Chapter Text
Part I: August-September 1916
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
—"Dulce et Decorum Est,” Wilfred Owen
(Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”)
dekko /ˈdɛk oʊ / n. a look; glance; esp. in the phrase “take a dekko (at).” Derived from the Hindi word dekho (“look”).
It was raining when they climbed out of the tunnel.
It was always raining in France. Jean spoke of sunny afternoons with his mother, halcyon seaside days, but all Andrew had seen was rain, and mud, and mud, and rain. The last time he’d been dry had been a dream. It was so wet the bullets rusted before he could shoot them.
“Clear,” Renee whispered, plastering herself to the wall to get out of his way. Andrew grunted in acknowledgement and helped Aaron heave Nicky out of the ground, slung between them. Kevin in front stopped suddenly. Jean almost ran into them from behind, and Andrew shot him a glare that, in the dark, the other man wouldn’t see. From the annoyed hiss of Jean’s breath he’d gotten the gist anyway.
“Couldn’t have waited for good weather?” Nicky joked weakly. Andrew jostled him harder than necessary, and Nicky let out a yelp of pain that was hushed from four directions at once. The rain was more fog than drops, which was a mercy, or would have been if it didn’t creep, humid, under Andrew’s collar where it scraped the back of his neck. The summer was ending.
God that he did not believe in, Andrew wanted to be dry.
Renee waved her hand in Andrew’s periphery to let him know she had come up behind him. She was so used to being silent she sometimes forgot that other people expected footfalls to make a noise. “It’s just up ahead,” she said, pointing into the gloom.
Andrew squinted. He could barely make out shadowed lumps that might be a village. Kevin, with his sharp eyes, would be able to see more. Maybe. The fog made it difficult.
“I hope they have a hot spring,” Nicky said.
“Shut up,” Kevin said in an undertone. His ears were pricked so obviously that Andrew could almost see them flicking at the sides of his head. Like a fox sniffing out the foxhound.
“Day,” said Andrew. Kevin nodded and stepped cautiously further into the tall grass. He stalked back and forth, nearly as silent as Renee, ducking his head and shading his face to check the perimeter. Andrew allowed Kevin the extra time. Two weeks ago Kevin had finally caved and switched his beloved Ross for the hardier SMLE rifle currently slung across his back. His constant complaining about how difficult it was to load and fire let Andrew know that Kevin had not yet regained his confidence. He’d get there, if he didn’t get shot first. Kevin was the best sniper their spot of the front line (and, Andrew guessed in his more charitable moments, the entire Allied front) had.
“Standing here like sitting ducks does nothing,” Jean pointed out.
“Clear,” Kevin said. Andrew motioned the rest of them forward. After three steps Andrew turned his head to look back, checking for Renee. She had melted again into the darkness.
Good. Being undetected was what kept her alive.
He heard Jean loosen his pistol in its holster behind him, the metal scrape loud in the still night. Even layers of cloth couldn’t completely muffle sixty pounds of equipment. In front, hunched as if it would help hide his lanky frame, Kevin had a hand on his knife. Andrew wished he could do the same, but it would mean dropping Nicky, and that was impermissible.
They reached the outskirt of the town without incident, each breath baited, each step an agony of anticipation for a sudden bullet that never came.
When they were near enough to make out the shapes of fence posts against the encompassing fog, Andrew held up a hand to stop them again. This they had discussed before, and Kevin left to go knock on the first door at Andrew’s sharp nod. Of the rest of them only Jean knew French, and though Jean’s was much better, Kevin looked paler in the light. Besides, Kevin had a gift for charming people. Pity he didn’t use it on his fellow soldiers.
Andrew’s heel had caught a mud-filled hole and was sinking. He shifted to the other foot to keep from being sucked down. Aaron stumbled, trying to keep Nicky steady between them.
“Careful!”
Behind Nicky’s back, Aaron’s arm tensed under Andrew’s. Andrew tried as best he could to communicate his utter disregard for Aaron’s comfort with his own elbow. Aaron swore softly, but it was unclear whether it was at Andrew, or their situation in general.
