The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel

by P. S. Duffy

  Conlon sighed. “The lost dreams of youth. Find him and you might get them back, eh?”

  Angus turned back with a sardonic smile. “I think those were well shut down by the time he enlisted.” But had resurfaced, he didn’t add.

  “Life isn’t much without dreams.”

  “Ebbin used to say it wasn’t much without risk.”

  “Same thing really.”

  “I suppose. So how about you? Why did you join up? Searching for youth? Avoiding prison?”

  Conlon raised his brows and lit a cigarette. “Might say that. I was going to be a journalist. Run a paper someday. And did. Ran a small paper in Wolfville until it nearly folded. Might have ended up in prison for murder if I hadn’t left.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Turns out, I don’t have much of a head for the business end of things. And . . .” He hesitated briefly. “Had a run-in with the owner. Over a woman. He didn’t love her, but I did. A standard story, but when it’s your own, it seems original.”

  “Did you marry her?”

  “Would have, but there was a problem.”

  “She was his wife?”

  “Exactly. The other problem is I never stop thinking about her. Or him. I’ve killed him many times over for having her, for the way he treats her. I thought she loved me. But I guess not enough to leave him. You, on the other hand, married the girl of your dreams. You’re a lucky man.”

  “A good man” is what Hettie had told him he was on their wedding day. But whether Hettie meant Angus was a good man for marrying her or despite having let his passion get the better of him, or whether she meant he simply was a good man, he’d been afraid to ask. As trammeled with guilt as he’d been over the indiscretion that led to their marriage, Angus never forgot the elation and expansion that moment had held.

  He thought of the thousands of times he’d imagined finding Ebbin. Throwing their arms around each other. Good Christ, what took you so long? Ebbin would say. “Doesn’t seem real, to tell the truth—Ebbin’s death,” he said. “Something about not finding the body, I guess.”

  “Sure. Like I said before, hold on to that dream if you need it. Just don’t forget you’ve got real flesh-and-blood men under your command. You’re going to lose some of them. Don’t let them lose you first.”

  “Yes sir,” Angus said.

  “I’m speaking as a friend.”

  “I know,” Angus said. He did know, but there was rank between them still and things he couldn’t express like the image that had just come to him of Ebbin hiding out in a pair of baggy trousers and a red bandana somewhere south of the Front. Desertion had maybe crossed Conlon’s mind as well. But no, not Ebbin. It would be counter to all Angus knew of him. Angus crushed out his cigarette. There were voices outside. A rowdy crowd was gathering. “Think I’ll push off,” Angus said. “That performance is over. Not sure I’m up to the aftermath.”

  As if summoned, a bunch of privates and junior officers burst in, the music and laughter of the performance clinging to them. Played to perfection, they shouted. Stuck it to the brass! Hilarious!

  There was a great deal of scraping of chairs and pulling tables together. Talk about how good Hitch looked in a dress (nice legs!) quickly shifted to the relative merits of the five known whores in town.

  “Five?! Bugger! There’s twenty if there’s two, and I’ve known them all!” Roddy Gordon roared out. He flipped a chair around and took a long swallow of someone’s beer. “They said to me, ‘What’s under those skirts of yours?’ ‘Come see,’ I said. ‘If you dare!’ ” He clapped a huge hand on Angus’s shoulder and reared back, cheeks flushed, eyes to the heavens. “They dared, alright! Oh, they dared! And nearly fainted away! Angus MacGrath, as I live and breathe! How the hell are you?”

  “Roddy Gordon! How’s it possible?” Angus hadn’t seen him since they’d trained together in England.

  “By God, yes! We meet again. Here am I, and thank God for it, eh? I expect to bring this war to a quick end. I’m a corporal now, you’ll notice.” He cocked his head at his badge, sat down and slapped his huge knees. “What have you to say for yourself?”

  “How’s everyone and where are they?”

  “Sad story, actually.” Roddy started eating Angus’s potatoes with his fingers. “Where’s that waitress? I’m sure to get a free supper. Likes my pipes, I can tell you! Played her more than a few tunes. Okay, so a lot of the lads are down with influenza and the rest being bled into the ranks. The great 183rd broken up and scattered to the winds. Now I’m one of your lot, ready to take the Hun and drag him over his parapet. So, how’ve you been keeping? Met a friend of yours tonight at the play, by the way. Sam Publicover.”

