The Lark

The Lark

work in progress

March 2002 (begun)

31 years old

“I died in Hell

(they called it Passchendaele) my wound was slight

and I was hobbling back; and then a shell

burst slick upon the duckboards; so I fell

into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.”

—Siegfried Sassoon

“I have a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade…”

—Alan Seeger

Part One

June 1917. London, England.

1

Reginald Banks walked homeward, the streets just getting heavy with workers coming off their shifts, shopkeepers getting ready to close their doors, bankers and lawyers hustling home after the day’s work. He himself had left his father’s office early, taking the afternoon off to meet with Edward, Robert and Henry for their regular Friday afternoon drinks. But that week, their rendezvous ended with more than a few stouts in their bellies—they’d parted company early that evening with enlistment papers filling their pockets. As a group, they had decided to go to the Front. It was a spontaneous decision, and one that filled each of them with a sense of purpose and daring. They couldn’t let themselves sit idly by while the Germans continued to take liberties with poor little Belgium, could they? After downing a few strong drinks, Reginald and his friends had walked to the recruitment office and did what they felt must be done.

Now, however, as the glow of their excitement waned, Reginald was faced with the disheartening prospect of breaking the news to Sophia.

And his mother.

Sophia’s reaction was not something he had considered while standing in line at the recruitment office, and he now found himself wishing he had. Having lost her only cousin, George, during the Battle of the Somme the year before, he knew she would not be pleased. Undoubtedly, she would see it as a hare-brained escapade.

He’d considered his mother’s reaction, on the other hand, but had pushed it quickly from his mind. Now, however, it came sneaking through the corridors of his conscience. His mother had not taken it well—what mother could?—when they’d received the telegram last summer that his brother, Johnny, had died on July 1, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. He had been in the same company as Sophia’s cousin, and together they had died marching calmly, relentlessly toward the German line—and their inevitable death. It was reported that officers had manned the front of the advancing lines of British men, and that one of them even carried a walking stick. A bloody and senseless battle if ever there was one, with few British and other Allied survivors. Upon receiving the news, Lucille Banks had locked herself in her bedroom for days, refusing to answer anyone’s worried pleas. His father brought meals to her on a tray left at the door. Sometimes she would eat, but most often not.

When she’d finally emerged, she was wan and thin. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and she possessed a haunted look that had indelibly left its mark. The first thing she had done when she walked out of that bedroom was approach Reginald and stare him square in the eye to say, “Don’t you ever do to me what your brother’s done. Do you understand? Never! I swear it will be the death of me.” Her voice had been low and steady, a distant feminine rumble of forbidding emotion.

Reginald had nodded dumbly, frightened by the faraway, unreachable place from which she had spoken.

Remembering that day with chilling clarity, he passed dark, empty-eyed churches, their centuries-old stained glass windows taken out and stored safely away in cellars, evening services cancelled, and walls and tombs shored up with sandbags, all against destruction from the bombings. Passing St. Paul’s Cathedral and over the bridge nearby, buses were required to turn off their lights at night. Scanning the buildings around him, he could pick out large searchlights and anti-aircraft guns mounted on high places, meant to spot, discourage, and bring down enemy aeroplanes.

Seeing his beloved London braced for attack, really seeing it for the first time, suddenly brought it all home for him; the City was not what it had been, nor was the rest of the England. Realizing this, he felt justified in his rash decision to enlist.

Cursing softly, he looked at his pocket watch and quickened his pace. He was expected at the Waters’ for dinner, and was already late.

Sophia Waters had known Reginald since they were children. As they’d grown up together, they’d shared a closeness that other boys and girls their age simply did not. She’d always taken it for granted they would someday get married, even while Reginald was away at Oxford studying law. Sophia suspected that he’d spent time with other women, but he’d never spoken of them to her. She’d remained secure that they belonged together and dutifully tried to put his boyish wanderings from her mind. Once he matriculated and returned home, she knew, his attentions would be devoted solely to her.

She had not been disappointed when her faith in him proved true. Shortly after matriculation in 1916, Reginald had settled himself in his father’s law firm and, early in the spring of 1917, had asked for her hand. While no one had been surprised, everyone was delighted, and arrangements for a fall wedding had soon begun.

Reginald stood at the Waters’ front door, rehearsing his words to Sophia. He bounced lightly in his shoes, a habit that gave away his otherwise well-concealed nervousness. As he raised his hand to knock, the door opened. He looked into Sophia’s clear blue eyes, and forgot his carefully worded speech.

“Reggie, you’re finally here.” She leaned forward and gave him a light peck on the cheek. “Wait a moment and I’ll go tell mother.” She disappeared inside the house again, returning a moment later. “Shall we go for a walk?”

He nodded. She closed the door, and he followed her down the steps to the street below.

She took his hand. “You’re rather late, you know,” she said teasingly. “We were beginning to wonder where you were. Lucky for you the roast isn’t quite done.”

Her light, angelic voice claimed a resonant quality that rolled soothingly over Reginald’s senses.

“I’ve been out. With Edward, Robert, and the others.”

 “Had you forgotten you were coming to dinner tonight?”

“No, not exactly. We were out for our usual Friday drinks, and then we… had some business.”

Sophia stiffened. “What sort of business did you have with them, Reginald?”

Sophia did not like his friends. She thought them shiftless troublemakers. What he had to tell her, Reginald thought wryly, would not improve her opinion of them.

He began to pace, his darting glances taking in her small, slight figure, wide, blue eyes, and red-blond hair that captured the light curiously, enticingly. Her skin was soft and creamy, with cheeks that held the faint hue of apricots. He cleared his throat and his words left him in a rush. “I know how you feel about the whole thing, Soph, but I had to do it.”

He stopped to take both her hands in his own. He looked into her eyes, deep and clear and cool. He felt her hands begin to tremble.

“Reggie, you’re scaring me…” she whispered. “What exactly have you done?”

“Sophie, we’ve… I’ve enlisted. I’m going to the Front. We all are. We leave for basic training next week.”

Sophia blinked, the color draining from her face. Her hand drifted to her chest, lingering over her heart.

“You did not,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“You did not. You couldn’t have.”

Tears filled her eyes, making them crystalline, and spilled down her cheeks. “How could you?” She tore her herself away from him. “We’re to be married in the fall! How could you do this?” Her hands cupped her wet cheeks in disbelief.

“Sweetheart, we can marry before I leave.”

“And for what? To make me a widow before I’ve become a proper wife? You can’t do it. You can’t go!”

She thrashed out to hit him, but he caught her wrists and pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. He buried his face in her peach-colored hair, inhaling its warm fragrance.

“I have to, Soph. I have to. It’s my duty.”

“What about your duty to me? To your family? Don’t we matter? Does my cousin’s death mean nothing to you? Or Johnny’s? What about your mother? Have you thought about what this would do to her? Haven’t our families sacrificed enough for the cause of war?” She paused a moment, her face clearing with sudden realization. “Did Edward talk you into this?”

Reginald’s gaze slid away from her stare, his lips pressing together.

“He did, didn’t he? Damn him!”

He held her face in his hands. “Sophie, I will be back. I promise. Our leaders are good ones. You’ve read all about them in the dailies. We’ll be in good hands.”

She sniffled. Now it was her turn to avoid his gaze.

“We can get married before I leave,” he continued. “We’ll have the pastor perform the ceremony.”

She pulled back and looked at him for a long time before speaking. “Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”

Reginald shook his head. “No. It’s all done. I’ve my papers, signed, stamped and approved. I can’t possibly turn back now.”

He bent his head to hers, their foreheads touching, stroked her cheek with his thumb. The elation he’d felt earlier had now fully dissipated. “There’s no place I’d rather be than with you, Sophia.”

She lowered her eyes. “Perhaps you might have thought of that before you enlisted.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice.

2

“C’mon,” Edward had coaxed. “It’s our chance to fight the Germans. All that structure and thick-headed propriety can’t be all it’s cracked up to be. They’ve always been troublemakers. We’ll kick ’em in the pants and show ’em who’s boss, eh Reg?”

He clapped Reginald roughly on the back. Robert and Henry laughed their agreement.

“What do you say?”

“I don’t know, Eddie…”

“Think of the glory! We’d get a hero’s welcome home. All of us! Besides, do you really want to wait until consignment? Wouldn’t you rather volunteer now, than sit around waiting for call-up? Don’t you want to fight for your country? To fight for the right?”

“You have a point,” Reginald conceded, “but it’s a massacre over there. The Germans are slaughtering us.”

Edward waved his hand impatiently. “We’ll be fine. Don’t forget, we’re shooting them, too. We’ve got our best leaders over there. How can we go wrong?”

He glanced slyly at Robert and Henry, directing his next argument toward them.

“Think of the women. They’ll be crawling all over us in our uniforms. A little dirt smudged on our faces to make it look as though we’d been in a scuff, tellin’ ’em stories of how many krauts we’d killed that day. All those loose French women! Just think of it!”

He turned again to Reginald, leaning close, resting an elbow on his shoulder. His next words were quiet and conspiratorial. “And what about Johnny? Don’t you want a chance at the bastards that killed your brother?”

Reginald swallowed.

While he had little desire to actually engage in battle, since his brother’s death Reginald had felt a vague sense of duty… an obligation. But to what, he wasn’t sure. Was it to fight for a noble cause? To save poor little Belgium from the indignities placed on them by the Germans? To fulfill his brother’s destiny? To die a hero’s and avenge his brother’s death? Even with Johnny’s disks coiled neatly in his mother’s jewelry box—plucked from his mangled body on the field at the Somme, which identified him beyond doubt as their Jonathon Banks and no one else’s—death seemed unreal to Reginald, so distant that its possibility failed to raise a single hair on his neck. He felt obliged to do something, but short of enlisting he didn’t know what would ease his gnawing sense of responsibility.

He’d watched those around him gladly volunteer for the cause. And later, he’d been witness to the consignment of many more. He was not ignorant of the fact that many came home wounded, blind, or missing limbs, and many more had yet to come home at all. However, Reginald also was not inclined to wait on pins and needles longer than necessary for his own call-up. Might as well get it over with.

To his surprise, once the decision had been made, Reginald had found himself suddenly eager to do his part for the cause, for king and country. He nodded, not quite able to suppress a smile of nervous excitement and more than a little fear.

“All right,” he’d said, “let’s do it. Are we all game?”

Henry and Robert stared at their friend, then looked at each other. Slowly, each one began to grin. “Let’s do it!”

Reginald and Eddie were 21 years old, Robert 20, and Henry only 16 and small. At the enlistment office, a tall, stern-looking officer had taken one good look at Henry, and brusquely asked him his age.

“Sixteen, sir,” he’d answered.

“I see. We only take men aged 18 or older, son. You better think on it a while, before you come back again. Take a walk around the square out there, have yourself a birthday or two while you’re at it. Then come back and tell me how old you are, again. And make sure you have the right birthday.”

And that’s just what Henry did. He had taken a little walk around the market square, and an hour later he was back at the enlistment office, flanked once again by his three best friends.

“I’m here again to enlist, sir,” he’d said.

The same officer looked at him and replied, “Good to see you back, son. I see you’ve grown a bit. How old did you say you were?”

“Eighteen, sir.”

“Very good. Now step over here.” He took pulled out a form and took Henry’s name, age and address. “And your measurements,” he said, critically eyeing Henry’s narrow chest. He waited while Henry stripped to his under shorts. “Take a deep breath, son,” he said moving toward the boy, “and hold it.” He loosely wrapped a tape measure around Henry’s chest and jotted down a number. “Very good. Breath out, then.”

Henry let out his breath in a loud gust, while Reginald noticed that figure the officer had written on Henry’s form were an inch or two more than what his thumb had marked on the tape. When the officer led Henry to the scale, Reginald also saw that he had carelessly toed the platform a bit so that it read heavy, and what was documented on Henry’s form was more than his true weight by a good stone or more. Reginald glanced at the others to see if they had noticed, as well. But they paid Hank’s health inspection no heed. Instead, they walked the perimeter of the small room, eyeing posters imploring the strong, strapping male youth of Britain to lay down their lives for the greater good.

“I also need to take a gander at your teeth, eyes. Do you have TB?”

Henry shook his head.

“Well, to be certain, we’ll have to check for that, too.” Before he turned around, however, he stopped and looked at the other boys. “Are the four of you enlisting together?”

Edward spoke up. “Yes we are, sir.”

The officer nodded. “Fine. Just for the record, what are your ages?” They told him, and he nodded again, taking three more applications from his desk and waving them forward. “Very well, then. We’ll do this all at once and place the four of you together.” He stopped short. “I assume you do want to stay together?”

The four men looked at each other and grinned. To be placed within the same regiment was beyond their expectations. This was looking better and better.

It had been clear from the beginning that England hadn’t enough manpower in the Regular Army to support the exhaustive involvement the Great War had quickly become. Kitchner’s New Army, therefore, had promised at the outset that men who signed on together—those from the same family or community group, football club, business district, what have you—were guaranteed to fight together. This was promised in the hopes that, spurred on by the intense patriotism that had begun to form in reaction to “poor little Belgium’s” plight, men would flock to the enlistment offices in droves. And flock in droves they did.

It wasn’t long before cities and towns began competing against each other, striving to enlist more men than its neighbors. The effect this had on communities across northern England (where this clever plan had begun) was devastating. Mothers had to be told that not one of their sons, but all three, for instance, had been killed in the same battle. Whole communities had been robbed of their promising young men, when entire platoons of those same men were wiped out fighting the Germans. It wasn’t long, therefore, when enlistment offices began separating their new recruits into regiments scattered across the country in order to better the odds of their soldiers’ safe return home. Or, at the very least, of returning home alive.

In 1917, however, three years after the start of the Great War, men were desperately needed, and unmarried, able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one were in short supply. The leniency shown by the enlistment officer where Reginald and his friends had signed on was quite common. If one office refused to recruit a boy too young, small or sickly, he could often try another office—either in the same town or a neighboring one—where he would likely be accepted. Boys as young as 15 were known to be recruited—with the requisite fudging of such details as age, weight, and chest and height measurements. By 1918, the maximum age for conscription had been extended to fifty-one.

After their enlistment was official, the four men had returned to the pub to toast their new lives. It was growing late, however, and Reginald and Robert—each having an engagement elsewhere—soon left, leaving Edward and Henry to finish the round together.

“Well, Hank, you chit, what say we have another?” Edward’s voice slurred over his words.

Hank peered narrowly through the haze of the barroom at the clock on the wall. He was a bit in his cups as well, and his voice a tad loud. “Awright, Eddie.” But only one. Me mum’s waitin’ supper fer me. Since Da’s passed on, you know, she won’t eat a bite wi’out me.”

Edward nodded knowingly. It was a tragic end of a good man’s life to leave behind a grieving widow and a teenage son to manage on their own. Edward imagined finding his own father’s brains splattered across the carriage house walls of the hotel where the Henry Baxter, Sr, tended the horses and buggies of its guests. He’d even had the good fortune to have parked a few cars. When the automobile belonging to a peer—a duke or earl, wasn’t it?—had gone missing, and then a horse soon after, well, naturally it was assumed Hank’s Da had had a hand in it. Everyone had known he’d been a gambler and had dried up his week’s wages during an unlucky card game. Was desperate for cash, that he was. The day Henry Sr. lost his job, he’d killed himself, unable to face his family with his shame. Hank had come round to bring him his lunch pail, which his father had forgotten that morning. He’d heard the shot as he walked up the drive and found the sprawled body of his father only moments later. It was a nasty business, really. Hank deserved better. He was a good lad. And so was his father a good man. Except for that little gambling problem, that is.

“She’ll be glad to hear the news, I’ll bet,” Edward ventured.

