The Wraiths of War (11 page)

‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Then all at once his voice became quieter, less confrontational – so much so that I had to lean in to hear him. ‘But when you reach where I am, kid, when you see this from my point of view, believe me, you’ll feel exactly the same way I do.’

Throughout our exchange he’d been holding the torch up, pointing it vaguely at the muddy wall beside us, but now his arm drooped as if the thing had suddenly become too heavy for him, the beam shrinking to a tight, bright circle on the ground between the toes of our boots. I noticed the circle was vibrating, and when I looked at him I was surprised to see not only that his hand was shaking, but that his bottom lip was too.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, suddenly feeling as awkward and embarrassed as if he were a stranger.

He sniffed and nodded, but even in the dim light I could see his eyes were gleaming with wetness.

Oh God, he was crying. Had I made him cry? Had I made
myself
cry?

I hovered, not sure what to say, not sure whether to reach out and give him a hug.

But knowing exactly what I was thinking, he raised a hand, and blurted a choking sob of a laugh.

‘Fuck me, I’m making a right scene, aren’t I? I promised myself, having seen it once, that I wouldn’t do this, that I’d be stronger when it came to my turn. No doubt you’re now thinking the same as I did. Yet when it comes to it, you’ll probably blub like a baby too.’

‘Probably,’ I said, though only to make him feel better. I put the notebook back in my pocket, then placed a filthy hand on his shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ I said hesitantly. ‘For bringing you back, I mean. I never thought how bad it would be for you. The things we do to ourselves, eh?’

He nodded ruefully and wiped his eyes with a wrinkled, trembling hand. Even though I knew it was me I was looking at, it was heart-wrenching to see how badly affected he was by returning here. How vulnerable he suddenly seemed.

‘I can’t stay long,’ he said, and he cleared his throat in an attempt to strengthen his voice, stop it from cracking. ‘It’s not that I’m not allowed to, it’s just… I
can’t
.’

‘I understand.’ I spread my hands, knowing he wouldn’t take offence if I got down to business – knowing, in fact, that he’d welcome it. ‘So what can you give me? Can you take me to the heart?’

He shook his head, though simultaneously grimaced in apology. He knew from first-hand experience how desperate I was, and how disappointed his reply would make me feel.

‘Sorry. I can help you solve your immediate problem, but that’s all.’

‘Because it’s all you remember from when you were me?’

‘That, and the fact that if I stay much longer the strain of it’ll give me a bloody heart attack. And I’m damned if I’m going to die in this shit hole at my age. What an irony that would be, eh?’

‘You won’t have a heart attack,’ I said, and I tapped my own chest. ‘We’ve got nanites, remember. At least, I assume you’ve still got them?’

‘I have. And they’re good, but they’re not miracle workers.’ Then unexpectedly he grinned. ‘Mind you, you don’t know the half of it. From what I remember, when I was you, you think I’m about eighty, don’t you?’

I was about to reply, but before I could, something loomed up behind his right shoulder – a black figure, silhouetted against the dying glow of a Very light, standing on the rim of the pit.

Not sure whether it was an enemy soldier or a zombie, I yelled a warning and reached out to grab him, my instinct being to… I don’t know, drag him to the ground, or at least out of harm’s way.

Before I
could
grab him, though, his arm came up and deflected my hand. I was surprised by the swiftness of his reflexes, but then realised that what was happening now was just an action replay for him, and that he’d known what I was about to do.

In a voice that was still shaky, but strong enough to be heard above the now intermittent gunfire, he said, ‘It’s all right, kid. No need to panic.’

The black figure behind him took a lurching step forward, and then, with a complete lack of coordination, tipped forward into the pit. I winced as it face-planted into the mud at the bottom. My wince became a cry of horror as, with a wet crack that could be heard in a moment of silence between one burst of gunfire and the next, I saw the falling body flip up and over despite the fact that its head remained in the same position, face down in the mud. Only when the figure finally came to rest, the head on its broken neck now stretched so impossibly backwards that it was trapped between the ground and the figure’s shoulder blades, did I see that it was little more than a near-skeletal frame draped in the tattered rags of a mud-caked uniform. The figure’s emaciated limbs were moving slowly and jerkily, like the legs of a beetle on its back. Then, motivated by some primal instinct to regain both mobility and momentum, it began to rock from side to side, presumably with the intention of first flipping over on to its front, then clambering to its feet.

