Two Storm Wood

by Philip Gray

Genres: Historical Thrillers; General Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE GUNS ARE SILENT. THE DEAD ARE NOT.

1919. On the desolate battlefields of northern France, the guns of the Great War are silent. Special battalions now face the dangerous task of gathering up the dead for mass burial.

Captain Mackenzie, a survivor of the war, cannot yet bring himself to go home. First he must see that his fallen comrades are recovered and laid to rest. His task is upended when a gruesome discovery is made beneath the ruins of a German strongpoint.

Amy Vanneck's fiancé is one soldier lost amongst many, but she cannot accept that his body may never be found. She heads to France, determined to discover what became of the man she loved.

It soon becomes clear that what Mackenzie has uncovered is a war crime of inhuman savagery. As the dark truth leaches out, both he and Amy are drawn into the hunt for a psychopath, one for whom the atrocity at Two Storm Wood is not an end, but a beginning.

Praise for Two Storm Wood:

'The world has been waiting for a worthy successor to Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong - now Philip Gray has delivered it' David Young, author of Stasi Child

'Atmospheric and meticulously researched, Two Storm Wood sheds light on the horrors and the trauma that continued even after the Armistice...a novel that informs while keeping you on the edge of your seat' Abir Mukherjee, author of The Shadows of Men

'Gray succeeds in entwining two powerful tales - a love story and a hate story - in a way that, right from the shocking start, is both convincing and enthralling' Virginia Baily, author of Sunday Times bestseller Early One Morning

'One of the most evocative thrillers I've ever read...Haunting, cinematic, and utterly gripping' D.B. John, author of Star of the North

© Philip Gray 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Release date: March 29, 2022

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Print pages: 339

Sample

 One 

England, February 1919

The beds were screened off in this corner of the ward, and the shutters half-closed so that the daylight fell in watery bands on the ceilings and walls. Where family portraits had once hung there were now ghostly rectangles, punctured by electric light fittings screwed into the plaster. Outside, the calls of nesting rooks carried across the grounds.

Major Richardson stopped at the first bed, where a man lay, eyes closed. ‘Is he asleep?’

Captain Price opened his file. ‘He had morphine an hour ago, a quarter-gram. He’ll be out for a while yet.’

Richardson leaned closer to the man’s face, squinting through his spectacles at the aftermath of four operations. The bandages had been off for a fortnight but the disfigurement was as bad as ever: the sunken cheek, the taut, shiny brow, the mouth folded into a permanent sneer. He had seen worse – men with no faces at all – but he wished he could have done more. He liked to be sure the lives he saved were worth living.

‘Any visitors?’

‘His fiancée, a girl called Eleanor. She came down most days when things were dicey.’

Price remembered her well: pretty, neatly dressed, an expensive-looking bonnet pulled down low over her eyes, as if she were afraid of being recognised. He had escorted her through the ward on her first visit, struck by her obvious unease. He had reassured her that her intended was not in immediate danger, thinking that must account for it, but she hardly seemed to hear him, intent on whatever battle she was fighting with herself.

‘And now?’ Richardson asked.

‘She doesn’t come at all.’ Price lowered his voice. ‘She sent him a letter. In hindsight, we should have intercepted it.’

Richardson frowned. ‘She broke it off ?’

‘Something about him not playing the game.’

‘What game?’

‘Pre-marital abstinence, in a word. She’d heard something about the brothels at the front. Seems his reassurances weren’t enough.’

Richardson shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t be.’

‘A pretext, you think?’

‘Of course. Look at him.’

Price took in the brutal caricature of what might once have been a handsome face. He had always hoped that men like this, who had sacrificed so much in the line of duty – the disfigured and maimed – might enjoy some special exemption from further hurt, some special consideration from those who had stayed behind, but human nature had often disappointed him.

‘How did he take it?’

‘He hasn’t said a word, according to the nurses.’

‘That bad. Any other visitors?’

Price shook his head. ‘He has no immediate family. Parents died when he was a child. I took the liberty of checking with the War Office.’

‘Unfortunate.’

