An Unmarked Grave

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I STOOD THERE with my mouth open, so completely taken aback that I couldn’t think what to say.

The fact was, I’d nearly forgot about the nurse who had tried to stop me from leaving France. My father had told me he would deal with the matter, and in our household, that was that. I could put it out of my mind. I most certainly hadn’t given a thought to Nurse Saunders, whom I hadn’t met, but who had seen a killer face-to-face and never realized she was in any danger. It hadn’t even occurred to me to warn her.

The note she had left for Nurse Bailey-and of course for me-had simply stated that my driver had come. But if questioned, she would have known what sort of uniform he was wearing, what rank he held, what he looked like. More to the point, she could corroborate any description that Matron-or I-could give.

“She’s dead?” I repeated slowly. “What happened?”

“She was lying at the side of the street after a convoy of lorries had passed on their way to the Front. It was just after dusk. A horse had been startled, broke away from its owner, and charged madly down the hill toward the port as they were driving through. When she was found it appeared that the horse had knocked her down. She’d left the Base Hospital and walked to a nearby shop where they sold small gifts for newborns. Apparently her sister had just given birth to her first child. At any rate, her skull had the clear imprint of a horse’s hoof around the ear. Her clothing was stained as if she’d rolled after being struck. No one saw the accident. It was too dark.”

“Dear God,” I said blankly. My father had had time to absorb the news. I could only think about that poor unsuspecting woman walking out of the Base Hospital on such a happy errand, and instead walking straight into a vicious killer. In the darkness, with the horse running amok, he could have struck her down with impunity, and who would see it happen? Every eye would have been on that horse. “I’m sorry-”

“My friend looked into the matter, Bess,” my father said, interrupting me. “I don’t think it was the accident it appeared to be. Of course there was the wound on her face, the imprint of a horse’s shoe. And a horse had in fact run loose. But my friend was told by one of the orderlies at the Base Hospital that the surgeon who examined the body was surprised that the blow hadn’t gone deeper. Deep enough to kill, yes, but there was also the weight of the animal behind it, you see, and her skull wasn’t crushed. They decided it was a glancing blow, but the surgeon-from somewhere in Minnesota, I believe-wasn’t buying it. Then a cast shoe was found just beyond where the body lay, and our friend from Minnesota was finally satisfied.”

I thought about that. “There are hundreds of horses coming through Rouen. And dozens of horse-drawn carts. A shoe could easily have been come by in the town.”

“Quite. However, the French police ruled the death an accident, and the Base Hospital didn’t dispute it. They could think of no possible reason why Nurse Saunders should be murdered.”

“Very likely she was,” I agreed. “She’d seen his face clearly. Whoever it was, pretending to be my driver. She could have helped us show that my driver was the same man as the Colonel Prescott who spoke to Matron about Sister Burrows. I thought that once I was out of France it would be over. That there was no need to kill anyone else. Should someone speak to the French police? And what about Matron? Is she in any danger? Is there any way we can warn her?”

“No one in Rouen has connected Nurse Saunders to you in any way. And it’s best for now to leave it like that. As for Matron, I think she’s safe enough. For one thing, she’s always surrounded by staff and patients. For another, you told me that she herself was rather suspicious of this Colonel, and if he sensed that at all, he’ll stay clear of her for fear of making matters worse. Besides, it’s entirely possible that he doesn’t know you’ve spoken to her. On the other hand, if he saw Nurse Saunders on the street and discovered that you’d been sent home in disgrace, he could very well have considered that any investigation into your behavior in Rouen would lead to a counterfeit driver with counterfeit orders. And only Nurse Saunders had seen this man.”

“I hadn’t thought of it from that direction.” I took a deep breath. “We only learned of Nurse Saunders’s death because you took the trouble to allay any suspicions Nurse Bailey might have harbored. We wouldn’t have known otherwise. It’s rather frightening to think that a woman I’ve never met was killed because of me.” I shivered at the thought. “But who is this man?” I asked. “He couldn’t be William Morton. William Morton died two weeks before Captain Carson. Didn’t he?”

