by Jerry Sacher
“Ben, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” the patient rasped softly.
“Has it? I’m afraid I don’t….”
“I didn’t think you would recognize me,” the soldier said with surprising clarity. He patted a space next to him on the bed, but Benjamin declined it and leaned over him.
“Why don’t you enlighten me—who are you?”
“Does the name Reggie ring any bells?”
With the mention of his name, Benjamin indeed recognized his former lover and friend from Oxford. Benjamin sat on the edge of the bed and grasped Reggie’s hand.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Ben? Now here we are, both at war and together again.” Reggie tried to sit up, but he winced in pain, so Benjamin pressed him gently back down.
“Take it easy, Reggie, or you’ll pull out the stitches.”
Reggie nodded. “I heard you were in Saint Petersburg with your parents, but I hadn’t heard you joined the Army.”
“I’ll tell you about my experience in Russia when you’re feeling better, but as for joining the Army, my mother fought me all the way until she finally gave me her blessing.”
Reggie stared up at Benjamin through blue eyes and a tangle of auburn hair. He asked for a glass of water, which Benjamin brought him, and after handing the glass back to Benjamin, he laid his head back and sighed.
“Are you tired, Reg?” Benjamin inquired, still holding the glass and turning it in his hand.
“Not at all. I’m just very happy to see you. I’ve wanted to for a long time.”
“I thought that after the last time we were together, you would never want to see me again.”
“That’s not true, Benjamin. We just wanted different things out of life. I’m not as comfortable with myself as you are, and my parents wanted me to marry Lucille Bellamy.”
“I hear you married in 1912,” Benjamin said, and Reggie nodded.
They had been secret lovers during their time at Oxford. Benjamin had always told Reggie about his dreams for a cottage by the sea, where Reggie would hone his skills as a writer and Benjamin would study law. But Reggie’s parents had found themselves in a dire financial situation after a stock market panic in 1911 nearly ruined them. Benjamin knew the Bellamy fortune had saved Reggie and his family from poverty.
“Let’s not dwell on what’s past. Tell me that you and Lucille are happy?”
Reggie avoided his gaze for a second, then turned back to look at him. “Speaking of the unpleasant, she’s probably praying that some German bullet cuts me down….” Reggie lifted the blanket to look at his wound and chuckled a little. “She almost got her wish. But let’s not talk about her right now. Tell me about your parents.”
“My father is still in Russia as a diplomat, and my mother is with him. They write to me quite often—in fact, I got letters from them yesterday.”
“I hear lots of stories about the situation in Russia. Is it really that serious?”
“Like you said just now, Reggie, let’s not talk about depressing subjects.” Benjamin bent his head and stared at the toe of his boot. He could feel Reggie’s eyes on him, so finally he lifted his head.
“Has there been anyone else in your affection since I left the picture?”
“I joined my parents in Saint Petersburg and then came this bloody war, so there wasn’t much of a chance…,” Benjamin said bitterly, thinking about Sergei.
“I sense that there was, or is, someone there who you have feelings for. Tell me about him.” Reggie reached out and placed his hand over Benjamin’s.
“What is there to tell you, Reggie? He’s a lot like you. Every time he wants to touch me, he pulls back.”
“You can’t ever accuse me of pulling back. Maybe he’s confused about his feelings. You know we don’t live in a world that’s very comfortable with this subject.”
“Yes, I know all too well how to hide the light under a bushel, but maybe one day people will accept men like me,” Benjamin whispered.
“Sounds like the utopia writers and poets always talk about in books. Now, about your friend in Russia—have you ever tried to tell him how you feel?”
“I tried, but he didn’t want to listen.”
Benjamin and Reggie both stared at each other. In the distance, the sounds of battle grew louder, shook the windows, and lit up the dim hospital ward. Benjamin withdrew for a moment to comfort a nearby patient panicked by the bombs, who was struggling in his bandages.
