The End of Innocence (23 page)

“I'm not up for being shot by a firing squad for desertion.”

Riley raised his hands. “No. You won't. On the kaiser's birthday, I'll get a pass to go with the ambulance corps to bury the dead. Do they give passes for that on your side?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you get a pass to move a little north along your lines,” said Riley.

Wils seemed to mull over the plan. “That's the way we drove today. The lines aren't solid. We passed the ruins of an old stone farmhouse just outside of a wood. It's by a new cemetery—about a hundred small crosses. I could get there, and so could you.”

“Eleven hundred?”

“I'll try,” said Wils, looking down at his soggy boots. “But if you get me killed, Riley—”

“I won't. Helen would murder me. And German machine-gun fire is easier to deal with than her temper, as we both know.”

“Gunfire is more direct,” agreed Wils, smiling wryly.

“Shells have less shrapnel,” answered Riley. “Mum is so worried about you, Wils. She always liked you better than me.”

Wils laughed. “I've no doubt why—you worry her to death with your gallivanting around. But I must get back to my post.” He took a few steps and turned. “What if we take Ypres before we meet?”

“The Germans take Ypres? Good Lord, Wils! That would be out of character for the Hun. And I'm afraid we're here to ensure that doesn't happen.” He shook his head. “What if wishes were our wives' kisses?”

Wils's face softened. “What I wouldn't give for one.”

“Me too,” said Riley, more somberly. He got up and walked back with Wils to the ambulance, leaving his pages unfinished by the fire.

But beside the tent, near where Riley and Wils had been sitting, a pair of eyes followed them disapprovingly. Norton took careful note of the young German's face, and the easy camaraderie he enjoyed with a soldier of the king.

He fingered the trigger of a pistol in his belt. Spencer was no loyal soldier of the king. He was a German in the wrong uniform.

It was said Spencer had gotten a girl pregnant and that he'd bedded many more. He had a wife, and yet he'd said he wanted to meet Cotting's sisters. And here he was talking with the enemy, probably about things he ought not to be speaking of. Blood would tell, and someday the captain would be man enough to admit it.

The captain
, he thought, grinding his heel into the soft mud. It came up to his ankle. The captain was a hero all right, but not the first one to be blinded by the son of a member of Parliament.

He looked up again through the gloom. He could shoot both of them right now—he should. But it was too obvious; he'd be the one given the court-martial and he wasn't ready yet to stop killing Germans.

Norton's eyes flickered as he stood mumbling to himself.

Filthy. Just filthy. Two Germans before him, and he couldn't shoot either one. Not now, at least.

No German should enjoy such a day
, thought Norton. Not after they killed his brother and left him to rot in a field.

No-Man's-Land

Wednesday, January 27, 1915

It was the dawn of the day of the kaiser's birthday, and Father Rupert slept in a dirt dugout after a long watch with soldiers near the front, his feet wrapped in a sandbag to ward off frostbite.

Wils couldn't imagine that anyone could snore that loudly and not be considered an enemy target. He sat across from the priest on an icy plank, riffling through a package that his mother had sent. On his belt he'd attached his pass for ambulance duty that bitterly frigid day.

A large tin of chocolates had just arrived from home, and he ate them by flashlight. His hands trembled such that it took him multiple attempts to open the tiny treats in the indigo light. He steadied his palms on his lap as he refolded the red waxed-paper wrappers into little squares to pass the time. Dark mud and grease outlined his fingernails, their whites buckled and soft.

His mother had enclosed a card written in her neat cursive hand. His eldest cousin, Manfred, had received a medal again. Another cousin, Karl, had just been accepted into the flying academy. Wils's dog, Perg, was adjusting to life with Karl's spaniels and Gretchen, Manfred's ill-tempered cat. The countess sent her love and encouraged him to keep his feet dry and his head down. She was working on a plan to get him a desk job nearer home if the war weren't over by spring.

Wils looked at his own boots, only a month old and in desperate need of repair. He frowned as he placed the tin back in his canvas haversack. There had really been no way around it. The flooded marsh had flowed onto the trench duckboarding and had then frozen solid. No amount of bailing had helped. And as his mother had sent chocolate instead of the requested boots, he'd just have to wear these today.

He stood up carefully, pulled on his pack, and rechecked his canteen and his day pass. Ambulances were in need of help north of their station. His commander hadn't asked for further details and Wils hadn't offered.

“Father Rupert, here's chocolate for you,” he said, nudging his friend. The priest didn't rouse and Wils placed his haversack in the crook of his arm. Wils took out his own blanket and put it over the man's shoulders, then left, walking north through the trench system.

Wils stepped over sleeping men, quietly flashing his pass to the occasional sentry and keeping his head low. He put on his crawlers to go between trenches. The mud had frozen into black ice, making the path treacherous.

