Affection (14 page)

We were in the lee of the island, the sun was warm, and none of us was keen to move.

‘Right,’ said Turner, setting off up the bank.

The constables picked up their shovels and we followed Turner, who was swinging his net. I carried his bag and my own unshakeable sense of foreboding.

Gard’s grave was easy to find, a pile of fresh orange clay brought up from beneath the sand and a nailed cross that wouldn’t last the year. There were no flowers. Perhaps Mrs Gard would come to maintain it. I pictured her daughter in black, a veil, kneeling beside the grave, perhaps planting a flower.

‘Friend o’ yours?’ said Humphry, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘That’s right. Shipmates. I remember. Dearly beloved, for what we are about to do may the Lord make us truly thankful amen.’

‘Go easy on the grog,’ I whispered, glancing at Turner who was speaking to the two constables.

Humphry handed me the flask again and said ‘Speshull occashun,’ winking, and I wondered if he was putting it on. I pushed it away and Humphry went over
and offered the bottle to Turner, who looked offended, and then to the two constables, who took a mouthful each and spluttered.

‘Let’s do it,’ said Humphry and the constables reluctantly hefted the long-handled shovels, sinking the blades deep into the earth.

I stood there between Humphry, who was humming, and Turner, who was slapping his net against his leg and looking about the tree tops. Each time a blade entered the ground it whispered like a membrane being ripped. The constables found a rhythm, making their way down into the earth.

The last time I had stood beside a grave I was burying my daughter.

The thought pierced my heart and I had to turn away from the unbearable image to look back through the trees towards the camp. I shouldn’t have come.

‘Give it a rest,’ said Turner, eventually.

The constables weren’t grave-diggers, and probably not used to any form of exercise. I heard them throw down their shovels, panting.

‘Any water?’ said one.

I volunteered to find some. Each of the buildings had corrugated rainwater tanks, and I searched for a bottle. Turner appeared at my side.

‘Is there something wrong with Dr Humphry?’ he said.

I looked back over my shoulder. ‘He might be off colour.’

‘We shouldn’t have let him come.’

‘No.’

I’d never seen Humphry rolling drunk, and I wondered if we might have problems getting him back to the boat.

I found a tank with a tap and there was a beer bottle in the dust under one of the huts. I raked it out, washed it as clean as I could, filled it and walked back towards the cemetery.

Halfway back and Turner called me over to a log. He pointed at the surface and something moved. I put my nose closer and saw the indistinct shape of a moth, flecked grey, the same colour exactly as the wood.

Turner put his net gently over it and it didn’t struggle.

‘Does it realise its fate, I wonder?’ I said. The grey thing just lay there in the bottom.

‘I think it did everything it could. Being clever will only get you so far.’ He folded the thing into his net and carried it back to the grave.

The constables quickly emptied the water bottle. Humphry had chosen to sit against the grave of the victim of some previous horror and had apparently fallen asleep.
Here lies
– Humphry’s carcass obscured the name.

The flask was still in his hand. Turner walked over, picked it up, and stood it behind a nearby headstone. The constables resumed digging.

A spade thumped the coffin. There was some nervous laughter and then the hollow scrape of the lid. The earth smelled ripe, as if it had just rained.

‘Give us a hand,’ said a voice, and I had to turn around and face the open pit.

One of the constables climbed out and uncurled two ropes, the other put his hand down the side and tried to lift the coffin so they could get the ropes under. It was a bit of a puzzle in the narrow hole, but they finally managed it. With the four of us taking an end of rope each we hauled the box out, staggering over the grass until the coffin was clear.

Then we all stood back and stared at the thing.

Gard had been in the ground now for two days. I glanced at Turner, who must have been thinking the same thing.

‘The glands of the groin and armpit. If that’s impossible, one of the organs might still have integrity.’

I nodded.
Integrity
. What we all prayed for.

The constables picked up their shovels and went to prise the lid off.

‘Wait,’ said Turner. ‘Wait till I say.’

They stepped back and waited.

As he sorted through his bag, Turner asked me to get Humphry’s flask. I took a swig of Dutch courage on the way back. Turner had opened his bag, setting beside it a clean cloth and an enormous syringe with a long needle.

