Padme's Library: 11/11/22

Friday, November 11, 2022

Veteran's Day 2022

#NeverForget

Inheritance of Shadows by AL Lester

Summary:

Border Magic Universe

It’s 1919. Rob and Matty both return to Webber’s Farm from the trenches only to find Matty’s brother dying of an unknown illness. And Matty’s looking sicker and sicker. The answer seems to be in the esoteric books Arthur left strewn around the house.

It’s taken a decade and a war to admit they have feelings for each other. They are determined that nothing will part them. What is Rob prepared to sacrifice to save Matty’s life?

A stand-alone 35k word novella set in the Border Magic Universe (previously the Lost in Time universe). Gay, paranormal, historical, romantic suspense. Set in rural England in 1919.

Blogger Note:

As much as I've wanted to read this time just hasn't been on my side, however I had read The Gate in January 2018 which is the beginning of Inheritance of Shadows so I'm including my original review for The Gate. I look forward to reading Matty and Rob's full journey when time works my way.

The Gate #.5

Original Review January 2018:

As much as I enjoyed Lost in Time, I think I found this short story that introduces the reader to the world that brings Lew back to 1919 in Lost to be even better. I didn't like it better because it is shorter or because it has different characters, no I found it appealed to my historical side a bit more. As a 24/7 caregiver for my mother, I was also drawn to Matty's care of his brother upon returning from the war. Perhaps it is these elements that I found myself giving this short story a slightly higher rating than Lost. The Gate is a lovely look at post-war readjustment and the love Matty has for his brother as well as his attraction to Rob but its also a well written and clever introduction to the time-travel and magical elements that are further explored in Lost in Time.

RATING:

The Larks Still Bravely Singing by Aster Glenn Gray

Summary:

The Great War cost Robert his left leg and his first love.

A shattering breakup leaves Robert convinced that he is a destructive force in romantic relationships. When he finds himself falling in love with David, an old friend from boarding school, he's sure that he shouldn’t confess his feelings. But as their meandering conversations drift from books and poetry to more intimate topics, Robert’s love deepens - and so do his fears of hurting David.

Since he was wounded, David has been batted from hospital to hospital like a shuttlecock, leaving him adrift and anxious. His renewed friendship with Robert gives him a much-needed sense of peace and stability. Slowly, David opens up to Robert about the nervous fears that plague him, and when Robert responds with sympathy and support, David finds himself feeling much more than friendship. But he’s afraid that he’s already a burden on Robert, and that asking for more will only strain their developing bond.

Can these two wounded soldiers heal each other?

Content warning: period-typical homophobia and ableism (probably less than is strictly period typical, but this is a romance novel, not a historical essay), implied/referenced suicide.

The Last Kiss by Sally Malcolm

Summary:

A tender and triumphant story of forbidden love in the aftermath of war

When Captain Ashleigh Arthur Dalton went to war in 1914, he never expected to fall in love. Yet over three long years at the front, his dashing batman, Private West, became his reason for fighting—and his reason for living.

But Ash’s war ends in catastrophe. Gravely wounded, he’s evacuated home to his family’s country house in Highcliffe. Bereft of West, angry and alone, Ash struggles to re-join the genteel world he no longer understands.

For Harry West, an ostler from London’s East End, it was love at first sight when he met kind and complex Captain Dalton. Harry doubts their friendship can survive in the class-bound world back home, but he knows he’ll never forget his captain.

When the guns finally fall silent, Harry finds himself adrift in London. Unemployed and desperate, he swallows his pride and travels to Highcliffe in search of work and the man he loves. Under the nose of Ash’s overbearing father, the men’s intense wartime friendship deepens into a passionate, forbidden love affair.

But breaching the barriers of class and sexuality is dangerous and enemies lurk in Highcliffe’s rose-scented shadows.

After giving their all for their country, Harry and Ash face a terrible choice—defy family, society and the law to love as their hearts demand, or say goodbye forever...

This is going to be a review snippet as I just finished The Last Kiss, I imagine I'll have a few things to add to my review in the days ahead, but it's important for me to get this posted today on Veteran's Day.

The Last Kiss is heartbreaking but also heartwarming, from brothers-in-arms to friendship to lovers, Harry and Ash's journey will play havoc with your heart by twisting your emotions every which way. You definitely can't walk away without truly learning a much needed appreciation for what our past endured.

Now having said that, don't think The Last Kiss is the author's attempt at a history lesson, it is still an exceptional cast of characters(some you'll love, some you'll hate, some you'll want to completely enshrine in bubble wrap to protect them) in a well crafted, brilliantly detailed setting that lets the reader live the time and still enjoy the fiction.

Even if you are not much on historicals, I highly recommend Sally Malcolm's The Last Kiss. Not only will you have a glimpse into the past, enjoy an incredible tale of friendship and love, but also you just might learn something about yourself and what is truly important in life. Definitely not one to be missed.

Edited Comments:

It's been a whole day since I finished The Last Kiss and truth is, my original yesterday touched my thoughts pretty accurately. I guess the only thing I didn't take a minute to mention was how much I loved Olive Allen. A character ahead of her time and yet equally representative of more women than one thinks about in post-WW1 era. She wants more than her sex and social status deems acceptable. For different reasons but the same restraints plagued her as the era placed on men like Ash and Harry. Side characters such as Olive don't always come across as genuine but Sally Malcolm has brought to the story another layer of what the era held for so many beyond the main pairing. What I wouldn't give to see where these people were in a post-WW2 era, to see how they were able to move forward and carve out a life for themselves when society was in line to fight them all the way.

Again, I highly recommend The Last Kiss for anyone who loves a well written tale of drama, romance, friendship, and heart.

RATING:

Legacy by Alex Jane

Summary:

Homestead Legacy #2

1919. Nebraska.

After returning from the frontline in Europe, all Emmanuel Jackson wants is to find a little peace. Unable to cope with life in New York, he escapes to the homestead his grandfathers left to him in Nebraska. Except, after four years, the sleepy town of Lastford isn’t exactly how he’d left it.

With many of his neighbors forced out by financial hardship, and a ruthless businessman taking full advantage of the fact, Emmanuel finds himself being drawn into matters he’d rather avoid. One of them being Asher Franklin, his childhood tormentor and unfairly handsome officer of the law.

Having to fight his attraction to the man he once hated, as well as defend the community he wants to make his own, is far from the quiet life Emmanuel had envisioned for himself.

But some things are worth fighting for.

And when there’s no fight left in you, love might be the thing that brings you home.

All Lessons Learned by Charlie Cochrane
Summary:
Cambridge Fellows Mysteries #8

The Great War is over. Freed from a prisoner of war camp and back at St. Bride’s College, Orlando Coppersmith is discovering what those years have cost....

All he holds dear—including his beloved Jonty Stewart, lost in combat.

Then a commission to investigate a young officer’s disappearance temporarily gives Orlando new direction... The deceptively simple case becomes a maze of conflicting stories—is Daniel McNeil a deserter, or a hero?—taking Orlando into the world of the shell-shocked and broken. And his sense of Jonty’s absence becomes painfully acute. Especially when a brief spark of attraction for a Cambridge historian, instead of offering comfort, triggers overwhelming guilt.

