“Which put men on the beach right under the Hawkins’s shells,” I said.
“Yeah,” Harding said, nearly spitting out the word. “You can’t change plans once troops are underway. Someone always misses the message. Normally it’d just be confusion. But today it cost lives.”
“I’m beginning to think this beach is jinxed,” I said. “First the corpse, then this. Not to mention a flaming jeep.”
“Keep it under your hat, Boyle,” Harding said. “I’ve already talked to Lieutenant Kazimierz and the constable. They understand what happened here has to be kept on the QT.”
“Why?” I asked. “I mean, it was an accident. Happens all the time in training.”
“Not in these numbers,” Harding said. “And there are other considerations you don’t need to know about. So get back to your swank billet and rest up. Right now I have to get these bodies moved out of here. Your resourceful constable has come up with transportation for you, so get back and take it easy.”
I didn’t argue. It wasn’t often that Harding told anyone to take a rest, and I began to worry that I was hurt worse than I thought. It sure felt that way as I eased myself out of the ambulance and looked around for Kaz and Tom Quick. They were in a jeep parked alongside of the ambulance, partially hidden. Tom helped me into the back seat as Kaz looked around like a furtive thief, which technically he was. He eased out onto the roadway, cutting in between two trucks. We followed as the deuce-and-a-half in front of us ground gears going uphill, the unsecured rear canvas cover flapping in the breeze. I caught a glimpse of limbs jutting out at odd angles from the darkness of the truck bed. A truck full of dead soldiers. As soon as we came to a side road, Kaz took it.
“You trade in ours for a newer model?” I said as Kaz floored it and headed inland, away from the concentration of men and vehicles, the quick and the dead.
“It was Tom who pinched it,” Kaz said. “How are you feeling?”
“Still a little stunned,” I said. “Since when do constables steal automobiles?”
“As it’s an American military vehicle,” Quick said, “I am participating in Lend-Lease, not stealing. Your Colonel Harding thought it was an ingenious rationale.”
“It helped that the major we borrowed it from was a fool,” Kaz said.
“How so?” I asked from my perch in the rear.
“He cursed the Royal Navy for the shelling. Called the captain of the Hawkins a British son of a bitch.”
“General Eisenhower doesn’t mind officers calling each other sons of bitches,” I explained to Tom. “But he hates it when they say someone is an American or a British son of a bitch. Ike is all about Allied unity.”
“Colonel Harding was too busy to discipline the major, but I knew he was furious with him. So he turned a blind eye to our enterprise,” Kaz said.
“Well, it worked out well for us,” Quick said. “Otherwise we’d still be waiting for a lift. It seems every other vehicle was pressed into service to deliver the wounded to hospital and the dead to wherever they’ll be buried.”
“How many?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Kaz said. “Harding did the count of dead and wounded himself and wouldn’t say. He threatened everyone within earshot with a court-martial if they spoke of the incident.”
“It’s not like Harding to worry about public relations,” I said.
“I think it is more than that,” Kaz said. “There’s a secret he’s not sharing with us.”
“Need to know,” I said, a shopworn phrase by now.
“And we do not need to know,” Kaz said. There was nothing much left to say. We left the deserted South Hams and drove through villages and past fields alive with people, animals, and crops; everyday scenes that seemed to mock the devastation we’d left behind. Bodies and burnt houses, only a few miles from these peaceful hamlets where life continued much as before on this fine spring day. I wanted all these people to understand the sacrifice their neighbors had made, to know about the American GIs suffering in hospitals, and the dead tossed in trucks for a secret burial. Maybe they bore their own burdens of loss, or maybe they were oblivious to the world carrying on around them. It didn’t matter. Deep down, I knew I simply didn’t want to carry this secret locked up inside me. But orders were orders, as went the insistent logic of the army.
“Tom, how’d you miss getting hit by those shells?” I asked. “I seem to recall you were pretty exposed.”
“I saw they were headed in our direction and ran,” he said. “The force of the blast bowled me over, but the shrapnel missed me, thank God. After all the German ack-ack we flew through, I’d hate to go for a Burton courtesy of His Majesty’s navy.”
“A Burton?” Kaz asked.
“Buy the farm, go for a Burton, it’s all the same. Die,” Tom explained. “Burton is an ale. So gone for a Burton and never come back, see?”
“Why not?” I said, watching Tom for any signs of the black dog, as Churchill called his deep depressions. “You’re all right, Tom? Just knocked down?”
“Look at this,” Tom said with a grin, sticking a finger in a rip on the shoulder of his uniform jacket. “Shrapnel missed nicking me by half an inch.” He was none the worse for wear. As bad as the shelling had been, it was new to him. It happened on the ground, not high in the night sky over Germany. That was my theory, anyway.
We dropped Tom off in North Cornworthy. He said his pal Constable Robert Carraher lived there and wouldn’t mind the company. He’d hitch a ride into Dartmouth with Carraher in the morning.
When we arrived back at Ashcroft, Kaz helped me limp inside. We’d concocted a story about an accident with the jeep, and I was sure that no one would pay us much mind. With all the military vehicles tearing around southern England, accidents were pretty much commonplace.
“What happened to you?” Edgar said as soon as we set foot in the hallway.
“Captain Boyle,” Meredith said, following Edgar out of the library. “Are you badly hurt? Come, sit down.”
“A minor accident,” I said. “Our jeep came out worse than I did.”
“What can we do for you?” Meredith asked, the concern on her face not what I expected. Haughty indifference, perhaps, or a cutting remark about Americans driving on the wrong side of the road. But this was a kinder Meredith.
“Nothing, thank you,” I said. “I think I’ll go lie down.”
“Baron, you look hurt as well,” Edgar said.
“I am fine,” Kaz said. “A few minor bruises. Billy got the worst of it.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to eat?” Meredith said. “We’ve just finished our luncheon, and there’s plenty of food.”
“I’m hardly dressed for it,” I said, gesturing at my trousers where the medic had shredded them to get at my cuts and scrapes. But it dawned on me that I was hungry, and suddenly the appeal of hot food was undeniable.
“Perhaps a tray will be best for Billy,” Kaz said, reading my mind. Meredith hustled off to organize food, giving orders like she ran the place.
Twenty minutes later I was in bed, munching on a cheese sandwich served with a bowl of fish soup and a glass of stout. My legs were stiffening up, and my arm ached, but at least I was on the right side of the grass for another day.
“You okay?” I said to Kaz, who was seated at a small table by the window, downing the soup without a single slurp.
“Yes,” he said. “I am a little sore, but unhurt. Do you need anything, Billy?”
“Some shut-eye, that’s all,” I said.
“Thank you,” Kaz said, standing at the foot of the bed. “You saved my life.”
“It was my turn,” I said. “I think we’re even now.”
Kaz laughed, the joy of cheating death yet again vivid on his face. He left, and as I lay there I thought about getting up, but my eyelids grew heavy, and I fell asleep as odd visions of Sir Rupert in a truck filled with dead men danced through my head.
CHAPTER NINE