‘Oh Jesus,’ said one of the constables. ‘What’s that for?’

Turner took four other clean handkerchiefs from the bag and handed them around, taking Humphry’s flask and wetting each with whisky.

We tied these over our noses and mouths.

Turner nodded to the constables and they began removing the lid.

Its nails screamed a little as the wood released its grip. I lifted my mask and went to take another drink, but Turner took the flask from my hand.

‘The idea’s to sterilise the body,’ he said, ‘not the brain,’ and he sloshed the liquid over his hands. ‘Now, when the lid comes off I’m going to try to get some samples. It shouldn’t take long, but I want you to help me find any buboes.’

‘Is it safe?’

‘That depends on what we do with it. But if you mean could the plague still be alive, I don’t really know.’ The two constables had been given the prophylactic, but Turner warned, ‘Try not to touch the corpse if you can.’

They both laughed, a brief girlish giggle.

The lid came up and the constables flipped it over with the shovels, and then both turned quickly and walked away swearing. Turner lunged forward and I followed. There was a whiff of something vile creeping through the whisky fumes.

I’d never seen a corpse look so devilish. The mouth was open and snarling. The gums had drawn away from the teeth. The tongue was black.

The body had swollen to fill the coffin, a fat snarling maniac in a narrow bath. The features were so distorted I was almost certain we had the wrong man, but then I saw the nose, the crooked teeth. One eye still had its penny, but the other had fallen off. Turner bent over the corpse.

‘Blast Routh. He could have saved you this indignity,’ he told the corpse. He called to the constables, ‘We’ll have to get him out.’

‘How?’ The body was still tight in the box and I couldn’t see a way of loosening it without upending the coffin and banging on the bottom as if it was a bucket of slops.

Turner ordered the constables back over to pry loose one of the coffin’s sides. It didn’t yield easily. After a few minutes with their shovels, the nails popped, an arm flung out and a sigh escaped Gard’s mouth. The constables were too shocked to speak.

‘Gas,’ said Turner.

I supposed they’d seen death before, but the grave held its own horrors.

One of them said something about having enough of being a witness and the other sat down heavily with his head between his legs.

Turner was crouching beside the body and moved the arm further back out of the way. It looked as if they might have been mates, the way the arm was crooked, suspended stiffly as if about to embrace the little man. He cut away the undershirt and then started on the trousers.

He produced a scalpel and searched the blotched, stretched skin. The whole thigh had swollen.

Turner pressed the skin and when he took his hand away the indentations remained.

‘This is going to be difficult.’

He palpated the thigh, but couldn’t find anything, which was hardly surprising.

‘I’m going to have to pierce the skin to let some of the gases out,’ he said.

‘Well, if you don’t need us then we might…’ and the two constables started edging further away.

‘Stay,’ said Turner, not looking up. ‘I might need some help.’

‘Ah bloody hell, don’t say that.’

Turner pushed the scalpel into the thigh and I took a step back. There was a hiss like a gas lamp and then the handkerchief couldn’t disguise the smell. I heard one of the constables cry out and I shut my eyes.

‘That’s better,’ said Turner. ‘Now.’ He probed the thigh again. ‘Here’s that gland. My word.’ He took the scalpel and made a circular incision around the now visible swelling at the groin. ‘Where’s that jar?’

Turner plopped the bubo inside.

‘One more,’ he said. Working fast, he found the gland beneath the armpit.

Plop. I sealed the jar as tightly as I could.

Turner was drenched in sweat as he stood and poured the last of the whisky over the jar, and then wrapped it in a clean heavy cloth bag and packed away his equipment.

‘Didn’t you bring any alcohol from the laboratory?’ I said.

‘Yes, but no point in wasting it.’

The constables were now at the far end of the small cemetery, staring back at the scene. The coffin had been pulled apart, the arm and leg spilling from the open side, and it was obvious it wouldn’t fit back in even if we did have a hammer. Turner called them over. They shuffled back.

‘We’ll just have to push it back in like it is,’ said Turner. ‘The poor chap won’t care.’

