Chapter One: One Morning in May
This story takes place during my previous Poirot fic, The Battles of Hastings - specifically, the events in this story happen between chapters 4 and 5, right after Hastings returns to England.
Woodley Heath, Surrey, England, May 1917
Ten-year-old Molly Kershaw sat on the back of the old horse cart as it made its way up the village high street. She let her feet in their brown boots swing back and forth with the bumping and swaying of the cart.
"We'll sell lots of things today, won't we, Mum?" she called to her mother up in the driver's seat.
"I hope so, pet. We've worked very hard for today." Mrs. Kershaw chirruped to the horse, a gentle gray cob named Little John, and flicked the reins against his back. "The Fund needs every penny it can get for the lads on the Front."
It was the long-awaited day of the Woodley Heath Spring Fete. As it had been for the past three years, the fete was a fundraiser for the Soldiers' Aid Fund.
Molly craned her neck around to look at the cart's sweet-smelling cargo: a bounty of baked goods, enough to fill a confectioner's shop, packed into boxes and baskets. For the last several days, Molly and Mrs. Kershaw had been hard at work, baking an assortment of treats to sell at the fete.
There were three different kinds of biscuits, there was seed cake, there were miniature honey cakes, there were little jam tarts, and there were currant buns. And best of all, there was gingerbread. This year, Mrs. Kershaw had allowed Molly to try baking one kind of treat all by herself, and Molly had chosen her grandmother's gingerbread recipe: the best in the whole world, Molly was convinced. She put her hand on the large basket containing the gingerbread, feeling very proud of herself and very grown-up.
Mrs. Kershaw had worried about whether they would be able to buy everything they needed for all the baking. Because of the war, certain ingredients were either hard to find at the village grocer's, or were ridiculously expensive.
But on a lovely day like this, it was easy to forget about the war. Mother Nature, as if making a special present in honor of the fete, had delivered a crystalline blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds, and the spring breezes tugged strands of Molly's long strawberry-blond hair loose from its blue gingham hair ribbon.
Up ahead was the village green: a square plot of land framed in by shops and pubs on one side, and the village railway station on the other. Today, the green was packed with stalls and tents, with long fluttering strands of bunting hanging overhead.
Carts, wagons, and the odd motorcar all vied for space in the lane around the green, but Mrs. Kershaw found a hitching post near the railway platform steps and secured Little John's reins to it. And the hitching post happened to be close to their assigned tent on the edge of the green, so it worked out wonderfully.
"I don't see why we have to hold the fete here, close to the railway station," a snooty-sounding voice was saying, "with all those horrid trains rattling by and sending smoke and soot everywhere." It was fussy old Mrs. Wentworth from the fete committee, finding something to complain about as usual. She spotted the Kershaws' cart and came bustling over. "Good morning, Mrs. Kershaw. Good morning, Molly." She cast an eye over the cart's contents and tsked. "Is this all you brought? Really, some of the other booths have brought twice as much to sell."
"I assure you, Mrs. Wentworth, we've brought plenty of things to sell," Mrs. Kershaw said crisply. And you and the other old crones on the committee will get your tithe from the proceeds, she added to herself.
"We've got enough to feed an army! We'll be well-provisioned!" Molly chimed in, using two of her father's favorite phrases; Mr. Kershaw was a quartermaster sergeant with the Queen's Royal Regiment of West Surrey.
Mrs. Wentworth sniffed and turned on her heel, the many feathers on her hat bouncing as she marched off.
"Come on, Molly, let's unpack." Mrs. Kershaw began unloading baskets from the cart.
Molly jumped down from the cart, picked up the big basket of gingerbread, carried it to the tent, and set it down in a place of honor on the tent table.
xHPx
Far away from Woodley Heath, aboard a train just pulling out of the main railway terminus in Portsmouth, Lt. Arthur Hastings of the Tenth Royal Fusiliers gazed absently out the window as the station platform slowly slid out of sight.
The train's next stop, instead of the intermediate stations along the line, would be Waterloo Station in London. And from there, the passengers - the latest shipment of ill or wounded soldiers sent home from the Front to recuperate - would be taken to a military hospital and convalescent facility.