“That she will. A little extra income won’t ’urt a bit. I can’t stand to see ’er hands so raw from washing other people’s laundry. Maybe she can sit back and relax a bit while I’m gone, take in my wages as I send ’em on to ’er.”

“She’ll be grateful for that, I’m sure, Hank. Yer a good son, you are.”

Henry’s cheeks colored and he pushed away from the table. “No good sittin’ around ’ere doin’ nothin’, is it? I better get a move on.”

“You do that, Hank. We’ll see you tomorrow night, then? Give my best to yer Mum.”

Henry nodded and left.

Edward stayed for one more pint. He felt a flicker of hope quicken in his chest as he contemplated the scene at home. How proud his own mum and dad would be when he told them of his plans. “Here’s to a new life,” he toasted to himself. He polished off the stout in one long pull and began the long walk home.

3

“Eddie, is that you?” called Bridget Mullins from her place at the stove, not bothering to turn around.

“Yeah, mum, ’tis.”

“Where on God’s green earth have ye been, boy?” Frank Mullins demanded. He already sounded drunk and getting mean.

Eddie shrugged. “’Round about, I s’pose. Here and there.”

“Have ye, now? And where might that have been, son?”

Edward didn’t feel this to be the best time to tell his news, but then, when was ever the right time with his folks?

“To the pub with Reg and the others, like I do every Friday afternoon, Da.”

“Ye’ve been gone a long time, ye have. Ye’ve missed supper…” There was a menacing note in the older man’s voice.

“We went over to the enlistment office.”

A heavy pan crashed to the floor. Frank yelled over his shoulder.

“Watch whatcher doin’ woman! Things ain’t free round here, are they now?” Frank turned and stared at his son. “Now how ’bout you explain to me what you meant by that, you went to the enlistment office? Who tol’ you you could go an’ do sumthin’ stupid like that?” His mouth skated sloppily around the words.

Edward squared his shoulders, feeling bold and adult for the first time in his 21 years. “I did. I said I could go. It’s done.”

Frank lurched out of his chair and started toward Edward. “Well, I suggest you just go on back there and undo it, eh? We need you here. We need your work.”

“I can’t undo it, Da. It’s done. It’s too late to turn back. We leave on Saturday.”

With surprising speed, Frank’s hand lashed out and clouted his son upside his head. “Stupid brat. Selfish stupid punk.” He hit Edward again, spitting on the floor and returning to his chair. He picked up his cup and drank. “What I ever did to deserve a son like you, I’ll never know. You’ve been nuthin’ but trouble from the very start.”

“Da, I’m going to France to fight in the war…” Edward began, not understanding why the significance didn’t impress his father. “I’m going to war…”

“Do no’ speak to me. Do you unnerstan’? Ever.” He gulped the last of the whisky from his cup and rose again. Edward flinched as his father passed him. When the older man reached the door, he turned around and said, “It’ll be good riddance to yeh, anyway. Who needs yeh?” The front door slammed shut, and his father was gone.

Edward turned to his mother. “Ma, I’m going to war. Aren’t you glad for me? I’ll send money home, I promise. It’s a good thing, really…”

Bridget looked at her son with lifeless eyes. “I’ve your dinner warming in the oven, then, if you’re still interested. You haven’t eaten, yet, have you?”

Edward shook his head. “No, Ma. I haven’t”

“All right, then. Sit down and have a bite of something.” She turned back toward the stove. That her only son would leave her alone with the brute who’d sired him left her devastated. She wipe away a tear that had spilled down her cheek and hoped her son hadn’t noticed.

He hadn’t.

4

[change this. Sheila works in Munitions factory, and Henry later asks Reg to ask Sophie to take care of her, teach her to read and write, get her out of the Factory, get her an office job, something that pays well.] He’s worried about her health, describe TNT poisoning.

By the time Henry Baxter walked through the front door of the small dark flat he shared with his mother, some of the alcohol had begun to wear off. He hadn’t drunk much that afternoon, but he was only 16 and small for his age, and drinking was a new pastime for him. He closed the door softly behind him and walked to the kitchen where his mother stood as if in thought, motionless.

Sheila Baxter heard his footfall and spun around, eyes wide, hand held at her throat. She let out her breath in a gust. “Hank! You gave me a start, you did.”

“Everything good, mam?”

Everything was not good, if truth be known. Washing clothes and linens was not bringing in much these days. The rent was due and she hadn’t enough to pay it, even with the few wages Henry brought home. She’d spoken to the landlord after she’d got home that afternoon and he was willing to give her an extension—half now, half in a week’s time—but it would be a lean month for them, indeed. She had considered taking up mending, but her eyes were going bad. A few housekeeping jobs would have to get them through, instead. Perhaps she could manage a few references and take up a servant’s position in someone’s household. Her cooking wasn’t marvelous, but she could make up for it in other ways. She was making a mental list of people she might approach when Henry walked into the kitchen.

“Everythin’s just fine, son. Just fine.” She gave him a bright smile to prove it. “Glad to see ye home, I am.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

“You look tired, mam.”

“Oh you know. It’s been a long day, truly.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m glad to see it through, now.”

Henry nodded. He knew his mother worked hard for her meagre earnings, and regretted that his size and age prevented him from bringing enough home to make ends meet, after his father’s death the previous year. Henry had even gone to the hotel where Henry Baxter Sr. had worked for 20 years, offering to take his father’s place. But the hotel wanted none of the Baxter blood to sully their name again, in case another car or purse went missing. Henry knew his mother tried to protect him from knowing how short they were every month, but it hadn’t taken long for him to see to the heart of things. He was quite aware of their predicament.

He led her to their small sitting room, where he motioned to a chair. “Sit down, mam. I have news for you.”

She sat, thin and frail, fine features roughened by grief and hard work, and waited for him to continue.

“There’s really no way to say it but direct-like,” he said, but stopped there.

“Go on, son. Tell me.” Sheila folded her hands in her lap.

Henry kneeled before her and covered her hands with his own. “Well, it’s just that I’ll be going to France soon. I’m going to war.”

Sheila’s eyes brimmed with sudden tears, her chin trembled.

“No, don’t cry. It’s a good thing. Really. They’ll pay me more than we make together, and I can send the money home so you won’t have to wash laundry anymore.” He looked at his mother’s red, chapped hands, at the blood crusted in the creases of her knuckles. “I’m not leaving you, mam. I’m going to send money home so you can live a normal life. Buy yourself some fancy cream to heal your hands, maybe. Or a new dress.”

She smiled wanly, thinking how she would like to feel feminine again. “Or both…”

“Yes, both!”

Sheila leaned forward and drew her son into her arms, stroking his head as if he were still a small boy. “That’s not why I’m cryin’. I’m very proud of you, I am. You’re a good son, Henry. And I love you very, very much.”

5

[change this? Make George a big pro-war man? Or at least pleased to hear his son is off to war…) Robert arrived home to find his family going about their early evening business. His mother, Margaret, bustled about in the kitchen with cook, preparing something that smelled beef-and-potatoey. His father, an [attorney] in practice with Mr. Banks, working side by side with their sons Robert and Reginald, must have finagled an extra meat ration or two each week [no rationing at this time] from one of their many political connections; the Hyde family seemed to be consuming more than their fair share, surely. The fleeting hope passed through his mind that no one would go without at his own family’s expense. The notion made Robert shake his head in momentary shame and embarrassment.

He set his hat on the table beneath a large wall mirror, and George Hyde looked up from his copy of The Times.

“Ah, son! I see you’ve made it home.” He rattled the paper, burrowing in it again. “You’re mother’s been fretting over your lateness, as usual.”

Robert rolled his eyes and checked his pocket watch. Seven-fifteen. He frowned. “I’m not late. I haven’t missed supper, have I?”

“No, not this time. But you’re late all the same.”

Robert stood in the threshold of the parlor, unsure where his father’s criticism was going, but knowing he was in another of his moods. “I’ll just go see Mother,” he said finally, backing out of the parlor, “let her know I’m home.”

“I’m sure she would appreciate that, son.”

Robert pushed open the kitchen door and watched his mother and cook fussing over the oven, putting the finishing touches on a very well-done roast. Robert raised his eyebrows. What a pity it was that good meat received such poor treatment in their household, extra rations and all. Try as they might, his mother and Laetitia could not produce a tender morsel between them. He smiled affectionately, then cleared his throat. Margaret turned around at the sound.

“There you are! We were wondering where you were! You’re almost late. The roast is already finished and we’re about to set the table.”

“I’m earlier than usual, Mother.” He bent to kiss her proffered cheek and wiped a smudge of what appeared to be char from her forehead. “You know we always go out on Fridays, the boys and I.”

“So I do,” she nodded, turning back to the roast to spoon the meager drippings over its leathery top. “How was your day, dear? Good, I hope?”

“Good indeed. I have some rather proud news, in fact.”

Margaret’s normally cheery face brightened even more. “Wonderful! I can’t wait to hear it,” she said, tucking a wisp of hair that had drifted from the loose knot atop her head. “You’ll tell us at table, then, won’t you?” she said, more a motherly command than a request. Without waiting for a reply she shooed Robert through the kitchen and into the small alcove which lead to the modest garden outside. “Be a dear, will you, and find your brother and tell him our supper is ready. I expect he’s brooding somewhere round back. He’s been doing a lot of that these days. I can’t imagine what’s captured his interest so.”

Robert nodded and stepped through the door, propped open to draw the hot air from the kitchen. All things considered, theirs was not a bad house. Quite comfortable, in fact. Granted, it was only a modest row house, and not nearly as grand as Sophia Waters’s home, but quite comfortable. Margaret and Laetitia worked hard to keep the house light and airy, keeping it free of dust and cobwebs with a frenetic obsession. They opened the windows wide each morning, in all seasons, rain or shine, to rid the house of its sleep-stink and stale smoke from George Hyde’s pipe, and kept the heavy drapes tied well back from the windows during daylight hours. It was quite a measure better than the dark, cramped, shabby apartment Henry Baxter shared with his mother. It was even nicer than the larger, though casually unkempt home owned by Reginald’s family, crowded with too much large furniture, wall-hangings and frayed carpets.

Robert looked across the small garden punctuated with patches of colorful flowers and decorative foliage. In the bare patch beneath the kitchen window, an herb garden strove to survive. He saw that someone was, indeed, rummaging in the shed in the back, and he set out toward the tiny outbuilding. Robert peered into the dark interior and found Thomas, his back to the door, placing something carefully beneath an overturned urn, cracked and chipped with age and disuse. Robert stepped inside and placed a heavy hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Whatchya got there, Tommy-O?” he said, reverting to the childhood nickname.

Thomas gave a shout and turned around. His eyes were round and his left arm reached out toward the urn as if to protect it. Realizing it was Robert, Thomas relaxed measurably, but not before Robert read the stark degree of guilt on his brother’s face. “Not hiding anything, are you, boy-o?”

“I-I was looking for something,” Thomas stammered. His arm was now resting on the shelf in front of the urn a little too casually.

“Are you sure about that?” Robert looked doubtful. “I thought I saw you hiding something in that old pot there.” He moved closer until they were almost touching, fixed Thomas with a hard stare, holding Thomas’s eyes with his own. It was one of many power games they’d played as children, games which Robert—because he was the elder and larger and stronger, by far—always won.

Thomas dropped his eyes and moved aside, relenting. “Go have a look, then.” He gestured feebly toward the urn, dropping his arm, disconsolate.

Robert smiled and turned toward the shelf. “There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He lifted the urn and slung it beneath one arm. His eyes scanned the articles there, finding a heavy silver hip flask and beneath it a small stack of photographs the size of postcards. He handed the urn to Thomas and, after examining the flask briefly, set it aside to pick up the cards. He sifted through them, about a dozen or so, and snorted with amusement. “Well, well, Tommy-O. I should have known. Where did you get these?”

Thomas’s face reddened. “Never mind. That’s my business.”

“And the flask?”

“Won it fairly in a card game against Peters. Its whereabouts before he had it is none of my concern.” Thomas sounded defensive.

“All right, all right. I’m not Scotland Yard. I was just asking—” He held out one of the cards, “This one’s a real beauty,” and sifted through them all again. “These are all of the same woman.” He stopped suddenly and looked at his brother. “She looks remarkably like—“

Thomas refused to meet his eyes. His color deepened to crimson, and he shuffled his feet. “Yes, I know.”

Robert sifted through the picture cards again. “You don’t think that’s her, do you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, actually, it does,” Robert said. “I wouldn’t let these get into the wrong hands, Tommy-O. It could spell quite a lot of trouble for you and… other parties involved.”

“Well, if you don’t go around shouting about it in the streets, no one will find out, will they?” Thomas took the cards from Robert and placed them on the shelf again, setting the flask on top and covering them with the urn. He didn’t see the single card Robert had slipped into his coat pocket.

“Well, you might find a better hiding place for those things, at any rate. Mum or Letty could drop in here any moment looking for an old pot, say, and find them there.” When Thomas didn’t answer, he added, “Speaking of whom, I was sent out here to fetch you. Supper is about to be served.”

Thomas grimaced. “As if anything those two concoct is worthy of the supper table.”

“Such disrespect, Tommy-O boy-o,” Robert chided.

Thomas pushed past his older brother, into the fading daylight. “I wish you’d stop calling me that. I’m not a child you know. Seventeen, now, and you were up to much worse at my age, what with that crowd you still run around with.”

Robert laughed and slung and arm over his brother’s shoulders as they walked up the path to the house. “So I was, Tommy-O!”

“Mother tells me you’ve news for us, Robert.” George Hyde said, chewing around a mouthful of meat, his jaw muscles working visibly. The table shook as, all around it, the Hyde family and Laetitia (who always ate with the family, at Margaret’s insistence. “She’s practically one of us; she’s been with us so long!” she pronounced.) sawed away at leathery slices of roast. George wondered how many pounds were annually squandered to sharpen the knives in their house. He imagined they would be much better off if that expense alone were alleviated, if his wife and maid were better in that kitchen. “Why don’t you entertain us with today’s antics, son.”

Robert shot his father a dark look and cleared his throat in irritation.

“Yes, Rob, share your news, please,” Thomas smirked. “What antics have you been up to this afternoon?”

“Tommy, that’s enough,” their mother reprimanded.

“Let the boy talk,” said their father.

“Sorry,” muttered Thomas.

Laetitia was silent, minding her place.

“If you’re all through?” Robert asked, and waited. “I have very important news, as it happens,” he continued. “As you know, I was out with Reg, Eddie and Hank this afternoon, as usual. After careful discussion we decided we did not want to wait any longer to be called up.” He looked around the table, and saw he had everyone’s avid attention. “So, we all went down to the enlistment office this afternoon and signed up to go to war as soon as possible. We leave for basic training [Sunday, Monday? Which day?].

Everyone was silent.

“Well,” George Hyde said after a moment. “That’s very courageous of you, son. I’m proud of you. I suppose we’ll have to find a replacement for you and Reginald in the office, then.”

Robert’s eyes slid to his father. “I wasn’t asking for your approval, Dad. And you and Mr. Banks managed just fine in the office before Reg and I came to work there. I don’t imagine you’ll be hard put to take up the slack.”

“Yes, well. Regardless, I believe that was the right thing to do, to sign up. Good for you. You’ll be missed” He looked around the table for argument, then shoved a forkful of potatoes in his mouth, closing the subject.

Margaret held her son’s gaze a moment, her eyes shiny, sad. Three years ago she might have been overjoyed her son had taken such initiative. But in 1914 it was believed the war would quickly be over, and her son chose to stay in school and study law with the Banks boy. In 1917, the war still raged, and the toll it was taking on Britain’s sons, families, and economy was harsh. Not many mothers these days were overjoyed to hear that their sons would be joining those on the Western Front on a march toward certain death.

