Chapter Text
The journey back to the front lines was a solemn one. The men would usually sing to pass the time while they marched, simple, sardonic ditties about how tired they were, how fed up, how much they wanted to go home. But no one was in the mood that day.
The mud was so thick and dense that the support trenches had become virtually impassable since they last traversed them. Will couldn’t even tell if his boots were touching the planks that had been laid down; he was encased in sludge up to his knees. It seemed to take hours to slog each hundred feet. Before long, Will’s legs had become so tired that he was certain the mud was the only thing holding him upright.
The closer they got to the front, the worse the smell became. Decay, bodies rotting in the fields by the thousands. Will had smelled decomposition before the war, but nothing like this. It seemed to permeate one’s very pores, clinging to the nose hair, exuding from clothing with the slightest movement. Will thought he could bathe a thousand times over and never be rid of that stench.
Night had fallen by the time they reached the front line. In the lamplight, Will caught a glimpse of the company they were relieving as they passed. The men’s faces gave the impression of wax masks, sallow and lifeless. They shuffled like dementia patients, hands visibly trembling where they clutched their rifles. One gibbered incoherently. Another cried for his mother. The rest were silent as the dead.
It did not take long for them all to pass. Many had gone ahead on stretchers. Under sheets.
The trenches were in bad shape, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it in the dark. Tier allocated their nighttime duties and the men glumly made their way to their posts. For once, not a single complaint could be heard.
As Will settled in the sap he had been assigned to, he wondered if word had reached Dr. Lecter that their battalion had been sent back early. There had been no way to send a message to him at such short notice, certainly not discreetly. Was he at that very minute laying a table for two, his long fingers carefully folding the napkins, straightening the cutlery, trying to make a meager meal of rations feel like a feast? Will wondered what Lecter’s quarters looked like, where he slept. Quite suddenly, he found himself close to tears.
Perhaps it had been for the best, he thought, pulling his greatcoat closer around him to stave off the bitter chill. It would have raised questions if they had been caught.
Best not to get too close.
*
Will woke from fitful dreams to the sensation of needles lightly pricking his face.
He opened his eyes. It had started snowing while he slumbered; a light layer dusted his greatcoat already. A white Christmas. It would have been quite magical if it had occurred almost anywhere else.
Clambering off the ledge where he’d stolen a few hours of sleep after being relieved from watch, Will shook the snow off his coat and swung it over his shoulders. His legs trembled with fatigue from the previous day’s march; his fingers were stiff with cold. He knew there was a long day of hard labor ahead — collapsed trenches to be repaired, bodies to be uncovered from dugouts that had become tombs when the shells fell — but that could wait, at least for a little while. It was Christmas morning and time for breakfast.
The men in his section were huddled together on a firing step, cradling cups of tea in their cold-ruddy hands. Will nodded in greeting as he joined them and took his own tin cup out of his pack, murmuring a few words of thanks as Crawford filled it with the last of the morning’s hot water. Will dropped a couple of tea tablets in and stirred, watching the pallets dissolve before taking a sip. The bitter taste of petrol coated the back of his throat. He went in for another sip regardless, grateful for the warmth.
“Well, aren’t you lot a sight for sore eyes?” Lance Corporal Brauer said as he approached. His tone was genial, but Will could see the strain behind his usual easy smile. “Where’s your Christmas spirit, chaps?”
“Must’ve left it behind the lines,” Price muttered.
Brauer made a small sound of pity. “Then you won’t be wanting this then, I suppose?” he said, lifting the corner of the cheesecloth-wrapped package he was carrying.
Price’s head shot up. “Is that bacon?”
“Old Saint Nick must’ve gotten our forwarding address after all,” the Lance Corporal said, tilting the package to show them its contents, pink and glistening with fat, the most heavenly sight a hungry soldier could imagine. “And it wasn’t easy to get hold of so you’d better be bloody grateful for it.”
They were, waiting enthusiastically for their turn to cook the meat in their mess tins, burning tiny scraps of wood in the firepit to minimize the smoke. There was enough for two rashers apiece, along with a piece of hardtack, a tin of boiled plum pudding, and even a double-ration of rum, doled out by Brauer with a wink. For a while, the only sounds were their contented chewing, the scrape of their utensils as they rounded up the crumbs. The smell of cooked meat lingered teasingly in the air long after it had vanished from view.
“It true there was a truce that first Christmas?” Crawford asked when all the food was gone.
Brauer, now sitting on the muddy boards with his legs stretched out in front of him and a cigarette dangling from his lips, nodded. “I was in Flanders at the time. We walked out into No Man’s Land as if it were Hampstead Heath. I don’t know which brave soul made the first move, if it was us or them. All I remember thinking is how normal the Boche looked up close, not at all like I’d imagined them. They were so… young. We played footie with a can of bully beef and exchanged souvenirs, coins and trinkets and the like. I still have a postcard of the Rhine in my pack. Then night fell and we went back to our trenches to resume shooting at one another.”