As he made his way up through the back roads, his eyes skimmed the gutted terrain. The land had not changed much since the Christmas truce. There had been no major skirmishes since then, just steady shelling and often of the wrong people. The British had an uncanny ability to shoot their own troops by not directing their shells far enough.

Wils checked his compass and walked due northwest, toward the old stone barn in the cemetery.

* * *

West of the British lines, Riley Spencer had little difficulty securing a day's pass once word had spread that he was using the time to help the ambulance corps and to requisition chocolate and coffee.

“Spencer, here's a fiver for chocolate,” called Norton. “My French lass wants some.”

Riley looked suspiciously at Norton. The privation of the trenches had not whittled away an inch of Norton's girth. How the man had any girls at all was beyond him. He seemed to grow more idiotic by the day.

Riley took the money as Norton scowled. Under that withering stare, Riley calmly adjusted his leg puttees. Norton had become such a damned nuisance, always looking over his shoulder. During all of January he'd seemed to become even more embittered toward Riley for reasons he couldn't understand. Riley wished to have never laid eyes on the disagreeable man, let alone have had to have the misfortune of having to command him and then punish him when they'd first met.

At least the other men were much better suited to the camaraderie of the field. He'd taken great pains to make his men's lives better—supplementing their rations from his own pocket, visiting the hospital, and helping with their heavy work even after he'd worked a full day on his own. It seemed to make a difference that he noticed and would struggle with them. He was a hero last week when he'd taken a forward position in a melee that led to the capture of twelve Germans. His men returned uninjured and even Captain Tomkins looked impressed.

He felt for his pass in his pocket, and then pulled on his overcoat. “I'm off to Italy, Captain Tomkins,” he called. The captain, writing a letter in a small field chair, looked up, his face taut with strain. “Sir, I'm joking. I'll be back before nightfall.”

“I've had enough of your jokes. If you're not back by seventeen hundred you'd better be dead. I'll not write your parents that I lost track of you in the countryside. They are already put out with us for taking five months to topple the kaiser.”

Riley nodded and waved his pass.

“Seventeen hundred!” boomed Captain Tomkins.

* * *

Since Christmas, Riley had gone over every regulation and detail regarding his visit. He had marshaled his arguments for its legality and practiced a number of convincing stories if it looked like the truth would not suffice. In the end, what he was doing wasn't any different than what they all did on a daily basis. He met German soldiers on nearly every mission. He just didn't usually share a drink with them.

He would be happy to see Wils. His cousin was resilient, but it was the resiliency of the civilized, not of the soldier. At Christmas he was thin and his eyes had a hollow look. Riley would be glad to know Wils was still among the living.

He had thought of capturing him on this visit and taking him back to England for safekeeping. Wils would be hot at the idea of it. But then again, Wils would be alive, which Riley wasn't sure would still be the case if he stayed in the war. Riley's father would be sure to get him put in a comfortable prison in England—not the Tower or anything like it. He'd resolved to talk with Wils about the plan.

And then there was Helen. She didn't care for him, he knew, but if she knew he'd checked on Wils, maybe she'd forgive him for being such a cad.

Riley hitched a ride on the back of an open ambulance truck to a desiccated village to the northeast. The battle lines were not yet contiguous across the Western Front, and this area had been quiet since October. The village housed fewer than a hundred people, but with the army nearby and billets scarce, the town did a booming business.

He jumped off the tailgate and thanked the driver. He crossed the road to a chemist who also sold coffee, tea, pastries, and other foodstuffs and left a list with the shopkeeper's wife, saying he'd return for his items by evening. The ambulance would pick him up there and return him to camp by curfew.

Riley walked along the iced ruts in the road, turning east into the rising sun. An open path led to a wood. He turned to see that no one was around, and began to walk down the road, his rifle over his shoulder, revolver in hand.

The trees nearest the village had thick black-gray trunks and tall empty canvasses. The trees had littered the ground below with a thick carpet of dead wet leaves and twigs. When the wind picked up, branches creaked in its wake, causing debris to fall to the ground like rain. He pushed through the brush, stooping below slender growths that occasionally would snap back in his face. But he made quick progress.

As he moved farther into the wood, the ground grew softer. Nearly every step into the mud filled immediately with water. The water table was full—a lesson everyone trenching on the Western Front knew all too well. He walked with care, not wishing to lose a boot in the icy waters or trip on a submerged root.

The marsh led to a swollen creek, which chilled him as he waded across, holding his rifle high. On the other side a thick swath of wood was cut down into a wide path heading southwest as far as he could see. An ancient oak showed ax marks deep in its trunk. The path pointed toward Paris.

He stopped to survey the area. He heard nothing except the sounds of the trees creaking in the wind, water burbling down the stream, and the occasional fall of twigs.

He walked another twenty yards to the east and found an outcropping of gray rock, dirtied with mud. Mounds of dead brown moss lay scraped away from its base as if many men had crossed here. He scrambled up for a look.

