by Tim Atkinson
‘I don’t understand.’ Fuller shakes his head.
‘Reduces the chance of being hit, doesn’t it?’ Ocker says, turning and propping one arm against the outside wall of the hut.
‘Really?’ Fuller’s eyes widen. ‘How?’
‘Minimise the target area from both angles,’ Ocker says without opening his eyes.
‘You bloody daft bugger.’ Jack swats at Fuller with his cap.
‘What? What’s so funny?’
‘No one’s firing at him any longer, are they?’ Jack says, recovering. ‘He’s safe now, isn’t he? T’bloody war’s over!’
‘Is that a fact?’ Ocker, the only one not to have been laughing, opens his eyes. ‘You think so, do you, Jacko?’
‘Yeah, Jack’s right, in’t he? Course it is. No one’s firing at you no longer, Ocker, are they? No one’s sending no more shells over!’
‘Maybe not,’ says Ocker, winking. ‘But how do we know they’ll not kick off again when it suits them, eh? They don’t think they’ve lost this fixture, after all.’
‘They don’t?’
‘No, mate, they don’t. And they’ll be back, just wait and see. They’ll be back before much longer. And there’ll be a whole lot more holes in the ground for some other poor buggers like us to dig before it’s finally over.’
War Diary or Intelligence Summary:
Army form C. 2118
1920
DIVISION MAIN DRESSING STATION—Remy Siding Map Sheet 28; Grid reference: L.22 d.6.3
November 1st – Battalion parade under R.S.M. Remainder of day spent cleaning equipment. C.O. inspection of billets.
November 2nd – Clothing parade held in presence of Orderly Officer. Lt. J.K. ADAMS D.S.O. proceeded on short leave to Lille.
November 3rd – Inspection of billets. 2/Lt. INGHAM and 1st Labour Coy resume battlefield searches N. 36.a., M.35b.
November 4th – Fatigue party under Captain A.J. HARRIS and 2/Lt. O.R. DENNIS proceeded by motor lorry to Rosnay for purpose of securing wood for fuel. Lt. J.K. ADAMS D.S.O. returned from leave.
November 5th – Secret orders received from Brig-Gen. L.J. WYATT D.S.O. (see appendix) concerning single re-exhumation of unknown British soldier for relocation to St Pol. Baths parade, Poperinghe.
November 6th – Educational classes given in reading, writing, arithmetic, history and geography; book keeping, shorthand and commercial subjects taught by 2/Lt. L.T. JARVIS.
November 7th – Church parade: all denominations held in Salvation Army hut due to inclement weather.
November 8th – 2/Lt. INGHAM and 1st Labour Coy proceed to assist in re-exhumation as instructed and to undertake additional duties specified in secret orders received on 3rd inst. (see appendix).
21
Autumn 1920 has been fairly mild, but wet. Two years after the Armistice was signed, battlefield clearances are slowly coming to an end and most of the work now consists of exhumations and cemetery consolidations. The muddy fields of Flanders have been searched now four, five, even up to six times – each time the land divided into map squares, the ground picked over, finds collected and recorded and remaining graves consolidated. But the bitter harvest is now dwindling. There are fewer rewards than when they first began, and those that remain are harder to find.
The few souvenirs the men do still discover are being scrutinised more carefully and their position plotted ever more minutely. All this slows the remaining work considerably. But the men who get their boots dirty – those who do the walking and the digging, the finding and the burying – are still here, queuing to have their finds checked by an officer at the end of each day’s searching. Lining up like schoolboys waiting to have their homework marked by the headmaster.
But the beak is in jovial mood today. ‘Right, men, what kind of omnium gatherum have you got for me today, then?’ Ingham rubs his hands together rapidly. The men turn out their canvas bags, handing over badges, buckles, brass buttons, shoulder titles and scraps of fabric that are very likely all that remains of the men they once belonged to.
‘Excellent, men, excellent.’ Ingham seems genuinely excited by the finds, like some eager young archaeologist studying relics from an ancient tomb. Hard and mud-encrusted fingers pass new finds across the table; Ingham’s delicate white palms receive the offerings and cradle each fragment carefully.
‘Jeez, just look at those hands,’ Ocker whispers. ‘Sheila’s fingers, those – just like the bloody devil dodger’s.’