‘They were killed. Tragic story. Sort of thing that leaves a mark.’

Price would have liked to discuss it further. He had developed an interest in nervous disorders and other conditions that were usually the province of psychiatry. Unfortunately Richardson, the hospital director, rarely had time for theorising.

‘You think he’ll try to end it?’ he said.

Price dug his hands into his pockets. ‘From where he was to where he is now, it’s a long way down. He had quite a war: MC, mentioned in dispatches.’

Richardson’s grunt was non-committal. ‘Suicide requires a plan, and resolution.’

‘He’s strong.’

‘Physically. Wouldn’t have come through otherwise. Mentally, only time will tell. With all the morphine, anything could be going through his head. I wonder if he even knows the war’s over.’

At the mention of morphine the patient’s eyelids drifted open. The pupils were starkly pale against his weather-tanned skin.

Richardson straightened up. ‘Colonel, good to see you catching up on your sleep. Don’t let us disturb you.’

The man blinked lazily, then turned his head towards the patient in the other bed. A major in the military police, he lay propped up on pillows, mouth half-open, sleeping noiselessly, a saline infusion plumbed into his arm, a sheen of sweat on his brow. He had no legs below the knee. His wheelchair stood beside the bed, his uniform deliberately folded on the seat, ready for use. A nurse was standing over him, taking his pulse.

On the other side of the screens a door opened. A smell of boiled food drifted into the room.

‘You’re making excellent progress, Colonel,’ Richardson said, but his patient’s eyes were already closed.

The major started coughing, a wheeze rising from his chest. The amputations had been carried out in France, after his truck had been hit by a shrapnel round. The field surgeon had been too conservative, leaving a pair of tiny fragments in the left leg. After several months, in which the patient had appeared to recover well, infection had set in. Richardson feared the corrective operation had come too late.

The nurse looked up at him and slowly shook her head.

Price came over. ‘That cough. We should move him, just in case.’

‘He won’t last much longer,’ Richardson said. ‘A few days at most.’

‘All the same . . .’ Price sounded apologetic, but the threat from influenza was real. Most of the other patients would stand no chance in their weakened state. An isolation ward had already been set aside.

‘All right, see to it. First thing in the morning.’ Richardson turned. ‘Damned shame, though. I heard these two fellows got on well. It’s friendship that makes these things bearable, often as not.’

That night the major came round. His fever had abated a little. He felt cool and light-headed. Was he really awake or just dreaming again? In his dreams he had his legs and felt no pain. He dreamed about returning to his wife in Hammersmith, to his office at Scotland Yard. People greeted him with smiles and rounds of drinks. They wanted to hear his stories from the war. The only difficulty was knowing where to begin.

He looked down at the foot of the bed: the blankets lay flat under the dim electric light, nothing where his legs should be. A familiar wave of despair broke over him. He glanced at the wheelchair: it was still there, its heavy iron frame a rebuke to his hopes, his inability to accept and adapt. The only thing missing was his uniform: his cap, tunic and greatcoat, distinguished by the red flashes of the provost marshal’s branch. The uniform reminded him that he was still part of the army, still a person of rank with rights and duties. But they had taken it away. Why had they done that? What did it mean?

He managed to sit up. Beside the next bed someone was dressing. It took a while for him to realise that it was the colonel, the poor devil who had lost half his face to a German grenade. He had only been able to speak for the last few days, but he had been a good listener, never tiring of the major’s old case-histories from before the war.

The colonel was putting on a uniform – but it wasn’t his own uniform. It was the major’s.

‘I say, Colonel? What the devil are you doing? Those are—’

The colonel turned, raising a finger to his lips. He was up to something, some sort of prank. But he had no right to take what wasn’t his.

The major coughed. His lungs were inflamed, raw. Pain racked his chest. ‘Put those back. Damn it, those are . . .’

The colonel was standing over him, his ravaged face silhouetted against the electric bulb. He was holding a pillow in his hands.

‘This’ll help you sleep,’ he said, coming close.

