MCMXIV
Wednesday, December 23rd, 1914:
"1914 is on its end and it is a GOOD THING!"
Lestrade finished talking to himself—nothing so dull as being your only audience--and slammed the window down in his office with a muffled curse; one last puff of chill air wafted across his forearms with what Clea called Eau d'Noel, that unmistakable tint of burning evergreen boughs mixed with the usual London soot…and he shivered inside his wool sleeves. The stacks were going full-throttle to keep up with the holiday spirit (well, what there was of it) and it made him nervous.
Industry showed up at night in the form of millions of glowing lights threading into revealing outlines. He didn't mind the permanent overcast of London now. It would hide some things from German eyes.
Outside of his office the Yard continued on. He listened to the hustle and bustle sadly, missing the part of his life when he had been one of those hustlers and bustlers. This promotion was not something he'd planned for; no one in their right mind would have posted him up in his younger days.
Of course, that was back when everyone thought France had nothing better to do than to pick another war…in the space of only nine years that had rather changed!
Lestrade scowled at his token wall-photograph of the King in private rebellion. If anyone in your Cabinet had thought to ask me, Your Majesty, I would have told you to watch out for the members of your own family. Of course, I was just speaking from experience. Personal experience.
He pitied their Monarch--God help him—and God help the state of things where one could pity the man on the throne! Mycroft Holmes was the only ruler on any throne in England the little detective felt was safe from the machinations of his family. Then again, if there was anyone more likely to let sleeping rulers lie, it would be Sherlock Holmes. Know the man half your blessed lifetime, and he'll still manage to surprise you…
Papers signed; the silly reporter had collected his statement about the possibility of Christmas Riots…and Gregson, Bradstreet, Youghal, Morton and whatsisname—Athelney Jones (the Third)—had dropped off their holiday wishes in a growing stack of paper envelopes. Lestrade remembered their days of penury when Martin and Nicholas had drafted the family's wishes for them on ink and paper…
In a growing ill-humor he stamped back to his too-large desk and returned to the reports of the past three months. He knew he was reviewing the year prematurely, but the compulsion to go over his little calendar was too much. He'd studied it throughout the course of the day in his office (his new office; still felt wrong and too large). A small paragraph on the front page of the Times caught his eye. The name was familiar.
Oh, dear. Mary Richardson was back at work.
Lestrade groaned under his breath, and wondered if this was what it felt like to be tied to an ant-hill and covered in treacle.
Mary Richardson. Things had truly shown the mad-streak for 1914 back on the 10th of March, when that suffragette took a damned meat chopper into the National Gallery and sliced up the Rokeby Venus. Her confounded reasoning was such that Lestrade had memorized her confused babble in a vain effort to understand:
"I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst1, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas. Mrs Pankhurst seeks to procure justice for womanhood, and for this she is being slowly murdered by a Government of Iscariot politicians. If there is an outcry against my deed, let every one remember that such an outcry is an hypocrisy so long as they allow the destruction of Mrs Pankhurst and other beautiful living women, and that until the public cease to countenance human destruction the stones cast against me for the destruction of this picture are each an evidence against them of artistic as well as moral and political humbug and hypocrisy."
No doubt Diego Velázquez would have been flattered that she thought his painting the most beautiful of women, but to destroy something he had created with his own hands hardly impressed anyone for their maturity and stability. That was the WSPU2 for you; throw a fit, break someone's dishes (or more like as not, burn it to the ground), but overall, show a scene and expect someone to respect you for it…who ever justified the damage of public property in a bid to get attention??
Clea shared his contempt for Mrs. Pankhurst and her violent minions, not the least because they felt justified in attacking policemen. Youghal had a son-in-law who had lost a month of work through their mischief back in '11—work he could hardly spare with his ailing children in the spring! Pankhurst's own daughters were estranged over disagreements on women's rights. One of them had even gone into self-exile for Australia and was advocating peace while the rest of her blood-kin were pressing young men to go to war. Another one, if the CID was correct, was advocating peace too. That made him feel better. People who wanted peace abroad rarely tried to fire-bomb people at home.
