Chapter 21: The Wine of the Wrath of God

They slipped through Ypres, keeping to the shrinking shadows. No one stopped them. The mist distorted their footsteps. Faland’s step was just a little uneven in the rubble-strewn street, as though he favored one leg. Freddie’s skin crept as he walked. A miasma of fear hung over Ypres. The skeleton-city might be a place ruled by men, but Death lived there too, and sat at their cookfires, and ruled his own subjects, side by side with the living. The shells whistled and crashed, now near, now far.

“Where are we going?” Winter looked like a man in a nightmare who couldn’t wake up.

Freddie didn’t know. He was wondering if he’d lost his mind.

And then Faland was standing in front of a nondescript doorway; he produced a key from his pocket. The door swung open. Icy air poured out. “As I thought,” Faland said, with satisfaction. “This way.”

Freddie stood a moment, disbelieving. Winter balked.

“Come on,” Freddie said, and took his arm. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

Winter let himself be led. The two passed under the lintel and started down some steps. Faland had lit a candle, of all things, as though there were no such things as pocket torches. The door swung shut behind them, and they were back in the dark, except for their own strange shadows moving in the candlelight. Freddie tried to see the light playing on the walls, to think only of that, and not the blackness all around, the renewed weight of earth overhead. He reached for Winter and their hands twisted together, the way men overboard snatch at rope in a stormy sea. I am still alive. He is still alive. We are still alive.

Faland had gone down first, with the light, and his shadow crawled monstrous before them all. There was mortared stone over their heads, a pit of blackness below, with Faland’s light swimming through it. Freddie didn’t know how long the stairs went on. Suddenly they were at the bottom, stumbling on flat ground, and Freddie was startled to see that when Faland turned back, holding his candle, he illuminated a wine cellar.

And such a cellar. Its ceiling was lost to blackness, its walls were packed with racked bottles. How had this place escaped three years of shellfire? The prying eyes of a hundred thousand men? It felt—removed, somehow, from the world above. The noise of shelling could hardly penetrate. The sound of water dripping somewhere in the darkness was louder than the muffled roar of the heavies on Passchendaele Ridge.

Faland ran his fingertips over the racked bottles, candlelight still flickering in one fist. “It’s still here.” He sounded faintly surprised.

“You came to Ypres for wine?” said Freddie. His head felt thick, his thoughts slow and disjointed.

Faland didn’t answer but pulled a bottle, drew the cork. Took a long swallow and held out the bottle. “Drink?”

Suddenly Winter sank to the ground, still leaning against the wall, and Freddie caught him. The sweat was standing on Winter’s face, even though the cellar was cool. He made a harsh noise when Freddie pulled his wet jacket off and cut away the sleeve beneath. Even in the dim light, the wound was swollen, foul, red streaks running up and down. Winter’s eyes had drifted shut. Faland, obligingly, had pushed his candle over, so Freddie could see the details of advancing gangrene.

“Sir?” said Freddie, in a voice that wavered. “Do you have any bandages, or clean cloth, so I can—”

Faland had been watching them with intent, curious eyes. He said, unexpectedly, “I can do better than that,” and got up. He was gone, leaving them the light, before Freddie had time to react. Winter didn’t speak.

Freddie fumbled with their nearly empty canteen. “Drink this, then, at least,” he whispered, putting the metal rim to Winter’s lips. Winter did drink, a little. “Why do you say not to trust him?” Freddie asked. “Do you think he’s gone to tell them we’re here?”

Winter’s good hand came up and gripped Freddie’s forearm. “Couldn’t you see? All around him?”

“See what all around him?”

“Ghosts,” said Winter. “What does he want with everyone’s ghosts?”

Winter was raving. Comfort poured awkwardly from Freddie’s lips. “No— Winter, no. He’s an eccentric, he’s—”

“Iven, he’s—”

Faland’s uneven step sounded on the stairs, another candle held before him. Freddie turned to Faland, almost with relief. He didn’t want to be afraid of Faland, didn’t want their one piece of good luck to be false. “It must be murder keeping matches dry,” he said a little at random, with a nod at the candle.

Faland shrugged, slid a bag off his shoulder, and opened it. Freddie watched in helpless gratitude as its contents were laid out: a bottle of iodine, a wad of clean, dry bandages, a large canteen of water, biscuit, canned meat, and even, wondrously, a dry wool blanket. The candlelight flickered on Faland’s face, picked out the deep orbits of the eyes, the lines round his mouth. Freddie touched the bounty reverently. “How did you get all this?”

“Nothing easier. I was a soldier once.” Faland’s eyeteeth were just a little sharp. “A bad soldier. Takes one to know one, I suppose.” His knowing gaze rested on them both, then he turned away, uncorked a fresh bottle, and offered it to Freddie. After a hesitation, Freddie took a sip. It was a glorious wine; it left him warm and languid, even unafraid, for the first time he could remember. He offered it to Winter, but Winter shook his head. Faland pushed the second candle closer so Freddie could help Winter take off the rags of shirt and jacket, could rinse the wound and pour iodine over it and bandage it fresh and give Winter the blanket. He made Winter drink the water, eat some biscuit that he’d soaked to soften it. He’d heard the Germans were going hungry, but it was something else again to see the hollows between Winter’s ribs, feel the ridges of his collarbones.

