The poison sky synsk 2 5, p.1
The Poison Sky: Synsk 2.5, page 1
The Poison Sky
A Synsk Novella
(Synsk 2.5)
K.C. FINN
Copyright © 2014 Kimberley Finn
New Edition Copyright © 2015 Kimberley Finn
All rights reserved.
A Note From The Author
Like all authors of historical fiction, I am frequently accused of ‘not doing my research’ when an inaccuracy is found in my work. I feel the need, therefore, to clarify that The Poison Sky, and indeed any other book in the Synsk series, is not to be taken as a historical textbook. It is my aim to recreate the atmosphere and harsh atrocities that soldiers faced during wartime, but it is also my quest as a writer to bend history to my will in order to tell an engaging story.
I would like to think if you are willing to believe that Reggie Arkwright is a psychic spy with incredible powers of the mind, then you will also accept that my version of the events of April 22nd 1915 takes place at 3 a.m. rather than the historically documented time of 5 p.m.. For most of my wonderful readers, I’m sure this will be the case, and I thank you for supporting my version of history over the last eight months since The Mind’s Eye was released.
For those of you who can’t get past the facts to enjoy the fiction, I apologise for my artistic licensing. It is important to remember, however, that even history textbooks are written by authors, and what we sometimes take to be fact can also be its own version of the truth. History is recorded by the winners, after all.
Prologue
A Fond Farewell
It is a very strange experience to sit in the room of someone you know will never use it again. Kit Cavendish had done exactly that, many years ago in the study at Ty Gwyn, in the room that had once belonged to Clive Price, a hero pilot who died facing the Bosch in the Second World War. Now, she was situated in the room of her grandmother, Mabel Arkwright, a woman who died facing a sea of dirty dishes in the back kitchen of the Sand Drifts Inn. At the valiant age of seventy-two, Nannie had dropped on the spot, working her fingers to the bone until she drew her last breath. Kit suspected that she would have wanted it that way.
Kit listened to Elvis Presley crackling through on the radio, rubbing one hand over her large, swollen stomach. When the King sang his soul out to ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, the baby in Kit’s belly gave a powerful kick. Her first child, Hanne, had never been a kicker, but this little bundle had been jostling for weeks now. She shushed at her tummy, rubbing it again and reclining on her grandmother’s spongy old double bed. Her eyes travelled to the sight of the discarded funeral clothes strewn over the dresser. She had clambered into a more comfortable housedress from the moment she’d made it up the stairs.
Hanne was turning twelve this year and, as such, Kit had had a long time to forget how exhausting it was to be pregnant. Her lifelong arthritis was severe enough to make it difficult to walk even at her normal, slender weight, but this second baby was heavier than she remembered Hanne being, and twice as volatile to carry. After Hanne, Kit had been so exhausted that another child seemed out of the question for a very long time, but Henri had always harboured a hope that they might try again for a boy someday. Kit could only hope that he was getting his wish, because Baby Number Three was definitely not an option.
The faint sound of a door closing caught her ears, and Kit soon heard a gaggle of voices ascending the stairs. As they reached her landing, someone made a loud shushing noise, then a series of slow, muffled footsteps tapered off in all directions close-by. Moments later, the door to her grandmother’s bedroom opened and Henri’s clean-shaven face poked around the frame. His small, dark eyes were narrowed in a smile as they found those of his wife.
“You’re awake,” he said brightly. “I was afraid you might have exhausted yourself crying at the church.”
He stepped into the room as Kit shook her head slowly.
“I might have if I’d stayed any longer, but I’m rested now,” she assured him. “How was the wake?”
“Leighton’s drunk,” Henri replied as he closed the bedroom door.
Moving to a suitcase propped up on the dressing stool, the tall Norwegian stepped out of his shoes and started to change his clothes. Kit watched the lines of her husband’s muscular body as he stripped off his shirt. He was thirty-seven now, almost a middle-aged man, but the fitness regime he had started as a boy in the army had stayed with him every year since. His broad shoulders flexed as he turned, spying his wife over his shoulder with a grin.