At least they hadn't set fire to the painting! Fire in a place like the gallery would have been a ticket for mass panic.
The suffragists were intent on seeing to "The German Peril," but Lestrade had an uneasy resonance within his spinal column whenever the subject came up. They were a rough lot; rougher than some of the slums he'd worked, but no one ever accused the women of being politically ignorant. They were currently pushing their amazing energies to encouraging young men to join the War Effort whilst simultaneously pressuring women to work in factories and munitions plants.
He had a feeling deep within his bones that it was all a most coordinated and smart effort to enforce women into the fore; if they made themselves indispensable…so indispensable they could not easily be replaced…then what better time than War Time? War was when everyone, man, woman, child and even the neighbor's dog was expected to band together. He'd heard as much from the Uniformed Women who were patrolling London. Too many of them expected to be of such value the Office wouldn't say no to keeping them on after the War was over.
Young people made that mistake. They made it a great deal.
Hiring a veteran back to his original post was cheaper (and nobler) for the government than keeping on his replacement and filling out his unemployment dole.
And not to mention that there have always been a high number of veterans in the police force. Nothing else approaches the camaraderie or what they were trained to do when they were on the Royal Shilling. Lestrade couldn't see too many of these men returning home (at least, those that returned alive and whole in body), and trading their uniform for factory slops.
March hadn't been a good month; no. In like a lion with the death of Lord Minto,3 and ended like a whole pack of the big cats with the suffragists…The suffragists hadn't helped. Why, oh why couldn't they be more like Katharine Routledge and less like Queen Bees? Lestrade felt Mrs. Routledge far more important: one of England's first female archaeologists had headed off to Easter Island on a mapping expedition his sons would have begged to join. If women wanted equality they should work for it the way Mrs. Routledge had. Nothing made a man more contemptuous than someone, anyone who came up to him and said, "I will MAKE you respect me!"
Desperate for some sort of optimistic perspective, he skimmed through more of the year: April. Blissfully boring. The first colour film had been aired with half the people refusing to go because of the risqué title—though Lestrade had surely seen much worse than "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil." Pygmalion's opening had gone down better, but he felt the film and the theatre had both been somewhat similar in their attack upon society. Well, that was what the arts were for…
May. 9th Duke of Argyll died. The Princess Louise had been understandably upset even though her marriage was something of an unqualified disaster with the Duke's proclivities to men…adding insult to injury, he hadn't cared if his paramours were married or not. Like most of the other policemen who breathed air, Lestrade was dead-convinced the Duke's little "friend" Frank Shackleton had been behind the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. But evidence had been suppressed (as if that never happened when a Royal was involved), no doubt to hide the Duke's tastes. Lestrade also didn't think it coincidence that Shackleton's brother Earnest had hurriedly trotted off to some flag-waving and half-baked expedition to cross Antarctica…(good riddance and have your fun with the Trans-Atlantic-whatever-Expedition…)
The Duke had been the first commoner to marry into the Royals in almost 400 years…with an achievement record like that, it'll be another 400 years before they try that again! Lestrade caved in to personal pressure and plucked out his small pipe. Oh, well. At least the Irish Home Rule was passed. Nothing like Asquith's bewildering use of the English language to unify both parties with confusion on what they were voting for…Lestrade himself had difficulty following the bill and he had sharpened his teeth on conflicting riot reports…so far as he could understand it, the end result of the bill was to postpone another civil war in Ireland. Amen. Too bad for the good intentions…as soon as it looked like War would erupt Ireland forgot all about fighting each other…
June. The further one got along in the year, the more compelling the need for tobacco. Lestrade felt depression slip and slide, seeking purchase on his shoulders with its weight as he packed the pipe and puffed himself into a state of calm. Depressing enough that his favourite actor of all time, Walter Brandon Thomas, had died. Otherwise everything that had happened in June had been involved with the future war. The Kiel Canal had been deepened by the Kaiser and then re-opened. Who did Germany think they were fooling? The King, apparently! The Kaiser got to see—inspect, really—the new dreadnought named after His Majesty…for the Kiel Regatta. Thank God they'd started up the Royal Naval Air Service…that was something the Huns hadn't had a hand in!
