by Robert Edric
Wheeler finally drew the gathering to a close at four in the afternoon by asking if anyone else at the table wished to share anything of importance. It was a common ploy of the man, knowing that most of them would be eager to leave and make the unpredictable journeys back to where they were stationed. He also made it equally clear to them all that, having spoken himself, there remained nothing of comparable importance left to be discussed.
A few minutes later, as Reid and Lucas were leaving the hotel, Jessop came to them and said that Wheeler would like to see them both. They could do nothing except accede to this, and Jessop led them back to the same room, in which Wheeler now waited alone. Having delivered the two men to him, Jessop left.
Lucas said bluntly that, having wasted the morning waiting, they now had a train to catch.
‘Of course you do, Lieutenant Lucas,’ Wheeler said, and then, having considered Lucas’s remark and his boldness in making it, added, ‘Quite.’ He then turned his back on them, studying his reflection in the giant gilt-framed mirror that hung above the marble fireplace. ‘I merely wished to ascertain – to confirm, that is – that your work at La Chapelette was underway.’
‘And everything at Prezière finished, yes,’ Lucas said.
It was telling that Wheeler had waited until the meeting was over and everyone else had departed before asking Lucas this.
‘I took delivery of the bodies five days ago,’ Reid said.
‘And buried them?’
‘And buried them.’ Both Jessop and Guthrie would already have told Wheeler this.
‘Excellent,’ Wheeler said to Lucas. ‘Then rest assured, I shall include a commendation on your work when I next find myself answerable to my own superiors. You, too, Captain Reid.’ In the mirror, he looked from Lucas to Reid and then back again. ‘I don’t suppose …’
‘What?’ Lucas said. ‘You don’t suppose what?’
‘I was merely wondering,’ Wheeler went on hesitantly, ‘whether or not Captain Reid had seen fit to bring his latest plans of the cemetery, so that I might better consider the necessity—’
‘I didn’t,’ Reid said. ‘If you’d told me beforehand that you needed them …’ Both he and Lucas took pleasure in the man’s discomfort.
‘No,’ Wheeler said, and then, again, ‘Quite.’
‘Besides, the men are buried and the graves filled and marked,’ Lucas said. ‘What difference will seeing the plots and the names on a plan make?’
‘Of course,’ Wheeler said. ‘You’re quite right; it will make no difference whatsoever. I suppose all I wanted was to satisfy myself that everyone involved in our task here was continuing to work to the same exemplary standards to which we at the Commission have become accustomed.’
‘Quite,’ Lucas said, causing Wheeler to turn from the mirror and look directly at him.
‘I could send it to you,’ Reid suggested, before Lucas could antagonize the man further.
‘That would be most appreciated, Captain Reid,’ Wheeler said, his eyes still on Lucas, who was now considering a tray of decanters on a nearby table.
‘I’ll send it to you first thing in the morning,’ Reid said.
‘Better still, I shall send someone to Morlancourt to collect it from you. Shall we say noon? I’m sure everyone concerned will be only too relieved to see an end to the matter.’
‘Of course they will,’ Lucas said, his voice low.
Wheeler ignored the remark. ‘I’m sure you, at least, take my meaning, Captain Reid,’ he said, his slight emphasis more than making its point.
‘Of course,’ Reid said. ‘We both understand you perfectly.’ He turned to Lucas. ‘Don’t we?’
‘Perfectly,’ Lucas said eventually.
‘And Caroline Mortimer?’ Wheeler said to Reid. ‘I suppose she’s told you about her nurses finally coming. What is it, ten days now?’
‘Of course,’ Reid said. He started to tell Wheeler about the problems he was experiencing with the water along the edge of the cemetery.
Wheeler laughed as he started speaking. ‘And the Commission men in Mesopotamia complain endlessly about shifting sand. At Lone Pine – Gallipoli, you know – they complain about having only bleached bones – no actual corpses as such – to gather up and bury. Mind, that’s the colonials for you – all they ever seem to do is complain about one damn thing after another.’