Their mission was, on paper, a scouting one. Renee and her team of tunnellers had managed, slowly and painstakingly silent, to mine a route underground from the reserve trench to the nearest village: a tiny ramshackle thing that was on Jean’s division’s maps but none of the rest. It would have remained overlooked if it weren’t for the doctor that lived there. He had an uncanny ability to find men even the burial detail had not been able to. The brass were suspicious, but the Allied soldiers who had been through the doctor’s care were strangely unforthcoming. So Sergeant-Major Wymack’s ragtag crew had been earmarked to winnow out how one civilian man could find what squads of trained soldiers could not.
Wymack’s men had a reputation for unsentimentality. The Sergeant-Major shared it.
“If you come back not dead, you can count yourself lucky,” he’d told them, before they’d climbed into an even deeper hole in the ground than the one they had left. “That’s your job today. Come back not dead. Don’t get ambitious.” He’d flicked his eyes to Andrew as he’d said that, and Andrew had stared back stone-faced. Wymack knew what he was doing, sending him and Aaron out. He knew because he knew his men.
(The highfalutin brasshats of the military back in England might have been more inclined to recognize the battlefield promotion of a Filipino if Wymack had been in a Kiwi regiment. As it was Wymack was acting 1st Lieutenant two stations above the patches on his shoulder. It didn’t change the way the men acted, much. Wymack was a better officer than any they’d had before.)
Ostensibly, Nicky and Andrew and Aaron had been selected because they spoke German, and if the town happened to have been taken over before Allied intelligence had found out about it, it might be the language they needed to barter in. But the reality that had happened was this: Nicky had gotten out of bed one morning for the dawn stand-to, and all the toes on his left foot had crumbled clean away.
For all his bemoaning through the days and days of marching, he’d never let them know about that particular curse. Nicky had spent two days in the aid center, but when the ambulance transport had come there just wasn’t enough room for a half-Mexican who openly leered at other men. Nicky had been told to bandage his nub and report back to duty. Andrew had gone to Wymack that night and told him if he didn’t let him take Nicky on the reconnaissance mission for the barest hope of finding a doctor, he would mutiny and take Nicky anyway. Wymack had acquiesced to give orders on the condition that Andrew took his twin with him.
“So if you lose one you’ve got the spare to make up,” one of the other men had joked, hearing the orders. Andrew had considered punching him, but it wasn’t worth it. It was a jape he’d heard so many times already, and it was one he’d hear again, and again. Until he died, and Aaron was the only one left. And then Andrew wouldn’t have to hear the laughter.
Kevin returned through the rain with the collar of his tunic turned up over his neck, huddled against the damp. Andrew wasn’t sure why he bothered. He would be wet through whether he tried not to be, or didn’t. “Woman in the house. Still French. She said there’s a ‘Doctor Josten’ two streets down. Said we can’t miss him. Apparently, he’s Jewish.”
It was impossible to see where they were going. Houses swelled to existence before them, and disappeared as soon as they were passed, stepping aside for the next run-down hovel in the scraggly line. Most looked abandoned. Some had been bombed by misaimed, or misfired, shells falling. There was the corpse of a child slumped in one houseless door: a little patterned dress, a skinned knee, both shoes still on. Beside her was a single, skeletal arm, swarming with flies.
They went on.
The house was, fortunately, easier to find than Andrew had feared. A lonely bulb, hooded to keep it from the rain, illuminated a cone of light outside a shack in slightly less disrepair than the others. The wooden steps were still intact, at least. In front of them, lit from above like a spotlight, a man was washing his hands in an enormous tub of water. No: it was a horse trough, stood up on bricks and positioned under a manual water pump. The man looked up as they approached, cataloguing them but not stopping them. He was slight, barely taller than Andrew, he saw as they got close, and thin enough for the breeze to knock over. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. Bubbling, twisted skin stretched from his hands up his forearms. Andrew recognized the marks of mustard gas. The blisters looked old. Whoever this man was, he had been at the front for a long time. Both the water and the cuffs of his sleeves were stained pink.
Kevin extended a hand and smiled. “Hello. We’re looking for the doctor in this town?”
The man didn’t pause in his scrubbing. Kevin wilted as his hand went unshaken, and eventually dropped it to his side. The way the light was positioned made it so the man’s flat cap shaded his eyes, but Andrew knew he was watching them. A patchy beard covered his chin. High cheekbones aside, he looked like an upright goat. If goats could do the dishes.
“An Irishman, a Frenchman, and three from Jolly England walk into a bar. What’s the punchline?” he said. His voice was flat; low; ever so slightly mocking. And, shockingly, English. Andrew bristled. All of his senses were saying, danger.
