An Unmarked Grave (20 page)

My father had already spent some ten minutes with Simon on matters not for my ears, and as he prepared to take his leave now, he asked how I thought the Sergeant-Major was progressing.

“As well as can be expected,” I answered, trying for middle ground and not betraying Simon to my father.

The Colonel Sahib nodded, leaned forward to kiss my cheek, and then was gone. As I crossed to the house, I listened to the sound of his motorcar disappearing in the distance.

I had got my way. Not completely, but far enough to feel a sense of satisfaction that my father had listened to me.

But in spite of everything I’d told him—and I believed all that I’d said, that this was the safest way to proceed—I would have to be very careful indeed. Or I could still fall victim to this killer.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

F
ROM THE MOMENT
my father had turned the bonnet of his motorcar toward Kent, things moved very rapidly. Whatever qualms she might have had for my sake, Melinda Crawford was quick to see the advantage of what my father proposed. What’s more, he would have given her a full account of all that had happened. She had known Vincent Carson. She too would wish to see his killer brought to book.

Three days later I was summoned to London to discuss reassignment to France.

I stayed that night in London with Mrs. Hennessey at the flat.

She was overjoyed to see me and spent half an hour telling me all the news about my flatmates and about her own cronies. She insisted that I have dinner with her in her small dining room, asking after my parents and Simon.

She had once been involved in an attempt by a murderer to reach my rooms, and afterward she had sung the praises of the Sergeant-Major for saving both our lives. Since that time, he had ranked with my father in her opinion, and she admitted to being quite fond of him.

I didn’t tell her about his wounds—there was no need to worry her—and I enjoyed my dinner immensely, for she had told her friend the butcher that she expected him to do her proud with a bit of beef that he held back sometimes for his special customers. It was not legal, but even butchers had to stay in business for the duration, and the small roast we ate wouldn’t have made the tiniest dent in the needs of the nation.

The next morning I took the early train to Portsmouth, with my father to see me off, and slept a little while I could. In my pocket were the credentials I would need over the next few weeks, or for as long as it took to find a murderer.

The ship made good time against heavy seas, for the weather broke with a vengeance as an early summer storm moved in off the Atlantic. The skies turned gray, the rain pelted down, and the warmth I’d enjoyed at my bedroom window vanished in cold air that made standing on deck unpleasant in the extreme.

It was still raining when we reached Rouen, but the worst had passed. A driver was waiting for me, and I was glad to see as he came forward to take my valise that his eyes were a very Cornish brown, his name Trelawney. He was also a member of my father’s old regiment, and he said as he escorted me to the motorcar, “Your father’s daughter is safe with me, Sister.”

I thanked him, and we slipped and slid out of Rouen on the mud-slick roads, and headed west.

It took a day and a half to reach the forward lines approaching Ypres, and I slept that night in a nearly roofless shed that smelled of horses. Trelawney brought me tea at first light, and then we were on our way once more.

The first aid station on the top of my list was small, hastily set up, and overrun with wounded from a breach in the line that had mercifully held. I dropped all pretense of being there to observe and was busy sorting the cases as they came in and then doing duty in the operating theater.

There had been a gas attack as well, and the scent of new-mown hay lingered on the air as men gasped for breath and we did our best to lavage the burned areas of skin and mouths. We all carried gas masks with us every hour of the day and night, but there had been no time for some men to react to the first conspicuous low cloud coming toward them.

We loaded the ambulances lined up behind the station and sent stretcher cases back for more extensive care, then turned our attention to the walking wounded. It was late in the evening before we could draw a breath, and the nursing sister in charge thanked me for my help.

I stayed for the rest of the night and spent most of the morning there as well, until the wounded were no more than a trickle. The guns were silent, and it seemed that both sides were trying to recoup their losses. A few more cases were brought in from a flag-of-truce collection from No Man’s Land, and then those who were not on duty went to their cots and slept deeply.

I sat drinking tea with Sister Mason, who ran this station with such courage.

“There’s not much choice,” she said grimly. “Dr. Beddoes was taken back a week ago with a burst appendix. He never mentioned feeling ill or told us what he suspected. I’ve had to carry on, and I don’t know when or if we’ll have another doctor sent to us.”

