Field Service (7 page)

‘Apparently, we're going to retrieve between thirty and forty corpses that were laid out with all their insignia intact
inside
a barn, which afterwards collapsed on top of them and hid them from sight for two years.' His scepticism was clear.

‘A makeshift morgue, then?' Reid said.

‘Possibly. Our most reliable witness – the farmer who owns the barn, which had been a fodder store on the edge of his land – said that he only returned there in May of this year to find the building with its roof and upper walls caved in. There was no other significant damage around the place and so he left it alone and got on with what needed doing elsewhere on his property. We know the Ninth and Fifth Manchesters and the Second Lancashire Fusiliers retreated over the land sometime during that last Easter, and that the Germans followed them and often overtook them as far west as Albert.'

‘So do you believe the bodies were gathered up afterwards and laid there by the Germans?'

‘Unlikely. They were making five or six miles' progress each day by then and stopping for nothing. There was a sizeable depot at Combles and they were keen to get to it before it was destroyed. We've learned most of this from our own records and other eye-witness accounts.'

‘What, then?'

Lucas sat in silence for a moment before answering. ‘Wheeler believes we're retrieving the bodies of men who were taken prisoner and who found themselves rounded up into the building.'

‘And who were then killed there—'

‘By “means unknown”, yes.' Lucas rolled up his map.

Only then did it fully occur to Reid what Lucas was suggesting to him. ‘Surely, you don't believe …' he began to say.

‘According to the farmer – the man's supposedly waiting for us there now – the few corpses he was able to make out beneath the rubble appeared to have been badly burned, scorched black.'

‘Scorched?'

‘That was the word he used. It's not usually what happens to bodies, however the men were killed.'

‘Perhaps the building caught fire and that was why it collapsed in on the men,' Reid said.

‘The farmer says the collapsed joists and other timbers and tiles show no signs whatsoever of the same fire.'

Neither man spoke for a moment. It seemed to Reid that all further speculation about how the men had died two years earlier was pointless.

‘Will the bodies be sent here, do you think?' he said eventually.

Lucas nodded. ‘They were originally docketed for Hargicourt, but Wheeler believes it's best all round if they now come here, and as soon and directly as possible.'

‘I doubt—'

‘He wants me to retrieve them, identify them – which shouldn't be too difficult – and then make the arrangements to deliver them directly to you, rather than to one of the sorting depots. He's already got Jessop working on the paperwork. Once I've started work at Prezière, and we all get a clearer picture of what did or didn't happen there, then Wheeler will set everything in motion at his end. He insists it's all for the best, and to be honest, I tend to agree with him.'

‘Even if what you uncover points to …?'

‘Yes.'

‘I see,' Reid said. It was the first time bodies would have come to Morlancourt like this. ‘Does Wheeler want
me
to do anything?'

‘“Let expediency be our watchword.” All Wheeler wants is for you and me to make everything run as smoothly as possible for him. I doubt it's anything more or less than we do already.'

‘Even if you do find evidence of the deliberate killing of prisoners?'

Lucas smiled at this. ‘I said exactly the same to him. He looked as though he was going to explode.'

‘He surely can't want everything to be ignored or dismissed without at least—'

‘Can't he? Besides, like I said – he may have a point. What good would stirring everything up and causing the men's families all that doubt and anguish serve? Who among them wouldn't far rather just know that their loved one had finally been found and then buried here? You can see his point, surely? Besides, he as good as told me that if
I
couldn't deal with all of this quickly and quietly, there were plenty of others he could call on to do the work for him. He also hinted that a great deal of what
he
wanted had been sanctioned by others higher up.'

‘In the Commission? The War Office?'

Lucas shrugged.

They sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the noise of the men outside unloading the train's cargo.

‘Wheeler will need to provide me with all the necessary paperwork,' Reid said eventually.

