His eye wandered to it, back to her face. “Better not to know, Sister,” he said.
In an even voice, Laura replied, “Nothing you have to tell me is worse than what I have imagined, sir.”
Whiting visibly steeled himself. In a new voice, quite toneless, he said, “It was raining. We were ordered to take the Passchendaele Ridge. Bad ground—I’ve never seen worse. Mud hip-deep, and Fritz well dug in—pillboxes and machine gun nests.”
Laura knew it was an ugly thing she was doing, making him relive it. But she didn’t ask him to stop.
“There was a pillbox, had us in its sights. Machine gun inside, clawing us bad. We had to take it. Your brother—Iven—he charged, with a grenade. Brave lad. I didn’t see what happened, exactly. The light was bad, it was pouring so you couldn’t tell earth from air, with the mud so thick. I don’t know if his grenade went off, because right as he hit the doorway, a heavy hit the pillbox. It—it flipped. Happens sometimes, especially with the ones Fritz put up too quick.”
“Flipped, sir?” said Laura.
Whiting looked reluctant. “Yes—unlucky—turned door-down, don’t you know. No way out but the door and the concrete’s thicker than three men standing. Anyone in there—they weren’t coming out.”
Kate said the German was trapped with my brother in a pillbox. But he said they got out.“And my brother was in there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Whiting. “But don’t worry. I’m sure he was dead before it went over.”
“And if he wasn’t?”
Whiting looked down into his glass, with an expression of steady remote pity. “Well,” he said. “He’s dead now, ma’am.” He dashed some cognac into his empty wine glass and took a hearty swig. “He was a brave boy. Lot of brave boys gone that day. A damned shame. A damned shame.”
“Yes,” said Laura, in a voice strange even to her own ears. “Thank you for telling me.”
Whiting hesitated. “There was one more thing. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but you’re a sensible woman, that’s plain, and youwon’t read much into it, except to know that he’s not forgotten among us.”
Laura wasn’t feeling remotely sensible just then.
Whiting said, “Bowles, my servant, he says he saw Iven’s ghost.”
Laura wanted several more drinks. “Did he? Where?”
“At dinner in GHQ. It was quite an occasion. Christmas. They even had a goose. I was pals with one of the boys on the staff, that’s why they invited me. They’d hired a violinist—Christ, he was good, I remember, servants blubbering like babies in the corners—anyway, Bowles was helping with the serving, and he’s just at the window, with the soup tureen, and he goes white as a sheet and drops it. And when I ask him what the devil’s the matter, he says he’s just seen Iven’s ghost.”
Laura had no notion what to say. “What was…the ghost…doing?” she asked, after a pause.
Whiting looked troubled. “Just staring. Staring in the window.”
Not sure she was joking, Laura said, “Seems a long way for a ghost to come—down off the Ridge—just to haunt headquarters.”
“Those bastards, carving their goose, congratulating each other on a good season of campaigning,” said Whiting with abrupt, concentrated venom. “I hope he haunts them all.” He poured himself more white wine, drank it fast again. Ducking his head he added, in his ordinary voice, “Apologies, Sister. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Thank you, then,” Laura said. She left the café soon after. She could see from Whiting’s face that he was eager to get down to some hard, steady drinking, and that he didn’t want her around for it.
FALAND’S HOTEL, PARTS UNKNOWN, FLANDERS, BELGIUM
Winter of 1917–1918
When Freddie came downstairs again,dull from nightmares, there were no people in the hotel. The foyer was empty but for Faland, who sat on an overturned ammunition crate, violin laid across his knee. He was dragging bow across strings, frowning, and the half-formed melody that filled the room was jagged in a way that made Freddie flinch. “Will you tell me what you hate, Iven?” asked Faland, not looking up, although the melody had trailed away to nothing. He stared thoughtfully down at the instrument in his hands. His voice was gentle.
“Not yet,” said Freddie. He was groping for a bottle. “I can’t tell a story yet.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Why?”
Faland raised his eyes from the violin. “Call it curiosity.”
Freddie cursed himself that he could not keep silent when Faland looked at him like that. “Everyone. Everyone who put me and Winter on the Ridge, who put Laura at Brandhoek. All the men with clean hands, hanging back in headquarters, making plans with our lives.”
