Field Service (2 page)

Reid started to give his orders to the gathering men, and as he spoke he saw the door of the rear carriage swing open and two women climb awkwardly down on to the platform. Both wore hats and long coats, and both carried cases, which they dropped to the ground and then dragged into the shade of the nearby wall.

AN HOUR LATER
, Reid returned alone to stand at the far end of the platform and watch the small train depart. Usually, he was joined by Benoît, but on this occasion the man was absent, having been called into his office. Reid knew that whatever detained him was unavoidable; otherwise he would have been alongside him now to observe the last of their small rituals.

There was no sign of the two women or their cases. Reid had sent word to them explaining that he was unable to attend to them during this one vital hour, and that he would search them out later, when the train had gone, its cargo unloaded and his work at the nearby cemetery underway.

There were a dozen or so rebuilt lodging houses and cafés in the small town, and so finding the two newcomers would not be difficult. All he knew from Wheeler's note was that they had the man's permission to be there. But Reid had little time now to consider what they might expect of him as his day's work began.

The train waited, dripping scalding water, and the driver and Ernaux looked down at Reid where he stood and watched them go. Fifty yards further up the line the signal was still lowered, preventing the engine from leaving the station. There was considerably less urgency attached to this part of the day's timings compared to the train's arrival. The traffic beyond Amiens and Saint-Quentin increased almost daily, especially now that the good weather had arrived and the work of either repairing or dismantling the lines could proceed at a faster pace.

There might soon come a time, it occurred to Reid – and certainly when the cemetery and all those others closer to the river were finally completed and filled – when the branch line to Morlancourt would serve no true purpose and so be closed. And if this happened, he knew how swiftly the station and all its halts and boxes would be abandoned and then fall into disrepair. Benoît and his assistants would be forced either to move elsewhere or – and this was considerably more likely – would lose their jobs completely.

‘Are you delayed?' he called up to Ernaux, who took the pipe from his mouth and shrugged.

‘Talk of a new bridge across the Sailly road,' he said. ‘They're moving the materials. Yesterday, the line beyond Dornacourt was closed for six hours to allow for “priority traffic”.' He gave the phrase its telling note.

‘English?' Reid asked him.

‘That's what we heard.'

Reid tried to imagine where on the reconfigured network of tracks the new bridge was going to be built, and then how it might affect his own work.

The driver said something to Ernaux, who listened intently and then shook his head. He tapped his pipe against the open side of the cab.

‘He says we're being delayed because the bastards at Sailly are deliberately holding up the signals while the track-layers negotiate for better wages,' Ernaux said.

‘It's a possibility,' Reid said diplomatically. He guessed that somewhere, perhaps as far away as Arras or Lille, another line was in more urgent use than their own, and that countless others would also be standing and waiting as they now stood and waited – some frustrated by their unknown delay, but most, he guessed, uncaring and uncomplaining and content simply to wait in the warmth.

A further ten minutes passed like this until a note down the solitary signal wire indicated that somewhere a lever had been thrown and that the tracks and their traffic were moving again.

‘At last,' Ernaux called down to him. ‘We shall no doubt see you tomorrow.'

‘No doubt,' Reid called back, relieved to return to his work.

‘Unless we return to Amiens to discover that the good earth has finally given up the last of its poor treasures and that our Herculean task here is finished.' It was something Ernaux often said, and Reid always regretted hearing it, largely because the guard expected him to say something equally melodramatic in reply. Once, shortly after his arrival in Morlancourt, Reid had made a remark about the good earth waiting to
receive
the train's cargo, but even as he'd said it he wished he'd remained silent. Afterwards, he had endured Ernaux's comments largely in silence or with a simple nod.

The signal finally rattled on its hinge, and beside Ernaux the driver spun his wheel and pulled out his levers. The engine started to move, screeching as it gained traction and then drew slowly away from the platform.

Reid raised his hand to the two men. ‘Until tomorrow,' he called to them.

‘Until then,' Ernaux called back.

The engine moved backwards along the track, its empty carriages rattling over the rails.

Reid stood and watched as it began its turn through the gentle curve of the old brickworks cutting and was finally lost to sight.

Leaving the platform, he went first to retrieve his satchel and then to seek out Benoît.

The small office was empty. A kettle sat steaming on the stove, and Reid pushed this to one side. He called for Benoît, but received no answer.

Leaving the building, he returned to where he had watched the gathering men, and saw that though some were still sitting around on the grass, the majority of them had already gone into the larger of the two goods sheds, where the cargo and their day's work awaited them.

Nothing would begin until Reid arrived and gave his instructions, and until his dockets and the coffins and their contents had been tallied. After that, he would direct the men in their work, and within the hour the shed would be cleared. The men who had been working there for some time would explain everything in further detail to the newcomers among them.

Entering the dim and cavernous space, Reid sensed immediately that something was wrong. The men, rather than wandering among the coffins and boxes and calling to each other of the regiments and units they recognized, were all still gathered together at one end of the building.

Several of them were shouting at each other. Jackets and caps lay on the ground and over the cases where they had been thrown.

Reid called for Drake, his sergeant, and was relieved to hear the man's immediate reply. Everyone turned to look in Reid's direction, and most fell silent at seeing him. He went to them, again calling for Drake.

Drake pushed roughly through the small crowd and presented himself to Reid. Neither man saluted.

‘What's wrong?' Reid said.

‘The usual,' Drake said. He fastened the buttons on his tunic as he spoke. ‘Nothing another few minutes wouldn't have seen sorted out.'

‘And by “the usual” you mean …?'

‘I mean some smart alec who insists he should be back at home and sipping tea from a cup and saucer rather than still being stuck out here humping corpses and digging graves all day.'