He held the pillow over the major’s face, pressing it down with the weight of his body until the dying man’s arms went slack and he stopped struggling. It only took a couple of minutes. When it was over, he laid the major’s arms neatly by his sides, carefully closed his eyes, straightened the bedcovers and slipped silently out of the ward.

 Two 

England, March 1916

She did not see him at first. He was hidden beyond shafts of sunlight streaming down from the stained-glass windows. She had slipped up the spiral staircase into the organ gallery, expecting it to be empty. When he stepped out of the shadows, she jumped.

‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

The young stranger was tall and broad at the shoulders, but his clothes were loose on him, as if handed down, and there was a smudge of dust on his collar. In the sunlight his hair was a pale shade of gold.

Amy Vanneck was still slightly out of breath from the climb. ‘I just wanted . . . I heard the music.’

She had been drawn into the chapel by the sound of a choir. She and her mother, Lady Constance, were on an informal tour of Cambridge colleges, conducted by Aunt Clem, whose husband lectured in biology, but the sisters had gone off in search of somewhere they could ‘spend a penny’, as her aunt quaintly referred to it. The choristers, half of them schoolboys, had filed past on their way out, leaving Amy, as she thought, alone.

The stranger was carrying an untidy bundle of sheet music and pencils. She supposed he was the choirmaster, or the organist, although he could not have been more than twenty years old, scarcely older than her.

‘It was beautiful, by the way,’ she added before turning to go.

‘Wait.’ The stranger stepped closer. One of his pencils clattered to the floor. ‘Do you . . . ?’ He scrambled to keep the music from going the same way. ‘The organ, do you play at all?’

‘Not really. I always wanted . . . Well, it doesn’t matter.’

The stranger was looking at Amy intently. Young men had never looked at her very often, except in passing. She was small, raven-haired and nothing like as pretty as her older sisters – a state of affairs that had its compensations: she had never waved a loved one off to war, for one thing; did not have to wait for news of them, dreading the arrival of a notification slip from the War Office: It is my painful duty to inform you that a report has been received . . . She could hear about battles and offensives and ‘pushes’ without a cold hand of dread closing around her heart. If the stranger was staring at her, it must have been because women were not often seen in this place, this hallowed male preserve. After all, the only concession to the feminine in the whole building was a solitary image of the Virgin in coloured glass.

The stranger shook himself. ‘No, please. Feel free.’ He stepped back, inviting her to sit down at the keyboards. ‘It can be a little temperamental, but it makes a good sound, most of the time.’

Amy peered down into the body of the chapel. She did not relish the prospect of explaining herself – being alone with a strange man, out of sight of everyone – but her mother and aunt would be gone a little while yet.

‘No one’ll hear,’ the young man said. ‘Or they’ll just think it’s me. I’m Edward, by the way – Edward Haslam. I teach music at the boys’ school. St Thomas’s? We’re joining forces with the college choir this year. Easter services and all that.’

‘Amy Vanneck.’

Fleetingly they touched hands. He was clean-shaven and had hazel brown eyes. When he smiled, she thought she glimpsed the boy in him, shyness beneath an adult veneer.

She eased herself onto the bench and took off her gloves. The organ had three manuals and a bewildering range of stops. She had wanted to take up the instrument when she was at school, but her ambition had been given short shrift. The ‘king of instruments’ was apparently unsuitable for a young lady, being loud, domineering and forever associated with the sacraments. She had been forced to make do with piano lessons. It was much the same when she expressed an interest in studying medicine, only this time her mother had been the obstacle. ‘A young lady of your station doesn’t spend her time cutting up bodies, living or dead,’ was her final verdict. ‘Your father will never agree, in any case.’

The music teacher was waiting expectantly. Amy took a deep breath and played a dark minor chord. Nothing happened. Not even a puff of air came from the pipes.

‘Um, might I suggest . . . ?’ The teacher pulled out a couple of stops. ‘Try these.’

Amy blushed. She tried another chord, this time in a major key. A fanfare of bright notes echoed through the cavernous space. She let her fingers run up and down the keys, at first slowly, then faster. When she pushed down on the pedals, she felt the deep sound reverberate through her whole body.

