Charles Todd - An Unmarked Grave

I must have sighed, for Captain Barclay, finishing his sandwich, looked across at me and asked, “There’s more on your mind than a simple outing in pretty countryside.”

And so I told him about the Morton family. He’d known some of the story, but not about Hugh or about the other brothers who had fought for King and Country.

“You feel the father will tell you where his son is?”

“I don’t know whether he will or not. But you can judge, can’t you, how people mourn? Perhaps the way he says the name. Or the way he looks when he speaks of Will and his relationship with Hugh. Whatever that was. Good or not.”

“What possible excuse can you find for prying into a family’s losses?”

“Actually, there’s a little more to it than that.” And so I told him also about Sabrina and the life she was living now in Fowey. “She told me Will Morton’s family had asked her to come to them. Perhaps she should. But there’s no way of knowing, is there, until I’ve seen them for myself.”

“You can’t make other people’s decisions for them.”

“Of course I can’t. I won’t. Still, if the family really cares about Will’s son, perhaps they should go to Fowey themselves, rather than simply write a letter.” I shook my head. “Look, if Hugh isn’t a murderer, all well and good. If he is, I’m certainly not going to ask a young widow to go and stay with his family.”

The Captain smiled grimly. “All right. God knows, if it’s Hugh Morton we’ve been dodging all along, I’d just as soon know of it. I owe him for what he did to you and to me.”

We repacked the remnants of the picnic and drove on to the small village of Helwynn, where I’d been told the Mortons lived.

It was picturesque in its own way, running up from a small stream to the crest of a hill, a smattering of houses and shops, a stone chapel with a short steeple, and several outlying farms that lay like patchwork across the stream.

We stopped the motorcar in front of a small baker’s shop, and I went inside to begin my inquiries. The woman behind the counter stared at me in my uniform, and then her face seemed to freeze.

“Can I help you, then, Sister?” she asked, her voice that of Wales, as well as her dark hair and eyes, her fine skin, and her straight back.

“Hello,” I said with a warm smile. “I was traveling through and I remembered a family that I’d known who lived here. The Mortons. Are they still here?”

“Those that’re left,” she said. “Seven sons Ross sent to war. It hasn’t been easy for him.”

“No, I expect not. It’s Will I knew. Well, his wife. He was the actor, wasn’t he?”

“He was.”

“Could you tell me how to find his father? Ross Morton?”

“He lives on the farm you can see across the little stone bridge. Nobody to work it for him now. Most of the fields fallow or given to cattle. There’s still money in milk and butter.”

From the look of her wares, I found it easy to believe that.

We were all obligated to give to the war effort in some fashion. But sometimes in the smallest villages, the food they could produce barely sufficed to feed the people living there. Although it was sometimes hard to convince the men who procured hides for shoes and meat for rations, and other goods for the Army. They had quotas, and the needs of people compared to the needs of the Army were often unimportant.

I thanked her, bought two small buns for our tea, the Captain’s and mine, and left the shop.

Several small boys had clustered around the motorcar, leaning in to look at it, asking questions about how it ran and where it had come from. The Captain, with that easy American way of his, was letting them persuade him to lift the bonnet and show them the motor when I came out the shop door.

The boys stood back to stare at me, and I said, “Go on, open the bonnet.”

Captain Barclay got out to do just that, but when they saw his limp, their questions were about the war and his wound, the motorcar forgotten.

“My Da had his head blown off,” one told the Captain ghoulishly. “They couldn’t find it, however hard they searched. So he’s buried without it.”

“A pity,” the Captain answered. “All right, off with you. See you mind your mothers. They have enough to worry about without your adding to it.”

They nodded, but I doubted they’d remember the lesson half an hour on.

I saw the small school as we went back down the hill to search for the stone bridge. It was scarcely wide enough to pass over, but we managed, and the Captain whistled. “Oh, well done,” he said, turning to me after making certain the wings were still part of the motorcar.

A sign on the far side of the bridge read in faded green letters, PEACE AND PLENTY FARM.

We came shortly into the muddy farmyard where half a dozen black-and-white milk cows with bursting udders had come in on their own, ready for the afternoon milking. They turned to stare at us with their large brown eyes, and then their attention was caught by the man who had just stepped out of the barn.

“Lost, are you?” he asked, wiping his hands on a bunch of straw.

I gave our names, then said, “I was hoping to find Ross Morton. Is this his farm?”

He was still, like the woman in the shop, wondering if I brought bad news with me.

I said quickly, “I’m a friend of Sabrina Morton’s. Your daughter-in-law. I thought perhaps I should stop, for her sake.”

“Sabrina, is it?” he asked, moving away from the barn. A big man, taller even than Captain Barclay, broad of chest and shoulders, he added, “Have you seen the boy?”

“He was asleep,” I said. “But I was told he had his father’s eyes.”

The elder Morton digested that. “That would be my wife’s,” he said after a moment. “Pale as winter ice.”

His own were hazel, his hair still fair but thickly interlaced with gray. There must have been some English blood in the Morton family, because the Welsh were as a rule dark.

“I never met your son,” I said. “But I’ve known Sabrina since she was a child.”

He ignored me. “Will’s son ought to be brought up here, where he belongs. Not in England. I told his mother that. I offered her a home as well. My wife died in the Spanish flu, there’s no one to do for us. It would be a kindness to come and take her place.”

I could see what he meant, that there was no one to feed the chickens or cook the meals or do the family’s washing, mending, or marketing. I couldn’t imagine Sabrina fitting into this world. I could understand why she had chosen Fowey instead.

But I could also understand this man’s needs. He had a farm to keep going without his sons, and the house needed a woman in it.

I said, “Are your other sons married?”

“My namesake, Ross, had a wife. She died of childbed fever, and the babe with her. A pretty little thing, but with no strength to live.”

“Where is Ross now?”

“Drowned off the coast of Ireland when his ship went down. The Huns never tried to save the men. The surprise was, they didn’t machine-gun them in the water. It’s done, I’m told. Will’s dead, but you know that, if you saw Sabrina. David’s lost a leg and sits in his room, staring at nothing. The girl he was to marry didn’t want a cripple. The twins are in France somewhere, and they write when they can. But I never know from day to day if they’re alive or dead. Llewellyn’s in hospital in Suffolk and not right in his head, nor ever will be, they’re saying. Shell shock. Only Will has a son. And this farm once had seven.”

I’d been counting with my fingers behind my back. Ross, the elder, the namesake. Will. David who lost his leg. The twins. Llewellyn in Suffolk. That made six.

“You had seven sons?” I asked gently. “Is the last also among the dead?”