Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T he next breath Stanley took shot into his lungs so hard that he choked on it, clutching his chest in a futile spasm, his mouth open. He tried to scream through the panic, as if that would help. It didn't.

In one twitch of his body, the hole he was falling into was black as pitch and so narrow he started to feel the coldness of the dirt and the dampness all around. With a mighty jerk, he found himself lurching backwards, his heels in the mud, as though he was holding onto the sides of a beast while it tried to buck him off. His head slammed back and his shoulders were shoved into a wall of mud so hard that he knew he'd be leaving an imprint there.

Then it stopped. When he opened his eyes and took a shriek of a breath, all he could see was the wall of mud of the trench opposite him. There was a scent of smoke and gun oil. In the dim light of what was the gloomy sun splashing like mercury behind the gray clouds was the spattered reflections of mortar shells exploding high in the air. It was raining, though the rain came down in a miserly thin way, like it didn't really want to. Like it would rather be someplace else altogether.

In his hands was a tin mug of coffee, the bitter dark brew that served in place of anything more civilized. There was not enough sugar and definitely no milk to soothe the ragged edge of the taste that Stanley took without hardly thinking about it. He blinked as he swallowed, disoriented in his mind, and unable to focus on any one thing.

What had just happened to him? Something bad, something that left him feeling his insides had been carved out, as though he'd been given a gift only to have it snatched away. There was a memory of a dark-haired, handsome man whose name Stanley could not recall. The sensation of his kind hands, his caring eyes, the warmth of his skin flitted about like the smoke wafting up from an overworked primus stove.

The harder he struggled to remember, the more evasive the memories became. He probably didn't deserve them anyway, except they lingered in his head, in his heart. They curled around like smoke from the barrel of a newly fired howitzer, with the blow-back coming at him full in the face, tasting of hard usage, and futility, and death.

"Are you all right, Stanley?" asked a voice between the sounds of shots being fired and mortar shells exploding.

Stanley turned to face the voice as the images of the dark-haired man trailed in and out of his head.

In the long trenches, there were bunkers for officers, where they could lay out maps and plan strategy, and little dug out places lined with canvas where soldiers could go to get out of the line of fire or if it was raining very badly. Most of the time, you were in the trench, either up along the battlements, ducking gunfire or mortar rounds, or lining up the howitzers. Other than that, you leaned against the opposite wall of the trench and smoked, or waited along the low, damp seats cut into the mud along the trench.

Sometimes the seats were covered with wooden slats, though usually they were just bare mud most of the time. Stanley was lucky because Isaac had found spare pieces of canvas to spread over the dirt, so at least they could be a little bit warmer, a little bit dryer, that way.

"Stanley," said Isaac. He held up his tin mug to Stanley in a mock toast, as if the mug held good, clean, crisp beer, as if the moment was something worth toasting.

Beyond Isaac were Bertie and Rex, who were looking at him as though he had the answers to everything and could possibly, perhaps by magic, transport them to the previous week when they'd gone into the village and been able to take a break from the horror of their daily lives. They'd gone into that pastry shop, and while it had sold the smallest pastries in all of human existence, each bite being about half of the pastry, the taste of sugar, the taste of normal, had been so delicious that they'd each vowed to fight to the last to preserve such a dignified and necessary establishment.

That had been last week, and Commander Helmer had, just yesterday, banned further travels outside of the trenches. In addition, Commander Helmer had disappeared in the night, and now they were waiting on orders from Lt. Billings.

"What are they doing in there?" asked Isaac.

From where Stanley was sitting, he could see into the command bunker. Lt. Billings was talking with the sergeant, who was in charge of the munitions supplies. The chaplain was also there, oddly out of place in his clean uniform, wearing a spot of white in the collar around his neck. With them was a scout, muddy up to his waist, his arms wrapped around himself as he nodded at the map on the plank table in the middle of the bunker.

Stanley could hear the sound of their voices, but could not discern the meaning, though by the look on Lt. Billings' face, it wasn't good. The officers were, as rumor had it, talking about planning a retreat. The shelling had been quite bad, with no new supplies, men dropping from gunfire, and constant shelling from the Germans. As well, a strangely powerful flu was finding its way through the trenches as winter neared. Overall, they were ineffective as a battalion, sacrificing themselves for nothing. Or so rumor had it.

Stanley remembered talking with someone, maybe the dark-haired man, about how war was futile. No matter how deeply the battalion dug their trenches and no matter how far they shot their shells and their bullets, no matter how hard they tried, the Germans kept coming closer. They would build an advancing trench in the middle of the night, and from their endless supply of weapons and ammunition, would slaughter half a dozen men before breakfast. And then more before lunch and more before supper, and on it went.

The horrible weather was the key because it locked the battalion in place and prevented much needed supplies from getting in. If only they'd known in advance about the weather they could have prepared better, brought in more guns, more bullets, more food. If only they'd known—

"Stanley?"

Stanley turned his head and found himself looking at Isaac, studying him. Isaac had the collar of his jacket turned up in a jaunty way, like a pilot about to hop into one of those bi-planes. Bertie and Rex also had their collars turned up, as did Stanley. But only Isaac wore his in a way that made him look dashing, a brave young man who was fearless in his devotion to his country and his promise to protect his friends. Though as eye-catching as Isaac was, Stanley had the sense that his unrequited adoration of Isaac had been replaced by something else. But what?

"You can't hear anything of what they're saying?" asked Isaac, breaking in on Stanley's thoughts.

"No," said Stanley, but this with no rancor.