Kevin frowned. “Sorry?”
“You know your uniforms,” Jean said. He sounded impressed.
“Not hard to when you see them every day for months on months,” the man said. He at last drew his hands out of the water and wiped them on a rag he took from the side of the trough.
Andrew had a good idea of the shape of it, by now. He flicked his fingers for Kevin to subside and nudged Nicky forward.
The man inclined his head towards Andrew’s stripes. “Corporal.”
“Doctor Josten,” Andrew said.
Nicky and Kevin made noises of surprise. Doctor Josten tipped his head back to look down his nose at Andrew and for the first time the light caught his eyes. It was too dark to see the color, but they were pale, heavily lashed. The light shining into them made the pupils into pinpricks.
“Perceptive,” he said. “Usually it takes people longer.”
Andrew pointed at the tray of pointy metal instruments resting on the corner of the trough. “Either you were the doctor, or a very dramatic scissors-grinder.”
“You don’t look like Jew,” Aaron protested, hoisting Nicky up to reposition his grip.
Doctor Josten gave him a look of dislike. “And I thought you didn’t look like a gaping arsehole, but it seems we were both wrong, weren’t we. You have payment?” he continued, over Aaron’s offended spluttering.
“No,” said Kevin, alarmed. He patted at his pockets. “I mean, yes—we can—”
“Never mind. It never hurts to ask.” The doctor gave them another appraising look, lingering on Nicky. “Strip, and wash, and then bring him around the back. The front’s for urgent surgery only.”
Andrew couldn’t remain silent. “What?”
The pale eyes swung back to Andrew. Unsettling, they were. The back of Andrew’s neck crawled. “Strip and wash. I’ll bring clothes for you on the other side. You are covered in mud and blood and lice, and I’ll not have you near the sick.”
Andrew became aware that he was scratching his belly and immediately stopped. The clipped British accent made Josten’s words sound haughtier. Andrew decided that, no matter how good of a doctor this fucker was, or how much he helped Nicky, he would never trust him.
“In the rain?” Aaron asked, incredulous.
“Did I misspeak?” Doctor Josten examined the bloody water in the trough dispassionately and then heaved it over, slopping the mess onto the already muddy ground. A wave of it went over Andrew’s boots. He and Aaron lifted at the same time to keep Nicky out of it. Backsplash sprayed across them, cold from being piped under the earth, as Josten started pumping the handle of the well.
Months of living packed in trenches with other men had brutally, but efficiently, robbed Andrew of the body-shyness he’d once possessed. He and Aaron maneuvered Nicky to the front steps, propping him there, (Nicky complained about the splinters, but Andrew could see how badly he was sweating and knew that wasn’t the pain that concerned him), and then Andrew turned his back and started unstrapping the webbing that held his kit. He could hear the jangle and wool rasp of the others following suit. While he and Aaron were positioning Nicky, Doctor Josten had finished filling the trough and had disappeared around the corner of his house. Andrew supposed he was grateful to be spared those strange eyes watching him.
Mud poured out of the wraps on his legs as he unwound them, sending up a stink distilled from the one Andrew lived in every day, every night. He was standing in a puddle now, no duckboards here in this woebegone village to keep his feet out of the muck. Not that they had ever been any good at that.
They ended up having to cut Nicky’s pants off him. They were half-rotten anyway, wool being the wrong fabric for muddy holes in the ground, but Nicky still protested. “I can’t fight a war with no pants on!”
“You can’t fight a war with your feet falling off either,” Aaron said, grunting as he dragged clinging wet wool down Nicky’s legs. The rain had picked up, and Aaron kept snapping his head to flick his hair out of his eyes without a hat to keep it back. The tickle of the dripping from Andrew’s shoulders to his fingertips was unbearable. Kevin crouched behind Aaron to help pull, and finally, with only one loud shout from Nicky that he immediately muffled, they managed to get him naked. Kevin tried to lift him, but Andrew slapped his hands away and he and Aaron resumed position as pallbearers.
Or not, was the idea. But Andrew wasn’t fooled. None of them here were alive. Not anymore. They were all corpses, waiting to lie down.
The shambling, skidding walk around back of the house didn’t bear thinking of, so Andrew didn’t, sending his mind away and only keeping enough attention to keep from dropping Nicky in the mud. There was a lopsided porch on the backside, tilting like a shipwreck. They climbed up onto it for the scanty protection against the skies and stood there shivering. Kevin knocked again. A few seconds later the door opened, and Doctor Josten’s head poked out.