‘Jessop's got everything in hand. We have the names of all the men in the Manchesters and Lancashires who answered the last roll-call before the Germans came running across the fields at Prezière. At least now twenty to thirty wives and mothers will have their uncertainty ended and their minds put to rest.'

‘But only because you'll keep the truth from them and tell them what they want to hear,' Reid said, immediately wishing he'd stayed silent.

‘Of course I'll tell them what they want to hear,' Lucas shouted at him. ‘Just as I'll tell Wheeler what
he
wants to hear. And just as
you
'll tell them all where to come and lay their flowers, where to come to kneel and to cry and to remember their heroic son or husband or brother killed in a painless instant while gallantly fighting for his friends and king and country.'

Reid was accustomed to hearing these unguarded remarks from Lucas, but seldom had he heard the man express himself so vehemently or within the hearing of others.

They were distracted briefly by the rising noise of approaching lorries.

‘Your transport,' Reid said. He watched as Lucas clasped his hands together and then released them. ‘How long will it take you?' he asked him.

‘Wheeler's given us a week. As I say, identification should be straightforward, and that's what usually takes up most of our time.'

‘Even if the bodies are badly burned?'

Lucas bowed his head and held his face in his cupped palms. ‘Sorry about that,' he said.

Reid waved away the apology.

‘Wheeler's opening gambit was to give us three days.'

‘Could it be done in that time?'

‘Probably. I told him we needed ten and we settled on a week.'

‘Because he knew what he was asking of you and was in no position to argue?'

‘Something like that. However long it takes, he wants the first of my paperwork with you by the end of the week. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish. He wants the first of the bodies delivered to you on your smoky little train by this time next week.'

‘I'll allocate the plots as soon as I get the names,' Reid said.

‘I'm sure he'd appreciate that. He even suggested to me that the three of us should get together for dinner one night. A pat on the back for all our hard work under such trying circumstances. He's probably already preparing a little speech.'

They were interrupted by a knock on the open door, and Drake appeared. A man in a full, clean uniform stood beside him.

‘Ah,' Lucas said.

The man came forward and Reid saw the clerical collar beneath his tunic.

‘The padre was looking for Lieutenant Lucas,' Drake said.

‘Chaplain Guthrie,' Lucas called to the man. ‘Come and meet your parish gravediggers.'

The man looked unhappy at the remark. ‘Captain Reid,' he said to Reid, holding out his hand and pointedly ignoring Alexander Lucas. ‘I believe your charges await you.' He motioned outside.

‘My charges?'

‘He means your bodies,' Lucas said.

‘Of course,' Reid said. He rose and shook the chaplain's hand.

‘I was about to tell you,' Lucas said, unable to hide the amusement in his voice. ‘The Commission has recently felt the need for – what? – shall we call it a greater degree of spiritual rigour and religious guidance in all its affairs and efforts.'

The chaplain looked over Reid's shoulder to where Lucas still sat behind him. ‘As much as I appreciate your candour and your somewhat unnecessary introduction, Lieutenant Lucas, I am here, as we all surely are, to serve the greater good and to—'

‘Ah, that again,' Lucas said.

Guthrie turned back to Reid. ‘Jonathan Montague Symes Guthrie,' he said. ‘Chaplain to the Royal West Surreys, and latterly – as Lieutenant Lucas has already somewhat clumsily suggested – adviser on spiritual matters to the Imperial Commission.'

‘Are you here to assist at Prezière?' Reid said.

‘And much more,' Guthrie said, smiling.

‘
Much
more,' Lucas said softly, and Reid heard the warning in the words.

Meaning what? That the man had been directed by Wheeler to watch over and report on what now happened at Morlancourt?

Lucas rose from where he sat and began to gather up his possessions.

Outside, a horn sounded, followed by shouting from the gathered men.

‘Captain Lucas's lorries are here,' Drake said. ‘And a motor car.'

‘My sturdy chariot,' Lucas said, going out on to the platform. ‘Now all I need are my bow of burnished gold and my arrows of desire.'

