He let his fingers gently feel the thing in his hand. It was not old wood—he knew the texture of that. They’d used and reused whatever lumber came to hand in the trenches, scavenged for boardwalks to keep their feet dry above the filth, for shelter from the rain, for a place out of the hot sun or the cold wind. On the Somme the generals had forbidden even such simple, rough comforts, while the Germans had lived in tunnels they’d efficiently dug deep in the earth. No, this wood was hard and firm and new to the ground it had been buried in. Three sides were smooth as sanding could make them. The fourth had something cut into it. Deeply incised, and at midlength. Like a blind man he worked at the shapes, slowly letting his sense of touch and not his eyes tell him what was there. There was a flow to the shapes, but they were separate. Letters, then.

R, yes, most certainly an R. Then a space before the next. A. Next to that an E, he thought. No, he was wrong. H. And the very last, C.

He thought back to the photographs he’d been given by Rachel Marlowe, and the names on the reverse. Richard Allen Harris Cheney.

Nicholas had left his calling card. And not very long ago ...

Chapter 21

21

Rutledge put everything back exactly as he’d found it, brushing the pansy leaves clean of any bits of earth, using his hands to smooth and press the disturbed earth. Then he got to his feet and thought about what he’d done, whether he’d left any task undone. Then he remembered the entrenching tool, and groped for that.

With the same care he’d exercised coming here he made his way out of the valley and back to the inn, returning the tool to its place in the car before going upstairs again to his room. Looking down at his shoes, he grimaced. The caked mud reminded him of the trenches. Taking them off, he set them outside his door for the boot boy.

Washing his hands well, then blotting the worst of the dew out of his trouser knees, he went back to his earlier task. The poems.