidence of buildings and rusting machinery and a number of spidery tracks led down to the old workings, and there were decayed wooden chutes, no doubt used to carry water from the churning, slate-grey mountain rivers that they crisscrossed at intervals. The rushing water was flecked with little flags of white and Watson spotted debris in there – of both natural and human origin – being purged away, down the hillside.
The Argus struggled as the incline increased and, after cresting a rise, the camp was lost to view. Here were a series of dark ponds; a scum of ice had formed on some of them. Again there was evidence of industrial machinery, most of it rusted or rotted.
The road forked. One way indicated what Watson assumed to be a village, called Zellergrund; the other had a large wooden arrow with the word Fleckfieber on it – typhus again – and the crudely daubed skull and crossbones. They took the path towards the disease.
There were a few trees in evidence here, evergreens that, despite the name, were mostly brown, their branches dusted with snow on their dorsal surfaces. Beyond them was another range of mountains with a saw-toothed outline, steep enough that snow had only settled in the crevices and gullies that fissured the flanks. At the base was another camp, much larger than the one Watson had just left. This plateau seemed more exposed than the lower levels and he could feel the wind buffeting the Argus as they approached the steel and mesh gates that blocked their path. A barbed-wire-topped fence ran over the undulating terrain on either side of the gateway.
Signs indicated it was elektrifiziert, electrified, something the Germans had grown rather skilled at, having strung electric fences the entire length of the French–Belgian border. A second type of warning showed the silhouette of a figure being struck by a lightning bolt. The fence was charged with enough voltage to kill a man.
The guards opened the gate to allow the car in, peering in at Kügel as they drove through, then saluting. As the Argus bumped down the track towards the main camp, which was surrounded by a triple layer of wire, with the centre one displaying the electrified signs, Watson felt his mouth dry. To the right of them was a row of gibbets, twenty in all, each with a hinged platform at the base that acted as the trapdoor. Nine of the nooses were occupied by bodies, in various stages of decomposition. All were naked, all looked like anatomical models designed to show off their skeletal structure, such was the detail with which bones protruded through grey skin. Beady-eyed crows were removing strips of flesh from those with enough left to pick at and as the vehicle purred past them they stared at the newcomers and fanned their wings for a few moments before settling back to their gruesome work. Liquid rose in Watson’s gullet, scouring his throat. He swallowed and it was like gulping acid.
‘Why have you brought me here?’ he asked.
Kügel tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Stop here, will you, Emil?’ He turned to Watson. ‘Can you manage a short walk? A few metres?’
Watson nodded and stepped out of the car. The smell that hit him reminded him of the stench of the waste barges on the Thames. That and an abattoir. There was something else, too, the acrid bite of rotten eggs. Sulphur dioxide was in the air.
Beyond the wire fence he could see men moving, shuffling with a gait that suggested their legs were shackled. But there were no shackles. They were mustering together into ragged lines, pushed into some semblance of order by guards with their rifle butts.
Reluctantly, Watson moved closer, the wind whipping at his words as he spoke to Kügel. ‘What is this place?’
The commandant bided his time. A few of the inmates looked through the wire, a glint of curiosity flaring in otherwise dead eyes. All the men looked strangely alike – the sharp angles of cheekbones in gaunt faces, skin pulled taut over shaved heads, limbs that seemed to carry no muscle whatsoever, just sinew. They each wore a greasy uniform of coarse blanket material, entirely inadequate for the winter.
‘This is what they really mean by the worst camp in Germany. Not mine,’ said Kügel. ‘These are the damned.’
‘Where are they from?’
A truck drove by towards the gate, belching fumes. Watson glanced in the rear at German soldiers who looked alarmingly similar to the inmates in their flat expressions.
‘Commandant, where are these prisoners from?’
There came the distant sound of gunshots, three, in rapid succession.
‘And where are they going?’
‘Russian, mostly. Some Serbians, Greeks, Romanians. They are about to go into the mountains for the next shift.’
‘Of what?’
‘There are two mines up in those foothills. About a three-kilometre walk. Copper and silver. Some zinc, too.’
‘Those men can’t work.’
‘You’d be surprised what a man can do on one potato a day.’
‘But this is monstrous. It’s against all humanity. How will they survive in these conditions?’
Kügel looked genuinely puzzled by the question. ‘They are not meant to survive. Those mountains are full of old mine shafts to dispose of bodies in. New prisoners can easily be drafted in to replace them. We have a million Russians in this country. Enough to keep the mines going for very little cost.’
‘And the Red Cross?’