Somewhere nearby a soldier was playing a mouth organ, a haunting version of “Roses of Picardy.” I thought how homesick he must be, letting the instrument put into words what he couldn’t, that the war had lasted far too long and there was still no end in sight. He had lost heart, and I couldn’t fault him for that.

I made a note of Sister Mason’s concerns, and as she watched me, she said, “I thought when I first saw you that you were here to make trouble. But you worked as hard as any of us.”

“It isn’t trouble I’m after,” I replied. “I’ll report your need of a doctor, and it’s the best I can do at the moment. But you can be assured I won’t forget.”

She shrugged. “They say the war may end soon. Another year at most. I don’t know. We’ll all be dead by then, there will be no one left to fight.”

I asked if she had sufficient supplies. “We never have enough. But we manage. Every ambulance that goes back is under orders to bring forward what they can.”

Such conditions were common. But that didn’t make it any easier for those who had to work with first cases out of the trenches and knew supplies were running short. I had done it too often.

“The French hospitals are worse, they say,” she added. “I’ve heard tales. How true, I don’t know. But if I were dying, I’d rather come here and stand a chance than go to one of theirs.”

I smiled. I’d heard the same tales. Of men crying for water, and one overworked sister trying to save the worst of the wounded while the rest hung on grimly in the hope their turn would come.

Setting down my cup, I said as casually as I could, “One of my flatmates worked with a Dr. Percy in a station near Ypres. She asked me to say hello if I saw him.”

“Percy? I don’t think I’ve met him.”

Interesting. I said, “Perhaps he’s been reassigned,” and I left it at that.

An hour later, I set out for my next stop.

Trelawney—he’d never told me his rank—was always there, ready to drive me when I turned toward the motorcar. I don’t know where he’d found this vehicle, held together by the rust that was trying to destroy it. But the motor was sound and the tires were reliable, the two most important factors in transport out here.

While I was working with the wounded, the resourceful Trelawney had done a little scouting in the area. The Germans had reached this far south at the start of the war—there had been bloody fighting in this sector at one time—and he had told everyone he was hunting for souvenirs. They’d laughed at him but left him to it.

“Any luck?” I asked when we were out of earshot of the aid station.

Trelawney shook his head. “You couldn’t hide a wee mouse out there.”

He didn’t need to say anything more.

On our way to the next station, we quartered another area and were almost strafed by a German craft, which veered away at the last minute, having spotted something of greater interest down the line.

I could hear Trelawney swearing under his breath as he zigged and zagged across the ruts and dips, fearing for his tires and his suspension. We were conspicuous just here, where there were no convoys of ammunitions and supplies at the moment, no troops moving forward or ambulances rumbling back. What’s more, motorcars were usually driven by officers, always a tempting target. But it was necessary to be thorough, and we nearly paid dearly for it.

The only structure was so pitifully small in this blasted landscape that it couldn’t even provide shelter from a good rain. But we did discover two cellars, once part of a tiny village, their entrances partly blocked by rubble. Rat-infested—according to Trelawney, I didn’t go down to see—and filled with more rubble and water, they were unfit for human habitation.

Putting away his torch and his revolver, he said with disgust, “I daresay there are bones down there as well. I didn’t care to have a look.”

It was dawn when we reached the next station on my list, and I worked until dusk with the sisters there, doing what I could, wondering who would step in to help when I had to leave. And then it was quiet, the last of the wounded dealt with, including a head injury, and they found a cot for me. I fell asleep almost at once, glad for a place to rest.

We continued to move slowly east along the Western Front. And so far no one had tried to attack me. Nor had we learned anything that was useful. Except that there was no Dr. Percy in this sector. In another cellar we had found two German dead, wounded men who must have crawled in there long ago, their uniforms barely recognizable, their bones already disturbed by the ever-present rats. Trelawney searched for identification all the same, saying, “They’ll have families, and someone will want to know what happened to them.” Afterward he marked the location for a burial detail.