  “Publicover, Jesus!” Prescott said. “You should have seen him! That boy is a natural born fighter.”

  “Killer, more like,” Cheverly Heck put in. “Had to keep him from beating a Kootenay to death after the play. The Kootenay has Roddy here to thank for his life.”

  “Hmm,” Roddy agreed, munching thoughtfully. “Good-natured fun ’til the Kootenay resorted to name-calling of a more personal nature—‘skinny-boned herring choker’ was one. Things turned ugly when he called Publicover a pretty boy.”

  “Well, he’s no herring choker. But he is pretty, you’ll have to admit,” Angus said, warming to the talk, happy to be with Roddy again.

  “Indeed yes! That he is. All sunny innocence up to that point, but then he turns a murderous eye on the Kootenay, comes after him, steady on, mind, lifts him by the collar, and all hell breaks loose. Lucky the MPs were otherwise engaged. But to his credit, your man backed off when he saw it was no contest. We didn’t actually have to pull him off.” He shot a look at Cheverly.

  “True enough.” Cheverly shrugged. “I grew up with him. He’s got five older sisters that dote on him. Don’t know what he’s so angry about.”

  “Maybe that,” Angus smiled.

  Conlon twirled his glass and said, “It’s always cold calculation with Sam. He chooses his fights unless it’s the Krauts. Even then, he rarely loses and never talks about it afterwards.” He sighed loudly. “Suppose I’ll have to dress him down for behavior unbecoming an officer.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you one other thing about him,” Roddy said soberly. “He is one hell of a pretty boy! And, speak of the devil!”

  Publicover, grinning broadly, blue eyes innocent, not a scratch on him, swung through the crowd and grabbed a seat. “Been missing me?”

  Sweat, damp wool and liquor suffused the air as talk turned to the wonder of nurses, spotted that morning in their blue capes, managing to look wholesome, healthy and entirely unapproachable. Having stayed far longer than he’d intended, Angus headed for the latrine. Jostled in line, he thought back to the upper room in London—a sanctuary of measures, grids, coordinates and intersecting lines of longitude and latitude—where the cartographers he’d hoped to join bent over their stereoscopes, transforming aerial photographs into maps. There was something elemental and pristine about it, the careful, dispassionate execution, that called up the calming effect of drawing his birds—a tamping down of emotions too deeply felt. Sorry as he’d been not to join them, he was glad now not to have been part of their remote, sterile world. Line-by-line exactitude—his talent and his defeat. Maybe it was the liquor, or Roddy’s presence, or the laughter and camaraderie, but he felt grateful to be in the messy reality of the Front—the fleeting moments of joy etched all the more sharply by the horrors—all of it authentic, unspoken and understood by every man there.

  When he returned to the table to take his leave, Roddy stood up. “Meant to ask. Ever find anything out about that brother-in-law of yours?”

  “Declared dead. They found his tags and what was left of his platoon. Blasted away. That’s the official story,” Angus said. “Never recovered his body.”

  “Aye. Sorry.” Roddy looked down at the glass he was holding between two thick fingers and his thumb. “You doubt it?”

  “No, no,” Ang
us lied. “How could I doubt it?”

  “So journey over, eh?” Roddy said. “Except whoops, you’re still here.”

  “Exactly,” Angus said. “Here is where I am.”

  “Think we’re on a suicide mission?” Roddy was serious.

  “Conlon there, who apparently comes from a long line of Irish fatalists, doesn’t seem to think so. Preparation, Roddy.”

  “Ah yes, drills and more drills, specialty training, put through our paces to keep doubt at bay. We’re up against it, I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid so,” Angus said.

  “Give my best to the ever-lovely Juliette and her charming son!” Publicover called out after him.

  PAUL WAS UP when he got back, his mother asleep. “I wait for you,” he said. He pulled Angus down the corridor to the kitchen, where a few cans of peaches stood on the table. Ever resourceful, the kid had a friend in nearly every soldier he met. Something of his pale but wiry energy engendered both pity for his situation and admiration for his pluck. Juliette was remarkably loose with him, letting him roam about and fraternize. “He finds his own way through this cauchemar. It is best for him,” she’d shrugged.