As he hovers on the brink of despair, a chance encounter on the French seafront at Cabourg brings new hope and unexpected joy. But the crushing after-effects of war could destroy his second chance, leaving him more lost and alone than ever…

Original Review August 2014:

This was definitely the most emotional entry in the series so far. Recovering from the war, dealing with loss, trying to return to "normal" life, and a mystery that seems to embody all those elements as well. Definitely a multi-hankie read. Not much I can say about this one other than it plays havoc on your heart, even pretty much knowing what the outcome will be from the very beginning. A true example of how the greatness of a story isn't always in where it ends but the getting there. I'm eager to read number 9 & 10 but as I didn't look into it ahead of time, I have to wait for the paperbacks to arrive as they aren't yet available in ebook form, at least that I've discovered. Once they arrive I will be digging in immediately.

RATING:

Inheritance of Shadows by AL Lester

June 1919

The tap at the kitchen door took him unaware and he carried the bottle of brandy out with him to answer it. It was Rob. Matty stepped back in silent invitation and let him in. "All right?" Rob asked, quietly.

"Not really. Do you want a drink?" Matty gestured to the bottle he'd set on the table.

Rob looked at him with narrowed eyes and nodded. "I'll join you." He'd been promoted up to sergeant in the Signal Corp, Matty remembered, in a disconnected sort of way.

"Come on through. I was in his study."

Rob hesitated. The farm men never came any farther into the house than the kitchen. But it was an unusual day. In front of the sideboard, Matty slopped some more out of the bottle into another dusty glass and proffered it. Rob took it and sat where Matty gestured, on the worn leather settee. Neither spoke. It was a comfortable kind of silence.

He and Rob had always got on, in the way of single men. They'd gone to the pub together sometimes and taken a couple of local sisters on Courting Walks through the bluebell woods as a pair, a long time ago. Matty hadn't been particularly interested in Marie Booth and he didn't think Rob had been much interested in her sister Clemmie, either, probably for the same reason. Matty had made sure never to look at him like that, though. He didn't need that sort of trouble on his doorstep.

But now he really looked at the other man, comfortably sprawled opposite him. Looking back, they'd been inseparable. Four years of muddling through in the trenches and taking soldier's comfort in a few minutes here and there, furtive and messy behind the lines, had snapped something in him. He didn't really care overmuch what people thought of him, not anymore. And he suspected a lot of other people were the same. When you'd had boys too young to be away from their mothers die in your arms, you learned to grasp for any comfort or happiness when it appeared and damn the consequences.

"I was just checking on you." Rob said quietly. "I can go if you like."

"No, don't go. I appreciate the company. I just haven't got much talk left in me."

"No need to talk with me, Matty, you know that." Rob's smile was slight but genuine. He turned to small talk. "Cows are milked. I left the churns in the dairy, though. It's too warm to put them out tonight. We'll need to do something about the back of the barn before the winter. There's gaps of light coming in through that red stone wall. The brick's crumbling away."

They made desultory conversation for a half hour and Matty's eyes started to droop. "You need to sleep, lad." He could hear a small, genuine smile in Rob's voice.

"I do." He stood and put his glass on the sideboard. "Thank you."

"Any time. Just ask. Whatever you need." Rob stood quietly beside him, stalwart and solid and so very comforting. They faced each other. Rob raised his hand to the back of Matty's neck and Matty stepped forward into the embrace. Rob's other arm came around him and settled him, forehead against that broad shoulder, smelling of hay and good sweat. It was such a relief to have someone else take his weight for a little while. Neither moved. After a little while, Matty felt Rob press a soft kiss against the top of his head. He was hard in his corduroys, against Matty's hip, and Matty felt himself stirring in response. "Get some sleep. It'll all look different in the morning." The arms fell away with a passing caress to his nape and they stepped apart.

The Larks Still Bravely Singing by Aster Glenn Gray

Chapter 1

Robert Montagu had not been in bed with pneumonia for so very long. He had fallen ill in February, and it was only April when his sister Enid wheeled him onto the terrace of Montagu House. But the contrast between the raw winter weather when he took ill and the fresh bright sunshine of this gentle spring day made it seem like an eon.

“I feel like one of those chaps climbing out of Plato’s cave,” Robert commented to Enid. “Blinking at the bright light of reality after looking at shadows my whole life. I don’t seem to recognize any of these fellows.”

Secretly he thanked God for it. Perhaps all the chaps he’d slept with had moved along while he was ill.

“We got in a whole new crop of convalescents,” said Enid. For the duration of the war, Montagu House had become a convalescent home, specializing in amputees. After all, they had already installed a lift for Robert in 1915, after he lost his left leg above the knee at the Battle of Loos. It had been a difficult wound, and although Dr. Hartshorn remained optimistic that more surgeries would put it right, so far the stump was no good for a prosthetic.

“Don’t suppose you’d tell me who’s who?” Robert asked. Enid would know all the men’s names. Both Robert and Enid helped out in the wards, but Enid in particular was tireless, uncomplaining, at least on her own behalf; prepared to complain to the death if it might benefit one of the men. Once she and Dr. Hartshorn, the lead physician, had shouted at each other so loudly that it had been audible at a dinner party.

“That fellow walking around the fountain,” she said, with a tip of her head, “that’s Arthur Paige. He’s just got his artificial leg and he’s breaking it in, that’s why he’s walking like that, poor duck. And you see the two men playing catch?”

“They’ve got two arms between them?”

“Otis Sackville and Anthony Tarkington. They’ve both got their right arms, which would be lucky, only Tarkington was left-handed before, unfortunately.” Tarkington was rather good-looking, but in the tall weedy way that had never particularly appealed to Robert, so soon his gaze drifted on.

It caught on the oak tree halfway across the lawn—or rather, on the chap who was walking along one of the oak tree’s low-hanging limbs, arms outstretched as if he were balancing atop a fence, so that Robert could see that he had no left hand. Robert could not see his face, yet he felt a shock of recognition as he looked at the sunlight picking out glints of gold in his light brown hair.

“Are you cold, dear?” Enid asked.

Robert realized he had shivered. “No; no,” he said, but accepted the blanket that she draped around his shoulders anyway. He lifted his chin to gesture at the oak. “Who is that fellow?”

“That’s David Callahan,” Enid said, and Robert felt another chill. “Do you know him?” Enid asked.

“We went to school together.”

“Do you want me to call him over?”

“No,” said Robert, a little more forcefully than he intended. “Not just yet.”

***

David Callahan had not really cared about cricket.

That was, perhaps, an odd reason for Robert to take an interest in him, because Robert had been so mad about cricket that he cried (in absolute secrecy, of course) when he wasn’t made the captain of the eleven. And certainly David wasn’t the only boy who didn’t care about cricket, but most of the others were awful at it, and Robert had always taken their disdain as sour grapes.

David Callahan, on the other hand, showed the makings of a fine cricketer almost as soon as he’d learned the rules. But he never much seemed to care, either about cricket or about the social jockeying that was so much a part of a boy’s life at a boarding school like the Abbey. It had annoyed the other boys, who called it cheek and unforgivable side, although they soon took care not to say as much in front of David, because he had a right hook like a boxer’s.

Not that he cared about that, either. He fought willingly enough when someone else pushed him to it, but he never picked a fight himself.

Robert was in his final year at the Abbey and beginning to get bored of the school himself, and it seemed to him that David was bored of it too, because unlike the rest of them (still mired in kiddish games) he had faced real danger in his life, and true tragedy. He had grown up in South Dakota, land of blizzards, coyotes, tornados; and he had been orphaned when both his parents died in a train derailment.

