A Trail of Fire

by Diana Gabaldon

  As he staggered back against the wall of the house, he had just wit enough left to notice that the farmwife – now sticking out of her window and shrieking like the Glasgow Express – had knocked one of the pasties to the ground, where it was being devoured by the dog, who wore an expression of piety and rewarded virtue that Jerry found really offensive.

  Then the farmer hit him again, and he stopped being offended.

  It was a well-built byre, the stones fitted carefully and mortared. He wore himself out with shouting and kicking at the door until his gammy leg gave way and he collapsed onto the earthen floor.

  ‘Now bloody what?’ he muttered. He was damp with sweat from his effort, but it was cold in the byre, with that penetrating damp cold peculiar to the British Isles, that seeps into your bones and makes the joints ache. His knee would give him fits in the morning. The air was saturated with the scent of manure and chilled urine. ‘Why would the bloody Jerries want the damn place?’ he said, and sitting up, huddled into his shirt. It was going to be a frigging long night.

  He got up onto his hands and knees and felt carefully round inside the byre, but there was nothing even faintly edible – only a scurf of mouldy hay. Not even the rats would have that; the inside of the place was empty as a drum and silent as a church.

  What had happened to the cows? he wondered. Dead of a plague, eaten, sold? Or maybe just not yet back from the summer pastures – though it was late in the year for that, surely.

  He sat down again, back against the door, as the wood was marginally less cold than the stone walls. He’d thought about being captured in battle, made prisoner by the Germans – they all had, now and then, though chaps mostly didn’t talk about it. He thought about POW camps, and those camps in Poland, the ones he’d been meant to photograph. Were they as bleak as this? Stupid thing to think of, really.

  But he’d got to pass the time ’til morning one way or another, and there were lots of things he’d rather not think about just now. Like what would happen once morning came. He didn’t think breakfast in bed was going to be part of it.

  The wind was rising. Whining past the corners of the cow-byre with a keening noise that set his teeth on edge. He still had his silk scarf; it had slipped down inside his shirt when the bandits in the mile-castle had attacked him. He fished it out now and wrapped it round his neck, for comfort, if not warmth.

  He’d brought Dolly breakfast in bed now and then. She woke up slow and sleepy, and he loved the way she scooped her tangled curly black hair off her face, peering out slit-eyed, like a small, sweet mole blinking in the light. He’d sit her up and put the tray on the table beside her, and then he’d shuck his own clothes and crawl in bed, too, cuddling close to her soft warm skin. Sometimes sliding down in the bed, and her pretending not to notice, sipping tea or putting marmite on her toast while he burrowed under the covers and found his way up through the cottony layers of sheets and nightie. He loved the smell of her, always, but especially when he’d made love to her the night before, and she bore the strong musky scent of him between her legs.

  He shifted a little, roused by the memory, but the subsequent thought – that he might never see her again – quelled him at once.

  Still thinking of Dolly, though, he put his hand automatically to his pocket, and was alarmed to find no lump there. He slapped at his thigh, but failed to find the small hard bulge of the sapphire. Could he have put it in the other pocket by mistake? He delved urgently, shoving both hands deep into his pockets. No stone – but there was something in his right-hand pocket. Something powdery, almost greasy . . . what the devil?

  He brought his fingers out, peering as closely at them as he could, but it was too dark to see more than a vague outline of his hand, let alone anything on it. He rubbed his fingers gingerly together; it felt something like the thick soot that builds up inside a chimney.

  ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, and put his fingers to his nose. There was a distinct smell of combustion. Not petrol-ish, at all, but a scent of burning so intense he could taste it on the back of his tongue. Like something out of a volcano. What in the name of God Almighty could burn a rock and leave the man who carried it alive?

  The sort of thing he’d met among the standing stones, that was what.

  He’d been doing all right with the not feeling too afraid until now, but . . . he swallowed hard, and sat down again, quietly.

  ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ he whispered to the knees of his trousers. ‘I pray the Lord my soul to keep . . .’