There was a further silence as neither Reid nor Lucas responded to the remark as Wheeler had hoped.
‘In fact,’ Wheeler went on, ‘I was hearing only yesterday of the need for experienced supervising officers out in that particular neck of the woods.’
‘Turkey?’ Reid said.
‘And beyond. Persia, Mesopotamia, the so-called Holy Land, that sort of thing.’ The remark, and the way Wheeler now looked at him, made Reid wary.
‘Are we finally building cemeteries out there, then?’ Lucas said. It was something the Commission had long deliberated on. The families of the men killed in the Middle East campaigns did not feel the same way about their lost sons and husbands being buried there as those who had lost men in France and Belgium did.
‘We shall build them wherever honour and decency demand it of us, Lieutenant Lucas,’ Wheeler said firmly, his eyes remaining on Reid as he spoke.
‘Of course we shall,’ Lucas said.
‘We need capable men,’ Wheeler said to Reid, confirming everything Reid was starting to consider. ‘Men who understand the rigours and extent of the challenge to be undertaken. And men who can now embrace and embody the ideals in which we are clothed.’
Lucas, too, sensed what Wheeler was suggesting, and said, ‘And men with time left to serve?’ It was said solely to alert Reid, and Reid understood this.
‘Of course men with time left to serve,’ Wheeler said. ‘You can’t begin to imagine the headaches I’ve had concerning the loss of all our conscript and time-served labour.’
‘Funnily enough, I probably can,’ Lucas said. He went to the decanters and poured himself a drink.
‘You want to transfer me elsewhere?’ Reid finally said to Wheeler.
‘It was merely—’
‘Now? Before—’
‘Before what?’ Wheeler said sharply. ‘Your work at Morlancourt is almost finished, surely? Surely the place can now be handed over to others to complete the finishing touches? Tell me – how many more bodies are you actually anticipating?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Reid said absently. ‘A hundred – fewer. There’s no definite—’
Complete the finishing touches.
‘There you are, then,’ Wheeler said, as though his argument were already won.
Reid struggled to remember what remained to be done at the cemetery. The bodies coming to him now – the nurses and those retrieved from Prezière excepted – were mostly ‘prior retrievals’, gathered in from the surrounding district. The men from Prezière would in all likelihood be the last large consignment of new discoveries. It was the same in all the cemeteries, so long after the war’s end. It was why the Commission’s work on the giant monuments and the much larger national cemeteries was now of such interest to Wheeler.
‘And the remaining graves required are already plotted, at least, if not actually dug?’ Wheeler said, drawing Reid back from these thoughts.
It was why Wheeler had wanted to see the plans: so that everything might now be handed over to someone else.
‘Yes,’ Reid said. ‘More or less.’ He felt like a man being pushed in his chest, never allowed to regain his balance and to push back.
‘I often cite your work at Morlancourt to all our more recent appointees,’ Wheeler said. ‘“Go and see him,” I tell them. “Go and see Reid. Any doubts on how to proceed – go and see old Reid over at Morlancourt.”’ He smiled at the remark, at the rhyme of the words.
It was another of the man’s tactics – to confuse and divert with easy flattery.
‘And so you’ll consider my proposal?’
‘For me to leave?’ Reid could
still not fully grasp what was being asked – demanded? Ordered? – of him.
‘For you to continue your excellent work elsewhere, to share your expertise with those in sore need of it, and to give to others what you have selflessly and tirelessly given at Morlancourt, yes.’
‘Selflessly and tirelessly,’ Lucas said, returning to them with a drink in his hand.
‘Lieutenant Lucas,’ Wheeler shouted at him, his temper finally breaking, ‘I would appreciate it if – as very much behoves even a junior officer of your rank and distinction – you could keep at least some of your uncharitable thoughts to yourself. You fool no one, Lieutenant Lucas, no one. Yes, you, too, have worked selflessly and tirelessly on our behalf, I know that, we all know that. But there is only so much leeway, so much slack, that I am prepared – that I am able – to grant, even to you. I am by nature a tolerant man, Lieutenant Lucas, but I should perhaps give you notice here and now that my tolerance has its limits. Your behaviour today …’ He stopped speaking, letting the remark hang.