“Are you sure you won’t come with us to the Pleasure Beach?” he asked her. “It might be nice for you, seeing Hanne, Josie, and Dai on the rides. I always find children are the best company after a funeral.”
He had never lost the thickness to his accent, and his foreign tone enveloped Kit so much that she could almost have agreed to his persuasions. The baby gave her another kick, as if to remind her, and she winced suddenly.
“No,” she concluded, shaking her head. “I’ve spent enough energy for one day. Besides, I could hardly go rollercoaster-ing in this condition.”
Henri’s navy shirt was only half-buttoned as he climbed across the bed on hands and knees, his face coming level with the bump of Kit’s stomach under the bed blankets. He pulled the covers back and rested his ear against her belly with a hopeful smile. A moment later, he jolted, and Kit winced once more.
“He kicked me in the face!” Henri exclaimed. “This boy’s going to be sporty, I just know it.”
Kit only smiled. She hoped, for his sake, that he was right, for a child who had this much energy in the womb was going to need an outlet for it later in life. Henri climbed a little farther up the bed and kissed Kit’s lips gently. The grief for her grandmother lifted a little in the warmth of his affection.
“It’s a shame,” she mused sadly. “Nannie never got to see the baby born.”
Henri studied her face carefully, concern ebbing away at his smile.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right if we go out again with the children?” he asked. “Because if you need me, I can stay.”
“I just need to rest,” Kit assured him, secretly grateful that he was keeping the family going without her for the rest of the day.
“Well, Leighton is passed out in the little utility room,” Henri explained, kissing her forehead, “and Steven’s gone to bed for an hour or so. He said he didn’t sleep well here last night, but if you need him, you can shout.”
“Thank you, I will,” Kit replied, feeling no guilt whatsoever at the prospect of waking the grumpy doctor.
“Oi!” A bright Welsh voice called from downstairs. “Are you ready or what? I’ve got three mad kids yur waiting to get the tram!”
Henri opened the door midway through the call, drowning out Kit’s little radio with the singsong cries of the woman outside.
“Coming, Blod!” he called back.
He paused again at the door, buttoning the rest of his shirt as he watched his wife for a silent, smiling moment.
“You’re sure you’ll be—”
“Don’t ask me again,” she cut in with a knowing grin. “I’m fine. Go away and have fun.”
Henri flashed her a grin, stepped back into his shoes, and disappeared down the corridor. There were footsteps again, then the sound of another door slamming, and then there was just Kit and the baby and the radio once more. Buddy Holly was alive and well in the words of his last hit. It made Kit frown to think of her daughter then. In February, Hanne had mourned the loss of the great singing icon as if he were a personal friend. Now her great-grandmother was gone, too. It was a shame that Hanne was experiencing so much death at her tender age.
The door opened once more, and Kit jumped out of her reverie. Pale blue eyes spotted her with a conspiratorial look.
“Have they gone?”
Kit nodded. Steven Bickerstaff stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with a relieved sigh. He cut a dash in his jet-black funeral suit, perching on the end of Kit’s bed and running his hands through his silver-blonde hair.
“Henri said you were sleeping,” Kit mused.
Bickerstaff gave a chuckle. “I was cleverly avoiding dragging three wild teenagers around a massive amusement park all evening,” he explained. “I slept fine in the back bedroom. This place is exactly how I remember it.”
“You haven’t been here since Josie was born?” she asked him.
The doctor shook his head.
“Old Mrs. Arkwright kept this place going through some hard times,” he mused, “and all on her own, too, I’m told.”
“Her husband, my Granddad Reg, died when I was thirteen,” Kit explained.
“He must have been young,” Bickerstaff said quietly.
“Forty-nine,” Kit answered. “It was cancer. A melanoma, I think.”
