That happened nearly twenty years ago. We have much more reliable behaviour inhibitors in our eugenics now.’
‘The men won’t tolerate this,’ said Wainwright. ‘My men won’t fight alongside them!’
‘Tolerate, did you say?’ Rupert stared at the Southern colonel coolly. Then eventually his face softened.
‘Well now, strictly speaking, Wainwright, they won’t be alongside them anyway … your chaps will be in the first wave ashore. Creating a bridgehead for the attack. Then –’ he smiled – ‘we’ll ship our monsters, as you call them, over and let them loose on the enemy.’
‘This is insane! I … I’m … I shall protest this through –’
‘Well now, here’s the thing. You can protest all you like, Colonel. And you can do it from your cell in Camp Elizabeth.’
‘What did you say?’ The mere mention of the military internment camp silenced Wainwright – a long pause in which his mind raced to determine what this Rupert might know about him.
‘That’s right. I’m actually here to relieve you of duty … and I suspect you’ll face a relatively prompt court martial.’
‘Why? What’s the charge?’
The young man cocked an eyebrow. ‘I think you know why, or would you like me to clarify that for you?’
Wainwright nodded. ‘I think you better had!’
‘Well now, you see, I have a file on you. Jolly fat one, actually. It’s been open for a couple of years now. Too many rumours floating around that you’ve gone soft on the enemy. We know you’ve had an unauthorized meeting with officers on the other side on several separate occasions. We know that several years ago you ordered the release of Northern prisoners of war to return –’
‘They were deserters! They weren’t fit to fight anyone. They just wanted to return home!’
‘Even this morning … a little bird told me you received a visit from across the river. I’m afraid this really won’t do. With the build-up for the offensive we really can’t afford to have a front-line commander who’s in the habit of taking tea with the enemy.’
Wainwright stared at him. ‘You are relieving me of my command?’
‘With immediate effect, I’m afraid.’ The young officer offered him an insincere shrug of sympathy. ‘Now, there’s two ways we can do this. I can summon a squad of my chaps to drag you out, kicking and screaming. Not very dignified. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your boys seeing you leaving like that. Or we can do this like proper gentlemen. You’ll assign a temporary regimental commander to cover, you can gather whatever personal effects you want … and we shall leave together.’ He smiled. ‘It would be far better for you and your men that way, I think.’
Wainwright glanced at the open door. He could see the hallway outside, the pooling of light from an overhead bulb and the shadow of a soldier standing to attention.
His or mine?
The young man stretched a white-gloved hand across the desk towards him. ‘I shall need your side-arm, Colonel, if you don’t mind?’
Wainwright unzipped the holster, feeling the firm grip of the revolver in his hand. ‘Please!’ he whispered. ‘I’ll come without a fuss … but, listen to me, you can’t send in eugenics alongside my men. It’ll be a massacre!’
‘We need proper regiments on the front line now, Wainwright, men prepared to fight. Not traitors like you, or cowards … or these semi-literate peasants that you call soldiers. There will be British troops in the vanguard once we have a toehold. But your peasant militia will be the ones going in first –’
The gun was suddenly in his hand and the room already booming with the fading echo of a single shot fired before he had a conscious thought of what he’d just done. Through the cloud of dissipating blue-grey smoke he saw the young man staring back at him. A third eye in the middle of his forehead, puckered and red and spilling a small dark trickle of almost black blood down his surprised young face.
His mouth flapped open with a gurgle. ‘You … you …’ was all he managed to say before his eyes rolled upwards, showing just the whites, and he toppled over on to the floor. One booted foot began to drum, post mortem, against the leg of his desk.
Wainwright aimed the gun at the doorway as the shadow outside jerked and moved. A head suddenly appeared round the door, that of his ginger-haired adjutant. He stared goggle-eyed at the gun, then at the still-twitching young man.
‘You … just … shot … a British