A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [50]
Smith was calling time, and Mrs. Smith said to Rutledge as he looked around for it, “I’ll bring up your dinner, if you like.”
He hadn’t touched it, hadn’t had the time, hungry or not.
He bought a final round, then said good night, leaving the drivers to drink in peace. The farmers had already left half an hour before.
Mrs. Smith met him at the stairs as he came out of the bar, his plate on a tray.
“Were you thinking about Mr. Partridge?” she asked him. “When you wanted to know if someone might find a ride with a driver?”
He was caught off guard.
“Yes, I was, as a matter of fact,” he answered, lowering his voice.
“He was here, once. Playing darts and later asking about traveling to Liverpool. But it was the roads he wanted to hear about. What sort of time he could count on making.”
“When was this?”
“Six months ago, at a guess. Longer, for all I can remember.”
The state of the roads.
“You’re certain it wasn’t the prelude for asking for a lift?”
“No, sir, he has his own motorcar, I can’t think why he would need a lift with the likes of them.”
“How well do you know Mr. Partridge?”
“He wasn’t one to come around in the evening, as a rule.” She smiled ruefully. “I think it’s when he can’t stand his own company any longer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, he’s a widower, isn’t he?” There was pity in her voice.
“Did he tell you he was?”
“Lord, no, sir, we never spoke about his private life. No, it was young Slater who said he’d lost his wife and hadn’t much use for company. Mr. Partridge kept to himself at his cottage, and seldom went out. We were that glad to see him, when he did come.”
And yet this wasn’t the sort of pub a man like Partridge would frequent. Granted it was the nearest one to the cottages, but he wasn’t working class, if the army was keeping an eye on him.
That reminded him of the dead man in Yorkshire, whose hands were soft and uncallused.
Hamish said, “Why did ye no’ show her the drawing?”
Rutledge wasn’t sure himself why he hadn’t. But he wanted no rumors reaching the Tomlin Cottages before he himself could go there in the morning.
He slept poorly that night. As if the memory of the dart game on his birthday had stirred up the past too deeply, he could hear the guns in France, and men calling and screaming and swearing, bringing himself up out of the depths to lie awake until the sounds receded. And then he would drift into sleep again for another quarter of an hour, sometimes longer, before the guns started shelling his position. Muzzle flashes in the distance seemed to light up the sky, and the flares were sharp, brilliant, nearly burning his eyes.
Once when he awoke, he could hear Hamish talking to someone, and then he realized that the someone was himself, answering the familiar voice of a dead man, even in his sleep.
“I’m trained to it,” he said aloud, and then lay still listening. But from the other rooms came the regular snores of occupants luckier than he was, comfortable in their beds. “Like a dog who knows his master’s voice.”
Hamish’s laugh was harsh. “Oh, aye? More like a man wi’ blood on his conscience, who canna’ find peace.”
“You left me no choice but to execute you. You wouldn’t heed me when I warned you what would follow, if you didn’t relent and obey the orders given you. I warned you, and you didn’t listen.”
“I couldna’ watch more of my men die while the colonel who gave the orders sat safe and ignorant miles behind the lines. You knew, you knew as well as any of us that it was hopeless.”
“No more so than the whole bloody campaign. We did what we were told, because there was no other choice left to us but to obey. One man, two men, a dozen, couldn’t have stopped the madness. We had to carry on to the end, and die if we had to.”
“I wasna’ afraid of dying. Ye ken that well. I couldna’ bear to watch the ithers die. There had been too many, for too long.”
“You refused an order under fire. You left me no choice, damn you!”
“Aye. And afterward, ye couldna’ let me go.”
“You didn’t want to go. Then or now.”
Hamish said, something in his voice