Charles Todd - An Unmarked Grave

“Sisters don’t go armed,” he said in an aggrieved tone of voice.

“I did warn you,” I told him sharply.

“You damn-you nearly took my ear off!”

“The next shot will be between your eyes. I was taught by an expert marksman, and I won’t miss.” I let that sink in, then I added in the no-nonsense voice of Matron, “Now sit down over there. No, too close. On that bucket over there, if you please.”

He turned over the bucket and winced in pain as he lowered himself onto it. “Not for long, please, Sister, I can’t handle it,” he pleaded.

“Then speak up. Name, rank, regiment. And don’t lie to me, I will know it, believe me.”

He gave his name as Jones, private, Welsh Sappers.

“You’re too large to dig tunnels under the German lines,” I retorted. “Try again.”

He grimaced. “You’ll only send me back to be shot. I’d rather you do it now and be done with it.”

“Tell me why you deserted.”

“There’s no one to do the farming if I’m gone.”

I had been watching him throughout. And I was nearly certain he wasn’t the man who had tried to run me down in the motorcar. His eyebrows were dark, yes, but although he was indeed a big man, he wasn’t large enough to be Ross Morton’s son. Still, he was tall enough and strong enough to have throttled me with one arm around my throat, but so were dozens of soldiers in the British Army.

I rose from the hay rather awkwardly, my hand still in my pocket. “We’ll find my driver now. If you’ve harmed him, you’re a dead man yourself. If he’s all right, I’ll dress that wound.”

He got up nearly as awkwardly as I had, his face twisted in pain until he was on his feet.

I marched him before me out to where the motorcar had been left. And there, by the wing, sat Trelawney, bound, his head on his chest.

I thought for an awful moment that he was dead, his face was so battered. He’d put up a fierce battle in my defense. I turned on the Welshman. His own face showed the marks Trelawney had left there.

“Untie him,” I ordered, and my prisoner had to kneel to accomplish that. His face was white as he rose, and for a moment I thought he’d faint. I felt no sympathy.

I was beginning to wonder if I’d found Hugh Morton after all. Or someone very like him, a deserter too hurt to fend for himself and too inexperienced to find a way back to England. It was naïve to think a dead officer’s uniform and a motorcar would see him safe. And a killer would have taken his chances, charged me in the expectation of throwing off my aim, and been done with it. Certainly if this man had had six brothers, like Hugh Morton, even the former champion pugilist of the British Army would be no match for such rough-and-tumble training. What interested me was why Trelawney hadn’t shot him outright, if he’d had the opportunity.

No longer held erect by the rope, my driver slid down to lie on the ground, and I felt for his pulse. It was regular, but it was impossible to tell whether he was pale or his color was normal. I looked in the motorcar, found his revolver, and turned it on my captive in place of my own little weapon.

“Back into the barn,” I ordered the Welshman. “Find a clean patch of hay and lie down. That wound needs attention, and while you don’t deserve it, I’ll see to it.”

He argued with me until I had to threaten once more to shoot him.

It was not a pretty sight, that wound. He had been shot in the hip, creasing the bone, tearing up the flesh around it, and possibly doing internal damage. The one encouraging fact was that the bullet had passed through, although it must have left God alone knew how many fragments of cloth and bone and skin behind. He must have the constitution of an ox, to have survived this long, much less battled Trelawney. But he had seen salvation in that motorcar, and it had given him the strength he needed.

I got what I required from the boot where I’d kept a scant supply and proceeded to clean the wound, sprinkle it with disinfectant powder, and then bind it up. Halfway through, I saw that my prisoner had fainted. Kneeling there beside him, I could only think he’d been sent back for urgent care and had slipped away in the dark before reaching the aid station.

While he was unconscious, I had no compunction about going through his pockets, but I found nothing of importance-a few cigarettes, a lighter, a crumpled photograph of a girl, a packet of sweets, and, oddly enough, a St. Christopher medal. I wondered if she had given that to him. Next I looked at the inside of his tunic and saw what I was after. Someone had sewn his name behind his breast pocket. The same girl? His mother?

At that moment, I heard Trelawney bellowing my name.

“I’m all right,” I answered. “In here.”

He came charging through the barn door, stopping short at the sight of his attacker lying at my feet.

“Good God, Sister. Have you killed him?” he exclaimed, his gaze rising to my face.

“I just cleaned that wound. The question is, what ought we to do with him?”

“Tie him to something and leave him for the patrols to find.” He put his hand to his head, gingerly touching what must have been a painful lump. “I’d searched the premises, Sister, there was no one here. I’d have sworn to that. The motorcar was secured as well. And I’m a light sleeper, mind you. I heard him creeping up and went after him. I’m ashamed to say he got the better of me.”

And that would rankle with Trelawney for the rest of his life.

“I expect he saw us coming and went away. It was the motorcar he wanted. I don’t believe he intended to kill either of us.” I didn’t add that Trelawney would have been dead, if he had.

“That’s not what my head is telling me,” Trelawney said tersely.

My patient groaned, coughed a little, and opened his eyes, rearing up as he saw Trelawney’s enraged face. It cost him dearly, and while he was sitting there with a cold sweat breaking out from the effort, I said, “That’s enough, Hugh Morton. Or I’ll have your father take you out behind the woodshed.”

He wiped his face with one hand and said plaintively, “You looked inside my tunic.”

“Yes, of course I did. You’re a large man, but no match for your father, wounded or well.”

“You never met my Da,” he said, angry now. “Besides, I take after my mother’s side of the family.”

“Oh, haven’t I? I’ve been to Peace and Plenty, and I’ve spoken to your father. What’s more, I saw your brother David’s face in an upstairs window.”

“You have never.” But I thought he believed me.

“Did you kill Major Carson? I want a straight answer.”

His surprise was genuine. “I’ve been hunting him. Are you telling me the Hun killed him?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s a cold bas-man, is Carson. He could have helped Will. He’d promised he would, but Will died in my arms, and when I spoke to the Major afterward, he said it would have to wait, there was something he had to attend to first. I ask you, what’s more urgent than looking after a widowed sister and her boy?” He was properly incensed.

“Something? What something did he have to attend to first?” A letter home to his solicitor, or his wife?

“He didn’t say. But he wasn’t there next morning, and the Lieutenant told us he’d been sent for at HQ.”

The summons that had taken Carson to his death?

“What did you intend to do, if you caught up with him?”

“Knock some sense into him. Officer or not. Will deserved better. There’s no shame in being an actor. He was good to Sabrina.”

“What to do with you, Hugh Morton,” I said with a sigh. “If I leave you here, you’ll be shot for desertion. I can take you to the nearest aid station and tell them I’d found you wounded and out of your mind with fever. The wonder is that you aren’t.”