The Walking Dead

The bishop grimaced, then hitched up the hem of his robe and strode away. The priest hurried after him. Helping each other, they scrambled down the loose stones and the dried dirt of the ravine. In its pit were old and rusted tins that might have held rations issued to combatants. There were three aged shell cases with lichen surviving on them. On their hands and knees they scaled the far edge of the ravine. They came to the barn where the walls of stone — still bore the pockmarks of bullets. The bishop paused there, at a doorway that had no door, gazed inside, and his eyes peeled away the interior's darkness. He imagined he looked into the hell of an abattoir, and he murmured a prayer for those who had died there close to seven decades before. He seemed to hear the moaning of the wounded and the cries of those who were past saving. On the flat ground, the priest hung back, but the bishop tramped on, crushing weeds under his feet. He came to the man, walked round him, then lowered himself, placed his weight on a rock and was in front of him.

'You are David Banks?'

'I am.' He was answered in halting Spanish.

'You have written many letters to me.'

'I have.'

'And you carry a diary of old times.'

'I do.'

He saw a youthfulness but it had no peace. He sensed the restlessness of a troubled mind, perhaps tortured. The letters had been blunt, to the point, and the bishop had no stomach for excuses, or procrastination. He thought it time to free a spirit.

'There is little appetite in our modern society to relive the harsh scars of days gone by. The lessons of history, as I have learned them, are that ancient wounds can be healed by time…Atrocities and savagery are passing things, and quickly forgotten. My grandfather was bayoneted to death by the Communists, but I have forgiven them and their heirs…I cannot enter the minds of those who did it, the hatred they harboured. I seek now only the passing of black days. You have asked that a stone be put here, that a name should be carved on it, that a prayer — a psalm — should be said here. That recognition should be given to those who died for a cause they believed in, for which they volunteered their lives, that they should have dignity in death. I promise, it will be done.'

'Thank you.'

He believed he took a burden from the shoulders, gave them back their strength. A wad of banknotes from David Banks's hip pocket was given him. He was told it was to pay for the stone and it was requested that a mason should carve on it the silhouette outline of a bird, a swan, with the name of Cecil Darke and the dates of his life. He put the notes into his wallet. And he was also asked if some several items could be buried in the earth under the stone when it was laid down: an old book, with a frayed leather cover was handed to him — almost with reluctance — and then from a pocket two small pebbles, each with seams of quartz running through them, and last a few coins of a currency he did not recognize, but they had weight.

'As you have asked it, so it will happen. Will it help you? Does that free you?'

'I will stay here for the night, and in the morning I will be gone.'

'Where to?'

'I don't know, it doesn't matter…'

The bishop backed away. He walked fast, the priest at his side, and the barn and the ravine were behind him. He was anxious to be on the road for Barcelona before the darkness came. He looked once over his shoulder and saw faintly, a last time, the man who was squatted low among the weeds, bathed in the brilliance of late sunshine, and believed he had brought peace to a troubled soul. He held the old notebook tightly, and the pebbles rattled with the coins in his pocket…He did not understand what was asked of him, or why, and thought few would have.

The bishop shook the hand of his priest and drove hurriedly away from a place where, he thought, old scars had lain open and untreated wounds had festered, but he trusted his promise would have healed the scars and cleaned the wounds. On his journey, ghosts danced in his mind. They were those of the dead in their lost graves, and of the living man who had watched over them and who — he hoped — was now freed, and at liberty.