by Burke, Jan
Captain Hawthorne, sir—if you please, sir—will you give the letter tucked in my boot to my wife? And tell my Sarah that I died telling you of my love for her?
“What is your name, and how do you know mine?” I said, frightened.
A soldier walking beside the cart had been praising Shade, but he broke off at this and said with a pitying look, “Baker, sir. Sergeant Thomas Baker. And you told us your name when we found you—or should I say, this fine fellow—Shade, is it?—found you. Just rest, Captain Hawthorne. We’ll have you on the mend in a trice.”
But no sooner had he finished speaking than I heard within my mind, Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize you was new at this. Private William Makins. You need say nothing more aloud, sir. I can hear you just as plain as you hear me.
And Makins, who seemed utterly calm and at ease, went on to tell me that he came from a certain village, the name of which I immediately recognized, as it was not far from my home. He told me how to find his own home. He told me of his gratitude to me for taking the Messenger’s job.
Messenger? I silently asked.
Yes, sir. You’ll be the one who comes to us as is dying, and allows us to say what might otherwise have been unsaid to them we love. As time goes on, you’ll be able to do more to help us. And you’ll bring us such a peace, sir. You’ll be called to us, and give us what we’ve no right to hope for, but is thankful for all the same. It’s a good thing you’re doing, sir—never forget that when the job seems hard to bear, as I’m sure it will be. God bless you, sir, he said, and died.
“Sergeant Baker,” I said weakly, “I believe Private Makins…”
He looked over and sighed. “Makins, you say? Was that his name? Probably shouldn’t have picked him up, but I thought he might pull through. Not in your unit, though. Did you know him before the war, sir?”
“His home is not far from my own.”
“We’re almost to the hospital station now, Captain. If you can bear it—”
“I have lain among the dead for three days now, Sergeant. I shan’t be troubled by poor Makins.”
I spent several weeks in the place where they took me, although only a few days recovering from the fever and what those who found me assumed to be relatively minor wounds. By the time I left that village, Makins was only one of nearly a hundred men I had listened to. I began to keep notes, taking down their names, the names of their loved ones, the words they spoke to me. I became a great favorite among those who were tending to the wounded for the care I gave the dying, the ease I might bring to a restless patient at his last, my willingness to write to the families of the deceased.
I wrote to the Brussels address on the card Lord Varre had left with me, telling the agent named on it where I stayed, and saying I would be remaining there for the foreseeable future, but would come to him as soon as I was able. He replied by sending a courier who brought a large sum of money to me in mixed currencies, and a note assuring me that he would be happy to be of service should I need any additional funds or assistance.
I used some of that first sum of money—what those around me considered to be an inordinate amount of it—to have a special coffin built along the lines of one I had once seen made for a wealthy merchant. It was fashioned from iron. The remains of Private William Makins, who was among the many dead not yet buried, were transferred to it, and it was filled with alcohol and sealed. This, I had been told, would preserve those remains for the longest time possible. I planned to take Private Makins’s body back to England. Although nothing could leave me out of favor with the staff of the hospital, who saw this as a noble gesture, I have no doubt that others thought me a lunatic, even if they did not directly express this opinion to me.
If they had, they would have found me in complete agreement. At that time I did not believe Lord Varre’s promises of long life and eternal good health and youth, even though I knew my wounds had healed unnaturally quickly. I was soon rid of the initial fever—although now and then it would return with a vengeance and incapacitate me for a few hours—and gradually I regained my strength. I told myself that perhaps the fever had induced hallucinations, that I had never been as severely wounded as I had thought I was. Still, something far out of the ordinary had happened to me, and I could not deny all of its effects. In truth, I spent most of those days in terror, and if it had not been for Shade, whose presence had a calming effect on me, and the counsel of the dying, I am certain I would have lost my sanity.
In those first weeks, contrary to what the staff of the hospital believed, it was the dying who comforted me. In my moments with them, their candor and tranquility soothed me. It was their care of me, their uncomplicated concern, that allowed me to grow accustomed to my new responsibilities. It was little enough to thank them by penning a letter to a family member or sending a memento to a friend. In whatever time I had free, I did what I could to help those not so close to death, bringing them water, reading to them, writing missives home for those who were too wounded or ill to do so, or who were unlettered.
I had written to my brother, who had thought me dead, reports having reached him from those who saw me fall in battle. His letter in return I found quite moving, and he urged me to come home. I put it off. I sold out of the army, but given my sincere belief that I could communicate with the unconscious, I did not want to return only to be placed in an asylum.
Through my visits to the hospital, I gained a valet. Even before the war, Merritt had taken care of his young lieutenant, who now lay dying of a wound from a saber. He had been his batman on the Peninsula, and returned to the Continent with him after Napoleon escaped from Elba. Merritt was a quiet man, and did not flinch from any task the care of his wounded master required.
One evening I told him I would sit with the lieutenant, so that he might sleep for a few hours. He refused, saying he did not think the lieutenant would last the night.
He was right, and as the final moments of the lieutenant’s life drew near, I felt the nearly gravitational pull the dying had on my attention. I took the lieutenant’s hand.