“Yes, I’ve looked into that. There’s no doubt of it. But he had brothers, and one could have taken it into his head to exact a little revenge. I don’t want you to return to France for the time being. Not until we’ve located all six of them.”

“Revenge is one thing. Indiscriminate killing is another. Vincent Carson is dead. Why isn’t it finished?”

“That’s why I’ve been as careful as may be about any inquiries. I don’t want to start a witch hunt until we have a better idea of what’s going on. The Army is like Scotland Yard in one sense-any investigation is by its very nature official. And we’ve too little information, much less proof, to take that step.”

“I understand,” I said reluctantly. Still, the sooner we could get to the bottom of this affair, the sooner I could return to France.

“One more thing. I’ve spoke to the Carsons’ solicitors. There were no provisions in Vincent’s will for his sister or her offspring. But then the will was drawn up just before he left for France in the autumn of 1914. He’d have had no reason to add such a bequest at that stage. Morton hadn’t enlisted, the war was expected to end by Christmas, Sabrina was still in disgrace. There was a letter from Vincent to the solicitors after her child was born, indicating an intention on his part to provide for her straightaway. His solicitors drew up a proposal and sent it to France for his approval, but he never returned it. No one seems to know if the proposal was found with his personal effects. According to the solicitors, Julia was unaware of it, and so it was assumed that he must have changed his mind.”

“How sad.” I couldn’t help but wish that Julia had been sent her husband’s journal. There could be an entry in it that would make all the difference.

I’ve approved the proposal regarding Sabrina, but I haven’t sent it to London. I want to tell Julia and Valerie first, but there’s been no time to write…

But the entry could also have read, I had every intention of helping Sabrina, but Morton was at me again yesterday, wanting a sizable settlement instead. It has shown me how right my father was to have nothing to do with that match…

“Yes, very sad. All right, take me to Simon, if you will.” He put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It will be over shortly, my dear. Meanwhile, best to keep you safe.”

I led him from Matron’s office to the surgical ward and presented Sister Randolph, who was on duty. He asked about her patients, and she gave him a brief report on their conditions. He thanked her, walked slowly down the row of cots, nodding to the men who were awake and pausing finally where Simon lay waiting. I heard the Colonel Sahib clear his throat, then say, “Well, Brandon, you’ve decided to live, have you?”

The officer lying next to Simon was awake as well, and he shifted his head toward the two men, curious and unabashedly listening. Men of my father’s rank were not often visitors here, nor did they know many of the patients by name.

I turned away as Simon lifted his left hand to take my father’s.

And then behind me I heard Simon’s voice begin speaking in Hindi, clearly, concisely, a soldier reporting to an officer. I couldn’t help but overhear some of it, but Sister Randolph was saying at my side, “Oh, how nice, he’s found someone who understands the same language.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” I replied, my ears pricked. What were they saying? For my father was answering, and then Simon’s voice responded with additional intelligence.

But even as I was listening with only half my attention on Sister Randolph’s chatter while trying to hear information I was not supposed to have, I felt guilty.

Behind me, my father swore feelingly in Urdu.

“Do you realize what you’re saying? And damn the War Office for keeping it from my people. It would have made a difference if I’d known.” He turned and glanced my way. I was already leading Sister Randolph away.

The conversation went on for another several minutes. Then my father said, “Heal. We need you.”

He was striding up the room toward Sister Randolph and me, and as he thanked her, he reached for my arm and guided me toward the door.

“Come with me. Let’s hope we don’t encounter Matron along the way.”

We didn’t. The staff was busy handing out medications, and Dr. Gaines was closeted with one of his patients. We walked calmly toward the door and out into the evening sunlight. I blinked. The Colonel Sahib led me down the short shallow steps and across the lawns to a bench set under a stand of trees.

“How much do you know about why Brandon was in France?”

I’d learned long since to tell my father the truth when it came to regimental business.

