“‘Before the war as many as eighty thousand people made pilgrimages to this basilica yearly,’” he reads from the guidebook that Rachel has given him, “‘to see the ancient statue of the Virgin, discovered in the neighborhood by a shepherd, in the Middle Ages. Today the immense building is a shapeless heap of stones, bricks and debris of all kinds.’” Looking up, he finds it hard to contend this statement.

He eats bread and cheese in a much-patched and scaffolded estaminet called the Café de la Victoire. There is brick dust on the tabletop.

“Pilgrim or tourist?” asks the waitress as she polishes the bar.

He sees through the window that a day-tripper party is huddled around the ruins now. A man is addressing them through a megaphone. “I’m not sure that I’m either,” Harry replies.

“They stand too near.” She points toward the basilica. “The weather keeps bringing the bricks down. They ought to put a fence around it but people like to look. I really don’t know why people want to look.”

“When did the statue fall?”

“The whole tower came down in the spring of the last year. Boom!” She brings the palm of her hand down hard on the bar. The unexpected force of the gesture makes Harry jump. A man looks out from a doorway behind and laughs.

“Which side brought it down? Was it finally us or them?”

“Does it matter?” she asks and shrugs.

HE FINDS A cheap room for the night. The proprietor wants payment up front and Harry understands why when he views the accommodation. The windows are patched with paper and the plaster has fallen from one of the walls, leaving only a wattle lattice that looks medieval. There are scorch marks on the bedsheets, but he supposes that this at least indicates that someone has made an effort to launder them. When he snuffs out the candle, stars push through a crack in the wall. He struggles to get to sleep in his shaken-apart room, to trustingly shut his eyes upon it. He feels as if at any moment the rest of it might fissure and the ceiling come plunging down. Each time he manages to let go and give in to sleep he jolts awake with the recalled slam of the waitress’s hand on the bar. He bites his fist to stop the shaking. Brick dust grinds against his teeth.

Chapter Thirteen: Harry

Chapter Thirteen

Harry

Aveluy Wood, north of Albert, Somme, July 1916

THE GUNS WERE LOUDER NOW. WILL HAD TO RAISE HIS VOICE. WITH the volume and his newspaper enunciation, it sounded like he was making a speech.

“‘The public had for some days been led to believe that we were on the eve of a great advance,’” Will read aloud, “‘and the fact that the British report was so cheering has caused the greatest joy. British casualties are not heavy. There have been exuberant demonstrations of delight in Manchester.’”