Harry steps back and takes out the camera. It is a pity that the grass around hasn’t been cut more recently. He focuses in on the name on the tape, hoping Mrs. Evans will be able to make out the lettering. Behind, the French crosses taper away and the apple trees are ragged silhouettes against the sky. The either-side unknown soldiers nudge into the shot. Harry imagines three lads together pausing to have their photograph taken in an apple orchard. The trigger clicks.

He considers what Mrs. Evans will do with the photograph of this place. He pictures a grave with his brother’s name on it, frames the image in a photograph, and wonders what Edie would do with it. Does she need it in order to move on? And, if so, what would moving on mean to Edie?

Harry takes his hat off and bows his head to the English boys. He steps forward and takes two roses from George’s grave and places one on each of his neighbors’. He hopes that Mrs. Evans would not mind. He decides that he will write to her when he has developed the photograph and tell her about this place. He feels that he needs to give her more than the photograph and, in turn, needs something more from her. If these visits are just a matter of connecting coordinates and the delivery of flowers, too many questions remain and he has to carry all the maybes of who these men were around with him.

When he looks up he sees that there is another man at the end of the row. The presence of another pair of eyes in the cemetery makes him conscious of the camera. He feels conspicuous with it. It doesn’t feel quite right, quite polite. He imagines a stranger taking a photograph of Will’s grave. He thinks that he would want to put a hand in front of the lens.

He nods goodbye to George Evans and tells him that he will visit his mother for him. The figure along the line is placing a wreath on a grave. He looks up and Harry touches his hat. He wishes that he knew the right words to say to strangers in cemeteries.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Edie

Chapter Twenty-Five

Edie

Guillemont, Somme, August 1921

THE SKY IS BLUE, BROKEN ONLY BY HIGH STREAMERS OF CIRRUS cloud, and the wind comes sweetly across the newly mowed slopes. A skylark is singing and the sun is warm on the back of her neck, but this is not a happy place. Edie had seen cemeteries from the train, but it was quite another thing to stand here and to know that one of these crosses is William Blythe.