Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

D evon had shared too much too soon, that much was obvious, but the suggestion of a walk had made a difference in the way Stanley was looking at him. Besides, he still felt conflicted as to whether Stanley was crazy or truly from the past. Either way, it was Devon's responsibility to do right by Stanley. That included not giving in to the impulse to grab him and hold him close simply because Stanley had such a sweet face and seemed quite eager, at a moment's notice, to listen to Devon babble on. So, putting on jackets and knitted caps, and after Devon grabbed the weatherproof map of the area he'd ordered online, they headed out.

He didn't lock the door, and noticed that Stanley didn't say anything about it. That only made sense, as, at least in Devon's mind, in Stanley's time, in 1917, the world had been a more honest place, and people didn't need to lock their doors. That might not be altogether true, but it pleased him to think about it that way.

They headed out across the wet grass as a mist was coming down, shrouding the green corduroy rows in wisps of gray velvet.

"Let's go this way," said Devon. He pointed to the edge of where the nearest trench began. When he'd first moved to France, he'd gone over every inch of every trench, starting from left to right, so it made sense, at least to him, to explore it that way now with Stanley.

When they got to the top of the first trench, Stanley stood there with his hands in the pockets of the dark pea coat that Devon had loaned him. The blue of the borrowed knitted cap was stark against his pale skin, the bones tightly drawn across his cheeks as he gazed across the rows of trenches.

"It's hard to look at," said Stanley. "When I see the memorial, all I can see is my failure."

"You did what you could," said Devon before he could stop himself, as it was too banal a thing to say when 200 men had lost their lives for nothing. "You volunteered. That was brave, and at least you tried. Right?"

"Maybe," said Stanley. "What is that?" As if to distract himself, he moved closer to Devon and pointed at the map in Devon's hand. "Is that a map?"

Nodding, Devon unrolled it and held it flat between his hands. He remembered finding the cartography shop online that offered reproductions of various maps from all the wars. Though it had been a bit pricey, the details in the map had helped Devon get a feel for what he was working on.

He'd looked at the map so many times that he knew it by heart, though it revealed something new every time he'd unrolled it. Had he been taken back to 1917, he really felt that he could have found his way around, would have known where to stop to get a cup of coffee or where to stop to get a new scarf from supplies, at least, had there been scarves on offer. Though, with Stanley right in front of him, the daydream that had occupied him for so long began to seem a little inadequate.

The unrolling of the map brought Stanley to his side, close and warm, his expression eager and interested, his eyes bright. Devon knew that he'd been waiting his whole life for this exact moment, where he could share this with Stanley and watch the expression on his face as he listened. Something bubbled up inside of him. He realized that it was happiness, and he longed for time to slow down so they could stay this way forever.

"Okay, here's where we are," said Devon, doing his best to keep at least some of his excitement out of his voice so as not to overwhelm Stanley. He pointed to the lower left corner of the map. "The brown lines are trenches, shaded a little bit in the middle, there, and the green and blue X's are weapons, green for howitzers and blue for rifles. The gold cross is the chaplain's station. There's only one of those, you see. The circles are the canteen, the latrine, bunkers for sleeping, and supply caches."

He waited while Stanley squinted at the map and then looked up. His eyes were tilted down at the outside corners, and it made Devon want to throw the map to the ground and hold him close in the way he'd been resisting all morning. Except impulsive, physical contact was not how he wanted Stanley to know him. Besides, what Stanley was doing was attempting to determine where he'd been on that fateful morning when he'd volunteered.

Devon felt a little rush of excitement at the thought of what Stanley could tell him. Then he felt badly about it because why should he find any joy in knowing more about Stanley's demise, and the loss of his friends, not to mention the entire of the 44 th ?

"That's the cottage?" asked Stanley as he pointed to the edge of the map where a little bit of shaded gray area was.

"Yes, it's off the map and the church is, too. I could only afford a portion of the whole map, as it was a limited edition. I figured I already knew where those buildings were anyway, so I got this one."

It was exciting to think that Stanley would be able to give him specific information. That he was standing there with an American doughboy and was able to ask him, in person, where he'd been during a crucial part of a disastrous military effort.

"These are the trenches," said Stanley. He ran his finger along the shaded area that was the low point of the trench they were standing on. "And these are the bunkers for the commanding officers—"

"Where were you, Stanley?" asked Devon.

As Stanley looked over the trenches, his eyes narrowed as though focusing on the middle distance, rather than actually looking, Devon thought for a moment that he should take back the question. Otherwise, he was asking Stanley to plunge back into a very dark moment.