July. Another death. Joseph Chamberlain. Colourful, controversial, and yet good-hearted. England was smaller for his absence. Ireland amended the Bill for Ireland. Some sanity had trickled into the world for a brief time…
He hated nearly every day of July. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was buried; the Kaiser went on his planned cruise as if nothing was wrong—or, pretending nothing was wrong. It was up to each man to decide. While the world shivered to bits in the threat of massive loss of life, everyone with an important name attached to the Huns were gallivanting off on vacation as if all was set and lovely with the grand scheme of things…
He couldn't bear to look at all the notes he'd written, day to day. He flipped to the back but not before seeing a quote the newspapers had pulled out of the Emperor Franz Joseph: "Now we can no longer hold back. It will be a terrible war."
The last day of the month had been the worst. Germany had chosen that date for Kriegsgefahr Zustand: pre-mobilisation for war.
August. All for naught with August. Charles Davis Lucas had died. What a moral blow. The world's first Victoria Cross recipient, someone to respect and look up to…dead of old age with the full honors as Rear Admiral. Again, the mood of the month had been scored by a significant death in the first week. War. Germany asks Belgium for free passage through its lands to France. Belgium refuses. Germany invades Belgium. Belgium can't resist. England scolds Germany. Germany ignores England. England declares war on Germany. End of story—or at least the first chapter. And as if Germany still thought England would hold back after that point, the Kaiser had clearly forgotten that his cousin was slow to rouse, like trying to rock a boulder down a slope. Once you got that boulder going, all you could do was to get out of its way.
And the name of the boulder for the King: HMS Birmingham.
Fair Isle. U-boat 15 spotted between the Shetlands and Orkneys; fog on the sea, English warship HMS Birmingham tries to shoot the U-boat, fails, and solves the problem of attacking by simply ramming it full speed, slicing it in twain like a sausage and killing all hands on board.
Lestrade still remembered the cold sensation below his ribs to read the newsprint; the Germans had tried to dive to avoid attack. They had been stranded with bad engines and the fog had made everything a horror of uncertainty. First submarine blood for Germany. Lestrade had paid token cheer to the news.
Germany's going to head for the air anyway. No matter how often we blast them out of the water. They're headed up while we stay on the ground like mice.
Battle of Mons. Battle of Heligoland. German losses in the water both times; both growing harder and harder to hear the rumours outside the papers.
He'd let his pipe die; he re-lit it with an angry shake. Damn. Damn. Damn.
September. London Agreement, trapping England and France with Russia into an oath not to seek a separate peace with the Kaiser without the other two present. Both good and bad about that agreement.
Bloodshed in the Marne.
Dr. Watson was out there.
So were a few of Lestrade's young Constables.
500,000 killed. And it was considered an English victory. They were still working on the death-tallies. Would any of his men come back? His chest shrank at the thought; they weren't his sons but he was supposed to be their father-figure wrapt within duty. How did their own fathers feel about it?
Bloodshed in the Aisne. British and French against the Germans. Victory? Indecisive. 12,000 casualties for the British.
I don't care what they think. English blood is worth more than this! They've had to start digging ditches to live in—fighting like moles and rats instead of above the ground because not a single commander on either side will give way one bloody inch!
Irish Home Rule passed—finally, good news. Irish Home Rule suspended until quittance of war—bad news. Just the latest bit of bad news.
October. Bloodshed in the Ypres.
November. Same Ypres, same armies bleeding…just more of it. Planes were being used to wire communications back and forth.
Finally. Use of air power.
Battle of Coronel. First British Naval defeat.
It won't fool them. It won't fool these Germans. They'll move in from the air no matter what we do…no matter how convinced we are they have the upper.
November Fifth.
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November…when Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire for giving German Naval ships safe harbour. Churchill practically stole the Turks' own two ships out of the British naval yards at the start of the war, so the gift of two fleeing German ships had been downright mystical for the opportunists.
Lestrade didn't like Churchill. He had reasons longer than his forearms, mostly because of his refusal to let a pilot's widow survive off his death-trophy, but he had a feeling that the man wouldn't have hesitated to seize Turkey's ships even had he known the outcome.
