by Tim Atkinson
Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God in His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed: we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.
‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God’? Had it really pleased Almighty God to blow this boy’s head open? Had it pleased Him to take unto himself the soul of Fuller, and leave the likes of Ingham here still standing, breathing, cap doffed, head bowed, mumbling the Lord’s Prayer among the living?
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us …
But some trespasses are too great to be forgiven. Some sins won’t wait until the Day of Judgment for their reckoning. Some people standing here beside this boy’s grave don’t deserve to feel this sunlight on their cheek, or hear the blackbird singing from the stump of an old tree. Jack catches Ocker’s eye, and they both take a sideways glance at Ingham. How easy would it be? How simple could they make it?
And lead us not into temptation …
But deliver us from evil …
Amen.
Deliver us from evil.
Deliver us from this evil.
Deliver us from this evil man.
Without a word, the two men exchange glances and are both instantly agreed. The details will need to be discussed; the plans drawn up and the arrangements made. But they are in agreement. Without a word, they know what now needs to be done.
But when?
No. 1 District
(This report cancels all previous reports)
Spring 1921
Report No. 1
Schedule No. 1210
PLACE OF BURIAL:
DUD CORNER BRITISH CEMETERY
COMMUNE: LOOS-EN-GOHELLE
Map Reference: Sheet 44a G.34 a6.6.
The following are buried here – PLOT 9. ROW D
Regiment
No.
Name
Rank and
Initials
UNKNOWN BRITISH SOLDIER
ditto
ditto
ditto
ditto
Royal Berks
33567
EDLINGTON Pte. W.
15.10.15
Gloucesters
46934
COWARD Cpl.
15.10.15
18th London
99766
WILLCOCK Pte. R.
15.10.15
23
‘It’s not as if we’ve not got enough to do here,’ Mac is grumbling. ‘What the devil does he want us to pack up and head across the border for?’
‘They’re getting rid of us, quick,’ Jack says. ‘Getting us away from here until things die down’
‘Aye, and until Fuller is forgotten.’
The men are silent for a moment.
‘It’ll be Ingham’s doing, no doubt about it,’ Mac says. ‘He wants us all as far away as possible, so there’s no more gossip about what Fuller was doing in the middle of nowhere digging up an old ammunition dump.’
‘Poor blighter!’
‘There’s unfinished business here, that’s for sure,’ says Ocker.
‘Which is why he needs us to be as far away as he can send us.’
‘Well, personally I’m just sorry that the trip ain’t any longer. He could’ve sent me a hell of a lot further than bloody Loos, mate!’ Ocker shrugs. ‘One-way ticket back down under, that’s all I’m after.’
‘Is that all you can think about?’ Jack turns on him. ‘Young lad’s been blown to bits and—’
‘Look, Jacko, there’s plenty more of ’em been blown to bits for the last four years. And blown to bits after doing a darn sight more than Fuller, too.’
‘Aye – doing what an officer told ’em.’
‘Maybe. But it makes a difference what the officer’s telling ’em.’
‘And why.’
‘He’s still dead, in’t he?’
‘Sure.’ Ocker looks down at the floor. ‘And I’m sorry, Jacko. The kid deserved better.’
‘A lot better than to be caught up in Ingham’s web,’ Mac says, ‘that’s certain.’
‘Well, ’appen you and I will soon be sweeping away t’cobwebs, eh, Ocker?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Blake looks concerned.
‘Nothing to trouble your conscience, Blakey.’
‘I’m not sure what you men are on about,’ Blake goes on, ‘but I’m sure there must be a perfectly innocent explanation.’
‘Innocent and Ingham aren’t words you normally see together in t’same sentence.’
‘Always looking on the flamin’ bright side, Blakey, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘He means, lad, you believe whatever tale these tossers tell you.’
‘Aye, you can tell the laddie was ne’er a soldier.’
Blake knows better than to answer. Mac grumbles to himself. Jack shakes his head. The mood is sombre. ‘Well, we can be certain of one thing,’ Ocker goes on. ‘Whatever Ingham is up to, it won’t involve doing favours for anyone else but himself.’
*
‘Right, now gather round, men,’ Ingham tells them, spreading out a large 1:10,000 trench map on the bonnet of the van half an hour later. ‘The concentration cemetery is situated here at C:28 on the Loos Road, see it? It’s right on the seventy-metre contour line just north of the Lens Road Redoubt. Tosh Cemetery here’ – Ingham jabs his swagger stick at the map – ‘together with Crucifix Cemetery, just to the west here, have already been cleared. We are to assist here’ – the stick jabs at a point marked Le Rutoire Farm, east of the hamlet of Vermelles – ‘which contains some eighty-two British graves—’
‘Scottish, I’ll be bound, sir.’
‘—as well as a handful of French. We are to help clear this area and take the remains to the concentration cemetery.’
‘And does this concentration cemetery have a name?’ Mac asks.
‘Probably just Loos Road I should imagine,’ says Ingham. ‘As that is where it is.’