You can trust Merritt, he said. Let him know you can hear me.
No, thank you. I’ll either be thought mad or frighten him.
Frighten Merritt! I’d like to see you try. Tell him I said there’s a creaking third step on the second landing at Wyvern’s Lair. Go on, man, do it. Haven’t got much time.
So with great trepidation, I repeated the message aloud.
Merritt’s eyes widened, and he stared hard at me, then said slowly, “So there is.”
“Yes, you old fox, and a boy’s treasures hidden in a wooden box in a hollowed-out oak in the home wood.” I blushed and added, “Or so he says.”
“Yes, Captain,” Merritt added, tears coming to his eyes. “So there is.”
As you can see, Captain Hawthorne, the lieutenant said to me alone, he can keep secrets. He’s a good man—has a gift with animals, as well—and I understand that your own batman was killed. Will you take him on?
I looked across at Merritt. I will ask him, but I do not want him to feel pressured into becoming my servant out of love for you.
I knew you were the right man for him! You won’t regret it. And now, if you would be so good as to tell him…
What followed was a mixture of reminiscence and requests. The reminiscence showed the lieutenant to be a man of good humor and kindness, if not completely able to keep himself out of scrapes. He told Merritt not to blame himself for this injury, and to seek my help in sending certain items home to a beloved aunt.
“For you know I liked her above all the rest, Merritt,” I repeated on the lieutenant’s behalf.
Merritt spoke to me as if I were the lieutenant’s ears, which I realized I was, as the lieutenant answered him. The lieutenant mentioned that I might need help back to my rooms, as this visit had put a strain on me.
A short time later, the lieutenant died. The fever set in on me not long after, and I was grateful for Merritt’s assistance in returning to my lo
dgings. Although I recovered quickly, he did everything possible to provide for my comfort in the hours when the fever laid me low, not seeking his own rest until dawn.
When, after the lieutenant’s burial, I asked Merritt if he would work for me, he readily agreed to do so.
“I must ask,” I said, “that you do not tell others of…”
“Your gift, Captain? I would not think of doing so, sir.”
“There is a dog…”
“Yes, I’ve made his acquaintance. Shade, I believe you call him. He’s a fine gentleman, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said, somewhat at a loss.
“It will be my pleasure and honor to serve you, sir.”
In the coming weeks, I saw that the lieutenant was right. Merritt was a discreet and capable man, and his assistance freed me to spend more time at the makeshift hospital.
Eventually the dying made clear to me that I was to return to England.
Your gift will go with you to England, Captain, one of them told me, so never fear. Be sure to give the dog a walk in a cemetery now and again.
A cemetery?
Sure, he’s a cemetery dog—didn’t you know? And they need their time among the graves. No shortage of graves here, of course, but it won’t be the same when you go back.
I thought about this, and felt a rising tide of uneasiness over my return to England.
There’s a bit of business for you to attend to there, Captain, but if England doesn’t suit you, sir, you’ll find another home. God bless you, Tyler Hawthorne, and many thanks for your kindness to me.
Before I could ask him what “bit of business” he meant, he died, and his thoughts were lost to me.
28
Our passage back to England was largely uneventful. The most unsettling moment came before we set sail, when I visited Lord Varre’s agent in Brussels, who gave me to understand that I was now an enormously wealthy man. Since I had assumed that the amount sent to me a few weeks earlier was the largest portion of what Lord Varre had intended me to have, I was shocked. When I ventured a question regarding the source of this wealth, he said that Lord Varre had left a letter for me. The letter informed me that this was merely a small portion of his own wealth, which he was willing to share with me. These funds came from his alliance with an Italian merchant’s family and investments made on the ’Change over many years. I must keep in mind that these funds must be made to last quite a long time.
The meaning of those five underlined words was not lost on me.
The agent happily arranged our passage. He did not question my need to add Merritt, Shade, and the casket of Private Makins to those arrangements. He took care of every detail, including the purchase of a team of horses and a carriage for my use in England.
Merritt helped me to deliver Private Makins’s remains to his widow, a beautiful young woman who seemed overwhelmed by my attention to her late husband’s burial.
“Your husband was a great help to me at Waterloo,” I told her. She accepted this without question. I gave her his last letter, as he had asked. I left a sum of money with her that would ensure she would not be forced within the next few years to seek a new home or spouse out of desperation, telling her that these were the earnings of her late husband, from a venture we had entered into together. This was not entirely untrue.
I saw that Merritt seemed quite taken with her, and she seemed to feel very much at ease in his presence. But she was still in mourning, and he quite rightly honored that. We took our leave after the funeral.
The thought that Merritt might return to marry her one day made me consider my own affairs. I was of good family, and upon my father’s death had inherited a comfortable property, a part of the estate not entailed to my brother. This, combined with my wealth, and the fact that so many men had been lost in the late war, would be enough to ensure that a great many families would be glad of any courtship I pursued with an unmarried daughter. But I hesitated to look for a wife.