“Well come in,” he said, impatient. It wasn’t worth the effort to snap at him, so Andrew settled for sharing a look with Kevin and hefted Nicky over the tilted doorjamb. Once they were inside, dripping on the floorboards, conditions were noticeably kinder. Being outside for months on end could truly make a man appreciate what shelter four good walls provided.
“Here,” Doctor Josten said, bustling over. He had his arms full of white towels. “Not the cleanest, I wouldn’t give these to patients, but they’ll do for you. There’s nothing infectious on them.” He shoved the bundle at Andrew, who was closest, and disappeared into a side door. They heard him opening and closing drawers.
“Give it,” Nicky said, making a grabby motion. Andrew rolled his eyes and passed out the towels, realizing too late he’d ended up with only a small hand towel for himself. Oh, well. He dried as best he could and dropped it on the floor. Leave the doctor to clean it up. Wymack would be horrified, but Wymack wasn’t here.
Doctor Josten reappeared with another armful of cloth, this one multi-colored. He again shoved it at Andrew. “Not sure anything in there will fit that Frenchman, but put these on.”
“Some of these are women’s clothes!” Aaron said, drawing out a floral skirt with his thumb and forefinger. He dropped it as if it burned.
“Feel free to go naked,” Josten snapped. Aaron’s cheeks flushed in anger, but the doctor was already moving on. He was, Andrew noted, remaining just out of punching distance.
They had to put Nicky down again to dress him. Surprisingly, Josten moved forward to help take his weight. Andrew let him, with much reluctance. The man was a doctor, after all, and that was what Nicky was here for.
None of the clothes fit anyone. Andrew’s pants were a soldier’s get, British from the look of them, but far too long, and none of the shirts fit across his shoulders. Kevin couldn’t button his pants at all, and Nicky’s undershirt had a faded brown stain they all decided not to think about. Aaron’s hands were swallowed in elephantine sleeves. A tear in one allowed his thumb to poke through, which he did with an expression of extreme disparagement.
Jean and Andrew split the two skirts. Jean took the blue calico that might have suited him if it hadn’t been too short and exposed a scandalous amount of leg. It left Andrew with the hideous orange stripes. Poking his head through the waist—Andrew wasn’t going to be bare-chested around whatever bodily fluids sick men coughed up—Andrew determinedly did not meet Aaron’s eye. He could feel Aaron snickering at him.
The mismatch aside, Andrew had forgotten what a simple comfort it was, being clean and being in clothes that were also clean, and dry. For a moment he felt dizzy with it, and wondered if he had indeed died in the mud, and this was the afterlife. The best part was when Josten handed them each—save Nicky—a pair of socks. Kevin got a look on his face like he might kiss the man, and Andrew would not have blamed him.
Some of the socks looked like they might be women’s woolen stockings, but this time nobody complained. Andrew wiggled his toes, marveling at the concept of dry feet. He was afraid to move in case he woke up.
“Come here,” Doctor Josten said. He didn’t bother to soften his tone when talking to Nicky. Together he and the twins hobbled Nicky down the hall, past a doubtful staircase, more doors, and a parlor packed to the brim with hospital cots, every one full. Most of the men were asleep. The one who was awake only watched them, unblinking. Andrew stared back and nearly missed a step.
Doctor Josten finally stopped in front of a curtain drawn over a doorway. He scraped it back to reveal a miniscule cubby, two cots impossibly crammed in inside, barely an inch of space between them. One of the cots was already occupied. The man’s chest rose and fell under the blanket with the deep breaths of slumber.
“Here,” Josten said, trying to guide Nicky in. Nicky tensed, and Andrew realized why an instant before the rest of them. Nicky had spotted the spiked helmet resting underneath the other cot.
“You’ve got Germans in here?”
“I’ve got soldiers in here,” Doctor Josten said. His chin was set. “And a few townspeople. I take who needs it, and I don’t ask questions. Otherwise I don’t think you’d have had such a friendly welcome, do you?”
“That was friendly?” Jean muttered. Everyone ignored him.
“Like Clara Barton,” Aaron said.
“Who?”
