The Skeleton Man

2

When the first shell ripped overhead Dryden threw himself into the peaty soil, unable to stop his fingers digging down. He knew now why so many corpses in pictures of the carnage that was the trenches of the First World War seemed to be trying to bury themselves, clawing a way down, seeking the only route of escape. Dryden had no illusions about his reserves of courage. He was running on an empty tank and always had been. He was scared of loud noises, scared of pain, scared of dogs to the point of petrification, scared of heights, scared of small spaces and, crucially, scared of looking scared – a final twist which had ironically secured him a reputation for courage.

Sweating silently into his unfamiliar kit he could smell the fear, a pungent aroma normally associated with a loose drain cover. As each volley of shells wailed overhead he hugged the earth, drinking in the smell of warm grass and cow parsley.

The first salvo complete, Broderick got his men to their feet and they moved forward a mile over rough country, taking cover along a dyke dotted with Flanders poppies.

The second maroon sounded and Dryden counted the minutes, lying on his back, watching swallows overhead. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and smelt the salt. Broderick made a makeshift pillow with his hands behind his head.

Dryden broke the tension with a question. ‘How can you be sure there’s no one in the village?’

Broderick brought his hands round and held them up against the sky. ‘Well, strictly speaking, we can’t. There’s a perimeter fence, and the MoD’s spent a lot of money in the last few days catching up on repairs, but animals get through, so I guess people could too. There are regular warning boards on the fence, and the old roads are all gated with signs. Quite a bit of the perimeter is bordered with open water – there’s the Sixteen Foot Drain, Whittlesea Drain and Popham’s Eau. Red flags fly at various points on the fence and there are several over today’s targets in the village. Frankly, you’d have to wilfully ignore all that to get into danger.’

The shells began again and Dryden flipped over onto his stomach, his eyes closed, counting, until finally there was silence, and for the first time the distant hiss of a wind over Whittlesea Mere. When he opened his eyes he found Broderick still beside him, making some wild heather into a small bouquet using silver cigarette paper, and trying to fasten it to his tunic with a pin. Dryden could imagine the major chasing butterflies along the trenches of the Great War.

For the first time Dryden looked ahead, south, towards a low hill crowned by a medieval church. Beyond it a cluster of rooftops and the pencil-thin chimney of a long-abandoned sugar beet factory marked the site of the old village. And to the east another low hill, this one dominated by a Victorian water tower in brick with a black metal tank crowned by a whitewood dovecote. The village of Jude’s Ferry: a community of not much more than a hundred souls, abandoned seventeen years earlier to accommodate the army and its allies, keen to train for foreign wars.

Artillery had rained down on the targets ahead and smoke rose from a point west of the village itself, while occasional fire flickered amongst the ruins of a house about a hundred yards east of the church, which Dryden took to be the old vicarage. Somewhere automatic gunfire crackled like a party-popper.

‘OK?’ said Broderick.

Dryden nodded, lifting himself up on his elbows. ‘I’m always surprised there’s so much left,’ he said. ‘I guess…,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You’d think after ten years it would be like Baghdad. Looks more like Camberwick Green.’

‘Yup. That’s what we need. It’s about skills for urban warfare,’ said Broderick, and Dryden sensed that this was a subject that failed to make the major’s heart sing as sweetly as the wild heather.

‘You might as well have one of these,’ said the soldier, handing him a map.

It was a large-scale plan of Jude’s Ferry, each building etched in, complete with ground-floor windows, doors, yards and gates.

‘Only you and I have one of these today. The red dots show the exact positions of the defending targets – the cutout soldiers. That way, hopefully, you can see if these guys can do their job. The dotted lines mark cellars, and they’ll need to flush out targets during house-to-house searches. Clearing, entering and making safe, that kind of thing – all vital skills.’

He scanned the horizon ahead with binoculars. ‘So you can see that the last thing we want is to flatten the place. Artillery targets today are the old vicarage and the factory: not for the first time. Ordnance is light, even if they hit they won’t wipe anything out. Plus the engineers go in every few months and replace basic structures – nothing fancy, just so the cover is there. And there’s a network of water pipes which were fed from that water tower, so we’ve always been able to fight fires.’ He licked his upper lip. ‘We’ve got a new pump now, by the river, so the water tower’s redundant – which is a good job coz the water stank. The rats up there are the size of dogs.’

He scanned the village with the glasses again. ‘When you get up close you’ll see that the years have taken their toll all right. It ain’t Merrie England, believe me.’ He turned aside, adding quietly. ‘Never was.’

