The Rest is Silence (Billy Boyle World War II Mystery) (26 page)

After five minutes running at full throttle, Raffel eased up and checked with his Machinist’s Mate. The new engine was holding up fine. We proceeded at a slightly slower pace, but fast enough that we still had to hold on as we crested each wave and drove on to the next.

“Port bow,” one of the gunners yelled, and Raffel eased the boat into a turn. There were two Royal Navy corvettes about half a mile out, close in to each other. As we came nearer, I could make out nets in the water, as if they were after fish. But the nets weren’t filled with fish. There were bodies caught up in the netting, most with packs on
their backs and many with rifles still slung over their shoulders. It was a gruesome tangle of the drowned and the devastated, some missing limbs, protruding bones stark white amidst the soaked khaki green.

“Keep going,” I said. Raffel turned the boat away, his engine muffled as if the sound might disturb the dead. “What I’m looking for is where the tides might bring the bodies. What do you think?”

“Tide’s coming in along the southwest coast,” Raffel said. “So this is about right. They would have drifted in from the site of the attack, which is about twelve miles out.”

“Okay, let’s head along the line the tide would take them,” I said. I turned, noticing Big Mike’s eyes still fixed on the men in the nets, even as our boat picked up speed and left them behind. I hoped we wouldn’t run into any more of that.

We spotted other small craft moving slowly, looking for bodies, some close to shore, maybe watching for corpses on the beach. Others were farther out, and I wondered whether there was a chance of finding a survivor in a raft or on a piece of wreckage. And whether the Germans might come looking too. An hour passed, maybe more. It was like a day out fishing, when you head to where the other boats are in hopes of a good catch, but they disperse before you get there. I was about to suggest we head back when Raffel pointed ahead of us, beckoning me to come up on the bridge.

“Look,” he said, his hand outstretched to one o’clock off the starboard bow. “What’s that?”

“A debris field?” I guessed. He looked through his binoculars as I tried to focus on what lay ahead. Small specks floated on the water, maybe a hundred or more, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of what I was seeing.

“Oh my God,” Raffel said, handing me the binoculars. As soon as they came into focus, I saw. Boots. Toes and heels floating along, the tide taking them home. I counted, giving up when I hit fifty, and there were more coming in on the current.

Raffel eased up on the throttle as we drew close, and a crewman reached out with a gaff and pulled a body in. GI boots clunked against the hull as he tried to right the dead weight. The guy had his full pack
on, and had put his lifebelt around his waist. With all the top-heavy weight, the lifebelt had turned him upside down as soon as he inflated it with the CO2. It was the same with all of them. They’d gone into the water with all their gear on, even helmets. With field packs on, there’d been no room to put on the lifebelts properly, even if they’d known how to. If Yogi hadn’t told me, I would have put mine around my waist, no questions asked. And I wasn’t wearing a helmet and a full pack, with an M1 and ammo belt slung over my shoulder. These guys hadn’t stood a chance.

“What do we do, Skipper?” the crewman asked as he pushed the body away from the boat. There were simply too many for us. It was too overwhelming, too awful, too unbelievable.

“We call it in,” Raffel said. “And stay on station until they get here.” He got on the radio and requested assistance. He cut the engine and we waited, drifting with the tide, bodies keeping pace with us as the Channel pulled them in, ever closer to the shore, a pathetic parade of the dead. The rest was silence.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I
T WAS DARK
by the time we made it to Greenway House, well past seven o’clock. Raffel had stayed with the bodies, like a shepherd with his wayward sheep, until a destroyer escort and a tug from Dartmouth had relieved him. We left as they lowered nets, searchlights playing over the grisly scene. The GIs must have gone in the water together off one of the stricken LSTs. In the dark, with machine guns firing and explosions all around, they must have thought it was safest to jump overboard with a lifebelt on. But the water was cold, and the shock was probably instantaneous and disorienting as the inflated belts pushed them underwater. Cold, shock, panic, fear, death. A quick death, I prayed. It had been a slow ride back to Dartmouth as the crew played searchlights on the water, looking for more bodies, dreading finding them.