“You can’t put me in with a Kraut,” Nicky said, his voice climbing in pitch. “He’ll kill me!” He gestured between the sleeping man and himself, and nearly toppled, stopped only by Andrew and Aaron grabbing his waist. The weight coming down on his bad foot—what was left of it—made tears spring to his eyes.
“I’m sure your commanding officers will be glad to hear you’ve made a full recovery, then,” Doctor Josten said, with a significant glance at Nicky’s feet.
Andrew didn’t like the idea of his cousin bedding down next to the enemy, but this was the only chance Nicky had for any sort of care. He pointedly slid his knife out from under his borrowed waistband. Nicky knew he’d use it; Andrew didn’t have to make the threat verbally. Interestingly, Doctor Josten flinched. What manner of doctor was afraid of knives? There was something wrong here, more than some mild insubordination.
“. . .fine,” Nicky said. He let himself be settled on the cot, but he scooted as far away from the German soldier as he could, which wasn’t very. There wasn’t enough room for them all to crowd around to help, so Andrew muscled past them and took over the question of where Nicky’s limbs should fit. Josten leaned back to let him work and reached towards the ceiling. One sharp tug later, and a light bulb went on, making Andrew squint at the sudden brightness. Nicky yelped.
“Won’t the light wake him up?” he hissed, side-eyeing the German soldier. Kevin made a noise like he agreed.
“Not him.” Doctor Josten was stretching Nicky’s legs out before him on the bed. He worked quickly but not, Andrew noted—he was watching closely—ungently. “Chlorine. He can’t see a hand in front of his face.”
Automatically Andrew’s eyes were drawn to the sleeping man. As if he knew he were being scrutinized, he sighed in his sleep and shifted his head. There was a bandage wrapped around his eyes and tied by his temple. He was blond, and he looked very young, sleeping like that. He had the kind of mouth that Andrew might once upon a time have found pleasing. But Andrew had lost that sort of desire to the mud and the shells.
It made things easier, in a way.
He was glad Kevin had found Jean. The thing between himself and Kevin could not have lasted, and it was better that Andrew had stopped wanting it before it became a complication.
It had been awful, the first time it had happened, Andrew realizing all at once that he did not want to be here, did not want this. Kevin had withdrawn his hands immediately when he’d noticed, which is why he remained unstabbed—at least by Andrew—but for a few seconds it had been like—
That did not bear thinking of, either. Andrew turned back to Nicky.
Doctor Josten had finished arranging Nicky. He was washing his hands again with a pitcher and bowl standing on a tiny cabinet in the scant space at the foot of Nicky’s bed. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Andrew got his first proper look at the man he had entrusted his cousin to. The patchy beard was truly terrible, like scrubbing wire. It had a reddish tint to it, as did the man’s curly hair. Three silvered cuts divided the stubble on his right cheek, and a burn the size of a thruppenny bit rested high on his left. The beard and the scars could not hide the fine bones of the doctor’s face. His eyes, Andrew saw, were blue.
Nicky had noticed, because of course he had. Even like this. “I don’t think I gave you my name,” he said, and his voice was deeper suddenly. He held out a hand. “Nicholas Hemmick, Private First Class. Pleased to meet you.”
Josten ignored Nicky’s hand as he had Kevin’s earlier. For some reason Andrew found himself viciously glad as he watched Nicky pout at being shot down. The doctor squatted by Nicky’s feet. It turned Andrew’s stomach, being that close to the rot, but Josten was unfazed, and examined them with light touches and sharp eyes. Nicky bit his lip. When a toe on his right foot snapped off he couldn’t hold back a sob.
“Sorry,” he said, when Josten’s head shot up.
“No matter,” the doctor said. He leaned and opened up the cabinet, drawing out a bottle of wine that seemed too big to fit in the little thing. Gesturing to his footy hands, he indicated Nicky should pop the cork and take a swig. Nicky did. His eyes went wide.
“Where did you get wine this good out here?”
“From a church cellar,” Josten said absently. He was examining Nicky’s feet again. “The priest fled as soon as the first British shells landed on us. He’ll never miss it. I like to save the morphine for when it’s really needed. It’s precious hard to come by.”
“You mean German shells,” Andrew said.
Doctor Josten paused. “No, I’m quite sure they were British. I was here.”
Kevin had focused on a different aspect. “You can’t go stealing church wine just because you don’t—”
Jean reached over and tugged the front of Kevin’s borrowed shirt up so it covered his mouth. “Sorry,” he said to the doctor. “I promise he’s not always that Catholic.”