My older self still had his back to the figure. Looking at the blankly determined expression on his face, I saw this was a deliberate choice, that by refusing to obey his natural instinct to turn around he was showing he had no desire to re-live this particular moment, to see for the second time what was admittedly a sickening sight.

‘Time to end this,’ he said, and switching the torch from his right hand to his left, he reached into the pocket of his cagoule and withdrew the heart. He held it up in a way that made me think of a wizard in a fantasy story, striking fear into his enemies by displaying the source of his power. He closed his eyes and his face settled into an expression of grim concentration. And then there was a… I’m not sure what to call it. A pulse? A beat? It felt like a deep, throbbing convulsion in the pit of my belly that seemed to temporarily empty me of all sensation, all thought.

When I blinked what felt like a split second later I was amazed to see that the torch had reappeared in my older self’s right hand, and that the heart was nowhere to be seen.

‘What did I just miss?’ I said, and then I noticed that not only had the skeletal figure that had tumbled into the pit disappeared, but also that the dead German officer I’d been sharing the trench with was now back where he’d been before, and was no longer moving. He had reverted back to his previous and proper state – that of an inert mound of decaying flesh, bone and cloth.

‘Did you do that?’

He shrugged, patted his pocket. ‘Not just me. I had some help.’

‘But you controlled the heart? I mean, you… directed its energy or whatever?’

‘I wouldn’t say control. I’d never say control. But… I guess so, yeah.’

I felt a thrill go through me. ‘So… when did you learn to do that? When will
I
learn to do it? And what else can you make it do? Can you—’ Then, seeing the stubborn look on his face, I raised a hand, forced myself to stop. ‘All right, I know. I’m asking too much. You’re not allowed to say anything in case it fucks up the future. But… what
can
you tell me? What can you give me to make my life a bit easier –
our
life a bit easier?’

He seemed to relent. He smiled, shrugged. But he said, ‘Not much. The thing is, when you get to my age, you only dare do what you know you’ve already done. You
want
to do more, but you can’t risk it. Every time you go back in time you’re scared you’ll fuck up. You’re scared you’ll say too much or do too much, and everything will unravel.’

‘Which must mean things are okay with you,’ I said. ‘If you don’t want to change things, I mean. It must mean things have turned out okay.’

He smiled – a little bitterly? I wasn’t sure.

‘Or maybe it just means I’m scared of things turning out
even worse
than they have.’ Before I could respond he made a zip motion across his mouth with his fingers. ‘My lips are sealed. For both our sakes. There’s a line in the sand, and there’s too much at stake to risk stepping over it.’

I sighed. I was freezing cold, and miserable, and desperate to get the heart back – but he was
here
, in front of me. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get what I could out of him.

‘But what if you
are
stepping over it? I mean, what if you’re stepping over it without knowing, and your memories are constantly changing to accommodate that without you realising it? Have you thought about that possibility?’

‘Of course I have. I’ve thought about everything. At your age, you’re still relatively new to all this, but me – I’m old. It’s become both an obsession and a way of life.’

‘And a trap?’ I said, maybe a little spitefully. ‘One that you can’t escape from?’

He acknowledged this with a shrug. ‘Maybe that too.’

I sighed – and then realised that something else had happened since he had used the heart to kill (or should that be
re
-kill?) the dead: the guns had stopped. Once again there was silence in No Man’s Land – aside, of course, from the constant scuttling of rats.

‘Did you undo what just happened?’ I asked. ‘Did you stop the dead or just take us back to before they came back to life?’

‘Both,’ he said. ‘As far as the Germans are concerned, they’ve just taken a couple of pops at you, but they’re not on full alert. You wouldn’t stand a chance of getting through their lines if they were.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘So is that what I do? Get through their lines?’

