Field Service Read Free

sitting around on the grass, the majority of them had already gone into the larger of the two goods sheds, where the cargo and their day’s work awaited them.
    Nothing would begin until Reid arrived and gave his instructions, and until his dockets and the coffins and their contents had been tallied. After that, he would direct the men in their work, and within the hour the shed would be cleared. The men who had been working there for some time would explain everything in further detail to the newcomers among them.
    Entering the dim and cavernous space, Reid sensed immediately that something was wrong. The men, rather than wandering among the coffins and boxes and calling to each other of the regiments and units they recognized, were all still gathered together at one end of the building.
    Several of them were shouting at each other. Jackets and caps lay on the ground and over the cases where they had been thrown.
    Reid called for Drake, his sergeant, and was relieved to hear the man’s immediate reply. Everyone turned to look in Reid’s direction, and most fell silent at seeing him. He went to them, again calling for Drake.
    Drake pushed roughly through the small crowd and presented himself to Reid. Neither man saluted.
    â€˜What’s wrong?’ Reid said.
    â€˜The usual,’ Drake said. He fastened the buttons on his tunic as he spoke. ‘Nothing another few minutes wouldn’t have seen sorted out.’
    â€˜And by “the usual” you mean …?’
    â€˜I mean some smart alec who insists he should be back at home and sipping tea from a cup and saucer rather than still being stuck out here humping corpses and digging graves all day.’
    Reid considered his response to this common complaint. Drake might have recently signed on for another seven years, but most of the men now allocated to the Commission were peacetime enlisters, none of whom had seen Active Service. And it was always these men – the men who, as Reid saw it, had the least connection and commitment to the work at hand – who complained the loudest.
    â€˜No one is here who has not been rightfully sent here,’ he said, shouting, and hearing the distorted echo of his words in the roof high above him. Narrow shafts of sunlight fell to the bare ground through the holes where lost tiles had not been replaced.
    Beside Reid, Drake turned to face the surrounding men. ‘Hear that?’ he shouted. ‘And that’s an actual officer speaking. You might not want to listen to
me
, but you’ll do yourselves no favours by ignoring
him
.’ He turned to Reid and smiled.
    Rather than prolong this encounter, Reid lowered his voice and said, ‘Is it anything – anyone – in particular?’
    â€˜Bloody newcomers,’ Drake said. ‘The usual toy soldiers getting their hands dirty for the first time.’
    There was some laughter at this. The men in the shed ranged in age from recently delivered nineteen-year-olds to those like the thirty-year-old Drake who had been out there for the past six years. Reid had long since ceased trying to understand how some of these men had found their way to him via the Commission while others were sent out and then called back home without ever leaving their coastal barracks. He wondered if another of his speeches was required, but decided against this. Drake, as usual, was the key to the situation, and he knew from experience that any matter of discipline or discord was best left to the blunt instrument of the sergeant.
    â€˜Would anybody like to add anything?’ Drake shouted after a long silence. ‘Anybody else want to come crying and telling tales to Captain Reid here?’
    No one answered him. He was their sergeant. No one ever answered him.
    â€˜Good. Because he’s a busy man. You want him to shed tears over you when he’s got all these other poor mothers’ poor bloody sons to take care of?’ He waved his arms at the