The Foreshadowing (26 page)

I thought of Millie, but I had even lied to her.

“Yes,” I said, “but I still don’t understand . . .”

“... how I found you?” he asked, but that wasn’t my question. My question was, why?

“When I heard the stories in Boulogne, I knew immediately you’d got yourself into hot water. It wasn’t hard to find out where you’d gone, so I got myself a job riding to Bethune. Swapped a run with another rider.

“I watched the camp yesterday, but I wouldn’t have known where you were if you hadn’t tried your escape by the back door.”

I felt embarrassed at the thought of it, but Jack shrugged.

“You tried. You’re a brave girl, that’s for sure.”

“But how did you get the guard to leave?”

“It was easy. He’ll be in trouble, but I don’t suppose they’ll be too bothered finding you. I came up to him, told him I was to move you to a prison camp. He looked doubtful, but I just kept on. It’s amazing what people will believe, if you believe it yourself. I suppose he was confused because no one’s had to guard a nurse before!

“I brought a sealed envelope. Waved it at him, said it was my orders, but if he wanted to check he’d have to take it to the officer commanding.

“So I gave him the envelope and he went. I offered to guard you while he was gone. He even said thanks!”

Jack smiled and I laughed.

Above our heads there was a rustling in the treetops, but it was just some birds flapping in and out of the shadows. We watched a pale sun peer through the last of the mist in the field in front of us.

I looked down, and saw a raven right in front of us, no more than twenty feet away, hopping toward me, cawing.

I screamed, and fell to the ground.

17

When I woke it was dark. Pitch-black. I felt straw under me, and from the way sound died around me I knew I was inside the haybarn.

“Are you awake?”

It was Jack. He was somewhere away in the darkness. I could smell petrol from the bike, the dryness of the hay and that was about all.

The rest of what happened came back to me. I remembered seeing the raven, and falling to the ground.

I think I was coming in and out of consciousness, sleeping, waking, dreaming, waking again, in such a state of confusion that I had little idea what was real and what was not.

“You’ve been in a bad way,” Jack said. “It was the raven, wasn’t it?”

“I’m just tired,” I said. “And hungry too.”

But he was right, it was the raven. A common-enough bird, but the shock of seeing it had sent me into a hallucination of fear and dread.

I saw things.

I don’t want to think about the things I saw, but when I finally woke up, Jack seemed to know.

“You can feel them, too, can’t you?” he said.

“What?” I said, finding my voice. “Who?”

“The dead,” he said, simply. “They pull at me when I’m asleep sometimes.”

I nodded, but it was dark, and Jack couldn’t see.

“I really am hungry,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I went to try and find a farm while you were asleep, but I didn’t want to leave you for long. . . . Have some water and we’ll find food tomorrow.”

He shuffled toward me in the dark and I heard him lighting a match. In the flickering light, I saw the barn around us, stacked high with hay, and Jack’s face in front of me, grimy, and worn deep with lines. His pale blue eyes seemed lifeless.

“Quick,” he said, holding his water bottle in one hand, the match in the other. “Before it goes out.”

I took the drink gratefully, but the bottle was nearly empty.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“What about it?”

“I must find Thomas.”

The match went out and plunged us back into darkness.

“No,” Jack said. His voice was dry, and quiet. I knew he was holding something back.

I didn’t answer, hoping he would say more, but he didn’t.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Suddenly I felt scared, sitting alone in the middle of the French night with a man I didn’t know. A man whom most people considered mad, at that.

“I said, no.”

“But what else are we doing here? Why did you help me get away if not for that?”

He lit another match, studied my face. I glared back at him, my breath coming heavily.

“I got you out because I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I want you to go home to England. I want you to be safe.”

“But Tom—”

“Is dead already.”

“No!” I cried. “That’s not true.”

“If you’ve seen him killed then he’s as good as dead. There’s nothing we can do to change the future. Don’t you understand that yet?”

“No!” I shouted. “He’s not dead.”