Still, it was a courageous step.

“I’m proud of you, too, Robby,” she said, and dropped her watery gaze to her plate.

No more was said, and the table began to shake once again, the members of the Hyde family, and Laetitia, sawing away at their dinner in silence. Robert looked at the bowed heads of his family, disappointed his news carried less weight than he’d expected.

Thomas waited until Robert was alone in their room before approaching him.

“You’re really going to war, then?”

Robert turned away from the window to face his brother. “Yes,” he nodded.

“I wish I could go too! You think they’ll take me if I go down there tomorrow? Think they’ll put me in your unit, too?” Thomas’ eyes sparked with excitement. “What a grand ride that’ll be!”

Robert smiled and looked at his hands, thinking of young Henry and how Thomas sounded so much like Edward. “Yes, they likely would take you. In a heartbeat. You know how desperate the situation is.” He stopped smiling and his expression turned grim. “But, if you dare such a stupid thing, I’ll let you know here and now, if the war doesn’t kill you, I will. As soon as I have the chance, I’ll wring your sorry little neck.”

Thomas was flabbergasted. He stared at Robert. “But I’m seventeen already… And I look old for my age… Don’t I?”

Robert turned his little brother around in a circle. “No, you don’t, actually. You’re just a kid. If we both go to the Front and we both get killed, it would devastate Mum. Don’t you see? It would kill her, too.” He looked away, feeling suddenly sick, chill. “She’ll need you here. She’s going to need you, Tommy.” He had the sudden notion he would not return from France. Oh, what a fool had he been? Had they all been? “You stay here and look after Mum, Tommy-O. Promise me that?”

Thomas nodded. He’d caught the chill, too. “I promise, Rob.”

6

Lucille Banks did not accept the news with equanimity.

“No!” she shouted. “I absolutely forbid it!”

In spite of her rage, her face was bloodless, her expression stricken.

“Mum…” Reginald began, stepping forward.

“Don’t even speak of it! It is not open to discussion. You may not fight, and that’s the end of it!”

Reginald’s father reached for her arm. “Lucy, darling…”

She wrenched herself away from his touch, her body shaking with fury and desperation.

“How could he do this to me?” she pleaded her husband. “After all that’s happened, how could he do this…?”

Jonathon Banks moved closer to her until she allowed him to take her in his arms.

“Lucy, darling. He’s doing this for us. For Johnny. Surely you see that, don’t you? For us, sweetheart. Everything will be fine. He’ll come back. I promise, he’ll come back. It won’t be the same.”

She sank to the floor and wept with abandon. “He promised me. He promised…”

Reginald’s father held her, rocking back and forth, murmuring reassurances. He looked up at his son, eyes full of accusation and sorrow.

Reginald bowed his head, regret throbbing painfully in his chest, and silently backed out of the room.

7

Sophia’s parents were not thrilled by the idea of moving ahead the wedding day so drastically—and with only a few days’ planning—but they soon warmed themselves in the glow of their daughter’s excitement. Reginald noticed an efficiency in Sophia he was not aware of before, and comforted himself in the notion that his new wife would manage their future household with equal aplomb.

They were quietly talking together in the drawing room when she glanced up at the clock and gasped. Reginald looked at her in alarm.

“What’s the matter?”

“You have to go!”

“Whatever for?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation. “The dressmaker will be here any moment. She’s bringing the dress for a final fitting. We were so lucky that she’d already started it weeks ago, and needs only a few fittings and alterations. You can’t see it, Reggie. It’s bad luck if you do.”

“Rubbish. You’ll be upstairs, won’t you?”

“Please, Reggie, you must go. You simply must!”

“Sophia, I—”

He was interrupted by the doorbell.

“Oh! There she is! Quick,” she said, ushering him into the kitchen. “Annie, fix him a drink, and make sure he stays put!”

“Yes, Miss,” said their longtime and loyal cook.

Reginald made to follow her into the living room again, but Annie laid a hand on his arm in a polite, but firm, gesture.

“You heard her, Sir. You’re to stay put. Would you like some tea? From the looks of you, I would say you might prefer something a bit stronger?”

He sighed in resignation and sat at the work table.

“Whatever seems best to you, Annie.”

It was some time later when the front door finally closed behind the dressmaker. Reginald roused himself from his thoughts, drowsy from the warm closeness of the kitchen, and mildly fuddled from the tea and whisky Annie had mixed for him. It was a strong mixture, which Reginald appreciated, and he had enjoyed nearly three cups of it, already. He looked around for the cook, and found her in the pantry, her back to him, humming busily to herself. He rose from the stool and pushed through the kitchen door to the dining room with a stealth he was sure would become any soldier, and crept quietly up the stairs to Sophia’s room.

Her door was slightly ajar. He looked around, then peered into her room. She had not yet taken off the dress, and she stood before a full-length mirror, fingering the careful beadwork on the bodice, adjusting folds of fabric over the bustle. He admired her for a moment before he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

“You make a lovely bride, Miss Waters.”

Sophia spun around in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

She tried to hide behind the silk dressing screen, but he caught her hand and pulled her closer.

“I couldn’t resist sneaking a peek. You truly do look lovely.”

“You can’t see me in the dress before the wedding…!”

“Nonsense.” He approached her and turned her around in a small circle. “That thing looks awfully complicated. You’ll need some help getting out of it.”

“I can manage just fine if you send Annie or one of the others to assist.”

“I can help,” he suggested with a small smile curling his lips.

She blushed. “No, you cannot.”

He pulled her close to him, and, reaching behind her, began unbuttoning the row of small round buttons that led from her neck to her tailbone.

“Of course I can. I have very nimble fingers, you see.”

Her color deepened further, and she pushed herself out of his grasp.

“Get out, now, Mr. Banks, before I call for help myself,” she said in mock sternness, pointing toward the door. “Go on. Out with you!”

Reginald laughed, and he caught her again, this time kissing her deeply before letting her go. “I have the most beautiful bride. I can’t wait to make her my wife.”

He turned away and left the room to fetch Annie, trying to push aside a sense of foreboding that was clawing its way from the back of his consciousness. He almost succeeded.

In her room, Sophia leaned against the dressing table, lost in thought for some moments. She was all too aware of Reginald’s impending departure, that he would be in basic training for some weeks, then off to war, risking his life in a foreign country, for foreign concerns.

After their wedding, who knew when they would see each other again. She hoped his leave time would come fairly quickly, that he might get one even before he left for France; but her hopes were dim. Neither her cousin George nor Reginald’s brother Johnny ever made it home on leave. Instead, they were buried somewhere in France—Serre Road Cemetery Number 2, they were told—their families left with little tangible to remember them by but a pair of disks indicating their names, serial numbers, and regiment, and a few personal belongings fished out of their kit bags—all sadly out of place in childhood bedrooms preserved in posterity. She prayed fervently that wouldn’t be all she might have left of Reginald.

Throwing herself wholeheartedly into the wedding plans did little to dispel these thoughts, no matter how hard she tried, and she was feeling the strain weigh heavily upon her mind. She looked forward to the wedding day with a mixed sense of anticipation and dread. She wondered if Reginald felt the same.

There was a tap at the door, and Annie let herself into the room. She took her cue from Sophia, and began unbuttoning the dress.

“Your Reginald must be a rather romantic fellow, Miss.”

Sophia turned her head to speak. “Why do you say that, Annie?”

“Why, that smile on your face says it all, of course.” She did not mention the four buttons already undone when she began undressing her mistress. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he, Miss?”

“Yes, he is. Very handsome, indeed.”

“You’re very lucky to have him.”

Sophia smiled softly. “Yes, I am, aren’t I?”

Later that night, Edward found Reginald at Loose Goose Tavern, nursing a pint of stout.

“There you are!” He was out of breath. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Reginald looked at him blearily. “What do you want?”

“Isn’t it fantastic? We’ll be in basic training in a few days, and moving out to fight by summer’s end. Tell me you aren’t excited. You were an eager beaver just a few days ago.”

“I’m not, now.”

Edward leaned one arm against the bar and peered closely at his friend. “What do you mean, you’re not?”

“I’m not excited. It was a mistake, I tell you. I’m to get married in two days’ time, and then leaving for war the day after. It was a mistake,” he repeated. “I shouldn’t have signed on. None of us should have. I’ve a bad feeling about this.”

“Heads up, lad. It’ll be a lark. Trust me. It’s all in the bag. There’ll be nothing to it. Shoot at Fritz now and again, and you’ll be fine. Prob’ly earn ourselves a medal or two while we’re at it. There’s been a war on for three years now. It’s bound to end soon, don’t you think?”

Reginald shook his head doubtfully. “I hope to God you’re right. I truly do.”

8

The evening of the wedding, Reginald found himself in the Waters’ dining room facing his soon-too-be father-in-law, bowed before the older man’s natural exuberance.

“So, Reginald,” Mr. Waters began, clapping him heartily on the shoulder, making him wince. “You must be anxious to be on your way. There’s nothing better for the spirit than a good war to fight in. You leave a boy and come back a man; decisive in action and clear in resolve.”

Reginald nodded weakly, wondering what pamphlet or poster for the New Army the older man had gotten that from. He knew with certainty Mr. Waters himself had never been to war, and could not speak from experience.

“The word ‘anxious’ doesn’t begin cover it, Mr. Waters.”

“Ha! That’s my boy! Eager lad, you are. Glad to see it. You’ll be a fit husband for our Sophia. And call me Philip. No more ‘Mr. Waters’, you understand? We’re family, now.”

“Yes, sir—Philip.”

Philip Waters turned away to speak to his wife, who had materialized at his elbow, and Reginald was left to his own for the moment. Sophia spotted him and walked ove, slipping a hand around his arm, a nervous light in her eye.

“I’ve been looking for you. The pastor just arrived and I must get dressed. We’re almost married, dear.”

Reginald patted her hand and smiled. “Yes, and I hope you won’t regret it, love. I hope I don’t disappoint you.”

Sophia drew back in surprise, then smiled reassuringly. “How could you disappoint me? When you come back from the war, we’ll be together forever, and make lots of children.”

She paused a moment. “Have you given thought to where we’ll sleep tonight? We will be husband and wife, after all, you know.” She was blushing.

Reginald touched her cheek, admiring her soft skin and apricot coloring, pale reddish-blond hair piled softly atop her head. A more beautiful woman he’d never seen. He was daft to go to war without considering her, first.

“No, I haven’t, really. So much on my mind today.”

“Of course. How silly of me. How could anything compare to what must be on your mind? I’ve been planning a last-minute wedding. You’re going off to war the very day after.”

Reginald looked at her closely, not sure if he’d heard the bitterness in her voice. He placed a hand behind her back and pulled her closer, kissed her gently on the forehead.

Sophia sighed. “Mother…talked to me today,” she glanced up at him meaningfully. “And she has gotten my room ready for the night. She said everything would be lovely.” Her color deepened. “It will be, won’t it, darling?”

He smiled at her gently. “Of course it will, love. How could it be otherwise?” He glanced around to make sure they were not observed, before placing a kiss on her warm mouth. “It will be most lovely.”

Sophie giggled quietly. He watched her with fondness as she moved through the room and up the stairs to dress. She was truly the best friend he’d ever known since childhood. Without doubt, he was a lucky man to have her. He hoped his decision to go to war wasn’t hurting her too terribly, though his hope was a thin one. He knew she was suffering, all the more because he would be leaving the day after they were married, and nothing he could do now could rightfully change that. He felt a moment’s rush of shame and selfishness, and looked helplessly at the drink in his hand. He sighed then quaffed it.

“Well, Reg,” said Edward, behind him. “This is it, old boy. No turning back now.”

He leered at Reginald, exposing large, stained teeth, the odor of alcohol fuming from his toothy mouth. Reginald had to restrain the urge to pull away.

“Yes. Where are Henry and Robert?”

Edward waved his hand. “Off somewhere. Probably chasing the maid.”

“Christ. I hope they don’t embarrass me.”

“Embarrass you? I don’t think they’d do such a thing, Reg,” he said, stifling a rumbling belch, redolent of fried onions and whisky.

He peered about him with blatant appreciation, fingering the linen tablecloth and inspecting a silver fork. “Must be nice to have old money… Any other university prof could never hope to live in such luxury. You’re a lucky guy, my friend.”

“Where have you been?” Reginald asked, ignoring the remark. “You absolutely reek.”

“Down at the tavern, drinking to your lost bachelorhood and our impending soldier-hood. Since you weren’t there, we had a few drinks for you.”

“You don’t say.”

“It’s true. Just ask the barkeep. He put it all on your tab.”

Reginald grimaced. “Of course.”

“And when we return from the front, we’ll be heroes, and such things as outstanding bar tabs won’t matter, anymore. We’ll be getting free drinks for the rest of our lives.”

“Edward, do you ever think of anything other than your forthcoming and well-deserved heroism?”

“I think of all the free women we’ll have, too. Free drinks, free women. What better reason to go to war?”

“I should have guessed.”

Reginald turned Edward in the direction of the kitchen. “Go in there and have Annie give you a large pot of coffee, will you? And if Hank and Rob are in there, make sure they get the same.”

Edward saluted his friend, turned on his heel, and stumbled lightly over a corner of the Oriental floor rug. He looked back at Reginald.

“No harm done,” he said and saluted loosely again, before disappearing into the kitchen.

Almost immediately Reginald heard a muffled whoop of surprised delight from Annie. Edward was a good-looking young man, and Annie was a grown woman, able to handle herself. Reginald left them alone.

He left the dining room and encountered Henry and Robert staggering down the hallway, as in their cups as Edward. He took each by a shoulder and guided them through the dining room and toward the kitchen, too. “Good timing. The pastor’s already here. Get some coffee in the both of you before the service begins. I don’t want to see your faces before then, understand?”

“Sure, Reg. Whatever you say,” said Henry with sour sarcasm.

Reginald ignored him. “And keep an eye on Annie for me, too.” He eyed his two friends pointedly. “Don’t let Edward get too friendly with her.”

“Your rather the bossy one this evening, aren’t you?” Henry challenged.

Robert put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Hank. It’s his wedding night. He’s bound to be a bit off. Leave him be.”

“Just keep an eye on Annie, and sober up a bit before you embarrass me.” Reginald turned away, and walked back to the small gathering, nervously adjusting the cuffs below the sleeves of his jacket.

Robert and Henry looked at each other a moment, then pushed through the door of the kitchen.

“Ho, now!” one of them said. “What’s going in here?”

Shaking his head, Reginald left the dining room to join his mother and father in the drawing room across the hall. They were standing at the fireplace speaking with a short, rotund man, balding, with wire-rimmed glasses curled behind his ears.

“Reggie,” his mother called, extending her hand to him. “Have you met Pastor Fields?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so.” He extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Pastor.”

They shook hands. “Sophia is a lovely girl. I’m glad to see she will be in good hands. I’ve been talking with your father, here. I’m given to understand that you’re an Oxford man, and that you joined his law practice last fall.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Good, good. It’s important to have a sound, rational mind. Especially in war. Isn’t that true?”

“Ah, yes, sir, I believe it is.”

“I’ve never been one for war, myself. But, indeed, Britain is fighting for a good cause. Those Germans trampling the Belgians like that, violating Belgium’s treaty just to get to the French. I’ve been told some terrible stories of their doings in that little country. I’ve never heard such barbarity.”

He leaned closer and said in Reginald’s ear, “Be sure to get a shot in for me, will you son? Get one for me, eh?”

Reginald nodded politely. He looked closely at the small man but said nothing.

