Read Blackstone and the Great War for Free Online Page A

one thing absolutely clear,’ Carstairs said, in a tone which was both chilling and resolute. ‘I love this regiment, and if you do anything which affects either the morale of the men I command or the honour of the regiment, I will kill you – and damn the consequences!’
    â€˜I’ll bear that in mind,’ Blackstone said.

FOUR
    S oon, the sun would appear on the horizon behind the German lines, and light would begin to filter down into the trench. For the moment, however, the only illumination that Blackstone and Carstairs had was from the captain’s flashlight, its beam bobbing along the trench floor in front of them – and it was like walking in a tunnel.
    â€˜If you once get lost down here, you can be wandering about for hours, trying to find your way back,’ Carstairs warned.
    Blackstone did not doubt it. The trench system was more complex than he would ever have imagined it could be. In addition to the reserve trenches, there were not only the fire trenches – the front line for both armies – but also the relief trenches and countless communication trenches which intersected and criss-crossed each other with bewildering regularity. It was almost like a small town, with its highways and byways, alleys and cul-de-sacs.
    As the narrow communication trench joined the much wider fire trench, Carstairs came to a halt.
    â€˜The General’s wasting both my time and yours, you know,’ he said. ‘You’ll never catch your killer.’
    â€˜What makes you think that?’ Blackstone wondered. ‘Is it that you share Captain Huxton’s conviction that he’s probably already dead?’
    â€˜I try to share as little as possible with Captain Huxton,’ Carstairs said disdainfully. ‘But on this occasion – and more by luck than judgement – he might well be right. We lost fifty per cent of the platoon in the offensive, which means logically, that there’s a fifty per cent chance the killer was amongst them. But even if he survived – and any possible witnesses survived along with him – you still have no chance of making your case.’
    â€˜And why’s that?
    â€˜Let me tell you a story,’ Carstairs suggested. ‘I heard it from another officer, a man I’d trust with my life, so though I can’t personally vouch for it, I’m sure it’s true. It seems that a sanitary-man was in the area between the fire line and support trench one night, and was in the process of burying the night-soil he’d taken from the latrine when he was killed by a stray bullet. By the time he was discovered, rigor mortis had set in, and his right arm, which had been stretched out at the moment he died, was as stiff as a board. Well, I suppose the recovery party could have broken the arm, but they didn’t. They brought the dead man back to the trench and laid him out on the fire line, where he was to stay until the burial party could pick him up and take him to the graveyard.’ Carstairs paused. ‘We do like to give the men a proper burial whenever we can, you know.’
    â€˜Now that is kind of you,’ Blackstone said.
    â€˜Don’t you dare ridicule me in that way!’ Carstairs said, suddenly angry. ‘I care about my men – I might not like them, but I do care about them. And whenever possible, I treat their bodies with the respect they deserve.’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Blackstone said.
    And so he was, because he recognized that – within his limits – the captain was both a decent man and a decent officer.
    â€˜But that’s not the point I was about to make,’ Carstairs continued. ‘They laid the dead man on the fire step, but because his arm was sticking out, it inevitably blocked a good half of the trench. And how do you think the other men reacted to that?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Blackstone admitted.
    â€˜Most of them treated the arm as if