Them or Us

I was late to the party (and also because my dawdling and lack of effort have been noticed), I’ve been told in no uncertain terms to keep working. One other man is left working with me. He’s a strong, thickset fighter who continues digging at the bottom of the pit. His head glistens with sweat, his thinning silver hair slicked back. He looks like the type of man who’s done this kind of work all his life: solid and muscular but not particularly athletic. He’s hardly said two words since I’ve been here, but as the others are a safe distance away and I’ve got my back to them, I risk trying to make conversation. It’s not easy. He’s buried chest deep in the large, six-foot-square pit, and he digs constantly, only pausing to either swap his shovel for a pick or pass up another bucket of soil for me to dump into the wheelbarrow.
    “You been here long?”
    “Couple of weeks,” he says, barely acknowledging me. I try offering information to get him to talk.
    “I just got in this morning. Looks like a pretty well organized place.”
    “Warner does okay,” he says, grunting with effort as he shifts another bucketful of dirt.
    “You get much trouble here?”
    “Only from people who ask too many questions.”
    “Sorry.”
    A handful of sheep have wandered into the field and are milling around, as hungry looking as the horse. Their fleeces are patchy and mangy looking. They drop their heads and try to graze, but the grass is thin and unsatisfying. They barely look up when I push the wheelbarrow past them to empty it, too weak to run away. When I return to the pit I take a chance and try again.
    “Look, I heard what you said about asking questions, but what exactly are we doing out here?”
    “Digging a fucking big hole,” he answers, no hint of sarcasm in his voice.
    “I know that, but what’s it for?”
    He stops working momentarily and looks over the lip of the pit, back across the field. No one’s looking at us. They’re far enough away for him to feel comfortable enough to talk.
    “You won’t do yourself any favors if you keep asking questions like that, I already told you.”
    “I know. I’m sorry.”
    He glances around again.
    “We lost a few people over the last couple of weeks,” he finally explains. “We would have burned them like usual, but Warner’s got this idea that things here have gone too far the wrong way. He said he wants them buried like we used to. Says if someone doesn’t start making a stand, we’ll be living like savages again before we know it. We’ll end up going the way of the Brutes.”
    “So what happened?”
    “A few of them got sick…”
    “And the others?”
    “An accident,” he tells me reluctantly. “A handful of people got hurt, two were killed.”
    “What kind of accident?”
    I know instantly from the expression on his face that I’m pushing too hard.
    “You really need to stop talking and get working. I’ve told you all I’m going to.”

 
    10
    THE SUN HAS SET by the time I’m finally allowed to stop. I’m exhausted; weak with effort and numb with cold.
    The pit was finished a while back. Warner, his right-hand man Ben, and a crowd of others pulled a trailer loaded with corpses into the field. I tried to watch from a safe distance and I counted at least five bodies. They were wrapped up in blankets and black plastic, so it was impossible to tell who they were or how they’d died. I’m sure one of them must have been Casey, Hinchcliffe’s missing soldier. I even volunteered to help fill in the grave so I could get a better look. That was a mistake. A load more unnecessary effort and I couldn’t see a damn thing.
    Something’s definitely not right here. Warner and several others stood silently around the edge of the pit, watching the dead being buried and muttering and whispering to each other. I can’t make up my mind whether Warner is genuinely hankering back to prewar values of respect and dignity, or whether this was a mock burial to throw people off the scent. Is all of Southwold just an elaborate facade? Were they burying evidence and trying to hide their crimes?
    After they’d buried the bodies, a couple of us were sent into a copse of trees to fetch firewood, which we loaded onto the back of the trailer. Virtually everything’s dead, so it took less time than expected to gather up a large enough load. Other people arrived from the center of the village a while back to take the firewood away, and I’ve been called over