And maybe then, Hastings thought, he could finally start to get better.
It seemed like he had been traveling for a lifetime. First there had been the transport from the army hospital in northern France to the port of Cherbourg, passing through all manner of war-weary villages along the way. Then from Cherbourg to Portsmouth aboard the HMHS Alexandra, three days ago.
He just wanted the endless traveling and waiting to be over.
The carriage in which Hastings rode had been designated as the officers' carriage. Rather than being an ordinary coach with compartments, it was a re-purposed buffet car with green velvet seats - a little worn in spots - and a now-empty refreshment counter that could have done with a good polishing.
Major James Huxleigh - Ninth Queen's Royal Lancers - had turned the counter into a temporary war room table, with assorted maps and documents now spread out on its surface. The highest-ranked officer among them, he was of the opinion that a broken wrist - his reason for returning home - was no reason to shirk one's regular duties.
The other officers were seated throughout the car, talking and laughing like a group of schoolboys on an outing.
Before the events of the last month, Hastings would have been sitting with the other officers, chatting and joking with them. But today, Hastings sat by himself in the far corner of the carriage, his cane across his knees and his officer's valise sitting at his feet.
The Great War was now into its third year, and this year of 1917 had not been kind to the Royal Fusiliers, or indeed any other division of the British Army. In April, the Battle of the Scarpe had claimed the lives of several of Hastings's close friends and comrades-at-arms.
That same battle had given Hastings the two large shrapnel wounds - one in the chest, one in the left thigh - that had required him to be sent home.
His leg had been bothering him quite a bit today; the doctors at the Portsmouth naval base had given him a dose of painkillers before he and the others were taken to the train.
The train left Portsmouth far behind and chugged on into the countryside, traveling through acres of rolling green hills and woodlands dotted with the occasional village: a far cry from the never-ending sea of mud, trenches, and barbed wire.
"A cigar, the Times, and a good chair by the fire at Creighton's in Piccadilly. That's what I'm looking forward to as soon as they turn us loose," one officer was saying with relish.
"A grouse shooting party in the country for me," another chimed in.
"What, you haven't had enough shooting as it is?" someone joked. And there was laughter.
"For me, drinking and dancing until dawn with a beautiful girl in my arms," one of the younger officers said. More laughter and a few utterances of "hear, hear" followed this.
"What about you, Lieutenant Hastings?" someone called.
Hastings started out of his reverie. "Sorry, must have dozed off. What was that?" he asked.
"As soon as they release us from the sickroom. What's the first amusing thing you're going to do?"
"Oh. Well…" Hastings racked his brains for an acceptable answer. "It's been quite a long time since I went to the theater, I suppose," he said.
There were a few murmurs of agreement at this, and the conversation turned to talk of different shows and actors.
In truth, there were a lot of things that Hastings wanted, but none of them were among the various pleasures and amusements the others were discussing.
To be able to finally walk again without needing a cane.
To no longer feel these terrible stabbing pains in his leg and chest at each step.
To not be startled within an inch of his life every time he heard a loud noise.
And most of all, he wanted to be able to fall asleep at night and wake up the next morning completely rested.
Hastings had been having the occasional bad dream well before his injuries landed him in the battlefield hospital. But ever since then, the nightmares had become both more frequent and more terrifying: being trapped in a deep trench with piles of bodies everywhere, clouds of noxious gas ready to swallow him up, and a tank about to crush him like an ant under a shoe.
And just as bad as the nightmares were those cold, sleepless predawn hours when hopelessness and despair are at their strongest. He'd spent far too many of those hours lying awake in the hospital ward, desperately hoping that no one could hear him crying.
He would never admit any of this to the others. There were things that soldiers just didn't talk about.
As the miles crept by, the conversation levels in the buffet car began to subside. The train's rocking and swaying had lulled some of the officers to sleep, and one or two of them were snoring. Huxleigh, of course, kept at his work at the counter.
Hastings took down his trench coat from where it hung on a nearby peg, folded it into a makeshift pillow, and rested his head against it. He felt his eyes slowly closing…
And then the train lurched violently as the engine let out a series of discordant, off-key shrieks and groans.
xHPx
Reviews welcome!