Chapter 14: And Fountains of Waters, and They Became Blood

NO MAN’S LAND, YPRES SALIENT, FLANDERS, BELGIUM

November 1917

Freddie, skidding and stumbling behind Winter, fought to keep his head clear. When they paused in a shell hole, he closed his eyes and tried to evoke better days; himself reading verse to a long-suffering Laura while she pored busily over a textbook on the other side of the fire. But the image wouldn’t come clear. No poet, living or dead, could have imagined this place, real, upon the earth, and their very language was insufficient to describe it.

He would have died a dozen times if not for Winter. Twice the German pulled him down when a shell fell close, held him still when they saw the muzzle flash of a machine gun. But more, it was Winter’s stoic presence, the splash of his footsteps, walking near enough to touch, that kept him moving. He’d no idea whether they were behind his lines or Winter’s, somewhere in No Man’s Land, or in the ninth circle of hell, with Satan on the horizon chewing on traitors. He didn’t have enough strength to care.

And then, just ahead of him, Winter halted.

Freddie lurched into Winter, then caught his balance, panicky. Fall into that mud and he wouldn’t get out again. “What?”

“There.” Freddie, following the jerk of Winter’s chin, saw what his shuddering brain first took for eyes, staring gleefully out of the darkness, but realized must be cigarettes. They’d found other people. At last. He was too far gone to be afraid for himself. But he was afraid for Winter. What if it wasn’t Germans? He’d rather it be Germans. They’d maybe kill him, certainly make him prisoner, but they wouldn’t kill Winter.

A shell splashed and exploded, showering them with earth. They flung themselves flat and began crawling. A whizz-bang whined and splashed into a shell hole, nearer still, but this one didn’t explode. Cover—they needed cover. A machine gun chortled, far too near. There must be a hole there, not yet flooded, a trench…something. Another shell splashed down, and another howled as it flew. They reached the lip of a crater and Freddie tumbled in, his cry lost in the almighty noise. Winter came falling after him. The shell hole was full of reeking, freezing water, and Freddie’s next cry was smothered in wet. He thrashed his way to the surface just in time to see Winter go under, rolled over, and dragged him up, just as a third man, indistinct in the dark, fleeing the iron rain as they were, fell into Winter.

Winter, gasping, swore reflexively in German.

Freddie saw it all happen slowly, as though the world had gone sticky. Saw, in the sudden flare of a shell light, the man’s Canadian uniform, his eyes wide with fear. Saw him snatch up his bayonet and thrust it down in a panic at Winter’s heaving body.

Freddie tackled the man just as the bayonet went down. And then they were both falling in the water, and the man was thrashing. He’d dropped his rifle and pulled a knife, stabbing wildly. His mouth was open on a scream, although Freddie couldn’t hear it. The knife gleamed wet with water dark as blood and Freddie’s mind filled with mindless fury. He got himself uppermost and held the other man down.

The body went slack. A moment passed, his mind cleared, and he realized what he’d done and flung himself away, choking. The thunder of the guns seemed to rise and fall with the blood pounding in his ears. He turned away and vomited bile; there was nothing in his stomach. Winter’s hand closed on his arm. “Are you—” Winter’s voice was strangely hesitant. His hand and his face were dark with blood and water, his chest heaving. “Are you all right?”

Freddie didn’t say anything for a few shocked minutes. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. If he didn’t say anything, then he’d wake up and realize it wasn’t real.

Eventually, his mind started working again. He’d killed someone. A Canuck, one of his own countrymen. Killed him dead in traitorous defense of the enemy. How was that possible? He looked at Winter as though the answer would be written on his enemy’s face, then jerked out of Winter’s grip, shuddering. It had happened so fast. Winter took Freddie by the shoulders, dragged him round to face him. “Iven? Iven, look at me.”

Freddie didn’t answer. His teeth chattered. His mind rebelled with every particle of itself.

“Stop thinking, Iven,” said Winter. His fingers dug into Freddie’s upper arms. “It was instinct. Men do that. It’s war, Iven.”

“I didn’t mean to—and he— I’m…” He trailed off, tried again, but there were no words for it. He was hardly human. Finally he just bit down on his own hand, to stave off the scream.

Winter forced his hand down, still searching his eyes. “Iven?” For the first time there was fear in his voice.

Freddie’s mind spun in circles. He couldn’t be sane. A sane man wouldn’t be in this hole, under this sky. He wished he could crawl into the foul earth and never come out. But he’d promised to keep Winter alive. That thought alone gave Freddie the impetus to drag the scraps of himself together, enabled him to choke out, “I’m all right.”

Winter was silent. But he let Freddie go, turned away, reached for the dead man, pulled off his half-submerged pack with jerky movements, using his good arm. Freddie sat still, dazed, as Winter dug through the soaking pack and came out with a canteen, sloshing, half-full. Iron rations, the emergency ones. Chocolate wrapped in wax. A gas mask.

Winter was handing him the chocolate when Freddie crumpled suddenly onto the slimy, sloping earth of the shell hole, gagging. Winter caught him, braced him up with a bony arm, put the dead man’s canteen to his lips. Freddie, head swimming, tasted water mixed with rum. Thought, I killed a man to save my enemy. Found himself drinking, tried not to vomit it back up.

A shell lit the night again. For a split second, Winter’s face had color instead of just ridges and shadows. His eyes were a clear and startling blue. Freddie stared at that face as though there were answers there, a reason for all this. His mind was utterly unmoored.

Winter said, watching him carefully, “We’re behind your lines. I am your prisoner, Iven.”

“Yes?” Freddie tried to think. His mouth tasted of rum and earth and blood. Despite the danger, all he wanted was sleep. Oblivion. But Winter. “They’d—we’d— I don’t know if we’d take a prisoner out here. It’s too close to your lines. They might shoot you. We’ll have to go back. Back toward the—” It would have been a support trench, if there were such things as trenches in that part of the line. But there weren’t. Just wet strings of shell holes.

Winter said nothing.

“Unless—unless you want to go back to your side?” Freddie straightened his back, as much as he could, squatting half-submerged in a shell hole. “I wouldn’t stop you.” The thought of Winter leaving him alone terrified him.

Winter shook his matted head. “No. I am still your prisoner, Iven.”

“I won’t let you die,” Freddie said. It was a vow he’d written in another man’s blood, and now it was all he had left in the world.