This was where the war had been, a cemetery of a hundred new crosses to prove it. The line had been given up for a stronger line farther southeast. He saw a row of shallow trenches, now abandoned. Metal debris littered the plain. A horse's body lay rotting near the end of one of the trenches, abandoned in either pursuit or flight. Hills rolled through the field, patchy with dead grasses bent by the weight of the winter's ice. He spied the abandoned stone farmhouse, beside which the road led. It was quiet, and there looked to be nothing around.

The wind suddenly picked up and he heard a crash behind him. Riley turned quickly and held up his revolver, scanning the wood for an intruder. But all was quiet again. He saw nothing. It was probably a tree falling. He gave a sigh of relief and carefully made his way down the outcropping to the field.

A gentle slope led up to the abandoned farmhouse. The dwelling had been encircled by two sets of fences: one of wood at the hill's base and one, near the top, of stone. Just inside the stone fence a large tree grew, its branches nearly touching the broken roof of the old building. In between the fences were scattered piles of debris—a cord of tree branches, stacked as if someone would come for them someday, rusted rolls of barbed wire sinking into the mud, and an old plow. Across the road from the farm lay the field of crosses.

The field was quiet, something Riley was not used to after the past few weeks of rumbling engines. He checked his pocket watch. Almost eleven hundred.

He walked over the iced grass. It provided little cover, but it was preferable to the open road. The openness of the farmhouse made him uneasy. He looked behind him and saw nothing. He passed the wooden ring of fencing at the base of the hill. As he walked through, a length of wire stretched out from the post caught his leg.

Damn
, he thought, looking at it. A small red stain welled through the wool puttees at his calf. It was a scratch he'd need to tend to when he got back.

Halfway up the hill he saw the damage to the farmhouse clearly. A fire had blackened the barn's masonry and destroyed a portion of its roof. The wooden door swung open on its hinges.

He suddenly heard the crack of a bullet hit a fence post behind him. The wood splintered. Instinctively, Riley threw himself on the ground, flattened and desperate to find more cover than the grasses. Blood pounded in his ears.

He looked around searching for the sniper. A stack of tree limbs was piled a few yards ahead. His breaths came short as he quickly crawled behind them, the wet mud seeping through his clothes.

Riley heard another rifle crack, and covered his head with his arms. A bullet hit the top of the tree limb farther up the hill and clattered loudly into the stone wall. He heard another shot shatter one of the branches. Suddenly pain seized his side. His jacket had ripped over his rib cage.

Dazed, he lay back. He was bleeding.

Damnation
, Riley thought, as he tried to stanch the flow of blood.
What sniper had gone all balls-up in the middle of this sodding field?
His side felt as if it were on fire.

He got back on his knees. As he pulled his head up, he nearly fainted. “Come on, Riley Spencer. You're not done yet.” He raised his pistol.

The sound of heavy footsteps came up the hill. He could hear a man panting. Riley pulled the safety, his hand trembling. The red hair of Lieutenant Norton was visible.

“Firing on the king's officer!” Riley raged, his throat on fire. He raised the pistol to Norton's face.

Norton knocked the pistol from Riley's hand as if it were a cigarette. “The kaiser's officer, you traitor.”

Riley could barely see. Norton was on him, grabbing for his throat, choking him as he yanked at his identification disk. Pain shot through Riley's chest.

“This is for my brother's death, you German—”

But as Norton raged, a crack rang out. Norton snapped back, shot through the forehead. Riley moaned, his legs trapped under Norton's weight. His hand was wet, covered in his own blood.

“Riley!”

“Father?”

“Riley! It's Wils!” he said, pushing Norton off his cousin.

Wils looked down at Riley. His face was ashen, and his jacket was stained with a dark glaze.

“Are you hurt?” Wils asked, his heart racing. “What? What's this…” His voice trailed off. A fury passed over Wils and he turned his pistol on Norton's corpse, firing into it until the chamber was spent.

Wils knelt beside his cousin under the gray sky. “Riley! You have to wake up.”

“Hit,” he said, nearly inaudibly. Then he gave a wet cough.

Wils pulled out his morphine pills from his pocket and pressed one between his cousin's lips. It bubbled up in his mouth, mixed with blood. He held his own flask up to Riley's mouth. Riley took a sip and grimaced.

“Is this what water tastes like without gin?” he whispered. Wils gave a laugh and wiped warm tears from his face.

Wils took off his own coat. The cold hit his chest like a hammer. He stripped Riley of his jacket and shirt, wrapping him up in the German coat. Blood was everywhere.

“Riley, they will think you're one of ours and get out of the way. Now, I'm going to carry you to the dressing station. It's going to hurt.”

“Not to Germany” he said, fading.

“Riley! Wake up!” said Wils as he dug through Riley's kit. He found Riley's pass, and some letters, which he stuffed in his pockets. He stood up and looked around, spying the identification disk in Norton's hand. He grabbed it swiftly and put it in his pocket.