‘Bet he never saw no action,’ Fuller mutters.
‘Someone did once say he’d been on the Somme,’ says Mac. ‘In 1918.’
‘Well if he was there at all it would have been a couple o’ miles behind the lines, I reckon.’ Ocker shakes his head. ‘That man’s as big a base rat as I ever saw. If he was anywhere near the flamin’ Somme then he was on a cushy number back at HQ, tucked up in some comfortable billet with the notion that guns firing and keeping him awake at night was his share of the Great War’s hardship.’
‘Let’s see what we can make of all this then, shall we?’ Ingham puts on his spectacles and studies each of the finds in turn.
‘Welch Fusiliers, cap badge, sir. Map reference 28.J.19b.95.90.’
Townend writes the coordinates in the ledger and records brief details of each find. ‘Hermitage Château, that, sir!’ He leans across the table, pointing out the location on the trench map. ‘Only Duke of Wellington’s Regiment items found there so far.’
‘Really, Sergeant, really?’ Ingham marks the spot with a blue pencil. ‘Fascinating. That really is very interesting.’
A wagon passes. On the far side of the camp a train pulls slowly out of the sidings. Someone cycles past the Nissen hut whistling ‘I Belong to Glasgow’ out of tune. A car whines and bumps in the opposite direction.
‘These bits look Australian to me, sir.’ Ocker puts a handful of decayed remains down on the table.
‘Location?’
‘Er – Sheet 28. J.7.b.7.9 I think, sir,’ Townend says. ‘If I can read this proper. Is this a J or an I, Gilchrist?’
‘J – there’s also a Lancashire Fusilier cap badge, same place.’
‘Splendid, chaps, splendid.’ Ingham’s eyes light up at the sight of each of the muddy remnants. An old biscuit tin now serves as a shrunken ossuary for the buttons, badges and bone-fragments the party have been out collecting. Only a few months ago old wooden ammunition boxes, two or three or more per day, were being filled. The battlefield’s grim bounty is growing thinner.
At the end of the day’s reckoning the men are, as usual, eager to stand down and leave the camp, to go and relax in the town that some of them are even starting to regard as home. But today Ingham needs to speak to them about a very unusual mission.
‘Gather round,’ he tells the men. Somebody lets out a groan. ‘Now today, we have received some special orders,’ he begins. ‘Very special orders indeed.’
‘We’re going home,’ Ocker whispers. ‘This is it, boys – bloody demob here we come!’
‘Silence in the ranks!’ Townend steps forward and stands eyeball-to-eyeball with Ocker for a moment.
‘We have today received orders from Brigadier-General Wyatt,’ Ingham goes on. ‘As General Officer Commanding British Troops in France and Flanders, he has a very special request to make.’
‘British Troops, sir?’ Ocker says. ‘Did you say British Troops?’
Ingham laughs nervously. ‘And er, Empire troops too, of course.’
‘Well I’m glad you made that clear, sir,’ he says. ‘Otherwise I might’ve had to have a word or two to say to General Wyatt.’
‘Well, as I was saying’ – Ingham looks down at his clipboard. ‘We’ve been given something quite unusual to do. Unique, in fact.’
‘Don’t tell me, sir,’ says Ocker. ‘We’re going to dig a grave so deep I get to go back home!’
‘Not quite,’ says Ingham.
‘Not quite? Not going to tunnel to bloody Kiwi are we?’
&nbs
p; ‘No, no, no. Now pay attention. This is a solemn and serious undertaking.’
‘We’ve been undertaking – solemnly and seriously – for the last two years,’ says Mac. ‘I reckon I know more about Funeral Directing—’
‘Hey, pay attention, lads,’ Jack says.
‘On a promise are you, Jacko?’ Ocker laughs. The men shuffle feet as they settle to hear Ingham explain the details of their latest mission.
‘Our orders are to exhume an unknown British – that could, of course, be Empire too, Gilchrist, given that he will be an unknown—’
‘Might even be a sheila too,’ says Ocker. ‘The other day them gardening fellas was showing me the grave of a young nurse buried at Lijssenthoek.’