“Only a little,” I told him, adding, “It was the Gurkhas who brought him in after he was wounded. I never saw them, but suddenly he was there. I could guess that he’d been behind the German lines.”

I remembered too that I’d drugged him, to keep him quiet, when he’d asked specifically to get word to my father. A wash of guilt swept over me.

“What else?” My father turned his back on the clinic, his eyes on my face.

“There’s a German spy behind our lines. Or so Simon believed.”

“Go on.”

“And he was trying to find him. That’s why it was necessary to capture a German officer to question.”

“Yes. All right. You shouldn’t have overheard any of that, but no harm done. The question is now, who are we looking for? Who killed Carson and your Private Wilson, and Nurse Saunders? William Morton or one of his brothers? Or a German behind British lines looking for an identity.”

There had been talk of spies from the start. Even before the war began. German waiters in popular restaurants or staff in hotels were accused of spying. Professors and clerics and students from Germany were suspected. Even men from the north of England, whose accents were unfamiliar, found themselves stopped and questioned by overzealous citizens and policemen. The English coastline, broken by a thousand river mouths and inlets and hidden beaches, was always rife with speculation about spies being landed from submarines or small boats that had escaped the notice of the Royal Navy. There were even tales of spies being lowered from Zeppelins on misty nights and disappearing into the countryside. But was any of it true? Seeing monsters under the bed was one thing, real spies quite another.

“I don’t quite see what a spy has to gain,” I answered. “But if he exists, he must have spent some time in England. No one who spoke to this man we’re concerned with mentioned anything about him that would indicate that he was German. But there are his eyes, a very pale color. You’d think Berlin could find someone without any characteristic that would stand out.”

“Yes, well, this spy hunt is of course a secret. I haven’t been told anything about it officially. And apparently Simon was only given enough information to carry out his foray. In fact, he was ordered not to question his prisoner. But between us, I think we’ve begun to piece together enough to worry both of us.”

“Did he bring someone in?” I asked, curious.

“He says he did, and that when he was wounded in a rearguard action, the Gurkhas split up, half the company getting Simon to an aid station against all orders, and the rest taking the prisoner in.”

“They were to leave Simon?” I asked, shocked.

“They were to see that there were no wounded left behind who could be questioned by the Germans.” My father’s voice was grim.

Which meant that they were to kill any wounded who were in the way. It was a measure of their respect for the Sergeant-Major that they had disobeyed that order. It explained too why the Gurkhas left him at the nearest aid station and then vanished.

I bit my lip, trying to see where my father was going with this. “What are we to do?”

My father was studying the sky, watching a few scudding clouds that had appeared on the horizon, just visible now from under the leafy shelter of the trees.

The Colonel Sahib turned to me. “A single man, this spy. A single target? If he didn’t come for information-troop movements and the like, where the next attack might come-then he came for someone.”

“Who?” I asked. “Who in France is irreplaceable?”

“If he were in the American lines, I’d say one of their commanders. Surely they’re the biggest threat to the Germans just now.”

“But he isn’t behind the American lines. And he passes himself off as a Colonel.”

“Hmm,” my father said.

And then I knew. Or thought I did. Just as my father said under his breath, “The Prince of Wales.”

He wasn’t allowed to fight. But he visited the Front often enough, and he was very popular with the men.

“What good would that do? How would it affect the war?” I went on. “And not to be unfeeling about it, the Prince does have other brothers.”

“It would shock the country, hurt morale.”

It was hard to believe, all the same. And yet I couldn’t think of anyone else who was as popular as the Prince.

“I can’t believe-he and the Kaiser are cousins!” I said, still arguing with myself.

“What the Army does and the Kaiser knows might not be the same. Of course it’s possible that our problem and Simon’s aren’t connected-they seem to be because we know only a part of the story. Are you willing to beard a lion in its den?”

“A lion?” I asked warily.

