Duncan Kyle - Whiteout!

We stared at one another and both of us shuddered.

'Wait. Wait a second,' Kelleher said. 'Let's just be damn sure this is right. We got - '

'It's right!' I said, and my voice sounded harsh in my own ears. 'Somebody has used a body for something, and faked this up to make it look as though they're all here.'

'What about the others?'

I examined them quickly, squeamishness suppressed. Therewas a corpse on each of the remaining sleds. I didn't linger; one glance at each of the pale, waxy, dead faces was more than enough, and when I came to the pulverized remnants of Kirton, my stomach threatened revolt. As I moved from sled to sled, Kelleher followed behind, in silence, replacing each cover. When we'd done, I rose and said, 'Why would he steal a corpse?'

'Because of what it would show?' Kelleher hazarded. 'Because the pathologist could prove something from it?'

I nodded. It seemed the likeliest explanation.

Then Kelleher said slowly, 'But it would have to be something obvious, that's for damn sure. Look, they fly these poor guys out to Thule first chance, okay? They unwrap the corpses, dress 'em up to ship 'em Stateside. But they know how they died. A helicopter crashed. So nobody's looking for anything suspicious.' He paused a moment. 'Listen. Thule's got the whole works, pathologists, morgues, even a mortician, for God's sake. The whole deal. It's a big place and people die, right? So .., this guy who steals a corpse, what's his reasoning ? I'll tell you. There's something about that corpse, about Pfc Harrer, that's gonna attract attention and fast ! When the bodies arrive, the pathologist takes a quick look because the book says look, then he gives the okay to the mortician for the screwed-down lid. Only he doesn't, not with Harrer, because that quick look's gonna ring alarm bells. So the body has to be stolen and got rid of.'

'Wrong,' I said.

'Why?'

'Because alarm bells ring anyway. Instead of a body there's a bundle of wood and kapok.'

Kelleher sighed. 'True enough. Maybe I did go nuts back there!'

'The minute that little bundle arrives,' I said, 'all sorts of things happen, and the first is a bloody great investigation of what's going on up here. Shipping this out draws attention.'

'Maybe the other thing was worse.'

'Perhaps.' But it didn't ring true. We stared at one another for a moment, bafflement complete. I said,

'Let's try Allen.'

As we slipped cautiously out of the trench, Coveney and a couple of others were moving purposefully along Main Streetabout fifty yards off, fortunately heading away from us. A glance would have been enough, but nobody seemed to turn and look. Kelleher carried his bundle of sheets at face level as we hurried back to the medical block.

Allen was sleeping, but Kelleher didn't hesitate. His forefinger was prodding the master sergeant awake as 1 closed the door into the ward. Rapidly we told him what had happened. He was physically very low, blinking with the need for sleep, but he listened with determined attention. Our account finished, we stood still, watching him try to think.

Finally he said, 'Nope. Can't see any reason.' He was sick and bone weary; it was an effort to stay awake and after a few moments his eyelids closed.

I was exasperatedly lighting a cigarette when he said, suddenly and clearly, 'What did you say the name was?'

'Harrer,' I said, 'Pfc Harrer."

Allen pursed his lips. 'We had this show a coupla months back. Stage show. Camp concert. Funny sketches and comic songs, you know the kind of thing.'

I thought for a second he'd begun to ramble. 'What about Harrer?'

'Harrer did a comedy routine about Doc Kirton. Best number in the show.'

I didn't see the point, but Kelleher suddenly snapped his fingers. 'You mean he looked like Doc Kirton?'

Allen gave a little nod. 'Enough for that kind of show. Big build. Dark hair. He wasn't a double, it wasn't even close, but on that stage with make-up and a stethoscope and a white coat...'

Kelleher interrupted him. 'So if that's not Kirton in there ...'

We talked, we thrashed at it, we speculated, we postulated, and at the end of it all, we still had only questions. Not an answer in sight. There was still somebody, malevolent, cunning, ruthless and inevitably insane, who was responsible for everything that had happened at Camp Hundred, but there was no clue to his identity or even to his thinking. There were plenty of insoluble mysteries, with a new one added: what possible use might have been made of Harrer's body and his resemblance to Kirton? It was Allen who finally said, 'Got to know whose body it is.'

The state of the body was still vivid in my mind. I said, 'It'll be very difficult to do. Whoever it is, he's in a terrible state. He was flattened by the tractor.'

'Fingerprints?' Kelleher said, impractically.

Nobody bothered to reply. Then Allen said, 'Boots.'

'What about them?'

Allen smiled faintly. 'Boot size is stamped into the leather binding inside the top of the boot.'

Kelleher opened the clothing locker. Inside were Kirton's various overalls, some sealed in sterile packs. On the floor of the locker were operating theatre footwear of green rubber. He picked one up and examined it. 'Eleven.'

I said, 'That's no use unless we know Harrer's size.'

'Well, we know Kirton's an eleven, regular fitting,' Kelleher said. He turned to Allen. 'How many fittings are there?'

'Three. Narrow, regular, wide.'

'Odds are two to one, then. And eleven's a big size.'

'Harrer was a big guy, too,' Allen muttered.

'We'll go look at the boots,' Kelleher said.

I grimaced, but it was obvious we had to return to the trench. Kelleher picked up his bundle of sheets and I collected a knife and some scissors, knowing we'd need them. There wasn't a soul moving in the whole length of Main Street. We hurried to the death trench, slipped inside and got to work. It was macabre and grisly and horrible. The felt boot was frozen to the crushed foot and I had to cut it away as best I could. The size was ten and a half, wide fitting.

'A difference,' I said, 'But it's not much to go .on.'

Kelleher thought for a moment. 'Dog tags. They should be round his neck, on a string.'

But they weren't.

Kelleher said, 'Rule is, they wear them the whole time. Maybe our friend took them off, before he . . .'

'Perhaps. But it's not enough, is it?'

'Rings? Watches?'

Together, sickened, we managed to get at a pocket, we proddeda nd probed, but it was empty. This had been a man; now it waslike a tangle of meat from a freezer. We found his left hand, badly mangled, and cut the glove away with difficulty. There was no ring, nor was there a watch on the wrist. Then, quite suddenly, 1 was staring at that broken hand, noting broad, practical fingers and nails which, though clean, were thickened and grainy. The third finger, the only one undamaged, had a ragged cuticle. I crouched there, thinking back, remembering Kirton as I'd sat drinking his coffee and listening to his music and how I'd noticed his precise, surgeon's hands. These weren't the fingers whose dexterity I'd envied.

As I lifted my head, my eyes met Kelleher's. 'That's not Kirton's hand!' I said. He nodded. 'Not in a million years.'

It led to a lot more talk, which I won't go over. We went back to the medical block for the benefit of Allen's advice, but by now he was sleeping deeply and this time even Kelleher hadn't the heart to awaken him. We stood beside his bed, talking softly, tracing and retracing the ground, trying to make sense of a situation that seemed to have no sense in it. It was unlikely and probably impossible that Kirton could still be alive, and we could see no reason why Harrer's body should have been dressed in Kirton's clothes and dumped where the tractor would run over it and thereby render it unidentifiable. There seemed no point in making one of the sleds look as though there was a body in it, when the deception would be discovered, and investigated with real determination, as soon as the bodies reached Thule. So?