Ships again. We're ship-strong; it's what we are and it's what we do best…but…
More deaths of November. Britain's last commander in chief of the Forces dies. Like Campbell…the end of an era making way for a new and strange one. Old "Bobs" Roberts had died the way he lived: in service visiting the troops in France before being struck down by pneumonia. He had outlived his own sons; painful thought. Thanks in part to his amazing life, his eldest daughter inherited his Earldom and Viscountcy…another woman rising in the world, accepting the responsibility of being unusual and possibly alone…doing it without brickbats and firebombs…
Lestrade stared listlessly at the last month of the year.
December.
It had, like the others, started off on the wrong foot.
Britain again pounded the Germans, this time at the Falkland Islands. One day later (and to Lestrade's relief), the first Royal Navy aircraft carrier was commissioned.
Hurry. He thought. Hurry. Get to the air. Get to the air before they do.
-
He closed up and left at the end of his shift. The Yard would know how to reach him---and where—if something else happened. He devoutly hoped nothing would…not for just the evening. Hun sympathizers, attacking women, women police barely less polite, and spies needed to take a rest once in a while surely!
Hawkers tried to sell papers on the street with false hopes: "Soldiers may be home soon!" But anyone who wasted the pence found hollow statements, puffed up with the helium of hope. Lighter than air it all dissipated into nothing.
Lestrade collected his post in ill humour but stifled the thoughts that wanted to come out and thanked the snail-brain on the other side of the counter. He shuffled through a stack of holiday greetings—shuffling a deck of cards, like—and caught upon a familiar (yet unexpected) name looking back at him.
He paused before the doorway where it was guaranteed the coldest; people swirled back and forth, sweeping freezing draughts about his trousers below the protection of his long coat. No; he wasn't imagining things…how strange to see this…
"Walk-ER!" A boy shouted at the top of his lungs, jarring him out of his head. He set his mouth. A knot of children raced off, trading insults that were rather sophisticated. He came to his senses and stuffed the entire packet into the special pocket on his left side.
"Hoi! There you are!"
Lestrade spun on his left foot with a smile already forming over his face. "And there you are!" He exclaimed. "I thought you'd be at the 'Keg by now."
"Held up." Bradstreet puffed slightly as he made it to the edge of the kerb. "More work from the other side…I tell you, man. It's been nothing but trouble since they allowed the River Police motorized boats!"
"They can get into so much trouble in four years?" Lestrade smiled skeptically.
"When you've got all these young fools in charge…" Bradstreet growled. "Horrible, man. Just horrible."
"Tell me all about it over a pint," Lestrade promised. "I've got an hour to ourselves before heading home."
Bradstreet was aging in most uneven planes. His face was barely marked but the lines that did exist were crater-deep upon his face, craggy beneath his thick moustaches. When he smiled, like now, he looked solemn and wise and merry all at once. "Ready for Christmas, are we?" He asked hopefully.
"I don't know. Is it still going on the day after tomorrow?"
Bradstreet laughed and slapped the smaller man on the shoulder. "Last I checked. Are you still ready to have us over for Boxing Day?"
"That depends, I suppose." Lestrade felt some of his anger at the world melt like the first snowflakes against his coat. Side by side the two men turned in the direction of their preferred tavern.
"Cheer up." Bradstreet admonished. "Haven't you heard the good news?"
"What good news?" Lestrade asked doubtfully.
"Australians and New-Zealanders got to Cairo today. Things are about to get unpleasant for the Huns!"
Lestrade sighed. He wanted to catch his friend's mood—Roger Bradstreet's moods could be as infectious as a day in the plague-ward. But he realised he was tired and the chill of the day was seeping into his bones. "Thank you for telling me," he said at last. By then the letters were burning a hole in his pocket with the itch to be read, and Roger was pulling the door open for his first-entrance to their place of refuge. "I was thinking the papers were a little quiet today."
"Well, close as it is to Christmas, I can only hope it stays that way." Bradstreet patted him on the back gently. "Though I can't say I hold out for much hope of peace with my namesake and your daughter."
