The khaki colored shirt was a surprise, as American soldiers had worn blue denim, though this shirt might have been supplied by a nearby British regiment. There was no winter coat, which meant that Stanley had been braving the weather in only his uniform jacket. If it was November where he’d come from and the coat was standard issue, which it was, what had happened to it? At least Stanley had a sweater vest to wear, though it was thin and dusty, as though it had recently come from storage.
The trousers were of dull brown wool, and the belt of brown leather, as were the boots, with the requisite forty-eight holes, with woven laces. At least the puttees, the canvas wraps for soldier’s legs, were new. Devon ran them through his hands and folded them with some reverence, as usually puttees were the first thing to disappear from any uniform, being used for bandages or slings or just lost in the mud.
The canteen was a fascinating piece of work. It had military grade canvas wrapped over a metal body, with pull-the-dot fasteners that Devon recognized as being from the original factory in Connecticut, which was the geekiest thing that anybody ever knew, and no proof of anything. The screw-on lid was attached with a little chain.
Devon opened the canteen and smelled the contents; water had no smell, but the iodine that it had been laced with did. Iodine was useful for so many things, and, at the time, one of the few ways to purify water so as not to infect the troops with dysentery.
If the waterwerefrom World War I, and Devon took a sip of it,then it was likely he could become quite sick from whatever was in the water that Stanley’s stomach was used to, and Devon’s most definitely was not. He tilted the canteen and poured water in his hand. It glistened and dripped like most water did when let out of its container, but it excited him to think that it had come from the battlefield only moments ago.
The uniform deserved to be treated with dignity, so Devon took everything into the bedroom and hung it up in the closet. He pushed away the other clothes on the rack so that the uniform could dry without getting overly wrinkled. The puttees he hung on their own hanger, and the boots he hung from the boot hanger that had come with the closet. The sweater vest he spread out on a newspaper on the floor; the wool was too thin to hang, and the newspaper would absorb the dampness from it.
The belt and the canteen he lined up against the wall, and the rifle he placed in the corner, although right away, the bayonet left a scratch in the paint, which made Devon wince. The damage was going to come out of his deposit for sure, but mostly he was worried about the bayonet, which he checked hastily, wiping the flakes of paint and also the black dust onto his hand. It smelled like gun oil when he brought it to his face. It also smelled like something else, like fire, as though it had come from an explosion of some sort. Or was his imagination supplying the rest of the story to Stanley’s hastily donned costume?
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was too easy to dismiss Stanley as a liar with the worst possible intentions. The other alternative was to imagine that Stanley was just plain crazy. Or maybe he was a troubled young man who needed more attention than the world could give him, and thus had come up with the idea of dressing as a World War I soldier who’d become detached from his battalion.
Or maybe Stanley was telling the truth. The uniform and the gear were hard to ignore, though, at the same time, it was not altogether impossible to get hold of articles with the dust of the battlefield still clinging to them.
Devon gave the trousers one last pat and went into the kitchen. He could still hear the water running and hoped the on-demand water heater could keep up. Meanwhile, he needed to get supper going, and find the bottle of wine to go with it in the vague hope that the wine would loosen Stanley up enough to tell Devon the truth.
To that end, he got out two steaks, the remains of the lovely potatoes au gratin that he’d bought from the French equivalent of a deli in the village, and made a quick salad. He set the table and poured himself a glass of red wine. He used a jelly jar, as the real wine glasses had both broken when he’d first tried to use them, and he’d nevergotten around to replacing them. Besides, jelly glasses worked just as well, if not better. They didn’t hold more but were sturdier in the hand.
He washed his hands and prepped the steaks with salt and pepper, and realized that he was nervous. Part of the problem was that he’d been alone in the cottage for over half a year, and had spent a great deal of time in his own head, staring at his computer screen and writing. Sometimes he walked the trenches, but he was always alone. Having someone near like this was not the same as going into the village and greeting a stranger when buying bread, though after a month, the baker had warmed to Devon, on account of he bought so many pastries on a regular basis. No, it was more that having someone in the cottage made him realize how different everyone else was, and how solitary his life had been.
