GRAVES GATE PART ONE The only conceivable escape for him lay in silencing my tongue. - "The Adventure of the Final Problem." London, January 19, 1922, 10:00 P.M. Feeling a punch that left me breathless, I flew backwards as I watched the curious sight of my own feet flying into the air. Between them was an image - a swirl of blonde hair with a scarf falling away from it. In the image was a large pistol flying lazily from the woman's small hand and her oversized coat flapping as she, too, flew backward, spinning away from me. Then I was staring up into the London night sky, thinking that there was something very familiar about her. I was sure that I didn't know her, but I had seen her recently somewhere. Then I actually heard the shot, or my brain finally registered it. I had been shot before, but it had been a few years, and I had forgotten some of the details. My ears were ringing so loudly that all other sensations were forgotten and the pain was yet to come. I remembered from my days in France that the pain would soon follow. So I lay there on the street, looking up at the black sky, and reminisced about France. It was peaceful and nostalgic for a while, and then I started to drift off to sleep. I would have made it to deep sleep, too, but for all of Adrianna's noise. She was screaming for help and simultaneously screaming at me. "Charles! Open your eyes, Charles! Look at me, Charlie!" I was dimly aware that she was shaking me, but I could barely feel it. I vaguely remembered that I wasn't supposed to be here with Adrianna Wallace and that her husband didn't know where she was. I tried to think why that should be important, but I couldn't concentrate. I wanted to concentrate on Adrianna. It seemed that there were things I should say to her. Maybe I should try to touch her. Finally I did open my eyes, and hers were three inches in front of them. I would have turned my face away, but I couldn't seem to move my head. Then I tried to move assorted limbs and realized that nothing much was working. I thought that Adrianna was tearing my shirt open, but I couldn't be sure because I couldn't turn my face downward to look. Mixed with the ringing in my ears was the sound of cloth ripping, and then red and white cloth being waved about. I was practically certain that she shouldn't be tearing my shirt off - not here. "Oh, Charlie! Jesus! They've got you this time," she said through clenched teeth, but she didn't really seem to be talking to me. "Give me your apron!" she said loudly. I thought that was odd because I didn't have an apron. "Has someone got a car?" I could see a leg in trousers beside my head, and when I focused upward, there stood the waiter from Lancers. "They're calling for an ambulance now, miss," he said to Adrianna. "A car!" she shouted at the waiter. "Forget the ambulance! Run! Get someone with a car! Is there a taxi in sight? He'll be dead before you can get an ambulance here!" "I don't think we should move him, miss," said the waiter politely. "Are you a doctor?" she shouted. "No, mum." "Well, I am a qualified nurse! Just get someone out here who has a car. Royal Hospital, Chelsea, isn't a half-mile away. We could carry him there faster than we could get an ambulance." The waiter had handed his apron to Adrianna, and she seemed to be stuffing it right into my stomach. The waiter's leg disappeared from beside my face, but Adrianna's face appeared again very close to mine. "Can you hear me, Charlie?" she asked in a normal conversational tone. "Yes," I said. "How bad is it?" Everybody always asked that in the war. I had asked it myself when I was shot in France. I felt that it was the normal thing to ask - the kind of question she would be used to in the circumstances. "Charlie, if we don't get you into surgery very fast..." she said softly while she was stuffing more apron into my stomach. She sounded very calm. Then she moved so that I couldn't see her anymore, and I heard her talk to someone else. "Help me roll him over. I've got to see his back." "Maybe we shouldn't, miss. Moving him could make him worse," said a man's voice. I thought about that myself and concluded that I certainly didn't want anything to make me worse. "Maybe," Adrianna said calmly, "but if the bullet came out the back and I don't pack the wound, he'll die right here, right now. How much worse than that are we going to make it?" That possibility sounded even more discouraging to me. My view changed to the wall as they turned me over. I heard a woman's voice say, "That's Adrianna Wallace." I could feel someone pulling my coat up and then hear my shirt tearing again. Then someone was stuffing something into my back. Adrianna's face was down in front of mine again when another person said, "That's Adrianna Wallace. Aren't you Mrs. Wallace?" Another voice agreed. "That is Adrianna Wallace, but that's not Frederick. Who is ...oh my! Look at the blood." Adrianna was silent for a moment as she looked into my face with a pained expression. Then she looked up. "Yes," she answered. "Where is my husband, Frederick? He was right here." She looked into my face again and then appeared to be trying to peer through the crowd. "Freddy!" she shouted. "Where did he go? Did he chase the gunman?" "I didn't see him, Mrs. Wallace," answered another voice. "He may have done. There was no one out here but you and this man when we heard the shot and came out." Leaning over me again, she muttered loudly enough to be heard by anyone in the small crowd, "Just like Frederick to do that. He'll probably be shot next," she said as she pulled on my eyelid and stared into my eye. "Liza Anatole," I whispered. "That was Liza Anatole." But Adrianna was looking away again, and I wasn't sure that she had heard me. I thought about trying to speak louder. I tried saying the name again, but I couldn't hear well enough to know if I'd done any better. Then came the sound of a tire coming to a halt a few feet away behind my head, and I went to sleep and drifted back to an evening at a posh London party six nights earlier. © Dennis Burges Read an historical overview of the time period in the book. Buy the hardback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or from an independent bookseller. Buy the trade paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or from an independent bookseller.