Ernie rounded the corner and met a thicker cloud. He could see ten feet. He loped forward. He heard Jim coughing and spluttering before he saw him. He nearly tripped over his body.
Jim wore no mask on his face. He was trying to crawl up the side of the trench. Ernie felt calm now. He used one hand to grab Jim around the back of his head. He clamped tight and forced Jim’s head still, even as his body writhed. Ernie slid the mask down and positioned it over Jim’s mouth and nose.
“You with me, Jim? Can ya walk?” yelled Ernie.
Jim’s hands went to the mask. He took huge breaths. He was in no state to walk.
“Let’s go,” said Ernie.
He stood and grabbed Jim by the back of the tunic and started dragging. He pushed through the white cloud that was not so different to the white of real clouds, just a gathering of water vapor—only in this one, chlorine.
Ernie’s throat burned the way it burned when he fought that lightning grassfire at home with his two brothers and the old man, the day the wind turned and they lost two sheds then almost their lives because it came for them, the smoke and the flames, and he had to run when running was the one thing he was never good at. Except there was a difference—back then there’d been no hand the size of his own slowly tightening its grip around the flesh of his neck, trying to strangle him.
Ernie scratched at his throat, trying to pry away invisible fingers.
Nothing there. Nothing there.
He continued slogging forward. The cloud began to thin until finally he emerged from the white into a length of trench that seemed miraculously untouched, a sanctuary of clean air. But Ernie remembered words about invisible killers.
He saw other men ahead, trudging forward, masks fixed about their heads. He focused on the sound of Jim wheezing and did not stop.
30
Michel woke before dawn. His internal body clock was as reliable as any series of miniature cogs and pulleys in a wound watch. He quietly climbed from the loft and found Axe’s rifle where she kept it leaning against the wall. He collected a few bullets from the rafter above. He leaned his whole body against the big barn door and pushed. It squeaked open and slowly swung out on its massive hinges. He slipped outside. As he was pushing the door shut, Monster’s head appeared in the gap. She looked up, asking for permission.
“Come on, then,” said Michel in a hushed breath. He opened the door a few more inches. Monster hesitated. “Dog, if you can’t fit through there, you’re not coming.”
Michel moved a foot back and that was all the encouragement Monster needed. She squeezed her body forward. Normally she depended upon a high hop to make up for her lost leg, but she was constrained by the narrowness of the gap. Monster fell forward and landed on her chin, then used her back legs to push. Her belly dragged as she wiggled her way outside, her ears low in concentration, her tail noisily patting the dust behind.
Monster eventually got clear and pushed upright. Her tail wagged the back of her body as she looked at Michel’s face, clearly excited to be exploring with one of her pack leaders.
Michel did not coddle with fawning human noises. He lent down and roughened the hair behind Monster’s ears. He liked the fact the dog made do and did not feel sorry for itself.
“Right, let’s go.”
Monster maintained a few steps on Michel as they passed the crater that brimmed with ugly black water, then followed the trails through the paddocks. She seemed to know exactly where he was going—to the grassy knoll where he had seen the Flemish Giants.
Michel felt ravenously hungry, and he knew now he should be able to eat real food. Something substantial, with meat and fat, still soft but not soup-like. In his convalescence, Michel had come to an odd realization: being able to chew one’s food was an important part of satiety.
He made a conscious effort not to think too far ahead, to when the rabbit was skinned and broiling in a pot, for his mouth was already watering and it made the hunger sharp and unpleasant, especially when he knew that a successful hunt was never a sure thing. If he returned empty-handed, there was nothing appetizing to eat at the barn. Some potatoes, onions, a little stale bread, butter, lard, salt. And of course eggs. Without more—a steak, some sausage or a big fat Belgian rabbit—it was the impoverished food of struggling peasants.
A memory came to him of serving his strange little English friend, Henry, such food. On the way to the mountains, a pretty waitress, the one Henry was keen on, had served them bread, oil, wine and cheese. Henry liked to complain as much as he liked to eat, so it was hardly a surprise when the two converged. How dare he—the King of Fuck All and Nothing, as Michel sometimes referred to him—be served peasant fare? Henry wanted kippers. Henry always wanted bloody kippers.
Michel had mocked him, but now Henry seemed less ridiculous in his desire. Not ridiculous at all, in fact. Michel thought of kippers, the English staple with which he had become familiar as a soldier of the British Army. Smoked herring, by any other name.
The flesh was oily and rich; with the right salting, it was nothing short of delicious. The fillets could be fried, heated, baked or put in a stew. They could be eaten as they were, every last bit down the hatch and then more to come because they were easily transported, long-lasting and plentiful. God, but for a kipper right at that moment. There were millions of fat herring swimming in the sea and millions of smoked herring sitting in British warehouses and supply stores, and not one in his hand or gut.
Michel licked his lips and swallowed, then scowled.
Shit.
Michel realized he was doing it again, thinking about food and making his stomach ache. He was so hungry for something hearty that he felt a little sick and a little angry.
“Idiot,” he muttered, and shook his head.