A few moments later, Mrs. Waters appeared at the bottom of the stairs to announce that, at Pastor Fields’ convenience, they were ready to begin the service. Reginald leaned toward his father and whispered something. Mr. Banks nodded and left the room, returning with Edward, Robert and Henry.

When everyone was together, they arranged themselves around the small room, with Reginald standing at the hearth. Lettice, the youngest of Sophia’s two sisters, sat at the piano and began to play a Chopin etude.

Sophia descended the staircase, resplendent in her beaded gown of white lace and embroidery. Her hat was draped in a sheer yellow fabric the color of buttercups, which hid her face behind a filmy veneer. She was stunning. Reginald held his breath. On impulse, he met her at the bottom of the staircase then escorted her back to the hearth where the pastor stood waiting. Edward took his place by his side, as Sophia’s middle sister, Elisabeth, took hers beside Sophia.

During the ceremony, Reginald lost awareness of all around him, so entranced was he by his bride. He didn’t hear the quiet sobbing of their mothers, or the whispers of his buddies. He took no notice of the small mistakes Lettice made on the piano, and her helpless, embarrassed giggles. The words of the pastor did not register in his mind, until Sophia’s eyes grew wide, and she nodded at him. He shook himself out of his reverie, and noticed everyone looking at him expectantly. Even Lettice had stopped playing. He looked at Pastor Fields helplessly.

Pastor Fields cleared his voice, trying to hide a smile, and repeated, “Do you, Reginald Mortimer Banks, take this woman, Sophia Claire Waters, to be your wife?

He looked at Sophia, whose eyes were wet with tears.

“I do.”

“And do you, Sophia Claire Waters, take this man, Reginald Mortimer Banks, to be your husband?”

She sniffed softly, touching her gloved fingers to the tip of her small, straight nose.

“I do.”

“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” There was an expectant hush before the pastor finally concluded, “You may now kiss the bride.”

Reginald leaned forward and kissed his wife soundly on the mouth, ignoring the laughter and words of congratulation around them. All that existed for him, in that moment, was his new bride, her soft yielding lips, and the scent of lavender that emanated from her, surrounded them, enclosing them in their own world.

Sophia pulled away first. “Reggie,” she said, looking around them, mildly embarrassed, “we’re not alone.” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, turning away ever so slightly. “Not yet, anyway,” she added quietly.

Her skin had blushed prettily. He could see the rosiness of her cheeks reaching below the high collar of her dress, and he found himself very intrigued.

The festive noise of the people around them closed in, and Reginald and Sophia found themselves in the midst of their small gathering; mothers and fathers, sisters and friends, each striving to pass on words of encouragement and advice, hand-shaking, back-clapping, hugging and maternal kisses, all shared in joyful abundance.

When dinner was served, everyone moved into the dining room, noisily finding their places. Reginald and Sophia were seated together, and the two held hands through much of the meal, scarcely able to eat.

After dessert, the men returned to the drawing room to drink brandy and smoke cigars, while the women retreated to Sophia’s room to prepare for the night ahead.

Mrs. Waters began unbuttoning Sophia’s gown, speaking softly. The maid, Sarah, bustled about, laying out the nightdress, turning down the bedcovers, and fluffing the pillows. Sophia’s sisters and Mrs. Banks hovered nearby offering support to the nervous young woman.

“Remember what I said this afternoon, dear,” Mrs. Waters advised, unbuttoning her daughter’s wedding gown. “Just relax. It takes only a moment, and it gets better after the first time.”

Sophia nodded absently, her hands fidgeting with the cuffs of her gown.

“Reginald seems like a gentle man. I don’t think you have anything to worry about from him.” She paused a moment before adding with a sly grin, “and if you’re lucky, he’s done this before and knows what to do!”

The girls giggled, and she added hastily, “Do forgive me, Lucy. I didn’t mean to imply that your son…”

Mrs. Banks waved off the apology. “No offence taken. A young woman should hope to marry a man of…worldly experience, truly. Imagine the wedding night if both were bumbling novices!”

At that, both women burst into laughter, and the girls giggled self-consciously, not quite understanding the joke, but pleased to be included in this part of womanhood. With Sophia’s gown draped over a chair, Mrs. Waters helped pull the nightdress over Sophia’s head, loosely tying the ribbon at her neck.

“But this isn’t conversation fit for the young ones. Sophia, if you are ready, I will send my son along, and we will leave you two alone?”

Sophia nodded, again. “Yes, Mrs. Banks.”

“Piffle. I’m Lucy to you now. Now hop along, into that bed…”

Sophia did as she was told, pulling the covers up to her chest, and waited for the women to finish their fussing. “I think I’m ready, now.”

Her mother leaned over her and pressed Sophia’s hand reassuringly between her own. “These…arrangements might have been done differently, if only things weren’t so rushed, if the situation were different, you understand? It seems so… medieval, this way. I hope you are not disappointed. ”

“I’m not, Mother. Really. Everything is lovely. I wouldn’t have it otherwise.” She smiled to show that she meant it.

“I’m glad.” Mrs. Waters straightened, turned slightly to hide a tear that threatened to spill down her cheek and tried to conceal the tremor in her voice. “Now then,” she said, gesturing to the others and heading for the door. “Shall we?”

The other women nodded and left Sophia alone.

Lucy Banks was a strong woman, but she feared she could not hide her anxiety from the others. In less than a week’s time, Reginald had enlisted in the army, gotten married and would be leaving home again, but this time to go to war, rather than university. She found the notion almost beyond her endurance. The thought that she might lose him in battle frightened and angered her more than anything had in her life.

When he had told her of his impulsive enlistment, she threw herself into a raging fury. How dare this young man, who had almost brought her to her own death laboring to bring him into this world, endeavor to lead himself out of it without so much as a moment’s thought to what his death might mean to those who loved him and had gone to such pains to ensure his health and safety his entire life? Especially after Johnny’s own untimely death. Her elder son had been away scarcely more than three months before he was taken from her. And now she must face the same possibility with her only remaining, and favorite, son. However would she bear it?

Making certain she was not observed, Lucy wiped away the tears that had collected in the corners of her eyes and descended the stairs to find her son. She saw him sitting in a chair, a glass of brandy in one hand, laughing at some ribald joke told by Edward, no doubt. Her husband was laughing as well, smoke pouring around the cigar held between his teeth, and for a moment Lucy envied the hearty camaraderie shared by men, their frankness and ease with one another and general lack of calculation. She breathed deeply, squared her shoulders and entered the room.

“Reggie, darling,” she said with all the dignity she could muster, “I believe your wife is waiting for you…?”

She need not have announced it, however, for the men knew instantly what her appearance heralded. Sophia’s father had seen fit to slip out of the room, and Reginald’s friends teased him, pushing him forward, and Lucy’s words were lost in the commotion.

Only Jonathon Banks noticed the haunted look in her eyes. He clapped his son on the back and led him into the hall.

“One word of advice to you, son,” he began, holding his wife’s gaze with his own, “enjoy what you have in the moment. It could all be taken from you in an instant.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “And remember your brother.”

Reginald nodded, and Lucy cast her husband a small, sad smile.

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” Sophia said uncertainly.

Reginald entered, looking a little sheepish. “It was rough going getting away from that lot. All the jeers and leers. Embarrassing, really.”

He shook his head in amusement, then he stopped, realizing his bride was lying in bed before him. They were truly alone for the first time, without the distraction of hovering parents, or of well-meaning servants coming and going. Tonight, their time together would not be of stolen moments. They would spend it as husband and wife.

He sat beside her on the edge of the bed and took her hand. “You look lovely, sitting there so fresh and clean.” He reached out to touch her pale apricot hair, a halo of soft curls around her head.

“I’ve never seen your hair about your shoulders before,” he said, bringing a strand of it to his nose and inhaling. “You smell of lavender.”

“It was a gift from my mother. She said she used lavender water on her wedding night. She said it my father like it…very well.” She blushed.

Reginald smiled and drew closer to her, now lightly stroking her cheek. “You were absolutely stunning tonight, my darling. A vision. I could hardly believe you were mine.”

She smiled, then looked up at him. “Reginald…”

“What is it, darling?”

“Kiss me.”

She spoke so softly, he could barely discern the words. But the look in her eyes, and her upturned mouth, said all he needed to know. His hand slipped beneath her hair, behind her neck, and pulled her gently toward him. He leaned forward and brought his mouth to hers, kissing her softly at first, but with increasing intensity.

Her breath quickened, her belly grew taut, and she reached up to bring him closer.

“Oh, my beautiful Sophia…”

“Love me.”

9

Verna Waters tapped lightly at Sophia’s bedroom door, balancing a breakfast tray on one hip. When no one answered, she cautiously opened the door and peered within. The curtains were still drawn to, and she waited a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. She could make out the form of the small, round, granite-topped table and moved toward it, setting the tray upon its cold, grey surface. She had never liked the table, insisting its color and texture reminded her of gravestones—an odd thought for her, since her mind did not normally tend to morbid fantasies. Sophia loved the table, however, and when her grandmother, now long since in the grave herself, offered it up, Sophia claimed the table with enthusiasm. Verna sighed with exasperation every time she looked at it. She could not understand her daughter’s love for the thing.

Turning away from the table, she looked upon the lovers in the bed and soft smile touched her lips. Her daughter, a woman grown and married to the man she adored. A wonderful man and son-in-law he’ll be, she mused. She had no doubt he would make Sophia happy and comfortable.

She, like her daughter, was troubled by Reginald’s enlistment. Unlike most, she did not share the general enthusiasm for the war, generated, she was sure, by propaganda which had little to do with fact. Poor little Belgium, indeed! The Germans marching in and sacking towns left and right to show their mighty force, in complete violation of treaties meant to protect the small country behind a frail shell of neutrality! She welcomed the Belgian refugees, happy to offer England’s protection… But did she have to send her own loved ones to fight a potentially futile battle against a country renowned for its ruthlessness? Wasn’t it enough that she had lost both her brothers in the Boer War, less than two decades before? And her only nephew had perished the year before in this very war, now in its third year of wanton hate and destruction. Did she have to send away her new son-in-law, toward whom she felt great affection, to die in battle, as well?

Verna sighed. There was little she could do for it but wait for the war to end, and hope her son-in-law would return to them safe and whole. She crept to the door, and slipped out of the room soundlessly, leaving the newlyweds to their peace.

Reginald awakened, disturbed from his fragile sleep by the faint rustle of skirts. He looked about him, noting his surroundings, and the scent of lilac still lingering softly in the air. He gazed at the woman nestled tightly in the crook of his arm, and smiled. If things could only be different, he thought. If he had only used his head. He could only hope and pray that the war would soon be over.

He then spied the tray of food left on the table across the room, and eased his arm from under his bride to retrieve it. He brought it to the bed, and slipped under the covers, wafting a slice of toasted bread under Sophia’s nose. “Wake up, darling. Breakfast has been served.”

Sophia’s eyes fluttered open, and she smiled at her new husband. “What a lovely night,” she said.

“As I told you it would be, my beauty. Here,” he said, holding the tray steady as she sat up, “have something to eat.”

They ate together in silence, cracking the shells of soft-boiled eggs, buttering toast, drinking tea. “Hmm,” Reginald murmured, peering warily at a plate of smoked herring and pushing it away. “I never did care much for kippers.”

Sophia laughed, a light tinkling of sound that pleasantly tickled Reginald’s ears. “I’ll remember that in the future. ‘Reggie: no kippers for breakfast,’ ” she said, pretending to take notes. She stopped suddenly, and looked at him apprehensively. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

He nodded curtly. “Nothing to be done for it now, love. Best not to dwell on it overmuch.” He paused. “I’ve much to do this afternoon, you know, before we leave.”

“I know.” She caressed his bare chest, smoothing her fingers through his chest hair.

He moved toward Sophia with reawakened longing.

She put her fork down, pushing the tray out of their way. “It looks like we’re in for a lovely morning, as well.”

“Absolutely lovely,” he agreed.

10

Reginald, Edward, Henry and Robert, with their families in tow, found themselves at the train station late in the afternoon. As they prepared to board the train, headed for the camp where they were to take their basic training, Reginald noticed that Edward’s parents were conspicuously absent. His old friend hung awkwardly in the background until each one of them, in turn, invited Edward into their family goodbye. Reginald stifled a surge of seething anger toward Edward’s parents, who could not find it in their hearts to bid their only son farewell as he left to fight for all that was right and good, to fight for their lives and freedom.

He slung an arm around his friend, who so stoically hid his pain from the rest of them, and gave Edward a hearty squeeze and a bright smile. Edward shot him a quick look of warmth and gratitude, blood rising to color his cheeks, matching his shock of bright auburn hair. He shrugged off Reginald’s arm and backed away a few steps.

Everyone wished them safe journey, and elicited promised from the boys to come home safe and sound. The boys, each in turn, nodded their agreement. None of them meant to do otherwise.

Sophia drew Reginald aside and handed him a small wrapped packet.

“Open it now,” she said.

He did so, and found within a smallish leather-bound journal. In the lower right-hand corner, his initials were finely tooled. He fingered the letters meditatively.

“I want you to keep a journal while you are away,” she said. “I want you to write down everything that happens, to leave nothing out, so that when you come home, I will know and understand everything you’ve experienced.”

He nodded slowly. “I’ll keep the journal for you, love. I’ll write in it every day.”

“Good,” she said, squeezing his arm. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She fumbled at the lapel of her light overcoat, taking from it a small brooch.

“I want you to have this,” she said, pinning it to the lapel of his own jacket. “It’s for luck. Keep it with you, always.”

He looked down at the small red bird pinned there, wings outstretched in mid-flight, and touched it briefly.

“It’s a lark,” she said helpfully.

“Every time I look at it, I’ll think of you.” He bent to kiss her.

Edward and the others joined them, slapping him soundly on the back. “Ready, chap? The train’s about to leave.”

Reginald nodded once. “Let’s go.” He looked at Sophia once more and held her tightly. “I love you.”

“Come back to me.” She blinked back tears.

“I promise,” he said somberly.

Before turning away, Reginald took his mother in his arms and held her close. “Mum, I don’t want you to think…”

“Reggie, don’t,” she interrupted. “There’s nothing to say. I understand.”

“If I could change my mind…”

Lucy Banks pulled away slightly to look at her son, and smiled sadly. “But you wouldn’t change your mind, would you? There’s no other way for you but to follow your heart, and this is where it’s leading you. That’s your nature, and I would have it no other way for you. It’s why I love you so.”

Reginald squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the emotion that threatened to surface.

“Go now. You have my blessing.”

He nodded and turned to his father, who was already grabbing Reginald’s hand and pulling him into a great embrace.

“Take care, son. We’ll be thinking of you every day. And don’t forget to write, so we know how you’re doing.”

Reginald nodded and held his father tightly, then let go to board the train behind Edward and the others. As the train slowly pulled away from the platform, he looked out the window to see Sophia and his mother holding each other, tears streaking their pale faces. His father stood behind them, one hand resting heavily on his mother’s back, which slumped beneath the weight of her grief and fear. Reginald turned away, and would not look out the window again until they were well out of London.

Part two

We’re here because we’re here

Because we’re here,

Because we’re here.

We’re here because we’re here

Because we’re here,

Because we’re here.

—Sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne

* * *

1

In a rare instance of having sufficient supplies on hand, the recruits were immediately issued uniforms and gear upon their arrival at the training camp; their civilian clothes were duly parceled up and sent back home. As Reginald straightened his khaki-colored tunic in his tent, he noticed the four pockets on the front. Digging through his few belongings, he drew out a small book and slipped it into the lower left-hand pocket. It fit there very nicely, and he decided that was his journal’s rightful place. Knowing he had some moments to himself, he sat down and began his first letter to Sophia.

