rest.’ He wrote ‘M REQUIRED’ on the docket. Then ‘X-RAY’.
The boy did as he was told, and as Watson worked at removing the layers of bandaging, he spoke softly to Jennings as she fed the boy the newly arrived elixir. ‘I meant to explain myself earlier. Before Sister interrupted.’
‘You have seen the worst of Sister Spence, Major. She’s a good, dedicated woman.’
‘I’m sure of it.’ He pointed at her neck. ‘I meant about that tiny blemish, although I fear that is too harsh a word for such a delicate thing, at the base of your throat. Only the St Kitts sandfly,
Culicoides clasterri
, also found on Nevis, leaves such an attractive, star-shaped scar.’
‘Ah, yes. We used to call it the Sweet Itch.’
‘And the only business that would take a British family out there, other than perhaps the Church, is the sugar business.’
She raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Tell me, Major Watson, do you always check your nurses’ throats for blemishes?’
Her cheeks dimpled fetchingly as she smiled. He felt himself warming under the collar of his now blood-spattered shirt. He resumed cutting.
‘And how do you know about the sandflies of the Caribbean, Major?’
‘I think we’ll need some towels here. The flies? Oh, I read a monogram. Recommended by . . .’ He paused. ‘I had a very good tutor, Staff Nurse Jennings.’
Good? The very best, Watson. The very best.
He ignored the comment. It was a trace memory, playing tricks on him. He was aware it could have no connection to his former colleague and friend because, should they pass in the street, Watson knew full well that Sherlock Holmes would no longer give him the time of day.
SEVEN
Sitting in just his singlet and longjohns, Ernst Bloch opened the box of cartridges his father had posted to him and removed the upper layer of the compressed cotton wool that swaddled them. He carefully placed ten of the bullets onto the baize covering of the portable card table at the foot of his bed. They lay next to the pipe he intended to enjoy as soon as he had finished this little task. He wouldn’t worry about the smoke from his potent black tobacco affecting his fellow soldiers, because there were none.
Bloch occupied his own cubbyhole in one of the deep, airless dugouts. He was curtained off from the regular troops in his own miniature Siegfried shelter. Nobody in the regular army cared much for snipers, not even those on his own side. The conscientious objectors who cleaned the latrines were held in higher esteem.
Bloch didn’t care. At least, unlike poison gas or the flamethrower, there was still a sporting element to his hunt for a target. It was a way of waging warfare that went back to the Crimea and the Edinburgh Rifles, who had first used telescopic sights to kill Russian gunnery officers. Bloch had done his homework; he could justify his trade in any argument, but it had long ago become tiresome. Let the cannon fodder grumble about him and his opposite numbers on the Allied side.
He weighed the first of the rounds on the little scales he had set up. Then the second and a third. All three were within a fraction of a gram of each other. Satisfied, he stood a steel ruler on its side. A half-moon depression had been milled out of it and into that he slotted the cartridge, adjusting it until he found the centre of gravity. He repeated this four times, noting the balance point was identical in each case. His father had followed his instructions to the letter.
Schaeffer came through with a cup of coffee for him and quickly retired, pulling the thick blanket that doubled for a curtain back into place as he went. He knew that Bloch didn’t want to be interrupted while he polished his ammunition or stripped down his rifle. A grunted thanks was the only exchange.
Bloch felt a vibration in the earth, an explosion high above, too distant to register as sound. The German trenches were dug deep and snug, excavated on higher ground, in well-drained soil, which
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