  He did in fact sleep eventually, in spite of the cold, from simple exhaustion. He was dreaming about wee Roger, who for some reason was a grown man now, but still holding his tiny blue bear, minuscule in a broad-palmed grasp. His son was speaking to him in Gaelic, saying something urgent that he couldn’t understand, and he was growing frustrated, telling Roger over and over for Christ’s sake to speak English, couldn’t he?

  Then he heard another voice through the fog of sleep and realised that someone was in fact talking somewhere close by.

  He jerked awake, struggling to grasp what was being said, and failing utterly. It took him several seconds to realise that whoever was speaking – there seemed to be two voices, hissing and muttering in argument – really was speaking in Gaelic.

  He had only a smattering of it himself; his mother had had it, but— he was moving before he could complete the thought, panicked at the notion that potential assistance might get away.

  ‘Hoy!’ he bellowed, scrambling – or trying to scramble – to his feet. His much-abused knee wasn’t having any, though, and gave way the instant he put weight on it, catapulting him face-first toward the door.

  He twisted as he fell and hit it with his shoulder. The booming thud put paid to the argument; the voices fell silent at once.

  ‘Help! Help me!’ he shouted, pounding on the door. ‘Help!’

  ‘Will ye for God’s sake hush your noise?’ said a low, annoyed voice on the other side of the door. ‘Ye want to have them all down on us? Here, then, bring the light closer.’

  This last seemed to be addressed to the voice’s companion, for a faint glow shone through the gap at the bottom of the door. There was a scraping noise as the bolt was drawn, and a faint grunt of effort, then a thunk! as the bolt was set down against the wall. The door swung open, and Jerry blinked in a sudden shaft of light as the slide of a lantern grated open.

  He turned his head aside and closed his eyes for an instant, deliberate, as he would if flying at night and momentarily blinded by a flare or by the glow of his own exhaust. When he opened them again, the two men were in the cow-byre with him, looking him over with open curiosity.

  Biggish buggers, both of them, taller and broader than he was. One fair, one black-haired as Lucifer. They didn’t look much alike, and yet he had the feeling that they might be related – some fleeting glimpse of bone, a similarity of expression, maybe.

  ‘What’s your name, mate?’ said the dark chap, softly. Jerry felt the nip of wariness at his nape, even as he felt a thrill in the pit of his stomach. It was regular speech, perfectly understandable. A Scots accent, but—

  ‘MacKenzie, J.W.,’ he said, straightening up to attention. ‘Lieutenant, Royal Air Force. Service number—’

  An indescribable expression flitted across the dark bloke’s face. An urge to laugh, of all bloody things, and a flare of excitement in his eyes – really striking eyes, a vivid green that flashed sudden in the light. None of that mattered to Jerry; what was important was that the man plainly knew. He knew.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, urgent. ‘Where d’ye come from?’

  The two exchanged an unfathomable glance, and the other answered.

  ‘Inverness.’

  ‘Ye know what I mean!’ He took a deep breath. ‘When?’

  The two strangers were much of an age, but the fair one had plainly had a harder life; his face was deeply weathered and lined.

  ‘A lang way from you,’ he said quietly, and despite his own a
gitation, Jerry heard the note of desolation in his voice. ‘From now. Lost.’

  Lost. Oh, God. But still—

  ‘Jesus. And where are we now? Wh-when?’

  ‘Northumbria,’ the dark man answered briefly, ‘and I don’t bloody know for sure. Look, there’s no time. If anyone hears us—’

  ‘Aye, right. Let’s go, then.’

  The air outside was wonderful after the smells of the cow-byre, cold and full of dying heather and turned earth. He thought he could even smell the moon, a faint green sickle above the horizon; he tasted cheese at the thought, and his mouth watered. He wiped a trickle of saliva away, and hurried after his rescuers, hobbling as fast as he could.

  The farmhouse was black, a squatty black blot on the landscape. The dark bloke grabbed him by the arm as he was about to go past it, quickly licked a finger and held it up to test the wind.

  ‘The dogs,’ he explained in a whisper. ‘This way.’

  They circled the farmhouse at a cautious distance, and found themselves stumbling through a ploughed field. Clods burst under Jerry’s boots as he hurried to keep up, lurching on his bad knee with every step.