24 June, 1917

Dearest Sophia,

Well, love, we’ve arrived safe and sound. No need to worry about us. At least not yet! We’ve met some fellows already, who seem to be rather decent, and one or two others who I’m sure will prove to be troublemakers. I think Eddie will fit in with them quite well! Or else he will go too far and make enemies of them, which I hope doesn’t happen. But it’s too soon for me to make such guesses about fellow infantrymen I don’t yet know very well. And rather unfair, too, I think.

You should be getting my civilian clothes soon, if you haven’t already. They were rather quick about getting us into uniform. The Quarter Master took one look at each of us and guessed our sizes. I don’t need to tell you that most of us suffer poor fits. Mine is a bit large, but rather too large than too small! I wonder if we can change our clothes for better-fitting ones, later? The officers here seem a little gruff, and I must size them up a bit before I dare ask.

If you like, you may send some of your wonderful biscuits. I’m sure some of the other fellows would love to share them with me. They are so delicious, they will likely win me loyal friends for life! Already I know the food is lacking in substance and taste! Bully beef in tins, bread, jam, tea (thick as molasses, too!), and things of that nature. I have a suspicion the menu doesn’t change very much.

You’ll be happy to know I have the journal beside me, and I plan to write in it as soon as I’m finished with your letter. The lark you gave me I pinned to the lapel of my tunic, and I hope no one questions it, or tells me to take it off. If anyone does, then they’ll have a fight from me!

I love you, sweet, and I miss you already. Give my love to our families, too. Tell Mum to expect a similar letter from me, soon.

Your

Reginald

[smoother segue]He didn’t get a chance to write until… because their sergeant or captain bellowed… Basic training had begun. It was only a matter of days before Reginald’s pin was noticed by an officer.

“What’s that?” Reginald’s superior spat, face red and contentious.

Reginald blanched and stammered, “It’s a pin, sir. Of a lark.”

“What’s it doing on your uniform, son?”

“It’s for luck, sir. Given me by my wife before I left.”

“It’s not regulation, soldier. Take it off. Now!”

Reginald balked. “But sir—”

“I said take it off now!”

Reginald did as he was commanded and held the pin out to his captain. The captain took it and after inspecting it more closely, handed it back to Reginald, his expression softening.

In a low voice he said, “Put it back on. You’ll need all the luck you can get. Mind you don’t lose it; that’s a fine piece of workmanship. Your wife must love you very much.”

“Yes sir,” Reginald said, “she does. We were married just two weeks ago.”

Something flickered in the captain’s eyes before returning to their normal severity. “I didn’t ask for your life story, soldier. Put the damn thing back on and don’t ever let me see it missing or I’ll have you pulling extra latrine duty. If you want to wear it, then you better damn well take care it stays put. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” Reginald said, and returned the pin to his lapel.

9 July, 1917

We’ve been here for two weeks, and already I am exhausted. We were outfitted right away with our uniforms and most of our gear, and from what others say, we were pretty lucky about that. Many recruits never even see a uniform before they arrive in France, making do with blue training clothes, instead. They just gave us our uniforms and expected us to know where everything goes. It was quite a laugh to watch each other trying to fix our puttees, which are strips of wool wrapped around the lower leg, between knee and ankle meant to [ protect our lower legs, and they still chafe beneath my knee, though the wool is beginning to soften and mold to my legs]. An older fellow, who knows a bit more about the ropes than we, helped us out, after he amused himself for a while observing our confusion. He’s a good man, I believe. Has a wife and young son in Cheshire. Chester from Cheshire. Little guy, he is. He probably had to try a couple of recruitment halls before one finally accepted him. I guess we were lucky Hank was taken so easily, being not only under 19, but small as well.

In spite of my reservations about having enlisted, I feel rather smart in my new getup. I think Sophia and Mum would be proud of the way I look in my uniform!

We have so many things depending from our belts. Pouches, a haversack to store valuables, water bottle, digging tool, mess kit, bayonet. Around the chest hangs a bandoleer of four pouches, each holding 50 rounds of ammunition. And of course, there is also the Lee-Enfield rifle that hangs from our shoulder, a Webley revolver from our belt, not to mention the grenades we are told will be issued once we get to the front.

We also carry a pack on our back, which holds extra clothing, a great coat, blanket, a rubberized cape to use against rain and as a ground cloth. We also have a small carryall that holds our cutlery, razor, lather brush, comb, tooth brush, and that also goes into the big pack. One officer stressed that we not lose our toothbrushes, because we will need them for things other than brushing our teeth. I wonder what he meant?

The whole setup weighs about 70 pounds. That’s as much as a medieval suit of armor! We are told it will feel lighter in time, but I have yet to notice any difference.

Chester cracked a joke the other day, and depending on your mood and how tired you are, it might be considered funny, but more likely not. He said, “A young boy once asked his father, ‘What are soldiers for?’ The father looked down at him and smiled, ‘Why, to hang things from, of course.’ ”

Basic training was tedious and physically demanding, intended less to turn men and boys into experienced soldiers, than it was to train them to follow orders without question and build their physical endurance. Up before dawn to wash and shave, the recruits did calisthenics or marched some miles before breakfast. The rest of the day they were trained in various types of fighting, or performed various parades, ranging from kitchen duty, to latrine duty, to guard duty. It was not unusual to be ordered to polish everything in sight, from door hinges to hob nails in boots. [Learned nothing of relevance to trench warfare.]

Henry didn’t seem to mind the tedium. Nor Edward, really. Not at first. Compared to the solid place in life Reginald and Robert seemed to enjoy, Edward and Henry were relative lost souls, uneducated, tending to float from one job to the next. Having suddenly a constant and reliable place in the scheme of things in the New Army, the two young men found comfort and stability, and rarely questioned or challenged menial and repetitive and sometimes demeaning tasks. Reginald and Robert, on the other hand, both well educated, often resented the mundane nature of training for the infantry, and the merciless bullying that often occurred in the camps. [example?]

26 July, 1917

I miss home. And Sophia. I don’t, however, have much time to dwell on such things, as they work us to the bone. Some days we might be marching endlessly in formation for two or three days straight, all over the countryside. Or we might be learning to fix the bayonets on our rifles. Other days, we learn to shoot, or practice bayonet fighting and charging, or even what they call French digging, so we can dig proper trenches in the earth. I am tired and sore all the time. It seems all we do is march and obey orders. Some of the boys adapt just fine. It gives them a sense of belonging, I suppose. The money isn’t bad for them, either. Some of these chaps are earning more every week than they ever have in their lifetimes, and are not apt to question orders. Others are more educated, like Rob and I, and don’t appreciate following orders blindly, without question. We are, by and large, treated as less than dogs, abused verbally and physically tried every day. It’s a hard life here.

We’ve finally been issued shrapnel helmets and gas masks. The helmet doesn’t fit well, and wobbles around on my head. The gas mask is a funny-looking contraption with goggles and […] for […]

 I can say one thing, all this gear were not meant for comfort. We were told that when the cold weather hits, we’ll be issued little knitted tubes, called head comforters, to wear beneath the helmet once cold weather comes. It will keep our heads warm, make the helmet fit better, and when not in the front line, we can use them as neck mufflers. If they will make our helmets fit better, why don’t they issue them out now? I suppose it to be impractical this time of year, it being hot and all.

We also finally got our disks. I wear mine, like most of the fellows, beneath my tunic, but over my shirt to make it easy for another soldier to get to them. In case of death, in other words. They look just like Johnny’s (his brother. Check name…). It’s almost eerie. I got a chill up my spine when I saw mine for the first time. It’s as if the import of this experience didn’t start to hit home until I saw those disks in my hand and I slipped them over my head for the first time. And for the first time, I became truly frightened of what lay ahead, instead of worriedly wondering.

We walk on parade, wearing all of our gear—except for the packs. We might be on guard duty, running errands for our superiors, on kitchen duty, or what have you. There’s also church parade every Sunday, which is absolutely mandatory for everyone, even for those who are not Catholic or even Christian. Those who claim Atheism are given kitchen parade, or some other [menial task]. I’d much rather sit in church for a time than clean dishes, and most others feel the same, unless they have a strong religious affiliation elsewhere. For church parade, we’re required to dress full out, so we look rather dapper on Sundays when we walk through town.. There’s also Bath parade and parade parade... There’s a parade for everything imaginable. Parade this, parade that. When we aren’t fighting, we’re told, we’re on parade. Or on leave.

 I wonder how soon we can go on leave…?

I don’t know how long we’ll be here. Till they make decent soldiers out of us, I suppose. I haven’t asked. I don’t want to. I’ve heard that some places only train for a week or two, sending their men out to fight with only their instincts to fall back on, while others have kept their recruits for over a year. Hopefully, we’ll be among those with a little more training than a few meager weeks.

Eddie and the others are good mates to have around. Always cracking jokes, seeing the humor in things that would not otherwise be funny. I’ve already been reprimanded once or twice for a wise crack Eddie made while in formation, because I was the one found snickering. Naturally, I couldn’t finger the blame on Eddie, so have endured additional duties in the kitchen, cleaning and polishing, and the like.

six weeks into their training, Reginald’s unit was drafted to depart for France. The news put a lump in Reginald’s throat. He’d expected, hoped, theirs would be a long stay in training camp. But men were desperately needed in France, news which did not sit well with Reginald.

Edward, however, had finally grown weary of the tedium of camp life. “I can’t wait to get out of here and start shooting those bastards,” he exclaimed, his enthusiasm causing Robert and Reginald to exchange glances.

“I’m not sure you should be excited as all that, Eddie,” Robert began. “We’re about to put our lives under great risk, you know.”

“Christ, you sound just like Reg.”

“Well, it’s true,” Reginald put in. “The sooner you act like this is serious business and not the lark you made us believe back at the bar that day, the better off we’ll all be. Don’t want your over-excited [trigger finger] to be a liability, do we?” He looked at Rob and Henry. “I know I don’t.”

“Leave it to you to put a damper on the fun, Reg. Where’s your sense of adventure, man?”

Reginald, feeling the strain snap within him, lunged forward and shoved Edward against the table of the mess tent where they had gathered for dinner.

“This is not an adventure, you stupid lout. This is our lives! And I don’t want the likes of you putting my life at further risk because you can’t control yourself; because you can’t see the seriousness of what’s at stake here; because you needed to escape your lousy life in London to prove your worth, at the cost of ours.”

Edward looked at Reginald evenly, but said nothing. What Reginald had said was true, and Edward wouldn’t dare deny it. It was no secret his parents looked down upon him, always had, and considered him to be irresponsible and a troublemaker. Why couldn’t he be more like his brother, his mother would ask. Dudley was a successful doctor, married to a wonderful woman who had given her mother-in-law three beautiful grandchildren. Edward never felt he could measure up to the god-like status his parents had given Dudley, never felt he was smart enough, never felt he was given the chance to find his own way and nurture his own talents, whatever they were.

The war, he felt, finally gave him that chance. His only regret was that it took him three years to work up the courage to sign up. He had bounced from job to job, waiting until Reginald and Robert were out of Oxford and finally willing to sign up with him. That was something he would never admit to anyone. And certainly not to Reginald, whom he admired above all.

He knew Reginald was nervous about fighting at the front and was regretting the decision that had brought him to this point in his life, and Edward, until now, had failed to recognize and pay heed to it.

He nodded once, sobered. “You’re right, Reg. I’m sorry.”

Reginald, who’d had a moment to calm down, clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Eddie. I’m sorry too. It’s this damned heat, you know. Enough to drive a man mad.”

“Right. [The heat].”

The two looked at each other, then laughed suddenly. Robert and Henry, relieved the tension was over, soon joined in.

“C’mon. Let’s eat. Has Sophie sent any more of those biscuits of hers?”

“As a matter of fact, she has.”

“Wonderful… We attack at nineteen-hundred hours, then. As soon as we finish this slop they call dinner.”

2

August, 1917

Under cover of a moonless night, Reginald’s unit traveled to the docks of Portsmouth, where they were led onto a boat packed with soldiers from other training camps. The men were ushered below deck into the cargo hold.

“You are now on active duty,” they were told by a large burly Scot. “While sailing, there is to be no smoking, talking, singing. No lights, either. The first man to disregard these rules will be immediately arrested and tied to the mast for the duration of the trip.”

This last brought a few snickers from the less gullible, but the look returned by the Captain quickly silenced them and the soldiers below deck were reduced to whispers.

They were on the sea for some days, having stalled just beyond England’s shores. Men slept close together. The stink grew worse as the days passed, and they were allowed on deck only a few at a time to stretch their legs, or for guard duty. While on deck, there was little to do but watch the planes fly overhead, or the waves roll below, and speculate silently about what lay ahead. Late one afternoon, Reginald noticed some ships being tugged into port behind them, and that evening, struggling to fall asleep, he felt their own ship pull up anchor and begin to move across the English Channel.

The journey was rough, the waters choppy, and many of the men soon became sick; others managed to sleep fitfully. While not prone to sea sickness himself, Reginald found himself overwhelmed by the sound and stench of vomiting men. Prompted by the sounds of fellow passengers heaving helplessly around him, he himself nearly lost his own meager dinner ration more than once.

It was early morning when the cramped and groggy soldiers were allowed on deck again. They had reached Le Havre, France, and from there, they boarded another boat and sailed upriver to Rouen, where they were billeted at a local holding camp. There they lived in tents, endured bayonet training in the bull ring, shooting practice, marched and polished hobnails. A week had passed before they were given word that they would be moving out once more.

The men of Reginald’s unit were given a few hours’ reprieve in town before their entrainment the next day. No one knew where they were to be sent, but as he gathered his things before their brief foray into town, Reginald overheard two officers quietly talking near his tent. He stopped what he was doing, listening carefully. He learned they were destined for Flanders, that General Haig wanted to occupy Passchendaele, near Ypres. It was part of a grand plan to sweep his cavalry northward through the muddy plains of Flanders, and reclaim the ports along the North Sea from the Germans. His unit, among [more than a million] other young British, Canadian, Australian and French soldiers, were to man the battle, which had begun 31 July, 1917.

The officers laughed at the impossibility of this venture, wondering what made Haig think he could push his beloved cavalry through mud and machine gun fire and barbed wire, to make a sweeping advance on those northern ports? Why didn’t he haul his troops out of that blasted salient and be content with a standoff, instead of gambling the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers time and time again?

“How many have they lost so far?” the first officer asked. “15,000? 20,000?”

“The official count this morning was 35,000,” the other stated bluntly, “out of 120,000 troops, and less than one mile of ground gained. There’s talk Haig was pleased with the progress, and more attacks are planned in just a few days.”

The first man whistled. “35,000 troops lost in the first two days. No wonder he’s in such a hurry to get fresh troops in there. What a waste. The man’s insane. There’s no other answer for it.”

Reginald felt his blood run cold, and he resumed collecting his things.

3

The men moved sluggishly through the foggy pre-dawn darkness of Rouen, the air harboring a hint of cool autumn days to come, the much-trampled grass wetting the toes of their boots with dew. Having washed, shaved and eaten their cold breakfast with thick tea, they received their day’s rations and sleepily shrugged on their packs and entrained for Ypres.

As their train slowly approached the town, they could hear the low rumble of shells detonating in the distance. The sound sent a thrill of expectation and dread through Reginald. He knew the others felt the similarly; he could read the same mixture of excitement and fear in each face of the men around him. Even Edward showed signs of nervousness, fingering the webbing of the belt wrapped around his waist, hands drifting restlessly to the pouches and haversack that hung there. Everyone peered out the windows silently, a general sense of foreboding and unease casting a shadowy pall over them all.

