The Lost Patrol

  THE LOST PATROL

  by

  ADRIAN MAGSON

  A ghost story for all ages…

  Copyright © Adrian Magson 2013

  The right of Adrian Magson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental. This ebook is licenced for your personal enjoyment only and should not be sold, given or loaned to any other person.

  Previously published as an ebook and in paperback by Gate Way Publishers, Vallejo, California.

  Cover image: public domain via pingnews courtesy of National Archives

  About the book.

  Robbie Greene, 16, on an enforced holiday in rural France, doesn’t believe in ghosts. Especially not ghosts of British soldiers killed in action in 1917.

  But the soldiers believe in Robbie, and are desperate for his help. Members of a patrol which disappeared on the Somme battlefield, and believed to have deserted, they are trapped in a no-man’s land between death and the Great Beyond, unable to move on until their real fate is revealed and their honour restored.

  Their leader, the charismatic and austere Sergeant Stone, convinces Robbie that they are real, and that time is running out. Forces known as the Dark Ones are coming for them, to drag them into a hell from which there is no return.

  In helping the men, Robbie learns the true meaning of loss and sacrifice and of courage – and of doing the right thing, no matter what the cost.

  About the author

  Adrian Magson is the author of 13 spy and crime thrillers and a writer’s help book. A regular book reviewer for Shots Magazine, he writes the ‘Beginners’ column for Writing Magazine (UK), and profiles of debut authors.

  http://www.adrianmagson.com/

  CHAPTERS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  Other books by Adrian Magson

  Praise for Adrian’s books:

  PROLOGUE

  France – the Battle of the Somme – March 21st - 1917

  The heavy guns began their relentless pounding at dawn. The dull, crumping sounds came from several miles away, leaving smudges of dirty smoke on the horizon, like soft, deadly flowers opening with the arrival of daybreak.

  The line of men trudging across the slope of what had once been a pleasant, tree-filled valley hardly noticed. They were intent on keeping their footing on the treacherous frozen mud, their breath blowing white puffs into the cold air. No trees around them now, only twisted stumps and dead, blackened branches, long devoid of life or colour.

  If they had any thoughts at all, it was to pity whoever was on the receiving end of the barrage. Some other poor devils getting a pasting, instead of them. Made a change not to be them cowering in their trenches and feeling the ground shake around them. They had orders to follow and couldn’t be worrying about every burst of gunfire that broke out. It was what the Somme had become known for.

  Gunfire and the awful shortness of life.

  A lone pigeon clattered up in fright from the ground yards in front of the lead man. The soldier hesitated, surprised to see any sign of wildlife in this desolate landscape. A quiet oath burst forth as the man behind him, head down with exhaustion, collided with him, helmet jarring against his backpack.

  ‘Sorry,’ the leader muttered. He lifted his gaunt face and watched the bird jink erratically across the heavy sky, envying its freedom. A few hours, he thought, and with a tail wind that bird could be... well, anywhere it wanted. Over untouched fields and soft, rolling hills where men weren’t trying to blow each other to pieces in the name of king or country. That’s if any such place existed anymore.

  The thought made him uneasy, and he wondered if the enemy had noticed the pigeon’s sudden flight. All it needed was a sharp-eyed observer and the heavens would open. We’ll soon find out, he guessed, and turned to look at the men behind him, motioning them on with an urgent signal. As they came abreast of him, they each looked up in silent hope of a brief moment’s rest, eyes showing the results of having been on the march for nearly three hours. He set his jaw. Time enough for rest later.

  For now they had their orders.

  The men’s uniforms were stiff with fresh mud and old sweat, shoulders dusted with the white of morning frost. Their faces were drawn with exhaustion, eyes deep holes in unshaven pudding skins, devoid of expression or light, intent only on putting one weary foot in front of the other.

  He nodded as they passed, an encouragement as much as a greeting. His men, he thought wryly. His charges.

  Millgate C. Private. Rail worker. A sour grumbler, but a good man.

  Sommerfield G. Private. Lied about his age, only seventeen. Not even shaving yet. Hid his fear by being cheeky. Deserved better but probably wouldn’t get it.

  Christopher H. Lance-Corporal. Drayman. Fat when he joined up, but not now. Battle has a way of making a man thin. Quiet, solid. Good with a rifle.

  Hendry R. Captain. Landowner. Family man. No longer aware even of the time of day. Better officer than most - or had been once.

  And himself. Stone N. Sergeant. Less said the better, really.

  All in all a sorry lot, he thought grimly. Oh to be a pigeon...

  As Stone turned to follow his men, a whistling sound pierced the atmosphere, followed by a rush of air above his head. Before he could react there was a deafening explosion tearing at his ears, followed by a giant column of frozen mud rearing up right in front of the new lead man, Millgate. It hung there for an instant, a dirty brown curtain blocking out the light, before raining back down to earth all around them, a torrent of cold mud and stones.