“You’ll be all right, the guns can’t hurt you in here.” Benjamin spoke gently, holding the young soldier down on mattress.
“Are they on our side?” he asked.
“Yes, and they’ll drive the Germans back,” Benjamin told him, even though he didn’t know exactly whose side the shells belonged to.
Reggie smiled at him when Benjamin finally returned. “You’ve become quite a medic. I was proud of the way you handled that man.”
Benjamin nodded in acknowledgment. “I’m on duty in a few hours, and I have things to do before I begin.”
“Of course. Well, Benjamin, you have to come back when you have free time.”
Chapter 10
Romanian Border, Eastern Front
November 1916
TOO TIRED to move, Sergei sat down on an empty ammunition case. The German counteroffensive against both the Russian and Romanian troops was in its fourth unrelenting day. Sergei looked silently at the casualties lying around him. Occasionally one of his men stumbled past him, assisting a comrade, and they would gaze blankly at Sergei, perhaps in a silent appeal to help, but Sergei let them stumble onward.
In the distance, one of the commanders walked in his direction. When he reached Sergei, he sat down on the ground next to him. His eyes were red, likely from lack of sleep, and he had been weeping, Sergei noticed.
“How much longer can this go on? We’re being mowed down like hay,” the commander said in a husky, shaking voice.
“We can’t give up yet, sir. We must fight on in defense of Mother Russia.”
He didn’t know whether or not the man heard him. Sergei’s thoughts were thousands of miles away somewhere in France. He had Benjamin’s letter in his pocket, and whenever he got the chance, he would pull it from his pocket to read.
This was the first letter from Benjamin filled with a sadness Sergei wished he could reach out and wipe away. Benjamin wrote of the waist-deep mud in the trenches, and the broken, scarred young men who came though the hospital. He ended the letter with a desire to return to Petrograd and visit Sergei and his parents.
Sergei sighed and stood up, then pulled his worn military coat around himself and walked slowly away from the battlefield with the other men. This defeat would serve as yet another ember in the fire of discontent sweeping through Russia like a plague.
He lay down on the ground and pulled a wool blanket over his body, and he thought about deserting the Army. Desertions happened with increasing regularity—soldiers and officers going on leave and not returning to duty, or men just putting down their useless weapons and walking off the field.
He wanted to stay and fulfill his duty for the tsar and Mother Russia, but he wasn’t sure that either one meant very much to him any longer. Sergei fell into an uneasy sleep, and in the morning when he woke, the first thing he noticed was a heavy silence—no thumping of boots, nobody strumming the balalaika in the next tent, nothing. He climbed out of his tent and went to look for his comrades, but even the horses were gone. He was alone. Sergei walked the short distance to the camp of the next regiment, and he found only an army priest sitting on an abandoned crate, saying his prayers. He looked up when he heard Sergei’s footsteps, and spoke before Sergei could ask him anything.
“The general is over there, assassinated during the night.” He pointed toward a tent, and Sergei saw a man’s legs stretched out behind the tent.
Sergei didn’t even know what to say. He and the priest looked into each other’s eyes. He blessed Sergei, and bent down to his prayers. Sergei felt himself al
one.
He walked to the nearby village, where the military hospital train was standing on the tracks outside the station building. The soldiers outside on the platform paid him no attention when he walked past them and climbed on board.
Sergei felt ashamed of himself. He sat in a corner of the coach trying to be alone. Someone next to him cleared his throat. It was one of the commanders he’d served under. Sergei said nothing.
“You too, Breselov?”
Sergei looked into the face of his commander. Sergei didn’t answer him, but the man next to him nodded and removed his cap.
“I really don’t know how to explain myself, sir.”
“You have no need, Breselov. I have watched brilliant generals walk off the battlefield unable to take it any longer. We’re not fighting Napoleon anymore.”
Sergei wondered what that had to do with anything, but he let the men next to him talk while he stared through the clean streaks in the dirty window.