7 August, 1917

After we left Rouen, I could hear the constant rumble of thunder. In the distance, drawing nearer our destination, the sky was overcast with yellowish clouds of a color I’d never seen before. It was then I realized that what we’d been hearing was not thunder, but shellfire; the yellow haze not clouds or fog, but smoke.

When we finally disembarked, we marched toward Ypres. I’ve had a bit of French, so I know it is pronounced “Eee-pruh”. However, the spelling suggests otherwise to those of less formal education, and the temptation to call the town “Wipers” prevails, a name I rather prefer, actually. We checked in at our battalion headquarters, an unimpressive hut occupied by only two or three men and a commanding officer. All were caked from head to toe in mud. We knew the CO only by the deference the others paid him.

It was raining when we arrived, and we spent the night lying out in the open, the boom of exploding artillery sounding in the distance. We had a very uncomfortable night of it, and I can only be thankful for our rubberized capes, which we slept on, our great coats used as shelter from the rain. Eddie kept cracking jokes about sleeping on wet spots, until another soldier reached over and roughly shoved his shoulder, threatening to sock him one if he kept on. That finally quieted him. No one could really blame Eddie, though; we’re all nervous. Scared, really.

The following morning, their unit marched through the decimated town of Ypres, toward the front line. The devastation that they witnessed left Reginald and his companions speechless. The famous Cloth Hall was in ruins, which Reginald had before only seen in photographs. Blackened skeletons of nearby churches and farmhouses dotted the fields. The soldiers they passed were white-faced and wore numbed expressions. Everyone was caked in mud, some of it dried, but most of it still wet and clinging. Men staggered past, blood-stained bandages covering their wounds, gimping along with the support of a wooden crutch or a companion. Others stumbled along with hands on the shoulder of the soldier in front of them, blinded by gas or shrapnel.

As the band of recruits marched through the Menin Gate and ever closer to the front lines, the dead lay scattered on the ground around them, their faces bearing the rictus of agony, body parts blown away. Some not even appearing dead at all. Someone had taken the time to cover the faces of some with sandbags or blankets, but most remained exposed. These dead men were carried away by the truckload, and Reginald and his companions often had to move off the road to make way.

The noise grew louder, deafening, and all around them the air was filled with shrapnel, clods of earth scudding past, shells soaring overhead to land nearby with a dull thud, followed by a brief silence, too brief, before detonating. The stench of explosive was overwhelming. At sudden word from their captain, each one of them, to a man, threw themselves to the ground, covering their heads. The ground shook and the earth showered down upon them, heavy, wet and muddy.

Their platoon officer roused them up and pointed toward a ridge where they could see other men entrenched. “That’s where we’re headed, to relieve the men in the front trenches. I want you to run to those reserves, there, in pairs. Don’t stop. Don’t look around. Just run.”

The men did as they were told, running two by two toward the reserve trenches. The first two men made it safely, but the German soldiers quickly spotted the group, and bullets cut through the unit mercilessly. Once they had regrouped in the reserve trench, the men traveled in single file along the communication trenches leading to the front trenches, where they lodged themselves for the next few days.

8 August, 1917 (attack on August 9, 13, 16 [in reserve trenches on the 15^th])

Already, the numbers of our unit have been reduced by nearly half. Rob was shot down before he even had a chance to fight. Though we were aware of the risk, I don’t think we really believed any of us would be killed in this war. After only one day on the field, I don’t know how we could have thought that way.

We were told to run in pairs, packs and all, toward the reserve trenches, not very far from where we had entered the front itself. Two men immediately volunteered to go first. They were half-way across when they were spotted by the Germans—I still feel awkward calling them Fritz or Jerry, but I suspect that will pass in time--who opened fire on them. They made it, though. Then, without thinking, Eddie grabbed my arm and began running. We ran blindly. He was in front of me and all I could see, all I would let myself see, was his feet kicking up clots of mud. Bullets rained down all around us. I thought we would never stop running. Then, we were finally across and jumped in.

Rob was one of the last to run across. There were forty or fifty of us to start with. Rob lagged behind, he was frightened like the rest of us, and by the time he started his run, the Germans had already fixed on the stragglers. Rob was almost half-way across before he faltered. A shell had whizzed past him, startling him, and broke his concentration. He slowed, tripped over a fallen man, and as he fell, a German bullet ripped into his chest, and then another into his belly. He was down in the space of a heartbeat. Eddie and I could only stare at the place where Rob lay dead, until someone shoved at us, yelling to make way.

It wasn’t until later, as I was sorting through my pack and transferring my rations and important treasures into my haversack, that I saw a bullet had gone through my pack, to lodge in the leather cover of my journal. Never would I have guessed that little book would save my life… and on my first day here. I kept the bullet, and it is now safely tucked away in my haversack. It will be my good luck piece, to complement the lark Sophie gave me the day we left for basic training. Hopefully these two talismans will be enough to keep me—to keep the rest of us, Eddie, Henry and me—safe until our return home.

4

Sophia fidgeted in the chair, then rose to stand before the fireplace, fingering the photograph taken the day of the wedding.

Her mother looked up from the needlework in her lap, and squinted in her daughter’s direction. “Sophia, darling, will you please sit still?”

Sophia sighed heavily, dropping her hands to her sides. “I’m sorry, Mum, but it’s driving me mad!” She sat on the chair again. “I hate not knowing where he is.”

Mrs. Waters said nothing, but nodded in sympathy. She herself had lost two brothers not two decades past in the Boer War. She knew what it was to sit home and wait, wondering what was happening in an experience she could not share. Hoping from one day to the next the post would not bring a certain letter explaining that the unthinkable had occurred, and that the loved one’s belongings would be sent home directly… She shook her head, and went back to her needlepoint. There was little comfort she could offer her daughter.

Sophia rose again and climbed the stairs disconsolately to her room. Taking some paper, ink and a pen from her desk, she sat at the round granite table and began to write.

Sunday, 12 August, 1917

My Dearest Reggie—

How long the days have been since you left, weeks and weeks ago. When I received your letter yesterday explaining you were “finally” leaving for the Front, my heart stopped. A part of me never really believed you would actually be fighting in a war. Silly of me, I know, but I can’t help myself. Today was an absolute torment, wondering where you are, what you are doing, whether you are safe.

I hope you are writing in your journal.

Please, please write me soon, and let me know you are well. I am sending you my love. You are my heart.

Your,

Sophie

She put the pen down. There was really nothing more to say. It seemed trite to include the trivialities of her life at home, somehow out of place and time. Did he really want to know her father had been shut away in his study every night preparing lessons on natural biology for his fall lectures at the university? Did he need to know that his mother called on her every other day to ask if she’d heard from him, a fearful, frantic light in her eyes? Or would he prefer to know that Anne burned the bangers the other morning, and they were reduced to toast and tea for breakfast, the pantry otherwise bare and the butcher’s delivery not expected until later that afternoon?

She picked up her pen again.

P.S. I hope the weather is fine, and the sun shines brightly upon you! I know how you love the sun. Do you still have the little bird pin I gave you? I hope so. Hold on tight to it, darling. Remember, dearest, it will bring you luck!

Remember, too, to write your mother. She is worried sick over you and missing you greatly, as am I.

6

The order came to move out, and Reginald’s unit were instructed to pack their few belongings and to get ready to march. They were going to rest camp.

24 August, 1917

 We’ve been at rest camp for two days now. They billet us here for a reprieve from the trenches a few days, before they stick us back in the Front Line again. We have spent much of our time pulling guard duty; carrying supplies and rations back from HQ in Ypres; studying Fritz’s positions and techniques from the photographs taken from our aeroplanes and observation balloons, then modifying our own fighting tactics in accordance, and marching marching marching. We also review bayonet fighting, and target shooting. We can still hear the shellfire here, and we are still under full observance of Fritz’s line. It seems we are never out of the line of fire. Occasionally, we get shelled on, but we’re pretty safe here. We sleep in the basement of an old church, and our captain says it’s unlikely we’ll ever be in danger down here. It’s unnerving never to have a safe place to walk. Three men were shot down on the short march here. It’s not an easy time, but all at once, it’s good to be out of those rancid trenches.

The rain has not stopped since we arrived in Flanders. Just an endless downpour or drizzle, day and night, without end. Mud is everywhere. We walk in it, eat and sleep in it, shit in it, live and breath it, die in it.

The stench is overwhelming. I’ve never smelled a place as rotten as this. Open latrines everywhere, and an endless expanse of dead bodies in all stages of decomposition. The stretcher bearers have a hard time slogging through the mud, so are slow to pick up the wounded and dead. Sometimes a wounded man will die waiting for someone to get to him. The other night, just before we relocated here, a soldier in our company was lighting a fire to warm up his bully ration. Then there came this noxious odor, and the ground beneath the little fire began to sizzle and spit. Someone noticed and knew immediately what the matter was. The soldier had built his fire right on top of a dead soldier that had been hastily buried in a shallow grave. Or probably beneath a layer of mud when a shell exploded nearby. I heard a few men vomit, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t close to it myself. The soldier quickly put out his fire, and started a new one a few feet away, poking around in the mud first to make sure no bodies lay beneath. No one said if they recognized the dead man. I’m not even sure anyone bothered to uncover the face to see who it was. I doubt anyone really wanted to know.

7

(Thursday August 30 or so)

Sophia’s letter had taken nearly three weeks to find Reginald. He’d received it gladly, but when Reginald read the post script, he grimaced. The weather was not fine. The sun was not shining. In fact, it had been raining continuously since they’d arrived in Ypres, and there was no dry ground to be found, and no sign the rain would soon stop. A more miserable experience he’d never known, to be sure. He slid the letter in his coat and slogged over to where Eddie sat, hunkered on a bench shoved against the wet wall of their trench. “Any mail, today?”

The other shook his head. “Naw. You?”

“Sophie. She wished us fine weather and sunshine.”

Edward barked out a laugh. “That’s rich! I’d like to see that!” He was silent a moment. “She alright?”

Reginald shrugged. “Well enough, I suppose. She didn’t write much.” He reached into his coat and offered the letter to his friend. He knew Edward hadn’t heard from his family, yet. He thought it odd that not even Edward’s mother had written a short note to her youngest son off to war. Edward and his folks didn’t get on well, and Reginald was inclined to believe that was the real reason Edward was so eager to enlist in the first place. To escape their scrutiny and to make them proud. But even so, he was their son, they could at least return his letters…

“That’s okay, Reg,” Edward said, holding up his hand, “it’s your letter. I don’t need to read it.”

Reginald shrugged and slipped the letter back into his coat. It was pointless to argue. In that moment, the watch cried out, “Sausage left!” Without even thinking, they, and the other men in the trench, leapt into a dugout. A short distance away, a mortar shell landed in the earth and exploded. Mud flew into the air and fell in wet clumps around them.

“That was a close one,” Henry’s voice floated over the group of men huddled in the dugout with them.

“I told you not to eat the bully, you sot!”

“Piss off, Eddie! You’re the one with the loose bowels. We all know it was you!”

A few of the men laughed nervously and began climbing out of the hole. Toilet humor seemed just the ticket to stave off the tension. The three friends sat on the fire step, their backs resting against the wall of the parapet. They sat in silence, listening to the ping-whiz of bullets and whoosh of shells flying overhead, the dull thud of them striking the earth above the trench wall.

Reginald looked up at the sky, blinking against the drizzle of rain. A movement in the right periphery of his vision caught his attention. He turned his head but it was gone. A moment later, the object returned and he saw a dull russet-colored bird soaring in the sky, flying in circles, swooping and diving. It flew closer until it landed on the parados, the rear wall of the trench. It seemed to look directly at Reginald, and sang a few brief notes before flying away again.

He nudged Edward, who sat to his left. “Hey, did you see that?”

Edward looked up, busy pinching lice between his fingers. “See what?”

“A bird. Right there.” Reginald pointed to the spot where it had perched.

Edward shook his head, and rose to settle himself into his funk hole dug into the wall of the trench, which provided shallow shelter from the rain. “I didn’t see any bird.”

“I did.” Henry spoke up. “A big red one, right?”

“Yeah. A big red one.”

“Nice to see a bit of color around here. What kind do you think it was?”

“Probably a lark,” Reginald answered. “Looked like one, anyway.”

Henry paused, thinking. “It seemed awfully big. And larks don’t come in red, do they, Reg? Have you ever seen a red lark?”

“No, Hank. Never a red one. And never one so big.”

***

(about September 1)

Rats were a constant companion of the men fighting at the front, and they would find themselves wondering who was the greater nuisance: Jerry’s sniper fire from the other side of No-Man’s-Land, or the rats, lice and other parasites that infested the trenches. Often, a soldier would wake in horror in the morning to find a furry, lousy bedmate snuggled close in the crook of an arm, or nestled contentedly in the bend of a pelvis or knee, the two having kept cozy company through the night.

Trench foot was another occupational hazard of the front line fighters. Constantly standing in ankle-, knee- or hip-deep mud or water was bad enough for the feet. But the tightly wrapped puttees restricted blood flow to the poor extremities, inviting sores to fester and gangrene to take hold. Along with the rat, trench foot was the bane of the trench soldier. It was also a one-way ticket home—once the affected and offending appendage (or appendages) had been sawn off.

On a cold and wet day in the end of August 1917, and after three days in the front line, men were showing signs of fatigue and boredom, a potentially (dangerous) combination that might spell inattention and ennui for some, and trouble and bad judgment for others. Eddie sat on the trench floor next to Reginald, rewrapping his puttees after delicately inspecting his tender right foot, which already was beginning to show signs of trench foot.

“Christ, Eddie, you should get that taken care of,” Reginald remarked, looking up from his journal. He puffed on his pipe, eyes narrowed against the smoke. “It’s starting to stink something fierce, mate.”

They’d just gotten fresh tobacco rations that morning, and Reginald was thoroughly enjoying his new habit, which took his mind from the war and gave him something new he could privately enjoy. While most others smoked cigarettes, a habit Reginald found revolting, the pipe offered a common factor between him and the others of his unit, most of whom came from differing backgrounds [provide details], but still mainly laborers of various sorts. Smoking, whether in the form of cigarette or pipe, was something mundane and comforting which they could all take private pleasure in, yet gave them common ground.

“Mind your own stinkin’ business, mate,” Eddie growled. “Go back to smokin’ yer pipe there, why don’t ya, Mr Hoity Toity writer-lawyer-man?”

 Reginald pointed a finger at Eddie. “You’re the one who’s stinking, and that is my business.” Reginald regarded his friend narrowly. He’d noticed the change in Edward little by little, how the war was rubbing his nerves raw, making him defensive and quick to anger. “Just looking out for you, Ed. Nothing more,” he added.

“Well don’t. You got worries of yer own, don’t ya?”

“If I can’t worry about my friends, then what the bloody hell am I going to worry about in this godforsaken, mud-stricken nightmare? Can you answer me that, you bloody sot?” (sot or sod?)

Edward grunted unappreciatively and glanced at Henry, who had watched the scene in silence, and now turned his head away.

Reginald understood that Edward was only expressing his anxiety, and knew also that they each had different ways of venting some steam. Their friend Chester from Cheshire, Reginald discovered one night after stumbling back from the latrine, sucked his thumb in his sleep. Others played cards and gambled every spare minute they had together, which was quite a lot, mired in their funk holes in the trenches for a week or two at a time. Reginald himself chose to smoke his pipe, taking pleasure in the simplicity of packing the bowl and slowly lighting it, sucking the flame down from the match until the tobacco lit and smoldered. The aroma, while certainly not of the best quality—even Reginald knew that—gathered around his head in a lazy blue-grey cloud of smoke. Edward, who was normally fun-loving and always cracking a joke, had taken a turn toward sullenness, a fact which Reginald found somewhat disturbing. He wasn’t prepared, however, for what Edward did next.