  Stone’s voice was lost as he shouted at his men to take cover. Millgate, he noted sadly, had dropped much too quickly; the man had never been that fast at reacting to anything.

  Stone flung himself on top of the Captain, an arm across his shoulders, holding him down and preventing the poor, demented man’s instinctive reaction to scramble to his feet and run for a cover which no longer existed.

  Another whistling sound heralded the arrival of another shell. The ground shook violently as if pounded by a giant hammer. Another volley of cold mud hit Stone’s back, lumps of hard chalk in its midst stinging briefly and clattering on his tin helmet and his unprotected hands. Someone screamed, a high-pitched sound like a girl’s, and was cut off as if by a knife. Another man sobbed and swore.

  Then total, utter silence.

  Stone stared at the ground in close-up, concentrating on the colour and texture and trying to block out the hideous sounds and fury that had just happened all around him. Strange, he thought dreamily, how he had never noticed the colour of the soil here; a mixture of white chalk,
brown earth and bright red tints.

  Red? But that’s not right-

  He felt desperately tired, as if he had run a mad, frantic dash up a long, steep hill. With enormous effort he lifted his head and glimpsed Captain Hendry’s dead eyes inches away from his. They were staring into that bottomless pit from which there was no return. Beyond the captain he saw Sommerfield’s smooth, unshaven cheeks turned up towards the sky, eyes unseeing. At peace.

  He tried to lift himself further. But then another rush of air bore down on him. This time there was no whistling sound. No noise at all. It meant further movement was pointless. In his final remaining second, Stone rolled over in weary resignation, staring one more time up at the cold, flinty sky. What good their special orders now?

  Oh, to be a pigeon....

  *****

  ONE

  France – Fleury British Military Cemetery - the Somme – 1998

  Soldiers. Each headstone represents a soldier. Robbie Greene was staring at the rows of upright stones, flashing bright and clean in the sunlight and appearing to march up over the brow of the hill like the military men whose resting place they marked. The shape was simple; flat, upright and curving down at each shoulder. Most were carved with a name, a regiment and a rank. Others held only a regimental badge and the simple words Known Unto God. Beside each stone was a splash of colour where roses and bedding plants struggled out of the chalky soil, eager for a place in the sun.

  This place is pants, thought Robbie. In spite of what he’d been told about it, it was still a place full of dead people stuck on a bare hill where the wind blew non-stop and nothing ever happened and hardly anyone ever came to see.

  Actually, that wasn’t true. There had been someone about twenty minutes ago. A man had appeared at the top of the front steps in the shade of some bushes. He’d stood there, looking down at Robbie, tall and rigid like one of the headstones behind him.

  A car had rattled by, and Robbie had turned to look, desperate for some diversion. When he’d turned back, the man was gone. Yet there was no vehicle in the car park which could have brought him and no sign of a bicycle. The nearest village was nearly a mile away, but the one daily bus never stopped, only rushing past at high speed and leaving a swirl of dust as it went.

  A lone sparrowhawk hung in the sky above the cemetery, a small, fluttering dot against a vast blue canopy. Higher still - much higher - a jet plane left a thin white vapour trail as it moved soundlessly across the heavens, going about its business far beyond reach or hearing of those on the ground.

  Robbie sat on the front wall of the cemetery and scratched his chin, the skin itching in the warmth of the sun. At sixteen and fair-haired, he didn’t often need to use the razor his mother had bought him, but sometimes it seemed to him more grown-up to be able to choose not to when he felt like it.

  He watched the bird of prey, squinting against the hot sun. He momentarily forgot about the visitor from nowhere as the predator set up its target. The fluttering ceased and the bird dropped, folding in its wings until it seemed no bigger than a cricket ball. Down it plunged, rearing up with flaring wings just before the moment of impact, the briefest puff of dust marking where it had barely touched the earth. Now something struggled in its talons, a mouse, no doubt, held fast and beyond hope. Then the bird was gone, arrowing away down the hill until it was out of sight.

  Great, Robbie thought dully. The day hasn’t been a complete waste, then. Not too cool for the mouse, though.

  He scuffed the gravel at the base of the wall, flicking a stone across the parking area in front of the cemetery steps. He had traced a pattern in the gravel the previous day, and it was undisturbed, showing little sign of visitors since then. Maybe the man he’d seen earlier had dropped in by parachute.

  At each side of the steps leading into the cemetery sat two squat, chapel-like structures with pointed roofs. The walls were built of massive stone blocks, cut in precise rectangles and laid carefully to show no break in the line, save where the mortar held them in place. Between the chapels stood a huge stone cross inset with a bronze sword, the sun gleaming off the stone’s whiteness and highlighting the verdigris running from the tip of the sword to the base. Like green blood, Robbie thought, as if the sword had just been used to slay some mythical monster. He wondered if anyone else ever saw it that way.

