The Stolen Years. Fiona Hood-Stewart
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good show, old chap. We’re scared stiff of her. She’s the devil to deal with. That’s done more to break the ice than you’d believe.”
“Thanks.” He leaned forward and accepted a light. “Ask this chap what his name is, will you?”
“That’s Karl. I’m Franz, by the way, Lieutenant Franz von Ritter. Who are you?”
“I’m Gavin MacLeod.”
“That’s odd. For some reason, they’ve been referring to you as Angus. Something to do with a cross you had in your hand when you were brought in.”
“It belonged to my brother.” Gavin took a long drag of the cigarette, knowing he was going to have to face his memories of his twin eventually. What had Angus been thinking? God! A sudden thought crossed his brain. Could the shell have blinded him? Maybe that was it.
“Sorry to hear that.” The other man obviously assumed Angus was dead.
“That’s the way it goes,” he replied, wondering where Angus was now. Suddenly he felt ashamed of having doubted his twin. There must be some explanation for his behavior. Gavin immediately felt better, the tightness lifting from his chest. Now he must apply himself to getting out of here, he resolved. His family would be worried to death about him. He could imagine poor Flora, sick with worry at the hospital, and his mother and father back home.
By the end of the following week, he was recovering fast, and was in good enough spirits to charm the young, blond nurse, Annelise, into sneaking cigarettes and schnapps into the ward. These he distributed liberally among the men, making him the most popular patient there. The matron mumbled, disgusted about lack of loyalty in the present generation, but the men didn’t care. They were fed up with a war that never seemed to end, and Gavin had brought new life to a tedious situation. He always had a joke for Franz to translate, a word for someone who needed jollying up. Soon they were looking to him for direction.
Franz turned out to be a decent sort and they spent long hours talking about their lives in Britain before the war, and what their plans were for the future—whatever that might be. Gavin chafed at the hip, which kept him bedridden, but Franz told him not to complain. It was much better to be in the medical station than with the other prisoners. Gavin had to agree. Sitting out the rest of the war in an internment camp was not his idea of bliss.
Despite his newfound comforts and companions, every day he woke with Angus’s face as he’d last seen him—devoid of expression, cold. It haunted him and he prayed that his brother was all right. He thought of Flora and wished she’d stayed at home, where he would know she was safe. He wondered if she knew he was alive. They must know by now that he’d been taken prisoner, Gavin reasoned. After a moment, these thoughts depressed him and he got up and joined Franz and Karl, who were playing poker for cigarettes. Pulling up a chair, he prepared to join the game.
“Deal me in,” he said with an American twang that made them all laugh. He studied his cards carefully. Karl was easy to bluff. Franz played better, but Joachim, a lieutenant from Mannheim, was the best of the three. He lit a cigarette and the game progressed.
Half an hour later, the matron marched in. She pursed her lips, looked his way and announced with a triumphant smirk that a number of prisoners were to be brought in within the hour. Gavin pretended to concentrate on the game but he was excited. Perhaps he would finally learn some news. There was another fact to face, as well. Until now, he’d been comfortably letting time go by. But his duty as an officer taken prisoner was to immediately search for a route of escape. While he was healing, that hadn’t been possible. But although his thigh still ached and his hip hurt like hell when he walked, his arm was considerably better. If there were more British prisoners, then the situation might change.
He glanced at his cards, aware of the nurses hurrying through with fresh piles of blankets, followed shortly by stretchers carrying the wounded. He barely managed to control his impatience, ready to drop out of the game in his eagerness to question the newcomers. Watching as the wounded—more victims of the salient—were carried passed, Gavin realized guiltily that for the past couple of weeks he’d allowed himself to fall into the apathy of convalescence. The war seemed remote without the backdrop of artillery fire. He got up, unable to stay still, and went to the door. A particularly nasty case of gangrene reminded him of just how real the conflict still was. When a straggling group of wounded officers was directed into the ward under the matron’s vigilant eye, he moved next to them.
“Where did they get you?” he asked a pale lieutenant not much older than himself.
“In the shoulder, and a scratch on the head. It’s a bloody mess out there.”
“What regiment are you with?”
“Warwickshire. And you?”
“Fifty-first Highlanders.” Gavin smiled at Annelise, and got her to direct the lieutenant to the cot closest to his. The other man nodded and thanked him, sinking onto the bed in exhaustion.
“All hell’s broken loose. I hope this time it may get us somewhere.” He gave a tired shrug and closed his eyes.
“The Germans are as fed up as we are.”
“I’ll bet. When were you captured?”
“October.”
“You’ve heard about the French mutiny? They refuse to fight any longer, except to defend. Can’t blame them, poor chaps. Chemin des Dames was a bloodbath.”
“I don’t suppose you saw any of the Fifty-first, did you?”
“Only back at Etaples about three weeks ago. There were a couple of fellows wounded at Passchendaele—probably some of your chaps—waiting to be shipped home. The other poor buggers were waiting to die.”
“Does the name Angus MacLeod mean anything to you?” Gavin offered him a cigarette.
“Thanks.” The young man smiled his appreciation. “MacLeod. That rings a bell. Isn’t he Ghost MacLeod’s twin, the chap who braved the lines at Ypres and saved a whole battalion? That was either incredible courage or plain stupidity. He got the M.C. for it, you know. Apparently he was much younger than he made out, too. I think his twin was back at the field hospital waiting to be shipped home. He didn’t handle his brother’s death too well.”
“Death?” The lighter stopped in midair.
“I’m afraid so. There was no trace of him, poor devil. Did you know him?”
“They think I’m dead,” Gavin murmured, horrified. Wiping beads of sweat from his forehead, he sat down on the bed with a bang.
“Are you all right? Was MacLeod a friend of yours?”
“I’ll be fine. It’s just rather odd to know you’ve been given up for dead.”
“Oh God. What do you mean? You’re—”
“Yes. I’m Captain Gavin MacLeod. Angus is my brother.”
“Good Lord.” The man looked at him in sudden awe. “I’m Lieutenant Miles Conway, by the way,” he said, stretching out his hand and smiling from below the bandage. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ghost.”
“Thanks.” They shook hands and Gavin sensed an immediate bond.
Dead. They thought he was dead! Gavin assimilated this news, imagining Flora and his parents. How devastated they must all be. It was bad enough to picture them thinking him missing. But dead…The image of Angus’s impassive face flashed before him, but he refused to think of that right now. There were other priorities—such as escape—to be thought of, that took on new urgency.
“Any chance of us getting out of here?” Miles asked, voicing Gavin’s thoughts.
“I don’t know. Up until now I’ve been on my own,” he answered vaguely. “Difficult to believe one’s been given up for dead. Gives one a damn odd feeling, I must say.”
“They