James Benn - The Rest Is Silence

“Yeah, Lieutenant,” I replied. “None of yours.” I flashed my orders at him and watched him gulp as he read through them.

“No one is supposed to go in there, Captain,” he said. “But this trumps whatever I’ve been told.”

“We’re looking to confirm the deaths of several officers. We’ll check the dead. Is this everyone who’s been brought in?” I waved at the tents.

“Yes, sir. We’ve been told to keep all the bodies here. They’re going to start getting ripe pretty soon.”

“Get used to the smell, Lieutenant. How many wounded do you have here?”

“About a hundred,” he said. “We’re supposed to keep them all here, too, even the serious cases. They even ordered us not to talk to them. One of the doctors said he was told to treat them as if he were a veterinarian. Meaning patch ’em up, but don’t get friendly.”

“Who gave those orders?” I asked.

“Dunno, sir. It was a bunch of officers come through here yesterday. They wore coats with no shoulder patches, but all of our brass gave them a wide berth.”

“Smart of them,” I said. “Now do the same, okay?” He did.

I untied the flap of the first tent. The odor of death was new-on the edge of truly putrid, but not there yet. The cold salt water might have slowed the process of decay, but there was no stopping it. I thanked my lucky stars they hadn’t been put inside mattress covers yet. This made it easier to spot the ranks we were looking for.

“One colonel, two captains, and four lieutenants,” I said to Quick. He had the list of names and descriptions out. The bodies were laid out in rows, close together. Helmets had been removed and packs piled up at their feet. No one had bothered to separate by rank. No officer’s quarters for these men. We found a colonel, but he wasn’t a match. Ditto for the lieutenants. As we walked between the rows, milky, glazed eyes stared at us. Their faces were clean, washed by the Channel waters; features calm, even serene-because the muscles relaxed at the time of death, not because their deaths had been peaceful. The most wide-eyed, horror-stricken grimace fades as the brain loses all control over nerve and muscle.

“They look peaceful,” Quick said, noticing the look on their faces but not understanding it.

“Yeah,” I said, seeing no reason to educate him in such matters. A country constable didn’t see much death, not compared to a Boston cop. And all his killing had been done from twenty thousand feet, so how would he know? Better to let him think all the people he’d bombed had ended up with this tranquil appearance amidst the rubble he’d created. “Nothing here.”

The next tent was different. It looked as if they’d put all the dismembered and torn bodies together. No one looked serene. A tangle of severed legs and arms was piled on one side, three heads sitting on top, helmets still on. Apparently no one had had the stomach to loosen the chin straps.

The bodies themselves were burned or torn apart by explosions or propeller screws. Packs and belts had been left on. They were probably the only things holding the flesh and bone together. I glanced at Tom, not wanting him to think I didn’t trust him to handle it. He was pale, but he stood ramrod straight. As a matter of fact, he looked better than I felt. I tamped down my queasiness and started the search. I knelt and checked dog tags, skipping the enlisted men when I could find a sign of rank. Fortunately, even the headless bodies still had the chains tucked under their shirts.

“Lieutenant Winslow,” I said. “Lieutenant Chapman.” Tom shook his head no. “Here’s a Lieutenant Smith. We have one of those, right?” Tom read the serial number. Wrong Smith. We worked our way through the maimed corpses, finally finding one match. Lieutenant Patrick Sullivan. The serial number was a match, which helped since his blond hair had been burned with the rest of him.

“Thank God we found one,” Tom said as soon as we’d closed the flap behind us. “I’d hate to have gone through that for nothing.”

The next two tents were better, if any pile of sodden dead men can be better than another. But no BIGOTs.

“That’s it,” I said. “Let’s head down to the next station.”

“Perhaps we should walk through the hospital tents,” Tom suggested. “A badly injured man might have been rushed in before they started listing the names of the wounded.”

“Might as well,” I said. A long shot, but we were on the scene, so why not? We entered the first tent, and a white-smocked doctor tried to wave us off. I showed him our orders, which he didn’t like one bit.

“We’ve been ordered to keep these men quarantined,” he said, loosening his smock to better show off his major’s gold oak-leaf insignia. “And I outrank you, Captain Boyle.”

“General Eisenhower outranks everyone,” I said. “Take it up with him, Major …?”

“Major Clayton Dawes, surgeon with the Thirteenth Field Hospital. Look, I’m not interested in a pissing match, Captain. If these orders are legit, go right ahead. Please be quiet and don’t upset anyone, okay?”

“Just how bad are the injuries here?”

“Everything from a broken arm to severe internal injuries and third-degree burns,” he said, back on more comfortable territory. “I got pulled in because I was available. I normally do chest and heart surgeries, and there’s nothing much in that line here. We’re basically operating as an evacuation hospital. The walking wounded should be released as soon as possible, and the others sent on to the field hospital in Exeter.”

“When’s that going to happen?” I asked.

“Good question,” the major said. “I think the brass is more worried about keeping this whole thing quiet and these boys in the dark than about medical necessity.”

“I’m not going to argue the point,” I said. “We’re looking for anyone who might be unidentified. Unconscious, no identification, that sort of thing.”

“There’s only one man here like that,” he said. “Over there, next to Lawson. Lawson’s a sad case himself, but it’s the man in the next bed I’m concerned about. Lawson insists it’s his buddy from LST 507, but that’s not possible.”

“How do you know?” Tom asked as the major led us through the rows of beds, white enamel frames set on the dirt floor.

“The only ID we had was his life jacket. It had the name Miller and LST 531 stenciled on it,” the doctor said. “Lawson was from the 507. They’re both navy.” He pointed to a bed where a still form was swathed in bandages. A portion of his face and one leg was all that was visible. The face was mottled purple and red, so swollen from bruising that it was unrecognizable. Across from him another sailor sat on his bed, feet on the ground. He had a cast encasing his upper arm and shoulder and a bandage wound around his head. He stared at the other patient, taking no notice of our arrival.

“How you doing, sailor?” I asked. He had sandy hair and thin features, and his forehead was furrowed in worry. He looked startled at my question.

“What’s happened?”

“Don’t you know, lad?” Tom said.

“No one’s talked to us, not even the nurses. You’re the first,” he said.

“What do you remember?” I said.

“Something hit the ship. There was an explosion. Smoke, fire, yelling and screaming. It’s all a blur.”

“Do you know this man?” I said, kneeling at his side and pointing to the inert form on the bed opposite.

“Sure, that’s Hal. He’s my buddy. We been together since basic.”

“What’s your name, son?” Tom asked, sitting on the bed next to him.

“George Lawson. Machinist’s Mate. Were we torpedoed?”

“You were,” I said. “Was Hal with you?”