  ‘Where we going?’ he panted, when he thought it safe to speak.

  ‘We’re taking ye back to the stones near the lake,’ the dark man said tersely. ‘That has to be where ye came through.’ The fair one just snorted, as though this wasn’t his notion – but he didn’t argue.

  Hope flared up in Jerry like a bonfire. They knew what the stones were, how it worked. They’d show him how to get back!

  ‘How— how did ye find me?’ He could hardly breathe, such a pace they kept up, but had to know. The lantern was shut and he couldn’t see their faces, but the dark man made a muffled sound that might have been a laugh.

  ‘I met an auld wifie wearing your dog-tags. Very proud of them, she was.’

  ‘Ye’ve got them?’ Jerry gasped.

  ‘Nay, she wouldna give them up.’ It was the fair man, sounding definitely amused. ‘Told us where she’d got them, though, and we followed your trail backward. Hey!’ He caught Jerry’s elbow, just as his foot twisted out from under him. The sound of a barking dog broke the night – some way away, but distinct. The fair man’s hand clenched tight on his arm. ‘Come on, then – hurry!’

  Jerry had a bad stitch in his side, and his knee was all but useless by the time the little group of stones came in sight, a pale huddle in the light of the waning moon. Still, he was surprised at how near the stones were to the farmhouse; he must have circled round more than he thought in his wanderings.

  ‘Right,’ said the dark man, coming to an abrupt halt. ‘This is where we leave you.’

  ‘Ye do?’ Jerry panted. ‘But— but you—’

  ‘When ye came . . . through. Did ye have anything on you? A gemstone, any jewellery?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jerry said, bewildered. ‘I had a raw sapphire in my pocket. But it’s gone. It’s like it—’

  ‘Like it burnt up,’ the blond man finished for him, grim-voiced. ‘Aye. Well, so?’ This last was clearly addressed to the dark man, who hesitated. Jerry couldn’t see his face, but his whole body spoke of indecision. He wasn’t one to dither, though – he stuck a hand into the leather pouch at his waist, pulled something out, and pressed it into Jerry’s hand. It was faintly warm from the man’s body, and hard in his palm. A small stone of some kind. Faceted, like the stone in a ring.

  ‘Take this; it’s a good one. When ye go through,’ the dark man was speaking urgently to him, ‘think about your wife, about Marjorie. Think hard; see her in your mind’s eye, and walk straight through. Whatever the hell ye do, though, don’t think about your son. Just your wife.’

  ‘What?’ Jerry was gob-smacked. ‘How the bloody hell do you know my wife’s name? And where’ve ye heard about my son?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ the man said, and Jerry saw the motion as he turned his head to look back over his shoulder.

  ‘Damn,’ said the fair one, softly. ‘They’re coming. There’s a light.’

  There was: a single light, bobbing evenly over the ground, as it would if someone carried it. But look as he might, Jerry could see no one behind it, and a violent shiver ran over him.

  ‘Tannasg,’ said the other man under his breath. Jerry knew that word well enough – spirit, it meant. And usually an ill-disposed one. A haunt.

  ‘Aye, maybe.’ The dark man’s voice was calm. ‘And maybe not. It’s near Samhain, after all. Either way, ye need to go, man, and now. Remember, think of your wife.’

  Jerry swallowed, his hand closing tight around the stone.

  ‘Aye. Aye . . . right. Thanks, then,’ he added awkwardly, and heard the breath of a rueful laugh from the dark man.

  ‘Nay bother, mate,’ he said. And with that, they were both off, making their way across the stubbled meadow, two lumbering shapes in the moonlight.

  Heart thumping in his ears, Jerry turned toward the stones. They looked just like they’d looked before. Just stones. But the echo of what he’d heard in there . . . he swallowed. It wasn’t like there was much choice.

  ‘Dolly,’ he whispered, trying to summon up a vision of his wife. ‘Dolly. Dolly, help me!’

  He took a hesitant step toward the stones. Another. One more. Then nearly bit his tongue off as a hand clamped down on his shoulder. He whirled, fist up, but the dark man’s other hand seized his wrist.

