“Go away, girl.”
“You saw it. I saw it too.”
He hesitated before answering.
“You saw nothing.”
“You saw what I saw. The captain. Lying dead in a shell hole, with the back of his head gone.”
“No!” He shouted at me now, so loudly that I could see people around us staring.
I hadn’t realized it, but we were already back outside the suite where I was supposed to be working. Millie stood in the doorway.
“Get in here,” she whispered at me. “For pity’s sake, before McAndrew comes back.”
Jack had gone.
I slunk in and got back to work.
Then—was it only an hour ago?—he came to me.
I’d finished my shift, and was walking out of the station to catch a lift in a truck to our billets up on the hill at Wimereux.
I heard the low growl of a motorcycle behind me. I turned and saw, yes, Jack, coming up behind me at no more than walking speed.
He drew level, and I stopped walking.
“Do you know when?” he asked. “When he’s going to die?”
He was talking about the captain, the captain whose arm I’d touched. Whose death I’d seen.
“I . . . I don’t know,” I said.
I was afraid that the slightest wrong move on my part would send him away, but he stayed.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “By this time tomorrow, he’ll be dead. Everything else will be just as you told me.”
It was enough to know that he believed me.
“Do you still want to talk?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”
“Then get on, and we’ll find somewhere quiet.”
He nodded at the metal luggage rack behind his seat on the motorbike.
“No . . . ,” I said. “I can’t. We’re not allowed to . . . If anyone sees me, I’ll be sent home.”
“Fair enough,” he said, and pulled his goggles down over his eyes.
“No!” I shouted. “I’ll come. But let’s get away from here quickly.”
I got on, put my arms around his waist, and prayed to heaven and hell that no one would see me.
32
I don’t think of him as Hoodoo now. Not now I know he’s a person. A person just like me. Hoodoo is a name superstitious people gave him. A horrible label that helps them to think he’s a freak. Well, if he’s a freak, so am I.
I don’t know exactly where we went.
We rode out of Boulogne and into the rain. I had to pull my long skirts up to sit on the bike, and the seat was a tiny plate of metal.
“Hold tight!” he shouted from in front, and I clung to him as tightly as I could.
We rode through some ugly villages, heading inland, until we came to one slightly larger, but no less down-at-heel.
“No one will know us here,” he said.
Not for the first time it crossed my mind that what I was doing might be very unwise. But I had no choice.
He stopped outside a seedy-looking café. They call them estaminets. Inside it’s sort of a bar, but they cook basic food, too. I had heard of them but never been in one. It looked awful. There was a beaten old piano in one corner, but no one was playing it.
The place was busy, but not full.
“Don’t meet anyone’s eye,” Jack said. “And keep your coat done up. Nurses don’t come to places like this.”
He pulled me along to a table by a wall in the quietest corner.
A young girl came over. I tried not to look at her, but I couldn’t help it. She was very young, and very dirty, and when she spoke there were gaps in her teeth. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and looked at Jack.
“Monsieur?”
“Du vin,” he said. I didn’t dare open my mouth to protest, and I knew my English accent would give me away even if I spoke French.
The girl sloped off, and came back after an age with a jug of red wine and two glasses.
“Vous mangez quelque chose?” she asked, but Jack waved her away, which was a pity, because I would very much have liked something to eat, even if it was the ropy stuff I could see on other people’s plates. Especially if I was going to have to drink wine.
Jack poured us each a glass and I glanced at the other people in the room. Locals, I guessed, all old men, and a couple of boys; the sort with something wrong with them, or else they’d have been away fighting. There were soldiers at another table, but they took no notice of us. I didn’t want to know what they might be thinking.
“How long?” Jack said.
“I never understand what you ask me,” I said, trying a smile. He didn’t smile back.
“How long have you been seeing things?”
I shrugged. I thought about Clare. But that was so long ago, and it had only happened once, then.
“Almost a year, maybe,” I said. “How about you?”
“Pretty much from the start. Since I got here.”
He emptied his glass, and refilled it straightaway.
I took a sip of mine, to show I could if I wanted. It was vile stuff, but that didn’t stop Jack.
“It was nothing at first. Just a tingling. Like an itch from a mosquito bite. So faint you might be imagining it.”
“You were a captain then?”
“Who told you that? No, I was never a captain. I turned down a commission, because I wanted to be one of the men. We’re all out here to fight, and I didn’t see why I should be safer than the boys just because of my background.
“I was a corporal then. But even corporals aren’t supposed to indulge in that sort of thing. Superstitions. Of course, we lads in the trenches, we live by them. And die, too.
“We all have our little routines, for good luck. Which sock goes on first, maybe. Or something from a dead mate, a watch, perhaps, that sort of thing. And it’s bad luck to say something good without grabbing a bit of wood right away. The ones that are left alive think that just goes to show that their superstitions are working, and the ones that are dead can’t argue back that theirs aren’t.”
