Hardcastle's Traitors by Ison Graham

Author:Ison, Graham [Graham Ison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2013-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

TEN

Although Hardcastle had his newspaper delivered on weekdays, he preferred to walk down to Horace Boxall’s corner shop on a Sunday morning to buy the News of the World.

Unbidden, Boxall placed a copy of the newspaper on the counter. ‘There’s some good news in there today, Mr Hardcastle,’ he said, pointing at an article on the front page.

‘That makes a change, Horace. What’s happened?’

‘They’ve brought all our lads off the Gallipoli peninsula, together with the Aussies and the New Zealanders. According to this, they spirited ’em away under Johnny Turk’s nose and he never even noticed. At least, not until the booby traps that our lads had set started to go off.’

‘Good news indeed,’ commented Hardcastle, thinking that Tom Sawyer, the DDI at Bow Road, would be pleased. Provided, of course, that Sawyer’s son was one of those who had been evacuated safely.

‘But at what a cost, Mr Hardcastle. Two hundred and fifty thousand casualties since the campaign started last April.’

‘It was a hare-brained idea to start with, and all for nothing,’ complained Hardcastle. ‘I’ll have an ounce of St Bruno and a box of Swan Vestas, as well, Horace, if you please.’

Boxall placed the tobacco and the matches on top of the newspaper. ‘I see the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly in favour of conscription last Thursday. According to the Daily Herald, Sir John Simon, the Home Secretary, resigned over it.’

‘You don’t read that Labour Party rag, Horace, surely?’

‘No, but I sell it. Not that the Herald’s a daily any more; only comes out once a week. I can’t see it lasting out the war. Mind you, I’ve still got a few customers who buy it.’

‘It’s about time some of the scrimshankers were rounded up, Horace,’ said Hardcastle. ‘A chap who lived a few doors up from me was killed last week in Ypres. Left a wife and six children. God knows how they’ll manage because the pension she’ll get won’t feed and house ’em. But all these young single men are still loafing about. It’s time they were getting in amongst the muck and bullets.’

‘It’s a wicked old world, Mr H,’ said Boxall, handing Hardcastle his change.

For the remainder of Sunday, Hardcastle, tiring of the more depressing news in the Sunday paper, absent-mindedly mooned about the house. Frequently admonished by Alice for getting in her way, he was fretting about the Gosling and Stein murders, and would rather have been at his office. But he realized that there was little he could do, even if he were there.

Hardcastle arrived at the police station at eight o’clock on Monday morning, tired rather than refreshed by an idle and frustrating weekend. All that he had done was to replace a washer on the kitchen tap, and that only after repeated nagging by his wife; but Alice had been complaining for weeks about it dripping and leaving a brown stain in the sink.

He spent several minutes sitting at the station officer’s desk, perusing the occurrence book. One entry caused him to chuckle.

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