‘Welcome to Dud Corner,’ the sergeant of the 10th Labour Company says when the men arrive later that afternoon. Originally tiny, containing just a handful of battlefield burials, Dud Corner cemetery is now greatly enlarged and beginning to resemble something of a building site. Foundations are being laid for the perimeter wall, as well as for an ornamental, arched entrance. At the back of the cemetery, the footings for walls to hold panels listing the names of the 20,000 men missing with no known grave are already being dug. An early attempt has been made to level the ground, and the graves have already been fenced off from the road and the surrounding fields.
The road is busy, and for miles around there are still rough, bare patches of churned earth. Wild flowers have begun to colonise the area, making small splashes of colour here and there – a few red poppies blow in the wind and the pale blue of cornflowers and the white of chamomile add to a thoroughly patriotic picture. But looming near on the horizon is the sinister black cone of Hill 70.
‘Dud Corner?’
‘That’s right,’ the Labour Corps man says cheerfully. ‘So called in honour of some of the millions of shells you lot fired at each other but that failed to explode.’
‘Not our fault if we were given blanks, laddie.’
‘If they were,’ the Labour man says, ‘we’d not have had as much trouble clearing them. I’ve lost six men trying to get these fields safe so that French farmers can start ploughing again. That’s why we need more hands. That’s why you’ve been sent here, I suppose.’
‘No,’ Jack says. ‘We’re here because we’ve just lost one of our own lads, actually.’
The sergeant
shakes his head, puzzled.
‘Long story,’ Ocker says. ‘And it involves some very dodgy dealings by an officer.’
For the first half of the week the men are busy driving up and down the road from one cemetery to another, the back of the ambulance full of the rattling remains of recently exhumed corpses. But by Thursday, the lorry’s fuel tank is empty. ‘Nothing doing, I’m afraid,’ the Labour Corps sergeant tells them. ‘Can’t get anything more until Saturday at the earliest. We’ve got some bicycles …’
‘Oh yeah,’ says Ocker. ‘And how are we supposed to shift a body on a bike?’
‘I’m sorry,’ the man says.
‘Haven’t you got any horses?’
‘You must be joking. They’re demobbed quicker than we are!’
‘Aye,’ Jack says. ‘We’re lucky to have the Albion – even though it’s not much use without a tank of petrol.’
‘Not much better than a ton or more of scrap metal.’
‘So what are we going to do now?’ asks Ocker.
‘Well, as Ingham isn’t here …’ The men all look at Jack. ‘And Townend’s off on leave … Looks like you’re in charge, mate.’
‘What do you suggest then, Jacko?’
‘Well, there’s not enough digging here for all of us,’ he says. ‘So how about this? I reckon you chaps have a cycle into Lens and take a look around. See what’s happening. And I’ll join you later.’
‘What? Go into a Frenchie town minus our personal translator? Need you with us to speak the lingo, mate!’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Jacks says. ‘They probably all still know some English anyway.’
‘Not if it was Jocks they learnt it from,’ laughs Ocker. ‘And even if they do, how the hell are we going to understand it? It’s bad enough making sense of what Mac here has to say.’
‘Ach, the Auld Alliance!’ Mac smiles. ‘We’ll be fine lads, I tell ye. Come on, look sharp and do as the lance-corporal tells you. Joining us later, Jack?’
‘Aye, Mac. I’ll be along soon enough.’
‘Some digging, eh?’
‘Fine day for it, Mac.’ Jack smiles. ’And it’ll help me think, not having you lot pestering me. Go – get off and enjoy yerselves.’
The men get on the bikes and race off down the hill to Lens and are soon out of sight. Jack takes out a cigarette and unfolds the cemetery plan. The large rectangle of ground is divided into nine plots laid out in ten rows with twenty graves in each row. The original roadside burials – just four officers of the 9th Battalion, Black Watch, and a private of the 8th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers – are in Plot III and turned 90 degrees to the other graves. Plot IX is marked out on the plan and has been staked out on the ground but not yet dug. The soil here at the top of the ridge will be well drained, Jack thinks. He picks up his shovel.
Jack likes working alone. He likes the rhythm of the dig. It’s what he does. And he does it well. Jack digs better than any of the men and better than many more besides. Always has done. Precisely where this ability comes from, he can’t tell. He doesn’t care much either. He just digs.
It’s back-breaking work, of course, as well as arm-aching and stomach-churning. Jack’s hands are hard and calloused: at first rubbed raw and then, later, cracked and blistered, scabbed over and, finally, scarred. But that’s all well and good, because after sores have healed the skin will harden, and scar tissue is pretty good protection against most things that a shovel handle can inflict on anyone. But even in the coldest weather sweat runs down his neck, and the mid-April sun is warm enough to force Jack to take a break after the first three graves are dug.
So intent is he this fine spring afternoon on digging, on moving earth, on making holes and digging deeper, that at first he doesn’t notice that the cemetery suddenly has a visitor. A man is walking up and down each row of the existing graves studying the tin inscriptions on the lines of wooden crosses. Jack watches as he wanders slowly back and forth along the graves several times, occasionally stopping to consult a thick bundle of paper. He sees the stranger’s feet get nearer and nearer to the hole that he is digging.