And of course David was so good-looking, at least in Robert’s opinion. When David arrived, the prairie sun had tanned his face and bleached his hair, so that it gleamed like wheat. During the short days of the English winter his tan faded and his hair darkened to the color of toffee, but his dark wide set eyes retained their bright distant look, as if he were gazing at some far-off horizon that only he could see.

David was sixteen when he arrived at the Abbey, but a childhood diet of American eggs and bacon made him a head taller than the other boys his age, who had been raised on scant boarding school porridge. Sometimes he was clumsy, as if he were not yet accustomed to his size; and some of the boys took this to mean he was slow as a scholar, too, and certainly he didn’t have much background in Greek. “No call for it in the colonies?” asked Babcock, who died in the war three years later, so it wouldn’t do to call him a bully.

“No. We had better things to do,” said David, so indifferently that it took a few moments for Babcock to realize it was an insult. Then he pounced, and that was how the boys found out about David’s right hook.

In the common room, David never flinched and never backed down. But one day not long before the Christmas hols, Robert came upon him curled up in the back corner of the library in the little-used natural history section.

Robert had not expected to find anyone there. In fact, he had come to that corner of the stacks looking for a hiding place to cry over a letter Cyril Sibley had sent from Oxford. Cyril had always been liable to fits of piety, and now—he phrased this very delicately; nothing that could get either of them in trouble—he had decided that their love affair was wicked, and must be broken definitively off.

But David already occupied that corner, sitting with his legs drawn up to his chest, not crying, but flushed and pink about the eyes as if he had been earlier. He lifted a defiant face to Robert, daring him to make something of it.

They sized each other up. “I’m looking for a book about butterflies,” Robert said finally.

David regarded him. He had a sullen, aggressive look, and Robert wondered with wary excitement whether David might hit him. That would distract Robert from Cyril anyway.

But then David’s face relaxed. “You’re interested in natural history?”

Robert nodded. And then: “Are you interested in that sort of thing? Malmsey’s got a natural history club. We trot around the countryside looking for wildflowers and rock formations and so on, and then stop to eat lunch in a pub.”

Lunch in a pub was, secretly, Robert’s favorite part of these expeditions. He had only joined because Cyril was so barmy for natural history. But now he was glad he’d spent all those muddy half-holidays clumping around in the fields, because David’s face split in a big American grin. He lifted the book he was reading, so Robert could see the title: Fossils in Cornwall and Devon. “I’ll be spending Christmas with my aunts,” he said. “They’ve got a cottage in Hawley on the coast of Cornwall.”

“You’ve got aunts?” The rumor in the school was that David was an orphan with no relations but an uncle, who had dumped him here and forgotten him. Certainly no one sent him parcels, a grim fate in a school that expected its students to depend on packages from home to supplement the meager rations.

“Great-aunts. Spinster sisters.”

“Rough luck.”

“No,” said David, a note of surprise in his voice, and Robert realized (and felt a fool for not realizing before; but he had been thinking of his own crabby spinster great-aunt, who sometimes whacked Robert’s shins with her cane) that of course to David any relation who took an interest in him was good luck. “They want me to come. They sent a ticket for the train and everything. I haven’t met them before, but it has to be better than my uncle’s house. He’s still mad at my mother for marrying an Irishman.”

Robert restrained himself, with great difficulty, from asking how that had come to pass. Later perhaps, when they knew each other better. “There are supposed to be wonderful fossils down in Cornwall.”

“Oh yes,” David agreed. “That’s where they found so many of the earliest dinosaur fossils… well, not exactly where I’ll be, but the same general area.” He looked up at Robert, a bright appealing look that made Robert’s breath catch in his throat. “Do you think he’d let me join the expeditions? Malmsey?”

“I can’t see why not.”

“He knows loads about natural history,” David mused. Malmsey taught Latin, for which he did not noticeably care, and the boys often distracted him into talking about mollusks or birds’ eggs. “Why do you call him Malmsey?”

“Well, his surname is Clarence… like the Duke of Clarence, you know, who was drowned in a butt of malmsey… it’s affectionate,” said Robert, because it occurred to him that the murder connection might make it sound rather hostile to an outsider.

Then David laughed. Robert had never heard him laugh before, and the sound appealed to him even more than David’s bright upraised eyes. “What is it with English schoolboys and ridiculous nicknames? Are you afraid someone will hex you if they say your real name?” But David was grinning as he said it, and so Robert was not offended; felt, indeed, that he had made a friend.

The set up of the school did not usually encourage much mingling between boys in different forms, but Malmsey’s natural history excursions threw David and Robert together. They walked as a pair, David clambering up trees and sloshing down into streams and marshlands as Robert trailed after, watching David’s thighs as he slung a leg over a difficult branch, and the way his abdominal muscles flexed when he pulled himself up.

That was pleasurable enough in its way. But Robert liked even better when they stopped for tea at a pub or a farmhouse. At school David was generally reserved; the boys had to badger him to hear anything about his old life. (Robert thought this was a clever piece of work on David’s part: the boys wouldn’t have rated his stories of snakes and tornados half so highly if David told them willingly.) But after a long day tramping the countryside, mud-spattered and red nosed with cold, as they sat drinking tea from tin cups in a farmyard David would talk.

“We used to have a brown Jersey just like that,” he might reminisce, nodding to the cow chewing its cud placidly in the field, and then he would be off. “The homestead never paid, though. Dad had to get a job at Mr. Mahoney’s dairy, maintaining the machinery.” He said this quite as naturally as if it were a normal thing to have one’s father go to work in a dairy. One of the farm dogs came over to sniff at their feet. It pressed its nose into David’s cupped hand, licking for crumbs, and David fondled its ears. “After my parents died, Mr. Mahoney offered me a job. I could have worked my way through high school, but then Uncle Bernard,” (he pronounced it that American way: Bernard, the accent on the second syllable) “sent a telegraph, and everyone was so impressed by the idea of an English boarding school…”

David’s hand had stilled on the dog’s ears, and the dog gazed mournfully up at him. Robert swung his foot sideways to kick David’s. “Well,” Robert said. “I’m glad you’re here.” David smiled over at him, a quick smile that went to Robert’s heart, and Robert added, “My grandfather—my mother’s father, I mean—started out as a farmer in Pennsylvania. My mother always says they were poor as church mice till Grandpa found mineral deposits on the land and started a paint factory.”

“Why did she ever come to England?”

It was a cheeky question, especially spoken in that tone. But David rarely seemed to realize he was being cheeky (off school grounds he even called Robert by his Christian name, although at least he had the sense not to try that in the Abbey), and, off school grounds, Robert often let him get away with it. “I suppose she had some idea of marrying into the English aristocracy,” Robert said, “although she didn’t quite make it.”

In summer term Robert offered to help David with his Greek. (He had some idea of reading the Phaedrus with him, but David’s Greek proved so abysmal as to make this impossible.) All the seniors got their own studies at the Abbey, tiny rooms that had one been monk’s cells, and so David began to come often to Robert’s study.

Robert could not say exactly when David had begun to return his interest. Certainly he’d seemed frightfully pi at first, worse than pi in fact, absolutely oblivious to everything of that sort.

But he was not oblivious any longer by summer term. Robert remembered a particular day, a warm golden day in June, David sitting on the hassock at Robert’s feet. Late afternoon, motes of dust floating in the sunlight that poured through the windows. Halcyon days.

David had lifted his face toward Robert, and Robert knew in that moment that he could take David’s face in both hands and kiss him and David would let him, would love it, would be his.

