Not here they fell who died a world to save;

Not here they lie but in a thousand fields afar.

Here is their living spirit that knows no grave;

Not here they were—but are.

It takes on a different meaning here. Not here they fell. No one here fell. Not in the wars.

I run my fingers along the side. No names, no etchings, no marks. We have twenty-six young people serving in the war effort right now. Heading home soon, we pray, but today, they’re much safer where they are.

Today, this is the war zone.

I want to dig my fingernails into this stone. Tear grooves into it. Scrape Avery’s name there and John’s, deep and indelible.

Here is their living spirit that knows no grave.

I can’t face walking through the village again, seeing it so deadened, so I skirt the edge, passing a staggered line of back gardens with bright washing hung out like bunting, vegetables growing, ride-in toy cars and bicycles left on their sides like their drivers have vanished mid-roll.

It’s not quite as quiet as I’d expected. I hear someone singing inside one of the terraced stone houses. There are a lot of windows open, letting the woman’s voice waft out, but I don’t recognize who it could be, or even pinpoint which cottage it’s coming from. The tune is unfamiliar and the words heavily accented, sometimes English, sometimes incomprehensible. It’s strange but pretty. I walk on.

Mrs. Wickett lives north of Jo’s tearoom. I veer west toward a small strip of cottages, squinting into the searing blue of the sky and breathing in the green and the salt and the stone. Roses climb across fences and walls along with exotic imports, jasmine and honeysuckle, a single towering sunflower.

I hear a bleat behind me and stop walking.

The goats are coming. They’re funny things, a small stubborn herd, shaggy and aloof. They come and go, vanish for days, only to turn up as if from some wormhole to eat all the flowers in somebody’s window box and wander off again. I’m always charmed by the goats, delighted to see them, but not today.

Today, I think of Andy Blanchard. Maybe Hugh was right to fight them. Maybe they did kill a little boy.

One of them, taller than the rest, with curly horns and a black spot stretching from his back down his left flank, emits another bleat—shrill, insistent. They all stand watching me and I watch them right back, my breath held, for what must be a good minute. Then I suck in air, and they dip their heads to munch at the grass, bleating again, but now at each other.

I edge away from them slowly and head west into the village.