Guthrie shook his head at the words. ‘He displays his heathen's credentials and appetites like other men wear their medals and ribbons,' he said.

‘I know,' Reid said, doing his best not to smile.

Guthrie followed Alexander Lucas out towards the lorries.

Reid went to the doorway. At the edge of the station yard, Lucas was already standing in the passenger seat of the car and looking down at everything around him. He called out instructions and his men immediately started loading their own scattered equipment.

REID SPENT THE
remainder of the day in the cemetery. Work continued on channelling the small stream and keeping its water away from the recently excavated graves. He had argued against deepening the culvert, but Wheeler had insisted on this. It seemed to Reid that all it had achieved was to increase the flow of water in its new course. He made a note in his log to request a visit from one of the Commission's supervising engineers the next time he met with Wheeler. Meanwhile, he calculated which of the short lines of graves on the cemetery's higher land might now be excavated without delay in readiness for the bodies Alexander Lucas would soon deliver to him.

At mid-morning he blew his whistle to signal a break. The men immediately stopped what they were doing and congregated on the few patches of long grass. They ate and drank and smoked. Most sat in small groups, and a few of the younger ones kicked a ball back and forth. Reid wanted to tell them to rest after their labours, to save their strength for what was left of the day ahead, but he had long since learned to say nothing. He would allow them half an hour in that heat, and except for the few men who now approached him with questions or who came to him for fresh instructions, he remained apart from them.

He sat against a tree at the edge of the small copse overlooking the slope and brought his log of works up to date. Some of the men, he saw, still carried the pieces of oil cloth they had used to sit on during Active Service. The material, in addition to keeping their backsides dry, was widely considered a preventative against piles. Reid himself had once organized the distribution of such pieces from the factory in Bapaume, when the mayor and his aldermen there had made a ceremony of handing over the damaged rolls. The factory itself had lost its roof and most of its walls and had soon afterwards been abandoned and fallen into ruin.

He was close to finishing the log when someone called to him and he shielded his eyes to look around him. The voice had come from behind him, somewhere in the trees, and the sound of someone coming through the undergrowth caused Reid to rise and turn. The voice called again, and this time Reid recognized Jonathan Guthrie. He called back, and a moment later the chaplain appeared amid the thin trunks. There was someone following him, and Reid watched as Caroline Mortimer was finally revealed. She came along the same narrow path a few paces behind the man.

‘We heard your whistle,' Guthrie said, emerging into the open. ‘I must say, I doubt I shall ever hear the same thing again without the sound sending a chill up my spine.'

‘No,' Reid said. At the beginning of the work on the cemetery, he had rung a small bell, but the sound of this had not carried, and the newly arrived workers had complained about every minute lost to them.

‘We met on the far side of the hill,' Guthrie said. ‘Caroline was explaining her own duties here.'

‘Duties?' Reid said.

‘To her fallen nurses,' Guthrie said.

‘Of course.' It surprised Reid to hear the man, only so recently arrived, call her by her Christian name.

‘I was showing Reverend Guthrie the view towards the river,' Caroline said. ‘When the land beyond the canal is restored and planted again, it should provide a beautiful setting for your cemetery.'

‘I suppose so,' Reid said.

It was something he had not considered. It had always surprised him to see how swiftly the farmers had reclaimed and then planted their land as the fighting had come and gone around them. Even when the local population had been forcibly evacuated
en masse
, they had invariably returned at the first opportunity to resume their work, despite all the warnings to wait until the land was made safe again.

‘They do a pretty good job,' Guthrie said. ‘At Aubigny they filled in the most enormous craters and were ploughing over the old trenches and picket lines within days of our departure. I daresay we shall be wondering where everything went before we know it.' He looked around him at the scattered men. ‘Should they not be working?' he said.

Reid heard the note of disapproval in his voice. ‘On a break,' he told him.