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    Cold Comfort: A Novella
    Cold Comfort: A Novella
    Cold Comfort: A Novella
    Ebook50 pages45 minutes

    Cold Comfort: A Novella

    By Charles Todd

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    About this ebook

    A brand-new Ian Rutledge e-original novella from Charles Todd, including a special excerpt from the next Rutledge novel, Hunting Shadows, available this January.

    It’s 1915, and the Great War is barely six months old. Lieutenant Ian Rutledge has left behind his career at Scotland Yard and is now serving in France. He’s temporarily with the sappers—men digging underground tunnels toward the German lines to set off explosions under the enemy trenches. In his sector, Rutledge and his men set their charges and get out of the tunnel as fast as possible. But the charges don’t go off. It’s madness to go back down and find out why, but Rutledge and Private Williams volunteer. They barely make it back before the tunnel blows up. Rutledge suspects that two Welsh miners cut the fuse too long, even though they deny it.

    Then Williams confides to Rutledge that these same men, half brothers Taffy Jones and Aaron Lloyd, have tried before this to kill him. And they’re determined enough to risk other men’s lives as well. Rutledge discovers in the midst of a raging battle that murder has made its way to France, and he must find a way to prove it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 19, 2013
    ISBN9780062315724
    Cold Comfort: A Novella
    Author

    Charles Todd

    Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021 and Charles lives in Florida.

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    • 5/5
      Really enjoyed this look into Inspector Rutledge's background <><

    Book preview

    Cold Comfort - Charles Todd

    Cold Comfort

    AN INSPECTOR IAN RUTLEDGE STORY

    CHARLES TODD

    28880.png

    Contents

    Cold Comfort

    An Excerpt from Hunting Shadows

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    About the Author

    Books by Charles Todd

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    Cold Comfort

    France, Early 1915, at the Front

    IT WAS HOT this far down in the tunnel. Here, at the very end, there was only room for the three of them—­Lieutenant Rutledge, the officer in charge; a private by the name of Williams at the left wall already passing over his bayonet in favor of a small knife as he scraped quietly at the chalk surface to enlarge the space; and Corporal MacLeod listening for sounds from the enemy burrowing their way toward the British lines in a counter tunnel, the stethoscope in his hand moving gently over the walls and ceiling. He glanced at Rutledge from time to time with a shake of his head.

    Nothing.

    It was an ominous silence.

    A runner had just brought Rutledge the news that a German prisoner had been interrogated and there was the very real possibility that the enemy was working on its own tunnel, and that it could in fact parallel their own. If he was farther ahead, if he’d already packed his charges in his forward chamber, similar to the one that Rutledge and his men were still enlarging at their end, then chances were that the enemy’s would go off first, burying the three of them alive.

    The Germans had already used tunneling to fearful advantage. It was very simple: dig a tunnel that burrowed deep below No Man’s Land to reach a spot beneath the British or French trenches opposite, then pack the final chamber with high explosives, set off the charges, and wreak shockingly effective havoc in the lines. And then launch an attack while one’s opponent was still reeling. It was a variation of one of the favorite ways of breaching castle walls, something medieval armies had excelled at. Only instead of blowing up a trench, it weakened and brought down enough of the massive fortifications to allow the attacking army to rush inside. Dangerous work then, dangerous work now.

    The Allies had had no choice but to use the same strategy as the Germans—­and they were still learning. A team of miners from South Wales had been brought in because they were experienced men, capable of digging as well as shoring up the tunnel as they went.

    The problem was, once the Welshmen were close enough to the German lines to be heard, picks and shovels had to be replaced by tedious, nearly silent scraping, inch by inch. Otherwise the enemy would hear them and take deadly countermeasures.

    Rutledge had been sent down to relieve the officer in charge of the chamber, standing his eight-­hour watch with his own corporal, Hamish MacLeod, whose hearing was particularly keen. And in place of the Welsh coal miners, Private Williams had been given the task of carrying on as quickly as he could without making a sound. He was a slate miner from North Wales, and it was clear several of the Welshmen from the South had resented the choice. He had been what was called a rock man, who drilled and set the explosives to bring down the great slabs of slate, and his touch was delicate. Fair for a Welshman, nearly as tall as Rutledge and MacLeod, he was

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