“That’ll do, Orford. That’ll do very well.”

Joe stood on in the elm grove as the declining sun began to cast streaks of red light through the trees. He looked in revulsion as it reflected off the pool of blood staining the pathway and called for an officer to fetch a bucket of sand from the children’s sand pit to cover it. He wondered fancifully whether another sacrifice had been accepted and enjoyed by the spirits of this place. Or would the prickly soul of the sergeant stick in their craw?

Armitage. Joe had always been his target. Probably one of several unfortunates who’d crossed the sergeant’s path on the way to … to what? Power. Money. A feeling of self-worth. What did any man want from life? But Armitage had had the ability and the ruthlessness to seize more than his share. He, truly, had what it took to be a playing member of the Nine Men’s Morris.

The Nine Men. An exclusive club to aspire to. Why had he been accepted by them? He was clearly more than just the bodyguard of the newest member. What he lacked in pedigree, Armitage made up for in determination and practical skills. And looks. His film-star allure and easy conversational manner, his outward coating of charm made him a valuable acquisition in any company. Outwardly, he outshone the rest of the group. But Joe doubted that these qualities alone would have been enough to recommend him to them at the highest level. Perhaps, as Kingstone suspected, he was in possession of scurrilous information on one or more of the other members, information that put him in a position of influence over them. Even the highest and the richest in the land had wives and children from whom they would go to great lengths to hide the details of some of their activities.

The world over, unscrupulous men who knew nothing of honour were rising to the surface. Armitage, to all appearances, had little in common with Herr Hitler, Signor Mussolini and that band of thugs in Russia but he could have held his own around a table with them.

There was one thing that could have undone him in the estimation of the Nine. An extreme right-wing movement in its philosophy—as far as it had a philosophy—any leaking of Armitage’s past Communist leanings to the members would have brought his star crashing to earth. And the only man who had the knowledge of his political activities and the will and power to engineer a denunciation was Joe.

One matey transatlantic phone call from Scotland Yard to the Communist-hunter, Hoover, at the FBI … “Thought you’d be interested to know that our records reveal …” would have ruined Armitage. He’d said as much with glib assurance and disarming honesty to Joe. It was cold self-interest that had brought him back and set him on Joe’s trail, with the convenient cover of the unwitting Senator Kingstone.

Cornelius had been Armitage’s entrée into the group, the partnership in treason his ticket to a position of enormous influence. He’d kept the senator alive as long as he was useful to him but, thanks to Joe’s interference, he’d run out of road and patience. He’d acknowledged that his partner was never going to screw his courage to the sticking point and, aided and abetted by his old enemy Sandilands, was about to blow the whole scheme sky high.

Yes, Cornelius would have died along with Joe, a double sacrifice to Armitage’s ambition.

It was self-interest that had brought him back with a gun in his hand though Joe identified a more emotional motive behind the whipped-up warmth of patriotic indignation. Revenge played a part in the attempt on Joe’s life but it was no more than a cover for an unspeakable act. Joe had heard the same wails from wife-killers: “She’d been asking for it. She made me do it. All her own fault.”

Joe thought he detected an element of envy also in this noxious cocktail. Which of the conspirators had attacked Julius Caesar with the greatest vigour? According to Shakespeare, it was Casca. See what a rent the envious Casca made …

The spider in Kingstone’s cup. The sergeant was the traitor in all this. He might make much of his loyalty to his country, whichever that was, but he found it impossible in the end to feel loyalty to his friends. At least he’d made Joe see and test out his own patriotism.

Joe had found himself holding a gun on a choice of victims—on a virtual stranger, a troubled foreigner who, he knew, had not been straight with him, and a fellow Briton, a man he’d soldiered alongside, admired, liked. Joe had turned the gun on his old army mate without a second thought.

Time now for that second thought?

This was going to take a bit of working out. In his distress, Joe called out silently to Dorcas. He needed Dorcas to help him. To listen to him, smooth his brow and try to convince him he wasn’t the ineffectual blunderer he feared he was. He resolved that if the wretched girl hadn’t come home by the weekend, or put herself within reach of a telephone, he would pursue her through France and fetch her back.

The officer staggered up with the bucket of sand and Joe took it from him. “Here, I’ll do that. Let me perform the last rites, such as they are.”

With a quick glance around to make sure he was not observed, Joe took his hip flask from his pocket and poured out the scotch to mingle with the spilt blood. “Sippers, Sergeant? Gulpers, Captain.” Joe remembered the polite army formula for a shared drink that he’d exchanged with Armitage at a bleak moment many years before and hot, embarrassing tears dripped down, uncontrollable, to join the cocktail. Blood, tears and strong spirits, a fitting send-off for a soldier.

He’d been a damned good soldier.

Joe retained sufficient grip on his emotions to recognise that, in his shocked state, in the bleak fatigue that succeeds violent action, grief had crept in and ambushed him. Grief, an emotion so overwhelming it permits only the starkest expression, by means of tears, ritual and phrases fashioned by other and better wordsmiths. Our Glorious Dead. His grief was not for Bill alone, but for the thousands of young Armitages whose bodies he’d seen, wrecked, twisted, soaking the soil with their blood. There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed. All in the cause of fertilizing the ambition and greed going under the bright banner of Patriotism. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

The simple, seductive words came first to Joe’s mind, moving smoothly along the well-trodden path of mourning. He reined in his clichéd thoughts, scattered the concealing sand in handfuls, bowed his head and murmured his own rebellious prayer for unsettled souls.

AS THE POLICE launch swirled to a halt by the steps at Waterloo Bridge, Joe brought Cornelius and Julia forward out of the shadows to get aboard. Each was holding a small bag and dressed in what Lydia would have called ‘good sensible clothing and stout shoes.’ Cornelius bustled forward to greet the captain.

The two men had found the time to say goodbye moments before while they waited in the policemen’s shelter on the Embankment. The restrained English handshake, proving inadequate for their feelings, had been abandoned in favour of an embarrassed and utterly unmanly bear hug.

Joe watched the senator scramble aboard but held Julia back by the shoulder.

“Look—Kingstone made the right choice of transport. Anonymity over comfort but the accommodation may be a bit Spartan for a lady. In fact there may only be one cabin. They were expecting two male passengers. You’ll have to do some negotiating with the captain when you get on board the frigate. Promise him a crate of whisky if that’ll help! They’re not used to having females aboard.”

She looked up at him with what, in the pale light of the Embankment lamps, he could have interpreted as indulgent but pitying. “That’ll be no challenge for either of us. We’re both used to roughing it. You should see some of the dressing rooms they gave us in Argentina! And Cornelius was a soldier. He’s survived rat-infested trenches. At least nobody will be shooting at us on a Royal Navy boat.”