  ‘I love you,’ the dark man said, his voice fierce. Then he was gone again, with the shoof-shoof sounds of boots in dry grass, leaving Jerry with his mouth agape.

  He caught the other man’s voice from the darkness, irritated, half-amused. He spoke differently from the dark man, a much thicker accent, but Jerry understood him without difficulty.

  ‘Why did ye tell him a daft thing like that?’

  And the dark one’s reply, soft-spoken, in a tone that terrified him more than anything had, so far.

  ‘Because he isn’t going to make it back. It’s the only chance I’ll ever have. Come on.’

  The day was dawning when he came to himself again, and the world was quiet. No birds sang and the air was cold with the chill of November and winter coming on. When he could stand up, he went to look, shaky as a newborn lamb.

  The plane wasn’t there, but there was still a deep gouge in the earth where it had been. Not raw earth, though; furred over with grass and meadow plants – not just furred, he saw, limping over to have a closer look. Matted. Dead stalks from earlier years’ growth.

  If he’d been where he thought he’d been, if he’d truly gone . . . back . . . then he’d come forward again, but not to the same place he’d left. How long? A year, two? He sat down on the grass, too drained to stand up any longer. He felt as though he’d walked every second of the time between then and now.

  He’d done what the green-eyed stranger had said. Concentrated fiercely on Dolly. But he hadn’t been able to keep from thinking of wee Roger, not altogether. How could he? The picture he had most vividly of Dolly was her holding the lad, close against her breast; that’s what he’d seen. And yet he’d made it. He thought he’d made it. Maybe.

  What might have happened? he wondered. There hadn’t been time to ask. There’d been no time to hesitate, either; more lights had come bobbing across the dark, with uncouth Northumbrian shouts behind them, hunting him, and he’d hurled himself into the midst of the standing stones and things went pear-shaped again, even worse. He hoped the strangers who’d rescued him had got away.

  Lost, the fair man had said, and even now, the word went through him like a bit of jagged metal. He swallowed.

  He thought he wasn’t where he had been, but was he still lost, himself? Where was he now? Or rather, when?

  He stayed for a bit, gathering his strength. In a few minutes, though, he heard a familiar sound – the low growl of engines, and the swish of tyres on asphalt. He swallowed hard, and standing up, turned away from the stones, toward the road.

  He was lucky – for once, he thought wryly.
There was a line of troop transports passing, and he swung aboard one without difficulty. The soldiers looked startled at his appearance – he was rumpled and stained, bruised and torn about and with a two-week beard – but they instantly assumed he’d been off on a tear and was now trying to sneak back to his base without being detected. They laughed and nudged him knowingly, but were sympathetic, and when he confessed he was skint, had a quick whip-round for enough cash to buy a train ticket from Salisbury, where the transport was headed.

  He did his best to smile and go along with the ragging, but soon enough they tired of him and turned to their own conversations, and he was allowed to sit swaying on the bench, feeling the thrum of the engine through his legs, surrounded by the comfortable presence of comrades.

  ‘Hey, mate,’ he said casually to the young soldier beside him. ‘What year is it?’

  The boy – he couldn’t be more than seventeen, and Jerry felt the weight of the five years between them as though they were fifty – looked at him wide-eyed, then whooped with laughter.

  ‘What’ve you been having to drink, Dad? Bring any away with you?’

  That led to more ragging, and he didn’t try asking again.

  Did it matter?

  He remembered almost nothing of the journey from Salisbury to London. People looked at him oddly, but no one tried to stop him. It didn’t matter; nothing mattered but getting to Dolly. Everything else could wait.

  London was a shock. There was bomb damage everywhere. Streets were scattered with shattered glass from shop windows, glinting in the pale sun, other streets blocked off by barriers. Here and there a stark black notice: Do Not Enter – UNEXPLODED BOMB.

  He made his way from St Pancras on foot, needing to see, his heart rising into his throat fit to choke him as he did see what had been done. After a while, he stopped seeing the details, perceiving bomb-craters and debris only as blocks to his progress, things stopping him from reaching home.