“There are seven sons in the Morton family. Will was the actor, the others were miners and farmers. Respectable enough men, five of them. I shouldn’t think they’re a problem to themselves or others. And then there’s Hugh. He was closest to Will, or so my sources tell me, and he was a union leader before the war, best known for hiring several rather disreputable men to enforce his will. At the moment, he’s missing from his unit in France. He has been since his brother was reported dead. He could have killed Carson. He could be dead himself. But we need to know. And as quickly as may be.”

“Could Hugh Morton impersonate an officer?” I asked doubtfully. If he had been a union leader, he knew something about charming and haranguing his followers, but those were not the skills that would help him carry off such a charade.

“If there’s one actor in the family, I don’t see why another brother couldn’t have a talent in that direction. For all we know, he might be even more talented and simply chose not to use it. Take young Barclay with you. The best approach is that you are concerned for young Sabrina. Find out, if you can, which sons can be accounted for. I don’t think we’re going to find that Hugh is our man. He’s dead, very likely, just as William is. Still, if he’s our killer, then we have nothing to do with this spy business and can safely leave it to those who are involved.”

“What if Hugh is there? In Wales?” I asked.

“He isn’t. I can almost guarantee that. How is he going to get out of France? What I want to know is if the family mourns him. Or if they consider him still alive.”

“And Simon?”

“He’s best where he is. I don’t think Dr. Gaines will let him slip through his fingers.” He looked toward the clinic again, and I read the emotions flitting across his face. Worry, doubt, and a stronger feeling, anger. He had never left one of his men behind. Of course Simon had known the risk. To my father, it made no difference.

He left soon after that, and later in the evening, I asked Dr. Gaines if I could borrow his motorcar and of course Captain Barclay on my next free afternoon.

I was given permission and went to ask Captain Barclay if he would accompany me. He’d been avoiding me. Not quite making it obvious, but he hadn’t been seeking out my company the way he had before he’d become Barclay the orderly. One of the sisters had commented that I’d lost my beau to someone else.

He said, shaking his head as I told him I needed an escort, “I let you down in France.”

“My father asked if I’d take you to Wales with me. He must not agree.”

“Hardly the most dangerous place in the kingdom.”

“It could well be. All right, I’ll go alone if I must.” I’d been a witness to his attempt to trick Dr. Gaines with the butcher’s paper and it must have stung. I realized that this was not the best time to ask a favor.

Almost as if in response to what I’d just been thinking, he turned his head away and stared out the open door. “I’m useless. To the Army. To you. To myself. It’s appalling to think of my men dying in France while I’m forced to pace the floor here in an effort to strengthen a leg that might as well have been amputated for all the good it is to me.”

I read something in his face that I hadn’t seen before. Despair. And that worried me.

“Useless?” I said sternly, in my best imitation of Matron’s brisk tone. “That’s self-pity, Captain, and I’ll not have it. Buck up, young man, and fight for what you want. If it’s so important to you.”

In spite of his depressed spirits, he couldn’t help but smile.

I smiled in return and added in my own voice, “I expect I simply wanted your company again.”

After a moment, he shook his head, not in refusal this time but in surrender. “Yes, of course I’ll go with you. Do you have another wonder to show me?”

With that he walked away, limping more lightly on his cane than he himself could see. With a pang, I recognized that he would have his wish and return to France in a matter of weeks. If he didn’t give in to his despair before then and do something rash.

I waited until late in the evening, when I’d finished my duties, and then went to sit with Simon for a little. He was sleeping, his breathing quiet, his skin cool, without fever.

It was impossible to think of Simon Brandon being sent behind enemy lines, knowing that if he were severely wounded, he would be killed by his own men. It took incredible courage. Still, he had a strong sense of duty, as did my father. But even my father had been angry at the waste his death would have been.

I just didn’t know whether the spy behind the lines or one of the Morton family was the person behind my own brushes with death. But if it was the spy, then his thoroughness in eliminating anyone who could identify him was his very survival.

And what would Simon Brandon say if he learned that I’d already encountered the very spy he himself had been sent behind the German lines to uncover?

