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“We need to know what’s happening.” Gavin jumped back down into the squelching mud and took charge. “Summers, stand to.” He ordered. “Marshall, keep the end bay covered.” He shouted orders as the noise increased and the men hastened as best they could, taking up their positions.
Then an eerie hum approached. Too late he realized what was about to happen. “Move,” he shouted, pushing Angus down into the mud in the split second before the explosion. Then pain tore through him. His body jerked up before it was thrown into a tangled mass of torn limbs, ripped flesh and horrifying screams.
For a while, he thought he was dead. Then, gradually, consciousness returned and he heard cries, smelled the bitter, acrid smoke. He tried to move but pain shot through his hip and thigh; he tried to open his eyes but they stung. Everything was hazy. He felt about him in a daze, all at once aware that the soft, wet substance he was touching must be flesh, and choked, as horror, gas and blood filled his lungs and he tried vainly to move.
Little by little he extracted his left hand from the sticky warmth below, gripped by nausea when he realized he was lying on Jonathan Parker’s dead body. He gasped, trying to catch his breath. Trying to think. He was alive. He had to stay alive. But where was Angus? Making a superhuman effort, he heaved the mangled pile of blood-soaked remains that lay across him, hearing the sound they made as they sank into the mud. The effort left him exhausted. But he focused now, and the rush of relief when he saw Angus staring down at him, apparently unharmed, was overwhelming. Thank God. He tried desperately to speak, but his lips wouldn’t move. To motion, but his arm wouldn’t budge.
Angus stared at him, expression detached. Gavin shouted but no sound emerged. Couldn’t Angus see him, damn it? He closed his eyes against a whiff of gas. When he was able to open them once more, Angus’s face still loomed impassively over him, an expressionless mask. Why didn’t he pull him out of here instead of just standing there? “Angus,” his mind screamed. “Help me, for Christ’s sake!”
But Angus made no gesture, no motion. Instead, he crouched beside him, wearing the cold, half-amused, disinterested gaze of a spectator. Desperately, Gavin reached his left arm toward his brother in a frantic effort, daggers searing through his hip and upper body as he grasped the gold chain and cross swinging from his twin’s neck, clutching it.
But Angus made no move and the chain gave way. Gavin reeled back, collapsing once more in the mire of blood, mud and misery. As his head sank into Jonathan Parker’s open guts and everything went black, his last conscious image was of Angus, watching calmly as he sank into oblivion.
3
Etaples, France, 1917
“Nurse, we need to vacate the facility immediately. There’s a new convoy coming in from the front lines. They’re bringing in the wounded as we speak.”
“Yes, Sister.” Flora hurried around the ward, which she and Ana, another V.A.D., ran with virtually no assistance, and helped the patients who could walk to other wards. Once they’d all been shifted to the next building, Flora hurried back to prepare beds and blankets for the new arrivals. As she tucked in the last sheet, she heard the ambulances drawing up and sighed, realizing it would be another long night. Every spare hand was needed and getting to the wounds before they festered and required amputation had become a grilling challenge.
She dumped the dirty laundry in a corner and prepared for the onslaught, forcing herself to stay calm, pushing away the fear that each new batch of arrivals brought. Inevitably she searched each incoming stretcher for his face, praying it wouldn’t be there. Flora sighed again. She’d had less news in the two months she’d been here than all the time back home.
She pulled herself together as the wounded began pouring in, and the usual frenzy of dressing wounds, injecting morphine and preparing the dying began. There were plenty of those today, she realized, horrified.
The doctor approached, face exhausted and eyes bloodshot, his white coat splattered with muted bloodstains that no amount of washing erased. He looked at the wound. “Better to put a bullet through the poor bugger,” he muttered angrily before setting to work. The priest and the chaplain stood nearby; they had long since stopped bothering about denominations, instead simply murmuring prayers in a desperate effort to bring solace to those last remaining moments, leaning close to catch final messages whispered from barely moving lips.
Flora worked nonstop. There would be countless letters to write to the soldiers’ families, she thought sadly. It was the only tribute she could pay to the young men who’d died so valiantly in her arms. At least she could give their loved ones the treasure of their last words. When there were none, she took it upon herself to invent them, sure that what mattered most was that a parent or a wife be given something to cling to.
“Pass the morphine, Nurse. I’m afraid we’ll have to amputate,” the doctor said above the moans and agitation. Flora glanced at him, his young face prematurely lined, marked by three years of battling disease, death and devastation.
