Harry’s head filled with songs, worked to the rhythm of their tramping feet, moving as one rhythmic being. As they marched, they left something of themselves behind, cast off a singularity, and became soldiers. It was surprising how easy it was to fall into the tempo. It propelled them with some hypnotic compulsion, turning them into one soldierly unit.

“‘We are Fred Karno’s army,’” they sang. “‘We are the ragtime infantry. We cannot fight, we cannot shoot, what bloody use are we?’”

They were billeted on a farm on the outskirts of a blasted village, where all the angles seemed peculiarly askew. The farm buildings formed a square around a courtyard full of spilled tiles and rotting cart wheels. The abandoned plow and rake looked like instruments of medieval warfare. The barns, where they were quartered, still smelled of the breath of patient cattle. They made makeshift mattresses, encasing the sharp straw in groundsheets, and watched the officers drinking café au lait, all domesticity around the farmhouse table.

“We can roll together for the warmth,” said Will.

“Hark at the Boy Scout.”

There was talk of campaigns in the candlelight that night, of offensives and shifting fronts. Only Mac McCabe marred the collective bravado, with the clink of rosary beads in the afterward blackness.

“I wish the old git would give it a rest,” hissed Will in a whisper that seemed meant to be heard. “It puts the wind up.”

McCabe had been at Mafeking. He was their old-timer, their grousing warhorse, their yardstick of old soldiering. It didn’t seem right that he should be afraid. But it also didn’t seem quite right to hear Will dismissing that fear.

Harry looked up through the beams and cobwebs to a roof that was more sky than tile. Stars slid in the spaces.

“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,” intoned Francis’s voice. “World without bleeding end.”

Chapter Seven: Harry

Chapter Seven

Harry

Arras, August 1921

Location image order: Mrs. Kathleen Gibson requests a photograph of the sugar factory at the junction of the Douai road, Arras. Pte. Michael Gibson (23791, Durham Light Infantry), the client’s husband, died in England in October 1916, three weeks on from receiving an injury in this location.

I SUPPOSE THAT FOR THEM THE WAR HASN’T ENDED, THAT IT WON’T ever finish until they’re found,” Rachel had said, as they walked into the hospital grounds.

“Found?”

“Amnesiacs,” she’d replied. “Men who don’t know who they are. They can’t remember their names, their wives, or their children. They’ve forgotten where their homes are. I suppose it’s like a sort of limbo, isn’t it? Some of them no longer even remember what nationality they are.”

“So there could be Englishmen among them?”

“Yes. That’s what I’ve been told. It’s a possibility.”