Hardcastle's Soldiers Read Online Free PDF

mused Hardcastle. ‘However, I’m obliged to you for your assistance, Colonel.’
    Leaving Colonel Frobisher’s office at Horse Guards Arch, Hardcastle strode out to Whitehall and hailed a cab to take him and Marriott to Waterloo Station.
    Fortunately, Hardcastle’s rank entitled him to travel second class, otherwise he and Marriott – also travelling second class, because he was with the DDI – would have had difficulty in finding a seat in a train crowded with soldiers going to Aldershot and sailors on their way to Portsmouth.
    As Frobisher had promised, a red-capped military police corporal was awaiting the detectives’ arrival at Aldershot Station. It was as well: there were queues of officers waiting for the inadequate number of taxis.
    â€˜Inspector Hardcastle, sir?’ asked the corporal, as he saluted.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Very good, sir. I’ve orders to take you to Salamanca Barracks. Captain McIntyre is expecting you.’ The corporal conducted Hardcastle and Marriott to a highly polished Vauxhall staff car bearing military police insignia. The journey took but ten minutes.

THREE
    S alamanca Barracks consisted, in the main, of two tall, long buildings facing each other. The ground floor of each, once stables, had been converted into a number of offices. Each bore mystifying signs in a military terminology that Hardcastle did not understand, nor had any desire to.
    Eventually, the military police corporal showed them into an office at the far end of one of the buildings. ‘Captain McIntyre’s office, sir,’ he said.
    â€˜Hector McIntyre, Inspector.’ The tall Gordon Highlanders officer crossed the room and shook hands with the DDI and Marriott. He was wearing a kilt of the Gordon tartan, with a sporran that came to his knees. But his tunic, with its cutaway skirt, was the same drab khaki as everyone else had worn since the war began. It was relieved only by medal ribbons and a brassard bearing the letters MP. ‘I’ve got your man locked up here as Colonel Frobisher ordered.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But I daresay you’d care for a bite to eat, or perhaps a wee dram, eh, Inspector? Or even both,’ he added with a chuckle.
    â€˜That would be most acceptable, Captain,’ said Hardcastle, warming immediately to the military policeman.
    â€˜Aye, good,’ said McIntyre. ‘I always find interviewing prisoners on an empty stomach is nae good for the constitution.’ He laughed loudly, and picked up his chequered glengarry and swagger cane. ‘Follow me, gentlemen.’
    McIntyre led the two detectives across a vast parade ground where several squads of men, under a fierce-looking sergeant, were being drilled. The recruits were brought to attention, and the sergeant saluted. McIntyre acknowledged the compliment by languidly touching his glengarry with his swagger cane. Finally the trio reached the officers’ mess on the far side.
    After several tots of malt whisky, and a splendid lunch, the MP officer escorted Hardcastle and Marriott back across the barrack square to the guardroom.
    The regimental police sergeant leaped to his feet and saluted as McIntyre strode in.
    â€˜These two gentlemen are from the civil police, Sarn’t, and they’ve come to have a word with Stacey.’
    â€˜Very good, sir.’ The provost sergeant took a large bunch of keys from a hook on the wall, and led the three policemen down a dank corridor. Opening the door of a cell, he screamed at the occupant. ‘On your feet, lad, officer present.’
    Edward Stacey carved a pitiful figure. Not yet nineteen years of age, his hair was shorn, and he was dressed in canvas fatigues, the trousers of which he clutched as he stood up. The provost sergeant had wisely removed anything that the unfortunate youth might use to hang himself, and that included his belt and his bootlaces. The death of a soldier who had committed suicide in