He shook his head, taking a long draw from his cigarette and exhaling the smoke in a sigh.
“We’d all been told this would be over by Christmas. Now here we are again, three Christmases in and still no end in sight. Perhaps by next year.”
“Why did you sign up?” Will asked quietly. “That was long before conscription. Why did you volunteer?”
Brauer scratched his chin. “Feels foolish to think back on it now. There I was, cushy job, clean bill of health as I approached middle age. Full of bravado. I thought it would be an adventure, I suppose. Chance to prove my manhood, maybe come back with a handsome scar and a story. And oh, it felt so good to hear the pretty girls cheer as we boarded the boats. I remember a young woman grabbing me and kissing my cheek on the pier, telling me how tremendously brave I was. I can still recall the smell of her perfume. I told her I’d be back for a proper kiss soon.” He chuckled. “I don’t even know her name. She probably kissed a hundred soldiers that day.”
“That first year, it all seemed so noble,” Crawford said. “I wanted to sign up — seemed like the right thing to do. But my wife begged me not to. We had the shop to manage, she said, but it was more than that. She knew. She always was the insightful one in our relationship.”
“War is just advertising,” Brauer said, lighting another cigarette and offering the case around. “You need enough people to buy in to make it viable. So you start by playing on their sense of pride. You make them feel brave and strong and patriotic, sell the idea of being part of something. Enlist today, your country needs you. Don’t walk to the recruiting office, run — and while you’re at it, bring all your chums along with you. And you’ll attract a lot of consumers that way — providing their wives don’t talk them out of it, of course — but it’s still not enough, not when the churn is so high.
“So you change tactics, start cultivating a guilty conscience instead. The people who didn’t immediately buy in, well, they must be cowards. You’re not a coward, are you? Better enlist to prove it. Build enough brand loyalty and before long, everyone around those holdouts will start calling them cowards, too. You’re in or you’re out, and shame on you if you’re out. It’s vulgar, but that’s war for you.”
He shrugged, tilting his head back to blow a plume of smoke into the frigid morning air and wafting it away with his hand.
“I’d be careful with talk like that,” Price said, an edge of unease in his voice. “They’ve put men against the wall for less.”
“Oh don’t get me wrong, I think it’s quite brilliant,” Brauer said. “I’m a criminal defense barrister — I appreciate a good marketing strategy when I see one. My entire job back home is creating a desire for people to do something they don’t want to do — believe something they’re not inclined to believe. I would have been exceptional in the propaganda department, if I do say so myself. Would have gotten you lot to enlist faster than you did, that’s for sure.”
“Did I ever tell you all why I signed up?” Zeller said, suddenly. He had been staring at his boots, but now he looked up, his gaze falling upon each man in turn before settling on Brauer. “I was part of a Pals Battalion. All the lads from the mill — must have been two, three hundred of us. Foreman was furious when he found out. Whole workforce up and gone, just like that.”
He shook his head at the memory, stirring his cold tea with his finger.
“We called ourselves the Blackburn Brigade. I figured it’d be fun, pitching in with my mates. We all did — we were laughing and taking bets on who would kill the most Krauts as we walked to the recruitment office. It felt like a game. I even said that the war better not end before we really had a chance to get stuck in. And when I stepped off the train in France, well… I’d never been out of Blackburn before, much less England. And there were so many of us. How could we possibly lose with that many people? It felt like all of England was out there. Half of Scotland too, for that matter.”
Zeller paused to sip his tea. His face was hard.
“We didn’t know it at the time but the generals were strengthening our numbers for a big push. ‘ The Somme Offensive ,’ they called it. That didn’t mean anything to me. All I knew was that the shelling never bleeding stopped that first week. They were trying to soften up the German defenses — fat lot of good it did. Then they ordered us to go over the top.
“That first day of the battle, we lost more than three-quarters of our platoon. Gone, just like that.”
He snapped his fingers, the sound loud as a gunshot in the quiet morning.
“I watched friends I’d known since primary school cut in half by machine gun fire. How are you supposed to carry on living after seeing something like that? Some of them couldn’t. One morning, I found a lad who’d grown up two doors down from me dead in the trenches with his rifle under his chin and his brains blown all over the firing step. As for the rest, Jerry got ‘em all eventually, one by one by one. Guess the other side was playing, too.”
He drained his cup, grimacing at the taste. His hand was shaking.
“I’m the only one left now. The last of the Blackburn Brigade. I win.”