A radio operator ran up, bent double. A request had been made for permission for another bombardment. Broderick surveyed the line of men along the dyke and the village ahead before giving his OK and sending a command along the ditch to sit tight until the signal to advance was given by word. Then he knelt down in the grass and gave Dryden his field glasses.

‘Try looking – the shells can spook people out, but watching helps.’

Dryden smiled, accepting, studying the outline of the village church, the distant rooftops beyond down by the river. Above them the maroon thudded a third time. Broderick rolled over and lay on his back, checking his watch, a pair of swifts engaged in a dogfight high above them.

‘So,’ he said, finally. ‘This is big news, is it?’

‘Jude’s Ferry?’ said Dryden. ‘Sure. It’s been a big story since the start. When the villagers were shifted out in 1990 they were told they might be back in a year – not just for the annual church service on St Swithun’s Day, but back for good. They moved out in the July and the Gulf War started in August – so that was the end of that optimistic scenario. It was never going to happen. They tried everything they could to get back. Now the legal action in the High Court’s been thrown out it’s finally over. Frankly, I’m amazed the courts stopped the shelling while the case was still live… how long’s it been?’

Broderick twiddled a fen violet: ‘Must be eighteen months since we’ve been on the range – perhaps more.’

Dryden nodded. ‘You know the rest. The MoD’s announced there’ll be no return to Jude’s Ferry – not even for the annual service. But they rang us, wanted to know if we’d like to interview the top brass – why the village was a vital resource for training in the modern army – the familiar pitch. Charm offensive. Least they could do was let us go in one last time. So here I am.’

Broderick laughed. ‘We’ve been using a range up near Lincoln, so the lads are pleased to be back – most of ’em are local and this way they get home for tea.’

‘Yeah,’ said Dryden, failing to smile.

‘You think it was rough justice?’ asked Broderick.

‘At the time, a lot of people didn’t see why the army couldn’t go back to using the range half a dozen times a year like they had done since – what did you say? – 1907. The village was never a target. They’d always made sure the damage to agricultural land was minimal – most of the big exercises were timed for after the harvest. They’d close the road in for a day, clear livestock, but otherwise it didn’t make much odds to the village.’

Broderick sighed. ‘I’ll think you’ll find that no definite promises were made, you know, when we moved them out…’

‘I was there,’ said Dryden, cutting in.

The major’s eyes, watery brown, failed to hold Dryden’s. He bit his lip and, flipping over on to his stomach, checked his watch again. ‘Thirty seconds,’ he said.

‘I was there the day of the evacuation,’ Dryden repeated. ‘My first paper was over at Bedford, it was a big story so I went in to do a colour piece. There were promises made all right, otherwise they wouldn’t have got some of them out. Nothing in writing, of course. White lies. Khaki lies.’

The major stayed silent, outranked by an eyewitness.

‘Anyway, that’s history now,’ continued Dryden. ‘Nine/eleven, Madrid, London, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, who knows where next… ? They need the village. And the Americans want to join the party too. So game, set and match. Like you said, urban warfare. Jude’s Ferry’s too valuable to give back.’

Before the major could reply another gout of flame erupted briefly at the edge of the churchyard, and then they heard the scream of the shell overhead.

‘Shite,’ said Broderick, waving up the company radio operator. ‘Tell ’em they’re fifty yards off the vicarage to the west. Tell ’em quick.’

Dryden used the digital camera and a telephoto to get some snaps. He had the church in centre focus when the final volley came in, and he saw clearly the moment when a shell punched a hole through the roof before exploding in the nave; a window of multicoloured glass bursting out into the churchyard, a flame glimpsed within.

Broderick was standing: ‘Last sodding shell. Typical.’ He glanced at the reporter and Dryden guessed he was weighing up the possibility of sending him back. But Dryden, they both knew, had seen enough.

‘Right. Radio Red Centre, tell ’em the urban phase is off. We’ll assess the damage, report back.’ He stood, produced an umpire’s whistle and blew it. Along the line of the dyke the men stood, stretching, and a few removed their tin hats. Dryden half expected them to start playing football in no-man’s-land. Broderick jogged down the dyke bank and vaulted the drain below, leading the way across a field pitted with old shell holes and thorn bushes.

It took them twenty minutes to reach the church. As the village unfolded itself to Dryden he kept expecting to see movement: washing perhaps, flapping on a line, a stooped figure hoeing in a garden, a trundling tractor encircled by seagulls. But except for the rooks over the water tower and the limp target flags the village was lifeless, the shadows untroubled.