"Oh, dear. What are they up to now?"
"Nothing…for a wonder. Just that they're trying to sign me un'Hazel up to some sort of book subscription service."
"Don't fall for it. Jenny already tried that with us!" Lestrade paused in their back room and pulled out his fistful from the post. "Do you still have that fancy fountain-pen, Roger?"
"Right here…never without it." Bradstreet blinked. "Why, are you writing your cards at the last minute?"
"No, I need to copy some addresses down…"
-
Marne, France:
"It's a truce."
Watson stared at the stranger just in fresh from the outside and the courier-posts, but the young man stood firm.
"Truly, sir. There's a truce going on at Wipers—"
"Ypres, lad." Watson said wearily.
"Ypres; sorry, sir. But…" The boy swallowed hard. For the first time, Watson noted and recognized the small emblem of a Chaplain on his lapel. "They started out today by singing carols…both sides."
Watson nodded at him to continue.
"Then they were singing together, and then the flags went up. A truce was declared so both sides could bury their dead…" The young man—chaplain—could not keep a smile off his face. "Then they stayed on the field, sir. They stayed and they had joint services for the fallen. A few of them even traded gifts."
Watson felt tears sting his eyes. "They did?" He whispered.
"They did, sir." The boy's eyes were stinging too. He blinked quickly in the fitful light of the lamp-oil.
"Thank you, Chaplain…?"
"Root. Chaplain Root, sir."
"Chaplain…thank you."
"I'm going to write to my parents." The boy grinned, and left before he could be reprimanded. Watson stood where he was in the midnight hall, feeling the tread of the boy's boots thrum against the soles of his own feet.
He was left alone in the dark of the sleeping clinic. Not even Cpl Townsend moaned in his opiates. They were all asleep.
Silent Night…Holy Night…
Watson turned and faced his small room. He felt lighter than air. He would write to his wife. He would write to his children…he would write to everyone. Everyone needed to know.
Perhaps this war will end sooner that we feared…
-
London, December 24:
Clea Lestrade was worn out from chasing after grandchildren and the creation of the pudding. In a moment of grace she put the pudding in the care of her daughters.
"You just let me know if anything happens," she scolded as she hung her apron on the wall.
"It's not even ten in the morning, Mamm." Margaret smiled from ear to ear, a handsome woman who had the sort of handsomeness women are rarely blessed with. Housing a mousy spirit, she would have been awkward and dull. Being a fiery woman she was vivid and beautiful even if her little sister got the credit for the looks. "We'll be fine, Mamm. Well, we shall be as soon as Jenny crawls out of the basement…"
"I heard you, Maggie!" Jenny's voice floated up the dusty stairwell.
"I'll stay out of it!" Clea promised with a laugh. "Don't bring up any spiders, Jenny." She shut the door to seal the heat in the kitchen and trudged back up the stairs. Geoffrey was already stretched out for his usual off-shift nap; she hated that he'd been forced to take on an extra turn of duty for Mr. Gregson, but she did understand that laryngitis respected no one's rank or importance.
He was sound asleep and barely stirred when she curled next to his side under the coverlets. She stopped to smile at him once before falling right to sleep. They had Christmas Eve together...that and half of the holiday to themselves before he went to work again...
The telephone's shrill gradually pierced Clea's brain, but she was so tired and the blankets felt so warm and soothing she could not bring herself to rouse. That came in degrees, and she opened her eyes bit by bit as the rings shut and Geoffrey's mellow voice queried into the line.
It was the silence that woke her the rest of the way. She opened her eyes and sat up, blinking. Geoffrey was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head down and shoulders bowed. She hadn't heard him hang the phone up or felt him return.
"Geoffrey?"
"That was Morty." Grief thickened his voice and coloured it with heavy pain.
"Morty?" Clea knew most of his friends and co-workers. Morty worked the track-line at Dover. "What is it?"
"It's the Germans." His voice caught on something; barbed wire inside his throat. "They just dropped a bomb on Dover."
1 Leader of the WSPU
2 Women's Social and Political Union, a militant suffragist league.
3 March 1
