LORD JOHN AND THE HAUNTED SOLDIER

November, 1758
Tower Place, The Arsenal at Woolwich

Part I: Inquisition

	  Hell was filled with clocks, he was sure of it.  There was no torment, after all, that could not be exacerbated by a contemplation of time passing.  The large case-clock at the end of the corridor had a particularly penetrating tick-tock, audible above and through all the noises of the house and its inhabitants.  It seemed to Lord John Grey to echo his own inexorable heartbeats, each one a step on the road toward death.
	He shook off that grisly notion and sat bolt upright, his best hat balanced upon his knee.  The house had once been a mansion; doubtless the clock was a remnant of those gracious days.  Pity none of the chairs had made the transition to government service, he thought, shifting gingerly on the niggardly stool he'd been given.  
	A spasm of impatience brought him to his feet.  Why would they not bloody call him in and get on with it?
	Well, there was a rhetorical question, he thought, tapping the hat against his leg with soft impatience.
   	If  "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small" was not the official motto of His Majesty's government, it was surely that, de facto.  It had taken months for the Royal Commission of Enquiry to be convened, still longer for it to sit, and longer yet for inquisition to stretch out its hand in his direction. 
	His arm and ribs were quite healed now, the furrow through his scalp no more than a thin white scar beneath his hair.  The freezing rain of November beat upon the roof above; in Germany the thick grass around the ninth Station of the Cross must lie now brown and dead, and the lieutenant who lay beneath that grass food for worms long since.  Yet here Grey sat--or stood--a small, hard kernel yet awaiting the pressure of the grindstone.
	Grimacing, he sought respite from the clock's ticking by striding up and down the corridor, returning the censorious looks of the row of portraits hung upon the wall as he passed them--early governors of the Arsenal.
	The portraits were mediocre in execution for the most part, save the one near the end, done by a more talented hand.  Perhaps a Dutchman by his looks--a black-browed gentleman whose fiercely rubicund features radiated a jolly determination.  Probably a good attitude for one whose profession was explosion.
	As though the Dutchman agreed with this sentiment, a tremendous boom rattled the casement at the end of the corridor and the floor heaved suddenly under Grey's feet.
	He flung himself flat, hat flying, and found himself hugging the shabby hall-runner, sweating and breathless.
	"My Lord?"  A voice from which any trace of astonishment or curiosity had been carefully removed spoke above him.  "The gentlemen are ready."
	"Are they?  In...deed."  He rose, stilling the trembling of his limbs by main effort, and brushed the dust from his uniform with what nonchalance could be managed.
	"If you will follow me, my Lord?"  The functionary, a small, neatly-wigged person of impeccable politeness and indeterminate aspect, bent to pick up his hat, and handing it to him without comment, turned to lead him back down the corridor.  Behind them, the clock ticked imperturbably on, the passage of time undisturbed by such ephemera as explosion or death. 
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	There were three of them, seated behind a long table, a weighty thing of carved dark wood.  To one side, a clerk sat at a small desk, quill and paper at the ready to record his testimony.  A single chair was placed, stark and solitary, in the space before the table.
	So it really was an Inquisition, he thought.  His brother Hal had warned him.  His sense of unease grew stronger.  The trouble with an Inquisition was that it seldom went hungry to bed.
	The functionary accompanied him to the chair, hovering at his elbow as though afraid he might bolt, and left him there with a murmured, "Major Grey" and a discreet bow in the direction of the Commission of Enquiry.  They did not bother to introduce themselves.  The tall, thin-faced fellow was vaguely familiar; a nobleman, he thought--knight, perhaps a minor baronet?  Expensively tailored in gray superfine. The name escaped him, though perhaps it would come of itself in time.
	He did recognize the military member of the tribunal; Colonel Twelvetrees, of the Royal Artillery Regiment, wearing his dress uniform and an expression that spoke of habitual severity.  From what Grey knew of his reputation, the expression was well earned. That could be dealt with, though; yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.
	The third was less forbidding in aspect, a middle-aged gentleman, plump and neat in purple, with a striped waistcoat; he went so far as to smile politely at Grey.  Grey removed his hat and bowed to His Majesty's Royal Commission of Enquiry, but did not sit 'til he was bidden to do so.
	The Colonel cleared his throat then and began without preamble.
	"You are summoned here, Major, to assist us in an Enquiry into the explosion of a cannon whilst under your command during the battle at Crefeld in Prussia, on twenty-third June of this year.  You will answer all questions put to you, in as much detail as may be required."
	"Yes, sir."  He sat bolt upright, face impassive.
	A sort of rumble ran through the building, felt rather than heard, and the droplets on a small crystal chandelier tinkled gently overhead.  The huge proving grounds of the Arsenal lay somewhere beyond the Tower Place house, he knew--how far away?
	The plump gentleman put a pair of spectacles on his nose and leaned forward expectantly.
	"Will you tell us, please, my lord, the circumstances in which you came to take charge of the gun and its crew?"
	Obediently, he told them, in the words he had prepared.  Colorless, brief, exact.   Allowing of no doubt.  Had any of them ever set foot on a battlefield, he wondered?  If they had, they would know how little resemblance his words held to the truth of that day--but it hardly mattered.  He spoke for the record, and was therefore careful.