And so the constables made a desperate final lunge towards the coffin and pushed it back over the grass towards the hole. It slid easily, but in their hurry they pushed it straight in, one end hitting the bottom of the grave with a thud. The coffin stood upright.

‘Oh Jesus Christ and all the saints, what’dya do that for ya idiot?’ said Clark.

‘You’re the idiot. I stopped pushin’ back there,’ said O’Donnell.

‘Just tip it forward,’ I suggested, and Clark put his foot to the top and pushed. Gard’s body fell stiffly face first out of the box and into his grave, letting out a sound as if he’d been punched in the stomach. The box remained standing at one end.

‘Oh Christ,’ Clark said and danced away again holding his arms over his head. His mate just stood there gaping, mesmerised by the scene.

Humphry then rose stiffly from his own grave and staggered over. He looked down at Gard’s body. ‘Good job.’

He noticed I still had hold of the empty whisky flask and he snatched it away and shook it. ‘You lot’ve been going at it a bit, haven’t you?’

Turner ignored him and continued packing his bag. Humphry went to the foot of the grave, put his shoe on the exposed end of the upright coffin, and said, ‘You finished here?’

I nodded, and he kicked. The coffin toppled in and the sound roused O’Donnell from his coma. With a sudden, manic energy the constable began shovelling dirt back into the grave.

‘Where’s that lazy mate of yours?’ said Humphry looking around.

I crouched next to Turner. ‘What do you think?’

He snapped his bag shut. ‘I think we should reserve our judgment until we see what little nasties have been eating Mr Gard.’

The wind made for a miserable trip back, the SS
Teal
at full throttle because the captain knew our business and, I supposed was anxious to be rid of us. Humphry slept the entire trip, or pretended to, opening his eyes only to transfer himself from the launch to the police wagon.

The wagon dropped Turner and me at the Town Hall, and no sooner had our feet hit the ground than O’Donnell flicked the reins and was off, pulling so hard the vehicle
lurched dangerously in a half-circle, spraying gravel. It disappeared at a gallop, the constables anxious to get to the Shamrock with the pound Turner had slipped them. Humphry had said he’d make sure they didn’t waste it, and Turner and I were left outside the Town Hall in the twilight with the dust settling on our shoes.

There was still a small crowd of late shoppers in the street and being set down by the police was enough to get tongues wagging.

A few watched us closely, men dressed in black suits, handkerchiefs poking from the top pockets, starched collars and ties, civilisation out of context, I thought. They probably all knew who we were, but they couldn’t have guessed where we’d been or what Turner had in his bag. Still, I started to worry and hurried us inside just the same.

In his office, Turner set up his kerosene stove and started organising his autoclave. I wiped the microscope with a rag dipped in alcohol. Turner was fastidious and it took a good half-hour to have everything ready.

He removed the gland, already looking brown and dry, from the jar. He placed it on the metal tray and took a scalpel to it, smearing fluid and tissue on a slide and placed that under the lens. He twiddled a screw, adjusting the lamp, and stood back.

‘There you are, Row. Tell me what you see.’

I bent down and put my eye to the piece. ‘I’m not sure…’ I adjusted the screw.

‘You’re too close again. Take your eye back a bit.’

Then the squat oval rods were suddenly in focus.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘
Pasteurella pestis
,’ I said, but my voice was croaky. There was a cold significance, of course, in seeing the devil in a man rather than a rat. The hairs stood on the back of my neck.

Turner took a look.

‘Quite a few. They’re alive. The grave isn’t as cold as they say.’

He was excited and my next thought was that it was good news for Humphry: he’d been vindicated. But, of course, something sinister was happening. We were heading into a new world and this capering disease was coming with us. We could even see it, but it acted with indifference, as if nothing had changed since the Middle Ages.

It was already dark outside. Steam from the autoclave and boiling beakers filled the room.

‘Now. We have to sketch what we see.’ Turner had placed a pencil and paper beside the microscope and started drawing. It looked like something a child would do.

Afterwards, we cleaned everything carefully and scrubbed ourselves raw with phenol. There was so much alcohol and steam in the room I felt light-headed. The rag, the syringe, the soupy remains of the steward, all went to the incinerator out the back. Then we sent for the Mayor.