And he had not because—well, it seemed unfair, in a way. There was an expected order of things, quite different from the sermons in church but even more ironclad in its own way. The new boys were supposed to hero-worship the seniors in their nearly grown-up majesty. Then, as they grew into seniors themselves, their affections were meant to turn back toward the new boys, as the closest thing available to girls; and once they’d left school, after Oxford or Cambridge or Sandhurst, they were supposed to fall in love with women.

Robert had succeeded splendidly in the first phase of this plan, and then never got past it; when he should have been charmed by the girlish beauty of the new boys, he kept falling in love with his fellow seniors. Of course, David was younger than Robert, but he was almost as tall, and although Robert loved the way he looked, he was not the kind of good-looking that could be described as pretty.

Robert did not quite know, then; he was still young enough to push inconvenient knowledge away from him. But he already suspected that he did not have it in him to fall in love with a girl.

David, though. He told stories about his American high school, about the classes with boys and girls sitting side by side, dances in the gymnasium… “Did you dance with a girl, Yankee?” Thatcher had cried, his face avid; and although most of the boys would have scorned to be so obvious, affected in fact a haughty dislike of girls, they crowded round to hear as David said yes, he had, lots of girls, and it was splendid, his face growing ever so slightly pink with the memory.

David had not deigned to share her name with the crowd, but on one of their tramps through the countryside, he had mentioned to Robert the girl he had liked best, Caro. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he reminisced, “We used to tease her because she curled her hair.”

“She sounds vain,” Robert pronounced, goaded by a stab of jealousy that he did not recognize as such until long after. David had frowned and told him nothing else—in fact, stopped talking to him entirely for the next hour. Robert had told himself he was glad, and didn’t care, and really had been sorry.

David liked girls. It would just complicate things for him if Robert corrupted him. And so Robert, aglow with the flame of conscious chivalry, had risen from his chair to lean out the window, and point into the empty sky, and say, “I say, old chap, is that a curlew?”

It seemed an awful lot of rot now, looking back. They should have seized the day. But who knew then that time was so short? It was June of 1914. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not yet been assassinated, and they had no reason to believe that the high Edwardian summer would not continue forever.

The Last Kiss by Sally Malcolm

CHAPTER ONE

12th October 1917, Flanders, Belgium

Ash’s fingers had grown stiff and cold around the pen. He’d lost track of how long he’d been sitting there, staring at the blank sheet of paper before him, watching it waver in the flinching candlelight. Above him, the guns thundered on, spitting their full-throated hatred at the enemy.

There were, perhaps, two hours until dawn.

Dislodged by the bombardment, dirt sifted down onto his makeshift desk — something West had cobbled together to allow him to take a stab at writing the letter before the next push. If only the words would come.

The gas curtain across the doorway stirred and Ash looked up as footsteps clumped down the wooden stairs. They weren’t very deep here; firing line dugouts never were. He was lucky to have this modicum of privacy and didn’t object to the intrusion. Welcomed it, in fact, because he recognised that steady tread and the broad figure that accompanied it: Private West, his batman. And friend, though propriety kept them from admitting as much.

“Thought you’d be sleeping, Captain.”

Ash smiled. “You thought no such thing.”

“Hoped then.” West had to stoop beneath the corrugated iron ceiling; he was a fine figure of a man, taller and broader than Ash. He set a mug of tea on the desk. “Made you a cuppa, sir.”

“I won’t ask by what miracle you managed that.” Laying down his pen, Ash wrapped his cold fingers around the enamel mug and inhaled the steam. Not much like the tea his mother would serve at Highcliffe House, but a bloody luxury in the firing line. He lifted it to his lips and took a sip. “I hope you made one for yourself, West.”

An equivocal wave of one hand — no, then. “Did you get any sleep, sir?”

“With this racket going on?”

“You need your rest. Busy morning ahead.”

Yes, busy was one word for it. Ash’s guts went watery in anticipation of what was to come. “I have to write this blasted letter to Tilney’s mother first. She deserves — ” He put down his mug with a thump, sloshing the tea, embarrassed that his hand had started shaking. Again.

Thing was, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jimmy Tilney.

The lad had bought it a week ago, during a night time reconnaissance patrol. Under fire, Tilney had fallen into a flooded shell hole and, despite their frantic efforts to reach him, he’d drowned in the mud. Over the years, Ash had grown numb to death, but that desperate drowning haunted him day and night. Tilney had been barely more than a boy and one of Ash’s men. He should have been able to save him.

West squeezed his shoulder, making Ash jump. He hadn’t noticed West move around behind the desk, and that wasn’t the first time he’d lost track of things in the last few days. Thoughts of Tilney kept intruding and distracting him. “We did what we could for him, sir,” West said. “Nothing more we could have done. Not with those sodding machine guns at work.”

The weight of his hand was a warm comfort and Ash leaned into his touch. He needed to write this bloody letter and put an end to the matter. “I don’t know where to start, is the thing. I’ve got no comfort to offer his poor mother.”

“Then tell her the truth.”

“The truth?” Startled, he looked up into West’s grim face. His eyes, a warm hazel in daylight, gleamed darkly in the guttering candlelight and his sunny blond curls were dulled to tarnished gold. But for all that, he was a beautiful man. Beautiful to Ash, at any rate.

“Tell her Jimmy was a fine lad. Tell her he made his friends laugh and the local girls swoon, and that we enjoyed listening to him playing that sodding penny whistle. Tell her he served his king and country with honour and that he died bravely.”

“He died crying for his mother.”

West squeezed his shoulder again. “Spare her that, sir. But the rest is true — or, true enough.”

“True enough. Perhaps, if the people at home knew the real truth, they’d find a way to end this...this bloody farrago of a war.”

“She’s his mother, sir.”

“I know. But it feels like lying. I don’t want to lie anymore, West. Bad enough that I’m the one who...who...” Suddenly, he could taste the metallic tang of the whistle in his mouth. Hear its sharp screech in his ears.

Over we go boys. Good luck!

“Drink your tea, sir. And write your letter — you won’t rest till it’s done. Then maybe we could read for a spell, until... Until it’s time. We left Watson at a dramatic moment yesterday.”

Despite everything, Ash found a smile. West had the astonishing ability to cheer him even in the bleakest of circumstances. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

He picked up his pen and began to write, plucking out as much truth as he could find and offering what small comfort was possible. God knew it wasn’t much. After all this time, it should have become easier and yet each letter was harder than the last. They all felt like lies.

When the job was done, he took his tea over to the narrow pallet on which he’d failed to find any rest. West joined him there and they sat shoulder-to-shoulder, backs against the sandbags, with the candle set on an overturned crate at West’s side. From his breast pocket, West pulled out Ash’s copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles and opened it to the right page. Ash sipped his tea and then offered the mug to West. “Go on,” he said when West declined, “I know you’ve had none yourself. We’ll share it. I’ll read first, then we’ll swap.”

And so he began. “Chapter Twelve: Death on the Moor. ‘For a moment or two I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears. Then my senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight of responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul. That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man in all the world... ‘Holmes!’ I cried — ‘Holmes!’”

He read on until West nudged the mug against his hand and they swapped again, Harry reading while Ash finished the tea. Overhead the guns continued to smash the German lines — such was the plan, at least — and despite the noise, with West’s warm body next to him, Ash’s exhaustion finally began to overwhelm him. Setting the empty mug aside, he let his head sink onto West’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He didn’t move when he felt West’s cheek come to rest against the top of his head, but smiled as he listened to him read until the words blurred and slurred...

“Captain Dalton.” He was woken by West’s hand on his arm, a gentle shake. “Sorry, sir, but it’s time.”