"Stanley—" said Devon. Why was he so obsessed? Why did he have to push it all the time?

He reached out and put his hand on Stanley's arm, which seemed to wake him. He was about to tell Stanley to never mind. He had enough information for his thesis; he didn't need to drag Stanley through the sad mud of the past to get it.

"It just looks so different," said Stanley. "So peaceful."

With a last glance at the map, Stanley headed into the nearest trench and began walking along.

"This was the med station," said Stanley, pointing at a spot in the trench wall with a jerk of his thumb. "I never got sick, but there was one guy who got his leg blown off. They tried to cauterize the wound, but he didn't make it."

Devon followed close behind, thinking that he could take notes, or he could just let the statement soak into him. He looked at the spot where the soldier had died, one of many, and hurried to catch up to Stanley, who was marching as though he was on patrol. Doing his duty even though it might be painful, which was the last thing Devon wanted for him.

Devon stared at the back of Stanley's neck, where the collar of the pea coat ended and where the knitted cap began. The line of skin there was pale and vulnerable. Devon wanted to kiss that skin and realized that his feelings had gone beyond his obsession with American doughboys. Even if Stanley turned out to be a con artist, or someone mentally deranged, when he pointed out where the soldier had died, what had happened in the war meant something to him.

"This was one of the places you could get coffee any time of day," said Stanley, waving over an area of the entrance to a bunker that had caved in. "Of course, you couldn't get away from your post to go get it, but sometimes they'd have a private take a tray around. Like we were at a Sunday picnic. "

Stanley was smiling to himself about this, and turned to look at Devon.

"Is that how it's listed on your map?" Stanley asked.

"Yeah, it's a circle," said Devon. He checked the map, Stanley close at his side. "But where were you when—when you volunteered for your mission?"

He almost hated himself for asking, and again was just about to take it all back when Stanley sped up and kept going. They were low enough in the trench that the world was rimmed by a dark green horizon under a misty gray sky, cutting them off from everything except what was before them.

At the point where the trench was cut through with the path to the memorial, Stanley went left, up two rows of trenches, and then to the right, down another trench. His movements were as sure as if he'd done it many times and knew the way, and the thought that he'd actually been at the battle sent a shiver through Devon's body.

Stanley didn't even look at the map, but led Devon to a point that was marked with a green X, and which was also marked with a circle for a bunker. When Stanley stopped, it was suddenly, with Devon tripping over his heels. He'd passed this particular point many a time, noting absently the sagging wooden frame, surrounded by grass now, that had been the entrance to a commander's bunker. Never in his life had he ever expected that someone from the war would be standing not half a foot from him, his hands in his pockets, on the verge of explaining it to him.

"You don't have to tell me, Stanley," said Devon, though he did want to know, and he wanted to believe that Stanley had come from that time, that battle.

"We're here anyway," said Stanley. "It's—it's not as bad as I thought it would be, seeing it like this. It's all gentled now."

Gentled was the word for it. All the hard edges and intentions of what the bunker had been built and equipped for were now a bank of earth softened by grass.

"This was Commander Helmer's bunker," said Stanley, pointing. He reached out to touch one of the railroad ties whose edges were still crisp, though the lintel now sagged beneath the weight of earth.

"He was the one who deserted, right?" asked Devon. He knew all about the desertion and the domino effects that act had had.

"Yes. Lt. Billings took over, so it became his bunker. He wasn't in there for very long before he called for volunteers, and that was because—" Stanley's voice cracked to a stop, but he firmed his jaw and shook his head, blinking as though the battle was happening in front of him that very moment. "The explosion was right overhead, and the howitzer was blasted into the trench, still smoking and hot. The flying shrapnel ripped my friends to shreds, and the radio, too."

A large chunk of Devon's fascination with the battle melted right then and there because it wasn't more important than what was happening now. Stanley wasn't on the verge of tears, as he seemed to be made of something strong and resilient, but it wasn't going to be too much longer before he was a crumpled mess on the ground. Nobody could go through something like that and come out the same on the other side.

Devon had read plenty about the effects of war. He'd often remarked to his thesis advisor how the pictures of doughboys shipping out seemed happy and upbeat, but on the return voyage home, their faces were marked with the horror of what they had been through, what they had seen. In fact, there were very few pictures of homecomings, as if the soldiers wanted to put all of it in the past. The look on Stanley's face now, a reflection of that desire to leave it all behind, told Devon the same thing—there was nothing but futility to be found in war, and nothing but waste left it its wake. Nobody deserved to be forced to relive it. Devon raised his hand, but Stanley continued.