She handed him the bottle as a young orderly came up to her. “Nurse, we have a bad case of shell shock. Where should we put him?”
“Oh my goodness. Is he wounded?” she asked distractedly, preparing for the operation that was about to take place.
“No.”
“Then put him in number ten and I’ll get to him whenever I can. I’m afraid I can’t do anything about it at the moment.” He nodded and left, and Flora prepared the patient for amputation, trying to overcome the nauseous smell and increasing heat in the ward. The hospital back home had seemed bad, but here life was hell. There was none of the priggish, ordered behavior of regular hospital life, with the petty rules and hierarchies of the matron. All of that was forgotten in a common effort to save as many lives as they could.
Getting to a wound in time had become an obsession, with heroes and enemy treated alike. And so it should be, Flora reflected, throwing out the slops and taking more bandages back into the ward, for how could you feel rancor toward young men as vulnerable and damaged as any of their own? It was tragic and intolerable to see a generation—whether German, British or any other—condemned to die, drowned in mud-filled trenches, buried under the rich earth of northern France that for over a thousand years had claimed her victims relentlessly. For an instant, she wondered what had happened to the Europe of before the war that all had believed would be over by the time the leaves fell, but that was more than three years old.
It took her five more hours to see all the patients, then Matron came on duty and forced her to go.
“You simply have to get a rest, Flora. You’ll be worn-out if you don’t. I’ll see you back at the hut. By the way, could you take a quick look at that shell shock case on your way out? I don’t seem to be able to get through to him at all, and you’re so good with those patients.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be back at seven.”
“Right. But you must rest, dear, or you’ll be no use to anyone.”
“I will.” Stepping over stretchers of soldiers whose wounds were less urgent, she walked down the corridor and headed for the last ward, where a gramophone with a scratchy needle played a popular tune. There, some men sat in dressing gowns, smoking and playing cards at a rickety wooden table. They called to her as she entered.
“’Ey, Nurse, ’ow ye’ doin’? Goin’ ’ome, I am. Back to Liverpool, it is.”
“Good, Berty. I’m so glad. How about you, Harry, how’s your leg?”
“Oh, fair enough. Never be much good on the football field again, but at least I’ll be able to walk, which is more than most.”
She nodded, smiling to mask her exhaustion, and looked for the patient. “Have you seen a chap sent in with shell shock?” she asked Nancy, the V.A.D. in charge.
“He’s over in the corner.” She pointed to her left. “He seems unable to speak. Perhaps you can do something with him, poor man.”
Flora glanced at a chair that faced the far corner of the crowded ward, then walked toward it, filled with sudden foreboding. Gavin’s image flashed before her and she shuddered, her misgivings increasing as she approached the chair. The young man had his back to her, his head in his hands. Mustering every last ounce of strength, she dragged herself forward, dreaming of the hut she shared with three other V.A.D.s. and her bunk, longing to crawl into bed for a few precious hours of sleep before it all began again.
She came up behind him, gently touched his shoulder.
“I’ve come to help you,” she said softly. “Will you tell me who you are?” She came around and crouched at his side, seeing nothing but a thick shock of red hair falling over the hand that supported his forehead. At the sound of her voice, he raised his head. For a moment Flora simply stared, stunned. “Angus,” she gasped in amazement. “Is it really you?” Tears burst forth as she threw her arms around the stiff, motionless figure. Then, leaning back and holding his hands, she realized that his eyes were devoid of expression. “Angus.” She shook him anxiously. “Angus, it’s me, Flo. Say something, please.” She shook him again gently. Then another thought occurred. Gavin. Where was Gavin? She glanced around, as though expecting to see him among the group of men smoking and playing cards. Then she squeezed Angus’s hands once more.
“Angus, you’re all right now. You’re with me.” His eyes flickered and her heart leaped. “Oh, Angus, darling, please. Please come back. Please tell me where Gavin is,” she whispered almost to herself.
“Dead.” The voice was flat.
She stared at him, then shook her head. “No. It can’t be. No.” She shook her head again, her hands gripping his sleeve savagely. “Not Gavin.” She began shaking, then laughed hysterically. “People like Gavin don’t get killed, they’re immortal.”
“It should have been me,” he whispered.
Alerted by the tone of Flora’s wild laughter, Nancy came hurrying toward them.
“Flora? What is the matter?”
Unable to respond, she sank to the floor, clinging to Angus’s limp hands as though she might find some part of Gavin there, refusing to let go, to believe.
