The mist finally thinned, like water draining off rock, and now Freddie saw the skeleton of Ypres, black against the sky. The civilians had abandoned Ypres long since. It was shell-torn and dangerous, smashed to rubble. But it was still a human place, swarming with men and dressing stations, cookfires and ration wagons. Military jurisdiction. Superior officers. Billets. A place ruled by men and not the howling dead. It was a place where they could begin to think beyond their own survival.
He was responsible for Winter. He must see Winter safely taken prisoner. Put in with the other prisoners, safely hors de combat. And then—
Freddie glanced sideways at Winter’s drawn face. The answer came to him unbidden: And then they’d take Winter away. Maybe a doctor would tend his arm. But not for a long time. There were so many wounded, and who’d see to a prisoner first? There weren’t enough doctors. No one would look at his arm. Not for days.
Winter would die.
The thought drew him up as though he’d walked into Ypres’s crumbling wall. Winter would lie out in the rain until he died. Of slow sepsis and fever. And then, if he was fortunate, a hastily dug grave. Without a hospital, soon, he would die. And there was no hospital to be had, not for days and days. Not for him. Not on this side of No Man’s Land.
And Winterknewit. He’d probably known it for days, what that gash in his arm meant. And he’d walked on, stayed with Freddie, said nothing.I am your prisoner, Iven.He’d done it for him, Freddie knew. So he’d live. And now—
Winter was still moving. They were almost into Ypres itself. No one looked at anyone else, senses strained east for the sound of incoming shellfire. The remains of the fog, hovering near the ground, wrapped them like grave-clothes.
No,Freddie thought.No.
Winter seemed to shrink as soon as they passed into the town; hestumbled, and Freddie had to catch him, support him on his good side until he got his balance. It was as though he’d not allowed himself weariness before. Freddie caught sight of an overrun aid station in a ruined church. “That way,” he managed. He had a vague notion that maybe a medic could be brought to at least look at Winter’s arm, and then…
But the church, half its roof fallen in, was packed with patients lying out exposed to the weather, and one glance told Freddie it was no good. The stretchers lay in endless rows. Some men were dead. Most were visibly nearer death than Winter. One was saying, in a very peculiar voice, “No, no, it’s all right, Doctor. I’ll wait my turn,” and Freddie realized he could see daylight through the hole in the man’s body.
Their rescued soldier’s legs gave out; he thumped gracelessly to the ground. He tried to get up and fell back, clawed at Freddie’s knees. “Don’t leave me here.”
A medic caught sight of them and swerved. “What’s wrong with him?” His bloodshot eyes were on the twitching Tommy. Winter was still behind Freddie, half-invisible in the murky dawn.
Laura would have wanted Freddie to answer. So he stammered, “He was trapped in the mud. He was drowning.”
“Shell-shock, then,” said the medic. “Look, if you can walk, keep on to the next dressing station.”
The soldier was sitting on the soaked flagstones of the church, rocking back and forth. “Can’t,” he whispered.
The medic struck him smartly across the face. “You! Yes, you there, sir. Pull yourself together. Drink this, come on…” He was carrying a canteen like a sidearm; he put it to the boy’s lips.
The soldier didn’t take it. His white-ringed eyes were fastened on Freddie. “But aren’t—aren’t you the wild men?”
“Christ,” said the medic. “Pull yourself together. Go on,” he added, over his shoulder, to Freddie. “I think you’re making it worse.”
But the soldier had gone rigid, looking between them all, his face a rictus of fear and betrayal. As if he’d believed, in the madness of the night, that Freddie and Winter actually knew a way out. “No—?You’re a traitor, then! I heard him! That one! He’s a—”
Freddie didn’t hear the rest. The medic was starting to frown. He could say it, right then:I took a prisoner, here he is, helping save your life.But if he said that, then Winter would be gone, Winter would have to go be a prisoner, with the others. And then Winter would die, alone, in the rain.
A shell burst on the ramparts, and everyone ducked. That distraction was enough to make Freddie bolt out of the aid station, snatching Winter’s good hand as he went and dragging him away. He knew it was mad even as he did it.
But he did not stop. He would not let go of Winter’s hand.
· · ·
They took no direction butaway,ducking into the shadows. Their flight was a spasm of insanity, no more. They ran as far as their strength would allow, then pulled up panting, both of them wild-eyed. Winter was absolutely scorching with fever. Where to go? What to do? It would be full day soon. They were fast crossing the line that dividedCanadian with German prisonerfromtwo fugitives.
Freddie stood panting, groping through the fragments of his mind for—anything. His very soul rebelled. He’d left all the rest of himself out there somewhere, in the blood and water and darkness; he refused to leave Winter to his fate. He imagined it: going off to fight again while Winter died by inches, alone. He couldn’t do it. He’d go stark, screaming, staring mad.
A shell fell in the street, sent a half-ruined building down with a rush. They ducked into the cover of a crumbling wall, covered their heads against flying bits of masonry. But when the danger passed, Winter did not move. He was leaning on the slimy brick, his eyes closed.
“Winter?” whispered Freddie.
No answer.
“Winter?” He bent closer, touched Winter’s hot cheek. “How’s your arm?”
“Fine,” said Winter. His eyes opened a little more, struggling tofocus. “Are you well?”