Reid considered his response to this common complaint. Drake might have recently signed on for another seven years, but most of the men now allocated to the Commission were peacetime enlisters, none of whom had seen Active Service. And it was always these men – the men who, as Reid saw it, had the least connection and commitment to the work at hand – who complained the loudest.

‘No one is here who has not been rightfully sent here,' he said, shouting, and hearing the distorted echo of his words in the roof high above him. Narrow shafts of sunlight fell to the bare ground through the holes where lost tiles had not been replaced.

Beside Reid, Drake turned to face the surrounding men. ‘Hear that?' he shouted. ‘And that's an actual officer speaking. You might not want to listen to
me
, but you'll do yourselves no favours by ignoring
him
.' He turned to Reid and smiled.

Rather than prolong this encounter, Reid lowered his voice and said, ‘Is it anything – anyone – in particular?'

‘Bloody newcomers,' Drake said. ‘The usual toy soldiers getting their hands dirty for the first time.'

There was some laughter at this. The men in the shed ranged in age from recently delivered nineteen-year-olds to those like the thirty-year-old Drake who had been out there for the past six years. Reid had long since ceased trying to understand how some of these men had found their way to him via the Commission while others were sent out and then called back home without ever leaving their coastal barracks. He wondered if another of his speeches was required, but decided against this. Drake, as usual, was the key to the situation, and he knew from experience that any matter of discipline or discord was best left to the blunt instrument of the sergeant.

‘Would anybody like to add anything?' Drake shouted after a long silence. ‘Anybody else want to come crying and telling tales to Captain Reid here?'

No one answered him. He was their sergeant. No one ever answered him.

‘Good. Because he's a busy man. You want him to shed tears over you when he's got all these other poor mothers' poor bloody sons to take care of?' He waved his arms at the building around them. Every word he shouted came back in that same distorted echo. The mounded coffins and cases lay like a barricade across the open doorway.

‘Is that all?' Reid asked him.

‘For now,' Drake said. ‘If you've got the Registration stuff then we can get started.'

‘Of course,' Reid said, and pulled the papers from his case.

Around him, the men slowly dispersed and started their day's work.

REID ENCOUNTERED THE
two women later that same day. It was early evening, and he was walking along the track between his lodgings and the small wood at Depot Meadow when they appeared ahead of him, rising from the broken line of the embankment and coming directly towards him.

The younger of the two saw him first and stopped walking, reaching out to hold the arm of her companion. It was clear to Reid that his sudden appearance had alarmed her for some reason, and he paused and raised his hand to them, hoping that they might recognize him from earlier.

Having received a wave of acknowledgement from the older woman, Reid continued to where they now stood and awaited him.

‘I'm Captain Reid – James,' he said.

The younger woman nodded.

‘We were hoping to see you,' the older one said. She held out her hand to him.

Reid guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, perhaps five years older than himself.

‘I'm Caroline Mortimer.' She waited for her companion to speak, but the woman said nothing. ‘And this is Mary Ellsworth.' She motioned for Mary to hold out her own hand to Reid, which she eventually did, drawing it back after the briefest touch.

‘Captain Jessop said we should seek you out,' Caroline said. She repeated ‘
Seek
' and smiled. ‘I imagine you're a very busy man.'

Roger Jessop was Wheeler's senior aide.

Reid was about to answer her when Mary Ellsworth leaned close and whispered to her companion. After this, the younger woman detached herself and continued walking alone along the path towards Morlancourt.

Neither Reid nor Caroline Mortimer spoke as she went, and only when Mary was beyond their hearing did Caroline say, ‘Her grief, her distress, remains a great burden to her. Even after all this time.'

It seemed a convoluted thing to say, but Reid made his simple guesses and understood what she was telling him.

Caroline then took out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Reid, which he accepted.

‘She's here searching for the grave of someone she lost,' Reid said.

‘Her fiancé. She's on an excursion ticket. I only met her yesterday, in Amiens. It was Captain Jessop who suggested we travel here together. I've been in communication with him and Colonel Wheeler for some time concerning my own arrival here.'

‘I see,' Reid said. Neither Wheeler nor Jessop had mentioned this to him. ‘I can show her the Registration lists,' he said. ‘Let her try to locate where her fiancé might be buried or destined.' He had done the same for others over the past months. ‘Has his body been recovered and properly identified?'

‘Missing,' Caroline said. ‘Three years, apparently.'

‘I see.' He looked along the path to the distant figure. ‘Then she's likely to be disappointed.'

Seven out of ten of all the corpses currently being recovered and buried remained unidentified. It was a common average at all the cemeteries in the district. If the man had come from a field hospital or clearing station, then his identity would be known. Otherwise, everything would depend on the work of the Graves Registration units working locally.

‘I know that,' Caroline said. ‘Colonel Wheeler could hardly wait to see the back of the pair of us. She arrived in Amiens with a party of three dozen others, most of whom were going on to the cemeteries at Bray and Suzanne. Only Mary insisted on coming here. She'd heard from one of her fiancé's friends that he'd been killed close to Ville sur Ancre and that he would most likely be buried there or here.'

‘If he was found,' Reid said absently.

There was a small communal cemetery at Ville, and two others already starting to take shape closer to Morlancourt itself. It was just as likely that Mary Ellsworth's fiancé –
if
his corpse had been both recovered and identified – would be buried in one of those places.

‘It's seldom so straightforward,' Reid said. The smoke from their cigarettes formed a small cloud beside them, hardly moving in the still evening air.

‘I understand that,' Caroline said. ‘But she needs to do something, to see
something
of where he was lost to her.'

‘Of course.' It was why most of the women and families came, and the best many of them could hope to achieve. For some it was everything; for others it at least satisfied the most urgent and painful of their needs.