The stranger emerged in the alley four feet from where Freddie and Winter stood silent in the shadows. He started off, but then his steps slowed. He turned. Winter went deathly still. “Good morning,” said the stranger. “It isn’t polite to stare.”
A group of soldiers under a sergeant came up the street. Winter and Freddie pressed themselves deeper into the shadow of the wall. The oncoming men slowed. Freddie had one despairing second to think,What do I do now,before he realized that the men hadn’t seen him and Winter at all. They were all gawking at the stranger. A civilian hadn’t been seen in Ypres for two years. It was like seeing a unicorn. And the eccentric didn’t disappoint them. “I was hoping for a tour of the ramparts,” he said. “Will someone guide me?”There was a flicker of mischief in his voice.
“Now, sir,” said the nonplussed sergeant, “this city’s under military jurisdiction—” He broke off, shook his head, said, “Do you have a death wish?”
The stranger’s eyes opened wide. “I am a committed tourist. Well, I shall find my own way.”
Without warning, he slipped down a side street, leaving the sergeant calling “Sir—sir! Monseer! You can’t just—” In answer the stranger, now quite swallowed by the early-morning shadows, began to whistle. They heard his footsteps retreating.
“Mocking us, he is,” said the sergeant, with anger. “The madman. Well, arrest the bastard, damn you all.” They took off after the sound.
“Iven,” said Winter. “We must go.”
Had that just happened, or had he dreamed it awake? Winter was pulling him on. They must find somewhere to hide. No chance of getting anywhere unremarked before dark. And perhaps a rest—somewhere dry—would do Winter some good…
Freddie wasn’t sure how far they’d gone—not very—when the stranger reappeared beside them.
Winter halted. “No,” he whispered.
“Oh, dear,” said the stranger, in English. “You’ve a terrible fever, my good man.” Winter’s face was set like granite. Freddie looked in bewilderment between them.
“Delighted to meet you,” added the stranger as though the patrol had never interrupted. “I am called Faland. I am, in my way, a native of these parts. May I inquire where you are going?”
Freddie could almost feel Winter trying to muster more words, and failing. Finally, to Freddie’s shock, he raised a trembling hand and made the old peasants’ sign against evil, the two fingers extended. A shell burst a few streets over as though for emphasis.
Both Faland’s brows rose, unruffled. “Do you need a bolt-hole for the day?” he said. “I think there’s a cellar about.”
Winter shook his head. “No,” he said again.
“Winter, why not?” whispered Freddie. “If he knows a place.” Logic told Freddie there was nowhere safe in Ypres. But there was something about this civilian. A confidence. Either he was utterly mad—not unlikely—or hedidknow a place. “We could rest properly, and I could have a good look at your arm.”
“But—” said Winter. “Can’t you see?” He looked afraid. Not once, in those last hellish days, had Freddie seen Winter looking afraid.
Freddie said, “What else are we going to do? Winter, you’re sick. You need to rest. You need to get dry.”
“There are worse things than dying,” said Winter.
“You are not going to die.”
Winter didn’t say anything more. Maybe he’d come, at last, to the end of his strength. He bowed his head. He was shivering.
“Excellent,” said Faland. “This way.”
They slipped through Ypres, keepingto the shrinking shadows. No one stopped them. The mist distorted their footsteps. Faland’s step was just a little uneven in the rubble-strewn street, as though he favored one leg. Freddie’s skin crept as he walked. A miasma of fear hung over Ypres. The skeleton-city might be a place ruled by men, but Death lived there too, and sat at their cookfires, and ruled his own subjects, side by side with the living. The shells whistled and crashed, now near, now far.
“Where are we going?” Winter looked like a man in a nightmare who couldn’t wake up.
Freddie didn’t know. He was wondering if he’d lost his mind.
And then Faland was standing in front of a nondescript doorway; he produced a key from his pocket. The door swung open. Icy air poured out. “As I thought,” Faland said, with satisfaction. “This way.”
Freddie stood a moment, disbelieving. Winter balked.
“Come on,” Freddie said, and took his arm. “There’s nowhere else to go.”
Winter let himself be led. The two passed under the lintel and started down some steps. Faland had lit a candle, of all things, asthough there were no such things as pocket torches. The door swung shut behind them, and they were back in the dark, except for their own strange shadows moving in the candlelight. Freddie tried to see the light playing on the walls, to think only of that, and not the blackness all around, the renewed weight of earth overhead. He reached for Winter and their hands twisted together, the way men overboard snatch at rope in a stormy sea.I am still alive. He is still alive. We are still alive.
Faland had gone down first, with the light, and his shadow crawled monstrous before them all. There was mortared stone over their heads, a pit of blackness below, with Faland’s light swimming through it. Freddie didn’t know how long the stairs went on. Suddenly they were at the bottom, stumbling on flat ground, and Freddie was startled to see that when Faland turned back, holding his candle, he illuminated a wine cellar.