West sat next to him still, but the book was put away and Ash could see first light creeping around the edges of the gas curtain. His stomach clenched, his heart racing sharply. Morning had arrived, cold and cruel.

West’s hand tightened on his arm. “We’ll have to finish that chapter later, sir.”

Later. It felt as longed for and unreachable as home.

“I’m afraid I dropped off. We might have to repeat some of it.” Their gazes tangled and locked, too raw for bravado now. Ash’s faux bonhomie fell away. “Good luck today, West.”

West’s throat moved as he swallowed. “You too, Captain.”

Above them, the barrage continued unrelenting, their guns firing five miles west, towards the village they were attempting to take. Had been attempting to take since July. What the hell could be left of it now?

“It’s six-thirty, sir.”

Less than an hour to go. It was past time he was outside with the men. Ash rose and West helped him on with his trench coat, buttoning it like a London valet before handing him his tin hat. Another pause followed. Then Ash said, “I don’t want to…to let the men down today.”

“You, Captain? Not a chance.” West squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll get through it, don’t you worry. We’ll get through it together.”

How to explain that it wasn’t for himself that he worried, that there was something he feared more than his own death? Impossible, of course. The best he could do was grip West’s forearm. “Together.”

There was no more to be said. Ash led the way out into the miserable morning where his men watched him from drawn, frightened faces. None of them had slept, counting down the hours until the attack, and he felt guiltily grateful for his short reprieve with West.

“Taff,” he greeted the dark-eyed Welshman sitting smoking on the fire step.

Taff’s fingers shook as he lifted the gasper to his lips. “Captain Dalton.” His guarded gaze moved to the dugout and back, aware as all the men were — as Ash was — of the unearned privileges his rank enjoyed. “Get some kip?”

“Captain Dalton.” He was woken by West’s hand on his arm, a gentle shake. “Sorry, sir, but it’s time.”

West’s hand tightened on his arm. “We’ll have to finish that chapter later, sir.”

Later. It felt as longed for and unreachable as home.

“I’m afraid I dropped off. We might have to repeat some of it.” Their gazes tangled and locked, too raw for bravado now. Ash’s faux bonhomie fell away. “Good luck today, West.”

West’s throat moved as he swallowed. “You too, Captain.”

“It’s six-thirty, sir.”

“You, Captain? Not a chance.” West squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll get through it, don’t you worry. We’ll get through it together.”

“Taff,” he greeted the dark-eyed Welshman sitting smoking on the fire step.

“Hardly, with this racket.” Ash forced levity into his voice. “I dare say there’ll be post waiting when we get back to the relief trench. It feels like an age since you’ve had a letter. All of two days, I should think.”

Taff gave a reluctant smile. “My missus does like to write, sir.”

“And we all want to know what happened about…what was his name? Your neighbour’s story about the vicar and the missing pig.”

A flash of teeth. “Mrs. Evans. Terrible gossip, she is, sir. I don’t believe half of what she says.”

And so it went on, the excruciating duty of finding a word here and there for each of the men while they endured these last dreadful minutes of waiting, a grotesque noblesse oblige that Ash probably resented as much as his sullen, frightened men. His rank gave him no special insight when staring death in the eye and nobody knew that better than himself. But Little Bill looked rough, scared almost out of his wits, and Ash spared him a firm hand on the shoulder as he passed. “You’ll have a story to tell your sweetheart when you’re home, eh?” The boy nodded, eyes wide and glassy. Ash resisted the urge to hug him. Instead he had the rum passed around and let Little Bill drink liberally.

He checked his watch. Six forty-five. Half an hour to go.

His head felt woolly, blood pounding in his ears. Fear did that, he’d learned. Scattered your wits, broke your nerve. He looked up into the sky, fading remorselessly to grey, and made out the tangle of wire above them. A scrap of uniform fluttered there, dank in the dank morning. Some poor sod, dead. Him, maybe, in a matter of minutes.

Terror closed his throat, accelerated his racing heartbeat. He felt clammy and sick. God, he hoped he didn’t lose his nerve, not in front of the men. Men? Boys, some of them. Beautiful and full of life when they were laughing together behind the lines, kicking about a football or telling off-colour jokes. Grey-faced now, they looked even younger than their too-few years.

An odd thought struck him: at least Tilney had been spared this dreadful bloody wait. His drowning had been sudden, unanticipated. The thought almost made him laugh, but he swallowed the terrifying bubble of hysteria. Dangerous, that. Rum lingered in the back of his throat and his watery guts squirmed. If he survived this damned war, he’d never touch the stuff again.

Carefully, he set one foot on the ladder that would take him over. How far would he make it before he was cut down? Ten yards, a hundred? Would it be a shell or machine gun fire that did for him? If he made it to the German lines, maybe a bayonet to the belly. Or would he get stuck on the wire? His fingers, of their own accord, drummed out a tune on the ladder as if playing a mute piano.

If you want to find the private, I know where he is,

I know where he is, I know where he is.

If you want to find the private, I know where he is,

He’s hanging on the old barbed wire…

He felt for his whistle, secure on its leather lanyard. His mouth was dry. From along the line came a rumpus, someone shouting and quickly stifled. It took men like that sometimes, the long wait. It broke their nerve. And who could blame them? This was tortuous.

He checked his watch. Six fifty-nine.

Time was crawling, he’d never known it to move so slowly. And yet too fast. Their lives were measured in moments now. He cleared his throat. “Fifteen-minutes,” he told the men.

Behind him, feet shuffled as the men moved about, making whatever peace they could, bracing themselves to meet their fate. It would be easier to be one of them. The weight of giving the order, of leading men to their ends, felt heavy as iron.

A shoulder brushed his, solid and steady. He glanced sideways and found West watching him. In the growing daylight, he could see the warm hazel of his eyes and the curl of his golden hair beneath his tin hat. West’s friendship was everything to him here. He’d made the last three years bearable, even pleasurable at times. It wasn’t right, of course, for a man like Captain Ashleigh Arthur Dalton, son of Sir Arthur, to be friends with plain old Private Harry West. But friends they were, closer than brothers. How many nights had they spent in conversation or in reading aloud to each other, playing cards with the men or in Ash’s quarters? How many nights had they hunkered down side-by-side in the support trench, sharing warmth and the comfort of each other’s presence?

And if anything happened to West today, Ash didn’t know how he’d bear it.

Well, he couldn’t bear it. Simple as that.

He’d rather die himself than lose Harry West.

“I’ve still got your book in my bloody pocket,” West said quietly, smiling ruefully as he tapped his hip pocket. “Hope it doesn’t get too wet.”

Ash had to clear his throat before he said, “Sherlock Holmes?”

“Aye, sir. Should have left it in the dugout with the rest of your kit. Sorry.”

“Well.” Ash huffed an approximation of a laugh. “If we’re pinned down for any length of time, perhaps we’ll read the next chapter?”

West laughed at that. He had a deep, contagious chuckle. “Imagine that, sir. Fritz stumbling over us sitting there, reading a book, happy as can be.”

Ash snorted, his tension easing for a moment. And then rushing back in as a dozen horrible images unfolded in his mind, each more likely than the absurd one they’d painted. He checked his watch. “Ten minutes.”

West nudged his shoulder again. Not so much nudged as pressed their arms together. Ash returned the pressure, taking comfort from it. He hoped West did, too. “Mother said they’ve had a terrific crop of apples this year. I hope — ” He glanced at West. “When this is all over, I hope you’ll visit me at Highcliffe House. Our cook makes a marvellous apple crumble.”