Winter’s wandering glance went again and again to Faland, and there was still that look of fear. Freddie couldn’t bear to see Winter afraid.

“Winter?” Freddie whispered, bending close, to distract him. “Winter—” He groped in his mind. “Winter—don’t be afraid. I could try to remember a poem. One of mine. You wanted to hear one of mine…”

Winter’s dazed eyes returned to Freddie’s. He nodded a little.

The only poem that came to Freddie’s mind wasn’t one of his best—it wasn’t jolly, to encourage a wounded man, nor did it even rhyme in a way that made it a pleasure to recite. But it came fountaining from his lips into Winter’s ear. And he supposed into Faland’s too, although the stranger never made a sound.

“Rain,” Freddie whispered.

Midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain

On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me

Remembering again that I shall die

And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks

For washing me cleaner than I have been

Since I was born into this solitude.

Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:

But here I pray that none whom once I loved

Is dying tonight or lying still awake

Solitary, listening to the rain—

He’d forgotten the rest. Apologetically, he said, “I’m no good, really, just a hack, but I—I’m better at painting…”

He fell silent. Winter’s cold bony fingers folded around his. “Danke,” he whispered, and his head sank back.

Freddie heard the slosh as Faland drank more wine somewhere in the grand, dusty dark. He turned so he was leaning against the same wall as Winter, so Winter’s head could fall heavily onto his shoulder, so he could hear the slow, strained rhythm of Winter’s breathing. Faland sat cross-legged leaning on a barrel opposite, the wine open beside him. He’d just lit a cigarette. A red point of light shone in one of his eyes but not the other. “Who are you?” Freddie asked.

“Since I seem to have preserved you, I might ask that question first.” Faland shoved his pack of cigarettes across, and a matchbox. After a small hesitation, Freddie took it, lit up. Winter slid further down, until he was lying on the floor, covered in the blanket, his head on Freddie’s thigh. Freddie’s free hand was on his ribs, tracking the shiver of his pulse. The line ran through his head over and over, and he couldn’t make it stop: I pray that none whom once I loved is dying…

“I’m called Wilfred Iven,” said Freddie. “My—friend—is called—” He stopped, feeling obscurely that Winter’s name wasn’t his to offer.

“Never mind that,” said Faland. “I’d rather have a story than a name.” He grinned around his cigarette. The ember made something savage of his smile. “Beeindrucke mich,” he added, with a glance at the silent Winter.

Winter jerked, raised his head, blank as a man in delirium. Freddie, taking the words for a threat, groped for his knife.

But Faland just took another drag on his cigarette. “Stop mantling like a rooster. Tell me your story.”

“It’s all right,” Freddie whispered to Winter, who slowly settled back down. His skin was scorching hot.

“We were ordered up the Ridge,” said Freddie to Faland. “I was—we met there, my friend and I. We came down together.” It was all he could bring himself to say. Poet or no, there were things that he would never put into words.

“Is that all?” said Faland.

Freddie was silent.

“I see,” said Faland. “I will summarize: A man back at General Headquarters moved a few figurines on a map, snapped his fingers, and off you went. Bad luck. And now you’re here. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know!” Under his weariness was an endless anger. At himself. At the entire unrecognizable world. Winter’s hand moved, took Freddie’s, closed round it, dirty palm to dirty palm. He calmed a little.

Faland took another drag. “And so?” he pursued. “Going to put your prisoner in a pen where he belongs?”

I’d kill myself first.The thought came clear and sudden to his mind.

“I thought not,” said Faland. “Going to desert? Off to Holland, are you, to scratch around in ignominy until the war ends? But your friend won’t make it. He needs a hospital. A little iodine won’t do it.”

“My sister,” Freddie whispered. Something about Faland’s steady, detached gaze dragged the truth from him. “She’s a nurse. In the sector. Not far. At Brandhoek. With a mobile ambulance. I’m taking Winter to my sister.”

“An interesting idea. Perhaps you’ll succeed,” said Faland reflectively. He blew out smoke. “And then? Go back to barracks? You’ll have to run through more bullets, you know, when the old man in his château says ‘Jump.’ Such a pity.”

“What do you care?” demanded Freddie, voice rising. “What would you do? What are you even doing here?”

“Oh, go to sleep, boy,” said Faland. “I serve wine, I listen, and occasionally I play a violin. Your harebrained plan won’t work until it’s dark again, anyway. Go to sleep.” A pause. “I liked your poem.”

Sucking exhaustion rose in Freddie, like a tide. He whispered, “Winter said there’s ghosts all round you.”

Faland snorted. “When you swim in the ocean there’s water all round you, but no one mentions it.”

Freddie didn’t know what he said in reply, was hardly aware of the moment he slid prone to the cellar floor and curled under the blanket with Winter, hardly aware of when, under the twin influences of wine and Winter’s feverish heat, he finally stopped shivering. But even in sleep he felt his hand pressing, pulse to pulse. Once he even thought he heard Winter speak: “Ich weiß, wer du bist.”

And Faland laughing, replying in the same language, “Wer bin ich?”

Then nothing.