‘Unlikely, Private Gilchrist. The few English girls buried here are, of course, in marked graves. And we are being specifically ordered to select an unmarked grave. Other parties will be performing a similar duty in each of the other three main theatres of war – the Somme, Aisne and Arras. We have been selected to locate and remove one brave soldier from our sector, one man who may be chosen to lie where the Kings and Queens of Empire lie. There – if chosen – he will be buried with full military honours and laid to rest in perpetuity in Westminster Abbey.’
‘So we’re digging him up and then shipping him home?’
‘Not quite,’ Ingham replies. ‘The body will be transferred to St Pol, where it will lie along with three others draped in the Union Jack and from among which one of the bodies will be chosen at random to be given this symbolic honour.’
The men say nothing. Nothing the Army or the War Graves Commission asks of them comes as a surprise any more.
‘Right-o then, chaps – here’s the plan.’ Ingham proceeds to issue careful orders about which of the recent graves they are to open, how the body is to be treated and what provision will be made for its onward journey. ‘We are to remove an early burial from Bleuet Farm Cemetery near Elverdinge. The precise grave has already been selected and I will be accompanying the exhumation party to ensure that everything is carried out to the letter. But otherwise, you may consider it just like any normal exhumation.’
‘Except …’
‘Private Gilchrist?’
‘Except you don’t normally come along when we’re digging men up, do you, sir?’
‘Maybe not. But as I have already said, this is an especially important mission. This isn’t any old exhumation.’
‘Thought you said it was an especially old exhumation, sir?’
‘It is an old burial, yes.’
‘And we won’t be looking for signs, though, will we, sir?’
‘Signs?’
‘Badges, effects, that sort of thing. As we do with any ordinary exhumation.’
‘My goodness me, no – certainly not!’
‘It’s just that you said it was to be just like any normal exhumation, but it seems to me—’
‘Dammit, man, don’t take things so bloody literally! What I meant was that the body – the unidentified body – will be removed in the usual way and wrapped in a canvas sack. Except that this time the soldier will, I believe … just let me check, ah yes – this time the man will be given a box.’
‘A box, sir?’
‘A coffin, man, a bloody coffin! Good God, it’s like dealing with a group of schoolchildren.’
‘Enter clowns with spades and mattock,’ Blake smiles to himself.
‘So not a sack, then?’
‘No,’ Ingham sighs. ‘Not a sack. Any more questions?’ He narrows his eyes.
‘Yes, sir,’ Jack says. ‘Just the one.’
‘Speak up, man,’ says Ingham. ‘What is it?’
‘Well, sir, I was wondering … If the body we dig up isn’t the one that’s chosen, what happens to it afterwards? And what happens to the others from the Somme and Arras and so on if they don’t get the nod?’
‘Those not selected are to be interred at the military cemetery at St Pol. That will be their final resting place,’ says Ingham. ‘Well, in the case of the three not chosen, that is. The corpse selected by Brigadier-General Wyatt will be sealed in an oak coffin and transported by boat to England on its final glorious journey to the Abbey.’
‘Very good, sir. But, sir?’
‘What is it this time, Lance-Corporal?’
‘Wouldn’t it ’ave been easier just to pick a grave at random, you know – rather than digging up all four of ’em first?’
‘Perhaps,’ Ingham says. ‘But these are our orders. Well, most of us, anyway.’
‘Sir?’
‘You, Patterson’ – Ingham smiles like a snake – ‘you have a very specific task.’
‘Oh, aye?’
‘Yes. Your job is to be slightly different from the rest of the men. You will be filling six barrels with clean soil from the Salient. I suppose you had better take somebody along with you to help with the lifting. MacIntyre, Skerritt and … maybe Gilchrist as well. But you are to do the digging. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir. Very good, sir.’
With that, the men are dismissed.
The exhumation party takes the old RAMC ambulance with Blake at the wheel. Jack and his men load six empty barrels into the back of the Albion, then climb aboard the truck and squeeze together in the cab.
‘We can’t just stop anywhere and dig up any old field,’ Mac is saying as the men set off. ‘So I hope you know exactly where we’re going.’
‘Aye,’ says Jack. ‘We’re going to have a bit o’ fun, I reckon.’
‘Well, as long as you don’t forget it’s you that’s to do the digging. Ingham was most particular about that.’
Jack frowns, crunches the truck into gear and then hauls the steering wheel round, heading east out of Poperinghe and then out onto the road towards Ypres. ‘Thirsty work tha’ knows, digging,’ he shouts above the noise of the engine once they are out on the Switch Road.