“God, that’s my age,” the doctor said, his face growing grave and pale. “She bought this place after that?”
“And ran it for more than twenty years,” Kit completed with a hollow sigh.
Bickerstaff hunched forward on the end of the bed, his chin resting on one hand as the other reached down to his trouser leg. Kit could see him adjusting the place where his false leg met his knee, until the baby gave her another boot and she jolted once more. Bickerstaff noted the curl in her lip and the way her hand went instinctively to her belly.
“It’s a very healthy sign, that kicking,” he said, trying to smile.
“In that case, I do believe I’m giving birth to Superman,” Kit concluded.
“I should leave you to res
“No,” Kit said quickly.
She wasn’t certain what had made her blurt it out, but when Bickerstaff paused, she was grateful.
“You don’t want to be alone?” he tried, studying her confused look.
“I don’t know,” Kit answered, her shoulders drooping. “I do, but I don’t. Grief’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
Bickerstaff stood and slipped off his jacket, limping across the room to hang it on the back of the chair beside Kit’s bed. He looked around the room appraisingly, his hands hovering at his pockets, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. The doctor’s gaze settled on a small bookshelf in the corner, and he ambled towards it.
“Perhaps we could read awhile,” he suggested. “What sort of story do you like?”
Kit was relieved at his suggestion, knowing that Steven Bickerstaff wasn’t famed for his social graces. Reading quietly together would be comforting, but not awkward. She watched him lean on the little case as he crouched to view the titles on its two small shelves.
“Something cheery,” she told him.
He picked a book out, looked at its cover, and replaced it, repeating the process all along the top shelf with increasing irritation.
“Romantic drama, romantic drama, romantic drama,” he whined. “Didn’t your grandmother ever read anything else?”
Kit thought on the idea for a moment. Nannie had lost her husband all too soon. It was understandable that reminders of the sweetness of love might fill the shelves up here in her private sanctuary.
“Oh, blast!”
Bickerstaff suddenly overbalanced his weight, falling backwards as the bookcase threatened to topple with him. He managed to stop the little unit from landing on his legs, but not before all of the books had come tumbling out into a heap. With a rueful grimace, the doctor started picking the tomes up to replace them from where he sat on the floor. Kit bit back her laughter at his sour face, until she saw him pause. Bickerstaff’s heavy brow relaxed into an expression of curiosity.
“Well now, what’s this?” he asked.
He held up an object for Kit to see. It was a book, but one that was much smaller than the others, one that looked like a notebook rather than a hardback. Its paper was yellowed, and its cover was singed at the bottom right corner, as if it had survived a fire. Its small pages and brown leather cover were bundled up in a tight piece of string with an ancient knot, one that hadn’t been undone for quite some time. The doctor pulled at the stiff string until it gave way, opening the notebook up.
“It’s a diary,” he mused in amazement.
“Not Nannie’s diary?” Kit asked, feeling a lump of grief quiver in her throat again.
Bickerstaff met her gaze, looking astounded. “I think not,” he replied.
He handed her the notebook with the first page open. In blotted, shaky ink, two lines of writing glared at her from the old paper.
This is the diary of Corporal Reginald James Arkwright.
Loyal North Lancashire Regiment: Covert Operations Division
Kit read the words aloud to Bickerstaff, who climbed into the bedside chair as he listened to her.
“That’s your grandfather’s diary, isn’t it?” he asked.
Kit flicked through a few pages, nodding fervently.
“From the war,” she said. “The first war. The Great War. This is…”
She caught a page where the word psychic was clearly inscribed in her grandfather’s old, scribbly script. She had seen that same writing on old birthday cards in a box at home, but she hadn’t given much thought to the man that the writing belonged to for many, many years now. Yet here he was, in ink and paper, the days of his life inscribed for all to see.
“He wrote about everything,” she said in amazement. “This is all the work he did for Great Britain as a psychic spy.”