It was clear he wanted to talk now.
“So what happened, then?” I asked. “When did it start to change?”
He finished another glass of wine, and I began to doubt that there was any chance of getting back to Boulogne safely.
“The itch became a scratch one day.”
He tipped the jug up, drained it, then waved it in the air. The young girl brought a full one over.
She eyed us curiously, and I looked away. I drank some more—it seemed to help.
“All of a sudden,” he said, “the itch was a scratch. It scratched me so hard that I jumped to my feet. And shouted.”
“What did you shout?”
“ ‘Williams has got it.’ And the other lads in the trench looked at me as if I was a madman. ‘Sit down,’ they said. ‘Nerves getting to you?’ they asked. ‘Happens to us all,’ someone said. And then, five minutes later, the news came down the line. ‘Lieutenant Williams is dead. Got his spine ripped out by a nose cap.’ And that was that.
“I stood there, feeling sorry for the lieutenant. But it was no shock to me, you see, because I’d known it was going to happen. The lads stared at each other. I noticed that, straightaway. They looked at each other, but none of them would look at me. And that was just the first time. . . .”
“What happened?”
He didn’t answer, but gazed at his wine, as if it were a looking glass.
“I’m sorry,” I said, after a while, to fill the silence.
“It’s all right,” he said. “What about you? How does it happen for you?”
I told him how it had started slowly, like his itch. How it was coming clearer each time. I told him about the hospital, back at home in Brighton. I told him that people had seen things in my eyes, though I didn’t know what.
I told him about Clare, and then I told him about Edgar.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“My real name’s Alexandra,”
I said. I could see no point in lying to him.
“Alexandra,” he said, carefully. He seemed to be thinking. “And no one believes a word you say?”
I shook my head. I knew that if I tried to speak, I would start crying and maybe never stop.
“ ‘And soon you too will stand aside, to murmur in pity that my words were true.’ ”
He was quoting at me, and I knew where from. Miss Garrett’s book had not been wasted after all.
My heart was racing. He knew about Cassandra.
“And now?” he said.
Now, I thought. Yes, what now?
“Let me put it another way,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I hadn’t told him about Tom.
“There’s someone I have to find. I’ve seen his death.”
“Your boyfriend?” he said, without sympathy.
“My brother. My other brother.”
He laughed at me then, and I didn’t like it.
“Do you believe it hasn’t happened yet?”
I nodded.
“I know it,” I said.
“And what are you going to do?” he asked. “You, a girl, against the whole of the German army, and the British one, too? You’re going to have to defeat them both to get him out of here!”
He cursed bitterly, and drank his wine.
I pushed mine away. I felt like throwing it in his face.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I saw his death. I know it hasn’t come yet. I’m going to try to find him. I’m going to tell him what I’ve seen, and I’m going to get him out of here. And no, I haven’t the faintest idea how!”
I broke off.
People were staring at us. At me.
Jack looked at me, but more gently than before.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“That’s all right. . . .”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you don’t understand. There’s nothing you can do.”
“No,” I said, “I’ll find a way—”
“No,” he said. “You don’t understand. If you’ve seen his death, then that’s it. It’s going to happen. You’ve seen the future. You can’t change it.”
His words cut me badly. I suppose I had known this deep down all along, but had tried to not let it surface. Now it was out in the open, and I couldn’t ignore it.
“All those other times. You have seen deaths, and they have happened, because they were the future. What makes you think it will be any different with your brother? That’s how it is. You should go home before you get yourself killed. Or worse. What are you going to do? Dress up as a man, as if this is some kind of fairy tale, and find him in the whole of the front line?”
I could feel tears falling from my face onto the table now.
“But that’s—”
“Awful?” Jack said. “Terrible? Terrifying? Appalling? Which is it to be? Because I’ve been through them all, and still can’t decide which. The future is written, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The future is written in blood. Your brother’s death, yours, mine. All written and waiting to happen, and not a damn thing you can do about it!”
He flung his hand at the jug, which smashed against the wall. The last of the wine flowed across the rough surface of the table, and I could not help seeing it as blood that had been shed.
A large old man came across the room toward us. He looked angry. I guessed he was the owner. I could see the young girl peering at us from behind the bar. The soldiers, too; one of them stood up, sensing trouble.
But Jack averted it all.
He rose, took an extravagant bundle of francs from his pocket, and put the notes on the table, avoiding the wine.
He held his hands up to the man, and shrugged, showing that we were leaving. Seeing the money, the man smiled back.
As we went Jack spoke to him.
“Je suis desolé,” he said.
And in my muddled state, I couldn’t remember whether that meant “I’m sorry” or “I’m desolate,” though I knew what Jack meant, in truth.