His smile was both enigmatic and smug, and I thought to myself:
I’m
never
going to smile like that. It’s so fucking irritating!

‘It is, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘You’ve got the heart, so it must be. So am I untouchable now? I mean, if you’re me, and you’re helping me out, then that must mean I’m going to get through this, right? I’m going to be okay?’

I was testing him, playing Devil’s Advocate. This was old ground, and I pretty much knew what he was going to say before he said it.

‘Don’t try and be smart, kid. You know that
I
know that
you
know it’s never that simple. Even at my age, there are still no hard and fast answers – that much I can tell you. You should never assume, you should never be blasé. In fact, yes, you
should
assume. You should assume that time is constantly in flux, which means that it can change in an instant. Yes, I got to where I am now, but I didn’t do it by being reckless. And I didn’t do it just by listening to me when I was you – don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s that simple. I did it by being careful, and by being lucky, but who’s to say that you’ll be as lucky as I was? Maybe you’ll fuck up and we’ll both blink out of existence. Maybe you’ll make decisions that change what I’ve got, where I am – or maybe you already have. How would I know? I mean, it’s not as if you
feel
your memories changing, is it?’ He reached out a hand and grabbed my arm. He looked fierce now, even angry. ‘There were times, kid, when I needed help and for whatever reason it didn’t come. Times when I got hurt, badly hurt – when I could have died, in fact. But you’ve had a few of those already, haven’t you, so you know all about that? What I’m saying is, just because I’m here now isn’t any kind of insurance that you will be. So be careful. Be
fucking
careful. And be lucky.’

And with that, he was gone.

So what now?
I thought.

I was cold, wet, exhausted, and the way I saw it I had two choices: either I could go on or go back. But in truth, those two choices were only one choice. If I went back, I might lose the heart forever, because who knew when I’d get chance to look for it again, and where it might end up in the meantime?

Added to which, although the older me hadn’t actually
led
me to the heart, he’d not only removed a couple of obstacles in my path to it, but had given me more than a hint that continuing with my self-imposed mission was the right course of action. What was it he’d said? He’d rolled back time so the Germans wouldn’t be on full alert, which would make it easier for me to get through their lines – something like that.

A one-man mission to penetrate the enemy’s defences and retrieve a valuable artefact. It sounded like the plot of a
Boy’s Own
adventure story. But it was what I was going to have to do if I wanted the heart back. And I was going to have to do it on the double, while it was still dark. Leave it any longer and I’d be out in No Man’s Land when dawn broke, and hiding would be impossible.

Shivering with cold, I looked over at the dead German soldier, who was once again lying in the position he’d been in before he’d started to stir. Did that mean the bullets I’d shot into him were now back in my gun? I checked and saw that they were. I puzzled briefly over how I could have a memory of an event that effectively had not now taken place – and then I put the thought from my head. I’d need my full wits and strength to concentrate on the here and now, on what was directly ahead of me. There was no point pondering on imponderables.

Remembering what I’d been about to do when the dead German had first stirred to life, I moved forward and, bracing myself against the stench, began once again to peel his coat from his decomposing body. This time I managed it without incident, and a couple of minutes later was standing with the stained and stinking coat in my hand, shaking and concentrating as hard as I could on not throwing up. I had nothing left inside me except bile, and I knew that if I succumbed to the urge to puke it would do nothing but twist my guts into knots and drain me of more energy than I could afford to expend. I moved as far from the German as I could, though some of the stink of him, contained within the coat, came with me. Grimacing, I held the coat in both hands and shook it out as if it was a bed sheet I was trying to flap free of creases. It helped – but only a little.

Although every instinct urged me to fling the coat as far away as possible, then wash my hands in one of the muddy pools dotted around the base of the shell hole, I gritted my teeth and shrugged it on. Not only would the coat keep me warm, but it would also effectively hide my British uniform if and when I managed to cross the German lines. If I was lucky, it might even wrong-foot any German soldiers I might come across long enough for me to take advantage of the situation.