At the graveyard wall the major split the company, sending half on to make sure that at least the second target – the old sugar beet factory – had been hit according to plan. The rest were told to check out the graveyard and the exterior of the church and then assemble at the church doors to gauge the damage inside.

Dryden retrieved the digital camera from the webbing inside his tunic and moved amongst the headstones. The stray shell which had punched out the window had sent glass and stone fragments spraying out. He noticed graffiti on some of the reverse faces of the stones, including two sets of ‘TROOPS OUT’ and one reading ‘GIVE OUR VILLAGE BACK’. A snake of grey smoke rose from the roof of St Swithun’s. Oak doors in the porch stood at an angle, their locks ruptured by the blast, and Dryden squeezed through.

Outside he could hear the soldiers moving through the long grass around the building. But in the nave he was alone, and for the first time he felt the presence of the ghosts of the past, crowding into the pews which had long gone. It was cool in here, surrounded by stone, shielded from the sun, and he felt the sudden iciness of the sweat on his neck. He moved down one of the side aisles to a Gothic door which he tried, but found it locked. Turning towards the main body of the church he watched as a shaft of sunlight fell to the bare stone floor of the nave. The shell had pitted the stone like the impact of a meteor on the moon. The only fire was in the roof beams, which spluttered blue flames. The sound of falling glass filled the ringing silence. As he walked forward he felt exposed, the subject of watchful eyes, and it made his skin creep.

He stood in the jagged pool of light and looked up into the blue sky above, then down at his boots. A finger, porcelain white, lay on the flagged stone floor. For a moment his stomach turned, he was unable to be sure it was what it must be, a shattered fragment of statuary. But the tomb stood close by, a reclining crusader in stone on the top, the hands once held in prayer reduced to two stumps of chipped marble by the explosion.

The oak doors behind him crashed open and Broderick pushed his way into the church, followed by a dozen more of his men. They fanned out, silent now they could see the damage to the roof, sharing some of the gunner’s guilt.

Dryden touched the cool stone tomb. Shrapnel had damaged the top of the funeral chest on which the knight lay – the corner of the stone lid had broken away and lay shattered on the floor. He edged closer to the hole, trying not to block any light which might show the contents within, but he could only glimpse cold stone, just on the margin of vision. Closer, he sniffed the fetid air, laced now with the acrid edge of scorched stone.

He walked behind the chest, recognizing the crusader’s tomb from a picture The Crow had run the previous week when he’d written a feature hooked on the decision by campaigners to abandon their legal fight, and previewing the return of live firing to the range.

The centuries had worn the name on the side of the tomb but it was still legible: PEYTON.

As he rounded the stone box Dryden glimpsed a spade leaning against the nave’s outer wall, and black peaty earth scattered over the cool grey stones of the floor. He froze, suddenly feeling that despite the voices of the soldiers near by he was still alone in the church. He could see that one of the large gravestones set into the floor had been lifted to reveal a hole, most of the earth from which lay in a neat pyramid hidden from wider view by the funeral casket of the Peytons. The grave was just three feet deep and empty, a few damp pebbles reflecting the light from the rich coffee-black soil.

The gravestone removed stood on end, leaning by the spade, and showed a heraldic device like a sunflower with the clear etched letters spelling the name again: PEYTON.

The crackle of a radio startled him and he saw Broderick directly below the hole in the roof with his radio operator.

‘Mr Dryden… We’re moving on into the village. There’s nothing we can do here now. I need you close to hand. My men have to run a hose in here – they don’t want you in the way.’

Dryden looked around the church and noted signs of earlier damage. One window was boarded up, and parts of the triple-tiered wooden pulpit were charred by a fire long cold. But why the opened grave?

‘You should see this…’ he said. ‘St Swithun’s has had visitors.’

Broderick shrugged. ‘First things first, if you please. I presume they’re not here now. We need to check the second target, another wayward shell, I’m afraid.’

Dryden knelt by the pile of soil and ran some of it through his hands. Despite the heavy heat of the summer’s day it still felt cool so he plunged his hand in, pulled it back, and examined the moisture visible on his skin.

‘Recent visitors,’ he said, knowing there was no one to hear.

But he felt the hairs on his arm prickle and, standing, fought against the irrational conviction that he was being watched. Then he ran a finger in the dust along the edge of the tomb and along the ten-inch-high letters etched in its side, wondering why the name was familiar, pushing aside the creeping anxiety that he should know the answer.