“Everything that Mabel never knew about him,” Bickerstaff said sadly, “and it’s been hiding at the back of her bookcase all this time.”
The baby gave Kit another kick, and the book jumped out of her grip. It tumbled down the bed where Bickerstaff caught it, taking an opportunity to examine the pages again. A tense fascination kept the pair of them in silence as Kit reclined, thinking about the precious diary and the kind of knowledge it contained. She patted her stomach as she lay in thought.
“Read it to me,” she said.
Bickerstaff looked up from the small book, blue eyes wide and waiting.
Kit gave a shrug. “Nobody’s ever known what Granddad Reg really did for our country all those years back. He deserves to have his story told, now that it doesn’t have to be kept secret from Nannie anymore.”
“It might be grisly,” the doctor mused, thumbing a few pages again. “I thought you said you wanted something cheery?”
“This feels right,” Kit replied. “Go on. From the beginning.”
Steven Bickerstaff appraised the book once more, rifling back to the first proper page of scrawled, inky text.
“As you wish.”
Chapter One
Loyalty Binds Me
People have stopped believing in peace.
When I joined the regiment at the age of nineteen, I didn’t do it because I wanted to go to war. Defending our great nation was enough for me, that and the fact that it was the only way to escape taking up the family business as a greengrocer. You show me a young man who wants to stare at cabbages for the rest of his life, and I’ll eat my hat, every thick, scratchy scrap of it. When I signed on for the British Army in 1897, the Greeks were fighting the Turks in their usual way, but Europe, for the most part, was united. As the years have gone by, the bonds of the world’s greatest continent only seemed to be getting stronger.
Until that Duke got himself shot in the face. At first, it didn’t seem to matter to Blighty that the Serbs and the Austrians were fighting but, somewhere along the way, the Kaiser from Germany got himself involved. The papers paint him as a puerile thing, a man with a withered arm and an ugly chip on his shoulder to match. He pushed the Austrians into waging a war that’s put the whole of Europe on suicide watch. And now Great Britain has stuck its long nose in too.
They moved me to Dover in August, around the same time as the first few battalions of seasoned men went out to France to help defend against the Germans who are invading there. We’re supposed to be stopping them from taking Paris, but I don’t see how only a few squads are going to help. I guess Lord Kitchener’s got that covered. The news from London is that even the likes of Rudyard Kipling are out there convincing the young men of England to join our ranks. They get to make a choice about whether they want to be in this war or not. I just happened to be here already.
Corporal Reginald James Arkwright, Reggie to my friends, and ‘the psychic one’ to the people who have yet to get to know me. Since I’ve been stationed at Dover, I’ve spent every day in the Commanding Officer’s office, sending my mind out to discover the apparent secrets of the German forces. The truth is, they don’t seem to be faring any better than us right now. It’s only their sheer numbers that are allowing them to smash through every barricade from the Reichstag to Paris in less than a month. The Major often tells me that this whole thing is going to be a numbers game.
“That’s why we need so many bodies, young Reggie,” he snorts. “Throw enough men at them, and they’ll soon be back across the Rhine with their tails between their legs, warmongering dogs that they are.”
Young Reggie. I’m twenty-six. I have a wife and a child of my own, and I don’t much like the sound of being a body to be thrown at the Germans as they continue their march of terror through the once-peaceful countryside of Europe. Lucky for me, I have my psychic skills. It looks like my war will be fought and lost from an office in Dover, just like the Major’s.
My power is a rare one: a unique ability to take my conscious mind and place it in the heads of others, ready to observe their activities and report them back to my commanding officer. I can even pass messages and communicate with them if I want to. I’m told it sounds something like having an echo inside your head. I don’t think I’d much like it if it happened to me, but I’m the only one of my kind that I know. When I was twelve, my mother thought she heard me speak into her mind (which I had) and quickly rushed me to the men in white coats. Lucky for me, the military got word and made the decisions about my life from there on in, else I’d probably be in a straitjacket right now.
