He’ll never forget it.
And now he puts his skill to another use. As darkness descends and William strains to see the metal supports of the bridge being rebuilt, a well-dressed man approaches with a hand outstretched. “I hear you’re the one managing the bridge rebuild.”
William stares at the man’s smooth, dirt-free hand, blinking as his mind goes blank.
“Right clever, you are. More than the other lads about the coast.” He smooths his hands down his suit jacket. “I’m not in a position to offer pay, but would you take room and board?”
“No, thank you.”
“Wouldn’t you fancy a real bed? Roof and walls?”
Pity.Charity. William rakes one dirt-crusted hand through his wild mane of hair and feels burning heat on his neck. The man believes him homeless.
Money, he’ll take—for Helen. But he’ll accept no amount of comfort for this work. Fish mongering brings in his coin. This, rebuilding what the war destroyed, is to bond together the broken pieces of his soul. Restitution for the many bridges he blew up in Germany—sometimes with enemy men still on them.
When the world quiets, he hears their tight screams. Sees their catapulting bodies against the night sky, the explosive brightness of the blast.
The stuffed shirt jerks his head toward the expanding bridge structure, supported by complex scaffolding of William’s design. “The work you’re doing here, it’s—”
“Voluntary. Like the others.”
“You cannot simply—”
“You wish me to go?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“Then leave me to it.”
He limps off with long strides, wading into the shallows and then scaling the scaffolding. Why does anyone need to make it complicated? Accept the help or don’t.
He pounds a wedge in with a mallet. Once, twice…and stops. Darkness leaks into his thoughts again with the familiar movement. He repeats the action and it’s muscle memory. He breaks into a sweat and memories cascade until a wave sprays him, cooling his skin. He forces himself to do it again, the swing and tensing of muscles hauntingly familiar.
He braces for an explosion…but the air echoes with silence.
“Ho, there!” A burst of activity sounds above, and there’s a scuffling.
William swings up a level and moves toward them. “What’s the trouble?”
“Just a pest,” says a man watching nearby, broad hands on his hips. “A rodent caught in the trusses.”
One man extracts the mud-covered rat and holds it out. Just before he hurls the thing into the water, a pitiful whimper sounds. It isn’t a rodent’s squeak.
“Wait.” William peers down into the blinking, crusty eyes of a very scared kitten, back legs dangling as it struggles for a foothold. “That’s no rat.”
“Here, then. You deal with it.”
The terrified bundle is dropped into William’s hands. He jostles to keep from dropping it, then grips the soaking wet, flea-ridden body away from his coat as the creature’s feet—with tiny knives for claws—clamber for a foothold.
He flicks his scarred thumb across the crusted eyes, clearing away mucus and allowing the lids to blink open, revealing two watery green and gold orbs.Mew!The creature looks right at him as if giving an order.
Definitely a cat.
“Blasted hard to catch, that one,” said one of the men, hand rubbing the back of his neck.
“What am I to do with it?” William asks.
“Give it here and I’ll drown it.”