He watched Monster. He would call her back if she threatened to give the game away, but she had good sense. She only hopped far enough in front to look and sniff, then she waited for Michel to almost catch up before repeating the process. No doubt Monster had smelled every inch of the farm a thousand times over, and yet each time she bent her neck and sniffed something it seemed totally new—a revelation and a delight.
Michel supposed it was no different to people and their eyes. A person would spend their life looking at the same thing every day and always find some sort of joy in it, always seeing something new.
Over the years, he had spent a lot of time at Amer Ami, deep in the Vosges Mountains. Émile and Maddy had liked their sleep—at least till there was a glow coming through the window. Michel was always up before them, and they had assumed he was just an early riser. They did not need to know it took a conscious effort of will, an urging of his body to calibrate to a precise moment of the morning, no matter how little he had slept and how tired he felt.
Percy had known, because some mornings Percy came out with him. They did not waste words—meaningless morning pleasantries. They said nothing and together looked out to the valley and sky. Depending on wind and temperature, they watched the rising or settling dew slowly reveal, till the sun took away the soft possibility of twilight and gave the valley over to the callused reality of day.
It would have been a sad thing, the coming of the sun in all its harsh splendor, if not for the knowledge one could return the next morning, and next morning, and next morning; and no matter how many times he saw it, it would always come again, be there again, new and different and never less than perfect.
What he wanted to see right then was a rabbit. Michel whistled under his breath and Monster stopped. He pointed at the ground. Monster seemed to understand. She went no further and now just watched as Michel crept forward with soft steps. He was behind a cluster of bushes and blackberry. He continued on a handful of paces till he was able to peer around the side of the foliage. He saw the grassy knoll. There were no rabbits, but there were two pigeons.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
He raised the rifle. It was loaded and ready to fire. He looked down the barrel
and through the steel wedge that formed the sights. He found the pin of steel that stood tall from the end of the barrel and lined it up with the fattest of the two birds. He touched his finger to the trigger, but did not pull. He was happy with the steadiness of his aim. He began to apply pressure, then stopped and eased his finger back.
It had been there all along, right in front of him, not thirty feet away. A Flemish Giant stood tall on its back legs and looked about. Its gaze passed straight over Michel. As its ears swiveled, three long blades of grass disappeared into its mouth like strands of green pasta. Michel lowered the rifle till the rabbit’s huge head centered in the sights. He did not hesitate. He pulled the trigger and the gun fired, a crack that shattered the morning quiet, accompanied by an almost simultaneous spit of sand next to the rabbit.
The Flemish Giant spun a full circle, stamped its back feet into the ground twice—thump-thump—then bounded away toward the grassy knoll. Michel worked the bolt. An empty cartridge somersaulted from the chamber. He pushed a discolored round into place and pushed the bolt shut. He looked up to see pigeons fly into the air at the approach of the massive rabbit, which in turn seemed to startle the bunny that clearly had no idea it was twenty times their size. It turned and ran back the way it came, toward Michel.
The rabbit stopped. Michel could see its chest heaving. It was panicked and unsure. It looked directly at him and he looked directly back, between the eyes.
Crack.
Sand spat and the rabbit bolted, this time to the right, and it was gone.
“Shit!”
Michel rammed the bolt back to eject the spent cartridge. He fumbled his last bullet, dropping it to the ground.
“Fuck it!”
He bent and picked it up. He rolled it against his shirt to get rid of the grass and dirt. He put the cartridge in his pocket.
He had been a fool. He had been skinning and gutting the rabbit and preparing the pot in his mind.
But it was right there!
He held the gun out and looked at it with disgust.
“Piece of god-damned shit. Can’t even rely on a … I could have run it down! Fuck!”
It was real anger, though not lasting. Straight away Michel came to see how ridiculous he was, standing in a Belgian field in the soft twilight talking and yelling to himself, bewailing the loss of a giant rabbit, when he knew he ought to be marveling at the fact he was there. Alive and there—to see the morning, to see a rabbit that belonged in a circus.
It was the perversion of hunger. He knew it from the trenches, recognized it now for what it was. On those long and unrelenting stretches lasting days and nights, when there had been none to take his place as they waited for a wave of Germans that sometimes did and sometimes did not come, waited without a scrap of food being brought up because men were ultimately selfish and wanted to fill their own bellies and rest their own heads before they thought of another, Michel had thought a great deal. He had discovered many useless and a few interesting things by letting his mind work a problem.
One such discovery was that hunger was in fact an emotion, even if no one else called it that. A special sort of emotion, one that dabbled in the others—in anger and frustration and pleasure and disappointment—but it had a short attention span and soon grew bored, inevitably returning to focus on its own special misery, a narrowing of thought and an ugly dimness and confusion. It did that even when a man was not as hungry as he believed, when he could go another twenty nights without being fed and still live.
Men were never as hungry as they believed. That is something else he had discovered in the trenches. He told himself that now.
You are not hungry. Not really hungry. You are pathetic. Being a fucking child. You are not hungry.
Michel turned around, expecting to see Monster. She was not there. He gave it no further thought. Dogs were like men. Short attention spans. He began the walk back to the barn, and that is when Monster started barking. She was distant.