‘Hello down there!’
Smart boots, well polished; thick woollen stockings and the point of a stout stick.
‘Don’t let me stop you working,’ the man says. ‘I merely hollered so as not to startle you while you were below ground.’
The noise of the shovel stops. Jack hauls himself out of the hole.
The man smiles. ‘Forgive me,’ he says, and offers his hand.
Wiping the wet soil from his palm, Jack closes his calloused hand round the man’s fingers. Their eyes meet – bold, brown eyes that maintain a steady gaze from behind small, round steel-rimmed spectacles; bushy, beetling eyebrows; a bristling brown moustache; a tired, careworn face. The blue of Jack’s clear eyes hold the moment, and the two men stand in silence looking at each other for several seconds. The stranger’s eyes are the first to glance away.
‘A lovely afternoon,’ he is saying. ‘Fine weather, wouldn’t you say?’ His manner isn’t hostile. Nor is it that of an officer – certainly not an officer who might have seen service here. The man is too old for a start.
‘Aye,’ says Jack. ‘A perfect day for digging.’
The man closes his eyes and begins to recite:
A perfect day for digging, just
as sweet and dry was the ground as tobacco dust.
‘Except that it’s “sowing”, of course, in the original. Cigarette?’ he asks, opening a small silver cigarette case. His appearance is smart: belted Norfolk jacket, plus fours, stockings – quite the country gentleman, thinks Jack. He has removed the large flat cap that he was wearing and is holding it in both hands as if he were in church. The April breeze disturbs the few stray strands of hair combed across his otherwise bald head.
‘Looking for someone?’ Jack asks.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ the man says, and turns his gaze again over the untidy rows of crosses. Jack says nothing. ‘I expect it won’t be long before the headstones start arriving.’
‘Oh aye?’ says Jack. ‘I wouldn’t really know about that. I just—’
‘Just imagine,’ the man goes on, ‘row upon row of bright, white Portland stones, all of uniform height and width, inscribed with the names of the men who lie here below, complete with regimental badge and rank – an eternal army battalion in parade-ground order. Magnificent!’
‘Aye, well …’ says Jack.
‘Did you serve?’ the man asks.
‘Aye,’ says Jack, ‘I did.’
‘Which regiment?’
‘Tenth Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment. Prince of Wales’s Own.’
‘Ah!’ the man frowns. ‘A noble history.’
Jack raises his eyebrows.
‘Oh, yes. I know a little of your regiment’s story. Who doesn’t?
‘Not many, I’m sure,’ Jack frowns. ‘Given what happened in 1916.’
‘Quite,’ the man nods. ‘I’m researching a regimental history of my own at present, as it happens.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘Yes. I’ve been engaged to write the history of one of the Guards divisions.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’
The man doesn’t answer. He points instead with his cane to the small inscription on a nearby cross. ‘It is so important, don’t you think, that these regimental details should not be lost when carving a man’s headstone?’
‘Aye, I suppose …’
‘My feeling is that whatever a man’s civilian position, when he is once in the service of the King then it is for the Regiment he works, with the Regiment he dies, and in death he should be remembered as one of the Regiment.’
Silence. Jack stares across the rows of temporary wooden crosses. The cemetery suddenly feels exposed. The eyes of snipers or enemy observers could be on them, everywhere. ‘You said you was looking for someone,’ Jack says.
‘Indeed,’ the man goes on. ‘Although I am unable to find his nam
e in any of the cemetery lists. Look.’ He holds out a thick wad of paper fastened in the top left-hand corner with a treasury tag. ‘I’ve got the cemetery register right here for this very plot.’
‘Oh, aye?’
‘Yes,’ the man holds up a thin, bundled section of the register. ‘Look!’ He points a triumphant finger and smiles. ‘It includes the very graves that you are digging.’
Jack takes the neatly typed list of names and numbers, rows and plots, and starts to turn the pages.
‘It’s from the War Graves Commission. I do a little work for them, you see, in an advisory capacity.’
Names and names, rows and plots; ticks in blue, then red – marks against the graves whose details have been checked once, twice, three times. Handwritten notes in the margin; a few corrections; and a big, blue rubber stamp bearing the initials I.W.G.C.
‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ the man goes on, ‘the soldier whose remains I seek served here in this very area.’
‘Oh, aye?’
‘Yes. And there are several men of his regiment listed in the burial register and, well, I wondered …’
‘Wondered?’
‘Well, I … I suppose I wondered if you or any of the chaps might have come across his remains. I understand you are clearing some of the smaller battlefield cemeteries. Here are his details.’ The man hands Jack a handwritten card. ‘Of course I know that according to the register he isn’t here …’
Jack continues leafing through the pages of the burial roll, this neatly typed directory of the dead. Each of the graves he digs is numbered, referenced and recorded. Plots and dates are written down, along with ranks and regimental numbers. Even the bodies that he buries without a name are listed and their plots located with – of course – military precision.
