“He says it is his responsibility.” Marie-Thérèse refills Harry’s glass. “Il a dit que c’était son duty.”

He thinks of Ralph Fielding’s need to do the right thing by the men he lost. The need to make it up to them in some way. His penance, as Cassie had called it. Was this what Rose felt too? Was this something that he had to make right?

“He was trying to find them all?”

“He had some success. Il a trouvé beaucoup de ces disparus.”

“Disparus?” Harry repeats. “He found the disappeared?” There is only one name, then, that he needs to locate on the map. “Il y une carte de la région d’Ypres?” He searches the table.

“Je ne sais pas, monsieur. I do not know. Mais il y a son mur. His wall.” She points.

It is only then that Harry sees there is a wall of faces in this room too. It is like the crosses that suddenly loom out of Gabriel’s canvas. Like those unintelligible shadows that suddenly, with a shift of focus, make sense. The wall behind Harry is covered in photographed faces.

“Ses gars,” repeats Marie-Thérèse. “His boys.”

Harry’s eyes do not know where to look. There is Bartley and Pembridge and Fearnley. Here is Summerfield and Wilkinson and Lieutenant O’Kane. So many of them are familiar. So many more of them he had forgotten. “William,” he says as his focus catches the expression of his younger brother. It is a shock to see him here. “Mon frère,” he says to Marie-Thérèse.

“Le pauvre.”

“And the cemetery,” he says as he steps nearer to the wall. There, beside Will’s grin, is the cross in Guillemont that Harry had knelt beside two months ago. It is the same for all of them, he sees: next to the photograph of each of these men is an image of his grave.

“Et ceux qu’il n’a pas trouvés. Et les soldats he does not find,” Marie-Thérèse adds, hesitating through the words.

Her finger indicates the second group. Just faces, these. No accompanying graves. But too many faces. And Harry’s eyes cannot search them fast enough.

“He’s not there.”

“Monsieur?”

“Francis.” He searches Marie-Thérèse’s face too, but no recognition glimmers. “Francis Blythe? His photograph is everywhere in the other room. Did Monsieur Rose find Francis Blythe?”

It seems a long time before Marie-Thérèse’s expression changes. An awful long time until she picks out the place on the wall.

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Edie

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Edie

Cheshire, October 1921

YOU’RE LOOKING FOR CAPTAIN ROSE?” THE WOMAN ASKS.

“Yes. Please forgive me for disturbing you. I’m looking for Michael Rose. I was given this address.”