  He bet Harry didn’t. His mother’s boyfriend and probably his stepfather-to-be didn’t have the world’s greatest imagination. In Robbie’s opinion he also had pretty much zero sense of humour. Not a bad bloke, though, if he made Mum happy. As long as he didn’t expect to be called Dad.

  He still didn’t like thinking of his dead father and shook his head to dislodge the images which sprang up. His father had died two years ago from pneumonia. The event was still vivid, tied up with the anger and grief felt by his mother which had spilled over onto Robbie. It had been a bad time.

  He’d even thought his father was with him once. It was a couple of days after the funeral, and Robbie had been lying in his bedroom staring at the ceiling. He was having a tough time at school and everything was going downhill. Suddenly he’d sensed he was being watched. His first thought was to pull the curtains; the tenants in the tower-block across the way were constantly spying on others. But the feeling persisted, and in any case he had the feeling it was closer, somehow, than outside the building. Oddly, after a few minutes, he began to feel better, as though he had taken a short sleep and woken up refreshed. His problems hadn’t gone away, but they hadn’t seemed so serious anymore, as if they had been put into some kind of perspective. It was weird but he didn’t question it.

  Restless at the memory, he dropped down from the wall and wandered up the slope through the cemetery. He was careful not to tread too close to the edges of the lawn where it was dry and prone to crumbling.

  Harry would never let him forget it if he caused any damage. As soon as Robbie and his mother had arrived three weeks ago, he’d gone on about how much work the gardeners did, how sacred the place was; how they didn’t want to have to go round repairing damage done by visitors. He hadn’t looked at Robbie, but it was obvious who he meant.

  An engine clattered to life nearby and a familiar scrawny figure in a red beret appeared, hands resting on the handles of an enormous petrol mower. The man seemed to be being dragged along by it rather than being in control, and his legs were moving in double-time to keep up with the powerful machine.

  Robbie waited where he was. The smell of two-stroke was sharp and tangy on the air, mixed with the sweeter aroma of cut grass.

  Robbie had tried the mower himself once. It felt like his arms were going to be dragged from their sockets as the engine roared across the lawn, pungent smoke and grass-dust flying everywhere. Only quick action by Joseph, the man now coming towards him, had saved a line of lavender bushes from destruction and himself from certain death at the hands of the government once Harry found out.

  The engine clattered to a halt and silence returned. Joseph released the handles and rubbed his hands together, the roughened skin from years of hard labour scraping noisily like sandpaper on board.

  Everything about Joseph was rough and worn, as if he had never been anything else. Small and sinewy - Robbie topped him by a good six inches - he had a thin patch of grey, wiry hair atop a weather-beaten face criss-crossed with crevasses and tiny veins. His blue eyes seemed permanently focused on something far away, as if his thoughts had been snatched elsewhere.

  Joseph was the oldest person Robbie knew other than his Gran back in England, and he knew the old man was due to retire soon and go back to England. The idea didn’t appeal to him, apparently, although why he didn’t simply stop in France Robbie had never asked. Maybe not being able to speak much French didn’t help. Harry said that Joseph spoke the most appalling French ever and how anyone understood him was a mystery. Joseph also swore a lot, which Robbie found amusing.

  ‘Wotcha, son,’ Joseph grinned happily, reaching for a tin of cigarette makings in the to
p pocket of his blue overalls. Joseph, Robbie had noticed, made a cigarette whenever the opportunity presented itself, as if he might never have another chance. He rarely smoked them through, because the match-thin constructions never held a fire for longer than a few seconds after the initial burst of flame. He never bothered re-lighting them, but let them hang from his lip like white leeches, flapping up and down as he spoke. Robbie had asked him for a cigarette once, but the old man had refused.

  ‘If you want to smoke, stick to filters,’ he advised him. ‘This stuff’ll turn your lungs inside out. Better still, don’t smoke.’

  Robbie hadn’t bothered asking again.

  ‘Come to watch the workers, have you?’

  Robbie shrugged. He liked Joseph. He was impressed by the red beret the old man wore. It never seemed to shift, almost as if it was stapled to his head. Robbie recognised it as the beret of the Parachute Regiment, and knew Joseph was proud to have been a member during the War. He found it difficult to imagine Joseph jumping out of aeroplanes and floating down to earth. He seemed so light a mere puff of wind would have carried him far away from the drop zone.

  ‘Harry’s gone into Fleury,’ he volunteered, to fill the space, ‘to fetch some stuff.’ Harry was Joseph’s supervisor and looked after several other cemeteries in the area. He was often out all day and sometimes took Robbie’s mother with him. Not that Robbie minded; they had taken him once, too, but were so absorbed with each other he’d felt like a spare part at a wedding. Never again, though.

  At least his mum seemed happier.

  Joseph nodded and set fire to his cigarette using an ancient petrol lighter with a snap top. He puffed furiously to keep the flame going, then dropped the lighter back in his pocket and turned towards a brick tool shed over to one side of the cemetery. He left a cloud of smoke hanging in the still air behind him.