Petrograd, Russia
November 1916
WHEN THE train pulled into the station in Petrograd the next day, the number of red banners hanging in the station and in the streets had doubled. The trams were finally running after the last strike, and Sergei boarded one that dropped him off a couple of blocks from the Carter mansion.
Mrs. Carter answered the door when Sergei rang, and she was genuinely pleased to see him.
“Come in, and I’ll have tea brought up.”
He followed her to the drawing room, and she closed the door and joined him on the settee.
“I suppose you were at the front? The papers don’t say much, but my husband has been telling me about it.”
Sergei nodded solemnly to her question. “I just got off the train and haven’t had time to bathe or change. I apologize, Mrs. Carter.”
“Sergei Breselov, we have known each other for several months now, and I wish you would call me Hazel.”
Hazel Carter’s infectious smile affected Sergei also, and he relaxed in her presence. His gaze wandered toward a row of framed photographs on the table behind Hazel, and among them he saw a photo of her and her husband, obviously on their wedding day. One of Benjamin in a cricket uniform, obviously a few years younger, stood next to it. He was distracted when Mrs. Carter touched his hand lightly.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Carter, I was thinking about something else….”
“Yes, and I daresay Benjamin thinks about you as well.” Hazel smiled sympathetically, and leaned in closer to Sergei. “I know all about my son. Believe it or not, a mother always knows. It’s what she chooses to do with that knowledge…. Are you shocked that I know of such things?”
“I must admit I am. You’re the first person I have ever met who has spoken of such things.” Sergei felt himself blushing.
“Because I’m a woman, I’m not supposed to know about such things? It is 1916, the last time I looked at the calendar. My husband is the one who wouldn’t understand or accept it if he knew. Not that we have ever discussed it…. Oh well, why are we talking of such things, Sergei?” Mrs. Carter stood and pressed a button next to the fireplace mantel.
“I’ll have them bring tea, and we can talk about Benjamin further, if you would like.” Hazel returned to her place next to Sergei.
A FEW weeks later when Sergei arrived at the Carter mansion, Simon Carter opened the door.
“Captain Breselov.” Simon’s tone was curt as he greeted Sergei.
“Sir, I was hoping to find Mrs. Carter home. I have something for her.” Sergei had a small parcel wrapped in brown paper, which he held up to Mr. Carter. It was a package of tea, which Simon took from him and set on the hall table.
“I’ll see that she gets this, thank you. I was wondering if you would come into my study. I would like a word with you in private, Captain.”
Sergei was a little confused, but he followed Simon into the dark-paneled study and sat in the green leather armchair that Simon directed him to. The room smelled of old books and cigar smoke, present and past. Simon offered Sergei some whiskey or vodka, which Sergei declined. A moment of silence followed, punctuated only by the ticking of a clock on the fireplace.
“What exactly did you want to speak with me about, sir? If you want to know the state of the war, you might know more about that than I do.”
“No, it’s nothing like that, I’m afraid. This is a more delicate, personal matter, I wish to discuss with you.”
“What is it, sir?” Sergei inquired.
Simon fidgeted with a letter opener on his desk, and then took to opening and closing a cigar box. He removed a cigar, stared at it as if he was going to light it, and then dropped it back in the box and slammed the lid down—a little too hard, Sergei thought. Simon sat back in the chair.
“I’ve been noticing lately that you seem to be in Petrograd quite often, and also coming and going with letters for my son.” Simon stared across the desk at Sergei through cold, hard eyes.
“I won’t beat around the bush, as you English say, but you know as well as I do that our Army is suffering defeats on every side. The generals can no longer keep order, and if I’m in Petrograd so often, as you say, Mr. Carter, it’s because I have business here.” Sergei suddenly realized that he was beginning to raise his voice. He didn’t want to provoke Simon, so he forced himself to calm down. “Benjamin is my friend, and if we wish to write to one another—”
“I’m concerned that there may be something untoward going on between you and my son.”
