Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

T he man caught him, one arm scooping around Stanley's waist, the other holding the rifle at a distance so Stanley couldn't grab it. Or maybe so Stanley wouldn't collide with it, he couldn't be sure.

Exhaustion pulled at him, and for a moment he was held against the man's chest, which was so warm and broad, Stanley wanted to wrap his arms around it and press his cheek to it and fall asleep forever. Which, of course, given Stanley's luck, wasn't what happened. Instead, the man steadied Stanley on his feet, and turned him around so he could see all the white crosses, row on row. At the very far end, near where the grass sloped up in an echo of the top of a trench, was a large monument.

Stanley had seen it before, but now he had to really look at it. At the top of the monument was a white stone cross, and below the cross was a large bronze plaque. He couldn't see the words, though he could see that they were faded, as though weather and time were trying to erase them.

"That's the monument to the Battle of Ornes," said the man. "There's another one at the edge of where the village used to stand, an old metal sign saying what happened here. All of the soldiers were killed, and their bodies buried beneath those crosses. Some soldiers were identified, and some were not. You have to understand the battle was almost a century ago, so wherever you belong, it's not with them."

"But I just came from there," said Stanley, his mouth trembling, and he was so cold the only spot of warmth came from where the man was still gently holding him. "I was running and the mustard gas came down—"

"That's what that smell on your uniform is," said the man. "I thought it was, but couldn't think why—"

The man stopped talking so abruptly that Stanley turned to face him. His mouth was tight, like Stanley was lying to him for the worst sort of reasons. Then he shook his head and tugged on Stanley's arm.

"Listen," said the man. "Let's get you inside and out of those wet clothes. I'll make some calls and see where it is you escaped from."

"Can I have my rifle?" asked Stanley, though he wasn't surprised when the man pulled it out of reach.

"No, you may not," said the man. "But tell me your name, so I know what to tell les gendarmes when I talk to them."

"You're going to have them arrest me?" asked Stanley, his voice rising to a sharp point. "I haven't done anything!"

"No, not arrest you," said the man, shaking his head. "But I'm going to start with them, and see who else I need to talk to. Okay?"

Stanley knew that he could turn and run, though where he would run to and what he would find when he got there was beyond him. Somehow, he'd been taken out of the war and was now in a place that looked familiar in only the vaguest of ways.

The color of the sky, now darkening with clouds, seemed the same. The shapes of the trees, the tall oval ones that he'd never seen back home, spindly with only half of their brown and orange autumn leaves still clinging to the thin branches, were familiar. The roll of the earth, the trenches now hidden by green grass flecked with frosty rain, had shapes that looked like a memory he kept trying to recall, but which kept being subsumed by the landscape before him. He was not on the battlefield, except that he was .

"Come on, kid," said the man as they walked toward the cottage. "Why don't you tell me your name."

"Tell me yours first," said Stanley, thinking at the last minute that if this were some sort of trick by the enemy, he'd recognize the German accent hidden in the man's voice, and take off running.

"My name is Devon Foster," said the man. "I'm a student at DU working on my master's thesis. And you?"

Stanley had no idea what any of what the man—Devon—had just said meant, except that he was a student at a school somewhere, and that there was not a trace of any accent in his voice. In fact, he sounded like someone from back home.

"DU is the University of Denver," said Devon, as if sensing Stanley's confusion.

"Denver, Colorado?" asked Stanley, his voice high-pitched again. His throat hurt, and he could hardly believe what he'd just heard. "I'm from there. I mean, I'm from Harlin, Colorado—I was going to go to farm school, but enlisted instead—how could you be from Colorado?"

"Because I was born there," said Devon. "So we have Colorado in common, it seems."

Devon smiled, and Stanley could sense that Devon was trying to put him at ease, though he didn't know whether he should believe him or not. But the clouds were moving in overhead, and it was starting to rain. Either he could stand there and argue it out until he convinced Devon as to how wrong he was, or he could give in, give Devon his name and rank, and then go someplace warm.

It was pathetic how easily he was about to surrender, and he thought he should resist just a little while longer, like a good soldier. Except that Devon looked at him, and in that moment, he didn't look quite so fierce, and in fact, seemed concerned because his eyes were gentle and he let go of Stanley's arm.

"I'm Stanley Sullivan," he said, giving Devon a sharp salute. "Lance corporal in the 44 th Battalion, second class gunner."

He didn't know why he'd given the salute, even if it seemed the right thing to do, because Devon shook his head.

"If you're a soldier, where's your helmet?" Devon looked at him as if the missing helmet would prove that Stanley was wrong and Devon was right.