Jack seemed to sober up quickly. Maybe he was never anywhere near drunk, but he brought me back to Wimereux, where it was Millie’s turn to be appalled at how late I was.
“Alexandra,” she whispered to me, through the darkness. “I heard McAndrew talking about you. She was talking to our section superintendent. I didn’t hear what they said, though. I just heard your name. Well, they said Miriam, but you know what I mean.”
I was too tired to care.
I’m lying in bed now, trying to remember everything Jack said. As he stopped the motorcycle and helped me to the ground with a gentle hand, he spoke to me, softly.
“Alexandra,” he said. “Try to understand that there’s nothing you can do. The future has already happened. We’re just waiting to live it.”
“Well, then,” I said. “In that case, it’s my future to try to save Tom, whether he dies or not.”
Jack smiled, thoughtfully.
“You’re a wise girl. It took me years to get to that point. Very well, then it’s my fate to tell you this. Your brother’s brigade is in Flanders. Around the La Bassée canal. You can’t miss it. There’s a new crater near Givenchy called the Red Dragon that you could lose St. Paul’s Cathedral in. But you’d better hurry, no one stays in one place for too long around here.”
And he sped off into the darkness, his engine roaring loud enough to wake the dead.
31
I dream.
I dream of Jack, his pale blue eyes, and I can see that once there was life in them, that once they showed joy. I see him as a young corporal, eager to please, prepared to work hard.
It’s gone now, that blue fire in his eyes; they are eyes that have seen too much death and are dying from it themselves.
But not entirely.
I cling to the fact that even Jack, who has had all belief ground out of him, had enough spirit left to set me on my way to Tom.
I’m coming.
30
Five days have passed since that evening with Jack, the longest five days of my life.
I thought I was coming to find Tom, but the war had other ideas. In a way it was the war that saved me, and the war that betrayed me.
The day after Jack told me where to find Tom I got even more definite news of his battalion. I had still not seen a soldier wearing the uniform of the Twentieth Royal Fusiliers, but I also knew that had there been any I might have missed them. There were still as many as thirty trains a day arriving loaded with wounded.
We were stretched beyond exhaustion that Saturday, as we had been all the previous week. Most of the casualties were coming from the south, from the Somme, but there were one or two trains from the east, from Flanders, and that was where my attention was now fixed.
From the east there finally came the message I had been waiting for, but it was a grisly one.
A train rolled in from Bethune about nine o’clock that Saturday evening, and I set myself to help unload the wounded. There was such chaos and confusion along the platform that no one noticed that I should have finished my shift and left by then.
I saw what I had been waiting for.
He had died on the train. A private of the Twentieth, a public school boy who didn’t even look as old as Tom.
Shamelessly I cursed him for dying before I could question him, ask him where he’d come from, where the rest of the men were now. And whether he knew Tom. But he must have. I know that Tom’s battalion is a small, closely knit one. It has a poor reputation because it’s very new, and it’s formed only of boys from public school.
But the boy in front of me would be answering no questions.
Sisters and nurses were staggering wearily from the carriages; orderlies were lifting the stretchers onto the platform. The men who could walk were shuffling down to the rest station.
I would have to be quick. The dead boy lay on a stretcher on the platform. It was obvious he was dead, but everyone was too busy worrying about th
ose still living.
I put out my hand and touched his white face. I hate to say it, but I have seen so much death now it leaves me cold. If I thought of every mother of every soldier waiting at home and praying, I’d break down. It’s the same for all the nurses. We have become immune.
Nothing. He had gone, and whatever life is had gone with him. I felt nothing, saw nothing, heard no words.
Then I felt ashamed of myself, and came away before anyone noticed that in spite of my immunity, I was crying over a dead boy I’d never even met.
29
I went back to our billets, and slept.
Things were closing in on me last Sunday, though as I reported for duty that morning with Millie, I had no idea how fast.
It was another ominous, cloudy day.
Trains poured in constantly, and once more we waded through a sea of wounded men, and their bloody bandages and muddied uniforms. Cutting, washing, daubing, wrapping.
Then we heard that there were shortages of nurses and doctors aboard the trains. It meant nothing to us at the time. There’s a shortage of everyone and everything everywhere.
Later that morning Millie heard that she was going to make a run on an ambulance train to Amiens and back. It meant she’d be away for hours, the best part of a day, in fact, and then I was scared. I needed Millie, I needed her looking out for me, covering my back, keeping an eye on McAndrew.
It wasn’t to be. Around lunchtime, she left on the train for Amiens. I didn’t even see her go, or have time to say goodbye, because I was waist deep in mess in the rest station. At the time I just felt sorry not to have seen her go.
I had no premonition. I didn’t know then what has happened since. I had no idea what was going to happen to me later, and it made me aware of something I had not considered before.
In all the things I have seen, and witnessed; in all the foreshadowings, I have yet to see anything about myself.
28
The war saved me.