When we arrived at the next station, I found lines of gassed men waiting for their turn to be seen. Bandages across their eyes helped some of the pain and was a distinctive marker. They had a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them, stumbling along, tripping if no one warned them of uneven ground, at the mercy of orderlies and sisters who guided them.
We bathed their skin and did what we could for their lungs. The worst cases would die painfully, the less damaged would linger in a misery that was frightful.
One night when the shelling was renewed, some of the shells falling well behind the lines, the two of us took refuge in one of those blighted edifices that stood like sentinels as the Front moved forward or fell back. Our own guns opened up in reply, and the din was horrific this close. It felt as if my brain rattled in my skull, and I had to clap my hands over my ears to ease the pain.
We soon retreated to one of those distinctive French farmhouses, built on a square, with the house, the outbuildings, and the barns a part of the encompassing wall. Usually there were two entrances: a wider one in the rear for drays and carts, a narrower one nearer the house where riders and carriages came and went.
Part of the wall had been reduced to rubble, the roof of the barn had collapsed, and the house was no more than a cellar and a single wall. We pulled into the lee of the outside of the wall while Trelawney did a brief reconnoiter.
He came back, got into the motorcar once more, and drove into the sheltering arms of the section of wall still standing. Trelawney turned to me and said, “Sister, we’re out of range here. It’s best if we wait until the worst is over.” He pulled out the oiled map we’d been using, scanned it in the shielded light of his torch, and grunted. “Just here, I think we are.” He pointed to a dot on the map that represented this farmhouse. “It seems there was an aid station here, earlier in the war. I found a twisted cot or two left behind. And then it was a command post before the lines changed again. Nobody but us now. I was careful.” He always was. “There ought to be a dry patch in a cellar. Or under the roof that’s fallen in. There was a ring around the moon last night. We’ll have rain by midmorning.”
I’d seen the ring too, and I didn’t relish being wet to the skin.
“Which should we try first?” He waited.
“I think the barn. I don’t particularly like the idea of being trapped in a cellar.”
“The barn it is. I’ll have another look, then.”
He disappeared a second time, and I heard chickens squawking as he walked in among the fallen timbers. They had taken refuge here too, I thought, their lives changed just as much as that of their owners.
After fifteen minutes Trelawney returned, and we moved the motorcar a second time to where it was least likely to be seen from the air or by any parties passing through.
In one section the straw was clean enough, and we spread the rug from the motorcar over it. The chickens were roosting in the timbers above the cowshed, out of sight. Trelawney, nervous about leaving it unattended, told me he would stay with the motorcar. I fell asleep in spite of the guns.
It was well before dawn, the sky no longer lit by the shelling but by a tank burning somewhere, the smell of metal and petrol and oil barely masking the odor of burning flesh, when something brought me awake with a start. I couldn’t have said what it was-some change in the silence. Sometimes we noticed the guns more when they fell silent than when they were firing. I could hear my own breathing.
More to the point, I could hear the breathing of someone else inside the barn with me.
It wasn’t Trelawney; he’d have spoken to me or in some way let me know that he had come into where I was sleeping. Nor was it the chickens, for even the rooster, if there was one, hadn’t begun to crow.
I lay there with my eyes closed, listening.
The breathing got louder as someone approached even closer.
Where was Trelawney?
The fingers of my right hand moved among the folds of my skirt, then closed over the small pistol that Simon had given me.
I waited.
It was possible that Trelawney had heard something too and had come to warn me. I had to be absolutely certain someone else was there before I dared to fire. And if there was-what had he done with my driver?
Several thoughts ran through my mind. A handful of the Chinese laborers who worked for the British Army, looking for the eggs the chickens laid or, for that matter, one of the chickens?
They’d be wary of Trelawney. And a company of British soldiers would have asked him his business long before they came here to approach me.
A deserter? It was entirely possible, but how had he avoided being seen by the ever-vigilant Trelawney?
Or a murderer who had already dispensed with my driver, and was intent on dealing next with me?
We’d been so very careful. Perhaps too careful, lulling ourselves with our own certainty that we could protect ourselves.
If Trelawney was dead or badly injured, I’d have to make my shot count. But I dared not open my eyes yet. I could tell by the sound of breathing that he wasn’t near enough. I couldn’t be sure which direction to fire. There were stalls on either side of where I had slept, and tracking sound was nearly impossible.
I lay there, keeping my own rate of breathing as close to steady as possible.
Another sound, a timber creaking under an unwary foot.
My throat was dry. I was still reluctant to risk a look. And I could feel my heart rate quickening as the moment of decision came.
He’d stopped. Waiting? Making certain I was asleep?
I remembered my valise, tucked into the straw close to my right foot.
Was that what he was after, whoever was here in the barn with me?
And just as I remembered it, I felt the straw stir, as if someone had reached for my case.
I said, opening my eyes, “I’m armed, and I won’t hesitate to shoot. Stay where you are-”
I broke off.
In the distant glare of the burning tank, a monstrous figure loomed before me, one side of his face lit by the flames, the other sinister and dark. The one eye I could see appeared to be so pale that it seemed not to exist in reality, only in my racing imagination.
I froze.
And I lay there accepting the fact that the small-caliber pistol in my pocket could never stop my murderer. He could kill me as he must have already killed Trelawney, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WE STARED AT each other, neither moving for an instant.
I thought, I must shoot him anyway. While I can. It won’t stop him, but it will mark him. It might even do enough damage that he’ll eventually die of the wound.
My finger tightened on the trigger, slowly, as Simon had always taught me, a steady pressure that wouldn’t spoil my aim.
And then the man in front of me spoke.
There was the rich Welsh lilt to his voice as he said, “I’m bad wounded. Do you have anything in that valise will help?”
I thought at first it was a trick, but when my eyes swept down his frame, I saw the darkish patch at his hip. Blood, and not fresh.
It dawned on me that I might have shot this man out of fear, and I felt cold with the realization that I’d have had his death on my hands.
“What’s your name, rank, and regiment?” I demanded.
“No, I won’t tell you that. I’m not going back into the line. I’ve got this far, and with any luck at all, I’ll make it back to England before I die.”
He wouldn’t budge from that. I thought, If he sees the pistol, he’ll know what it can do. And if he’s a deserter, he could still be a danger to me.
And so I kept my hand in my pocket.