‘Does not know this place exists. Who will tell them?’
Me, thought Watson. I will.
Another rifle shot boomed down the valley. ‘What’s that firing?’
‘The previous shift returning. Those without the strength to make it back . . .’ He mimed firing a rifle at a figure on the ground. ‘I’ll admit it is a harsh regime.’
‘Harsh? Harsh?’ Watson spluttered. ‘It’s mindless murder, that’s what it is. I assume there is a point to showing me all this.’
‘Only a very oblique one,’ said Kügel. He passed Watson a small flask of schnapps. Watson took a hit from it and for a few welcome moments his nostrils were purged of the smell of decay and filth. ‘This camp is operated by the Eighth Department of the Großer Generalstab, the German High Command. The silver- and copper-bearing ores are mined here, and then, you see there is a small-gauge railway there? That runs the ores to the processing factory. French prisoners work in that. Treated rather better. The army then sells the silver and copper on the open market.’
‘For profit?’
Kügel laughed. ‘Of course for profit. Which then lines the pockets of various colonels and generals, as an expediency in case things don’t go Germany’s way. If, as we said, America enters the war, for instance. The same department also operates my camp. I have a sum I have to deliver each month, or I will be relieved of my post. No excuses. If I can’t raise it as revenue, I have to make up the difference from my own accounts. Now, you think I am cruel? You think I exploit the men in my care? Let me tell you, the man who runs this camp has often said he would prefer my job to his at this charnel house. Who can blame him? Look.’
In the far distance he could make out a shuffling line of more ragged men, heads bowed, if it were possible moving even slower than the men behind the wire. They were stooped as if great rocks had been placed on their shoulders.
‘There is a saying, Major, better the devil you know. I’m the devil you know. The men who run this place? They make the devil look like one of the good guys. Seen enough?’
Another rifle shot, a sharp crack, much closer. One of the prisoners collapsed out of line. The guards dragged him to one side, and the herd of men continued on its way.
A terrible sense of shame overtook Watson. Shame that men could treat their fellows like this. Shame that he should be powerless to do anything about it. Shame that he wanted to turn on his heels and run as fast as his aged limbs could carry him, never looking back.
‘We still have that lunch,’ said Kügel, directing him back to the car.
‘I think I’ve rather lost my appetite,’ said Watson as he took the first step back towards the Argus. ‘Just take me back to the camp, will you?’
The lunch did not go to waste. Once Watson had been returned to the camp, Steigler and Kügel stacked up their plates with the food and shared a bottle of Hock. After they had both commented on the quality of the sausages and the wine, Steigler asked: ‘Will he do it, do you think?’
‘Watson? I’m not sure. I am certain, however, that a direct appeal would have done little good. He would never countenance working for a man like me.’
Steigler helped himself to a dumpling. ‘Even though you showed him the conditions up the mountain?’
‘I think he thought it was like Nero saying, “Look, it could be worse, I could be Caligula,” or Attila the Hun protesting: “You think I’m bad, you should see my brother Bleda.”’
Steigler laughed. ‘Did he believe the story? About the General Staff running the mines for profit?’
‘He had no reason to doubt it. Most of what I told him was true. They are working the Russkies to death up there. But the silver and copper goes straight into the factories of the Ruhr. Given what he knows about how we operate here, the lie that the High Command are lining their own pockets would seem perfectly plausible.’
Steigler dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, finally approaching satiation with the rich food. ‘He’s no Sherlock Holmes, you know, our Major Watson.’
‘No, but I suspect he has something of the terrier about him. Presented with the facts, the scientist and the medical man in him will chafe. Three men die in one evening? We blame it on them trying to contact the dead? No, he’ll get to the bottom of it if he can. After all the years with Holmes, he won’t be able to help himself.’
‘But he only has a week.’
‘Less, I suspect. It will be forty-eight hours, seventy-two at most, before Von Bork has him moved.’
‘No time at all.’
‘We’ll see. Look, Steigler, I know you said that it is an internal matter for the prisoners, but I am not convinced. I think those three men were murdered. But why? What are those bastards up to? There’s something else happening here, something we don’t control and that makes me uneasy. And three fewer men means three fewer bank accounts to empty. I have a bad feeling about what will happen to Germany in future. Every mark will help. You’ve done what I suggested?’
‘Moved everything into Swiss francs, yes.’
‘Good. So, all we have to do is sit and wait.’
‘For?’
Kügel poured himself a healthy glug of the Hock and toasted the doctor. ‘For Watson to solve our little crime for us.’