The guard at the door told us Harding was back in the kitchen with a Polish officer and a bobby. As we walked through the house, I kept my eye out for Peter Wiley, but he wasn’t to be seen. Nor was anyone else, for that matter; our footsteps echoed through empty halls. The flotilla must have put to sea. I followed the smell of coffee until I found the three of them seated at a long trestle table. It was a large room, white tiled and cheerful, brightly lit with a double stove of blue enamel. A nice place to have a meal, if the day had left me with an appetite.

“How’d you do?” Harding asked as we entered, tapping the ash from his cigarette and sipping his coffee.

“We didn’t identify anyone yet,” I said. “But I can report the navy is working hard at recovering bodies.”

“They’re using nets, like trawlers,” Big Mike said, sitting himself down at the table. There was a plate of Spam sandwiches at the center, but he didn’t make a move for them. Harding poured coffee for us both and set a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey on the table.

“We found maybe seventy or eighty GIs,” I said. “All floating upside down.” I poured equal parts coffee and whiskey for myself.

“Lifebelts worn improperly,” Kaz said. “We have been hearing the same thing all day. No one instructed the soldiers on the LSTs how to use them, or what procedures to follow if torpedoed.”

“No one expected it,” Tom Quick said, his hands cupped around his coffee as he stared into it. “You never do.”

“Expected what?” Big Mike said.

“To have to bail out. Jump into the darkness, whether it’s over Germany or in the Channel. That’s what happens to the other chaps, not you. It’s what I always thought. I’m sure Freddie felt the same way before he bought it. Maybe some men know they’re going to die, but I think we really can’t imagine it until the last second. Those soldiers, going into the water with all that gear on. They didn’t expect it.” Tom’s eyes didn’t move from his cup. “It’s worse than you’re letting on, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “No need to answer. I don’t want to know the details.” Silence settled over us as Harding gave a small shrug. No reason to deny what was plain as day.

“We did have some luck, if you can call it that,” Kaz said. “We found the one noncommissioned officer at the first stop. His body, that is. Sergeant Frank Thompson. Which makes it easier, since we don’t have to search through all the enlisted men.”

“Anyone else?” I asked.

“Yes, a Major Ernest Anderson,” Kaz said, checking his clipboard. “That leaves seven.”

“Four lieutenants, two captains, and one colonel,” Harding said. “They’ll probably be bringing in bodies all night. Make the rounds first thing and report back here.” He reached for a sandwich and bit into it, chewing mechanically as he stared at the list of names. Big
Mike seemed to finally take notice of the food and joined in, a bit more enthusiastically.

“Better than bully beef,” Tom said, taking a healthy bite and pouring himself another whiskey. “Hardly edible, but better.” We all laughed, not that it was so funny, but because we were alive and could. We ate and drank. I didn’t drink so much that I couldn’t drive, only enough to take the edge off the day. Turned out it was a damned sharp edge that didn’t dull easily with fortified coffee.

“When you see him,” Harding finally said, forgoing coffee for straight whiskey, “tell Peter Wiley to get his butt back here. He wasn’t missed today with all the commotion, but he’s AWOL at this point.”

“I heard he’d left Ashcroft,” I said, turning to Kaz. “Yesterday, right?”

“Yes. Early in the morning. He left an unfinished painting, so perhaps he returned to Ashcroft while we were all busy today, thinking he would not be noticed.”

“Maybe he’s snuck back in already,” I said. “Let’s check his quarters before we hit the road.”

Harding showed us Wiley’s room upstairs. It had a fine view across the lawns and down to the River Dart. The bed was made, and there was no sign of the bag and paints Wiley had brought to Ashcroft.

“His office?” I said to Harding.

“No, I checked. It’s off limits for security reasons. But I saw nothing missing or unusual. Look around back at Ashcroft. Maybe he wanted to finish that painting. These Coasties are liable to let things slide if a guy’s doing his job. Wiley usually works day and night, so the captain may have turned a blind eye.”

“They’re all out?” I asked.

“More maneuvers and practice landings,” Harding said. “One disaster doesn’t stop the war.”

“If it did, the war would have been over long ago,” Tom Quick said. “Let’s go.” He tapped his hand repeatedly against his leg as we walked outside.

“Your constable pal seems kinda jumpy,” Big Mike said on the ride back. He was driving slowly, the only illumination seeping out of the
slit in the taped headlights. Blackout driving was dangerous, especially for pedestrians.