  “So, you’ve found some peaches,” Angus said, yawning.

  “Non. Some other thing,” said Paul. He jabbed a dirty finger at the picture of Ebbin on the table.

  “What’s this doing here?” Angus demanded. He swept the photo up.

  “It is by your bed,” Paul said. “I have see cet homme.” He leaned in against Angus and pointed again at the picture of Ebbin. “This day, I have see him,” he whispered.

  Angus snapped the picture. “This man? This man?”

  Paul bounced on tiptoe. “Oui. Cet homme! ”

  “Where? Where did you see him?”

  “With Brigitte. With soldiers and Brigitte.”

  “Brigitte? Who’s Brigitte?”

  “You know her. Soldiers know her. Une amie, a friend. Shhh. Don’t tell Maman.”

  Brigitte—Roddy or one of the others, or a bunch of the others, had mentioned that name. She worked in a place off-limits. Naturally, Paul knew her. “No.” Angus shook his head at Paul. “You didn’t see him. Couldn’t have.” He pointed at Ebbin’s image. “This man is dead. Il est mort, Paul,” he said, measuring his words out against his racing pulse.

  Paul didn’t flinch. “I see him. You are not happy?”

  He’s making this up, Angus thought. But Paul was hardly the sort to give false cheer. What was he up to? A genuine mistake, perhaps. “You saw someone who looks like him, eh? It’s okay. I am okay.” Angus rubbed Paul’s head lightly, the white patch stiff and bristly under his palm.

  Paul removed Angus’s hand from his head and held it in his. “Vous avez peur?” he whispered.

  “Afraid? Of what? Of finding him? Like he was a ghost? No, no.” Angus smiled as best he could and put the picture in his pocket.

  “I take you.” Paul grabbed Angus’s sleeve. He was insistent and so believable that Angus almost let him drag him along. Angus checked the time—11:32. “Stop,” he said. “I can’t let you go roaming the streets at this hour. No. You can—” Take me to him tomorrow, he was going to say. But if it really was Ebbin, he could be gone tomorrow. He could be dead tomorrow.

  Paul looked at the ceiling, waiting for him to reach the obvious conclusion.

  “Okay, look,” Angus said. “I’ll go. You stay here. Tell me where.”

  “Une maison à côté du fleuve.”

  “House by the river? Where by the river?” Angus said.

  “It is dark. To find it—très difficile,” Paul said with import. “I take you. Maman sleeps.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

  Angus looked at the clock and again at Paul. God, he was convincing—his thin face, drawn and nearly white, his good eye glittering. Angus pulled out a pencil and a small pad. All Angus could think to write was, “Paul is with me (avec moi). He thought he saw Ebbin and is taking me to him.” It seemed so crazy he almost scratched it out, but it occurred to him that she probably couldn’t read English, and he couldn’t write French very well, so it was all pretty futile. He could have had Paul write it, but he wanted it to be from him. Besides, they’d be back before she woke up. He centered the note on the kitchen table and stared at it.

  “Allons-y!” Paul said.

  “Okay. Done.” Angus wrapped his scarf around Paul’s neck and followed him out the door.

  AT THE EDGE of Astile, Paul scurried down this lane and the next, cutting through the skeletons of roofless buildings. The surroundings grew increasingly unfamiliar. A flicker of hope was growing. Hurry, Angus wanted to say. Hurry. Hurry.

  Tents stretched away to the east, white against the black night, the odd brazier burning here and there. The wind picked up and, with it, the flap of a tent lifted from its stakes and luffed like a loose sail. A single-story brick building with rounded walls loomed up. A horse whinnied. The stables on the outskirts of town. Paul took a sharp right down a dirt lane bordered by hedges as tall as a trench wall. A quarter of a mile later, the road dipped, and Paul turned into a cobblestone courtyard flanked by stone buildings, some very large trees, and what might have been an old granary.

  Like a couple of spies, they crept across the courtyard to the corner window of a narrow structure with a wide-planked door. They planted themselves in the mushy detritus of dead weeds, feet sinking into the thin coat of snow. Angus leaned in from the side. Paul crouched so his nose was just above the sill. The light was dim, the voices loud. Smoke hung in the air. Bursts of laughter rang out over the plaintive notes of a violin. The tempo suddenly picked up.