“Sir, I would have to say that you’re mistaken. Your son Benjamin is one of my friends, and if I choose to write him, I don’t see why it concerns you.”
“You might confuse him….”
“Confuse him, sir? I don’t understand.”
Simon kept silent for a moment or two, struggling to find the words he wanted to say next.
“Benjamin’s an impressionable young man, and your attention might get him muddled and lead him to think that your feelings for him might be of a… sexual nature…. I pray that I’m only jumping to conclusions here—am I?”
“You’re mistaken, sir, that is all I care to say.” Sergei sat back in his chair, his cap in his hands, fingers toying with the brim. He thought he heard the door creaking open; he ignored it to turn his attention back to Simon.
“I like to think I’m a man of the world, Captain Breselov, but my wife wouldn’t understand this kind of thing. It would break her heart to know that her only son is… well… I won’t say it, but I think you know what I mean.”
“Yes, Mr. Carter, I think I do.”
“Good, then we understand each other. I won’t have my son corrupted or face prison because…. Well, never mind that. Do you understand me, Captain Breselov?”
“I understand, sir, but may I say that it’s not exactly fair. Benjamin and I are friends, and whatever feelings we have for each other, I believe that’s our own affair. He is, after all, old enough to make his own choices.”
“As long as they’re the choices I make for him. I think we’re finished here, Captain Breselov.”
Simon stood up from his desk, and Sergei rose as well. The two men met in the center of the room, staring at each other in silence. Finally Sergei spoke, breaking the quiet between them.
“Well, sir, I should be going. I have an appointment.” Sergei didn’t, but it gave him an excuse to leave.
Simon looked visibly relieved. He opened the door to the study for Sergei and walked him across the empty hall to the heavy front door. He opened it for him, and on the steps outside, he bid Sergei good-bye.
“I bear you no hard feelings, Captain. Please know that you are welcome in this home any time for tea or to dine, but no more letters.”
Then Simon closed the door and left Sergei standing on the limestone stairs, which were covered with a light frosting of new-fallen snow.
The Somme, France
November, 1916
BENJAMIN RETURNED to his room after duty to find two letters and a small parce
l. The parcel he already knew contained cocoa and cigarettes and a pair of socks from his mother, but he noticed no letter from Sergei. He sat on the bed and read his parents’ letters—once, and then twice for any clue as to why he had no note from Sergei. But both letters contained only the usual news: Father and I are well. More strikes in Petrograd and long queues for food. Miss you and love you. All the usual things. Benjamin shuffled through the pile of letters, but found nothing, not a word from Sergei.
He comforted himself with the thought that, of course, Sergei was in the Army, and the post from Russia and the Eastern Front was becoming increasingly slower.
It wasn’t in the next bundle or the one after that.
In a return letter he asked his father and mother if they had heard from Sergei, but they didn’t respond to his question.
Off duty at the end of a long day, Benjamin went to see Reggie, who was recovering nicely and would be returning to the front in another week.
Reggie laid his book aside and made room on the edge of the bed for Benjamin. “Ben, what’s the matter? You look glum today.”
“I got a letter from my parents, but I didn’t get the answer I wanted to hear.” Benjamin sighed and didn’t say any more, but Reggie guessed what the trouble was, since Benjamin had told him all about Sergei during their visits. He reached out and touched Benjamin’s arm in sympathy.
“Is it the Russian Army captain you were telling me about?”
Benjamin nodded.
“Maybe your Captain Sergei is at the front line. It’s not easy to write all the time, you should know that.”
“Reggie, maybe Sergei’s….”
“Don’t say that, Benjamin, you don’t know, and I doubt your parents know anything about Sergei’s whereabouts either. Don’t worry, Ben, a letter will come soon.”
Reggie’s smile encouraged Benjamin, who promised he would cheer up and wait. Benjamin was going to suggest a game of chess when a prolonged whistle followed by an explosion shook the hospital. He jumped off the bed and took Reggie’s hand briefly.