It took Nancy and two other nurses to pry her away. Half carrying her to the hut, they put her to bed and forced some pills down her throat. It was only when she woke, twenty-four hours later, from the heavily drugged sleep, that the truth hit home. He was gone. Gone forever.
She stared at the pegs that sagged under the weight of various clothes, wanting to cry, but she couldn’t. She, who had shed so many tears for all the others, was incapable of weeping for the man she loved. Now that it was his turn, she was numb. She dragged herself up in the narrow cot, pulled the brown blanket up to her chin and sat shivering, trying to visualize him, but her mind was blank, as though her memory had been wiped clean as a slate. She closed her eyes tight, desperately trying to conjure up his image, recall some feature, some peculiar expression that made him who he was, but the harder she tried, the more distant he became.
Duty and training dragged her out of bed. Legs trembling, she dressed, then returned to the ward, where another convoy of badly wounded was being brought in.
“Nurse! Thank goodness you’re here. Get this patient ready for surgery.” The doctor laid a hand on her arm. “He’s going to lose both legs, I’m afraid.”
She nodded automatically, senses blunted, gazing down at the young officer about to lose his limbs. Distantly, she felt thankful that Gavin had not gone through this. Their dreams and life were over, but at least he had not suffered the indignity of surviving as half a man.
She braced herself, refusing to allow her personal loss to keep her from her duty, and made her way over to the bed where the young man lay, his head bandaged but his eyes clear blue and lucid.
“I’m sorry to have to break the news, Captain,” she began, surprised to hear that her voice sounded calm and gentle.
He smiled thinly. “You don’t need to tell me, Nurse. I’ve been here too long and seen too much not to know. Is it one or both?”
“Both, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry.”
His lips tightened and he nodded. “I’m lucky to be alive, I suppose. At least I’ll get home. Not like the other poor blighters buried out there.”
She nodded and closed her eyes a second against awful images that danced before her. Then silently she went to work, preparing him for the operation. Suddenly she remembered Angus. He would have to wait. She glanced down at her patient with an aching heart, reached for his hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you,” he whispered, eyes damp. Then with a brave smile he turned to the doctor. “Better get on with it, Doc. There’s plenty more out there waiting for you.”
4
Frieburg, Germany, 1917
“Es gibt einen der lebt noch.” From far away, Gavin heard voices but they faded again. The next time he gained consciousness he was being rattled painfully to and fro, amid the stench of blood and urine. But it was dark, he was moving and the pain in his thigh and hip were blinding. His eyes closed once more and he dreamed. Of Angus’s cold and expressionless face, waiting impassively for him to die. The dream kept repeating and repeating itself.
When he next woke, the pain was too agonizing for him to think, but he realized he was alive and being given an injection. There were more voices, a woman and a man speaking German, but he was too tired to care and drifted back into sleep.
This time he dreamed of Flora, of the rose garden at Strathaird, of a picnic in the Périgord, the delicious sensation of biting into a thick tartine, a sandwich made of pâté and spicy saucisson, smelled the sweet scent of freshly cut hay and heard the sound of laughter rippling on the breeze.
As the days went by and he regained consciousness, Gavin realized two things—that people spoke German, and that they addressed him as Angus or Kapitän. It was puzzling. But the pain was so sharp and the need to sleep so great he didn’t care. Then one day he woke up feeling hungry and, to everyone in the ward’s surprise, he sat up.
“Mein Gott, der Englander sitzt!” the matron exclaimed.
“Not Englander,” Gavin replied with a spark of his old self, “Shotten.”
“Hey, do you speak German?” a cultivated English voice coming from the next cot asked. He turned, wincing as a sharp pain shot up his leg and into his thigh.
“Only a couple of words. Did they get you, too?”
“Actually, no.” He blushed. “I’m German.”
“Oh.”
There was a moment’s silence while Gavin looked the other man over. His head was bandaged and his arm hung loosely in a sling. “How do you speak English so well?” he asked curiously, instinctively liking him, although he was the enemy.
“My mother’s English and my father is German. We’ve lived in London all my life. My father’s in banking—rather, was in banking—in the city. Then this mess came down and we had to leave. My parents and sister returned to Hanover. I got called up.”
“What a God-awful situation to be in,” Gavin replied sympathetically, feeling much more like talking than thinking.
“What happened to you?”
“A shell exploded in the trench. Lucky to be alive, I suppose. Where are we?”
“The army hospital in Frieburg.”
