The Nightingale(90)

She heard a cacophony of voices come after it—“thank God … bloody well time”—and then she heard bodies hit the ground. They fell downward in a group, as if their legs could hold them no more.

“Not here,” Eduardo said. “The goatherder’s shack. Over there.”

Isabelle staggered to her feet. In the back of the line, she waited, shivering, her arms crossed around her body as if she could hold heat within, but there was no heat. She felt like a shard of ice, brittle and frozen. Her mind fought the stupor that wanted to take over. She had to keep shaking her head to keep her thoughts clear.

She heard a footstep and knew Eduardo was standing beside her in the darkness, their faces pelted by icy rain.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m frozen solid. And I’m afraid to look at my feet.”

“Blisters?”

“The size of dinner plates, I’m pretty sure. I can’t tell if the rain is making my shoes wet or if blood is bubbling through the material.”

She felt tears sting her eyes and freeze instantly, binding her lashes together.

Eduardo took her hand and led her to the goatherder’s shed, where he started a fire. The ice in her hair turned to water and dripped to the floor, puddling at her feet. She watched the men collapse where they stood, thumping back against the rough wooden walls as they pulled their rucksacks into their laps and began searching through them for food. MacLeish waved her over.

Isabelle picked her way through the men and collapsed beside MacLeish. In silence, listening to men chewing and belching and sighing around her, she ate the cheese and apples she’d brought with her.

She had no idea when she fell asleep. One minute she was awake, eating what passed for supper on the mountain, and the next thing she knew, Eduardo was waking them again. Gray light pressed against the dirty window of the shack. They’d slept through the day and been wakened in the late afternoon.

Eduardo started a fire, made a pot of ersatz coffee, and handed it out to them. Breakfast was stale bread and hard cheese—good, but not nearly enough to stave off the hunger that was still sharp from yesterday.

Eduardo took off at a brisk walk, climbing the slick, frost-covered shale of the treacherous trail like a billy goat.

Isabelle was the last one out of the shack. She looked up the trail. Gray clouds obscured the peaks and snowflakes hushed the world until there was no earthly sound except their breathing. Men vanished in front of her, becoming small black dots in the whiteness. She plunged into the cold, climbing steadily, following the man in front of her. He was all she could see in the falling snow.

Eduardo’s pace was punishing. He climbed up the twisting path without pause, seemingly unaware of the biting, burning cold that turned every breath into a fire that exploded in the lungs. Isabelle panted and kept going, encouraging the men when they started to lag, cajoling them and teasing them and urging them on.

When darkness fell again, she redoubled her efforts to keep morale up. Even though she felt sick to her stomach with fatigue and parched with thirst, she kept going. If any one of them got more than a few feet away from the person in front of him, he could be lost forever in this frozen darkness. To leave the path for a few feet was to die.

She stumbled on through the night.

Someone fell in front of her, made a yelping sound. She rushed forward, found one of the Canadian fliers on his knees, wheezing hard, his moustache frozen. “I’m beat, baby doll,” he said, trying to smile.

Isabelle slid down beside him, felt her backside instantly grow cold. “It’s Teddy, right?”

“You got me. Look. I’m done for. Just go on ahead.”

“You got a wife, Teddy, a girl back home in Canada?”

She couldn’t see his face, but she heard the way he sucked in his breath at her question. “You aren’t playin’ fair, doll.”

“There’s no fair in life and death, Teddy. What’s her name?”

“Alice.”

“Get on your feet for Alice, Teddy.”

She felt him shift his weight, get his feet back underneath him. She angled her body against him, let him lean against her as he stood. “All right, then,” he said, shuddering hard.

She let him go, heard him walk on ahead.

She sighed heavily, shivering at the end of it. Hunger gnawed at her stomach. She swallowed dryly, wishing they could stop just for a minute. Instead, she pointed herself in the direction of the men and kept going. Her mind was muddling again, her thoughts blurring. All she could think of was taking this step, and the next one, and the next one.