The hairs along Michel’s spine bristled. He swiveled his head. If she was barking from the direction of the barn, then it might be Yetzel or Elmo. He listened. The barking came from the opposite direction. He looked out across the unkempt paddock, toward a broken copse of trees. He could not see her, but he was quite sure that is where the barking came from.
He calmed. Dogs bark. He whistled and called, “Monster! Monster!”
She kept barking, not savage and yet not playful. He whistled again, called again. She did not come. Michel knew any dog would have heard him clearly, so clearly there was something more pressing than returning to pay fealty to the bigger dog.
Michel took the final rifle cartridge from his pocket. He loaded the rifle, slamming the bolt down with a satisfying click, and set off in search of Monster.
A vague thought played in his mind. It could be a dog thief. He had never heard of such a thing until Godewyn mentioned on two occasions that over recent weeks a number of animals had gone missing in the district. It was a mystery and a scandal, and Godewyn, as a hopeless gossip, had helped spread all sorts of rumors and theories.
The theory that seemed most likely to Michel, as obscene as it may have been, was that people were eating them. He knew there were many hungry refugees on the front, and he knew what hunger could do to a person.
He walked quickly. If there was someone out there on the edge of Axe’s property, trying to catch a three-legged dog to eat the poor animal, he would … he would kill them. That seemed like too much for a dog, and yet he could think of nothing else that fit the crime. A low-life dog rustler preying on a crippled pet that was the last link to a woman’s—a good and decent and beautiful woman’s—dead family.
He would kill them because they were hungry, and so was he.
31
Crazy Kilborn had been everywhere, seen everything. His stories sounded like the telling of legends. His facts were so fabulous they had to be true.
Kilborn had been to the Far East, and Michel remembered a story he had told about eating food that a man on the side of the road was cooking over coals. Kilborn had been hungry. The meat was good, so he ate a lot. He did not know what he was eating. He rarely had in the Far East, and even more rarely had cared.
But people were looking at him. That itself was not strange. People stared at him wherever he went. He was white. He wore different clothes. He did not belong. But these people—they were really staring.
Eventually he asked a man who spoke a few words of English what it was that so fascinated them. The man did not want to tell him, but Kilborn pressed. Insisted.
He had been eating dog. The locals had never seen a white man eat dog. Normally only the poorest classes ate dog, and white men were not of the poorest classes. It was more than they could comprehend. Why did he eat dog?
Kilborn had laughed and laughed until the men who stared laughed too. And when he could find his voice and speak, he told them. I ate it because I was hungry. And then they all laughed some more.
So Michel knew Asian people—and the rare white man—sometimes ate dog. And it just so happened there was an Asian man sitting cross-legged in the grass twenty feet away.
But he was not trying to catch Monster. In fact, the opposite seemed to be the case: Monster had caught the man.
Michel inched forward, Axe’s gun held in front, pointed at the ground. He could whip it up and fire in a second if he had to, but this man seemed no threat. He was caked in canal mud. The only clean spot on him was his eyes—distinctive eyes that seemed angular and asymmetric—which blinked every few moments. He breathed normally and otherwise did not move.
Michel put a hand on Monster’s head, and only then did she look up. Her tail wagged furiously. She lent her body against Michel’s leg and she warbled, then hopped forward. She barked once and kept going, circling the man, sniffing, never going so close that he could reach out and touch her.
“Who are you?” Michel said in German.
The man turned his head and looked at Michel,
until the looking became staring, and still he did not speak.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” said Michel, and he waved.
Nothing. He wondered if the man was shell-shocked. Had been tragically close to exploding artillery and had the sense knocked out of him, which probably meant two burst ear drums to boot. Disoriented men got up and walked the wrong way all the time. Some of them ended up dead. Luckier ones ended up lost.
In fact, it was one of the possibilities Michel had countenanced for himself. The only thing that made him think it not so was his hearing—it was normal. Now that he thought about it, it occurred to Michel that the cross-legged man was in almost the exact spot Axe had found him. Where Monster had found them both.
Maybe that is why the dog had returned there, to see what new things had washed up on the shores of the canal. Or maybe she had smelled him, for he did stink. Michel’s nose flared and lifted. He smelled death.
The first time someone had said that to him—the battlefield mud smells like death—he thought it was a stupid way of describing it. But he had come to know what they meant. Normal mud smelled like something, blood like something, shit like something, exploded munitions like something, rotting horse slime like something, a soldier’s brain’s like something and mosquito water like something, but all of it together smelled like … death.
So the man smelled like death and had probably come from the front. Probably from the Allied side, because Michel did not think the Germans used Asians. What the British called coolie labor.
“Hello? Do you understand me?” Michel said in French. He knew it was a risk to switch languages, but the man had showed no response to German. The man continued to stare.
“Hello?” Michel said in English. “What about now, do you understand me? Do you know English?”
The man stared and blinked.
Michel rubbed his chin. Monster returned to his side and plonked her rump on the grass. She licked her chops with a long tongue. She was a little breathless from barking.
Michel And Axe Bury The Hatchet (The French Bastard Book 2) Page 13