I did not yet accept that all Lord Varre had told me was true, but niggling doubts would not be banished. What if I were to marry and not only outlive my wife—and children and grandchildren—but appear to be younger than they once they had passed the age of twenty-four? It seemed impossible, and yet envisioning such a situation was enough to cause me to remain reticent.
My brother’s happiness at my return from war was evident—he had thought me lost at Waterloo. His welcome was warm and deeply gratifying. His wife was expecting their third child, and his two boys, then aged seven and five, made quite a to-do about their uncle the soldier and his large dog.
Although my brother and I reminisced late into the night, I awoke just before dawn and, unable to fall asleep again, got up and lit the fire that had been laid in the fireplace in my room. I had already learned that I could forgo sleep without ill effect, although sleeping felt good, and I took pleasure in it when I could manage it. I was wide awake now, though, so I grasped the handle of the water pitcher next to the basin, preparing to wash my face. I felt a small, sharp pain—the handle of the pitcher was chipped, and I had cut my hand. I was fortunate that Merritt was not yet up and attending me, because no sooner had I pressed a clean cloth to the wound than it healed. If I had not seen the bloodstains on the cloth and the handle of the pitcher, I would not have been sure I had been cut. I quickly wiped off the handle and burned the cloth in the fire. Shade watched me with interest but did not move from the hearth rug.
I stood staring at my hand. What if all that Lord Varre had told me was true? What if I had been given more than the ability to speak to the dying?
Impossible! Every man died. Some part of my brain whispered that everything else Varre had said was true, so perhaps I was, after all, immortal. My next rash temptation was to take out my pistols and test this premise in the gravest way possible. I was not quite desperate enough (or foolish enough) to try it, especially not in my brother’s home, but I took my penknife and stood by the basin again. I deliberately cut myself. It stung. It bled. It healed almost instantly.
I cut it again. Deeply. It hurt more, bled more, but healed nearly as quickly as the previous two wounds.
I opened the window of my room and, making sure no one was watching, emptied the bloody water from the basin into the flower beds below.
I sat on the bed, shaking.
Another man might have rejoiced in the prospect of being unable to remain wounded. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of weeks of unsettling experiences, but my own reaction was one of dread.
What had I become?
I moved to my knees and prayed, as hard as I had prayed when I lay dying at Waterloo. “Am I still human?” I whispered wretchedly. I tried to take the memento mori ring off my finger. It would not budge. I considered removing the finger.
I began to wonder if on that battlefield, when I lay reaching so desperately for life, I had instead taken hold of the unforgivable. I begged God for answers, for guidance.
I waited and waited, but heard no divine reply.
I knelt there for some time longer, feeling utterly forsaken. Shade approached me and laid his head on my hands. Eventually I moved to sit on the bed, and he placed his head on my knee. I stroked his soft fur and, as so often happened, found myself calmed by his companionship.
In the days since my rescue, had I done evil? I could not believe that comforting those men was wrong, or that their words or reactions to me signified a partnership with the devil. If I had known in advance that I would be able to help them in this way, would I have refused to do so by refusing the gift? I couldn’t bring myself to say that I would.
Something within me spurned the idea that I would be immortal here on earth. There would be a way out of this bargain. I would accept my lot and do my work, and hope for release. Despair seemed unlikely to lead me to anything good.
I was calmer, but not without concerns. What if I were to be in a carriage accident or injured under some other public circumstance, and this instantaneous healing were witne
ssed by others? What if someone were to see me recover almost spontaneously from even a minor wound, as I had just now?
Perhaps I could become the ideal soldier. But again my wounds might be seen to heal rapidly, or I might be the only one to survive a deadly engagement. If I were to walk into the War Department and so much as start to suggest that I was unable to die, I’d be sent to Bedlam to do my battles.
If Lord Varre had been telling the truth, and in appearance and strength I remained twenty-four and unharmed forever, what place could I occupy in the world?
I had many questions, and I believed only one person was likely to have answers for me: Lord Varre. I began to feel certain that I should seek him out, and learn as much as I could from him.
I rang for Merritt, dressed, and hurried to the library. There I took my brother’s copy of Debrett’s from the shelf and looked up Lord Varre. His estates were situated in the north of England, a journey of three days from my brother’s home.
So it was that I expressed regrets to my hosts, saying that urgent business called me to the north, but that I expected to return soon. I left with their protests in my ears, wondering if I was embarking on a fool’s errand.
29
We reached Lord Varre’s estate in the early evening of the third day of our journey. It was a secluded manor at the end of a long lane. Its appearance surprised me—given the “portion” of his wealth passed on to me, as well as his ostentatious dress and haughty manner, I had expected a palatial estate on extensive grounds. Instead, I found a well-cared-for but relatively modest manor, surrounded by trees that hid it from the main road.
This lack of opulence didn’t matter to me. I had spent most of the journey rehearsing speeches and listing questions for Lord Varre. At last I would have my answers. I cared not if I received those answers in a palace or a hovel.
I was admitted by a frowning young footman, who took my card but not my hat or cloak. He spoke in low, almost whispered tones, and said that he regretted to inform me that Lord Varre was not receiving visitors. His lordship had taken ill, and was not, in fact, expected to live.