Brauer cleared his throat awkwardly. Price put his hand on Zeller’s shoulder. The other man shrugged it off and walked away. As he disappeared around a bend in the trench, Will wondered for the first time how old Zeller was. Younger than him by a few years, he thought, perhaps twenty-five, his body still lean and wiry with youth. But the war had aged him. You only had to look at Zeller’s eyes to know that.
A heavy silence followed his retreat. To everyone’s surprise, it was Bernadone who broke it by climbing to his feet and removing his battered notebook from his breast pocket.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to read something to you all,” he said.
Brauer gestured for him to continue, looking faintly relieved for the change of subject. Bernadone opened the book and flipped through until he found the right page, marked with a faded black ribbon. He cleared his throat, stood a little straighter, and began to read:
When I think of England, I think of the tree
Behind my small house
Where the woodpeckers come knocking every spring,
And the blueberry jam my aunt would bring
When she visited from Kent,
Made with love and arthritic fingers, spooned onto brie
Or else spread generously on toast.
These are the things I wish to remember
In sedate moments
Leaving the troubles of the day behind
Like a coat discarded in the entranceway
After rain.
So when I think of France, if I ever leave,
I shall try not to think of the mud and the rats,
Of bodies broken, blood shed,
Nor of the cold that pierced skin and bone
So deeply
I often wondered: Was I dead, yet waking?
Given the choice, I shan’t think of the rotting body
I put my foot through o n march in the winter
Or the eyes of a friend who died with a hole in his head
And six more in his chest.
No.
I shall think of them alive and vital beside me:
My fellow Englishmen,
Talking about nothing. Airing grievances.
Laughing.
If I can leave the rest behind, I’ll think only of them
In sedate moments
As I stare at the ceiling in my small house
Where that tree still stands outside my window
And the woodpeckers will continue to knock
Even if I can’t answer.
No one spoke for a moment when he was finished. Bernadone closed his notebook and tucked it back into his pocket, sat down.
“That was really beautiful, Peter,” Crawford said.
Bernadone ducked his head. “It’s a work in progress.”
“Remember us when you’re famous, won’t you old chap?” Brauer said, nudging Bernadone’s foot with his own.
Bernadone opened his mouth, but whatever he intended to say was forgotten as the sound of purposeful footsteps reached them. Lieutenant Tier appeared around the corner, a hessian sack slung over one shoulder.
“Why, it’s Father Christmas himself,” Price exclaimed. “Though you’re less jolly than I imagined you’d be.”
Tier’s expression was flat. Reaching into the sack, he tossed a crude khaki-colored mask at Price.
“Learn how to put it on,” he said as he moved down the line, passing out the unwelcome gifts. “We’ll begin drills tomorrow.”
Will turned his mask over in his hands. It was an eerie-looking thing, with round glass eyelets and a tin canister where the mouth should have been. Straps dangled limply from the back.
“Not the worst Christmas present I’ve ever received,” Price muttered when Tier had disappeared around the next bend in the trench. “It’s certainly up there, though.”
No one smiled. “What does this mean?” Crawford said, turning to Brauer.
The Lance Corporal was staring down at his own mask. His face was very grave.
“Nothing good.”
*
Christmas passed. Life, such as it was, carried on.
For five days, Will’s company did little else but dig. It was slow, back-breaking work. The flutter of snow on Christmas morning had given way to a bitter chill that numbed the fingers and hardened the ground, as if in protest against the fresh scars being carved into the bleeding torso of France. But the shovels never stopped moving.
By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, Will’s knuckles had become so swollen and red that he struggled to hold his needle steady as he patched the holes in his gloves. But at least his feet were dry for once. The mud was frozen solid.
Near midnight, he was roused from a thin sleep to take over the watch from Private Price. The sandbags were cold against his forehead as he leaned against them to peer through the loophole. Beyond, No Man’s Land sparkled with frost in the moonlight. The sky was so clear and bright that any officer would have to be mad to send his men out on the attack that night. That didn’t make a raid impossible — madness and blatant disregard for human life were hardly unheard of in the upper echelons of the army — but it seemed unlikely.
“Quiet one tonight, I reckon.”
Will didn’t look up. He knew Price’s voice.
“I thought you were relieved.”
“I was. My beauty sleep evades me. Aren’t you relieved to have some company?”
Will said nothing. Price observed him for a moment longer, then sat down on the firing step beside him.
“You’re a conscript too, right?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do before all this madness?”
“I taught.”
“I thought teachers were exempt.”
“The essential ones are. Criminology becomes a luxury when half the country is off killing abroad.”
“Bad luck. I was a beekeeper. Guess the half that stayed behind will have to do without honey in their porridge until the Kaiser packs it in.”
Price chuckled to himself. Will kept his gaze firmly planted on No Man’s Land, watching the layer of ground mist drift slowly across the frozen shell holes. It was so quiet that he could hear two rats fighting over their food. Will was grateful that he couldn’t see them for the mist. They were almost certainly eating what was left of a soldier.