A smile tugged West’s lips. “I’d like to see your stables, sir. And perhaps take a ride in that forest of yours.”

“The New Forest? Yes, it’s beautiful. Especially at this time of year — with the turning leaves, you know. The colours…” His throat tightened with a terrible yearning for the trees and heathland of his boyhood. “Christ, this was woodland once, West. And there’s not a single damn leaf to see for miles.”

“There will be again. One day.”

There was some comfort in that, he supposed. He flexed his fingers on the ladder, tapping out that little tune again.

If you want to find the private, I know where he is…

Time ticked on. “Five minutes, boys.”

“Captain Dalton?” West sounded different, low and urgent. He reached out and covered Ash’s hand where it rested on the ladder. “I want…” Their gaze locked and for a moment Ash saw in West’s eyes everything he couldn’t say, all the words neither of them could speak.

Ash turned his hand beneath West’s and wove their fingers together, squeezing hard. “Another chapter of Holmes later.” He made it a promise. “And a shot of whiskey at Toc H, if we’re lucky.”

After a lingering moment, West pulled his hand free. “Yes, sir.”

Ash checked the time. “Three minutes, boys.” His stomach pitched. “Affix bayonets.”

He managed his own, ruthlessly suppressing the tremors in his hands. Just as it clicked into place, the barrage stopped. The morning rang with sudden silence, Ash’s ears buzzing in the absence of noise. This was it then. “Two minutes,” he said quietly, heart pounding like a terrified rabbit’s. He had to swallow twice before he said, “First rank to the fire step.”

Behind him and at his side, his men lined up. Looking down the line, he could hardly bear to see their ashen faces, some fixed as granite, others mobile with fear, lips moving in silent prayer or other incantation. Ordinary men, ordinary boys staring death in the eye. God, but he ached with the pity of it all.

“One minute.” Thank God his voice didn’t shake. Eyes fixed on his watch, he lifted the whistle to his lips. It tasted chill and metallic, worse than the rum.

The minute hand ticked to 07:15.

From down the line came the first shrill blast, slicing through the deathly silence. Ash blew his own piercing whistle and began to climb. “Off we go, boys. Good luck!”

Hard on his heels, West growled, “And God help us all.”

Then no man’s land stretched out before them, a pockmarked hellscape of blasted trees and mud and death. Low cloud crouched above them, as heavy and bleak as the cratered ground beneath their feet. Ash’s mind turned sluggish with fear, focus narrowing only to the few yards around him, heart hammering loud in his ears. He knew only that he must advance and keep his men with him. “Stay in line!” he shouted, conscious of West’s steady presence at his left as they ran forward in a half-crouch, slip-sliding in the treacherous, drowning mud. Gunfire sounded to their right, but nothing close to them yet. Perhaps they’d be lucky. Perhaps this time the bombardment really had taken out the German guns. He kept going, leading his men on, deeper into the wasteland.

They’d covered almost a hundred yards before machineguns opened fire, raking across their line. Someone dragged Ash down into the mud: West, his hand fisted in Ash’s uniform.

“Find cover!” Ash yelled as his men fell and scattered.

And then the shells began, screaming overhead so close Ash could feel their scorching heat across his back. One hit behind them — almost in their trench — and the ground convulsed, raining mud and debris down over them. Laying prone, heart pounding hard against the earth, Ash prayed they wouldn’t be buried alive. Christ, any end but that.

Then West was tugging on his arm again, yelling something Ash couldn’t hear. Was he deaf? He scrambled to his feet. Smoke blew everywhere and he couldn’t see his men, but he sounded the whistle anyway to help them find their way to him as he staggered forward. Still advancing, as ordered.

They were under heavy fire now. So much for the bombardment knocking out the German guns. Another shell hit to their right, the concussion knocking Ash back to his knees and he went half-sliding over the lip of a flooded shell hole. Machine gun fire kept him down, arms over his head as bullets peppered the ground behind and before him.

West wasn’t holding his arm anymore. He couldn’t see him. Fuck.

“West?” He turned, squirming in the mud, and saw West on his hands and knees several yards back, shaking his head as if dazed. Ash’s heart seized. “West!” He couldn’t hear his own shout; the noise of the bombardment was ear-splitting. “West!”

He slithered backward, trying to find his feet. Through the blowing smoke, West kept appearing and then disappearing like a mirage. Or a ghost.

No. No, no, no. Not that. He wouldn’t lose him. He couldn’t.

Another smoky plume blew over them and away. West had struggled to his feet, still shaking his head. And in a single moment of clarity, as if the mists had parted, West lifted his head and their eyes met across the field of slaughter. Such a look! Relief, terror, desperation.

Love.

But then West’s eyes widened in horror. He flung his arm out, reaching for him, as the earth erupted beneath Ash’s feet.

For a second, he was airborne and the world fell silent. Then it rushed up to meet him, smashing the air from his lungs. Searing pain engulfed him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t move. Oblivion.

When he came back to himself, he was sprawled on his back, cradled in West’s arms, looking up at his dear face. His first thought was relief. West was alive. He looked unhurt as he held Ash up out of the sucking mud, a filthy hand stroking the hair from his face. But his eyes were red-rimmed, his mud-splattered face ashen. “It’s alright, Captain. I’ve got you. Everything’s alright.”

It wasn’t. Something was very wrong.

Ash felt paper thin, cold and fading. It was an effort to keep his eyes open. He couldn’t feel his legs and didn’t dare look, gazed only into West’s desolate eyes. All he needed to know was written plainly there. He tried to lift a hand to touch West’s face, but even that was too much. His lips formed a word — West’s name — but no sound came.

He felt no pain, only grief to be leaving him.

All around them the shrieking riot of war continued, but between them fell a terrible silence. “Oh God.” West’s voice broke and he clutched Ash against the sodden kaki of his jacket. “God, please.”

Ash was sinking, grey crowding the edges of his vision, but he tried again to speak. He had to. “Harry…” The name whispered past his lips, just loud enough to make West look at him. Ash tried to smile, to convey in these last moments how West had been everything to him in this nightmare — his solace, his succour, his burgeoning joy.

“Captain.” Pale tracks cut through the dirt on West’s face, tears gathering at the corner of his mouth. “Ashleigh….” He leaned down and kissed his brow like a mother might kiss her child, a last kiss offered to the dying.

Then he shifted and Ash felt the unfamiliar pressure of lips against his own, tasted mud and blood and salt tears. A lover’s kiss at last, its sweet promise unfulfilled.

When Ash woke again it was in a clearing station and to raging agony.

But Harry West was gone, sent back up the line to hell.

Legacy by Alex Jane

1919. Nebraska.

Waking with start for no other reason than it was just the way things were now, Emmanuel didn’t recall a bad dream, or dreaming at all, but still his heart was pounding, and he could hardly catch his breath as he rolled onto his back.

It took him a moment, blinking into the darkness, to get his bearings. From the darkness alone it was clear he wasn’t in the family home in New York. His mother had taken to leaving him with a night light, as if he was a child again. Which had been only a little humiliating, but at least her over protectiveness was for reasons even his siblings wouldn’t tease him about. And he knew he definitely wasn’t back in France. The air was too quiet, no sounds of distant guns, or the sniffling whimpers of sleeping soldiers, or the scent of fetid mud underfoot, or the screams from the infirmary that went on and on and on.