‘Then I apologize unreservedly,’ Lucas said eventually.
‘And mean nothing by it,’ Wheeler said calmly. ‘Captain Reid?’
‘I’ll consider it,’ Reid said.
‘That is all I ask,’ Wheeler said, finally turning away from Lucas, and afterwards ignoring him completely.
‘I still have things to do,’ Reid said.
‘Of course you do, of course. No one is suggesting that a new position be found for you tomorrow. Of course you have things to do. All I need to know is that you are agreeable to the notion. No one is suggesting that there is any true urgency in the matter. As you can well imagine, the work in these outer realms – Mesopotamia, wherever – proceeds at a considerably slower pace than it does here. No one is asking you to pack your bags tonight.’
Mesopotamia? Had Wheeler even made that much clear before?
For a moment, Reid wondered if that was exactly what Wheeler was now suggesting to him – that the transfer had already been arranged and confirmed elsewhere, as though his own acceptance of the idea of relocation was just the final stamp on a mound of otherwise completed and waiting papers, and as though this fait accompli were considerably more imminent than he could ever imagine.
‘I have Caroline Mortimer’s nurses to take care of,’ he said, the thought and words coming to him simultaneously.
‘Of course you do,’ Wheeler said. ‘And you are precisely the man for the job. Precisely the man. I daresay Mrs Mortimer herself would countenance no other. And I daresay she will be as happy and as relieved as the rest of us when the work here is done and she, too, is finally able to return home, to move on to pastures new.’
He waited for Reid to agree with him, but Reid, still absorbing everything he had just been told, remained silent.
And then, with no indication that he was about to leave, Wheeler walked briskly to where he had been sitting at the head of the table, picked up his cap and cane and case, and left the room.
‘I shall no doubt be in touch,’ he called back to Reid as he walked away along the corridor. The door to the room swung shut behind him with a solid click.
For a moment, neither Reid nor Lucas spoke.
Lucas fetched them both drinks.
‘Did I actually agree to anything?’ Reid said, still uncertain of where he now stood within the machinery of his eventual departure. He looked into the glass he held.
‘You’re off to live in the desert,’ Lucas said, emptying his own glass. ‘Like Saint Antony the Hermit.’ He held up his watch. ‘The train.’
The two men left the hotel and walked to the station.
‘You have to admire the man,’ Lucas said at one point along their short journey. ‘He does know how to set his perfect little traps.’
‘And all we know,’ Reid said, ‘is how to go on blindly wandering into them.’
‘Quite,’ Lucas said, again mimicking Wheeler. ‘Quite.’
Part Three
24
‘THEY ALL USED to complain about the chloride of lime put in the water,’ Caroline said. ‘Every single one of them. Some of the nurses used to fetch jugs from local houses to avoid spoiling the taste of the tea.’ She sipped the cup of water she held.
‘At the front it was usually the butter,’ Reid said. ‘Tinned butter. Margarine. It used to melt and then solidify over and over. By the time we opened the tins, it was usually rancid. The men used to throw it away, until it attracted vermin.’
They sat together close by the collapsed bridge over the canal, and beside a late-flowering verge which curved back towards Morlancourt.
‘The yellow is charlock,’ Caroline said, pointing. ‘And the white is wild chamomile. Some of the older nurses used to boil it up to make tea.’
‘It sounds disgusting,’ Reid said.
‘It was. Most of the patients took it, sipped it and pretended to like it, and then threw it away when the women had gone. It was more the act of kindness they appreciated than the drink itself.’
‘I was once ordered to gather up all the sheepskin fleeces in my company and then to burn them because of the fleas they harboured. They were a big thing in the winters. The Army and Navy store sent out tens of thousands of the things. The men who’d worked on the land back at home pushed them under their tunics, wool-side innermost. They were very effective.’
‘Until the fleas.’
