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Grave digging had never been too high on Pete’s list of desirable jobs. Hell, it wasn’t even on the list, and neither was body snatching for that matter. Yet here he was, pulling at a coat that did little to keep him warm, waiting for Patrick and Joe to show up. As a young child he wanted to be a musician. He watched small bands play in local bars for hour on end with hope filled eyes. But as he grew he quickly learned that a musician's salary provided little more than lodgings and food money if he didn't drown his disappointment in liquor.
Now as a young man, with a wife and baby on the way, he had needed to give up that childhood dream which couldn’t support a family. London jobs were scarce, workhouse provided for much of the hard labor companies needed and university degrees were needed for anything more substantial. Pete was too old for the workhouses and certainly couldn't afford university when he and his wife could hardly eat. But as it turns out, tragedy came to his benefit. When his mother had died in an influenza outbreak it had fallen on him and his sister to bury her. Even with a plain casket and no formal funeral they couldn’t afford it. That’s when the grave digger at the cemetery offered to cover the rest if Pete helped dig the grave.
It had been difficult, shoveling feet into the cold, hard earth but Pete managed. The grave digger, an old man by the name of Oliver, huffed and wheezed the whole time; Pete ended up digging most of the grave. After the burial Oliver approached Pete again, but this time to offer a job.
“You were a natural back there,” Oliver complimented. “The work is taxing, but it’s a good steady job.”
Pete jumped at the offer, losing a mother and gaining a title in the same day. Gravedigger's apprentice.
The soft thunk of a spade hitting the ground and the distinctive metallic cer-chung of someone climbing over the iron wrought fence surrounding the cemetery pulled Pete from his reverie. He made his way towards the noise looking for the body snatching duo. He never asked what Patrick and Joe did with the body but he suspected it was for the students learning to be doctors at the universities. He himself had thought about doing the same work after first meeting the two, but the moral complications eventually persuaded him not to. No, it was much simpler to take their bribes and turn a blind eye.
"It's a bi' chilly this evenin'," Patrick stated in lieu of a greeting, his cockney accent sharp like the winter air.
"You'd be warmer if you had a coat," Pete remarked, shocked at how Patrick could go around without one.
"Oh yeah, Joe caugh' a cold an' I made 'em take m' coat. 'E needs it more than I do," Patrick picked up the shovel and burlap sack he had thrown over earlier. "So where's the body tonigh'?"
Pete wordlessly lead Patrick through the graveyard. The cemetery Pete worked for often employed people to patrol to grounds and watch newly filled graves to prevent body snatchers, like Patrick, from taking the corpses. Pete often volunteered for these shifts to make some extra money, from the cemetery and Patrick's bribes. But recently there has only been a few new burials and only a few graves that needed watching, leaving Pete as the only guard.
"It's a young girl," Pete said at the foot of fresh grave. "She was buried yesterday morning." He didn't know if Patrick ever had preferences for gender or age of the corpses but he always told him anyway.
"'Aight, I gotta ask a favor," Patrick fished in the pocket of his trousers and produced a small coin purse, "I'll give ya half a pound if ya help m' dig 'er up. With Joe gone sick it'll take m' twice as long ta get 'er outta here."
Pete swallowed hard, that was twice as much as Patrick usually offered in bribes. He had sworn to himself if wouldn't ever do this, looking the other way was one thing but actually assisting in body snatching was another. But his wife was almost to term with their child and they'd need money for a midwife. Begrudgingly, Pete extended his arm and grabbed the purse from Patrick, the coins jingling as he shoved it in his own pocket.
"Let me go get a shovel," Pete started off towards the small shed here they kept the digging tools.
By the time he made it back Patrick had made a good dent in earth right by the headstone. Pete started down by where the corpses toes would be. They dug in silence, only the fall of dirt on the ground and heavy panting of their breaths coloring the quiet night air. Pete's thoughts were a mix of prayers for forgiveness and how much easier this was the second time around. He quickly tampered down the latter of the two.
Patrick's spade was the first to make the dull thunk of metal hitting wood rather than dirt. They both took that as a sign of encouragement, they'd hit the coffin: the digging was almost done. Patrick instructed Pete to climb out of the hole they had created. He cracked open the coffin lid and pulled the girl out. He handed her up to Pete who, reluctantly, wrapped his arms under the girl’s armpits and pulled her up. Pete looked away as Patrick shamelessly disrobed her threw her burial dress back into the now empty grave. He only looked back over at Patrick once he was sure he had stuffed the body into the burlap sack he had brought.
The two picked up their shovels again and started the process of refilling the grave. Once the last shovel full had been laid Pete used the flat underside of his spade to pat down the loose soil and Patrick walked over it a half dozen time to pack it down even further. Satisfied with it appearence, Patrick left to grave plot and picked up the corpse; he set it on his shoulder as he began to walk back toward the wall he had earlier climbed over.
“I’m gonna climb ov’r and I’ll be needen’ you to hand ‘er ta me onc’ I get down,” Patrick gently set the body down on the ground before he threw his shovel over the fence again.
He scaled it and jump off the top, landing quietly like an alley cat. Pete shuffled his feet, unwilling to touch the body again. Eventually he forced himself to pick it up, one arm under the knees and one behind her shoulders, a mockery of the way a groom would often carry a bride. The fence wasn’t exceedingly tall, only about a foot higher than himself so he needed only to step on the lowest bar in order to be able to lift the corpse up and over the Patrick.
“Thank ya kindly, I’ll see ya next time,” Pete could see Patrick tip his hat in the faint moonlight before bending down to pick up the corpse again and disappearing into the night.
Pete let out a sigh of exhaustion and slumped against the fence. God help him, he’d just helped steal a body. And now it was off to be chopped up and mutilated by scientist, men who had no fear of God. He stuck his shaking hands in his pockets and felt again the purse Patrick had given him. He thumbed at the coins through the thin fabric, thinking about what that money could buy. A midwife to help his wife for sure, and most likely some comfort for himself and new family after.
Using his shovel for assistance, Pete hefted himself up from the ground. He still had rounds to make to protect the rest of the new bodies from other snatchers. He placed the shovel back into its shed and began his walk around the cemetery keeping watch until the first light of dawn.