In a sudden flurry of curses and flailing arms and legs, Edward jumped up in a panic, pointing his Webley revolver toward Reginald’s extended left foot.

“Don’t move!” Edward shouted. “Don’t you move. I know it’s there, I just saw the bastard. It was right there.” He waved the Webley in the direction of his pack, which lay discarded on the wet ground near Reginald’s feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, a startled Reginald spied a furtive movement near his own pack at the back of the funk hole he shared with Edward. Before he could react, Edward shifted toward the movement and fired twice, paused, and fired once more before he was satisfied he’d hit his target. Edward unceremoniously stepped through Reginald’s things and backed out the funk hole again, holding a large wet rat by its long naked tail.

“Got the bloody bastard.” He stepped back a little further and said, swinging the rat by its tail, “Watch this.” With one fluid movement, he flung the rodent up and over the parapet. Reginald watched it sail overhead before it left his narrow field of vision. And then he heard four short rounds, in quick succession. Risking a look through the (blind hole), Edward shouted jubilantly. “Got it! They got it! Did you see that, Reg? Take a look!”

Reginald shook his head. “I don’t think so, Eddie. Why don’t you sit down before our captain comes looking for the source of those gunshots.”

Edward continued to rant joyously.

“Now,” Reginald sternly suggested. “Eddie, I’m telling you, sit your ass down now, before you get us all in trouble.”

Edward hesitated a moment, and as he hunkered down in their little dugout, the Captain rounded a bend of the zig-zagging trench into their own section, looking anxious.

“What’s going on here?”

Chester spoke up first. “Nothin’, Captain. Nothin’ at all.”

“I heard gunshots.”

“Wasn’t nothin’, Captain, really. Sniper fire. Nothin’ more.”

The Captain eyed the unit suspiciously. “What was the shouting about?”

“That was Mullins, sir,” he said, pointing in Edward’s direction.

Edward’s eyes grew round, and Reginald turned sharply to frown at Chester. He thought Chester was a friend.

“He just found out that, uh, Phillips beat Jones at cards last night. We had a wager, see…”

Reginald and Edward relaxed noticeably.

“Enough,” the Captain said, holding up a hand. He’d noticed the darkened stains at the back of Reginald’s and Edward’s funk hole, catching just enough light to hint a dark garnet color. He was an old hand in this war. Had just about seen and heard everything to be seen and heard. Shooting rats seemed to be an inevitable part of the war, and he was willing to bet his rank that Edward, being the excitable one in this group, had just indulged in the sport. So be it, he thought. As long as his men weren’t shooting each other, and the sport didn’t become habit, he was willing to look the other way on occasion.

Staring pointedly at Edward to let him know he wasn’t speaking of cards and wagering, he said, “Fine. Don’t let it happen again.”

He walked back the way he had come, but before he reached the bend of their section, he turned around again and added, “Concentrate on the rats out there,” nodding his head in the direction of the German line. “It doesn’t do to be concerned with the ones in here.”

When he was out of sight, Reginald sighed with relief. “That was a close one. Thanks, Chester.”

Chester nodded, and Reginald turned on Edward.

 “You idiot! What did you think you were doing? Are you mad? You could have gotten all of us in trouble! I’d say you’re lucky, for all of our sakes, that our Captain is an easy guy, and that our Sergeant didn’t hear those gunshots, instead.”

“Relax, Reg, nothing happened.”

“Relax, hell. You could have shot me!”

“I said relax.”

“You’re a bastard.”

Chester reached over and laid a hand on Reginald’s arm. “It’s all over, Reg. Nothing happened.”

Reginald looked over his shoulder and met Chester’s warm brown eyes, then back at Edward who was still hunkered against the wall of their funk hole. His elbows rested on his knees, hands dangling between, and his head hung low.

Seeing Edward’s forlorn posture, Reginald relented and nodded. “You’re right. Nothing happened.”

8

The men were roused before dawn and straggled one by one to the wash tent to clean their faces and shave. It was the first morning of their second rotation at rest camp, and it had taken Reginald a few moments to orient himself to his new surroundings. They were in the basement of an old, shelled-out church. It was dark and damp, and stank of unwashed bodies, but it was heaven on earth compared to the mud holes they’d suffered in the lines. Reginald heaved himself upward, pulling Edward behind him, and together, with Hank and Chester, they stiffly trudged up the stairs behind their comrades, silently following them to the wash tent.

After an unsatisfactory breakfast of thick tea, hard biscuits and jam, the men were ordered to don their packs for a routine march. Sergeant Briggs screamed at them impatiently, lassitude and lack of discipline having taken hold of the soldiers during their time in the lines, and they jogged into formation, then set off.

They had been marching for an hour or two, when the sergeant stopped and consulted his map and the route outlined by their captain. He shook his head and squinted in the distance and said, “It seems our captain,” he spat out the word contemptuously, “has given us inaccurate directions. We will take the west path, instead of the north.”

The men, only glad to be out of the lines and moving again, followed wordlessly. Sergeant knows best, and they were but automatons bred to follow orders.

It was some hours later, and the men beginning to weary, when Sergeant Briggs halted once again and consulted his map. Reginald watched silently as he surveyed their surroundings, then called over xxx, the captian’s bat man. Together they studied the map, the captain’s instructions, and scanned the horizon.

“What’s going on?” Edward whispered.

“I don’t know,” Reginald replied.

“I think we’re lost.” Chester pulled off his cap and scratched his head, watching the scene at the front of their unit. The man Briggs had called over was arguing with the sergeant heatedly. “Yeah. We’re lost.”

Reginald looked toward the sergeant again, watched him turn red and stammer incoherently, before finally shouting, “About face!”

“We’re definitely lost,” Chester said.

“Aw bloody hell,” Edward spat. “If we have to walk back all the way we just came I’ll murder that lout.”

“March!”

As Edward had feared, they were marched several hours back along the very roads they had just traveled before rejoining the north path Briggs had earlier abandoned. It was near midnight before they had circuited the original route Captain Cruthers had sketched out, and saw their bedrolls again. Chester had guard duty that night, but returned early in the morning to tell Reginald and Edward what he had overheard (the Captain’s batman) tell the Captain.

“The sergeant decided the captain’s instructions were wrong. So, the bastard decided to take matters into his own hands, and contradicted Captain Cruthers, thinking he knows the area so much better. And what does he do? Gets us lost, as our Eddie so accurately surmised, and it turns out we marched twice as long as we were meant to. The captain didn’t take to the news very kindly. Did he have a load to lay on Briggs!”

“Well, Sergeant Briggs better well make it up to us today, I tell you,” Edward threatened, “or—”

“Or what, Mullins?”

Edward swallowed his words and looked behind him where Reginald and Chester were staring, round-eyed and white-faced.

“Just what will happen if I don’t make it up to you fellows for making you march your lazy lousy asses just a little longer than you liked?”

Edward’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

“Speak up, soldier, I can’t hear you. Please enlighten me. I’m interested in what you have to say.”

“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Sergeant, really. We’re just all tired and—“

“Shut up! I have something special planned for you boys.” Sergeant Briggs looked at the three men individually. “I want you to report for kitchen duty immediately. And tonight you have fatigues repairing the trenches.” As he turned away, he added with a crooked smile, “Oh, and since you are all so tired, I’m revoking tomorrow’s passes into town. You can spend the day scrubbing the latrines.”

“God-damn,” Chester breathed when the sergeant left. “That bloody bastard.”

“He can’t do that, can he?” Edward was outraged.

“He can and he did, it seems,” Reginald replied. “Can’t you keep your bloody mouth shut, Eddie?”

“That bloody bastard,” Chester repeated. “I was looking forward to our pass downtown. I wanted to see Chloe again. I was going to show her off at the pub…”

“No use lamenting it,” Reginald said, always the voice of reason. “Let’s report to the kitchen before Sergeant Blowhard comes back and makes it worse,”

“That bloody bastard!”

Reginald, Edward and Chester lined up the last of the washed and dried Dixie pans, ready to hold and cook the slop they ate for the next day. They stretched wearily easing loose their stiff and aching back muscles, and slowly headed toward the group of men who were just gathering for the night fatigues.

“Ah, there you are, boys,” Sergeant Briggs welcomed them with false warmth. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t join us.”

Reginald and his companions prudently remained silent.

Briggs motioned them over to a separate group of men, and they obediently followed. “This here is where you belong. You boys are to repair or rebuild the trenches where they need it the worst. Jacks, here will guide the way.” He turned to the lanky figure with straw-like hair to his left, and clapped him roughly on the back. “Jacks here is an old hand at this, aren’t you Jacks?”

“Yes sir,” the other man mumbled through clenched teeth. “You could say that I am.”

“Very good. Now get to work.” As he left them, he said in an oily voice, “Happy digging.”

When the sergeant was out of earshot, Edward held out his hand to the lanky blond. “Eddie Mullins.”

“Will Jackson,” he said, returning Edward’s handshake, and introductions were passed all around. “What did you fellas do to deserve this prison sentence?”

“Eddie here was overheard badmouthing the Sergeant after the mix-up yesterday,” Reginald explained.

Jacks nodded. “Yeh, I heard about that. That was you guys, eh?”

“Yes, it was,” Reginald said ruefully. “Eddie’s getting to be a bit of a loose cannon, I’d say.”

Jacks let out a puff of air in sympathy. “That happens out here. The tension mounts, discipline slips, and men cut loose once in a while.” They all stared at their feet a moment, contemplating what Jacks had said, when the blond man clapped his hands once and said, “Well, let’s get going. No use standing around here wool gathering. The duckboards need tending to first, or we’ll never get to the trenches.”

Reginald sighed. He was already tired from their day spooning slop and cleaning the endless train of the oval Dixie pans. His back ached and the backs of his thighs and knees protested. He couldn’t bear the thought of spending the night bent over laying fresh duckboards and digging in the trenches on top of it.

He let himself be led back to the lines, where the mud was deep and merciless, and watched carefully as Jacks heaved up the rotting, split planks of wood and laid down fresh every few yards. When he was sure the others knew the routine, he carefully edged past them with an enviable ease of balance, leaving them to return a few moments later with new planks. Reginald was next in line. He stooped and pulled tentatively at a duckboard, finding it stuck fast.

“Really give that thing a good yank,” Jacks offered encouragingly. “It’ll give.”

Reginald braced himself and pulled harder. Slowly the plank lifted, the mud reluctantly releasing it, sucking at it defiantly. Suddenly, it came free and Reginald, surprised, lost his grip of the board. His arms propelled the air frantically, trying to maintain his balance. He landed on his back in the thick black morass, and felt himself slowly sinking. He let his feet sink lower until he was upright, and tried to remain calm, as his companions reached another plank in his direction. He couldn’t quite reach it, and tried to quell his rising panic as he sank deeper into the mud.

Jacks, indeed an old hand at this, urged him to stay calm, lean forward, but don’t struggle. “Just hold onto the board when you feel it. We’ll do the rest. You struggle, you sink. You sink, you die, mate, and you don’t want that, do you?”

“No,” Reginald choked out, reaching and stretching further until his fingers scraped against the splintery wood of the rough duckboard Jacks and Eddie held toward him. “I got it!” he cried frantically. “I got it!”

“Good. Now just hold on. We’re going to drag you up, slowly.”

Jacks patiently instructed them, urging each of them to do exactly as he said, to save the rest of them from falling in as well. Within minutes, they were carefully helping Reginald back onto the duckboards. Jacks looked down and pointed at Reginald’s feet. “Look mate, you’ve almost lost your trousers.”

Reginald looked down and saw the mud had pulled his pants down to his ankles, and one boot was half off. Edward barked laughter, but quickly stifled it when he saw the look on Reginald’s face.

“I’m glad that’s all the mud tried to take.”

Jacks nodded agreement. “Men have lost their live in that mess. Perfectly healthy men have slipped on the boards and landed in the mud never to be seen again. Horses have even drowned in there. Mind you be careful out here. Especially at night.” He looked at their regulation cotton trousers and leather boots and said, “If Sergeant Briggs has taken it into his head to give you trench fatigues, you best bet he’ll keep you here. Tomorrow I’ll bring you to the Quarter Master to get you some rubber hip boots. You’ll be needing them, if you haven’t got ’em already. They’re handy in the trenches, too.”

9

In the weeks that followed there were no more battles, no more attacks. Their little company had been moved up the line a ways and Reginald, Eddie, Henry, and Chester found themselves back in the forward trenches, with not much to do to keep themselves busy. Every morning before dawn, they had stand-to, or stand-to-arms, when they stood on the fire step of their trench, and waited for dawn and an attack from the Germans. When the sun rose, but no Germans storming their line, they stepped down from the parapet and had a meager breakfast of tea, jam and biscuits. The remainder of the day was spent talking over the noise of shellfire, dodging mortar shells, and listening to bullets ping and whiz overhead, or thud into the walls of their trench.

It was on one of these days, during a moment of musing that Reginald spied the red bird again. As before, he saw it first as a quick movement in the corner of his vision, and then the bird perched on the parados, whistled briefly, and took off into the sky. By now, the rain had stopped, the ground had begun to dry out, and the sun bravely peeked out from behind the clouds. It was September 1917, and except for the regular volley of artillery between the German and British lines, all was quiet on this part of the Western Front.

The company spent another week in the reserve trenches, and one more on reprieve in rest camp.

(September Rest week 12-18)

The day dawned bright and cheery. The air was balmy and there was a slight breeze. A perfect day for Bath Parade. Reginald nudged Eddie awake, who hadn’t heard the Sergeant’s wakeup call, wanting to spare him the inevitable kick as his second. Reginald, Chester and Eddie headed up the stairs of the old church basement, where they were once again billeted for their few days’ rest away from the lines, and followed the others to the wash tent.

“Hey, Reg?” Eddie asked. “If we have Bath Parade today, why do we have to wash and shave now?”

Chester snorted. “If you have to ask, mate, you better take a look in a mirror. Don’t want the rest of us to lose our appetites, do you?”

“Appetite for what? You call those rocks they serve us for breakfast biscuits? I didn’t ask you anyways, Chester, so can it.”

“My pleasure, just so’s I don’t have to look at ya over my tea, is all I’m sayin.’”

“Enough,” Reginald said through his lather, carefully scraping the dulling razor blade up his throat toward his chin, head tilted at an angle. “Do you two mind not bickering across me? I’m trying not to slice my gullet open, and I can’t concentrate with the two of you nagging each other from both sides of me.”

He lowered his arm and swirled the blade in water, shaking it dry before returning his attention to his throat. “And yes, Eddie. You do have to wash and shave before breakfast on Bath Parade day. I don’t want to look at your ugly puss over my tea, either. I don’t get enough in my rum ration to get through that ordeal.”

Chester guffawed. “Ain’t that the truth!”

But Edward was not amused. “Piss off, the lot of you.”

“Don’t take it so hard, Mullins. You had to know the truth someday.”

With a shaven, but sullen, Edward in tow, the three friends grimly ate their breakfast, received the day’s rations—which included tobacco, rum, cigarettes, and bubble gum that day—then eagerly trotted into formation when the order was called.

There was a festive spirit in the air that morning, everyone eager for their first bath in weeks. The company followed Sergeant Briggs through the fields, snatching fruit and pears from a farmer’s trees when they could, until they came to a neat, red-brick, two-story house. A tall stately woman with graying hair pulled up in a chignon met them in the yard and led them efficiently around the house to the back, where a large tent was set up.

“The girls are ready, Sergeant Briggs,” the woman said in a thick French accent, though her English was otherwise perfect. “Hot water and soap, and a fine sunny day for fast drying.”

“That’s fine, Madame Petipa. If you’ll show us the way, then?”

Madame Petipa guided the company into the tent and gestured toward the twelve tubs lined up in three rows.