‘It was something else you learned to live with. A lot of the men hid their fleeces and went on wearing them. I knew a man in a field survey company who stitched several of the things together to make a cumbersome jacket for himself. He ran an observation group, Royal Engineers. He used to look like a polar bear walking around. The jacket was grey within an hour, and seemed to forever steam. He even had a balaclava made of the stuff. When the order came for them to be collected and burned, he wrote to his MP, telling the man to complain to the War Office on his behalf.’
Caroline smiled. ‘Was he successful?’
‘I’m not sure. He was killed soon afterwards. He was sent out to set off some Bengal Lights to mark a new line of advance. The story that came back to us was that one of them was faulty and that it blew up in his face rather than burning steadily.’ He stopped talking. It was always difficult to prevent these seemingly insignificant tales and recollections from moving towards their abrupt and unavoidable endings. Reid drank from the flask he had with him, then offered the spirit to Caroline, which she drank diluted in her water.
‘I was watching a Charlie Chaplin film when I heard he’d been killed,’ Reid went on. ‘We were good friends. I was in Saint-Quentin. With the Sixteenth Battalion, Manchesters. I can’t even remember why I was there. Funny how some small details stay with you while others disappear completely.’
‘We showed the films in some of the hospitals,’ Caroline said. ‘“A tonic for the troops”. At the Tincourt clearing station, we projected them on to the wall of one of the wards. Everyone looked forward to them, staff and patients alike. Some of the nurses were old enough to be the mothers of the boys in their care.’
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘You’ll miss the work,’ Reid said eventually.
‘Nursing the wounded? I suppose I will. I mean, I do. Not that there aren’t … back at home, I mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘A lot of the women said the same. Out here they knew that they were doing something important, something of real value to the men under their care. A lot of them will have found it hard to settle back to their lives at home, carrying bed pans and making beds. I knew women out here who were little short of surgeons when the need demanded, especially in the field stations. I’m a dab hand at removing bullets and shrapnel from flesh wounds myself.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ Reid said. He resisted the urge to touch his own faint and waxy scars.
The water beneath them was rippled across its dark surface by the evening breeze. Dense reeds along both banks swayed slightly, and Caroline tu
rned her face back and forth in the draught of cooler air, pulling her collar from her throat. A solitary fisherman stood on the far bank and raised and lowered his pole over the unproductive water.
‘I used to sit with the dying men,’ Caroline said. ‘Some of them wanted me to be their mother, some their wives or sweethearts. All they really wanted, of course, was someone to sit and talk to them. We were told – instructed – to keep all our conversations cheerful, hopeful. “Optimistic of a good outcome” – I think that was the phrase.’
‘We were all forever hopeful of that, I suppose,’ Reid said.
‘Some of them were delirious with their infections. Some of them, I imagine, might even have believed I was their mother or sweetheart.’
‘What did you say to them?’
‘Whatever they wanted to hear. I imagine there was deceit on both sides.’
‘Not deceit,’ Reid said.
‘What else would you call it? Consideration? Compassion?’
‘Of course it was compassion,’ Reid insisted.
‘And after you’ve done it ten times, twenty, thirty?’
There was nothing Reid could say to this, and so he remained silent. He wondered how much longer the need for all this story-telling, this tying-up of loose, unravelled ends, this release of long-twisted tensions would last. Until they were all returned home? Until a decade had passed? Until another war was started somewhere else? Until the last man and woman of this one had died and been buried and then forgotten?
‘I imagine we mean the same thing, whatever words we use,’ Caroline said.
‘I suppose so.’
‘We used to find those French instructions in the men’s pockets,’ she said. ‘“Je suis,” and then their names and outfits, followed by …’
‘“En cas d’accident m’apportez au …”’
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘We used to joke with them that there seemed to be an awful lot of “accidents” happening out there and that they really ought to be more careful. The funny thing is, most of them used to ask us constantly when they would be well enough to return to their friends back where all these accidents were happening. Their officers used to come to visit them, especially in the forward field stations, and all some of the wounded ever talked about was being back at the Front and doing their “bit”. Even the ones who’d already been told they’d be going home when they were well enough to travel.’