‘I’ve no music,’ she said. ‘Have you a hymn book?’

‘A hymn book?’ There was disappointment in the teacher’s voice. ‘I suppose there must be one somewhere. On the other hand . . .’ He pulled out a score from the stack he was carrying and placed it in front of her. ‘Why not give this a go?’ The name of the piece was The Topliner Rag. ‘It’s from America. The latest thing.’

It had to be a joke. How could anyone play ragtime in a place of worship? Edward Haslam was teasing her: expecting her to blush and demur, like the sheltered, strait-laced girl she must have seemed to be.

‘Or if you’d prefer something more—’

Without another word, she launched into the music. The solemn chapel was instantly transformed into a fairground. Oblivious to her wrong notes, the young man set about trying different combinations of stops, calling out the names as the sound became wilder and stranger. Soon they were both laughing.

‘Amy?’ Her mother’s voice cut through the music. ‘Where is that girl?’

Amy froze. ‘I must go.’

At the top of the spiral staircase she looked back. Edward Haslam was still watching her. He silently mouthed the word Goodbye.

Amy’s mother was showing signs of fatigue. She had been determined to see all the architectural high points in one go, as if it were a penance. Amy suspected it was something she intended to do only once, like having a bad tooth removed. Duty done, there would never be a need to go through it a second time.

‘Who were you talking to, Amy?’ she asked, as they set off across the court.

It was a struggle to keep up with her.

‘Nobody. I just wanted to try the organ.’

‘Was that you? That awful noise?’

‘It was only a piece I found.’

‘Extraordinary.’ Her mother shook her head. ‘And where are your gloves?’

Amy had left them behind. ‘I’m sorry. Go on ahead. I’ll catch you up.’

She hurried back into the chapel. Edward Haslam was already on his way out, gloves in hand. He was smiling, as if her forgetfulness were a prize.

‘Thank you.’ Amy took the gloves.

‘Miss Vanneck?’

She stopped.

‘There’s a musical soirée tonight. A friend’s house. Some wonderful players. You’d—’

‘I’d love to, but . . .’ Amy’s mother and aunt were almost at the gatehouse. Her mother turned. ‘I can’t.’

If he was pretending to be disappointed, it was a good act.

‘If you change your mind, I’ll be outside the Round Church at six. I’ll wait for you, just in case.’

There was no need for Amy to refuse a second time, because the whole idea was ridiculous.

The others were waiting in the shelter of the porters’ lodge.

‘So you were talking to someone,’ her mother said. ‘Who was that man?’

Amy frowned as she pulled on her gloves. ‘I told you, Mother. He’s nobody.’

Her mother watched the teacher go back inside the chapel. ‘Yes, I expect he is.’

By late afternoon Amy’s mother had recovered enough to attend to her correspondence. Originally the plan had been to spend at most a fortnight in Cambridge, but Lady Constance seemed in no hurry to return to her husband and the family estate in Suffolk. With so many gone to the war and social life curtailed, it was perhaps a little uneventful, even for her.

Amy sat at the window in Aunt Clem’s upstairs sitting room, leafing through one of her uncle’s textbooks, a study of the human nervous system. She found it hard to concentrate. It was still light outside, but a mist was gathering, hiding the far end of the street. She glanced at the clock on the mantel: it was a quarter to six.

‘Where is the Round Church exactly?’

Aunt Clem looked up from her sewing. ‘Just around the corner from St John’s. We passed it earlier.’

‘And St John’s is . . . ?’

‘Next to Trinity. Why do you ask?’

Amy returned to her book. ‘I think I read about it somewhere.’

Another lie, her third of the day, designed, like the others, to hide her encounter with Edward Haslam – an encounter that meant nothing and would lead to nothing. She turned a page. A new chapter was entitled Neurons, Size and General Morphology.