“He is,” I said. “He did thirty missions in a Lancaster.”

“That would make God Almighty jumpy,” Big Mike said. I filled him in on what Tom Quick had been through, losing his family, his friend, and very nearly his grip on reality.

“He used to be a cop, too,” I said, after reviewing what had happened at the racetrack.

“Is that why he’s one of those Reserve guys? They don’t trust him back on the force?”

“Inspector Grange trusts him enough to give him that job,” I said. “But he might not be able to swing the real thing once the war’s over. Sometimes he can drift off. Lose himself when things get difficult.”

“Plenty of times I wish I could do that,” Big Mike said. “He seems like a decent guy. Hope he’s going to be okay. But it’s gotta be hard, losing your wife and kids and then going out to bomb other women and children. What’s the difference, you gotta ask yourself? Some days I wonder how any of us will get through this war with our heads screwed on straight.” He went a little faster over the bridge at Totnes, the moonlight reflecting off the moving water, running high; the tide must have been coming in. Less than a week and I was already a nautical expert. Big Mike slowed as a trio of GIs staggered across the road, their linked arms the only thing keeping them vertical.

“Must be past closing time. Turn left here,” I said, pointing to a narrow country lane that led to the village of Bow, where Bow Creek got its name. Or the other way around. Tree branches shrouded the road, cutting off what light the moon gave.

“What’s up with this Lieutenant Wiley you guys are talking about?” Big Mike asked as he ducked a particularly low hanging limb.

“Navy. Some kind of map-maker, from the little he says about his work. Harding knows, but of course he won’t tell. He showed up at Ashcroft House, asking to visit and set up his easel since his mother had worked there before she went to America.” I told Big Mike about Sir Rupert’s request and the few facts I’d had time to ferret out.

“So what are you going to do now that the old guy’s dead?” Big Mike asked.

“I still have to look into it,” I said. “What if Wiley stands to inherit the place?”

“He won’t be very popular, that’s for sure,” he said. “From the little I’ve seen, that dame Meredith likes running the show. Her old man’s bastard son might be in for a rough welcome.”

Big Mike was right about that. An unexpected relation from the wrong side of the sheets would be the last person Sir Rupert’s daughters would want showing up at the funeral. And I had an uneasy feeling about Sir Rupert’s hasty visit to his solicitor the day before he died. If there were a legal document acknowledging Peter Wiley as his illegitimate son, it would throw a monkey wrench into the works for all concerned. But had Sir Rupert actually changed his will? Maybe, or perhaps there was other family business he rushed off to see his solicitor about hours before he died.

Whatever he’d done, it was time I had a talk with Peter Wiley. The more I mulled it over, the surer I was that he deserved to know the truth, or at least what Sir Rupert had suspected the truth to be. Maybe he wouldn’t care about an inheritance.

We pulled into the Ashcroft House drive, with Kaz not far behind after he dropped Constable Quick off at his lodgings. I looked at the stone house on the hill, stars twinkling above the darkened structure. Who in their right mind would walk away from a piece of this action? I needed to talk to Wiley.

Inside, the wireless was on in the library, and we stopped in to see who was still up. Edgar and Crawford sat side by side, their heads bent close in hushed conversation. As Big Mike and I entered the room, they broke apart, relaxing back in their seats as if they were intent on listening to the symphony.

“Good evening,” I said. “Crawford, this is Sergeant Mike Miecznikowski. I don’t think you were introduced earlier.”

“Big Mike to my friends,” he said, extending his hand to Crawford.

“I don’t have Yank friends,” Crawford said, ignoring the proffered handshake.

“Or manners,” Big Mike said. He moved in even closer, his big mitt still outstretched.

“Oh, all right,” Crawford said, standing up and taking Big Mike’s hand, then sitting down again, shaking his head as if it had been a mere misunderstanding. “Been a long day, nothing personal meant by it. Sounds like the American navy took a thrashing last night. How’d you get on looking for those fellas?”

“Pretty well,” I said, not interested in going into details. “And from what I heard, it was the Royal Navy that had escort duties, by the way.”

“Well, no excuse for letting the Jerries in,” Crawford said. “I didn’t mean to blame anyone, you know. I only heard from my cousin about American ships being hit. He saw the sky light up all the way from his battery at Salcombe.”