Charles Todd - An Unmarked Grave

I hadn’t meant to be so forceful, but as I sat in that tidy parlor with a woman whose husband had been branded a suicide, I couldn’t stop myself.

Her face crumpled at my words. She said after a moment, her voice husky, “I never believed it myself. Not Jerry. He knew he was too old to fight, but he felt he could do something to help stop the Hun. Even as an orderly. When did you see him last?”

“I was nursing our influenza patients as well as the wounded, and then without warning, I myself was stricken with it. I remember a soldier named Benson dying and your husband bringing in the stretcher bearers to carry the-er-him out to the place where we took the dead while they were awaiting the burial detail. He was himself that evening, and I saw nothing in his face or his bearing to warn me that he was distressed in any way or worried about his own health. There were many people-sisters, doctors, orderlies-who worked with the ill and never fell ill themselves. He had no reason to think he might be the next victim.”

“I’m grateful to you for coming so far to tell me this, Sister. It was very kind of you. I shall take comfort from it. I’ve had precious little of that since Jerry died, I can tell you. But why would anyone report my husband hanged himself, when neither you nor I believe he would or even could?”

“I don’t know. There must be times when there are so many dead and dying that the rolls are confused. It’s all I can offer you as a reason.” It wasn’t true, but I wasn’t prepared to add to her burden the possibility that Private Wilson was murdered.

“Yes, but he hasn’t written to me, so he must be dead. How did he die then?”

“From overwork-exhaustion. We weren’t sleeping at all, and we ate only when we remembered and there was time. It took a toll on all of us. And Private Wilson was nearing forty, wasn’t he?”

“He was forty-one his last birthday.”

“That could explain it.”

“I still don’t see how a mistake could have been made,” she insisted.

“I don’t know myself. But I’m going back to France as soon as possible, and I’ll find out what I can. You may not hear immediately. But I shall write after I’ve spoken to Matron and some of the others he and I served with.”

“I’ll be forever in your debt, Sister, if you could do that for me. For him. It isn’t fair for him to be treated like a leper if he did nothing wrong. Or for Audrey to be singled out as the daughter of a suicide.”

“There was nothing at home-you or your child-to worry him?”

“Nothing at all. We’ve done better than most, having only a small farm, too small to have our crops taken from us. We eat what we grow, and we manage very well. There’s hardly anything to buy, is there, with shortages everywhere one turns. And so his pay was enough for us. I don’t know as I get a pension, under the circumstances. What worries me now is finding someone to help with the cows and the milking and general handiwork, what Jerry always did. I can’t pay now, you see. And there’s other farms that do.”

All the more reason to get to the bottom of what happened to Private Wilson.

Aloud, I said, “Did he write often, your husband?”

“His last letter came barely a week after he died. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He sounded like himself, though tired, as you’d expect, and he gave me advice about matters here on the farm, as he always did, remembering what time of the year it was. I was that shocked when the word came. I sat here until three o’clock in the morning, trying to take it in. Except for Toby, I told no one. And cats don’t talk, do they? But soon enough word got round. I don’t know how they found out, but people did. And so I sent my daughter out of harm’s way. That left just Toby and me to do all that needs to be done. But we’ll survive somehow. Our kind always does.”

It was a sad commentary on the future.

We talked a little longer, and at one point she said, “I’d give anything to have my man back again. And then that woman in London behaves so badly she’s divorced. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Why couldn’t her husband have died, if she was so eager to be free? Not wishing him harm, you understand, but let me keep mine.”

I did understand. I rose to leave soon after, and she went with me to the door, thanking me again for coming to tell her what I believed.

I walked to the motorcar with a heavy heart.

Whoever had killed Private Wilson had much to answer for.

As promised I drove the rough track that passed for a road running through Cheddar Gorge. The limestone walls, often sheer, rose over four hundred feet high and in places were honeycombed with shallow crevices or deep caves. The entrance was half hidden by cheese shops, tea shops, and souvenir stalls, most of them closed for the duration, but beyond we could crane our necks and see the tops of the ramparts. I’d always found it an impressive sight, even though I’d viewed the great peaks of the Himalayas. The deeper into the Gorge we went, the more wild and mysterious it seemed to be, only the sounds of our motorcar breaking the silence and the calls of a crow that resented it. Even as we drove out into lower but still hilly countryside, I felt as I always did, that people had lived here for a long time. It would have offered sanctuary in a time of uncertainty.

Beside me Captain Barclay stared about with interest, and I thought for once he had been struck speechless, this American who had an answer for everything.

When finally we reached the far side of the Gorge where the land evened out, I turned to him and said, “Isn’t it a marvelous sight?”

He agreed, although his praise was rather subdued. I was pleased I’d brought him here.

On the way back to Longleigh House, he cleared his throat and said, “Sister, if you want the truth, there’s really nothing like this in Michigan, although there’s a small ravine on Mackinac Island. But I’ve been to the Grand Canyon, you see, and it’s stunning. Your Gorge, for all it’s fine enough, can’t hold a candle to the one in Arizona. I just didn’t want to belittle yours by comparing them.”

Put out with him all the same, I said nothing. He grinned. “You have to remember,” he said, “that England’s a little country.”

Later, before taking up my evening duties, I wrote to Simon, telling him what I’d learned talking with Joyce Wilson, and reminding him that it wasn’t just Major Carson whose fate needed to be clarified.

I expected to hear from him any day now, hoping that he’d been able to find out more information somehow, something that would lead us to the next step. But there was no news.

When it came, the letter I did receive shocked me.

It was from the headquarters of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.

And inside were my orders to return immediately to France.

I REALLY DIDN’T know how to respond to the news. It was what I had wanted from the moment in Eastbourne when I felt well enough to consider my future.

Had Simon pulled strings to make this possible?

I couldn’t imagine my mother and father having a change of heart.

And what was I to tell them, when these orders hadn’t been any of my doing?

I went to Matron, to speak to her about my concerns, but when I broached the subject, she smiled warmly. “Ah. I see they’ve come through. I didn’t wish to say anything until we could be sure. We shall be very sorry to lose you, my dear, but Dr. Gaines spoke to me, and I must say, I agreed with him. You should be in France, not here. And so he wrote to the proper people, expressing his feelings in the matter, and I am glad to learn that they decided in your favor.”