Ten minutes to six. Amy pictured Edward Haslam getting ready for their rendezvous, knowing that it would never happen but unable to extinguish the romantic hope that, against all the odds, it might. He would put on a smarter set of clothes, if he owned one. He would brush his hair and polish his shoes, and then – she smiled at the thought – have to dig out the black polish from under his fingernails. Then he would bicycle off to the Round Church, arriving at least five minutes early, just in case.

The clock read five minutes to six.

She could not meet him, even if she had wanted to. What possible excuse could she give for stepping out alone? Even the shops were closed by now. And to be absent for a whole evening? That would require a mountain of lies, more than she could hope to muster. As for telling the truth, that would do her no good, either. She would be forbidden to go. Who was Edward Haslam? What did she know about him? Who had introduced them? We are not that kind of people, Amy. You should know better. Amy did not want to imagine the scene.

How long would he stay there before giving up? Ten minutes? Fifteen? At twenty past six he would cycle off alone to his musical soirée, disappointed perhaps, but not surprised. And there he would meet another girl – a girl who was free and unafraid – and he would forget all about the one who had wandered into the chapel.

Aunt Clem’s husband came into the room as the mantel clock chimed six. He was a man in his fifties, with a white beard and kindly eyes. ‘I meant to say: this came for you while you were out.’

In his hand was a letter in a small blue envelope.

‘For you, Amy.’ He frowned. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘No, nothing. Thank you, Uncle.’

The letter was from Kitty Page, an old school friend who lived in Cambridge. They had arranged to meet the following morning, but Kitty wrote to say that she had gone down with a fever and that her anxious parents had insisted she stay in bed.

Amy stood up. ‘Kitty’s not well. She has the flu.’

‘Oh, I am sorry,’ her mother said, without looking up from her writing. ‘Do send her our best wishes.’

‘I think I should go to her,’ Amy said. ‘She’s been laid up all day, very bored.’

‘If you must.’ Her mother’s pen continued to scratch its way across the page. ‘Be sure to keep your distance. You don’t want to catch anything.’

She borrowed Aunt Clem’s bicycle and pedalled hard, the heavy iron machine juddering as it rolled over the cobblestones. The air was cold against her cheeks. Single chimes rang out across the town: a quarter past six.

The dank streets were almost empty. On King’s Parade the shop awnings were up. Outside Trinity a group of officer cadets were marching towards the Great Gate, the sergeant major’s commands echoing up and down the narrow lane. Amy swerved onto the pavement. Nobody passed her until she reached the end of the road.

The Round Church was easy to spot: squat, circular, impractically small. Even among the half-timbered houses it looked like a relic from a bygone age. Out of breath, Amy wheeled her bicycle towards the entrance. A single lantern burned above the door.

Edward Haslam was not there.

She stood in the deepening twilight, the truth coming home to her as her breathing slowed. She’d been wrong: twenty minutes was too long to wait. He had already gone. Or perhaps he had never turned up in the first place.

You stupid girl, Amy. You stupid, stupid girl.

She climbed back onto her bicycle, realising only then that she was not alone.

‘ ’Scuse me. Miss Amy, is it?’

It was a boy, fifteen or so. He wore a cap, and his shirt had no collar. He had been sitting on the low wall at the corner of the churchyard.

‘Yes?’

‘Gentleman said to give you this.’ He pulled a piece of paper from his top pocket. ‘Said to wait half an hour. Paid me sixpence.’

Amy unfolded the paper. At the top was printed 6 PORTUGAL PLACE. The message beneath had been written in pencil. She went and stood beneath the lantern.

Dear Miss Vanneck,

If you receive this note, it means you came to meet me. I would have given the world to be there, as I promised. But a colleague of mine just received word that his son was killed at Arras. His wife is away and he is utterly distraught. I am afraid to leave him – of what he might do. William was their only child.

I do not expect you to forgive me, but know at least that I did not break my promise lightly. War poisons everything that it does not destroy. That’s why I will never take part in it, as long as I live.

With deepest regret,

Edward Haslam

 

The boy was still loitering at the corner, no doubt hopeful of another commission. Amy put the letter in her coat and went to pick up her bicycle. In her pocket was a sixpence.