Another dawn, and we were nearly caught by surprise when a gas attack came, the mist moving silently across the ground, almost invisible in a light ground fog. I caught the faintest whiff of new-mown hay and fumbled for my ever-present gas mask, got it on quickly, tucked my limbs under my skirts and my arms under my cape, leaving no skin exposed. It passed over us, dissipating as quietly as it had appeared. We waited until we could hear a distant all clear, and then moved on. But ahead of us in the next station were men caught unprepared, asleep or nodding at their posts. I had heard tales of how the gas could creep across the ground and sink into the trenches, a killer that seemed to care nothing for either side, for if the wind shifted, it blew back to the German lines. We used gas as well. The cough of burned lungs was unmistakable to the trained ear.

When we arrived at the next station, I found lines of gassed men waiting for their turn to be seen. Bandages across their eyes helped some of the pain and was a distinctive marker. They had a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them, stumbling along, tripping if no one warned them of uneven ground, at the mercy of orderlies and sisters who guided them.

We bathed their skin and did what we could for their lungs. The worst cases would die painfully, the less damaged would linger in a misery that was frightful.

One night when the shelling was renewed, some of the shells falling well behind the lines, the two of us took refuge in one of those blighted edifices that stood like sentinels as the Front moved forward or fell back. Our own guns opened up in reply, and the din was horrific this close. It felt as if my brain rattled in my skull, and I had to clap my hands over my ears to ease the pain.

We soon retreated to one of those distinctive French farmhouses, built on a square, with the house, the outbuildings, and the barns a part of the encompassing wall. Usually there were two entrances: a wider one in the rear for drays and carts, a narrower one nearer the house where riders and carriages came and went.

Part of the wall had been reduced to rubble, the roof of the barn had collapsed, and the house was no more than a cellar and a single wall. We pulled into the lee of the outside of the wall while Trelawney did a brief reconnoiter.

He came back, got into the motorcar once more, and drove into the sheltering arms of the section of wall still standing. Trelawney turned to me and said, “Sister, we’re out of range here. It’s best if we wait until the worst is over.” He pulled out the oiled map we’d been using, scanned it in the shielded light of his torch, and grunted. “Just here, I think we are.” He pointed to a dot on the map that represented this farmhouse. “It seems there was an aid station here, earlier in the war. I found a twisted cot or two left behind. And then it was a command post before the lines changed again. Nobody but us now. I was careful.” He always was. “There ought to be a dry patch in a cellar. Or under the roof that’s fallen in. There was a ring around the moon last night. We’ll have rain by midmorning.”

I’d seen the ring too, and I didn’t relish being wet to the skin.

“Which should we try first?” He waited.

“I think the barn. I don’t particularly like the idea of being trapped in a cellar.”

“The barn it is. I’ll have another look, then.”

He disappeared a second time, and I heard chickens squawking as he walked in among the fallen timbers. They had taken refuge here too, I thought, their lives changed just as much as that of their owners.

After fifteen minutes Trelawney returned, and we moved the motorcar a second time to where it was least likely to be seen from the air or by any parties passing through.

In one section the straw was clean enough, and we spread the rug from the motorcar over it. The chickens were roosting in the timbers above the cowshed, out of sight. Trelawney, nervous about leaving it unattended, told me he would stay with the motorcar. I fell asleep in spite of the guns.

It was well before dawn, the sky no longer lit by the shelling but by a tank burning somewhere, the smell of metal and petrol and oil barely masking the odor of burning flesh, when something brought me awake with a start. I couldn’t have said what it was—some change in the silence. Sometimes we noticed the guns more when they fell silent than when they were firing. I could hear my own breathing.

More to the point, I could hear the breathing of someone else inside the barn with me.

It wasn’t Trelawney; he’d have spoken to me or in some way let me know that he had come into where I was sleeping. Nor was it the chickens, for even the rooster, if there was one, hadn’t begun to crow.

I lay there with my eyes closed, listening.

The breathing got louder as someone approached even closer.

Where was Trelawney?

The fingers of my right hand moved among the folds of my skirt, then closed over the small pistol that Simon had given me.

I waited.

It was possible that Trelawney had heard something too and had come to warn me. I had to be absolutely certain someone else was there before I dared to fire. And if there was—what had he done with my driver?