People liked being with other people, and Devon usually didn’t mind being alone, even if it was lonely. Back home, his college friends had often chided him for this habit, and Devon had ignored them, though now it was impossible to ignore. Especially since Devon’s dream of meeting a doughboy had come true. That is, if ithadcome true, if Stanley was telling the truth.
Devon wanted to believe because Stanley was a handsome American doughboy, and it was hard to ignore how that pulled on his heart. But time travelwasimpossible. Which meant that Stanley was either a liar or crazy. Devon hated that either one might be more true than the other option. Though, if memory served him, there were several theories that time travel was possible. And, if he wanted to, he could take the time to open his laptop, bring up Google, and search.
Except that would take him down a very complex rabbit hole, which in the past always took him to YouTube, which would end with him at three o’clock in the morning, watching yet another video about five impossible images that shouldn’t exist in photographs that could shock you. That or recipes involving potatoes, which he had not the strength to resist. Besides, he needed to stop going round and round in his own mind anyway, and just let everything play itself out.
As he took another drink of his wine, a lovely merlot that the winemerchant in the village had sold him, he decided he would watch Stanley and study him as though they were together in an experiment. Devon knew more about World War I than anybody except his thesis advisor, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t somebody who knew more than him. Which wouldn’t be proof, only that Stanley had studied the era. But to what end?
When the water in the bathroom turned off, Devon’s heart sped up. He tried to ignore the fact that his new guest was somebody he could actually talk to about his project, and who seemed interested. He must not forget that Stanley was probably a liar, he must not forget that what he should have done was callles gendarmes.He had, instead, called the council offices in the village, which had proven itself worthless.
In another minute, Stanley was going to come walking out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, Devon’s dream come true. He needed to make up his mind about Stanley, only he didn’t know how.
Devon’s mental version of an American doughboy had been more along the lines of someone who was eager to go and had not yet seen the horror of it all. Round-faced and bright eyed and full of energy. Which was not what he got when Stanley came out, although yes, it was in a cloud of steam.
Stanley was wearing Devon’s jeans that no longer fit Devon on account of the pastries he’d been eating since day one. The jeans hung low on Stanley’s hips. The long-sleeved gray t-shirt that was so big on him that his collarbones showed, and when he moved, was proof of how thin he was.
“Hey,” said Devon in an effort to seem calm, rather than the fact that his heart was beating even faster and he really didn’t know what to say.
Stanley was not the round-faced boy going off to war for the first time, no. He was all angles and lines, his dark eyes the color of whiskey, his shorn hair a shade darker, his face pale, the skin pulled to the bone. If Stanley were troubled, then obsessing over him like this might make his delusions worse, so though he was hard to resist, Devon knew he had to try.
“How was the shower?” asked Devon, doing his best to sound normal.
“It was good,” said Stanley, speaking in the way he had, as if all the joy had been drained out of him and he was doing the best he could to be polite. “I like your soap.”
“It’s French,” said Devon. It felt foolish to be talking about such mundane matters when he wanted to be grilling Stanley about the war. As if he believed him, as if it were all true. “France has got a lot of great things, bread, soap, wine—”
Stanley had come to a complete stop near the wooden table that Devon had cleared his papers off of. In the middle was a bowl of fruit that had pears and apples and oranges. It had been Devon’s goal to eat at least a piece of fruit a day, but that had gone the way of toast and butter, crepes in the village, and potatoes au gratin.
Stanley was staring at the oranges as if he’d seen Santa Claus, or a pile of gold, like he’d not seen them inyears. Which, if he’d been at the front lines, was a very good possibility. But not proof. Maybe he’d been in a mental hospital, where fresh food was scarce. Or maybe he’d been on the run from the law, and caring for his health had been the last thing on his mind. Regardless, Devon could afford to make the offer.
“Do you want an orange?” asked Devon. “Help yourself while I cook the steaks.”
“Really?” Stanley's eyes were wide as he looked at Devon.