From where he was sitting, the trench took a little bend in either direction. To his left, he could see the stretch of the trench, and to his right, he could see into the bunker. Plus, he could see the radio on its sturdy stand. It was the cleanest, most intact thing in the whole trench.

Beyond the radio, the trench continued to his right, with his buddies from basic, Isaac, Bertie, and Rex, all lined up. The angle of the trench was such that he could see their faces quite clearly, for they were each leaning forward just enough, with Isaac in the front, and Bertie leaning out to peer around his shoulder, and Rex leaning out a little bit further than that. All of them were looking at Stanley.

"I can't hear what they're saying," said Stanley, clarifying. "But the chaplain looks pretty grim, and they're all shaking their heads. Now Lt. Billings is pointing at the map."

"Are they going to go out and look for him?" asked Rex. Him , of course, was Commander Helmer.

"In this weather?" asked Bertie in a joking way, as if the weather were the worst thing to be wary of.

Isaac waved their questions away, putting up his hand like they were on maneuvers and he'd just called a halt. This drew Stanley's attention to Isaac like he was sighting his rifle on the enemy. Except Isaac wasn't the enemy. He was Stanley's friend, the one who'd begun the friendship as they stood in line to get kitted up at the beginning of basic. Hi, I'm Isaac . He was also the one who professed not to care for chocolate, and who usually gave Stanley half of his ration, and then broke the other half to two pieces to give to Bertie and Rex.

The memory of Isaac's kindness brought more images to the surface of Stanley's mind. Of a young man turning from his work to make sure that Stanley had all the oranges he wanted. Who fed him steak and gave him fresh, sweet milk to drink. Who gave Stanley a warm spot to sleep, and who let him take a shower with an endless supply of hot water. Who made Stanley feel safe. And whose green eyes looked at Stanley with something like fondness, no—it had been more like affection.

Where had he known this dark-haired man? What was his name? It was on the tip of Stanley's tongue—the dark-haired man had typed on something while the rain fell outside the thick glass windows and the air smelled clean and felt warm against his skin. But where was that place? Stanley shook his head because it was just a dream, all of it.

That place had never been. Before the war, Stanley had worked on a farm outside of Harlin, Colorado. Isaac had worked in a cannery in Brooklyn. Bertie and Rex had both delivered newspapers, working their way up through the ranks of newsies to be in charge of routes. Nobody had worked at a desk. None of them had come from gentle office work, so it couldn't have been any of them that he'd talked to that way, or interacted with that way.

Besides, all of them had believed that the war was necessary and useful, and that they'd win all the battles and come home inside of a month, decorated with medals, proudly wearing their crisp dress uniforms. Rather than the reality of it, which was the exact opposite. It had been over a year and they were covered with mud and no closer to winning. The truth of it was they were closer to losing everything, at the end of which their lives would be forfeit.

In Stanley's mind, a voice said, It was such a futile thing, but they gave it their all .

He shook his head, almost spilling his coffee, trying to locate and stop the buzz that rattled the bones of his skull. It was so loud he was sure Isaac and the others could hear it. He looked at them, questioning with his face as if they were under silence orders, but then the buzz disappeared like he'd snapped his fingers and stepped through an open doorway.

"What's the matter with you, buddy?" asked Isaac. "Why do you look like you're going to barf all over my boots?"

Stanley placed his tin mug on the canvas strip next to his thigh. The mud beneath it was lumpy, so he used his fingertips to adjust where the mug was set so that the coffee wouldn't slop over the edges. Why that mattered was beyond him; if the coffee spilled, it would soak into the mud and become just another layer of ugly brown that nobody would notice.

The chaplain came out of the bunker with the scout right behind him, and both men turned and went to Stanley's left, along the trench toward the mess area and the kitchens behind that. He thought they were headed to get more coffee, though why he thought that, he didn't know, and besides, the coffee was terrible, anyway.

Lt. Billings remained in the bunker with his head down, looking at the map. His finger was on a spot near the edge of it. Stanley couldn't see whether that spot was where they currently were or where they'd be if they went into retreat. It wasn't his place to ask, and it'd be a far braver man than him to walk into the bunker just then and peer over Lt. Billings' shoulder to see if he could find out.

"I'm going to go in there," said Rex in that way of his, full of seriousness and intention, as he seldom said anything he didn't mean .

"No, you better not," said Bertie, who was as serious in his way as Rex was, having been in charge of a whole pack of newsies before the war. He talked and joked more, though, and seemed to enjoy getting Rex riled up because the more Rex resisted, the more Bertie would try, and on it would go.

"No, don't bother the lieutenant," said Isaac. "We'll stay put until he comes out. If he asks us our opinion, we'll give it, and if he doesn't, we won't. Okay?"

Stanley turned his head sharply to look at Isaac, his ears ringing with the way he'd said the word okay . The dark-haired man in Stanley's memory had often said okay to him in just that way, like he wanted only the best for Stanley and wanted to make sure Stanley was on board. Stanley strained to hear the echo of the word in his head, but it faded away as though it had been said by a ghost.

Stanley shook his head. It must have been the fact that Commander Helmer had deserted in the night that was making him feel so strangely, looking at every act, every word his buddies uttered, as though it was an experiment he was doing, where any gesture by him, any movement, was likely to set off a chain reaction. It was as if he knew that Rex was going to say what he'd just said, and then Bertie would disagree with him, and then Isaac would have the final say. And there they would sit, waiting for the lieutenant to come out of the bunker, all in a row like the obedient soldiers they had trained to be, had signed up to be.

From these thoughts came an odd impulse that Stanley couldn't fully identify, but he knew there was something he needed to do.