"My friends—" began Stanley, but his voice went all wobbly, so he stopped, set his shoulders, and tried again. "We were sitting just here on a little bench cut into the mud. I was sitting on a strip of canvas that Isaac had given to me."

He traced a line in the air with his hand, the flat of his palm level.

"The radio was there. "

Stanley pointed to a spot just to the right of the bunker door. Though there wasn't much room in the trench now, Devon knew that the space had once been wider, and that sometimes there were tables for radios and sometimes there were spaces dug into the side of the trench. Either way, the radio would have been vulnerable to the elements and exploding mortar shells.

"If they'd been on my left, they would have made it, and the radio, too," said Stanley. "And after, their bodies were beneath a canvas, over there, to wait until we could bury them."

As Stanley pointed where the bodies of his friends had lain, the clarity of the moment rose up, a living picture of how it must have been, and Devon began to feel quite sick. This was exactly the information he would have wanted to know and include in his paper, so he had only himself to blame for Stanley's reaction. Stanley didn't deserve to be dragged through this again, and especially not for Devon's benefit. Devon needed to stop asking, stop obsessing over something that was so painful, so destructive.

"Stanley, you don't have to tell me any more," said Devon.

Devon rolled up the map and held it at his side. He reached for Stanley's arm, meaning to grasp it and give comfort that way. Instead, Stanley, seeing Devon's movement, must have interpreted it differently than Devon had meant it, for he took Devon's hand in his and gave it a squeeze, as though Devon were the one needing comfort.

Stanley's hand was warm, with calluses on the edge of his fingers. The calluses were just where they ought to be if he'd spent any time at all firing a rifle that wasn't an automatic, and that would need to be loaded and then fired with a fresh pull on the trigger each and every time. Everything about him, his hair, his eyes, his shy smile, was exactly as it ought to be, if he was who he said he was, a soldier from the war. He wasn't just a spitting image of an American doughboy, though, but a living human being who had survived a great deal.

Plus, soldiers needed to come home at some point, and not always be in the trenches. Maybe this was that time for Stanley. Devon held on to Stanley's hand and, for a moment, they stood there. The wind stirred the grasses around. The wet smell of the earth was rich in the air, and little points of creosote rose from the rotting railroad ties. Beneath it all was the scent of something old and quiet and still.

He liked holding Stanley's hand, the way the warmth of their skin began to turn into something more, something on the edge of excitement. He wanted to drop the map and wrap his arms around Stanley, and would have, except for the look in Stanley's eyes as he gazed at the edge of the trench. And finally, when he looked at Devon.

"A fellow's not supposed to care for another fellow," said Stanley, though he didn't let go of Devon.

"Maybe not back then," said Devon, giving Stanley's hand a squeeze. "But you're here now, and it's okay."

"So you believe me?" asked Stanley.

"I do and I don't," said Devon, a little relieved to be drawn out of his own darker thoughts. "Time travel is impossible, but there's something in your eyes that tells me you were there. When it happened. When it all went wrong, though, it was wrong from the beginning."

"It didn't seem that way," said Stanley. "At the time, it seemed like a good thing everybody was excited about."

Devon knew exactly what Stanley meant. The pictures he'd been looking at since he could remember had contained exactly that sense of excitement and patriotic verve. The soldiers' faces had depicted an upbeat expectation about how it would be fighting the enemy and coming home victorious.

"It's getting cold," said Devon. He squeezed Stanley's warm hand and again fought the impulse to hug him. "And I think it's going to start raining."

"It always rained," said Stanley. "In the trenches, it was always raining, and the sky was the color of mud."

Stanley's face dropped back into sadness, as though he was being pulled into memories of the war against his will. Which made Devon want to take care of him all the more.

"Well, let's get you inside," said Devon, horrified at himself that he'd let Stanley go so far into his memories that he had an expression on his face like he did, one of sadness, despair filtering everything he looked at, every word he said. "Okay? "

"Okay," said Stanley, smiling to himself.

Devon made himself let go, and together they tramped along to the end of the trench. While it occurred to Devon that this was the direction Stanley would have taken to reach the commander on his mission, he didn't ask about it. Instead, he led them both back towards the cottage, cutting over the top of one trench, slipping down the other side to the path between the rows, getting to the cottage just as it began to rain.

"Some coffee to warm up with?" asked Devon.

"Yes," said Stanley, with as much passion as Devon had heard from him, as though he was unbelievably grateful for the opportunity to drink something warm. "Can I have extra sugar in mine?"

"Yes, of course," said Devon, pleased to be able, at last, to give instead of to take.