I said nothing to Simon about the death of Nurse Saunders. I just watched his slow improvement and encouraged him to rest as much as he could. And since he’d spoken to my father, his mind seemed to be at peace, as if duty done, he could now think about his need to recover.

When Thursday arrived, Dr. Gaines remembered that he’d agreed to let me take his motorcar for the day. I hadn’t said anything more to Captain Barclay, but after breakfast he reported to the doctor and was sent to join me as I came down the stairs to the foyer of the house.

It was a fine day, and we drove through the countryside of Somerset and into the Marches of Wales, the border country that had known its own struggles in the past but today was peaceful. Rolling hills and pastures, villages tucked in their lees, narrow streams and the occasional stand of trees marked the landscape. We stopped briefly to eat the picnic that the kitchen had provided, and I was reminded, painfully, of the picnic Simon had arranged as a backdrop for his encouraging me to stay in Britain and not return to France. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have changed if I’d taken his advice and never gone back to the battlefields.

I must have sighed, for Captain Barclay, finishing his sandwich, looked across at me and asked, “There’s more on your mind than a simple outing in pretty countryside.”

And so I told him about the Morton family. He’d known some of the story, but not about Hugh or about the other brothers who had fought for King and Country.

“You feel the father will tell you where his son is?”

“I don’t know whether he will or not. But you can judge, can’t you, how people mourn? Perhaps the way he says the name. Or the way he looks when he speaks of Will and his relationship with Hugh. Whatever that was. Good or not.”

“What possible excuse can you find for prying into a family’s losses?”

“Actually, there’s a little more to it than that.” And so I told him also about Sabrina and the life she was living now in Fowey. “She told me Will Morton’s family had asked her to come to them. Perhaps she should. But there’s no way of knowing, is there, until I’ve seen them for myself.”

“You can’t make other people’s decisions for them.”

“Of course I can’t. I won’t. Still, if the family really cares about Will’s son, perhaps they should go to Fowey themselves, rather than simply write a letter.” I shook my head. “Look, if Hugh isn’t a murderer, all well and good. If he is, I’m certainly not going to ask a young widow to go and stay with his family.”

The Captain smiled grimly. “All right. God knows, if it’s Hugh Morton we’ve been dodging all along, I’d just as soon know of it. I owe him for what he did to you and to me.”

We repacked the remnants of the picnic and drove on to the small village of Helwynn, where I’d been told the Mortons lived.

It was picturesque in its own way, running up from a small stream to the crest of a hill, a smattering of houses and shops, a stone chapel with a short steeple, and several outlying farms that lay like patchwork across the stream.

We stopped the motorcar in front of a small baker’s shop, and I went inside to begin my inquiries. The woman behind the counter stared at me in my uniform, and then her face seemed to freeze.

“Can I help you, then, Sister?” she asked, her voice that of Wales, as well as her dark hair and eyes, her fine skin, and her straight back.

“Hello,” I said with a warm smile. “I was traveling through and I remembered a family that I’d known who lived here. The Mortons. Are they still here?”

“Those that’re left,” she said. “Seven sons Ross sent to war. It hasn’t been easy for him.”

“No, I expect not. It’s Will I knew. Well, his wife. He was the actor, wasn’t he?”

“He was.”

“Could you tell me how to find his father? Ross Morton?”

“He lives on the farm you can see across the little stone bridge. Nobody to work it for him now. Most of the fields fallow or given to cattle. There’s still money in milk and butter.”

From the look of her wares, I found it easy to believe that.

We were all obligated to give to the war effort in some fashion. But sometimes in the smallest villages, the food they could produce barely sufficed to feed the people living there. Although it was sometimes hard to convince the men who procured hides for shoes and meat for rations, and other goods for the Army. They had quotas, and the needs of people compared to the needs of the Army were often unimportant.

I thanked her, bought two small buns for our tea, the Captain’s and mine, and left the shop.

