Charles Todd - An Unmarked Grave

We set out for Rouen an hour after lunch, working our way back through the quagmires that were roads, and then encountering a rainstorm that turned the mud into a morass. We took shelter for a time beneath a lone chimney standing by the road, at least breaking a little of the wind if not the rain.

Rouen was busy as we drove in late that night, and I had the credentials now to ask for a bed at the Base Hospital, one for me and one for my driver.

I sent Trelawney to search the port for the man calling himself Major Carson, and he was away for three hours before returning to report.

“If he’s here, I can’t find him. But that messenger, the one who told you about him-he was killed and his motorcycle taken. Just last night. The French police are conducting a house-by-house search for it. But I’ll lay you odds it’s already in Paris or points south.”

I didn’t think so. The killer’s destination wasn’t Paris; it was London. The motorcycle was most likely in the river, where it wouldn’t be found straightaway, allowing the hunt to go on. I felt a surge of anger mixed with sadness. I’d warned the courier. Either he hadn’t taken it seriously, or he’d come upon this man sooner than he’d expected.

Someone’s orders had been in his pouch. I could guess at that. Orders worth killing for.

But in whose name?

It wasn’t until much later that I realized that my letter might still be in the courier’s pouch, depending on his route. With my father’s direction scrawled hastily across the envelope.

If nothing else, it would surely tell the killer that I was once more in France.

I went down to the port, looking for any ship whose officers I recognized. There was no way of knowing if Major Carson, or whoever he claimed to be now, had already left for England sometime last night. Or if he had had to wait, as I did, for the next available transport.

Finally, in late afternoon, I spotted Captain Grayson. He saw me as well, throwing up a hand in silent greeting as he finished his business with the port master, and then coming forward to meet me.

“Hallo, Sister Crawford. I didn’t know you were back in France. On leave, are you?”

“Yes, I am,” I replied, smiling. “Any chance of space aboard the Merlin ?”

“I should think that’s possible.”

“I have my driver with me. And a motorcar. Do you think there could be room for that as well?”

“I’ll tow it behind us if I must. Do you have time for a cup of tea? I’m dry as the desert. It was a stormy crossing, couldn’t search properly for periscopes or torpedo tracks because of the high seas. I never left the bridge.”

I went with him to a small café near the cathedral, and he drank his tea with gusto. We talked about France and the war, and then he told me that his brother had been killed in the North Atlantic. I remembered Joseph Grayson as a man with a kind smile and a quick wit, and said as much.

“Thank you,” the Captain replied, his voice husky. “I’m not accustomed to the fact that he’s gone. We were close.”

To change the subject, I asked if there were other passengers on board this crossing.

He shrugged. “God knows. They give me the count after we’ve been searched. There are quite a few wounded coming back with us. At least that’s the rumor. Not surprising. I could hear the guns as we came upriver.”

He paid for our tea and escorted me back to the Base Hospital before rejoining his ship. It would sail just after dark, and I promised to be on board before that time.

I had just walked through the gates of the hospital when someone called my name, and I turned quickly, unable to identify the voice.

It was Hugh Morton, drenched by the earlier rain, despair in his eyes.

“I don’t have the proper papers,” he told me. “Beside which, they’re determined to keep me here as well, not send me home. Wound’s not serious enough, they claim. I don’t know what to do. Rouen is bigger than I knew. I’d come over through Calais, not here. And I can’t speak the language.”

“What about your head injury performance?”

He smiled wryly. “I tried. They couldn’t find any wound on my head. That’s when they concluded I was feverish and would be admitted here.”

I said, “I’m leaving Rouen tonight. There’s nothing I can do.”

“You got me this far,” he reminded me.

“No. You left with the ambulances. As a hip wound.”

“I thought it best. How was I to know?”

I looked him over. “When did you eat last?”

“Two days ago.”

“Come along then.”

I walked back out the gates and took him to a restaurant where the food was not the best but was of enough provenance to trust it.

He ate cabbages and potatoes and what appeared to be minced chicken cooked in a sauce. There was a pudding, and he ate that as well. I refused to let him have wine, and he drank tea almost as thirstily as the Captain had done.

When he was finished, I took pity on him. He was a man who only wanted to go back to his father’s farm.

I said, “Look, even if I could get you to England, what then? As soon as you reach Wales-that’s to say, if you manage it without getting caught-the entire village will see that you’ve returned home. The next thing you know the Army will be there to take you up. They don’t turn the other way, Hugh Morton. They’ll search for you and in the end come for you. I don’t think you’ve considered that.”

“I have thought about it. I look enough like Llewellyn to pass as him. I could pretend to be one of the others, but Will and Llewellyn and I were alike as peas in a pod. Someone was always blaming the wrong one of us. And if anyone comes, I’ll just do my little mad bit, and they’ll turn away. They always do.”

“But he’s in hospital. And it isn’t much of a life for you.”

“Who has traveled across England to see him? Nobody. Which of my father’s neighbors will call me a liar?”

It was madness. The madness of desperation.

“Go back to your company, Private Morton. I’ll tell the Base Hospital how I found you wandering and confused. There won’t be charges to face.”

“Sister, I left my company to avenge my brother. It’s all I wanted-revenge for how Will was treated. But Will’s dead, the Major is dead. I’ve no more stomach for fighting. And I can do more good at home, helping my Da in the fields, than I ever could here.”

“I won’t be responsible if you’re caught. Do you understand that?”

“I do, Sister. I won’t even tell my father how I got home. What’s more, he won’t ask.”

“He may think you a coward for leaving France. None of your other brothers ran.”

“I doubt they would have stayed, given the choice. I doubt Will preferred to die in France, never seeing his son. Or Ross, drowning in the cold sea. Or David, when he looked down to find his leg gone.”

“All right. Go sit in the cathedral until dark. Meet me at the port gates. They’re taking wounded on board, and whatever I say to you at that time, you’ll do your part.”

“On my honor, Sister.”

But did a deserter have any honor to swear on?

I took him as far as the church, saw him safely ensconced by the organ loft stairs, and then walked away.

I wondered what my ancestress whose husband fought at Waterloo would have to say about what I was going to do.

I turned around and went back to the cathedral and found Hugh Morton where I’d left him.

“You will make me a promise,” I said.

“Anything, Sister.”

“If you survive this war, you will go to Cornwall and speak to your brother’s wife and see his son. Do you swear?”

“On my honor,” he said again. And this time I nodded.

I had left the cathedral and was making my way back to the Base Hospital when I happened to glance in a café window. Music was spilling out of the doorway, someone playing a plaintive tune on the piano, something about lost love and heartbreak.