“Oh. That’s in the Black Forest, isn’t it?” he said, calculating approximately how far he must be from his unit. “Any news about what’s happening out there?” he asked casually, unsure how far he could trust the man. Perhaps they’d put him there on purpose, to see what they could find out.
“Not much—except the Americans have entered the war.”
“Thank God for that,” Gavin murmured, leaning back against the pillow, his eyes closing. “How did that happen? I thought Woodrow Wilson didn’t want to have much to do with us.”
“A U-boat sunk a merchant ship with two American passengers on board. I suppose it was getting too close to home.”
“Hmm. Probably. I’ll bet you lot weren’t counting on that,” he added, squinting at his neighbor, who looked pale and drawn.
“They didn’t. I think it may tip the balance,” he murmured softly.
“Damn right it will.” Gavin saw the other patients murmuring suspiciously, and turned painfully onto his other side. He looked into the cot on his left, where a ruddy blond face stared belligerently.
“Zigaretten?” he asked, keeping a wary eye on the others, trying to read their minds. The other man shook his head, eyes filled with resentment. Gavin shrugged and acted as though it was natural to be the only British officer lying among a ward of German soldiers.
“Oh well.” He smiled. “Danke, anyway. When I get some, I’ll give you one of mine.” He leaned back and took stock of the situation.
“Kapitän Angus, you must not speak so much.” A pretty, blond nurse came to his bed and patted his pillow briskly before whisking out a thermometer and popping it into his mouth, preventing him from asking why everyone thought he was Angus. Then he caught sight of the gold cross lying on the tiny nightstand, next to the bed, and everything flashed before him. Suddenly dizzy, Gavin put his head in his hands.
“Herr Kapitän? Sind sie schwach?”
“I’m all right,” he said, removing the thermometer. “But I don’t want this damn thing in my mouth.”
“Be thankful for small mercies. The other one sticks it somewhere else,” his English-speaking neighbor commented as the matron approached with a firm, brisk march.
“Is there a problem with the prisoner, Nurse?” she demanded, eyes glinting.
“No, Sister,” the nurse replied quickly, reading the thermometer and writing something on the chart.
The matron looked him over coldly. “I don’t want you causing problems in my ward,” she barked, her English guttural. “It is bad enough to have to treat you Saxon dogs. So behave yourself or I’ll have you sent to the prison camp, ill or not. It’ll be one less for our men to rid themselves of.” With that, she turned on her heel and marched off.
Gavin listened meekly, but as she marched off, he stuck his tongue out, causing the whole ward to break into laughter. She turned suspiciously, but found him lying down, eyes closed, the picture of innocence.
A minute later he opened one eye cautiously. A man wearing a dressing gown, who sat reading at the far end of the ward, came over.
“Zigarette?” he asked, offering him the pack.
“Danke.” Gavin took the cigarette warily, his eyes never leaving the German’s face. Then he heard his neighbor again.
“Jolly good show, old chap. We’re scared stiff of her. She’s the devil to deal with. That’s done more to break the ice than you’d believe.”
“Thanks.” He leaned forward and accepted a light. “Ask this chap what his name is, will you?”
“That’s Karl. I’m Franz, by the way, Lieutenant Franz von Ritter. Who are you?”
“I’m Gavin MacLeod.”
“That’s odd. For some reason, they’ve been referring to you as Angus. Something to do with a cross you had in your hand when you were brought in.”
“It belonged to my brother.” Gavin took a long drag of the cigarette, knowing he was going to have to face his memories of his twin eventually. What had Angus been thinking? God! A sudden thought crossed his brain. Could the shell have blinded him? Maybe that was it.
“Sorry to hear that.” The other man obviously assumed Angus was dead.
“That’s the way it goes,” he replied, wondering where Angus was now. Suddenly he felt ashamed of having doubted his twin. There must be some explanation for his behavior. Gavin immediately felt better, the tightness lifting from his chest. Now he must apply himself to getting out of here, he resolved. His family would be worried to death about him. He could imagine poor Flora, sick with worry at the hospital, and his mother and father back home.
By the end of the following week, he was recovering fast, and was in good enough spirits to charm the young, blond nurse, Annelise, into sneaking cigarettes and schnapps into the ward. These he distributed liberally among the men, making him the most popular patient there. The matron mumbled, disgusted about lack of loyalty in the present generation, but the men didn’t care. They were fed up with a war that never seemed to end, and Gavin had brought new life to a tedious situation. He always had a joke for Franz to translate, a word for someone who needed jollying up. Soon they were looking to him for direction.