“Hey!”
“Shh,” Nicky hissed, eyeing the sleeping German warily.
The examination did not take long, even with Aaron’s relentless muttering. His twin had been almost a doctor himself before the war, so Andrew kept an ear open for any real complaints, but mostly Aaron seemed to be upset at Doctor Josten’s manner. Soon Josten was kneeling back on his heels, face smooth as he met Nicky’s eyes. Bad news. Andrew could feel it in the way the stuffy closet air thickened.
At least the doctor did not dance around it. “You’re going to lose the left foot, and probably the right,” he said. Nicky flinched and looked down, fist clenching in the bedclothes. “I’ll salve and wrap them, see if we can save some, but I’ve a feeling I’m going to have to amputate to the ankle on both.”
Nicky’s eyes were wet again. He took another pull of the church wine. “Guess my career as a dancing girl is out the window, huh?”
Andrew could not be here for this. There was too much in the room: he was not good at this part. He spun on his heel and ran into the others, gathered as close as they could, listening. Andrew growled at them, pushing through, and didn’t turn as he heard them reform around Nicky and start fussing.
When Josten emerged from the fray, shaking water droplets off his fingers, Andrew slammed him against the wall. The others moved fluidly, forming a half-circle around them to muffle and shield them from view. Andrew felt a rush of brotherhood.
The doctor went still. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” Andrew said. He applied more pressure with the arm over Josten’s throat, felt the man swallow against the bare skin of his forearm. The doctor was scarred even there, but then, so was Andrew. “You can show me your certifications, and then I’ll decide whether or not to kill you.”
“Bold words for a man in borrowed clothes.” The hallway was dark, darker than outside had been, unless it was the contrast of the losing of the light bulb. It had hidden Josten’s face again. His hands, freshly washed, were cold. Andrew could feel them through his makeshift shirt.
“I’ve stolen clothes from dead men before.” And he had. There was no room for nicety on the killing fields. What a dead soldier had no more use for might save a live one.
Josten met his eyes. “I’m sure you’re very brave, and strong, yes, so scary. Will you let me up so I can go get my papers?”
Andrew glowered for a handful of moments to show that he was serious before prying his arm up. Josten rubbed at his throat. “I suppose it’s no use asking you to wait here.”
“No,” Andrew confirmed. The rest traipsed after them, the doctor leading them down the hall, and then up the stairs—they creaked dangerously underfoot—and up another hall of doors, stopping before the last one to the right. He knocked and then, to Andrew’s surprise, opened the door a crack to stick his head in, speaking softly. It took Andrew a moment to realize he wasn’t speaking German. It sounded like he should be, but none of the words were ones Andrew knew. Even Jean was shaking his head, confused.
There was a quiet rustling from inside. Andrew felt the rest of them tense behind him, even as he was, hands readying for weapons they had—dammit! Idiots, all!—left with their clothing. A woman, of all things, opened the door, butter yellow light spilling out around her. She was wearing a scarf wrapped around her hair and pulling a knit shawl over a nightdress.
Behind him, the others straightened, reacting to the presence of a woman. He thought he heard Kevin checking his breath. Andrew narrowly avoided rolling his eyes.
“Your wife?” Andrew asked the doctor. He spoke in German, a test. “She’s a bit old for you.”
Doctor Josten jolted. “What? No.”
He’d also spoken in German, this time understandable. So. That was information.
“His mother,” the woman said coldly, in the same language. Jean made a sound of disbelief. It was true, she looked nothing like the doctor. She was tall, for one, and her face a pale oval, not like the doctor’s darker skin and angular features. Still, Andrew knew how unlike each other families could be. Look at Nicky beside himself and Aaron. “Abigail Josten. What might I do for you?”
“They want to see my certifications, Mame,” Doctor Josten said.
“Do they.” She gave them a masterful look of disappointment. Andrew knew few officers who could do better. “Go on then, I suppose.”
Kevin elbowed Aaron in the back, having learned better than to try it on Andrew. “What’s she saying?”
“Giving us shit for checking out the doctor,” Aaron muttered back. “He did offer to treat Nicky for free.”