Stanley debated not telling him because Devon wouldn't believe him, and it didn't make any difference, anyway. Besides, the morning's horror was too real, too recent, to talk about.

The shrapnel had come directly at him. He'd ducked just in time, the metal of the shrapnel clanging against the metal of his helmet, the brief heat of it against his forehead as the shrapnel skipped off the rim of his helmet and dug itself into the trench behind him—all of this came at him, and he found his mouth opening, the whole story coming out in a babble of words: the sound of the explosion, the smell of burnt metal, and the horrible realization that the majority of the shrapnel had just ripped his friends to shreds.

He was shaking so hard he couldn't stop talking, couldn't breathe. Just when he was about to start screaming, he realized that Devon had laid the rifle in the grass, in the rain, and was gripping Stanley's arms in his hands, firmly, but with kindness.

"Stanley," said Devon. "Stanley, listen to me. If there's a war going on, you're not in it, okay? You're not in a war—you're here in this field. Listen to how quiet it is? Can you hear the birds? Can you hear the rain on the grass?"

It was such an odd thing to say about the grass and the rain, but Devon's voice was low and continued in the same steady way for a few minutes. After the earth and the horizon of the trenches stopped rocking back and forth, Stanley found that he could focus again.

He had to stop himself from falling into Devon's arms to be caught by a warm embrace because it was sure as shooting that Devon would be horrified. He would then indeed call les gendarmes , except it would not be to find out where Stanley should be, but instead to have him arrested for being the sort of man who was attracted to other men.

"Better now?" asked Devon. He let go of Stanley, bent to pick up the rifle, and then pressed his hand in a broad circle in the middle of Stanley's back. "Let's go in the house before we get soaked."

"It's not a house," said Stanley, mumbling as he allowed himself to be directed. "It's a cottage. It was the caretaker's cottage for the church, only now the windows aren't bombed out and the roof isn't collapsing."

He remembered the cottage from when they'd dug the trenches in the summertime; it had been an intact dwelling then, even if the church that abutted it had been falling down. Within weeks of battle, the church had been shattered to rubble, and the cottage had been mercilessly shelled by the Germans, who used it to calculate the distance to the enemy.

The cottage showed hardly any of the damage now. The gray stone walls still bore evidence of having been chipped, though somebody had taken the time to patch the cracks, as some of the stone was less weathered than the others. The roof was dark gray slate rather than thatch, and the whole of the cottage sat in the green grass as though it had been gently and carefully planted there.

Devon opened the door and gestured with the rifle that Stanley should precede him, and it felt a bit like Stanley was under arrest. But Devon held the rifle at his side, and the interior of the cottage beckoned, so to get out of the rain Stanley ducked his head beneath the low lintel and went in.

The floor was of thick boards of honey-colored wood, and the ceiling was crossed by dark, time-worn beams. The walls were of the same gray stone, and though it should have been chilly, like the last time Stanley had been inside, it was warm. The windows had thick curtains that were drawn to the side to let the rain-gray light come in.

As Devon crossed the open space to the sturdy farmhouse table, Stanley followed him. He watched as Devon pushed papers aside, moved a thin metal box to a wooden chair, and then placed the rifle on the table.

"I'm sorry about the mess," said Devon. "I could use the storage room as an office, but the light's better in here, and it's closer to the food."

He jerked a thumb at the kitchen, where Stanley saw on the wooden counter evidence of tea things and a wrapped loaf of bread. Also on the counter was an entire bowl of fruit, including oranges, which Stanley hadn't seen since he enlisted .

His mouth began to water, but he just swallowed. He might be a soldier, but he wasn't one of the ones who marched in and demanded that they be served, as he'd seen some American and British soldiers do. As if the French owed them for not razing their village to the ground and should be grateful that they didn't put everybody up against the wall—

No. Stanley shook his head. Those were just stories soldiers told each other when they were attempting to distract each other when night came and the shelling hadn't stopped.

In the beginning of the war, the stories had been funny, laced with kissing and half-naked women and sex, and it had been easy to join in and laugh at the right things. Stanley secretly replaced the females with an equivalent male. Of late, the fellows in the stories had looked a lot like Isaac, though Stanley had never mentioned this to anybody.

It was only recently that in the trenches the stories became more dark. In them, the soldiers were doing bad things, with the civilians the butt of the joke. Or the stories were about captured Germans, who always resisted torture by crying and pissing themselves, which only added to the fun.

"Hey," said Devon, and though his voice seemed to come from far away, the hands that directed Stanley to a chair were warm and firm. "Sit down and I'll make you some coffee. We'll get you fixed up and then I'll make that call, okay?"

"Okay," said Stanley as he sat down, saying the word like Devon said it.