Lovely War(93)

“Frank never told me you were expecting,” James said gently. “Did he know?”

The poor woman’s face grew red. “He did.” She found a kerchief in her apron pocket. “Frank always did want a big family. A handful of sons to join him in the fishing business.”

She began to cry. Little Frankie toddled to his mother, hid in her skirt, and joined in.

“Poor little tyke.” She laughed between sobs. “He’s got a mama who cries more nowadays than her own baby does.”

James watched little Frankie. The child wandered over to study him.

“Hello, little man.” James managed a smile. “Shake hands?”

Frankie wasn’t interested. When Mrs. Mason’s crying subsided, James addressed her.

“Your husband was in my company, in my squadron,” he said. “I was a new recruit. He taught me how to survive in the trenches. I’d be dead a dozen times over if it weren’t for him.”

They all heard the question percolating in the poor woman’s mind. Then why is he dead?

“He was the kindest, most thoughtful man.”

“He was that, wasn’t he?” Adelaide’s tears erupted again. “He never treated me like anything but a lady, and never acted like anything but a gentleman.” She blew her nose.

Frankie resumed their tower building. Clear spittle ran from his gummy mouth, complete with eight pearly baby teeth of his own. Hazel wiped his chin on his bib and hugged him.

“It gets awfully lonely out there, in the trenches,” James said, “and having a friend like Frank made all the difference.”

“I’ll bet it did,” said the widow. “He wrote to me about you, too, you know. Said you were a real fine chap. From Chelmsford, is that right?” She smiled. “He said, when the war was over, we were to have you up here to the seaside to visit.” She stuck out her chin. “You can still come.” Then she remembered, apparently, that James was a single man, and she, a widow. “Well, when you and this nice young lady make it official, you can both come.” She beamed at Hazel. “Frankie’s taken a real shine to you!”

“The feeling’s mutual.” Hazel took a blue block from his sticky hand and set it atop their fourth tower. She waited for James to comment on them “making it official,” but he said nothing.

“Tell me,” Mrs. Mason asked James, “do you know anything about how he died?”

James’s eyes closed.

“The other widows around here, they’ve gotten letters from commanding officers telling them what happened, and packages containing their husbands’ personal effects, but I’ve had nothing! Nobody seems to know. Is he buried? Where’s he buried? I’ve written and written.”

Hazel stacked blocks without seeing them.

“Says in the papers the Fifth Army’s disbanded,” she went on. “To whom do I write?”

With effort, James sat up straighter and begin to speak.

“I was with Frank when he died,” he said gently. “I was there.”

The tablecloth bunched up beneath Mrs. Mason’s hands.

“It was the twenty-first of March,” he said. “The first day of the battle of Saint-Quentin. We were under attack,” he said. “The Germans had us hopelessly outnumbered.”

“Bock,” said Frankie, injecting vocabulary into their building exercise.

“We were guarding a section of trench,” he went on, “when German storm troopers invaded it.”

This quiet young man, the one who had danced with her in London and in Paris, surrounded by Germans with guns.

“I read about those storm fighters,” Adelaide whispered. “Did they get my Frank?”

James shook his head.

“There were two of them, with pistols,” James said. “I took out one, then Frank stopped the other from shooting me before I could get him, too. He saved my life.”

“And you saved his, sounds like,” Adelaide said.

But not for long, said no one.

Hazel’s hand shook. James, Germans, guns, and blood. Down came the wooden tower.

“Boom!” squealed Frankie.

“One of the storm troops had a flamethrower,” James went on. “They got our pal, Chad Browning, pretty bad.”

Adelaide sucked in her breath. “Not that funny young kid! Did he die?” James shook his head, and she sagged with relief. “Frank mentioned him, too, in his letters.” She nodded in Hazel’s direction. “My Frank was a fine one for writing letters.”

“Because he missed you,” Hazel said, “and he loved you.”

Mrs. Mason smiled sadly at the tabletop. “What happened next?”

“I shot the soldier with the flamethrower,” James said slowly, “and Frank and another kid dropped on top of Browning to put out the fire. Then we carried him to the Red Cross station, which was a ways off, through the trenches.”

“Frank was a hero, wasn’t he?” said Adelaide. “I always knew he would be.”

Little Frankie got tired of the tower they were on and demolished it with a burst of laughter. Hazel gathered up the blocks and started again.

“Some German soldiers stood atop the parapet, shooting down at us in our trenches,” James said slowly. “We were easy targets. So as soon as we’d gotten Chad taken care of, Frank and I climbed up top to take out the German shooters.”