Andrew followed Josten closely behind as he stalked the length of the room. This doctor seemed the sort of man to try to pull a trick from far away. As he did he let his eyes catalogue the surroundings. It was unsurprisingly a small room, with exposed beams above and a cracked window stuffed with cloth. The floorboards creaked. There were here and there small evidences of its inhabitants; a book lying on a table beside the smaller of the two beds, candlesticks squirreled away in a few nooks, a wayward shoe tipped on its side before the door to the closet. It was still relatively sparse. Lived-in, but just barely. Andrew would bet that Josten and his mother retired here only for sleeping.
A wobbly desk took up residence in the corner, making the room seem even tinier than it was. Doctor Josten removed a key from his vest pocket and unlocked a drawer, whence he drew a fat medical volume. From inside he took a pressed sheet of thick paper. He held it out to Andrew.
“Don’t smudge it, if you can manage,” the doctor said. “There’s my diploma from Greifswald, and here,” he withdrew another sheet, “is my medical license.”
Andrew cast an eye over them. He realized he had no way of telling good certifications from forgeries. “Germany.”
“Right now I’d call myself unaffiliated.”
“Neil Abram? Neither of those sound German.”
“I didn’t realize I was speaking to a scholar of language.”
“Once,” Andrew said, surprising himself. “Aaron!”
Aaron plodded over. “What is your desire, O Corporal?”
Andrew glared at him, fuck you, and handed over the certifications. Aaron’s medical schooling had been incomplete, as he’d been put on a mandatory holiday for dipping into the college’s laudanum stores. He’d still be more qualified than Andrew to tell real from fake. Doctor Neil twitched as the certifications changed hands.
“You made us wash,” Andrew pointed out.
“And yet I can still smell you.”
“These seem to be in order,” Aaron said, giving the papers back. Neil made a well of course noise and tucked them gently back into the book, locking it in the drawer again.
“You’ve had your proof,” Missus Josten called across the room. “Now if you could get out of this house and stop bothering my son?”
Kevin looked abashed. “Sorry,” he said. “Ah, Danke? No—”
“Entschuldigung,” Aaron supplied, and then looked pissed off at himself for doing so.
Kevin nodded. He was twisting his shirt in his hands. Looking at Missus Josten, he said, “Doctor, could you tell your mother we’ve—I’ve—we’ve—it’s just that we’ve had some bad experiences with civilian doctors. We didn’t mean to be disrespectful.” His face was earnest, open. It was a terrible lie, but with that face Kevin could sell the oyster for the pearl.
Neil said something in that Germanlike language again. Andrew could only hope it was a correct translation, and the hope wasn’t strong. Still, his mother seemed to soften. “That’s understandable,” she said. Kevin nodded again and gave a strange half-bow Andrew had never seen before, and then, rubbing at the back of his neck, left the room. Andrew looked to Jean. Jean shrugged.
“I want to see Nicky again,” Aaron said.
When Doctor Josten turned the light in the tiny cubby on, Nicky screamed. Even a blind man could not ignore it. The German soldier stirred.
“Papa?” he said thickly, in sleepy German. “Is there something wrong with the cows?”
“Go back to sleep, Mister Klose,” Neil said in the same language.
The German soldier pushed himself up on one hand. “What woke me? Is there—" He touched two fingers to the bandage over his eyes. “Who else is in here?”
“You’ve got a new roommate,” Neil said. He reached for the soldier’s hand and drew it across the gap between the beds. He held out his other, palm up, for Nicky’s. Nicky hesitated until Neil snapped his fingers, impatient, and Nicky sulkily surrendered. Neil brought the two men’s hands together and clasped them. “Mister Klose, this is Nicholas Hemmick. Mister Hemmick, Erik Klose.”
“I thought you smelled better than a cow,” Erik said. Then he smiled. It was shocking, transforming his wan face into what he must have been before, a young man with sun on his brow and no worry but for the next winter’s meals. It was not a smile that belonged in a war.
Nicky cleared his throat. In German more halting than Neil’s he replied, “I should hope so. Much more handsome, too.”
Erik laughed. “I like this one, Doctor Josten. May I keep him?”
They really had no excuse then but to go.
Andrew lingered by the door, once again naked—Neil had taken back the clothing—holding a hand out to stop Neil from turning back to the house. “When will you operate?”
“Five days,” Neil said, terse. He did not seem to have forgiven them for doubting him. “Barring an attack that brings men with dragging intestines to my door. I suppose you wouldn’t tell me if your side had anything planned before then?”
“Military secret,” Andrew said, and left to go back into the rain.