It was simply dark, the window pane a gray shape to his left, casting no light yet, although it must have been morning, with the only sounds his own breath stuttering into his chest and the call of birds from the grassland as they hailed the new day.

Being at the homestead again was taking some getting used to, he thought, even though he’d been there less than two whole days. As a child, Emmanuel had loved coming to Nebraska. Being here with his grandparents had been the most he’d ever felt really like himself. His mother would joke that even when he was a babe in arms, as soon as they left the property on the way back to New York, or Scotland, or Canada, or wherever her work would take them, Emmanuel would be inconsolable. Which was probably why, after his grandparents had died, he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of ever stepping back on such hallowed ground, and had fled to another continent to get away from his grief. Which had only made things about a hundred times worse, of course.

Now he was back, waking up disoriented in the dark for the second morning in a row, he still wasn’t sure what he was doing there or if coming back was simply another mistake he would have to live with. But still, he didn’t know a man tough enough to not think fondly of hot coffee and a warm bed in those moments when he’d been faced with ash in the grate and a slice of cold pie at dawn. Which was what he had to look forward to again if he didn’t get his ass out of bed. Digging around under the covers for a minute, he found the thick socks he’d taken to bed with him in the hopes of keeping warm. It wasn’t even winter yet and somehow the chill Nebraskan wind was able to make the autumn mornings feel as if there was a frost on the ground already.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he lit the lamp on the small table there before starting to pull on the rest of his clothes. That was something else wolves didn’t need much of—light. Some of the houses in the small town nearby had electric light now, as did a few of the homesteads. But his grandfathers could see perfectly well in the dark and had loathed the idea of having a noisy, unreliable generator on the property. And being that the homestead was his place now and with him not there to say one way or the other, the house had remained exactly as they had left it. Which was dark mostly. At least for his human eyes at five in the morning. But the storm lamp worked just fine—it had done since before he could remember—as he carried it down the creaking stairs to the main room below.

After setting the lamp down on the large table, Emmanuel started to clear the ash from the grate in the fireplace and getting a fire going with the workings he’d left out the night before. It didn’t take long to get the flames crackling and to have a pot of coffee set over them. He went into the kitchen, which was off the main room, to the empty shelves in the bare pantry to get the half loaf of bread that amounted to his entire provisions. His uncles would expect him for breakfast once they were ready for him, and then he could think about going into town to pick up some supplies to tide him over the next few days. At least until he figured out what in the hell he was going to do with his life.

So far, his plan in its entirety had been to go to Nebraska and live in the house his grandfathers had left him. It had made sense at the time but now he was here, he felt more lost than he had done sitting on the ship that had brought him home from Europe after it had docked in the harbor—wanting to go home but terrified to step onto dry land again, suspended in some sort of limbo, a half-place where his life was an abstract concept, almost as if he didn’t exist anymore. In the quiet of the Nebraskan morning, the gray light sketching in the edges of his dead grandfathers’ furniture, eating the dry bread and drinking bad coffee which constituted the last of his provisions, the cold seeping into his bones like trench water, Emmanuel wondered—not for the first time—if he hadn’t died on the battlefield after all and this was simply an illusion.

His mood, or lack of it, hadn’t improved by the time he put on his hat and coat and stepped out into the morning. It would’ve been an overstatement to say things looked better in the daylight, but seeing the familiar place—the wide dirt yard extending beyond the small cottage garden in front of the house out to the barn and the stable, and the path that led down to the corral and, in the opposite direction, to the old forge and the path to his uncles’ house—Emmanuel certainly felt a little more grounded.

It was strange though, the silence of the place. The last time he had been there, the yard had been full of chickens and the odd goose wandering around, noise coming from the pig sty and the stables, the paddock full of horses as well as laughter and sounds of industry, as a normal working day went on. Now, all the buildings and fields were empty. It was just him alone with his thoughts to fill the place. Or at least it appeared that way until he walked beyond the old forge and saw a pall of smoke coming from the cottage that had once belonged to his grandfather’s foreman.

As he approached, the door opened unexpectedly and a familiar smiling face beamed out at him. Without saying a word, Emmanuel almost broke into a jog, meeting his friend halfway on the path, and they threw their arms around each other and held tight for a long time.

All Lessons Learned by Charlie Cochrane

High Table was excellent as always and coffee back in the SCR was almost as good as the stuff Matthew had tasted in Boston with Rex. “I didn’t think you could get coffee like this in England. Camp Coffee seems to be the standard fayre and that’s hardly worth the effort of putting in the hot water.”

“Might as well drink diluted shoe polish,” Orlando agreed, with a smile. “The world’s changing, Mr. Ainslie, and I’m not sure I like the way it’s turning out.” Outside the security of his study they were back to surnames, just as it had always been his custom with Jonty. They wouldn’t change things, especially now the driving force for change had gone. “Goodnight, Dr. Panesar.” Orlando waved a greeting as the man in question departed, grinning madly as he dragged a poor unsuspecting guest off to the labs to show him his latest heap of metal masquerading as a technological breakthrough.

“He was on good form tonight. Certainly lights this place up.” Matthew tipped his head towards the other occupants of the SCR, only half a dozen remaining now and three of those apparently asleep.

“Aye, Panesar keeps this college alive at times. All the rest seem to have descended into semi-torpor.” Just so must life in St. Bride’s have been prior to 1905.

The comparative solitude gave the opportunity to speak more openly than usual in this room. “Why did you sign up for the army? You were doing such a worthwhile job already in Room 40.”

“Worthwhile? I suppose it must have been. It was certainly safe, if you’re really asking why anyone should turn up a cushy number in search of a surefire way of getting himself killed.” Orlando couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice.

“I’m not asking that. It just occurred to me that your brain was maybe more usefully employed doing things that only men of your intelligence could do.”

“As opposed to being cannon-fodder like any other man with two arms and two legs and who cares how much brain?” Orlando frowned, passing his hand over his face. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. Your argument’s a fair one and I had it put to me on more than one occasion. How best to serve my country and all that.” He closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead as if soothing away the years. “Too many of them had died, Mr. Ainslie. My students. Did you know the Stewarts turned the Manor into a sort of hospital-cum-convalescent home? Opened the doors to a stream of soldiers—not just officers, other ranks as well—who needed some peace and quiet and care. My Italian sort-of-cousin took charge of the medical side and Mrs. Stewart was quartermistress.”

“Ah, the Italian connection.” Matthew grinned. “I saw the Baron Artigiano del Rame in The Times recently, taking over as chairman of Mrs. Stewart’s charity for—what did she call them? Unfortunate girls.”

“That’s the one.” Orlando couldn’t hide his pride in the family he’d never known he had, not until he was a grown man. “They’ve become quite pally, the houses of Coppersmith—Italian version—and Stewart. There’ll be an intermarriage with one of the latest batch of offspring, no doubt. One of Paolo’s girls and young George Broad is where the smart money lies.” Shame the really great love match between the two families could never have been officially recognised.

“Do you see a lot of them?”

“Not as much as I should, I suppose. I like them, don’t get me wrong, and they’ve welcomed me beyond all I could have hoped for, but it’s not like it was with the Stewarts.” Once experienced, nothing could compare to that family’s love and generosity.

“The hospital at the Manor…” Matthew brought the conversation back before the silence became awkward.

“Of course. I went down and visited one of my ex-students there.” Orlando shuddered in remembrance. “Physically it looked as if nothing had touched him and his mathematical capabilities were all still there, better than most of my dunderheads. But something had snapped inside him.”