  If it was a brothel, and it clearly was, it was off-limits—neither a red lamp for ranks nor blue for officers. Angus was about to head in for a look when Paul’s pointy elbow jabbed him in the ribs. Unblinking, Paul pointed at a group of soldiers playing cards. A weasel of a man facing them was in British khaki. The Canadian with his back to them had a woman on his lap, her pink-and-black-fringed shawl draped over his shoulder, her plump arm casually around his neck, caressing his hair. Paul, squinting his good eye, pointed directly at him. The glass was none too clear, but Angus scanned the others. Lots of Brits, a number of unruly Canadians at another table. The fiddler was a young woman in a black tuxedo. Another woman, clad in a thin chemise, kissed her on the mouth.

  The Canadian near the window leaned back, talking, gesturing, as the others laughed. Then he pushed the woman off his lap and stroked her backside as she stood. She licked her lips at him. Angus covered Paul’s eyes. Paul pulled Angus’s hand down and pointed again.

  “Yeah, I know. You think it’s him,” Angus whispered. “It’s not, though.” Couldn’t be. Not this man, this man who threw his head back, who brushed his hair from his forehead in an all-too-familiar gesture.

  Angus staggered back. “Sweet, sweet Jesus,” he heard himself say. He whipped his cap off, raked his hair. “Sweet, sweet Jesus.” No wonder Paul had been so sure. The Canadian stood up suddenly and was out through the crowd and gone before Angus could take it in. A side door banged open. The noise of the crowd spilled out. “Not so fast, Havers!” someone shouted. “We’ve a little business to settle.” Footsteps on the cobblestone. Running. A thud. A low moan. “Got him!” someone else grunted.

  Angus raced around to the alley. Dark and narrow, it ran between the brothel and a high garden wall. There was a stack of crates, rotting vegetables strewn about, and a couple of bicycles; just beyond them, three figures. One held the Canadian. The other faced him. “Pay up, Havers, you miserable liar,” Angus heard him say.

  Havers?

  The heavyset soldier put his hands on his hips, then clipped the Canadian in the face, grabbed his hair, and gave him two hard jabs under the ribs. Angus clamped a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Stay put,” he said, and strode toward them, revolver in the air.

  “Drop him, Private,” he commanded. “You! Stand back,” he said to the other soldier.

  The short soldier cold
-cocked the Canadian as the burly one rushed Angus and brought him to the ground. The Canadian fell to the cobblestones like a sack. The revolver fell from Angus’s hand, but the soldier didn’t notice. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his breath a humid fog of alcohol on Angus’s face. “And what the fuck do you want with Havers?” His hand went around Angus’s neck.

  “Arrêtez! Let him go!” came a small voice.

  The soldier stared uncomprehendingly over Angus’s shoulder. He loosened his grip and a sloppy grin spread across his face. “What we got here, now? A little officer?” Angus pushed him off and rolled to his feet. Paul leveled the gun with two hands. Before he could cock it, the other soldier grabbed him up from behind. Paul kicked and struggled, his striped socks dangling around his ankles. The revolver fell to the ground. The fat soldier grabbed it, held it, and looked over at Angus, his dull eyes registering something.

  “That’s right. I’d be the officer,” Angus said. “Drop the kid, and hand over my revolver.”

  The soldier’s mouth fell open. “ I . . . thought you were in for Havers here. Sir, I thought . . .”

  Angus grabbed the gun and glanced at the slumped form of the Canadian who could not possibly be Ebbin and most certainly was. “I don’t give a damn what you thought. Get out of here or so help me God, I’ll kill you both.”

  Turning once to look back at Angus, they stumbled down the alley, melting into the darkness at the far end. Angus holstered the revolver and quickly felt along the boy’s limbs, lifted his chin. “You okay?”

  Paul bobbed his head up and down. “Am all okay, Lieutenant,” he said.

  The side door burst open. Angus pulled Paul behind it. They flattened themselves against the wall as two corporals staggered out, sniggering and laughing. The corporals swung around and faced the wall, fumbling with their trousers, then urinated loudly. Angus looked over at the Canadian, curled on his side, still as stone. If Havers was Ebbin, the only way to protect him now was to leave him lying there unnoticed.