“Not yet!” Jack shouted back.

He cursed as the match went out.

I began to cry in the darkness.

“You don’t understand,” Jack said. “Why don’t you understand? The future’s already done! How else do you and I make sense of what we see? What you have seen will come to be, and there’s nothing you or I can do to change that.”

“I thought you had changed your mind,” I said, through a mouthful of tears. “What I said that night. That we have to play our part anyway. I thought you understood that. I thought you’d come to help me play my part. I can’t simply let him die!”

Jack said nothing, and I listened to myself crying, and hated myself. Edgar was right. I’m just pathetic. Weak.

“Alexandra,” Jack said. “Don’t cry. I’d like to help you. Don’t you understand that? I got you out of Bethune because I want to help you. But there’s nothing we can do. . . .”

“If he was your son, would you let him die?” I sobbed. “I’ve already lost one brother. I can’t watch it happen again. If I hadn’t been given this curse, then I wouldn’t know any different. Maybe that would be easier. But I can’t help it. I have seen Tom and I am going to try to save him. I’d like to say I can do it without you, but I can’t. I know that. I need your help.”

Still Jack was silent.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked. “Why set me free, when you don’t want to help me save Tom?”

“I want to help you. I said that.”

“Because I remind you of someone?” I said, spitefully. “Is that it? Your daughter? Your wife?”

“No,” said Jack. “I’m not married. There’s no one like that.”

“Then why?”

“Because, Alexandra, you’re the one person I’ve met in this war whose life I might be able to change.”

“So you
do
think lives can be changed, then?” I asked.

Jack was silent.

There was silence for a long time, but in the end I convinced him. I don’t really know how. I know Jack is a man who had all belief and hope taken from him long ago. But something I said seemed to make a difference. He lit a third match in the silence, and shuffled over to me. I didn’t like him coming that close, but I couldn’t say so. I thought it wouldn’t be wise to anger him again. He was so near to me that I could smell him, his unwashed skin and clothes. His face was deadly serious.

He looked deep into my eyes, and he was so close I could see the match reflected in his. He put out a shaking hand toward me, and stroked my hair, just once. I closed my eyes and tried not to shudder.

When I opened my eyes again, he was sitting away from me, his eyes closed, his head bowed. He was motionless, as if deep in some dream.

The third match went out.

“I’ll help you,” he said.

16

Jack is sleeping, but I slept enough in fits and starts during the afternoon and am not tired.

I do not want to sleep again, in case I see those things, those dead people again. I cannot prevent one thing from surfacing in my mind, however. Amidst all the terrible things I saw, I had another sight of Tom.

I saw the gun that will kill Tom, and I flew with the bullet, spinning, spinning toward him. I was so close to it all, I could smell it. I could taste the powder from the cartridge.

The bullet struck his chest, and I followed only a moment behind.

15

The last two days have been a lifetime.

I think it can barely be thirty-six hours, in fact, since we left the safety of the haybarn, to where I am now.

Where I am now.

From what I can see in the valley below me, this can be only one place.

The mouth of hell.

14

We left the barn early.

We were both awake to hear a deafening chorus of bird-song in the wood behind the barn, but though the birds were singing, it was a desolate morning, with a lowering bank of cloud above us. A mild drizzle gave way to maybe an hour of insistent rain, but we left anyway, because we were hungry.

“We’ll head for Doullens,” Jack said. “We can find food there.”

I suddenly worried that maybe Jack was going to change his mind about helping me find Tom, but I needn’t have.

“Doullens is quite a big town,” he said. “There’re a couple of railheads there. Supply dumps. And at least two casualty clearing stations, that I know of. There’re lots of people. If your brother’s division came through, we might find someone who’s seen them.”

We rode on the motorcycle across the wet French countryside. It was hard going. The roads we chose were small ones that had been subjected to less traffic, but nevertheless, the thin tires on the bike cut into the mud at times, and we nearly got stuck twice.