Price began to fidget, blowing on his fingers and rubbing his hands together to warm them, glancing around. Will waited patiently for him to continue. It was obvious that Price had something he needed to get off his chest. Will had observed enough interrogations during his time on the force to know that people tended to spill their guts if you just left them with their own thoughts for long enough. His watch had barely begun. He could wait.
“I saw you,” Price said, suddenly, his words ringing in the stillness like a slap. He seemed shocked by his own declaration, lowering his voice to a furtive whisper. “By the lake. I saw you. With him.”
Will felt himself stiffen. Whatever he had expected Price to say, it had not been that. His oldest and most persistent fear rose in his chest like bile.
There had always been rumors about him. Murmurings among the other teachers about his bachelor lifestyle. Snide comments from his peers at Oxford about his feminine frame, his delicate face. Even as a child, the other boys had sensed his otherness, chased him away with thrown rocks and cruel chides. It had almost been a relief to pick up and move when the work dried up for his father. He never left friends behind.
Over time, he’d learned how to dispel the rumors, or at least keep them at bay. He’d grown out his beard. He’d moved in with a woman. Worn clothing that was entirely unremarkable, that the eye slid over in a crowd. Will Graham knew better than most that it was dangerous to be observed.
But he’d grown careless.
He’d been seen .
Without lifting his eyes from the loophole, he said softly “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, of course you do. You weren’t exactly subtle about it.”
Will blinked but said nothing. Tears swam at the edges of his vision. He was grateful to have his back to Price.
Price blew on his fingers again and tucked his hands under his armpits, peering up and down the trench before continuing. “You have nothing to worry about with me, though. People in glass houses would be wise not to throw stones, if you catch my drift.”
Finally, Will looked at him. Price raised an eyebrow.
“I’m surprised you didn’t know. Subtlety was never exactly my forte, either.”
Will turned back to the loophole, his pulse throbbing in his throat, but slowing now. “I suppose I wasn’t looking too hard.”
“Gee, thanks,” Price said. “Luckily for your sake, no one else has been looking that hard, either — but they will if you continue to be so brazen about it. A man go to to prison for less than that, you know.”
Will pressed his forehead harder into the sandbags, feeling the cold burlap scrape against his skin. “I know.”
“What on earth were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking.” Will sighed. He thought about the way Lecter’s skin had looked in the moonlight. How it had felt when it brushed his own. “It just… sort of happened.”
He could sense Price examining him. “How long have you known?”
Will shrugged. “I suppose I’ve always known. I’ve just never acted on it before.”
“Never? Even before the war?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you go to Cambridge? I assumed that was all you lot got up to.”
“Oxford. And I tended to spend my free time in the library. Alone.”
Price exhaled. “Well, I suppose I’m glad that you’re finally having some fun, dear fellow, but there’s a time and a place for it. That place is not out in the open a stone’s throw away from where your commanding officer is counting sheep.”
“It was a lapse in judgment. It won’t happen again.” Will swallowed. “Besides. I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”
“Never say never,” Price said, tilting his head back to look at the stars. “I like to think I’ll run into Private Zeller when we’re back in England some day. He’s a good kid, didn’t deserve any of this — not that any of us did, mind you. I’ll buy him a sherry at the local pub and we’ll reminisce about the good old days when we were dodging bullets in the freezing mud of France. He’ll be married by then, of course, and I’ll make excuses for why I’m not. Perhaps we’ll exchange letters from time to time until he gets too busy with his family and forgets to reply. That’s okay. He’ll want to put all this behind him and I won’t begrudge him for that. That doctor of yours, though… Maybe he’ll wait for you, after.”
Despite himself, Will felt a slight smile itching at the corner of his mouth at the thought. “I barely know him.”
Price smiled back, and in that smile, Will caught a glimpse of his own future — of a lifetime of carefulness and sustained loneliness, punctuated by stolen moments of joy.
“You will,” Price said.
He pushed his sleeve up then to expose his wristlet. Even beneath the shrapnel guard, the radium-painted dials of the trench watch emitted a faint green glow.
“It’s past midnight,” Price said, softly. “1917. Let’s hope this year is a little kinder. To all of us.”
Will didn’t respond. After a moment more, Price climbed stiffly to his feet.
“I suppose I’d better try to get some sleep. You’ll remember what I said, won’t you? I’ve seen good men go down for ‘indecency.’ And you’re a good man, Will.”
Will turned to look at him again. Price’s usually jovial face looked deathly serious in the moonlight.
“Good night, Jim.”
Price raised two fingers to the brim of his helmet in a mock salute. “Nighty night, lovebird,” he said as he walked away, leaving Will alone to watch the dark.