“You will please remove your clothing, and individually pass them through that hole over there.” She pointed to a flap in the far tent wall.

“Wait, please, until your clothing is taken before the next man does the same. You may bathe until your clothing is dry. You will hear your name called, and your clothing will be returned to you. Soap and towels are on that table over there.” She pointed to the wall opposite from the hole.

“Please place the wet towels in the barrel next to the table. Twelve men may bathe at once. Those who are waiting may take their tea in the area behind the tent. Please don’t speak to the girls. They are busy, and have much to do.”

She turned to leave.

They take their baths, then return back to camp. Reginald and other had noticed that, in spite of the freshness of their clothing, not all the lice had been removed—a nearly impossible task.

Jacks overheard them complaining about it when he said, “That’s what your toothbrushes are for. Hasn’t anyone told that?”

 He took out his own toothbrush and demonstrated.

“You use it to brush the crumbs out of the creases of your clothes like so.” He had removed his tunic and briskly ran his toothbrush up and down the crease at the collar, and around the armhole.

Reginald felt himself turn green, and looked over at Chester and Eddie. Chester appeared amused, but Edward looked nearly as horrified as Reginald felt.

“You must be mad,” he said.

“That, indeed, I am not.” Jacks shrugged indifferently. “It’s your choice. Walk around a crumby man, or not. I prefer not to.” He continued on his way.

“Rotten teeth or infestation. What choice is that?” Reginald posited.

“My teeth are still pretty good. I vote for crumb-free living.” Edward answered.

He and Chester and dug their toothbrushes out of their packs and began carefully brushing the remaining lice from their clothing.

Reginald sighed heavily and did the same.

(September 20)

Reggie and his companions found themselves back in the front lines in yet another section of the line. They were never in the same place twice. [Growing discontent among the men, lack of leave, erratic pay, the war is just never going to end.] On September 20, during the Battle of Menin Road, the men were ordered over the top. The Australians were heading for Polygon Wood and Blackwatch Tower.

At dawn, after given their daily rum ration, they threw themselves over the parapets to meet German shellfire head-on. The ground, finally, was dry, much to their advantage. Reginald’s unit was ordered to lag behind a bit, offering support when needed. Ahead of them, the creeping barrage slowly made its way forward, behind the cover of smoke from exploded grenades and shells. All around him, men fell as they marched, bullets whizzed overhead, grenades exploded nearby. When they crossed a shell hole, he and others dove into it, occasionally poking their heads up to shoot in the direction of German snipers. Next to him, Henry suddenly jerked backward with an inarticulate cry.

Reginald put his rifle down and crawled to Henry’s side, knowing he’d been hit.

“Where?” he asked. But he saw where. Over Henry’s left shoulder, a red stain was quickly spreading, but the blood was not coming from there. Reginald’s eyes moved upward and saw Henry had been shot in the neck. The bullet had severed the carotid artery, passed through his trachea, missing his spinal cord by scant millimeters. He looked up at Edward, who had scurried to his side. Their eyes met, and they both understood.

“It’s okay, Hank. Just relax, now,” Edward said, in a moment of uncharacteristic gentleness. Reginald tried to staunch the wound. They did what they could to ease Henry’s discomfort, but knew it was hopeless. Henry was dead before the stretcher bearers picked their way through the carnage of the battlefield to their shell hole to take him away.

27 September, 1917

Last week our company was ordered over the top for the first time. That morning, I couldn’t allow myself to think about what lay ahead. We were given our ration of rum and when the order came, we climbed up the ladders and over the parapet to offer support to the troops that had gathered before dawn and had already begun fighting. I’ve come to understand, now, that war is a phenomenal Hell; an incredible mess and waste of life. In our young naïveté, we are led to believe that it is an opportunity to Destroy Our Adversaries, a lovely, grand Opportunity for Glory and Heroic Deeds. What a lie. Only those who experience it know the horrible truth behind that glittering, golden, shiny lie.

The day we went into battle, Henry was killed by a sniper’s bullet in the neck. It would have been better had he been shot in the head: he wouldn’t have bled to death, then. Eddie and I knelt beside him and tried to put him at ease, make him more comfortable… Or perhaps to put our own minds to rest that we did what we could. I will never forget, though, the horrible gurgling sound of Hank’s breathing as we waited for the shooting to end. It didn’t take long for Hank to pass on, but those few moments felt like an eternity. We refused to leave the shell hole until the stretcher bearers came to take him and other wounded and dead away. We wanted to be sure he was found. It seems so easy to get lost in this pock-marked stretch of land between our lines and Fritz’s.

Of the four of us, only Eddie and I are left. It is very sobering to witness the violent deaths of your best friends. How did this happen so quickly?

An interesting thing. As we straggled over the tops of our trenches, I hesitated and looked around me, though I knew I was risking my life even more by doing so. In a single moment, I took notice of three things. First, the magnitude of the folly of war, and how so much death and destruction can be accomplished by a single mistake, or misunderstanding, the multitude of innocent lives lost because of one country’s, one person’s, enmity for another. Second, I noticed the very loveliness of the poppies that had grown in the fields around us like a carpet during the spell of fair weather we’ve had this month, in spite of the rain last month and the mud, shelling, and constant trampling of feet. Third, I saw that, amidst the loveliness of those small red flowers, my bird was soaring and diving, as if waiting for me to notice it. It was absolutely incredible to see.

After we dove into the shell hole, while we held Hank and comforted him, that bird landed on the edge of the churned-up earth and sang a little tune, as if wanting to give Hank some comfort as well. As usual, no one noticed the thing, except me. But then, Hank turned his head and looked straight at it! I swear he did. And damn if I didn’t see him smile, just a bit. He turned his head around again to look at me, and he nodded, his breath gurgling louder through the hole in his throat. He looked like he was trying to say something, so I leaned closer. Blood splattered from his moving lips onto my left cheek, and very faintly I heard through the bubbling of his breath, “Lark.” And then he let go and left us. At that moment, the bird gave one last tweet, and flew off.

Yesterday, the Australians attacked again, and captured the remainder of Polygon Wood and Blackwatch Tower. That puts us in a good position to capture Broodseinde Ridge. We hear that Haig has given up his hope to sweep northward and recapture the North Sea ports from Fritz. Regardless, he’s now got it in his head that Passchendaele Ridge must be captured at any expense. He doesn’t want to winter here in the Salient, in the mud and muck, vulnerable under Fritz’s watchful eyes and relentless artillery, who occupies the ridge above and around us.

I must admit, I have no desire to spend an entire winter here, either. I can’t imagine the men who have spent years in the lines…

10

Once again, Reginald’s company was moved back to rest camp. On October 2, the Battle of Broodseinde began. The first day of the battle, to the utter surprise of both sides, the Germans and Australians attacked each other at the same time! Thinking quickly, the Australians launched a bayonet charge, which drove the Germans back to their own lines. The British creeping barrage, in what seemed a remarkable act of good timing and good luck, further surprised the retreating Germans and their reserve lines. The Australians then rejoined the fray, and on October 4, Broodseinde Ridge was captured.

On October 5, the rain began again, barraging the soldiers in the Ypres Salient with a heavy, steady downpour that gave no sign of ending.

The last three battles were won by the British and its Empire troops only because the weather had been fair the whole of September, allowing the soldiers of the British Empire to fight on dry ground. Encouraged by these victories, Haig was even more determined to capture Passchendaele Ridge before winter set in, in spite of the rain.

The day before they were to finally attack Passchendaele Ridge, Reginald, Eddie and their comrades were moved once again to another part of the line, and into the forward trenches to ready themselves for the forthcoming battle.

8 October, 1917

Dear Sophie,

Tomorrow, we are going to into battle. Whenever men participate in a major [endeavor], we are encouraged to fill out these little field cards. As before, I’ve sent you one, but have decided to write a letter, as well.

Our morale is low here in the trenches. Men are filled with despair. There is little thought of God; no one has the time or inclination to turn his thoughts in that direction in the midst of such destruction and misery. We are too busy ignoring the sound of artillery, dodging mortar shells, and any number of other things too mundane to mention.

Men are growing more and more discontent. (I only hope the censors don’t withhold this letter from you!) So many have never been on leave, although they have been fighting in this war since it began three years ago. I’m afraid I won’t make it home on leave any time soon, my love. There are so many in line for it before me, I don’t expect to see British shores again for a while. Men are desperate to get out of here. Since I’ve been here, we’ve had two deserters. As far as I know, they made it. I like to think they did, anyway. Men talk of shooting themselves in the foot or the hand all the time. Not many act on it. But some do. One man actually thrust his hand over the parapet, hoping to be wounded enough to get himself home again. It worked. But he lost his entire hand in the process. I want to go home, too, but I don’t know I would go so far as that. Funny, isn’t it, how most of us are willing to risk our lives to stay in this hell and fight, but only a few are willing to sacrifice a hand or foot or limb to remain safe at home?

If only we knew what was to come, when we were foolish enough to enlist.  

Last night, I lay awake remembering the sound of a man who had slipped off the duckboards into the mud. There was nothing I or anyone could do to help him, as he struggled to save himself. The mud here is like quicksand. Each struggle only serves to sink you deeper and deeper. The sound was horrible, and not one I am bound to forget. I can’t even begin to describe it to you. Horses and the wounded die in that mud. It’s like a living monster from a child’s tale, only it isn’t pretend. It’s real, and it kills as ruthlessly as the artillery flying around our heads. One misstep, and you’re doomed.

Did I mention the rain started up again? It’s been raining for days, and the earth has turned into a vast morass. And it has gotten ungodly cold, too. I can barely feel my fingers, most times. This morning, I awoke with another rat snuggling up against me. What a horror. Before we moved out, we had a shower of sorts, the first since we arrived here, two months ago. We aren’t very much cleaner than we were before, but it’s better than nothing, I suppose. Someone once told me to hang on to my toothbrush. “Not that you’ll use it for your teeth,” he said. I soon discovered that the men use their toothbrushes to brush the lice out of the creases and seams of their clothing. The first thing I plan to do when I get home is to take a long hot bath. I’ve never wanted to be clean so badly in my life.

The poppies are gone now. Lost beneath the mud again.

I still see my red bird. In a way, I consider it my guardian angel. I keep with me that shell that lodged in my journal, the bird-pin you gave me, and the little bird within sight, when I can. I imagine the power of the three will bring me home to you again. Whenever I see that bird, I think of you, and I tell it to bring home my love and hope for you. It’s funny that you see it, too, in your dreams. Maybe your soul is flying out to keep me company. I like to think it true.

Well, darling, it’s late, and I must sleep. Tomorrow we fight. Remember, if anything happens to me, how much I love you. No matter what happens, even if I were to die in tomorrow’s battle, I will always remain with you. You need only look up. I will be the warm breeze against your face, the soft scent of lilacs, the sun shining in your apricot hair and freckling your lovely skin…

In the event that something unfortunate should happen, I am leaving this letter and my journal in the safekeeping of our captain’s batman, who will return it to Eddie, or send it on to you, in the even that Eddie should perish, as well.

Yours in love, life and beyond,

Reggie

Reginald put down his pen. He wasn’t sure what had prompted him to write those last lines, and very nearly scratched them out. But by the same force that moved him to write them, he left them alone. Each day was another hell to live through. Survival was a daily goal, and although he preferred not to dwell on it, he knew his chances of survival were as slim as anyone else’s.

He checked his funk hole for rats, and slouched down, burying his head beneath his great coat. Next to him, Eddie grunted. “Watch what you’re doing, will ya?”

“Sorry, Eddie.”

Sleep was long in coming that night, and Reginald spent most of it gazing skyward, watching the eerie greenish glow of the watch flares, sent up regularly throughout the night, their mild popping explosions (neutral) finally lulling Reginald into a fitful sleep.

11

(Friday October 12)

When they were ordered over the top the next morning, the ground was a deep morass of mud and filth. They slogged through yards of waist-deep mud. Their field guns, propelled by the recoil, were lost in the mud. To their horror, men found their rifles and machine guns clogged by it. The wounded who fell face down, and, weighed down by their equipment and unable to move themselves to relatively dryer ground, inevitably drowned in it. While the British troops were struggling in the mud, the Germans above scythed them down with their machine guns, snug in their relatively dry pillboxes.

The fourth day of the battle, another attack was launched, and Reginald and Edward found themselves in the thick of it. It wasn’t long before Eddie was shot in the face beside him. Reginald watched in horror as his best friend slid into the mud, and Reginald was only glad that Eddie appeared instantly dead, and that the same muddy fate would not befall him, as it had visited itself upon thousands of other young men.

The mud was thigh high, and Reginald struggled through it, searching in vain for a safe shell-hole to lie in, his gun raised high above his head. He heard a sound, different from the booming of the shells and grenades exploding around him. The sound, a light whistling, came again and he whirled his head around to see the little bird perched on the dead, blackened branch of a nearby tree. It was singing frantically, and, inexplicably, he started moving toward it. It hopped from tree to tree in the small, blackened patch of forest, and Reginald followed it. Soon, he spied a shell hole, somewhat shallow of mud or water, and he moved in that direction. The bird hopped about excitedly, chirping as loud as it could. Somehow, Reginald knew it had guided him to the shell hole.

He slogged through mud, and gradually it became shallower. Hope dawned within him. He could no longer feel the cold numbing his feet, legs and hands. It didn’t matter anymore. He knew that if he could only get to that hole, he’d be safe. The war would go on around him, but he would be safe for the time being.

As Reginald reached the edge of the trees, a German soldier saw his progress. There were other British soldiers around, as well, and the German surmised that one well-aimed throw of a grenade would take out the lot, churning the land into a deeper mud swamp. If the grenade itself didn’t kill the men, then the downfall of mud would certainly drown them. He drew a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin, then threw hard. It landed within feet of the soldier nearest him, struggling determinedly toward a shell hole. He grinned, and knew he had done well.

Reginald was almost at the rim of the shell hole when something landed a few feet away. Belatedly alert to the easy target he must present, he jerked his head around and saw the grenade. He tried to leap away from it, but the mud weighed him down, sucking at his feet, and held him fast. He landed with a wet splat only a foot or two from where he had stood. He knew he was a dead man.

In that same moment, the grenade detonated, blowing Reginald, and the other soldiers struggling for the safety of the same shell hole, into the air, then covering their inert bodies beneath a thick heavy blanket of mud.

12

On the afternoon of October 12, 1917, Sophia was dozing in a lounge chair on the porch outside, enjoying the unseasonably warm day. She dreamed of a red bird soaring high in the sky, singing a sad, but lovely song. It landed in a tree not far from where she sat, and she reached her hand toward it. Without hesitation, it flew toward her and perched on her finger. It sang more, almost as if it were speaking to her, and somehow, she understood its message. She nodded, and giving it her thanks, she lifted her hand and let it fly free. It soared into the air, and disappeared.

Sophia woke from her dream with tears staining her cheeks. She moved her hand to wipe them away, when she realized she was holding a mud-encrusted object. Bewildered,

she was about to toss it away when something familiar about its shape made her look closer. She chipped away the dirt with her fingernail, and a gasp tore from her throat. It was the little lark pin she had given Reginald the day he left for basic training. The one intended as an amulet of luck. She looked up into the sky, tears streaming down her face, and felt a warm breeze through her hair, the sudden, unseasonable scent of lilacs. She understood, and let herself be carried away by her sorrow, sobbing.

Before darkness set in, she finally roused herself and walked toward the house, prepared for the news she would receive sometime in the days ahead. She placed her hand on her belly, just beginning to swell with the child she carried, and said softly, “If you are girl, I will name you Regina. If a boy, Reginald. In honor of your father, who died bravely so you may live in peace.”