Charles Todd - An Unmarked Grave

I stood there on the street, thinking fast. Hotels were not the best choice for a woman alone. But there was one place I was assured of a bed: the convent I’d visited last winter and several times in the early spring before the influenza epidemic took hold.

I’d always brought something with me-money, medicines, soap, food-to help with the care of any ill or wounded children. This time I had only myself.

And so I found myself on the doorstep waiting for the porteress to answer the ring of the bell. The convent had little comfort to offer a stranger at their door, but they greeted me warmly and shared what they could.

The youngest nun came in quietly to wake me at three o’clock, and I dressed by candlelight in a room that held the night’s chill from the river. Then I slipped out into the predawn darkness to make my way back to where my transport should be waiting.

I wasn’t particularly frightened in the dark, narrow streets where the sounds from the docks echoed and the sporadic shelling at the Front was a counterpoint in the background. No one knew where to find me, and there was no one else about. It was too early for the milk wagon or the lorries bringing in foodstuffs from the outlying villages, too early for the ships to arrive from England with new recruits. I knew the city and could find my way without difficulty, only my own footsteps echoing.

I was within sight of the racetrack and the American Base Hospital, when I glimpsed the outline of a motorcar some thirty yards on the far side of the hospital entrance where summer bushes were thick and dark. My driver? Why hadn’t he halted under the lamps where I could see him better? But of course I was a little early. He was probably sleeping at the wheel after his long drive.

Still, I was uneasy. After all, I had no idea who he was, and I’d already decided to ask for some form of identification. If I wasn’t satisfied, I would have the Base Hospital verify that he’d come from Dr. Percy.

Should I wait where I was? I was vulnerable here, if the wrong person knew I was expecting to meet transport this morning-and even if the transfer was legitimate, in spite of the fact that no accommodations were waiting at the hospital, it would be the perfect opportunity to find me alone and unprotected.

Or approach?

What if the driver was already dead behind the wheel, so that he couldn’t raise the alarm if I didn’t die quietly?

For that matter, what if that motorcar wasn’t for me after all?

Standing there in the shadows of a building, I debated what to do. At this hour of the morning, it was easy to believe in danger of any kind, with my own breathing the only sound I could hear, and not even a bat swooping through the darkness to distract me from my thoughts.

I decided not to wait where I was but to move closer to the Base Hospital, where I could be heard if I had to scream. If all went well, there would be nothing to worry about. If it didn’t, I hoped I could count on help sooner. I’d taken only one step in that direction when there was a sharp movement just behind me. My valise was in my right hand, but before I could swing it at my assailant, it was snatched out of my grip. I was spun into the deeper shadow of a doorway, a rough hand over my mouth.

I realized in that instant that I had stepping unwittingly into a trap, that the motorcar had held my attention while the driver had come up behind me.

Biting down on the hand over my mouth, I began to fight.

I’d just managed to force my hand down toward the pistol in my pocket when a voice whispered savagely, “Damn it, Bess, if you kick me or shoot me, I’ll never take you to the Grand Hotel.”

Captain Barclay. I stopped struggling. He held me close for a moment until he was sure it wasn’t a trick.

As he let me go, I demanded angrily in a whisper of my own, “Did you have to frighten me like that? Why couldn’t you simply tell me who you were?”

“Because,” he said shortly, “you must not get into that motorcar. Or let the driver see you.”

He still had one arm around me, holding me in the shadows of the doorway. I didn’t know if the driver of the motorcar had seen me or not, or if he was even there. It was too hard to tell. It was still a quarter of an hour before I was to meet him, and it was possible that he had gone into a café for coffee to keep himself awake.

“Who is he?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “Did you see him? For that matter, where have you been?”

“It was more important to watch for you and stop you-look! He’s just coming out of that alley across the way. Pay attention to his manner of walking. Do you recognize him?”

But the man who had just appeared was hurrying away, coughing once or twice, as if he had been ill. He disappeared into the darkness beyond, with only a last cough to tell us where he had gone.

“I don’t think-that can’t be him. How long have you been here? Do you know if he’s inside the motorcar?”

“It was there when I got here. I’ve been watching it. Nothing.”

“Then let me go. I won’t get in, I promise you. But it’s important to get a good look at him. We may not have another chance.”

“No. That’s not safe. Bess, I’m no match for him right now!”

“I have the pistol.”

“No, I tell you. It isn’t worth the risk. Wait. See if he shows himself. He’ll grow impatient. He might even walk as far as those lamps by the Base Hospital.”

But he didn’t. Where was he?

As I heard the clock in a nearby church tower strike four, I broke away from Captain Barclay’s clutches and stepped out into the street. Walking sedately toward the motorcar, I took my time. I could now see that one wing was dented, but that not surprising. Most of the motorcars anywhere near the Front were dented and rusty. When I was some ten or fifteen feet away, I stopped, looking around, as if expecting to find my driver.

“Hallo?” I called after a moment. “Anyone there?” I took a step or two nearer the bonnet, and then-apparently uncertain-I turned and took four back the way I’d come. This gave me a chance to look around me, scanning doorways and the windows of a café just down the street without appearing to be suspicious.

I was almost facing the motorcar again when, without any warning at all, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement behind the windscreen, as if someone had been lying out of sight across the seats. In the same instant the great, bright headlamps came on, their black paint gone, and I was pinned in their glare, startled and unable to see or move.

But I could hear the motor as it was gunned, and the headlamps were speeding toward me.

Behind me I heard Captain Barclay shout, but I knew that if I moved too soon, the driver behind the glare of the lights could see where I was leaping, and compensate.

I almost left it too late.

Prepared to spring to the left, where I had the whole street in which to maneuver, I realized that he too could use that space to swerve toward me. And so without hesitating, I flung myself right, into the ragged line of unkempt shrubbery that marked that side of the road.

He swerved too, just as I had feared, but in this direction he had no room-he dared not come too close to the shrubbery, or at that speed he’d lose control and crash into it. Still, he cut it close. I felt the force of his passage, the leading edge of the rusted wing brushing my hip, catching my apron, and nearly dragging me under the rear wheels before the cloth ripped and freed me. I cried out, catching at the prickly, scrubby branches of the shrubs to keep my balance.

The pistol was in my pocket, and I scrabbled for it, trying to reach it in the folds of my uniform, but I already knew it would be impossible to bring it out in time to fire at my tormentor. All the same, I was frightened and angry enough to do just that.