Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

T he thing of it was, Stanley already knew the second half of the code, so there was no point in running all that way to the major and risking certain death. No point at all in taunting fate. He was halfway up the side of an empty trench where a miasma rose from the dead bodies beneath the mud when he realized what he needed to do. He needed to wait in hiding for the appropriate amount of time, and then return as if he had, indeed, gotten the second half of the message.

He crept over the top of an unmanned trench and tucked himself behind a howitzer that had been blasted into lumps. The smell of fuel that had leaked into the earth made the reason for the lack of soldiers clear. One single match would have caused a huge fire, igniting cloth and men and all the fuel within reach.

Stanley didn't have a match, didn't even have his rifle or his canteen. He'd left everything for Devon. Closing his eyes, he sent all of his hopes and dreams and love as fiercely as he could into the future. Then he hunkered down and prayed that nobody would come upon him, find out his mission, and consider him a coward for hiding out instead of running all the way to the appropriate trench. There was no way he could explain how he already knew the second half of the code. Just no way.

He counted to one hundred, thoughts of Devon in his head, and counted to a thousand, imagining every smile on Devon's face, the touch of his hand on Stanley's skin, the whisper of his breath across Stanley's mouth. There had been a kind of freedom in loving Devon, a sense of having come to a safe place that he could call home. If his mission were successful, then maybe time would let him go back there. And if not, then at least Stanley would have done some good in the world to have been worthy of the time he'd been able to share with Devon.

In the silence of the space between volleys from the Germans and the returning fire of the American soldiers, Stanley heard the larks singing. A spindly, frail series of notes rose into the pewter-colored sky with the braveness of the mightiest soldier, and the poignancy of those who had already fallen. Along the trench in front of him was a stand of three bright red poppies. They were the last of the season, tumbled by the wind and torn by the poison in the air, but still so red and vibrant that to look at them made Stanley want to cry, but he didn't.

He needed to be like the larks and the poppies, and he needed to finish his mission to save his battalion, to save his friends. He suddenly laughed at that because when he saved everybody, what would Devon have to write about? There would be no lost battalion, no tattered remains in the trenches, and no cold front to have caused the disaster. Well, the cold front would still be there, but since the 44 th would have gotten out before they were decimated, nobody would care, and the rain and the frost would go unnoticed, unwritten about. Unremarked, except by the poppies coated in a delicate curl of ice.

Stanley shook himself and counted out the moments.

It had begun to rain by the time Stanley determined enough time had passed, and he clambered to the top of the trench. He rolled down the other side until he was covered in mud and soaked through. And then he ran, straight as an arrow, back to Lt. Billings, who was waiting in the command bunker with Isaac, Rex, and Bertie. Behind them was a small group of officers that Stanley knew had not been there the last time. But then, he'd never returned from his mission with the second half of the code before.

Panting expansively, Stanley threw himself down at Lt. Billings' feet, as though exhausted by his toils, white faced and shaking from his supposed trek across the war-torn fields.

Isaac, who must have been waiting terrified this whole time, hauled Stanley to his feet and embraced him, heartfelt but briefly, before letting him go.

"The code, soldier," said Lt. Billings. His face held no expression, as if he was completely prepared for Stanley to tell him that he'd failed in his mission.

"There are penguins on the ice," said Stanley. "And they skate brilliant figure eights."

Before Stanley had gotten halfway through the second part of the code, Lt. Billings' eyebrows flew up in his forehead. Stanley realized that the lieutenant had always known the second part of the code, but that military order dictated a second, separate source.

"It's good having it confirmed," said Lt. Billings. He turned to the group of officers who had evidently been in the know, and who had been waiting for Stanley to return. "I'm giving the order for retreat. Pass it along, run if you have to. We're taking only what we can carry with us. Nothing is more important than a man's life; everything else can get left behind. Tell them to go over the top, and head west, and we'll muster at the river by the old mill."

Mud sprayed up at Stanley as the officers, the chaplain, the scout, and Isaac, Rex, and Bertie sprinted into action to spread the word to the rest of the battalion.

Soon, like ants, soldiers charged over the top of the trenches, headed west in a swarm of legs and arms and white faces. Once, when Rex ran past him, hauling a wounded soldier beneath each of his broad arms, he winked at Stanley. Bertie, close behind, leading a line of soldiers, attempted to pat Stanley on the arm, but missed and had to keep on going.

As Stanley went up the trench to check for stragglers, he saw Isaac out of the corner of his eyes by the opening of the bunker. When Stanley turned around, he discovered that almost everybody was gone. He was alone at the back end of the retreat, and smiled, pleased that finally he'd been able to complete his mission.

He looked at Isaac, and went toward him, wanting to share the moment with him. From overhead came the crack of a canister, the smell of acrid smoke pelting down, deep into the trench around Stanley. He was in the middle of it, and the first breath he took sliced right through his lungs as he tumbled at Isaac's feet.

In the next moment, Isaac was at Stanley's side, gripping his hand as though he were trying to pull Stanley out of a deep well. Even closer was the white faced Lt. Billings, his eyes urgent and wide. His mouth was open. He seemed to be shouting at Stanley, as though Stanley had made a mistake, and was getting yelled at for it.

He sensed the chaplain waiting not too far off, and beyond that was the blankness of an empty trench. All the soldiers were gone, and only these three remained to tend to Stanley in his last moments.

Stanley was sorry, honestly he was, for how things had turned out. He opened his mouth, wanting to tell them what an honor it had been to serve with them. To have eaten dried bread and drunk bitter coffee, and to have shared laughter about it, because that's all you could do, sometimes, when things were as bad as they had been. Beyond this moment, Stanley had the certainty that the 44 th Battalion would not end up beneath a grassy field decorated with white crosses, row on row, but would go on to survive the war, and lead happy lives.

As for himself, he had known the greatest love of his life, a love that had returned each gesture, each word, and that with joy and acceptance and passion. In some distant year, when the cottage across the fields was whole once more and heated by sweet, warm air, Devon would write his paper about how weather had affected the last battle of the 44 th Battalion. Perhaps, in one way or another, he would think about Stanley, the strange young man who had visited for a while, but who had gone back to save his fellows. Or maybe he wouldn't remember because it had never happened, and this was all in Stanley's mind, the last fevered imaginings as he struggled to breathe and large black spots formed in front of his eyes.