Several small boys had clustered around the motorcar, leaning in to look at it, asking questions about how it ran and where it had come from. The Captain, with that easy American way of his, was letting them persuade him to lift the bonnet and show them the motor when I came out the shop door.

The boys stood back to stare at me, and I said, “Go on, open the bonnet.”

Captain Barclay got out to do just that, but when they saw his limp, their questions were about the war and his wound, the motorcar forgotten.

“My Da had his head blown off,” one told the Captain ghoulishly. “They couldn’t find it, however hard they searched. So he’s buried without it.”

“A pity,” the Captain answered. “All right, off with you. See you mind your mothers. They have enough to worry about without your adding to it.”

They nodded, but I doubted they’d remember the lesson half an hour on.

I saw the small school as we went back down the hill to search for the stone bridge. It was scarcely wide enough to pass over, but we managed, and the Captain whistled. “Oh, well done,” he said, turning to me after making certain the wings were still part of the motorcar.

A sign on the far side of the bridge read in faded green letters, PEACE AND PLENTY FARM.

We came shortly into the muddy farmyard where half a dozen black-and-white milk cows with bursting udders had come in on their own, ready for the afternoon milking. They turned to stare at us with their large brown eyes, and then their attention was caught by the man who had just stepped out of the barn.

“Lost, are you?” he asked, wiping his hands on a bunch of straw.

I gave our names, then said, “I was hoping to find Ross Morton. Is this his farm?”

He was still, like the woman in the shop, wondering if I brought bad news with me.

I said quickly, “I’m a friend of Sabrina Morton’s. Your daughter-in-law. I thought perhaps I should stop, for her sake.”

“Sabrina, is it?” he asked, moving away from the barn. A big man, taller even than Captain Barclay, broad of chest and shoulders, he added, “Have you seen the boy?”

“He was asleep,” I said. “But I was told he had his father’s eyes.”

The elder Morton digested that. “That would be my wife’s,” he said after a moment. “Pale as winter ice.”

His own were hazel, his hair still fair but thickly interlaced with gray. There must have been some English blood in the Morton family, because the Welsh were as a rule dark.

“I never met your son,” I said. “But I’ve known Sabrina since she was a child.”

He ignored me. “Will’s son ought to be brought up here, where he belongs. Not in England. I told his mother that. I offered her a home as well. My wife died in the Spanish flu, there’s no one to do for us. It would be a kindness to come and take her place.”

I could see what he meant, that there was no one to feed the chickens or cook the meals or do the family’s washing, mending, or marketing. I couldn’t imagine Sabrina fitting into this world. I could understand why she had chosen Fowey instead.

But I could also understand this man’s needs. He had a farm to keep going without his sons, and the house needed a woman in it.

I said, “Are your other sons married?”

“My namesake, Ross, had a wife. She died of childbed fever, and the babe with her. A pretty little thing, but with no strength to live.”

“Where is Ross now?”

“Drowned off the coast of Ireland when his ship went down. The Huns never tried to save the men. The surprise was, they didn’t machine-gun them in the water. It’s done, I’m told. Will’s dead, but you know that, if you saw Sabrina. David’s lost a leg and sits in his room, staring at nothing. The girl he was to marry didn’t want a cripple. The twins are in France somewhere, and they write when they can. But I never know from day to day if they’re alive or dead. Llewellyn’s in hospital in Suffolk and not right in his head, nor ever will be, they’re saying. Shell shock. Only Will has a son. And this farm once had seven.”

I’d been counting with my fingers behind my back. Ross, the elder, the namesake. Will. David who lost his leg. The twins. Llewellyn in Suffolk. That made six.

“You had seven sons?” I asked gently. “Is the last also among the dead?”

Ross Morton shifted. “That’s Hugh,” he said. “Nine months younger than Will and a hothead into the bargain. The image of his mother’s own Da. The one who went down the mines and lived to tell about it. A fighter he was. Mary’s father. I never quite got my mind around that boy. I couldn’t see how he could be so much like his grandda, and so unlike me.”

