It was tempting, Revell almost interrupted with the names of his men who had been killed or disabled while “tagging along” behind the Warpac withdrawal.
“So consequently when we signed the truce papers there was a considerable body of opinion that couldn’t grasp why, if we had them on the ropes, we didn’t put them down for a count.”
“A puzzle that was not confined to civilians, sir.”
“Quite. The whole blasted thing is not made any easier by the Communists already having committed three flagrant breaches of the truce. And that is in the first forty-eight hours. What we don’t need are the spectacular headlines your find would create. Stoke the fires of the public’s righteous indignation only a little higher and we’ll all get singed. Are .you with me?”
“Every dirty inch of the way.”
“Yes, I could see you were getting up the senator’s nose. Don’t try to do the same to me. I understand you’ve upset one general already this week. You won’t get away with it a second time.”
“Do you expect my men to stand by and see this murder swept under the carpet?”
“That is exactly what I want them to do. What they’ll be ordered to do by you.”
Picking a sprig of heather, the general gazed to where final preparations were being made for the destruction of the remains of the refugee victims. “Look, Major. I find this business every bit as distasteful as you do. But you and I know that if the damned politicians smother this episode, the Communists will get caught out doing the same or worse elsewhere.”
“Who’s the third passenger?” Revell could see that the senator was once again in earnest conversation with the unseen member of the delegation.
“The one doing the nudging and whispering? Not too sure myself. A big noise in the West German coalition government I believe, high up in the Green Party. Acts and speaks more alike a deep pink to my way of thinking.”
“Will this ever be made public?”
The general shrugged. “Who knows, perhaps when the truce collapses a few lines will be issued.”
“Then it’ll be swamped by other stories. Won’t even make the back page.”
“You’re catching on, Major.”
“What about your workforce. Can you be sure they’ll keep their mouths shut?” Revell almost gagged as an eddy of wind brought the stench of the charnel pit. He noticed some of the men in fatigues were taking off their respirators and throwing up. “How have you explained it to them?”
“We don’t have to explain the situation to them, any more than we needed to in your case. Far as they’re concerned they’re simply clearing up a mass grave after an epidemic. The reason we made a point of seeing you is that you and your bunch of cowboys have a reputation for writing your own orders. In this case I’m telling you it is not going to happen. You’ve got an order. You’ll follow it to the letter.”
At the bottom of the valley the first of the charges detonated. There was no noise, just a sudden eruption of dense white smoke. It had hardly begun to spread on the light breeze when another followed it, and then others at three second intervals.
The pall merged to hide the surface of the grave, then began to turn dark at its base as the furnace heat of the thermite ignited the corpses.
On the far side of the valley the last of the fatigue party were boarding a battle-weary Huey. As the last of them scrambled aboard, the chopper lifted, creating a local storm of twigs and dust. The ferocious downdraft gusted the bonfire smoke toward the officers.
“When we flew in,” the general took out a handkerchief and made as if to hold it over his mouth and nose, then decided against it, “we passed over the Russian battalion you’re supervising.”
Revell sensed there was more to the general’s remark than a mere polite observation. He expected there was more to come and waited, not expecting good news.
“You seem to have them working well. I know that’s not easy. But if I were you, I’d get them to slow down. The chances are that with both sides needing this truce it could, despite everything, continue for quite a while.”
“We’ve ten days to finish this work, then we go back.” Tm afraid it’s not quite that straightforward, Major Revell.” The general dabbed at his streaming eyes with a corner of his handkerchief as the acrid smoke swept about them.
“As I said, your combat company has an unfortunate reputation in some circles. And of course the fewer people in circulation who know about this discovery, the more likely it is to stay a secret…”
“So we are going to be left to rot out here until the truce is over, and what we know can’t be an embarrassment to anyone.”
“Those are not the words I would have chosen to use, Major, but they convey the gist of the idea, except in one respect. The time scale. Two days, two weeks, two months: who knows how long the truce is going to last. What I can tell you, though, is that if it lasts two years you’ll still be stuck out here. And there are no guarantees about you returning then.”
“Seems like my combat company has got enemies on both sides.”
“How right you are, Major. How very right you are.”
FOURTEEN
“What are we looking for?” Sergeant Hyde stood with the major and watched the progress of the excavation.
The explosion that had buried the bunker had loosened all the surrounding soil and the Russians were having to shore-up as they dug deeper.
“I want to find out what Warpac unit was here when that happened.” He knew he didn’t have to explain what “that” was.
“Then we should know soon.” Hyde shouted a warning to the diggers and they scrambled clear as a side wall of the pit collapsed. “Fairly soon, that is.” He had to shout again to get them back to work, and away from the water bucket. “Pity no one at HQ can tell us; this has taken fifty men off the work on the road.”
“Maybe they could, but I’ve a feeling our radio traffic will be monitored for a while, to make sure we’re being good boys and not telling tales out of school.” Revell impatiently watched the men making a clumsy chore of re-fixing the shoring.
One of Vokes’s pioneers jumped down to join them, and by pushing one man, and threatening another with a huge fist, and a torrent of incomprehensible Dutch, got the task done in half the time.
“This way no one finds out we’ve been making inquiries, and maybe takes away our radio and transport.”
“Major, major sir.”
The call came from an excavation on the far side of the site.
Grigori, with an air of self-appointed authority, was supervising the removal of a body from beneath splintered logs that had formed a bunker’s roof. They were smoked-stained on what had been the underside and soot coated much of the corpse.
A loop of razor wire girdling the woman’s torso had to be cut before the remains could be hauled clear. The fractured end of a thigh bone projected from flesh that was fast decomposing.
“You won’t mind, Major, if I point out that I’m trained to work on patients who aren’t turning green at the edges and have maggots coming out of their nose.” Distastefully, Sampson pushed the body over to examine the back, then let it roll face up again.
“No external signs I can see. Could have been anything, poison of some sort, heart attack…”
“What about the leg?” Revell could smell the woman, a heavy, cloying, sweet stench that he knew all too well.
Sampson hardly glanced at the ugly injury. “No bleeding, must have happened after death, when the roof came in on top of her.” He pointed to discoloured and crinkled patches of flesh. “Those are flash burns, from when they blew in the entrance, I should say.” Pausing, he looked again at the exposed bone and then the pattern of the burns. “Of course I’m no Quincy, but I’d say when it happened she was standing or more likely hanging up, like a wall ornament.”