‘Is that a fact?’ Mac says.
‘And who’s to say you can’t slake yer thirst beforehand – prevention’s better than cure, don’t they always reckon?’
‘You crafty old devil!’
Half an hour later they are coming to a halt by the Rijkswachtkazerne. Getting down from the truck, they head back along De Mont Straat before turning into Station Straat and making straight for the British Tavern. Once settled at a table with their beers, the men inspect the map to determine a suitable location for digging.
‘Why don’t we head down towards Polygon Wood?’ says Mac.
‘Yup. Nice light, sandy soil over towards Gheluvelt,’ Ocker adds.
‘I reckon the railway embankment,’ Jack says. ‘It’s nearer – and the soil’ll be drier there.’
‘Aye, but won’t we end up digging a barrelful of gravel?’
‘Not if we’re careful.’
The barmaid, Margreet, refills the men’s mugs as they are talking. Jack looks up, distracted for a moment, in the way you only notice a clock once it stops ticking.
‘So where is the lovely K-K-K-Katy this morning?’ Ocker asks, as if reading his thoughts.
‘Don’t know,’ Jack shrugs.
‘And you didn’t ask the barmaid?’
‘I’m not about to ask that old trout!’
‘Why’s that, then, mate?’
‘Interfering ol’ bitch, that’s why!’
‘Ach, she’s probably jealous,’ Mac says.
‘Jealous of Jacko.’ Ocker shakes his head. ‘The poor woman must be desperate.’
‘She is,’ Jack laughs.
‘Can’t see what they see in you, myself,’ says Mac.
‘Well I’m bloody glad about that,’ Jack says. ‘Now come on, drink up. We’ve got work to do.’
‘We?’
Back in the truck, Jack heads north past the Minneplein. The old open playing field and park is now covered from corner to corner with neat little temporary houses – Albert Houses, paid for by a special fund provided by the Belgian king.
‘A man could
really grow to love a little house like that.’ Mac winks at Skerritt. ‘Especially if a man had a wee lassie there to share the bed with him of a night and to keep him warm.’
‘He’s working on it, aren’t you, Jacko?’ says Ocker.
‘Don’t you lot ever give up?’
‘I’m sure he is working on it. And why wouldn’t he be? She’s a grand lassie, man. Belgian, mind. But a grand wee lassie all the same.’
Skerritt mumbles something, but the noise is drowned by the rumble of the truck as Jack changes gear and heads off along Weverstraat.
‘You see?’ Mac says. ‘Skerritt agrees with me too, don’t you, laddie?’ Skerritt nods vigorously, salivating like a dog. ‘And her father, well … He’s certainly a canny businessman.’
‘He is that,’ Jack says. ‘Made a small fortune out of us in t’war.’
‘And he’s not letting peace stop him, either.’
‘It was certainly a shrewd move, opening up in Poperinghe like that as soon as Wipers was evacuated.’
‘The only place Tommies could quench their thirst without Fritz spoiling the party.’
‘Wonder if he’ll keep the two places going,’ Mac says. ‘Now he’s opened back in Wipers again.’
‘Reckon that’s your job, Jacko!’ Ocker grins. ‘Minding the shop – one of ’em – for him.’
‘Might as well,’ Jack smiles. ‘We as good as built British Tavern for him after all.’
‘Fair dinkum, mate,’ says Ocker. ‘It was for our benefit, too.’
‘Aye, we needed a place to wet us whistle!’
‘It’s just that some here,’ Mac smiles mischievously, ‘stand to benefit a little more than the rest of us!’
They travel on for a while without saying anything. A weak sun is starting to break through, low cloud, flashing in the puddles on the road. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, in a thin ghost of a voice the men at first can hardly hear, Skerritt starts to whine the words of a familiar song to the tune of ‘The Sailor’s Hornpipe’.
‘Well done, Skerritt lad! By God, tha’s found thee voice today,’ Jack says, beaming.
‘That’s the most noise he’s made since Third Ypres,’ Mac adds. Smiling broadly, and with just a hint of a tear, the others join in with gusto, drowning out the engine noise, silencing their doubts and fears and gaining strength as they remember the rest of the words.