You could almost imagine him questioning the boy’s paternity, something he must have done a thousand times over the years. And yet somehow I had a feeling he’d never doubted his wife.

“A changeling,” he said, finally, as if in echo of my own thoughts. “They used to talk about that. The old ones. I never put much stock in it, until Hugh. And then I knew it could be true enough. I just don’t know how he got to be in the Morton cradle.”

“But you said-Hugh’s alive still? Along with David and the twins and Llewellyn?”

Morton took a deep breath. “They tell me he’s missing. There was the telegram saying at first that he was dead. And then a letter from his commanding officer to say he was among the missing after a push that was repelled. I don’t understand why they couldn’t find him. Do you?” He swung around to stare at Captain Barclay, as if he were to blame for the confusion. “Hugh wouldn’t be easy to kill. And he wouldn’t care to be penned up behind a fence in a prison camp. It would drive him mad. He was always a roamer, Hugh was, and I can’t see the Army changing that. Why haven’t they found my son?”

I could hear again the little boy telling us that his father had lost his head and had been buried without it.

The Captain was saying, “It’s not so easy. There’s shelling before an assault, and then there’s the attack across No Man’s Land. Men die, they’re shot, they’re blown apart, they’re wounded and fall into a shell hole where the body may not be found for days. No certainty, you see. The sergeant calls the roll and no one answers. And no one saw him fall. If he hasn’t already been taken behind the lines to be treated for wounds, they can only wait and see if he turns up. He could even be a prisoner. If he is, word comes back after a time, and his status is changed. I’m sorry. But that’s how it is.”

“A damned poor way to run a war, if you don’t know where your own men are,” Morton said contemptuously. “While families sit and wait for news, and none comes. At least not any good news.”

He turned back to me. “Do you think Sabrina might want to come and bring up the boy here? For Will’s sake?”

“I don’t know,” I said, wishing fervently that I hadn’t raised false hopes with my invented reason for coming here. “Perhaps if you write to her again?”

“I wrote once. I’m not likely to write again.” I could hear the stiff-necked pride in his voice. He’d offered his home and all he had to Will’s widow. There was nothing more to say.

He couldn’t understand as I could that Sabrina had been brought up in a very different world. She would break here, on this farm, cooking and cleaning and washing for the men of the house. With no hope of escape, no chance for a life of her own. And yet I could see that a boy could run wild here when not at his lessons or doing the everyday tasks assigned to him, and grow up as his uncles did. Compared to that narrow little hotel in Fowey where no one came on holiday now because of the war, with the danger of drowning not far from the door, it offered much.

I said, “I think perhaps your son’s death is still a shock to her. To Sabrina.”

“She has a son to care for,” he said stubbornly. “My grandson. He may be too young to know or care now, but one day he’ll want to see where his father came from, and it’s likely there’ll be none of us left to tell him. If this war goes on for much longer and they’re all dead, I won’t see any reason to stay.”

He nodded toward his cows. “I have them to milk and feed. I don’t have time to give over to wishful thinking. I’ll bid you good day, Sister. Captain.”

And he walked past us, calling to his cows. They formed a line as tidy as any drawn with a rule, and followed him into the barn.

Captain Barclay nodded to me and I turned the motorcar to drive away.

As I did so, I happened to see, in an upper window of the farmhouse, the thin, drawn face of the son who’d lost his leg.

I’d seen too many like him to have high hopes for his survival. If there was no gun in the house, there was always the shallow stream or any of a number of ways to end the pain.

I was torn between wishing Hugh Morton was not a murderer and would come home to his father, and thinking that if Hugh took after his mother, as Will did, then he too had those pale, pale eyes.

Captain Barclay said as we once more drove over the narrow little bridge, “Hugh’s alive. His father doesn’t want to hope. And there’ve been no letters. But he believes Hugh is too much like his grandfather to have been killed so easily by the Germans.”

And I had, reluctantly, to agree with him.