Matthew nodded. “Never to be put together, no matter what any of the king’s horses or men could do?”

“It was that visit which made up my mind for me. How could I sit in a safe little room playing with letters and numbers when young men I’d had in my study trying to understand vectors, were being sacrificed? Little more than boys, who’d not seen anything of life, some of them.”

“So young.” Matthew shook his head, staring into his coffee cup. So many fresh faced lads he’d seen, passing through on their way to the front, enthusiastic and emboldened. He’d seen a few of them passing back—broken shells, bare remnants of humanity.

“So many.” The silence of the SCR was broken only by a murmuring from the other end of the room, one whispered conversation and the droning of gentle snores. “We had to go. We couldn’t not go, in all conscience.”

“At least you didn’t have to lie about your ages.”

“We’d have only had to if we’d been quick off the mark. By 1916, they weren’t so choosy.”

“I wish they’d been more scrupulous. Dear God, some of the lads I saw looked no more than schoolboys.” Such meticulous and painstaking checking there’d been at some of the recruitment centres, such desperation to get bodies into the system. Seventeen, did you say? Go out and come back in and then answer the question again, there’s a good man. Babes in arms, literally.

“There were times I didn’t think there’d be one of us left standing.”

“I still can’t believe I’ll never see Mrs. Stewart again. Oh, I’m sorry.” Matthew worried whether he’d overstepped the line, if the pain of bereavement was still too close for anything more than formal expressions of condolence. Orlando’s face suggested too much hurt still lingered.

“No, please talk about them. So few people do talk of the dead.” Orlando managed an unexpected smile. “A world without Mrs. Stewart’s kind heart seems a much colder place. She meant a great deal to me.”

“I saw the obituaries in the papers, although they didn’t do either of their subjects justice.” Matthew drew out his wallet. “I kept the clippings, just in case you wanted them and hadn’t been able to get hold of the newspapers. I’ll understand if you would find them too painful.”

Orlando put out his hand, which was shaking slightly. “I’d appreciate them very much, thank you.” He took the little pieces of paper without reading them, putting them in his notebook for later scrutiny. Perhaps.

“It was the flu, they said, that took both of them. Or complications following it.” Matthew slipped his wallet back into his inside pocket, the action giving him time to choose his words. “The newspapers weren’t very clear.”

“Lavinia said they’d made a bit of a mess of things, one of the so-called correspondents getting all the details wrong. There was quite a stir, I believe, among the family.” Orlando studied his hands. “I wish I’d been here to help, to clear up the mess. I felt so bloody helpless, miles from anyone.”

The uncharacteristic swearing—especially in the SCR—the equally uncharacteristic baring of the Coppersmith soul, took Matthew aback. Still, it was understandable. He had Rex to tell his troubles to, if the occasion arose, but Orlando hadn’t a confidante in all the world, except for him.

“The news shook me up pretty badly. God knows, I saw enough death out there, but that…” he ran his hands through his hair, “…that was almost the last straw. Something snapped inside me.”

Matthew held his tongue. There’d been at least one occasion in the past when things had snapped, when things had overwhelmed Orlando to the extent he’d upped sticks and left, leaving Jonty and his family bereft and desperate to find their prodigal.

“I volunteered for a mission from which I didn’t expect to return.” Orlando raised his hand to prevent any interruption. “I was an idiot, I know. And apparently they didn’t expect me to return, either. Missing, presumed dead, that’s what everyone was told.”

“Couldn’t you get word back?”

“I did as soon as I could. Trouble is I was out for the count for a fortnight. I woke up in a German hospital and couldn’t even remember who I was for the first few days. Lost a lot of blood, with it.” Orlando passed his hand over his eyes, in remembrance of the previous time he’d lost his memory. Some mysterious part of his brain seemed inclined to shut down when it decided he needed protecting. “It seemed to take forever to get word back that I was still alive. It must have been the October of last year.”

Matthew waited as Orlando gathered himself again. He knew what it was like to lose someone you loved to a violent death, but for loss to have piled upon loss… No wonder something “had snapped”. Maybe it could never be repaired.

“I’m sorry, I sound like some snivelling child.”

“That’s fine, old man. God knows it doesn’t bother me.” Matthew reached into his pocket again. It was time for decisive action. “This may not be the opportune moment, but I’ve got something here—I’d be grateful if you could cast your eye, and your mind, over it.” He produced an envelope, which he put in Orlando’s shaking hand.

The effect was better than he’d hoped, his friend showing an instant, if slightly grave interest in the letter the envelope held. “It’s from Collingwood.” The genuine note of curiosity in Orlando’s voice was a good sign. “Isn’t he retired by now?”

“Do solicitors ever retire? He keeps his hand in, for favoured clients. He remembered the time you helped us and he wanted to turn to you again.” Matthew was heartened by the glint in his friend’s eye, one he hadn’t seen there for a long time. “If you’re still willing to take a commission.”

“Willing?” Orlando turned the letter in his hands, as if he was trying to remember what a commission might entail, why it was being brought to him. He smiled, suddenly and unexpectedly. “Of course I will. It’ll give me something to live for, Mr. Ainslie. I thought I would never have that feeling again.”

AL Lester

Writer of queer, paranormal, historical, romantic suspense, mostly. Lives in the South West of England with Mr AL, two children, a terrifying cat, some hens and the duckettes. Likes gardening but doesn't really have time or energy. Not musical. Doesn't much like telly. Non-binary. Chronically disabled. Has tedious fits.

Aster Glenn Gray

Aster Glenn Gray writes fantasies with a romantic twist, or romances with a fantastic twist. (And maybe other things too. She is still a work in progress.) When she is not writing, she spends much of her time haunting libraries, taking long walks, and doing battle with the weeds that seek to topple her tomato plants.

To receive notification of new releases, sign up for her mailing list.

Sally Malcolm

Sally was bitten by the male/male romance bug in 2016 and hasn’t looked back. Her stories are emotional, sweetly angsty, and always have happy endings.

She also writes tie-in novels for the hit TV shows STARGATE: SG-1 and STARGATE ATLANTIS. To date she’s penned nine STARGATE novels and novellas, and four audio dramas.

Sally lives in South West London with her American husband, two lovely children, and two lazy cats.

Alex Jane
After spending far too long creating stories in her head, Alex finally plucked up the courage to write them down and realized it was quite fun seeing them on the page after all.

Free from aspirations of literary greatness, Alex simply hopes to entertain by spinning a good yarn of love and life, wrapped up with a happy ending. Although, if her characters have to go through Hell to get there, she’s a-okay with that.

With only a dysfunctional taste in music and a one-eyed dog to otherwise fill her days, Alex writes and walks on the South Coast of England—even when her heart and spellcheck are in New York.

You can now find her dark m/m romance under Alexis Jane, if you like love…but darker.

Charlie Cochrane

As Charlie Cochrane couldn't be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice - like managing a rugby team - she writes. Her favourite genre is gay fiction, predominantly historical romances/mysteries, but she's making an increasing number of forays into the modern day. She's even been known to write about gay werewolves - albeit highly respectable ones.

Her Cambridge Fellows series of Edwardian romantic mysteries were instrumental in seeing her named Speak Its Name Author of the Year 2009. She’s a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and International Thriller Writers Inc.

Happily married, with a house full of daughters, Charlie tries to juggle writing with the rest of a busy life. She loves reading, theatre, good food and watching sport. Her ideal day would be a morning walking along a beach, an afternoon spent watching rugby and a church service in the evening.